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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/20081-8.txt b/20081-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3489484 --- /dev/null +++ b/20081-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9501 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Houseful of Girls, by Sarah Tytler + +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: A Houseful of Girls + +Author: Sarah Tytler + +Release Date: December 10, 2006 [EBook #20081] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HOUSEFUL OF GIRLS *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jacqueline Jeremy and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +A HOUSEFUL OF GIRLS. +BY +SARAH TYTLER, + +AUTHOR OF + +"CITOYENNE JACQUELINE," "PAPERS FOR THOUGHTFUL GIRLS," +ETC., ETC. + + +LONDON: +WALTER SMITH AND INNES, +31 & 32, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND. +1889. + +[_All rights reserved._] + + +RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, +LONDON & BUNGAY. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + CHAP. PAGE + + I. A FLUTTER IN THE DOVE-COT 1 + + II. THE "COUP DE GRÂCE" 20 + + III. THE HEADS OF THE HOUSE LOOK GRAVE 35 + + IV. THE CRASH 54 + + V. PROMOTION 72 + + VI. THE CLOUD DEEPENS 81 + + VII. ROSE GOES WEST AND ANNIE GOES EAST 106 + + VIII. STANDING AND WAITING 122 + + IX. A WILFUL DOG WILL HAVE HIS WAY 136 + + X. LIFE IN AN HOSPITAL WARD 157 + + XI. MRS. JENNINGS AND HER DAUGHTER HESTER 182 + + XII. A YOUNG ARTIST'S EXPERIENCE 188 + + XIII. MR. ST. FOY'S AND THE MISSES STONE'S 196 + + XIV. THE OLD TOWN, WITH ITS AIR STAGNANT YET TROUBLED. + IS MAY TO BECOME A SCHOLAR OR A SHOP-GIRL? 214 + + XV. TOM ROBINSON TAKEN INTO COUNSEL 234 + + XVI. ROSE'S FOLLY AND ANNIE'S WISDOM 257 + + XVII. MAY HAS TO FIGHT HER OWN BATTLE 288 + +XVIII. DORA IS THE NEXT MESSENGER WITH BAD TIDINGS 316 + + XIX. THE UNEMPLOYED--A FAMILIAR FACE 322 + + XX. REDCROSS AGAIN 342 + + XXI. MISS FRANKLIN'S MISTAKE 363 + + XXII. A SHRED OF HOPE 382 + +XXIII. SECOND THOUGHTS AND LAST WORDS 392 + + + + +A HOUSEFUL OF GIRLS + +CHAPTER I. + +A FLUTTER IN THE DOVE-COT. + + +Is there any sensation equal to that produced by the first lover and +the first proposal coming to a girl in a large family of girls? It is +delightfully sentimental, comical, complimentary, affronting, rousing, +tiresome--all in one. It is a herald of lovers, proposals, and wonderful +changes all round. It is the first thrill of real life in its strong +passions, grave vicissitudes, and big joys and sorrows as they come +in contact with idle fancies, hearts that have been light, simple +experiences which have hitherto been carefully guarded from rude shocks. + +It does not signify much whether the family of girls happen to be rich +or poor, unless indeed that early and sharp poverty causes a precocity +which deepens girls' characters betimes, and by making them sooner +women, robs them of a certain amount of the thoughtlessness, +fearlessness, and impracticability of girlhood. But girlhood, like many +another natural condition, dies hard; and its sweet, bright illusions, +its wisdom and its folly, survive tolerably severe pinches of adversity. + +The younger members of such a sisterhood are politely supposed to be +kept in safe ignorance of the great event which is befalling one of the +seniors. It is thought at once a delicate and prudent precaution to +prevent the veil which hides the future, with its casualties, from being +lifted prematurely and abruptly, where juvenile minds are concerned, +lest they become unhinged and unfit for the salutary discipline of +schoolroom lessons, and the mild pleasure of schoolroom treats. The +flower in the bud ought to be kept with its petals folded, in its +innocent absence of self-consciousness, to the last moment. + +But there is an electric sympathy in the air which defeats precautions. +There is a freemasonry of dawning womanhood which starts into life +everywhere. How do the young people pick up with such surprising +quickness and acuteness the looks and whispers meant to pass over their +heads, the merry glances, nervous shrugs, quick blushes, and indignant +pouts, which have suddenly grown strangely prevalent in the blooming +circle? The bystanders are understood to be engrossed with their +music-lessons, their drawing-classes, their rudimentary Latin and +Greek--if anybody is going in for the higher education of women--their +pets, their games of lawn-tennis, their girl companions with whom these +other girls are for ever making appointments to walk, to practise +part-singing, to work or read together, to get up drawing-room +_tableaux_ or plays. + +The general consciousness is not, in certain lights, favourable to a +lover's pretensions. For human nature is perverse, and there is such a +thing as _esprit-de-corps_ running to excess. There may be a due amount +of girlish pride in knowing that one of the sisters has inspired a +grand passion. There may be a tremulous respect for the fact that she +has passed the Rubicon, that, in place of girlish trifling, she has an +affair which has to do with the happiness or misery of a fellow +creature, not to say with her own happiness or misery, on her burdened +mind. Why, if she does not take care, she may be plunged at once, first +into the whirl of choosing her trousseau and the fascinating trial of +being the principal figure at a wedding, and then involved in the +tremendous responsibilities of housekeeping, butchers' bills, grocers' +bills, cooks' delinquencies, with the heavy obligations--not only of +ordering dinners for two, but of occasionally entertaining a room full +of company, single-handed! + +And this is only one side of the shield; there is a reverse side, at +least equally prominent and alarming. The second side upholds maidenly +claims, finds nothing good enough to match with them, and is tempted to +scout and flout, laugh and mock at the rival claims of the lover upon +trial. This is true even in the most innocent of dove-cots, where satire +is still as playful and harmless as summer lightning. + +"The idea of Tom Robinson's thinking of one of us!" cried Annie Millar. +"What could possess him to imagine that we should ever get over the +shop--granted that it is a Brobdingnagian shop, an imposing mart of +linen-drapery, haberdashery, silk-mercery enough to serve the whole +county?" + +"To be sure it is only Dora, not you, Annie," burst in eighteen years' +old Rose, who had just left school, and was fain to drop the pretence of +being too young to notice the most interesting event in the world to a +family of girls. + +"Why do you say that, Rose? Dora may not be so pretty as Annie--I don't +know, and I don't care--it is all a matter of taste; but she is as much +one of us, father's daughter, brought up like the rest of us in the Old +Doctor's House." + +The speaker was May, between sixteen and seventeen. She was the tallest +of the four sisters--let them call her "Little May" as long as they +liked. She had so far forgotten herself as to follow Rose's lead. + +"Hold your tongues, you two monkeys; what should you know about it?" +Annie, who had a tendency to sit upon her younger sisters, tried to +silence them. She had reached the advanced age of twenty-two, and by +virtue of being the eldest, had been considered grown up for the last +four years, when Rose and May were chits of fourteen and a little over +twelve. Of course this gave Annie a vast advantage in womanly dignity +and knowledge of the world. But at the present moment she was herself so +interested in the discussion that she could not make up her mind to drop +it till Rose and May were out of the way. + +"I must say"--Annie started the subject again--"that I think it great +presumption in Tom Robinson, though he is not so ugly as that comes to, +and he's really well enough bred in spite of 'Robinson's.'" + +"He is a college-bred man." Dora ventured shyly to put in a word for the +dignity of her suitor, and for her own dignity as so far involved in +his. "And so were his father and grandfather before him, father says." + +"But the Robinsons had the silk-mill and the woollen-factory then as +well as the big shop," corrected Annie. "And Tom might have gone into +the Church or into some other profession if he had chosen, when things +might have been a little different. Still, if you are pleased, Dora," +with a peal of derisive laughter, "if you do not object to the--shop." + +"Of course I object," cried Dora, tingling with mortification and shame. +"That is, I should object to his having a shop, if I had ever thought of +him for a single moment in that light. I cannot imagine what put me into +his head--in that sense. Indeed I cannot believe it yet. I am sure it is +just some nonsense on the part of the rest of you to tease me." + +"No, no," Annie hastened to contradict her. "It is sober reality. He has +said something to father; you know he has, mother owned it." + +"He has been meeting us and throwing himself in our way everywhere," +broke in the irrepressible Rose and May. + +"He has been coming and coming here," resumed Annie, "where, as we +don't happen to have a brother, there is not even another young man to +form an excuse for his coming. We cannot so much as pretend, when +people remark on his visits, that he has come ever since we remember, +and is as familiar with us as we are with ourselves. No doubt, in a +little town like this, everybody who has the least claim to be a +gentleman or a lady, knows every other gentleman or lady--after a +fashion. But naturally father and mother were not intimate with the +late Mr. and Mrs. Robinson; and we--that is, Tom and we girls--are not +so near each other in age as to have been brought together by our +respective nurses. We did not pick daisies in company, or else pull +each other's hair, and slap each other's faces, according to our +varying moods. Tom Robinson is four or five years older than I, not to +speak of Dora." + +"He stopped us this very morning," Rose again joined in the chorus, +"when May and I were going with the Hewetts to gather primroses in +Parson's Meadow. He asked if our sisters--that was you, Dora, with Annie +thrown into the bargain--thought of going on the river this afternoon." + +"He might be an inch or two taller, I don't suppose he is above five +feet six or seven," suggested Annie, maliciously recalling a detail in +the description of Dora's future husband, that be he who or what he +might, he should certainly not be under six feet in height. Dora, who +was herself considerably below the middle size, would never yield her +freedom to a man who had to admit a lower scale of inches. + +"And his hair might be a little less--chestnut, shall we say, Dora?" +put in Rose with exasperating sprightliness, referring to a former +well-known prejudice of Dora's against "_Judas-tinted hair_." + +"Would you call his nose Roman or Grecian?" asked May naïvely, of a +very nondescript feature. + +"And he has so little to say for himself," recommenced Annie, "though +when he does speak there is no great fault to be found with what he +says; still it would be dreadfully dull and tiresome to have to do all +the speaking for a silent partner." + +"Oh, hold your tongues, you wretched girls," cried Dora, standing at +bay, stamping one small foot in a slipper with a preposterously large +rosette. "What does it signify? The man, like his words, is well +enough--better than any of us, I dare say," speaking indignantly; "but +what does it matter, when I could never look at him, never dream of him, +as anything more than a mere acquaintance? I don't wish for a lover or a +husband--at least not yet," with a gasp; "I don't wish to leave home, +and go away from all of you, though you are so unkind and teasing--not +for a long, long time, till I am quite a middle-aged woman. I don't see +why I should be plagued about it when Annie here, who is two years older +than I am, and ever so much prettier, as everybody knows, has escaped +such persecution." + +"My dear," said Annie demurely, "it is because you have the opportunity +of presenting me with a pair of green garters. If it should occur again, +and you choose to avail yourself of it, I mean to accept the garters +with the best grace in the world. Isn't that good of me when you have +been coolly telling me that I have been overlooked as the eldest, and +the belle of the family--flattering my conceit with one breath and +taking it down with another? But it is not a case of Leah and Rachel. +We are not in the East, and in the West the elder sister does not +necessarily take precedence in marriage. You are quite welcome to marry +first, Dora; you are all welcome to marry before me, girls," with a +sweeping curtsey to her audience all round. "I am perfectly resigned to +your leaving your poor worthy elder sister to end her days as a solitary +spinster, a meek and useful maiden-aunt." + +The Millars were the daughters of Dr. Millar of Redcross, an +old-fashioned country town in the Midlands. They were happy in having a +good father and mother still spared to them. The girls were what is +called "a fine family," in a stronger sense than that in which Jane +Austen has used the term. Their ages ranged from twenty-two to midway +between sixteen and seventeen. They were all good-looking girls, with a +family likeness. Annie, the eldest, was very pretty, with delicate, +regular features, a soft warm brunette colour, dark eyes, and a small +brown head and graceful throat, like the head and throat of a greyhound. + +Dora, the first wooed, was, at a hasty glance, a mere shadow of Annie. +She was pale, though it was a healthy paleness. Her hair was lighter in +tint, her eyes, too, were considerably lighter--granted that they were +clear as crystal. It was difficult to think of Dora as preferred before +Annie, if one did not take into account that there are people who will +turn away from June roses to gather a cluster of honeysuckle, or pick +a sweet pea--people to whom there is an ineffable charm in simple +maidenliness and sweetness. Dora's modest unhesitating acceptance of the +second part in the family and social circle, and her perfect content to +play it, would be a crowning attraction in such people's eyes. So would +her gentle girlish diffidence, which moved her rather to meet and +reflect the tastes and opinions of others than to exercise her own, +though she was by no means without individual capacity and character. + +Rose was the least handsome of the family at this stage of her +existence. The family features in her had taken a slightly bizarre +cast, and she had a bad habit of wrinkling her smooth low forehead and +crumpling up her sharpish nose, in a manner which accentuated the +peculiarity. But Annie, who was an authority on the subject of looks, +maintained, behind Rose's back, that there was something _piquante_ and +_recherchée_ about Rose's face and figure. Not one of the Millars was +tall--not even May, though she came nearest to it; but Rose's slight +pliant figure had a natural grace and elegance which its quick, +careless movements did not dispel. When she held herself up, uncreased +her forehead and nose, showed to advantage her very fine, true chestnut +hair, and was full of animation--as to do Rose justice she generally +was--giving fair play to her dimples and little white teeth, Annie said +Rose had a style of her own which did no discredit to the family +reputation for more than a fair share of beauty. In addition to Annie's +high spirit and ready tongue, Rose had a decided turn for art, which +her father had taken pride in cultivating. + +"Little May" was like Annie, and promised to be as pretty; but she was a +rose in the bud still, with the unfilled out outlines and crude +angularities of a girl not done growing. She was very much of a child in +many things, and she had Dora's soft clinging nature, yet under it all +she was the born scholar of the family, with a simple aptitude and taste +for learning which surprised and delighted her father still more than +Rose's achievements in pastilles and water-colours pleased him. It was +seeing May at her books, when she was a very different May from the girl +who ran about with Rose, and was kept in her proper place by Annie, +which revived in Doctor Millar the old regret that Providence had not +blessed him with a son. He could not exactly make a son of May, since +from her early childhood she was a little sensitive woman all over, but +he did what he could. He had her taught Latin, Greek, and mathematics +just to afford her the chance of being a scholar. He never told himself, +and nobody else did, in the meantime, what she was to do with her +scholarship when she was a little older. Whether it was merely to grace +her womanhood, or whether the youngest of the family, her father and +mother's last pet, was to summon up courage, tear herself away from +familiar and dear surroundings, and carry her gifts and acquirements out +into the world, in order to win for them the best distinction of +usefulness. + +Dora's lightly held suitor was the head of "Robinson's." "Robinson's" +was a great and time-honoured institution in Redcross, while it and its +masters were somewhat of anomalies. The first Robinson whom the town +troubled to remember was as good as anybody in it, the proprietor of a +silk-mill, and latterly of a wool-factory in the neighbourhood. As a +mere convenient adjunct to the mill and the factory he had started a +shop in the town, and kept it going by means of a manager. Even in that +light it was a handsome old shop. The walls were lined with polished +oak, so was the low ceiling, and there was an oak staircase leading +from one storey to another which a connoisseur in staircases might have +coveted. "Robinson's" was a positive feature in Redcross, and if it had +been anything else than a good shop of its kind would have been greatly +admired. The son of the founder of the shop was also reckoned, to begin +with, as good as his professional neighbours. He was college-bred, like +his father, as Dora in her jealousy for the dignity of her first lover +had stated. This was "all to begin with." Whether because it was +advisable, or from mere grovelling instincts, he dropped in turn both +the mill and the factory, neither of which did more than pay its way, +and retained the shop, which was understood to be a lucrative concern. +He did worse; though Redcross continued to acknowledge him--somewhat +dubiously to be sure--as a gentleman, because of the fine presence which +Tom had not inherited, and the perfect good breeding which had descended +to the son. In spite of the magnanimity which forgave frostily the +second Robinson for so far forgetting himself as to take the management +of his great shop into his own hands, walk up and down and receive +customers, and be seen working at his books in the glass office if he +did not go behind the counter, he went and married for his second wife a +farmer's daughter. She was an honest, sensible, comely young woman, but +she had no pretensions to be a lady, and no more inclination to enter +the society of the Redcross upper class than the upper class had a mind +to receive her as an equal. Charles Robinson's first wife had been all +very well, though she was penniless. She had been a curate's daughter, +educated to fill the post of governess in high families. She had died +young, without children, and he had filled her place with the farmer's +daughter, who was the mother of Tom. Thenceforth the Robinson's house, +a good, old-fashioned house, though not so handsome as the shop in an +adjacent street, was effaced, nominally, from the visiting-lists of +those who had visiting-lists in Redcross. The family were ostracised, +and left to their own devices, receiving their sentence, in the case of +the farmer's daughter and her husband, with apparent equanimity. + +But there was an exception made in favour of Tom. He went to the Grammar +School along with the other better-class boys in the town and +neighbourhood, and was accepted as their companion and playfellow. He +was sent to college according to the traditions of his family, just as +Cyril Carey, of Carey's Bank, and Ned Hewett, of the Rectory, were sent +according to the traditions of theirs. Presumably the three young men +were on one footing at Cambridge, unless, indeed, Tom had the advantage. +He was slightly the elder of the three, and he took his degree with a +fair amount of honour; while, sad to say, for the credit of Redcross, +neither Cyril nor Ned made their last pass. It was confidently believed +that Tom Robinson would cut the shop, so far as any active management of +it was concerned, and enter either a gallant or a learned profession. If +he had ever entertained the intention, it was put a stop to in the first +place by the death of his father, followed within three months by that +of his mother, shortly after Tom had completed his course at the +university. He stayed at home for a time, to put his house in order it +was supposed. Then all at once, in the most cold-blooded fashion, he +told those who asked him that "Robinson's" was a good business, which he +did not see himself justified in throwing up in these hard times. He was +not such a conceited ass as to believe he must necessarily succeed in +the crowded ranks of the professions, for none of which had he any +particular bent, while he had, he added, with a certain manliness and +doggedness for a pacific fellow like Robinson, a considerable interest +in the great old shop. It had been in the family for three generations; +he had known it from childhood; many of his father's old trusted +servants still served in it. In short, he meant to keep it in his own +hands, and not to let it go to sticks and staves, possibly, in the hands +of others. He did not, for his part, see any mark of gentle breeding +and fine feeling in devolving his responsibilities on others, and only +reserving that tie to the shop which had to do with pecuniary profits. +As for his university training and academic degree, if they did not +benefit him in all circumstances they were not much worth. The town of +Redcross was caught in a trap. The gentle-folks of the place had already +received him as a man and a brother, and they could not refuse to know +him any longer because he stuck to the paternal shop, though they might +exercise their discretion in looking coldly on him in future. For that +matter, there was another opinion among the older professional men--the +Rector, whose tithes were only quarter paid; Dr. Millar, whose paying +patients were no longer able to call him in on all occasions; Carey, the +banker, whose private bank, it was whispered darkly, was struggling in +deep waters; Colonel Russell, who had come home from India on half-pay +and his savings, which every year he found more inadequate for the +expenses of an increasing family. All these gray-headed men, growing +haggard and careworn, agreed that in the present depressed state of the +commercial world, young Robinson was showing himself a sensible fellow +and ought to be commended for his decision. They declared that they were +the more inclined to take him up because of it. It was their wives, +where they had wives, and especially their daughters, with the young men +who had not known the brunt of the battle, and felt inclined to clutch +their professional dignities and privileges, that were of a different +mind. Girls like the Millars turned up their saucy little noses at the +shop. They thought it was mean-spirited and vulgar-minded, "low" of Tom +Robinson to sit down with such a calling. They held it audacious of him +to lift his eyes to Dora, and to follow his eyes with his voice, silent +fellow though he was generally, in asking her from her father. + +Certainly it did not help to redeem Tom Robinson's drawbacks in the +judgment of a rash young world that he lacked his late father's fine +presence. Though gentleman-like enough, he was insignificant in person, +and he had little to say for himself. Probably it would have struck his +critics as little short of profane to make the comparison, otherwise +there is a great example that might have stood him and all men not +giants and glib of tongue in good stead. It is written of an apostle, +and he not the least of the apostles, that he might have been termed in +bodily presence mean, and in speech contemptible. But boys and girls are +not wont to take up such examples and ponder their meaning in foolish +young hearts. + +The Millars, as one of the girls had said, were brought up in the Old +Doctor's House at Redcross. It would seem that professions and trades +were hereditary in the old-fashioned, stationary town. Dr. Millar's +father had not only been a doctor before him, he had been _the_ doctor +in Redcross, with a practice extending from an aristocratic county to a +parish-poor class of patients. His pretty sister Penny, whom Annie was +not unlike, had married into the county, General Beauchamp of Wayland's +younger son. The marriage, with all its consequences, was a thing of the +long past, leaving little trace in the present. For young Beauchamp, +though he was a squire's son, had not been able to get on at the bar, +and had emigrated with his wife while emigration was still comparatively +untried in Australia, where it was to be hoped his county extraction had +served him in the Bush at least as well as Tom Robinson's university +education would avail him in the shop. It had all happened an age before +the young Millars could remember, still the tradition of a marriage of a +member of a former generation of the Millars into the squirearchy had +its effect on her collateral descendants. It did not signify that the +reigning Beauchamps of Waylands had almost ceased to remember the +ancient alliance in their dealings with their doctor. That dim and +distant distinction established the superior position of the Millars in +their native town, to the girls' entire satisfaction. Dora to marry +Robinson, of "Robinson's," a farthing candle of a man, when her +Grand-aunt Penny had married a Beauchamp of Waylands, by all accounts +the handsomest, most dashing member of the Hunt in his day, was a +descent not to be thought of for a moment. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE "COUP DE GRÂCE." + + +The crisis had come. Dr. Millar had granted a final formal interview, +not without some agitation on the father's part, to the still more +agitated suitor; and after assuring him of the paternal good-will, had +turned him over to the daughter--the whole being done with a sorrowful +prescience, shared by the unfortunate young man, of what the answer +would be. + +Poor Dora was hardly less to be pitied, for she had to be brought up to +the supreme effort of dealing the _coup de grâce_. Nobody could do it +for her, even her mother told her that severely, in order to brace the +girlish nerves, when Dora gave way to the first cowardly instinct of +seeking to shirk the ordeal. If a girl was old enough to receive an +offer of marriage, she was old enough to answer it for herself in +person. It was the least return she could make for the high compliment +which had been paid to her, to see the man and tell him with her own +lips that she would have nothing to say to the honest heart and liberal +hand, for he had hinted at generous settlements, which he had been only +too eager to lay at her feet. + +It was little use even for mild Dora to protest that she had not +wished for such a compliment, and had done nothing to provoke it, so +that the reckless compliment-payer was but receiving his deserts in an +unconditional refusal. It did not make the step easier for her. It was +no joke to her, whatever it might be to her hard-hearted young sisters. + +To tell the truth, Rose and May, aye, even Annie, took much lively +diversion, as Dora guessed, in secretly watching the entire proceeding. +The sisters found out the hour of the compulsory interview. They +covertly looked out for the arrival of the commonplace wooer--anything +save their idea of a lover and hero. They keenly took note of him from +an upper window as he walked with a certain studied composure, yet with +a blankness of aspect, through the shrubbery. They even deigned--Annie +as well as Rose and May--surreptitiously to inspect the poor wretch +between the bannisters of the staircase, as he ran desperately up the +stairs, thrusting one hand through his foxy hair and carrying his hat +in the other, and vanished into the drawing-room. + +After this brutal behaviour on the part of a trio of English girls, one +must show a little moderation in condemning the cruel conduct of the +Roman dames, who contemplated with zest the deadly contests of the +gladiators in the arena; at least the gladiators were strangers and +barbarians, not fellow-townsmen and near relations. + +As for the present victim, he was happily unconscious of any spectator +beyond Bella the house-maid, but he felt relieved to be delivered from +her compassionate stare. He had an instinctive sense that she knew as +well as he did what he had come there for, and was pitying him--an +inference in which he was quite correct. For Bella was older than the +unseen "chorus" on the landing, who did not think of pitying him. She +had seen more of the world, and was better acquainted with its cares +and troubles. She called him in her own mind "the poor young gent!" It +occurred to her as it did not occur to the others, that he might take +to bad ways and be a lost man, like Jem Wade the carpenter, after her +pretty, flighty sister Lotty had given him the sack. Nothing less than +that might be the end of this day's work. + +But such a way of looking on a lover and his woes was far from the +thoughts of Bella's young mistresses. On the contrary, they had +difficulty in restraining merry little titters, though Annie did take +herself to task and murmur "For shame!" when Rose made a solemn, stupid +face like what she considered Tom Robinson's on this occasion. + +To do the girls justice, however, they did not laugh when Dora, who had +been with her mother, came slowly across the lobby and followed the +visitor into the drawing-room in order to administer the _coup de +grâce_. It might have been a veritable dagger-thrust to be dealt by a +weak little shrinking hand, with the owner's head turned and face +averted--such a white, grieved, frightened girl's face it was. + +Her companions' eyes were opened, for the instant a fellow-feeling smote +them. This was no light jest or piece of child's play; it might be their +turn next. Oh! who would not be sorry for Dora to have to inflict real +pain and bitter disappointment, to be condemned to kill a man's faith +in woman, perhaps, certainly to murder his peace and happiness for the +present, to extinguish the sweetest, brightest dream of his early +manhood, for he would never have another quite so tender and radiant? +Would Dora ever be quite the same again after she had done so hard a +thing? + +Annie pulled herself up and accused herself of getting absolutely +maudlin. The idea of Tom Robinson of "Robinson's," with his middle size, +matter-of-fact air, and foxy hair and moustache, entertaining such a +dream and relinquishing it with a pang of mortal anguish that would +leave a long sickening heart-ache behind! It was the infection of all +the silly love stories she had ever read which had received a kind of +spurious galvanic life from the very ordinary circumstance, the feather +in her cap, as so many girls would have regarded it, of Dora, having to +receive and refuse an offer of marriage. Why, she--Annie--and her +sisters, including Dora herself, had been much diverted by it, as well +as interested in it, until the dramatic crisis had somehow taken their +breath away also, and startled them by a glimpse of the other side of +the question. But though Annie strove to recover her equanimity, and +Rose tried to hum a tune softly as the girls still loitered behind the +bannisters, to see the end of the play, they said nothing more to each +other; a sort of shyness and shame had stolen over them. It was not +enough to make them run away, especially as each did not realize that +what she felt was common to all. Only their lips were chained +simultaneously, and they were disposed to turn aside their heads and +avert their eyes, like Dora when she killed her man. + +The deed did not take long--not more than was necessary for him to plead +once or twice with small variation on the words, "Will you not think of +it, Dora? Can you not give it a little consideration? Perhaps if I were +to wait, and you were to try----" + +And for Dora to answer with drooping head, panting breast, and still +less variety in her phrases, "Oh, no, no, Mr. Tom. Of course, I am very +much obliged to you for thinking a great deal more of me than I deserve. +But, indeed, indeed, it cannot be--you must give it up--this foolish +fancy. It is a great pity that you have wasted time on such an absurd +idea." + +"Wasted time!" he repeated, with a little irony and a little pathos. +"Well, I don't think it wasted even at this moment--and--and the idea +does not seem so absurd to me; but I will not distress you by forcing my +wishes upon you when you are so averse to them. You will allow me to +continue your friend, Miss Dora?" + +"Yes, oh yes," sighed Dora, who would have said anything, short of +agreeing to marry him, to get him to go away, "if you like, after what +has happened. I know I don't deserve your friendship; but, indeed, I +could not help it, Mr. Robinson. I never guessed till lately that you +thought of anything else, and then I would have stopped you, but I +could not." + +"Don't blame yourself," he said with a faint smile, "I am not blaming +you. I shall count it a favour, an honour, if you will let me do +anything for you that I can." + +"Thank you very much," she murmured humbly. + +"Then you will accept a little mark of my friendly feelings?" He took a +small case from his waistcoat pocket, opened it, and drew from it a +valuable ring, holding it out to her. + +They were the most beautiful rubies and sapphires she had ever seen. But +she would not touch it; she even put her hands behind her back in her +confusion and dismay. "I could not; I ought not. It is far too costly a +thing, I can see that at a glance. You must keep it; you will find some +far fitter girl to give it to." + +He shook his head, hesitated, and then took an old-fashioned little +vinaigrette case, shaped like a tiny gold box, from the watch-chain at +which he wore it. "Will you accept this from me, then? It was my +mother's, and I should like you to have it." + +"It's so good of you," the girl faltered. "I don't like to deprive you +of what was your mother's, but if you care that I should have it----" + +"I do care," he said. + +That last little episode was entirely between themselves. When she +quitted the room, not crying, but paler than before, she had the +vinaigrette case clasped tightly in her hand, while nobody except +Tom Robinson knew of the gift. + +He let her go, and then he left the house. When he did so there was that +in his face which caused Rose Millar to cry under her breath, "Come +away. It is not fair to spy upon him. I'll never want to see anybody +refused again." As for "little May," she burst into tears, though the +principals had shed no tears. + +"Hold your tongue, you little goose," remonstrated the disturbed Annie. +"He may hear you. School-girls like you and Rose should not meddle in +grown-up people's affairs." + +"I thought I had left school after the Christmas holidays," said Rose, +interrogating the world in an abstract fashion. She was herself again on +the instant, carrying her funny little crumpled nose well in the air. + +"It is dreadful," said May, with a half-suppressed sob, "and he was +so good-natured. He promised only last week to get Rose and me a +fox-terrier puppy." + +"Oh, you selfish little creature! It is over the failure of the +prospective puppy and not over the sorrows of the rejected man you are +lamenting. Never mind, Maisie, I doubt if mother would have allowed us +to keep the puppy. As for Mr. Tom Robinson, he is cut up just now, of +course; but he will soon get over it. How long does it take a man to +forget, Annie? Anyhow, presently he will be busily directing his +attentions in another quarter, until the day may come, after he is +successful and triumphant, well pleased with himself and his choice, +when he will heartily thank Dora there for having administered to him +the cold bath of a rejection, so nipping his first raw aspirations in +the bud." + +"No, no," insisted May; "you are so cynical, Rose, like everybody else +now-a-days, and I hate it. He can never be glad to have lost Dora." + +"Don't you agree with me, Annie?" Rose maintained her point. + +"Really, you seem to be so well informed on the subject yourself--though +I cannot think where you have got your experience, any more than your +slang, unless at second-hand"--said Annie sarcastically, "that my +opinion is of no importance." + +"Now, don't be nasty and elder-sisterish," was Rose's quick rejoinder. + +Though Dora shed no tears of contrition in public, Annie, who shared her +sister's room, heard her in the night crying softly. + +"What ails you, Dora dear?" Annie sat up and asked sleepily. "What is +the matter? It can't be, no," rousing herself, "it can _not_ be--you +don't mean that you repent what you've done, and would swallow the shop, +foxy hair, and everything?" + +"Oh, no," denied Dora, "but I didn't think a man would care like that; +such a queer, gray shade came over his face, though I durst hardly look +at him; and his hands which were--well, were holding mine for a second, +you know----" + +"No, I don't know," interrupted Annie, smiling to herself; "but go on, +what about the hands?" + +"They were as cold as ice." + +"Very likely, it is only the month of April." + +"And it is not above a year since he lost both his father and +mother--all the near relations he had." + +"Poor man!" admitted Annie. "But you could not help that, and many men, +young men especially, seem to get on quite well without near relations." + +There was a strain of hardness about pretty Annie, whether bred of that +cynicism in the air of which May had complained, whether it was an +integral part of Annie, or whether, as in the case of some valuable +kinds of timber, it was merely an indication of the closer grain, the +slower ripening, and the greater power of endurance of the moral fibre. + +"Men are not like women." Annie was continuing her lecture. "I dare say +Tom Robinson will do very well--all the better, perhaps, because he has +no ambition, and is content to make money in the most humdrum way as a +tradesman." + +Dora sat up in turn, like a white ghost in her place in her little bed, +seen by the dim light. She had the instinct which causes women to look +back upon the men who have made love or proposed to them, even though +the women have rejected the men--as in a sense their property, if not +their prey, so as not by any means to relish the men's depreciation at +the hands of other women. Then it becomes a point of honour alike with +the proudest and the meekest of her sex to stand up in his absence in +defence of the discarded swain. + +"I don't know about ambition," began Dora hesitatingly, "but father says +Tom Robinson is not at all stupid; he took his degree with credit at +Cambridge, and was not plucked like poor Ned Hewett, or that fop, Cyril +Carey. Father says when he worked with Mr. Robinson in getting up the +bill to lay before Parliament for closing the old churchyard, he could +not have desired a more intelligent, diligent fellow-worker. All the +salesmen and women at 'Robinson's' have been well looked after, and are +superior to the other shop-people in the town, don't you know? There is +Miss Franklin at the head of both the millinery and mantua-making +departments; I am sure she looks and speaks, as well as dresses, +like a lady?" + +"Yes, and everybody is civil to her, but nobody thinks of making +her acquaintance out of the shop, and she is wise enough to keep +to her proper sphere. They say she is a distant relation of Tom +Robinson's--you see he is not altogether destitute of kindred. +Why does the man not marry her? That would be a suitable match." + +"Annie!" protested Dora, in nearly speechless indignation, and then she +recovered breath and words. "She's forty if she's a day; and she's as +fat as a pin-cushion, with her cheeks a mottled red all over." + +"How can you make such unkind remarks on your neighbours' looks? _He_ +is not an Adonis, I may be allowed to say; and I have noticed that +shopkeepers are apt to marry women older than themselves, women who +have been in the trade--to keep the business together, I suppose." + +"At least, his father did not marry like that either in his first or in +his second marriage," retorted Dora; "for the first Mrs. Robinson was +the daughter of a curate, and the second of a farmer, and she was not +half his age, though she did not survive him long." + +"As you please. What's Hecuba to me, or what am I to Hecuba?" demanded +Annie airily. + +"Besides," Dora returned laboriously to the charge, "there are +shopkeepers and shopkeepers, as you must be aware, Annie. Father says +old Mr. Robinson was a man of independent ideas and original mind, and +had his own theories of trade." + +"I have nothing to say against it, especially at this hour of the night, +or morning," said Annie, professing to strangle a yawn; "only that I do +not think a linen-draper's business, however large and well-conducted, +is exactly the career of a gentleman, a man of fair ability and +education. He might leave it to any respectable well-disposed tradesman. +However, if you are going to exalt Tom Robinson, with his shop, into a +patriot and philanthropist cherishing a noble scheme for the public +good, and all that kind of thing, do it if you like, nobody will hinder +you. Call him back if you care to, I dare say it is still possible if +you are willing to make the concession. But oh, Dora!" appealed Annie, +who had talked herself wide awake by this time, "don't forget the loss +of position involved in really keeping a shop, however eccentric and +meritorious a man's intentions may be. Why, he had better become a +stonemason or a ploughman, if he is to do the thing at all; far better a +gamekeeper or a soldier in time of war, the plunge would be deeper but +more picturesque. Think of the entire breaking with the county with +which we have a right to hold ourselves connected, not merely because +father's patients are willing to take us up and make quite a fuss about +us sometimes, but because his Aunt Penny married and was welcomed into +that set. You have not yourself alone to consider, remember, Dora; you +might not mind, but you have the rest of us to think of, some of whom +would mind very much." + +"You need have no anxiety about the matter," said poor Dora hotly and +huffily. "I am not going to marry Tom Robinson; you know I have refused +him this very afternoon." + +But Annie was determined to empty out her whole budget of warnings. +"Even professional people like father, all our friends and +acquaintances, our relations on both sides of the house would begin to +drop us, and fight shy of us. What people that had any pretensions to +being gentle-folks would care to be mixed up with our brother-in-law the +linen-draper? And it is not as if the temptation were great; I cannot +see wherein the attraction lies; but instead of letting it beset you, +please don't lose sight of the three hundred and sixty-five days to be +spent every year in Tom Robinson's silent company. Think of the three +hundred and sixty-five breakfasts, dinners, and suppers to be eaten +opposite his mute figure." + +"Stop, Annie," Dora cried energetically: "you know as well as I do that +I could never face such a thing, that I never dreamt of it. Only loving +a man could make it possible for a girl to give up her family in order +to belong to him; and even if there had been no 'Robinson's' to shock +you, I do not care the least little bit for poor Tom Robinson; yet +surely for that very reason," protested Dora with a sudden revulsion of +feeling, "I am at liberty to pity him." + +"If you will take my advice, Dora," said shrewd Annie, sinking back on +her pillow as a sign that the untimely discussion ought to come to an +end, "you will get rid of your pity as quickly as you can. It is not +your pity which he seeks--very likely he would rage like a bear, for as +quiet as he can look, at the mere mention of it. But it strikes me that +it is not safe for either of you." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE HEADS OF THE HOUSE LOOK GRAVE. + + +"It is a thousand pities," said Dr. Millar, holding a consultation with +his wife, while he sipped his glass of sherry and ate his biscuit, +before retiring for the night, after his last round among the patients +in greatest need of his visits. + +In spite of his daughter Dora's preference for tall men, the Doctor was +short and rather stout. He ought to have looked comfortable, he had the +physique and air of a comfortable man, but a certain harassed, careworn +expression was beginning to settle down on the spectacled face which had +once been round, rosy, and very comely. He was at least twenty years +older than his wife. The old-fashioned practice had prevailed in the +old-fashioned town, of elderly men, whether bachelors or widowers, +ending by marrying for the first or the second time women a score or +more years their juniors. Indeed, Dr. Millar was hard upon seventy, +though he had till recent bad times carried his years so well that he +had looked ten years younger than his actual age. + +Mrs. Millar also began to look worried as a rule, though she had more of +the woman's faculty of putting the best face on things, both in public +and in private. She was a tall woman, who had enjoyed the advantages of +what was called "an elegant figure" in her youth. Now she was large and +heavy, with a mixture of unconscious stateliness and wistful +motherliness in her gait and gestures. Like Dr. Millar, she ought to +have seemed at least easy-minded, but circumstances were becoming more +and more against the happy condition, of which a pervading atmosphere of +content and cheerfulness should have been the outward expression. + +The man and woman were not cut out, so to speak, for adversity. They had +not been seasoned to it in their younger days. On the contrary, they had +been cradled for many years in the lap--if not of luxury, of fair +middle-class prosperity. It was a few tolerably rough jolts which had +shaken them from their cradle. Still the trouble was more in +apprehension than in reality. As yet it had not caused the sufferers to +change any one of the domestic habits which had grown second nature to +them. It had not induced them to darken the sunny sky over their young +daughters' heads with a shadow of the clouds which were already looming +black on the parents' horizon. It may be said at once, that Dr. and Mrs. +Millar, though they were reckoned clever, sensible people enough by +their contemporaries, had softer hearts than they had hard heads. They +had not been used to painful self-denial and stern discipline, either +where they themselves or their children were concerned. + +The couple were sitting now together in the dining-room with its solidly +handsome furniture, Russian leather and walnut wood, bits of family +plate on the sideboard, bronze chimney-piece ornaments, and good +engravings on the walls. Husband and wife had spent the last part of the +evening there, for four-and-twenty years, every night they were in +Redcross, when the Doctor was not kept out late, or when the couple were +not abroad in company, or seeing company at home. Dr. Millar, in his +slightly old-fashioned professional black coat and white tie, was +leaning back in his easy-chair sipping his sherry, and occasionally +drumming lightly on the table near him with these fine long sensitive +fingers which were a born doctor's fingers. + +Mrs. Millar wore a demi-toilet in the shape of an expensive cashmere and +silk gown--not an evening dress, but an approach to it, as became the +wife of one of the leading professional men in Redcross, connected with +the county to boot. Her lace cap was a costly trifle of its kind, but +it had an awkward habit--the odder in a woman who was neat to formality +in the other details of her dress--of slipping to one side, or tilting +forwards or backwards on the brown hair, still abundant and just +streaked with gray; so that one or other of her daughters was constantly +calling Mrs. Millar's cap to order and setting it right. She was sitting +in an arm-chair, opposite her husband. Mechanically she put one daintily +slippered, very neat foot, considering the weight it helped to carry, +beyond her skirts, and stretched it towards the fire. There was still a +good fire blazing in the steel grate, though the spring was well +advanced, the weather was not more than chilly, and the hour was late. +It was as if coals were not a marketable commodity and a serious item in +the expenses of an embarrassed household. She held up a Japanese fan +between her face and the fire, from mere custom, for she had ceased to +pay much heed to the exigencies of a florid complexion. + +"It's a thousand pities," repeated the little Doctor, looking quite +portentously regretful and oppressed. "It is not only that Tom Robinson +is an excellent fellow and would have made Dora the best of +husbands--given her a safe and happy home, and all that sort of thing; +but in case of anything happening, I am convinced he would have been as +good as a brother to the other girls, and a son to you. A man like him +is a stay and support to a household of helpless women." + +"But nothing is going to happen, Jonathan," said Mrs. Millar, with an +involuntary nervous quiver which sent her cap hovering over one eyebrow. +"At least nothing worse than we know. Your practice is not so lucrative +as it used to be; how can it, in these bad times, with so many poor +young fellows of doctors settling here and there and everywhere in +Redcross and the villages around, starving themselves out, while they +impoverish their seniors? Nothing more than that, except the little +trouble at Carey's Bank." + +"Quite enough too, Maria, quite enough," commented the Doctor deep down +in his throat, prolonging the words a little as if he were chanting the +refrain of a dismal song; "and when a man is my age and has plenty of +the young rivals you refer to, it is high time he should be looking out +for something happening. A family of girls, too. God help me! If they +had been four boys, who might have made their own way in the world, and +provided for you among them, I could have faced it better." He struck +the table again, with spasmodic force this time. + +"Now, Jonathan, you will wake up the house. This is not like you," +remonstrated his wife--all the more energetically that her heart sank +while she spoke. "I should not have expected you to give way in this +manner." She gave a quick push back to her unruly cap. "I am sure there +is no occasion for it. We are in no worse position than we were last +year, even the year before that." + +"Save that I am growing older every year," he said grimly, "and the +affairs of the bank are not mending, as I hoped they might." + +"Can't you sell out?" she suggested breathlessly, as she clasped her +hands on her knees. + +"I have put it off too long, supposing I had the conscience to transfer +my liabilities to some simpleton who might not draw half a dozen of the +dividends of which I have drawn scores. Besides, the thing is +impossible, as I am telling you. Between you and me, the shares are far +below par." + +"What is par, Jonathan?" interrupted Mrs. Millar in a praiseworthy +attempt to understand her husband. + +"Oh, bother," he cried, running his hand in mild exasperation through +his white hair; "the standard value, or the original value, whichever +you like best. I should not dare to propose to sell out at such a loss; +it would not only be to impoverish myself at once in order to avoid the +risk of greater ruin, it would draw attention. It would have a most +suspicious look, and might bring the rotten affair down about our ears +instantly, while I should get the blame of the downfall." + +"But some of the large foreign investments might be realized any +day--you told me the last time you spoke of business--with the first +good turn of trade," she reminded him anxiously. + +"I trust so still, and I believe old Carey is an honest man and a +perfect gentleman--that is one comfort; but I cannot help thinking he +has got into bad hands. I tell you, Maria, I don't like that +brother-in-law of his who comes down from London to attend the Redcross +meetings, and tries to blarney us all round. And I cannot approve of the +bolstering up of Carey's cousins, the Carters, in their chemical works +at Stokeleigh, which it strikes me will never do much good. It--the +bolstering up--has been going on for a long time now, to what extent I +am not prepared to show. Unfortunately I have a bad head for figures," +he shrugged his shoulders as if anticipating a reproach, "the less +reason why I should have laid out my savings on bank shares, you will +say? No doubt, no doubt, but there had been fewer troubles with banks in +my day. When I made the first investment everything appeared right, and +the dividends announced were tempting." + +"I am not finding fault with what you did, Jonathan; I never thought of +such a thing," the perturbed woman found voice to reassure her husband. +"I know you did it for the best; and for that matter, I am convinced it +will all come right in the end," she ended with a little sigh. + +"It is very good and pretty of you to say so, Maria," he said with a +certain old-fashioned, stiff gallantry which, while it complimented her, +treated her as a much younger and more irresponsible being than he was. +As he spoke he took up the hand which lay in her lap and held it for a +moment clasped in his. "And I can say you have been all that I could +have wished as a wife and mother, you have never once failed me during +the whole of our married life." + +"Oh! thank you, thank you, Jonathan." She acknowledged his praise with a +momentary choke in her voice, and a bend of her head which was not +without a docile dignity. + +"We are all in the same boat," resumed the Doctor in the deep tones +which somehow sounded like bass recitative; "the Rector, Colonel +Russell, and I--not to say Carey himself. We all wished to increase our +incomes with as little trouble and risk as possible--so it seemed then, +but if the bank comes to smash, all the old Redcross gentle-folks, as we +were pleased to call ourselves, will go with it." + +"Don't mention such a thing, don't think of it," cried Mrs. Millar in +her dismay. + +He went on without noticing her. "The Bishop won't let the Rector come +down, and Russell is twenty years younger than I. He is no older than +you are, though a foreign climate has told a good deal on him; still, he +is patched up, and with care ought to have lasted as long as the rest of +us. He may exert his interest, and get a post in India again, though I +should be afraid it would finish him in six months." + +The poor middle-aged lady who sat listening with dry lips apart, and +pleasant hazel eyes distended with fright and distress, though she was +no older than the unfortunate colonel, had not been exposed to a foreign +climate, and had hardly suffered from a serious illness in her life, did +not look much like such an arduous undertaking as going out to India to +redeem a wrecked fortune. She pulled herself together, however, and set +herself to the good woman's business of comforting and encouraging her +husband. "I am certain it is right to go on hoping. You often say that +in your profession you have no such helpful allies as hope and courage; +you must practice what you've preached, Doctor," and the faithful soul +actually contrived to impart a playful ring to her unsteady voice. "The +Rector has not preached the duty more strenuously than you have; and +you are not going to be the first to break down, especially when there +is no real occasion. Depend upon it, Carey's Bank will pull through like +some of your most doubtful patients, with time and care." + +"With all my heart," he said, absently taking off his spectacles, +polishing, and replacing them. Then he resumed his former line of +thought. "Tom Robinson is out of the mess. He, and his father before +him, found other ways of disposing of their capital where it was more +under their own inspection and control. If that foolish girl of ours, +Maria, could only have brought herself to listen to Robinson," he worked +himself up into a fresh access of vexation, "the liking would have come +in good time. I did not expect her to have a fancy for him on the spot, +for quiet, steady young fellows like him are not apt to take girls' +fancies--the worse for the girls." + +"But, father"--remonstrated Mrs. Millar, involuntarily bestowing on her +husband the title the girls gave him--she drew herself up as she spoke, +and again destroyed the equilibrium of her cap--"you cannot surely think +that Tom Robinson would have been a fit match for Dora, or any of her +sisters. He is well enough in himself, I say nothing against him, but he +has not gone into a profession, instead he has identified himself with +'Robinson's'--that shop;" a shade of ineffable disgust stole into her +ordinarily good-humoured voice. + +"Showed his good sense and manliness," said the Doctor gruffly. "I wish +every one else had been as wise. I wish all of us had big paying shops +at our backs instead of Carey's shaky bank. I for one would swallow the +indignity cheerfully. Why, my father kept on his dispensary in the days +when the practice was at its best. The greater fool I to give it up. I +tell you England will never be what it was till it gets rid of this +rubbish of despising trades and shops. Don't you help to put it into +these silly girls' heads. It makes me sick to think how they may live to +wish they were connected with an honest, solvent shop." + +"My dear, I think you are going a little too far." Mrs. Millar fired up +in defence of her young like a ruffled mother-pigeon. "I should be very +sorry to teach the girls to look down on anybody; but that there are +different sorts and conditions of men, they may learn from their very +Bibles and prayer-books. There are such things as education and +culture--not to speak of good birth. You yourself, Dr. Millar, are +fairly well born and well connected for a professional man." She +instanced this with an imperceptible bridle and toss of her matronly +head, which hinted broadly, "If it had not been so, Jonathan, I should +never have been Mrs. Millar." The movement threatened to deposit her cap +on the carpet behind her, but she recovered it in time, and took up the +thread of her discourse by quoting the much-prized family +distinction--"There was your Aunt Penny, who married into the county." + +"Oh! are you at that humbug?" he cried, with a man's disrespectful +impatience. "I thought it had seen its day, and was long over and done +with. I could not have conceived that you--" ("were such a fool," he was +going to say, when he caught himself up.) He was quick-tempered and +impulsive, but he was also suave by nature, and his long habit of +courteous indulgence to his wife caused him to alter the phrase. "I did +not know that you had so lively an imagination as to persist in +believing that old myth, Maria." + +"But your Aunt Penny did marry one of the Beauchamps of Waylands," +insisted Mrs. Millar. + +"Certainly; and she made the poorest marriage of anybody that I have +ever had to do with, though I have always understood that he was not a +bad sort, beyond being as thick-headed as his brother the squire or an +officer of dragoons. He get on at the bar! I dare say not. And he was no +quicker-witted or longer-sighted in Australia. You must have heard me +say how grieved I was once when I came across a fellow from Sydney who +had been up the country, and remembered something of the Beauchamps and +their straits. They were regularly hard up, and went through no end of +trouble. Poor Aunt Penny seldom had a woman-servant--women-servants were +more difficult to get out there in those days. She had to wash, cook, +and scour for the men at the station." + +"Why didn't they come home?" inquired Mrs. Millar rather weakly. + +"Come home! They had nothing to come home with, or to. You don't suppose +his brother, the squire, with a wife and family of his own, would have +kept them, though the Beauchamps had received her civilly enough at the +time of the marriage! She had to milk the cows when the cow-man was +otherwise wanted. I do not say that many a better born woman than she +was has not done as much and thought little of it, only it was not in +Aunt Penny's line. I can just remember her when I was a small boy, a +pretty creature who read Italian, sang to her guitar, and made bread +seals for her amusement. She had such a mortal terror where cows were +concerned that she would run like a lapwing when she heard one come +lowing up the lane behind the house. Paton, the man from Sydney who +remembered them, thought they did a little better towards the end, when +they got a store, and Mrs. Beauchamp kept it. Do you hear that, Maria?" +cried the Doctor, with a half-humorous, half-indignant emphasis. + +"Yes, I hear," replied Mrs. Millar, with an obstinate inflection of her +voice which said, "I am of my own opinion still." She illustrated this +by adding, in an undertone, "They were in Australia." + +"A store," continued the Doctor, "is the rudest, most uncouth kind of +shop; and Beauchamp was not fit to keep it, he had to turn it over to +his wife, who was thankful to serve shepherds and bush-rangers for aught +I know. She lost one child in the bush, God help her! The little thing +wandered away and was never heard of again; and her other child, a boy, +who grew up, did not turn out well. I tell you, I never like to think or +speak of the mother." + +"Poor Aunt Penny!" said Mrs. Millar hastily. "But there is one +thing"--with a sudden accent of triumph in the perception that she had +the advantage of her husband at last--"your Aunt Penny married the man +she cared for; she got her choice, and in that light she had no reason +to complain, though she had to abide by it." + +The Doctor was a little taken aback. "I do not know that she +complained--at least her people at home heard nothing of it. And you +must do me the justice of owning that I have done nothing to force +Dora's inclinations. Indeed, I am not clear that I have done my duty. I +ought to have reasoned with the girl. Robinson is not only a good man, +he is also a gentleman, every inch of him, so was his father before +him." + +"In the choice of Jenny Coppock, of Coppock's Farm, for a wife!" +exclaimed Mrs. Millar, still rebellious, even satirical and disdainful. + +"He was entitled to choose whom he would, I suppose, so long as she was +an honest woman, and Jenny Coppock was that quite as much as her husband +was a gentleman. She made him happy, I believe, strange as it may sound +to some people, as ladies do not always make their husbands happy--you +know I mean nothing personal, Maria. Whether she was quite happy herself +is a different question, of which I have had no means of judging. But I +have heard you yourself say that she never presumed on her rise in rank, +or sought to thrust her comely, kindly face where it was not wanted. Her +son has a look of her, without her good looks. Poor Mrs. Robinson! I was +with her in her first and last illness, as you are aware, and a more +courageous, self-forgetful soul I had never the privilege to attend." + +Mrs. Millar turned back in the conversation, and took to dogmatizing. +"People who are well-informed and well-bred will never descend to a +lower level without great discomfort and serious loss. I for one, though +I have not profited by the advantages the girls have commanded, and I +daresay have not their brains"--she made the frank admission with +womanly, motherly humility--"though I could not to save my life make one +of Rose's beautiful water-colour sketches, or read Greek and Latin like +'little May,' or even talk to the point on every subject under the sun +like Annie, still I should not be happy if I had to keep company with +Wilkins the butcher's or Ord the baker's wife, and they would not be +happy either. It would not matter, in one sense, though I knew they were +respectable, worthy women, and were ever so much better off as to money +than I. That would not keep me from feeling thoroughly out of place and +having hardly an idea in common with my neighbours in their +plush-trimmed gowns and fur-lined mantles. I could not stand such +degradation for my girls," she protested, with rising agitation. "I had +far rather that they and I should be the poorest ladies in the land, +should have to pinch and deny ourselves all round." + +"It is little you know of it," muttered Dr. Millar, shaking his white +head, and pensively contemplating his finger-nails. + +"While we still retained the position to which we were born, and the +associations among which we were reared," ended Mrs. Millar, with a +gasp. + +"Bless the woman, what does she mean?" cried Dr. Millar after his lively +fashion, with an air of injured innocence. "Does she pretend that Tom +Robinson has not been educated--stamped, for that matter, with the last +university brand, to which he does credit, I must say? Stay, there goes +the night-bell. I am wanted for somebody." + +"You'll never go out again to-night, Jonathan," pleaded Mrs. Millar, +"after all your worry, when you have not had more than a couple of +hours' rest." She was already reproaching herself keenly for having +contradicted and argued with him. She had never been able to comprehend, +for her comfort, that to a man like him an argument is both rousing and +refreshing. In the middle of her remorse she instinctively held up her +head, and balanced her cap as a Dutchwoman of the last century balanced +her milk-pail, or a girl of the Roman Campagna her sheaf of grass and +wild flowers. "It is a shame," she reflected indignantly; "it is very +likely nothing of any consequence, just one of those inconsiderate +people who think that a professional man ought to be always at their +beck and call." + +"There, Maria, you're scoring another point for trade," said the little +doctor, getting on his feet, and buttoning up his coat as a preliminary +to obeying the call. "I'll warrant Wilkins and Ord will be toasting +their toes, and retiring to bed with the comfortable conviction that +their night's rest will not be disturbed; since Wilkins's head-man +attends to the slaughter-house, and the eldest journeyman baker sees to +the setting of the sponge. Why don't you say, _noblesse oblige_, Maria? +But I think I know the name of the inconsiderate individual who has +interrupted our conversation, and I assure you he would not if he could. +It is little Johnny Fleming--Fleming the grocer's son--whose case is +critical, I fear. I told his mother if he got worse to send for me at +once. When I am out, at any rate, I'll just look in on old Todd, in +Skinners' Buildings. He appeared in a dying state this morning; but as +the family have not sent to let me know of the death, if he has hung on +so long, the chance is he will rally and come round this bout. I'll be +some time; don't sit up for me, my dear." + +"It is too bad," Mrs. Millar fretted. "They ought to send at night for +Newton or Capes from Woodleigh--it is only a step for any of the young +doctors, instead of disturbing a man of your age." + +"Good heavens! don't breathe such a thing. I could not afford it. I +thought of taking a young partner twenty years ago, but I put it off +till it was too late. Perhaps it was a mistake; we all make mistakes," +he sighed. "An active young practitioner, well up to date, might have +kept the business better together." + +"Nonsense!" cried his wife energetically. "Nobody would have looked at +him when they could have had your skill and experience." + +"Then be thankful I'm still fit for work--one must take the bad with the +good. It is the fortune of war, Maria," said the gallant old doctor as +he departed. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE CRASH. + + +Within a month Carey's Bank broke, not altogether unexpectedly. The +breaking carried dismay and desolation into not a few households in +Redcross, and administered a sharp shock--productive of much startled +speculation, and roused distrust, even in those quarters which had not +suffered financially by the bankruptcy. The stoppage of a bank, with +little hope of its resuming its functions, is like the stoppage of a +heart which will never beat again. It may have been dreaded as a +possible calamity, and occasionally hinted at in awed whispers; but when +the blow falls it does so with a stunning, crushing force because of its +irreparable nature and far-reaching ruin. + +There was just a little preparation to herald the catastrophe. Poor +Carey, an honest, weak tool of dishonest speculators and birds of prey +in the shape of needy, unscrupulous relations, when the appalling +tidings reached him which could only betoken immediate wreck, did all +that there was left to him to do. He called a meeting of the Redcross +shareholders. These were the leading professional men in the town who +had invested their savings, and a small proportion of the neighbouring +country gentlemen who had put a little capital--not often to spare in +those days--in a concern once regarded as sound and incapable of +collapse as the Bank of England itself. With a faltering tongue and a +hanging head the nominal head of the firm told to those nearly concerned +what was coming on them. Nobody reproached him; either no man had the +heart, or all felt the uselessness of reproaches. Certainly these +shareholders' silence was his heaviest punishment. + +They made a hasty examination, as far as they could, for themselves, and +then the meeting broke up. Its members did not even linger to consult, +being well assured that consultation, like reproaches, would be of no +avail; the failure was so much more extensive and complete than their +worst fears had led them to anticipate. The men looked blankly in each +other's whitening faces and sought the refuge of their own houses at +first. There would be time enough for outcry, for desperate plans and +schemes a little later. + +Poor Dr. Millar had not even this breathing space. It happened to be a +particularly busy day with him. Various neutral individuals, in no way +concerned with Carey's Bank, even when its misfortunes should be made +public, took that inconvenient time for falling ill, and their medical +man had to attend upon them with spasmodic promptitude and mechanical +attention--projected, as it were, against the dazed and confused +background of his brain. After all he was glad of his profession with +its outward and immediate calls, taking him out of himself in the hour +when he had heard the worst. He preferred to be about the town doing +battle with this man's attack of paralysis and that woman's symptoms of +typhoid, even though his ears were ringing with clamorous questions +which no one else could hear or answer. How was he to pay up the +liabilities of his bank shares from his dwindling practice? What about +inexperienced young girls driven out to make their own way in the world, +and the gentlewoman (in every sense of the word) whom he had loved and +cherished for four-and-twenty years, soon to be left a desolate, all but +unprovided for widow? But better a thousand times to be dragged in +different directions than to be sitting like Russell, locked in his +room, his little children and their young mother shut out, holding +between his hands the erect head of a soldier who had come out of many a +hard battle, but none so hard as this ambuscade which had been sprung +upon him after he had been invalided a dozen years before, and returned +home to spend his declining years in peace. Better than to have to write +sermons and read prayers, like the Rector, and pause between every +sentence to take himself sternly to task. Was it common forethought and +prudence, with the necessity of providing for the wants of a household, +which even the apostle Paul had commended, or was it worldly-mindedness +and greed which had brought him, a beneficed clergyman, a priest in holy +orders, the vowed servant of a King whose kingdom was not of this world, +to this lamentable pass? Yes; he would be dishonoured in the eyes of +men, a debtor who could not pay his debts, and even with the support of +his bishop would be scarcely able to weather the storm, while he must +make up his mind, as he was an honest man, that he and his should endure +the pinch of poverty for the rest of his days. + +Annie and Dora had been out on a shopping expedition, and were coming in +talking and laughing as usual, when they were startled by the apparition +of their mother standing in the doorway of her room, and motioning to +them to come in directly and speak with her. The poor lady really looked +like a ghost, as she stood there with her fine colour gone, beckoning to +her daughters with her hand, as if the power of speech had suddenly +forsaken her. + +"What is it, mother?" cried the alarmed girls in one breath, hurrying +towards her. "Has anything happened? Is anybody ill?" + +"Hush! hush, my dears," said Mrs. Millar in a low tone, carefully +shutting the door of her room behind the girls, as if she were ready to +guard her secret with her life--at the same time painfully sensible that +the bad news would be all over Redcross the next day, or the next after +that. "I thought it would be better to tell you myself; nobody in the +house knows anything of it yet, except your father and me." + +"But what is it, mother; you have not told us?" Annie urged; while Mrs. +Millar sank down in a low wicker chair, and her daughter Dora +instinctively stooped over her, and began to set her vagrant cap right. + +"Never mind my cap, my love," said Mrs. Millar hurriedly, and then she +grew incoherent. "What does it matter, when perhaps I may not long have +a cap to wear." + +Annie and Dora stared at each other in consternation. Was their mother +going out of her senses? + +"It is the bank, Carey's Bank," said Mrs. Millar, recovering herself, +"Oh dear! I am afraid it is in a very bad way." + +"Is that it?" cried Annie vaguely but gravely, opening wide her brown +eyes. "Is it going to fail?" She, too, spoke of the bank as if it were a +responsible being. + +"Annie, Annie, take care what you say. Girls are so heedless. I tell you +it is very dangerous to make such broad statements. You do not know what +harm you may do by a single word when you are so childishly outspoken." +Mrs. Millar felt bound even yet to give her own words the timid +qualification, though she was forced to add the next moment, "Your +father has suspected things were going wrong for some time, and spoken +of his suspicions to me repeatedly. He has just come back from a private +meeting of the Redcross shareholders. He says in consequence of some +additional losses in South America, I think, and inability to realize +capital there, the bank cannot meet two or three heavy calls at home. I +daresay I am not telling you rightly, for I don't understand business, +and I don't suppose you do." + +"I understand so far, that if this is not failure, I don't know what +is," said Annie. + +"Don't, Annie," said Dora; "let mother tell us in her own way; it is not +easy for her, it is a dreadful misfortune." + +"You may say that, Dora," exclaimed her mother. "Your father does not +believe the bank can hold out for another week; it may stop payment +to-morrow, since there are rumours afloat which will destroy what credit +it has left." + +"Will no other bank help it?" cried Annie shrewdly. + +"I believe not," said Mrs. Millar dolefully. + +"Then there will be a run, like what one has read of in similar +circumstances--a rush of the people, and a riot in the town," suggested +Annie, getting excited over the idea. "The police may have to guard the +bank and the Bank house--soldiers may have to come from Nenthorn!" + +"Oh, surely not," cried Dora; "the poor Careys--who could treat them so +cruelly?" + +"No, no," said Mrs. Millar; "there is one good thing, your father does +not think there will be much ill-feeling, or anything like an angry mob, +or tumult--not even when the people see the closed doors. There has +always been such confidence in Carey's Bank, the Careys have been +respected for generations; even now it is James Carey's misfortune and +not his fault, though he may have been misled and imposed upon; and, +after all, the depositors are tolerably sure of their money in time. But +your father is afraid," she ended, her voice sinking, "that it will go +hard with the shareholders." + +"And poor father is one of them," said Annie quickly. + +"Poor father!" echoed Dora piteously; "and you, poor, poor mother, to +have to think of us, and break it to us, while your heart is with +father." + +"And he has not even been left in peace for a single afternoon, to make +up his mind what we shall do," lamented his sympathetic wife. "As usual, +so many tiresome people have fallen ill--as if they did it on purpose, +and sent for him." + +"I daresay they could not help it," said Annie, "and I don't think it +would quite suit father if they were never ill." + +"Don't speak so unfeelingly, child," remonstrated her mother; "well, I +suppose I gave you a bad example," she corrected herself immediately, +"but I have been in such trouble since lunch time." + +"Poor mother!" repeated Dora in a voice that was only more soft and +caressing because of its sorrowfulness. She was very fond of her mother, +who reciprocated the special fondness, while Dr. Millar was rather +inclined to favour Annie and Rose, and both father and mother petted +May. + +"Will it ruin us, mother?" inquired Annie directly, but before her +mother could answer her, Annie's practical mind took a sudden flight. It +went straight back to the purchases which she and Rose had been making +that afternoon. They had been at "Robinson's," of all places. But Tom +Robinson was only to be seen in the glass office, or walking about the +place in the morning, at hours which these two customers had carefully +avoided. Dora's heart had quaked all the same, in dread of an event +which, bad enough when it was confined to a passing bow, or a limp +hand-shake and half a dozen words exchanged in the street, would have +been intolerable in "Robinson's," under the eyes of his satellites. Yet +for the Millars to have refrained altogether from going to the one great +shop in the town, where women oft did congregate, would have been to +expose an event, the participators in which devoutly hoped was buried in +oblivion. They had been in Miss Franklin's department without anything +untoward happening; but it was neither "Robinson's" nor the person who +served them there that flashed like lightning across Annie's thoughts at +this crisis. It was the articles the girls had been buying, the Tussore +silk and Torchon lace for frocks that Annie and Dora had meant to wear +at a garden-party--for which the Dyers, the new people who had come to +Redcross Manor-house, had sent out invitations. If the Millars were +ruined, they were not likely to go to many more garden-parties, and +though the sisters might still want frocks, yet frocks of Tussore silk +trimmed with Torchon lace--granted that the materials had appeared a +modest and becoming wear for a doctor's daughters an hour before--might +not be quite an appropriate selection in the family's altered +circumstances. + +"It depends upon what you call ruin," Mrs. Millar was saying +falteringly, "and of course the bank's assets may turn out better than +is thought just now, though your father is far from hopeful. He says all +his savings will go, and he may count on having to pay bank 'calls' on +his income till the business is wound up, which may not be in his +lifetime. No doubt he is taking the darkest view of things at present." +Then she yielded to the relief of pouring forth some of the coming woes +in detail. "Oh, my dears, your father says, though nothing can be +settled in a moment, there is one thing certain--this house must be +given up." + +"Our house!" cried both of the girls in dismay. + +"Where we were all born, where father himself was born," pleaded Dora, +still hanging about her mother. + +"The Old Doctor's House--why, it seems to belong to the practice," +protested Annie, sitting down, taking off her hat and tossing it on the +bed as if the better to realize the situation. + +"No, I don't think it would hurt the practice--not in a town the size of +Redcross, where everybody would know where your father was to be found, +though he were to change his house again and again. Still it does seem +hard," she admitted, as she covertly wiped away a tear, "particularly +when the fault has not been ours--we have always lived within your +father's income, even though his practice has been falling off in these +bad times, what with his getting up in years, and what with these young +doctors trying to get in their hands everywhere. He tells me that he has +never had to find fault with me for extravagance," she finished +wistfully. + +"I should think not," said Annie emphatically. "Why you have always been +as simple as simple could be in your own tastes and habits, not a woman +in your circle dresses more quietly. You have hardly even driven in the +brougham when father was not wanting it, in case you should over-work +the horse--you have always said, but I really believe that you chose to +walk for the simple reason that many of your acquaintances had no +choice. Nobody can ever reflect upon you, mother, for having wasted +either father's means or other people's," said Annie, with a bright +glance which became her infinitely. + +"Thank you, my love, for saying so," replied her mother gratefully; "and +you see it is as well that I did not accustom myself to driving, among +other indulgences, for another of the retrenchments which your father +mentioned was putting down the brougham. Yet how he is to manage his +more distant patients on foot, at his age, I cannot imagine," she broke +off in helpless distress, clasping her hands tightly together, according +to a way she had. "It seems downright madness to propose it." + +"Then you may be sure it will be prevented," said Dora with earnest +trustfulness, as she gently patted her mother's cap. "Nobody can ask a +sacrifice from him which he is unable to make. Mother, do you know what +I was thinking? that the only occasions on which you and father were +regardless of expense have been where the profit or pleasure of us girls +was concerned. You have given us every advantage you could get for us in +the shape of education. You sent Annie and me to London to take these +costly music-lessons;--Annie, I wish we had made more of them. You +arranged that we should go on that foreign tour with the Ludlows." + +"We did our best for you--your father and I. I think I may say that," +admitted Mrs. Millar simply. + +Dora went on eagerly with her generous catalogue. "There was the young +artist who exhibits at the Academy and the Grosvenor, who was sketching +at Nenthorn, you had him over at a high price once a week, and he +condescended to help Rose with her drawing and painting. Then there was +Mr. Blake, the university man whom father considered so far in advance +of any classical master Miss Burridge could afford, he was induced so +long as he was staying at Woodleigh to bring on May with her Latin and +Greek." + +"So far so good," said Mrs. Millar, in her excitement borrowing one of +her husband's brisk, cut and dry phrases. "I hope you will reap the +benefit of any effort we made, dears, because"--she hesitated, and +nearly broke down--"well, I don't think you need mind so much your +father's giving up this house and going into a smaller one; I'm sure I +don't mind it at all when I think what other people will have to suffer; +and as for you, why, you may not be here--not always, at least. We are +afraid, your father and I, that you'll need to go and do something to +keep yourselves." + +"To be sure," said Annie promptly. "Don't trouble about that, mother; +we'll be only too glad to be of use!" + +"We'll be too thankful to relieve you and father as much as we can," +said Dora in a voice soft and fervent, but less assured. + +"That will be the least trial," asserted Annie fearlessly. + +"Oh, you don't know what you're saying!" cried Mrs. Millar, fairly +giving way and permitting herself to sob for a minute or two behind her +handkerchief. "You are dear, good girls! I knew you would be, and so +brave that I ought to take courage; but young people are so hopeful and +inexperienced. I don't wish you to be unhopeful, of course, still you +cannot tell what it is for your father and me to send our girls--our own +girls whom we have been so proud and fond of, that have been making the +old house brighter and brighter ever since they were born--out into a +cold world, to have to struggle for a pittance, to lose their youth and +its privileges, to be knocked about, and perhaps ill-treated, and looked +down upon by people in every way their inferiors." + +"Don't, mother," interrupted Annie with decision; "you're conjuring up +bogies which have ceased to exist now-a-days. Think of the women who go +out into the world by no compulsion, simply for the honour and pleasure +of the thing, because they will not stay at home to lead idle, useless +lives, when there is needful work to be done abroad. I don't question +that they have difficulties to encounter, but I have yet to learn that +staying at home will keep away crosses. Brave women can bear whatever +trouble comes. I have often thought of such workers, if you will believe +me"--the girl was in a glow of animation--"with both shame and envy. It +is true I have not proposed to join them," she added in a lower tone, +"because I knew I was young for such work and not half good enough or +clever enough, and because we were all so happy at home--you and father +made us so," and Annie turned away her head, and forthwith came tumbling +down a few steps from the exalted position she had taken up. + +"No, don't tell me, Annie Millar," said her mother with something like +passionate resistance, "that any good father or mother can be glad to +send their young daughters out into the wide world to fight and suffer +by themselves. It is not natural and it is not true. It is an altogether +different thing to give them to good men who will take care of them and +make them happy." + +"But if the good men are not forthcoming, or if they happen to be the +wrong men," protested Annie. There was an irresistible twinkle in her +dark eyes, in spite of the care and trouble that had come upon the +household, which she was too sensible and warm-hearted a girl not to +share fully. + +Dora stood conscience-stricken and guilty-looking, until, as she stroked +her mother's locked hands, she at last found words to put in her humble +petition, "We shan't all go away, mother dear. Father and you must let +one of us stay to take care of you and cheer you?" + +"Oh, my dear, we are not old enough, at least I am not old enough to +accept such a boon, supposing we are very poor," said Mrs. Millar +sadly, "and in that case it might be sacrificing one of you, and +spoiling your prospects in life." + +"No, no," cried Dora vehemently. + +"Dora means that one of us ought to stay at home to set your cap right," +said Annie brusquely. + +It sounded an inopportune jest, positively unfeeling. The truth was +Annie still laboured under the common youthful necessity to hide her +deeper feelings, an obligation made up of a touch of hysterical +excitement, pride, shyness, and possibly the unsubdued buoyance of +two-and-twenty years. The last is apt to rebound swiftly, with a mixture +of cheerfulness and defiance from any sorrow, short of the one sorrow +which cannot be trampled down or made light of, that has its root in a +grave. Annie must find something to laugh at, to get fun out of, in the +tribulation which she nevertheless felt in every nerve of her body, to +the core of her heart. + +"I ought to be able to keep my cap straight," said poor Mrs. Millar very +literally and meekly, looking a little puzzled by Annie's ill-timed +nonsense, and apparent hardness. "I daresay I should pin it, but the +pins drag my hair so and hurt me." + +"Never think of it, mother," said mild Dora indignantly, looking daggers +at Annie. + +"Of course I did not mean that, mother. I was not in earnest," Annie +made the penitent amendment. + +"You are right to make the best of things," said Mrs. Millar, giving a +little shivering sigh on her own account. "It is the will of Providence. +We are in God's hands, poor Mr. Carey and all of us, as we were a year +ago--twenty years ago when you two were babies." + +They were simple truisms which she uttered, but they were honest words, +which meant a great deal to her. They borrowed impressiveness from the +truthfulness of the speaker, in addition to the truth of the sayings, +and by force of sympathy told on the listening girls, quieting and +controlling them. + +"Poor Mr. Carey as you say, mother," Annie caught up the words. "Well, I +suppose the Careys will be in a far worse plight than we can be, and +Cyril has been such a fool, though I don't suppose he meant much harm, +with his dandyisms and idleness and his college airs--all that he has +brought back from college." + +"Hush! child," exclaimed the elder, more tolerant woman. "He has been a +silly, selfish lad, but as he will know it now, to his cost, I do not +like to hear you casting it in his teeth to-day. Perhaps it will steady +him, and then this misfortune will be a blessing so far as he is +concerned." + +"Rather hard that we should all be sacrificed to prop up Cyril's weak +moral nature," muttered Annie. + +"And the Russells," suggested Dora. "I have heard Colonel Russell +speaking to father, as if he and the Rector also had to do with the +bank. Oh! there is Ned Hewett, who has not passed his Cambridge +examination any more than Cyril Carey. Not that it has been Ned's fault, +or that he goes in for nothing save amusement, only he is so slow over +his books, poor fellow! He will grudge his father's having spent money +over him to no purpose more than ever now; and Lucy and Bell will be +sorry for him--they are so fond of Ned." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +PROMOTION. + + +At that moment a rush was heard on the stairs, and Rose and May burst +into their mother's room, Rose at the last moment bethinking herself +that she had left school, accordingly she must be grown up, or on the +brink of it, if Annie would but allow it, and therefore trying to +moderate the headlong pace, which would have better become a troop of +boys than a pair of girls. + +"Little May," who, in spite of her height, was still in frocks an inch +from the ground, was not troubled by any such scruples. She scampered up +to her mother, and hailed her breathlessly--"Mother, we want you to let +us--Rose and me--go with Ella and Phyllis Carey a walk to the Beeches. +Ella says she saw some periwinkles and young ferns there, and we need, +oh! ever so many fresh roots for the rockery. We should have gone +without coming home to tell you, because you wouldn't mind, but we might +have kept tea waiting, and we'll be horribly late. Besides, we are not +coming home for tea; Ella and Phyllis say we must go up with them to the +Bank House." + +"No, no, my dears, you can't do that," said Mrs. Millar, hurriedly but +decidedly. "I am sorry that you should be disappointed, but you must not +think of such a thing. Ella and Phyllis don't understand--don't +know--that their mother is particularly engaged this afternoon. She will +not wish to have people in the house, not even in the schoolroom." + +Rose and May looked in wonder at their mother, discomposed enough in her +own person, sitting leaning back in her chair doing nothing; she whose +motherly hands were wont to be busy with some little bit of sewing or +knitting. + +Annie, too, was sitting idle at a short distance, with her hat thrown on +the bed, but still wearing her jacket; and Dora, in her walking dress, +was standing like a lady-in-waiting, or a sentry, behind Mrs. Millar's +chair. + +Annie and Dora remained silent, looking at the intruders in a peculiar +manner. At the same time the first pair did not tell the second more or +less curtly, as the elder girls had been in the habit of doing not so +very long ago, to go away and leave grown-up people to finish important +discussions in peace. + +What other new thing could have come about? Was there a fresh wooer in +the field, a second offer of marriage to be laid at reluctant feet? Was +it Annie, their beauty, who was in request this time? Who was the lover? +not Cyril Carey, with his plush waistcoat and gold chains and odious +snuff-box? He had no means of keeping a wife, unless his father took him +into partnership in the bank, and their father would not hear of Cyril; +besides, Annie held him in supreme disdain. She had more patience with +Tom Robinson and "the shop" than with the nineteenth century dandy, whom +she pronounced a mistaken revival of one of the many curiosities of +Queen Anne's reign. + +But Rose and May had no certainty that Annie was the object of pursuit. +She was pretty enough, they had all pinned their faith to her beauty, +yet already Dora had been preferred before her, though it was only by +the head of "Robinson's." Was it possible that now it might be Rose, +unsuspecting, unconsulted? Could her own mother and sisters be so unfair +as to arrogate to themselves the settlement of her affairs without her +consent or knowledge, without so much as admitting her into the +conclave? + +Annie took the initiative, she was sufficiently quick to see both behind +and before her. She had a head for directing and managing which her +mother did not possess. + +"Mother, don't you see they had better be told at once?" she said, with +the aplomb of a girl who, however young and irresponsible, is capable of +arriving at independent conclusions and reversing existing conditions. +"They are, as Rose says, all but grown up; indeed not so very much +younger than Dora and I. I think Rose and May are entitled to be told." + +Annie was proceeding to act upon the permission implied in her mother's +nod. She was not without some small sense of personal importance in +being the mouthpiece which was to announce the calamity to her younger +sisters. She did it in a very different fashion from that in which their +mother had broken the news to her and Dora. + +"What we are going to speak to you about is not a thing that can be long +concealed. It will not be a secret for more than a few days, if for so +long. But that does not mean that you are not to shut this room door +which you have left wide open. Thanks, May. Don't bang it! You are not +to show that you know what is going to happen. And, after it has +happened, you are not to chatter about it before the servants or to your +companions. We are trusting you because you have almost come to the +years of discretion, and ought to have a notion how to behave under the +circumstances." + +"Well, this is too bad of you, Annie!" cried Rose, showing instant +symptoms of revolt. "What have May and I done that we should be spoken +to as if we were a pair of tell-tales, or babies--and geese into the +bargain? Dora and you are not so much older, as you confess; neither are +you so much wiser with all your pretensions. If something of so much +consequence to everybody is on the eve of happening, I think we might +have been told before. Surely mother is not afraid that we should repeat +anything which we ought not to mention," and she glanced with burning +reproach at her mother. + +Rose was both high-spirited and touchy. She was not disposed to play the +second part without a murmur like Dora. She was not content, with her +art as a balance to Annie's beauty and May's budding scholarship. Rose +desired everybody to acknowledge her mother-wit and trustworthiness. + +Dora and Mrs. Millar spoke together in reply. "Mother only told Annie +and me this afternoon," said the general peacemaker. + +"It was not such a pleasant piece of information for me to give, or you +to receive, child, that you and May should grudge my keeping it from you +as long as I could, as I dared," was the mother's weary reply. "Besides, +your father did not wish it spoken about before; it would have been +wrong, a great risk to many others as well as to ourselves, to have +mentioned such a thing." + +"Then don't tell us now if you don't care to, mother, and if father +disapproves of our hearing it," said Rose magnanimously, for she was +dying to be at the bottom of the mystery. + +"No, don't, mother dear, please don't, if it will hurt you," said May +affectionately, with something of a childish ring in her voice. Her +mother took her hand at the words and clasped it tightly. + +"Mother has made up her mind and father has given her leave to speak," +said Annie with determination, "because you must hear soon anyhow. There +is something wrong with the bank, Mr. Carey's bank. We have all, even +May, read and heard of bank failures, and have some idea how disastrous +they are." + +"The Carey's bank!" cried Rose, with sufficient intelligence in her +astonishment. "I understand now why we were not to go home with Ella and +Phyllis." + +"Then somebody must run over and tell them that we are not coming," +interrupted May. "Do let Bella take the message, mother, in case I +should look as if I knew something. Poor Mr. Carey! he was always so +kind to us. I am so sorry; but the bank has not anything to do with us; +father is not the banker, he is just a doctor like grandfather," ended +May composedly. + +"O May, you are a baby, though you read the Greek Testament and have +something to say to Tacitus in the original," exclaimed Annie +indignantly. + +"Your father has shares in the bank, my dear," explained her mother with +patient reiteration. "He bought them with his savings, and he will get +nothing for them. Nobody will buy them from him again, they will be no +better than waste paper. But that is not the worst. The shares make him +responsible for the bank's debts--I am sure I cannot tell you how far; +he told me, I daresay, but I was so grieved for him and for all of you, +and so confused, I could not take it in. But he says that what he will +have to pay up will be as much as he can do, with a hard fight, for the +rest of his days." + +"I am so sorry for father," murmured May in an awed tone, but with a +little of a parrot note, just as she had pitied Mr. Carey, who was only +an old acquaintance and the father of her friends. The fact was that the +young girl, brought away suddenly from her girlish interests and her +whole past experience, and plunged into the cares of older people, was +thoroughly staggered and bewildered, in spite of a small head which was +capable of construing Latin and conjugating Greek. + +There was a moment's pause. "Will it make a great difference to father +and the rest of us?" asked Rose, in spite of her quickness, and in spite +of what her mother had said. + +"Certainly," Annie took it upon her to answer, with a mixture of fire +and conviction, "we'll all have to earn our living." + +"Oh, don't make such sweeping statements, Annie, frightening your +sisters," said their mother reproachfully; and unquestionably May looked +scared, and dropped her gloves without noticing it. "You must do what +you can to help your poor dear father, and I am sure you'll do that +willingly, but so long as he is spared to work for all of us----" She +stopped short, unable to say any more. + +Then her daughters closed round her, from the youngest to the eldest, +and told her in concert that she was not to be concerned for them. They +were ready for the occasion and equal to it, and they would not mind in +the very least. + +"Mind!" declared Rose, with her eyes beginning to shine and her cheeks +to flush like Annie's. "Why, it is the one great comfort that we'll have +to make our way in the world, and push our fortunes like boys. We'll +have plenty of adventures and rise triumphant over them all, and be such +a help to you and father. Think of that, May, you little coward," +appealing to her younger sister who, in spite of her small dabbling in +masculine acquirements, did not look as if the prospect of pushing her +fortune like a boy was full of unmixed charm for her. But she +brightened up at the visionary honour and delight of being a great help +to their father and mother, and cried, "Yes, yes, Rose," with subdued +enthusiasm. + +Dora also echoed the "yes" with a quiet intensity. + +Annie, on her part, graciously approved of her juniors, and rewarded +them by patronizing them tremendously. + +"That is right. I don't very well know yet what Dora and I can do, but +we'll find something. However, you two young ones are the geniuses of +the family, and we'll look to you. I suspect Dora and I will have to +march under your wings. You, Rose, must be quick and paint Academy +pictures, get them hung on the line, and have them sold before the +opening day. May must pass all her examinations in no time, gain a +scholarship, and be appointed classical mistress to a Girls' Day-school, +of which she will eventually become the head. Fancy 'little May' a +full-blown school ma'am." + +"Dear! what creatures girls are! They are jesting and laughing already +over their own and other people's misfortunes. It is little they know of +life, it is little they guess what will befall them," sighed Mrs. Millar +to herself. Nevertheless, in the middle of her anxiety and sorrow, she +was in some respects a happy woman, and she had a dim but consoling +perception of the truth. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE CLOUD DEEPENS. + + +The storm burst, but the cloud did not disperse, it only closed in more +darkly over Redcross. At the same time, as the bank authorities had +foreseen, there was little or nothing of the wild, panic-stricken run on +the capital which heralds and intensifies many a bank's fall. The losers +went about their ordinary occupations. The Rector preached, presided +over meetings of the vestry and Christian Associations, and attended to +his sick. Doctor Millar looked after his sick. Colonel Russell even went +to the Literary Institute and read the newspapers as usual. Every one of +them wore his customary face, however abnormal the working of his heart. +The Redcross victims, and many another innocent man besides, behaved +like gentlemen, Englishmen, and Christians. There was neither outward +fuss nor fury. + +The individual who came nearest to breaking down was naturally Mr. +Carey. The very forbearance with which he was treated cut to the quick +the honest man who had been the tool of fools and knaves, brazening out +their share of the business and contriving to escape with the least +damage of anybody. They had been impecunious, trading upon other +people's funds to begin with, and Carey's Bank's failure only left them +where they were originally, under circumstances in which no reasonable +person would expect redress from them. But poor James Carey, who had +been credulous and weak, was made of other stuff. + +"I'm not easy about Carey," the little doctor confided to his wife. "He +was talking quite in a stupid, dazed way to Russell and me this morning. +Do you observe his eyes? Have you noticed the veins on his forehead and +his throat? I'm far from comfortable about him." (As if he felt +comfortable about anything at this period!) "I question much whether +he'll ever get over it." + +The public of Redcross, who could remark the glassy look of the eyes, +though they might not be qualified to speak of the condition of the +veins, were still more struck by the immediate and melancholy effect the +bank's failure had on Mr. Carey, when their attention was drawn to Mrs. +Carey's behaviour. She was a woman who had seldom left her house save +for her daily drive, now she walked out with her husband every fine +afternoon. Her arm was drawn through his; but it was evident at the +merest glance that she was supporting his failing steps and not he hers. +She was a little, thin, somewhat wizened woman, but she looked equal to +the task she had set herself, if a strong will would do it. There was a +peculiarity to be seen in her eyes too, by those who could read the +sign. It was a fixed desperate determination to keep her husband and the +father of her children by sustaining his weakness with her strength, to +fight and vanquish the enemy whose icy touch was already on his heart +and brain. + +But although there was little outward demonstration in Redcross, much +inner ferment and growing concern prevailed beneath the surface in what +had been considered the principal houses in Redcross--houses safe and +sure as they were honourable in their ascendancy in the past. After the +affairs of the bank were in the hands of liquidators, and it became +clear that the ruin was great and complete, hope had hardly a hole or +corner left to linger in, even in the hearts of the most simple and +sanguine. The impending changes which must follow became the talk of the +town, extending to circles far beyond that on which the blow had fallen. +Within the narrower limits, the anxious question what was to be done +became the one engrossing, breathless subject of the hour. + +Some of the reforms and retrenchments were marked by the spasmodic haste +and severity which are apt to defeat themselves. These formed pendants +to the spurts of grovelling distrust and quaking care for one's own +welfare which caused Wilkins the butcher to send in his quarter's bill +before it was due to Colonel Russell, and have the debt discharged +within the hour. In like manner, Honeyman the grocer felt bound +delicately to intimate to the Careys that he declined to give the family +more than a week's credit. He was answered in a formally polite note +from Mrs. Carey to the effect that she had not intended to ask for any +longer credit thenceforth, but from that date she would pay ready money. +These offensively defensive acts and vulgar tokens that times were +changed got wind, and were discussed in awed, indignant whispers by the +mass of Wilkins's and Honeyman's fellow-townsmen. + +There was little need to remind the poor Careys of their altered +circumstances, since it was in the Bank House that some of the spasmodic +sweeping reforms referred to had at once been practised by Mrs. Carey. +She had always been the ruling spirit in the house, and people now said +openly that it would have been well for everybody if she had been the +ruling spirit in the bank also. She was a woman with locally +aristocratic connections, of a more tangible kind than what constituted +the Millars' shadowy link with the county. Her brother was Sir Charles +Luxmore of Headley Grange, and her nephew had allied himself to the +peerage by marrying an Honourable Victoria Brackenridge. All the greater +the glaring recklessness and insolence of Honeyman to take the word into +his own mouth and refuse the Careys credit. At the same time Sir +Charles's place was nearer the town of Nenthorn than that of Redcross, +and he did not deal with Redcross tradesmen unless at election times. As +for his daughter-in-law, the Honourable Victoria, she came so seldom to +see her aunt-in-law that her face could not be said to be known in +Redcross streets, where she never entered even the "fancy shop" which +the other county ladies patronized occasionally in search of missing +shades of silks or wools. + +Mrs. Carey had stooped considerably when she became the wife of Mr. +Carey of the bank, though the bank was nominally his own, and the Careys +were a highly respectable family of old standing in Redcross. When it +came to that, there had only been two generations of the Luxmores at +Headley Grange, and the original baronet's rise to the honours of +knighthood and a baronetage was due to his success and favour in high +places as a fashionable physician. Mrs. Carey had not been very young +at the date of her marriage, and her fortune was moderate enough, for +the moneyed strength of her grandfather and father had gone to found a +family and support a baronetage. Still, she had been accustomed to carry +herself, after she became Mrs. Carey, not in an obtrusive and offensive +manner, but in a quiet, well-bred way, as one who had been undeniably +better born and bred than her neighbours. Indeed, under any +circumstances she would have been a reserved woman, who would, in homely +parlance, have kept herself to herself. + +This was the woman who, with an absence of any sense of proportion, and +an equal lack of humour, sometimes to be found in women of her class and +character, together with an excess of mingled fiery zeal and feverish +apprehension, hidden under a quiet exterior, took her measures on the +very day after the bank's failure. These measures made a thorough +exposure of the conclusion which she had arrived at, and subjected +herself and the whole family to immediate privations, for which they +were unprepared. They were injurious as well as useless and uncalled +for, and had a ludicrous side. Acting for Mr. Carey, she dismissed the +coachman and the gardener, paying them their month's wages which were +unearned. She let the valuable horses take their chance of casual +grooming and feeding, till they were sold off. She left the garden at +the most critical time of the year, as the old gardener said with tears +in his eyes, when the young vegetables were only coming into use, and +the whole fruit would be lost unless it were properly seen to. The wood +pigeons would have all the later seeds springing in the beds, and the +place on which he had bestowed so much time and labour would lie waste, +instead of providing a considerable part of the food of the household in +summer and autumn. "But there was never no sense in them ladies like +missus, no more in their sparing than in their spending." At one fell +swoop she dismissed her own maid, the cook, and the parlour-maid, +retaining only a young table-maid to "do" for the family. + +Mrs. Carey had hitherto been an indulgent mother, but all at once she +told the scandalized university dandy and failure, Cyril, that he must +brush his own boots and help his schoolboy brothers to clean the knives, +if he were not satisfied with what a maid-of-all-work could accomplish +in these departments. + +As for Ella and Phyllis, looking on aghast at the wholesale destruction +of what they had been accustomed to consider the ordinary comforts--not +to say the luxuries and refinements of their home--the girls were +informed that they were not to go back to Miss Burridge's, where their +quarters were paid in advance. The younger brothers might continue at +the Grammar School, because the fees were low; they would be kept out of +harm, and they could do nothing else to speak of. But Ella and Phyllis +had better lose no time in learning to make beds, sweep floors, and lay +tables. "For myself, I have your father to see to," said Mrs. Carey in +her somewhat deep and strong voice, the measured steadiness of which had +acquired a ringing vibration. "I do not mean to conceal from you that +Dr. Millar is apprehensive on your father's account, and I intend to +devote myself to him. We must pull him through and save him at any cost, +though his health and nerves may be shattered from this date, and he may +never be able to retrieve his losses and those of other people, which, +of course, press most heavily upon him. We can try at least for the +credit as well as the life which is so dear to us, and never have it +said for his sake, still more than for ours, that he was blind and +imposed upon, and then let himself slip out of the misery which he had +helped to bring about, while others who were not accountable were +condemned to pay the penalty." + +Mrs. Carey would fain not have touched a farthing of the income allowed +the family till the bank's affairs were wound up--that winding-up which +Dr. Millar said might last throughout his life. She would willingly +have resigned the bulk of her small fortune in favour of the bank's +creditors, but marriage settlements and trustees are stubborn facts to +deal with. All she could do was to stint and punish herself and her +family in the manner described, and inasmuch as the stinting and +punishment were done in good faith, doubtless they would serve their +purpose and have their reward. + +The Rector was a widower. Hitherto he had kept an efficient housekeeper +and chaperon for his daughters, the elder of whom must now take the +housekeeper's place. He, too, put down what had served him for a +carriage. It was remarkable how uniformly the first idea of retrenchment +took this form in Redcross, but it was natural under the circumstances. +It was difficult to say at once what was to be cut down from a not very +extensive list of supernumeraries, unless one was prepared to make a +clean sweep like Mrs. Carey. The Rector had been simple enough in his +tastes and habits. He was a member of the Church of England Temperance +Society, and so had no valuable cellar of wine to dispose of. He did not +possess more silver plate than was wanted for the Rectory table. His +library contained no rare and costly books. The very carriage in +question was no more than one of those pony-phaetons with regard to +which Bishop Pattison appealed, in one of his letters from Melanesia to +his brethren in peaceful, pleasant country rectories and vicarages at +home, asking the astonished clergymen, with their clergywomen in the +background, if they really considered the clerical equipage, with its +modest expense, equivalent to a divine institution? The Rector proved +his freedom from the superstition by doing away with the phaeton and its +pair, and falling back, as he was a spare man, on an old pony which the +children had ridden by turns. Though he was not a book fancier, he had +entertained a fondness for art, and since he could not indulge in much +picture buying, had dabbled in old prints, of which he had rather a fine +collection. This all at once vanished along with the phaeton. + +Bell Hewett, the second daughter, who was several years younger than her +sister Lucy, but had left Miss Burridge's some time before, and was as +far removed from a school-girl as Annie Millar herself, unexpectedly +appeared again on the familiar benches. She was not there as a junior +governess, she was not sufficiently clever or educated, since Miss +Burridge sought to work up to the new standards. Poor Bell was in her +old place, in her old classes, as a pupil once more, only she sat +looking deeply affronted, and nervously trying to make up for lost time, +among a set of young girls like May Millar. + +There was not much difference made in Colonel Russell's establishment. +But this was caused by one of two things. There was the probability of +the establishment's soon being broken up, if its master succeeded in +getting a post which should enable him to return to India. On the other +hand, the second Mrs. Russell was too foolish and self-willed to +comprehend without a prolonged struggle how she and her babies could get +along unless they were fortified by every imaginable aid in the shape of +an expensive table, fine clothes, a couple of under nurses, and a boy in +buttons. Fanny Russell, the Colonel's grown-up daughter by his first +wife, looked sad enough over the prospect of her father's departure at +his age, with his shattered constitution, and over what was to become of +herself, left behind with the frivolous, unreasonable young stepmother +with whom Fanny had never been able to agree. + +The Millars were still in the old quaintly spacious house with its great +bowery garden, for the plausible reason that Dr. Millar could not, on +the spur of the moment, find a purchaser or an available tenant. He took +some credit to himself for having more breadth of view and controlling +common sense than poor Mrs. Carey, otherwise he might have rushed off +and crammed his family into a small inconvenient house, for which, at +the same time, he would have had to pay rent, that was not called for, +unless in the form of rates and taxes, where his old house was +concerned. There might be something to say on the other side of the +question, but as yet that had not occurred to Dr. and Mrs. Millar. +However, the Doctor's brougham, like the Rector's phaeton, was a thing +of the past. He trudged manfully on foot to his patients. There are few +evils which do not offer some compensations. It really seemed as if the +Doctor's deprivation, which weighed heavily on his wife's mind, served +to divert it from other trials, by the degree to which it was occupied +in looking after her husband's changes of coats and boots, in order to +ward off evil consequences to his health. + +The four girls were so engrossed with what had happened and was going to +happen to them from the failure of Mr. Carey's bank, that they had +largely lost sight of the first wooer in the family. This was strong +evidence of the extent to which their minds were filled by the rapid +descent of what they called poverty on themselves and their neighbours. +Rose and May ceased to have qualms of conscience when they caught sight +of Tom Robinson fishing in the Dewes, not knowing what desperate +promptings of despair might not suddenly lay hold of a rejected and +forlorn lover. They left off glancing covertly at him in his pew at +church, for the purpose of detecting the earliest symptoms of a broken +heart and a galloping consumption. Instead they speculated on whether +Bell Hewett would have had a new hat if it had not been for the bank's +failure; and whether her brother's absence from home was owing to his +having gone to London for the first look at the columns of the +advertising newspapers, and that he might be on the spot to apply in +person at the addresses given, and to haunt the agency offices, as young +men are represented doing in novels. + +Inevitably Tom Robinson's recent intercourse with the family had been +confined to a formal call or two, awkward and unpleasant to all +concerned. Only Dr. Millar brought him into the conversation +occasionally, dealing with his name in the spirit of a faithful +partisan. "That good fellow Robinson did not draw out a farthing of his +deposit at the bank after disquieting rumours must have reached him. +Carey tells me that Robinson, in place of seeking to be reassured, did +his best to reassure him, Carey; told him never to mind him, he could +lie out of the money; he was willing to let others who had more need be +paid first. Ah! well, it is good to have it in your power to be both +just and generous, and it is still better to have a heart to use the +power. Robinson has acted handsomely throughout, in short, like the +gentleman he is. I wonder if his behaviour on this occasion will weigh +with snobs against the iniquity of his having a shop. I thought +Thackeray had done something to demolish similar rubbish when he +described the young cads who gave the schoolboy Dobbin the nickname +'Figs.'" + +The speaker was guilty of glaring rather fiercely at his daughters, +assembled for afternoon tea. They became eminently innocent and +meek-looking on the instant, but when the sisterhood were left to +themselves Annie delivered her opinion with admirable fairness and +candour. + +"I am sure I am glad that Tom Robinson should behave himself like a +gentleman, but that does not make his trade a profession fit for a +gentleman, neither does it render the man, with his lack of ambition and +his commonplaceness and dulness, an interesting specimen of humanity." + +"Not a man that a woman would care to die for," said Rose, wrinkling her +forehead and crumpling up her nose till her face was half its natural +length. "Oh, I say, think of any woman being so infatuated as to be +willing to die for an insignificant, foxy-headed, well-bred shopkeeper!" + +"Don't be slangy, Rose," Annie rebuked her sister. + +"Still I am very glad," said Dora's soft voice quite distinctly, and +while she blushed furiously she reared her little neck with an +unconscious gesture. It said plainly, "Yes, I am glad that the man who +sought me for his wife has shown himself liberal and merciful, so that I +can always think of him and his wishes with respect and gratitude." + +"And so am I glad," agreed May warmly. "It is so nice that 'Robinson's' +has not made its master grasping and greedy." + +"I don't know that rapacity is confined to trade," admitted Annie. "You +ought to know, May, for you have a good deal of intercourse with royalty +in your reading; but I have a notion that it has been the distinguishing +characteristic of a good many kings and emperors." + +Annie and Rose had grown more and more eager to take up their burdens +from the first day they were aware that there were burdens for them to +take up. They were becoming positively enamoured of pushing their +fortunes and encountering adventures--not in the least understanding, in +spite of their bright wits, what the burdens, fortunes, adventures might +mean. The two sisters' enthusiasm was just kept within bounds by two +drags on its quicksilver quality. These laggard spirits, Dora and May, +weighed upon their more enterprising companions. Neither could Annie and +Rose quite shut their eyes to the increase of wrinkles on their father's +face, and to their mother's red eyes when she came down of a morning. +If it had not been for these small drawbacks, it is to be feared that +Annie and Rose would have arrived at such a height of _tête exaltée_ +that they would have begun to rejoice in their own and their neighbours' +misfortunes. There was something so fresh and exciting in looking about +for openings and careers, in calculating how they were to earn their +bread--which would taste so sweet to those who earned it--and at the +same time save money. They were not quite so insane as to propose to +amass fortunes and fling them into the gulf caused by the crumbling away +of the late bank in order to redeem their father's pledge as a +shareholder. But surely in the course of a year or two they might help +him, and generally assist in keeping the old folks at home in state and +bounty. + +Annie and Rose looked on working for themselves in a very different +light from that in which they regarded Tom Robinson's sticking to his +father's and grandfather's shop. To be sure, they did not start with any +intention of keeping shops. Even if they had done so, the descent might +have been redeemed by a dash of sentiment and romance which did not +apply in the least to a man with only himself to look to, a man of +independent means to boot, who had forgotten what was expected from a +gentleman. + +There was no danger of Dora or May's being infected with their sisters' +frame of mind. Dora and May were mortally ashamed of themselves. They +feared they were not of the stuff of which heroines--not to say +martyrs--were made. They looked back almost as fondly and sadly as their +mother looked on the old state of matters. They dreaded with a shrinking +terror going away from home, leaving their people, facing the cold, +critical world, being left to their own slender resources. It was bad +enough in Dora, but it was really dreadfully disappointing in May, with +her youthful learning, to have so little spirit and courage; still so it +was, and in the meantime there was no help for it. Dora might have been +glad for purely personal reasons to get away from Redcross for a time; +but she was not thrown into Tom Robinson's company, and the fact of his +refusal had been kept so quiet by the Millars that, unless he himself +betrayed it, which was not likely, the greatest gossip in the place +could only suspect the truth. + +It was a small comfort to the unheroic pair, and perhaps to Annie and +Rose also, though they did not consciously take it into account, that +all the older professional men in the town, the leaders and those who +were on most intimate terms, were "in the same boat," as Dr. Millar had +said. But there was a family named Dyer lately settled at Redcross, a +semi-retired stockbroker, with his wife and daughters, who had come from +London to occupy Redcross Manor-house--naturally they had nothing to do +with Carey's Bank, and were still supposed to be rolling in wealth, as +they had been reported from the first. However, there was a notion that +the Dyers' riches had not been acquired in any very refined fashion. +Cyril Carey had always insisted, as he settled his collar and twirled +his cane, that stockbroker was simply pawnbroker writ large. Anyhow the +Dyers were not so distinguished in mind and manners as they were +wealthy. Old conservative folks sighed at the idea of Redcross +Manor-house, which had belonged to the Cliftons from time immemorial, +till the last Clifton fell into the hands of the Jews before he was +twenty, and was driven to break the entail by the time he was forty, +passing to a family of Dyers. The best that could be said of them was, +that the old people were comparatively inoffensive and the young were +presentable. They were inclined to be friendly with the town--it might +be till they could secure a footing with the county people, if that were +possible. They dressed well, thanks to their milliners and dressmakers, +kept a good table, a good stable, and a good staff of domestics, and +furnished Redcross--especially young Redcross--with country-house +hospitalities and gay gatherings, which they would otherwise have +lacked. Yet fanatics of young people like Annie and Rose Millar, who +were persuaded that they were now well acquainted with a reverse of +fortune, began to behave as if they considered it was no longer the +_crême de la crême_ of human experience to amass and retain a fortune. +They began to pity the rampantly prosperous family for the lack on their +part of any knowledge of life's vicissitudes, with their trumpet call to +earnest effort and supreme self-devotion--all that makes man or woman +worthy of the name. As for the younger Dyers, they were content to echo +the sentiments of their mouthpiece, the head of their house. He spoke in +the privacy of his family with a half-affable, half-contemptuous concern +for those unfortunate beggars of uppish Redcross townspeople who had all +come to smash by the failure of one paltry twopenny-halfpenny local +bank. + +The Millars were constantly hearing of fresh examples of hardship, and +courage to meet the hardship, piquing and inciting them to enterprise +and self-sacrifice on their own account. Now it would be May, who would +come in from Miss Burridge's with a blanched face, crying, "Oh! you +girls, do you know Ella Carey has gone and is not coming back again? +Phyllis is crying her eyes out, because she and Ella were never +separated before. No, Ella has not gone to be a lady-help, as she +thought she might do, after she had got a little more practice in +washing dishes and peeling potatoes. It is nothing bad, except that she +is gone for good and all, and it has been so sudden. And Mrs. Carey says +Ella is not to come back. One of her sisters, the one without children, +Mrs. Tyrrel, wrote and offered to take either of the girls. And what do +you think Mrs. Carey said? That Ella must go, because if she went there +would be a mouth less to feed. She was sorry, because she said it was +giving up Ella, and she told her she must not expect to have much more +to do with Phyllis and the rest of them at home, for it would be out of +the question, in the different circumstances of the Tyrrels and Careys, +for them to carry on frequent or intimate intercourse. Ella would have +refused if she had dared, for she is so fond of Phyllis and all of them, +even of her mother, though she has grown very hard since the bank +failed. She used to let the girls have their own way. Don't you +remember, Rose, she allowed us to dress up for charades out of her +wardrobe? Why, you once wore her wedding-gown pinned up round you. But +Mrs. Carey would not give Ella any choice. She repeated that there would +be one mouth the less to feed. She said Ella was the elder, and it was +her duty to her father and his creditors to go. So all poor Ella's +things were sought out and packed up last night--the letter only came +yesterday. She has had no time to bid Rose and me, or any of her other +friends, good-bye. She started with Cyril early this morning, and I +don't know what Phyllis will do without her." + +"She must do the best she can," said Annie promptly, "and occupy herself +with something better than gossiping with you when she chances to meet +you coming from school. I suppose that was the manner in which you heard +all this; I don't think Mrs. Carey will approve of such a waste of +time." + +"But, Annie," pled May, with her dark eyes ready to brim over, "poor +Phyllis has only me now, and she has a great many messages to go, +because their single servant has so much work to do in the house that +she cannot get out marketing. Mrs. Carey is always walking or sitting +with Mr. Carey. If it were not so, Phyllis is sure that her mother would +go out and not mind taking the market-basket herself--a rough, heavy +market-basket. The Careys' servants used to complain because one of them +was expected to carry it in the mornings. Phyllis is glad to let me have +it sometimes, her arms get tired and ache so. You see Jack and Dick are +not often home from school in time, and then they have the boots and +knives to clean. Cyril would carry it for her after it was dark, but +Mrs. Carey won't let her go out then, and sends her off to bed that she +may get up earlier for what she has to do in the morning." + +That rough market-basket over which the Careys' former servants had +grumbled, was like a badge of honour in certain shining eyes--far more +so than Thirza Dyer's thoroughbred, or Camilla and Gussy Dyer's +exquisite hats and dainty parasols. Even Annie Millar was not too old or +too wise to refrain from wishing that Mrs. Millar, who still would not +let her daughters soil their fingers if she could help it, had sent them +out marketing in their native town, each in her turn flourishing a +market-basket. + +At another time it would be Rose who would arrive flushed and breathless +with the great piece of news that Ned Hewett had taken the post of +station-master at a small station somewhere on the Yorkshire moors. He +had done it when nothing else turned up, without waiting to consult his +father. But the Rector had not forbidden him when he heard. Steadiness +and punctuality had always been Ned's strong points, so that, though he +had not taken his degree at the university, and his old masters had said +they were not surprised to hear it, he might be trusted not to wreck +trains, slay their passengers, and find himself tried for manslaughter. +The difficulty was to fancy a big, slow fellow like Ned rushing here and +there in a noisy, fussy little station. After all, it would only be +noisy and fussy at long intervals, and on rare occasions, "somewhere on +the Yorkshire moors." Ned might have time and space to walk about in. +But what of the uniform? Would the poor boy--they had all known him as a +boy--who had once cherished the notion of going into the army, have to +wear a railway company's coat and a station-master's cap? How funny it +sounded! Well, not altogether funny. There were Dora and May crying at +the bare anticipation. If they were ever on the Yorkshire moors, and had +to greet Ned in this extraordinary guise, it would be awkward for all +parties, to say the least. What were they thinking of? Of course they +would be proud to greet him when he was twice the man that he had ever +been. No doubt Cyril Carey would be glad to have Ned's chance; Cyril, +who had renounced his delicate plush vests and Indian gold chains and +charms, his loitering and dawdling, and taken to a shabby shooting-suit +and spade-husbandry. He was getting rid of his time and keeping out of +his mother's way by digging aimlessly in the garden. He was inquiring, +in a desultory fashion, all over Redcross for any opening in an office +which he could fill. He was not likely to find such an opening unless +it were made for him out of charity. He had not been trained to office +work, and he was far from having Ned Hewett's reputation for steadiness +and punctuality. If Tom Robinson should be the charitable man and ask +Cyril, a schoolfellow and college chum, to help him with his accounts, +the head of "Robinson's" would have to be at the trouble of running up +every column of figures over again. Cyril might ride to hounds and row +in a boat-race with the best; he might even have some elegant +acquaintance with the renaissance and old French, and be capable of +distinguishing himself in stately Latin verse, though that sounded more +than doubtful when he had been plucked at his university--the +inhabitants of Redcross did not, as a rule, pretend to be judges in such +matters. What they did know, because it had oozed out some time before, +was that Cyril Carey, though a banker's son, was lamentably weak in +arithmetic, and his handwriting would have been held a disgrace to any +shop-boy. + +Money was required to start lads in the world in the humblest fashion. +Ned Hewett wanted an outfit, and if possible furniture for his +station-house, that he might not begin on credit. Even girls, though +they had been a good deal set aside in such consideration, could not +enter on an independent career without money any more than boys could. +The Millars were therefore thankful that Mrs. Millar had a little money +of her own, not above a hundred and fifty pounds a year, settled upon +her from the first, by one of those marriage contracts which are so hard +to break, and she could use it to supply what was needed for the girls, +who were going into the world with such dauntless spirits and light +hearts. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +ROSE GOES WEST AND ANNIE GOES EAST. + + +In the end it was settled, to Annie and Rose's great satisfaction, and +no less to the temporary relief of Dora and May's quaking hearts, that +the two former were to take the first plunge into unknown waters. If +things had been as they were formerly, and there had been leisure to +spare from rougher rubs for highly delicate considerations, it might, as +has been hinted, have been held that Dora should have been the sister +selected to go away from Redcross--at least for a time. + +But a great deal had happened since Tom Robinson's unsuccessful suit and +all connected with it had been in honour hushed up. People had too many +weighty matters to think of to keep in mind that small sentimental +episode between a couple of young people. + +Rose's fate was chalked out from the first. She was to be an +artist--that went without saying. She had certainly artistic talent, she +might have genius. But though she had been tolerably well trained so +far, by a good drawing-master at Miss Burridge's, and by the lessons she +had received from the wandering exhibitor at the Academy and the +Grosvenor, neither she nor her family could be sufficiently infatuated +to imagine she wanted no more teaching. Their conceptions of art might +be crude, and their faith in Rose unbounded, but they did not suppose +that she had only to open her portfolio and sell its contents as often +as it was full. Dr. and Mrs. Millar made up their minds, Rose agreeing +with them, that she should have at least a year in a London studio. + +All the three considered it very fortunate when the artist who had +given her lessons at Redcross, hearing of her intention, and of what +had rendered it incumbent on her to work for her living, not only +recommended a studio in which art classes were held, but good-naturedly +gave her a testimonial and helped her to a post as assistant +drawing-mistress in a ladies' school, a situation which she could fill +on two days of the week, while she attended the art classes on the +remaining four. The salary thus obtained was of the smallest, but it +would supplement Mrs. Millar's allowance to Rose, and help to pay her +board in some quiet, respectable family living midway between the +school and the studio. Rose was a lucky girl, and she thought herself +so. Indeed that minimum salary raised her to such a giddy pinnacle in +her own estimation that it nearly turned her head. It was only her +sisters, the wise Annie among them, who regarded the assistant +drawing-mistress-ship with impatience as a waste of Rose's valuable +time and remarkable talents. + +A qualification came soon to Rose's exultation and to her pride in being +the first of her father's daughters--and she the third in point of +age--who had just left school, and had hardly been reckoned grown-up by +Annie till quite lately--to earn real tangible money, gold guineas, +however few. For something better still befell Annie. If Rose was lucky, +Annie was luckier. True, she would never be a great artist, she would +never get hundreds and thousands for a picture. At the utmost she would +only be at the head of a charitable institution. She might save the +greater part of her income then, and hand it over to her father, but +that was a very different prospect from the other. Still, from the +beginning Annie would be, so to speak, self-supporting; she need not +cost her mother or anybody else a penny, her very dress would be +provided for her. Above all Annie was going to do a great deal of good, +to be a comfort and blessing, not only to her people, but to multitudes +besides. She was, please God, to help to lessen the great crushing mass +of pain and misery in the world, not by passive, sentimental sympathy, +not by little fitful, desultory doles of practical aid, but by the +constant daily work of her life. Young as Rose was, and enamoured of art +in her way, she was able to comprehend that if Annie could do that +worthy deed, her life would be greater in a sense, fuller in its +humanity, perhaps also sweeter than that of the most famous and +successful painter. + +Annie had always taken a lively interest in her father's profession, and +he had liked her to do so. He had been fond of talking to her about it, +and enlightening her on some of its leading principles. He had even +pressed her into his service in little things, and been gratified by the +hereditary firmness and lightness of grasp and touch, the control over +her own nerves and power of holding those of others in check, the quick +and correct faculty of observation she had displayed. But with all his +loyal allegiance to the calling which had been his father's before it +was his, which he would have liked to see his son fill, if a son had +been born to him, he was taken aback and well-nigh dismayed, as her +mother was, when Annie came and told them quietly that she had made up +her mind, if they would consent, to go into an hospital and be trained +for a nurse. He laid before her as calmly and clearly as he could the +conditions of the undertaking, and reminded her that it could not be +gone into by halves, while he thought, as he spoke, that Annie was not +the style of young woman to go into anything by halves. + +Mrs. Millar followed with a trembling recital of the painfulness, the +absolute horror to a young girl of many of the details of the office. +But Annie was not shaken in the least. "I should not mind that," she +asserted with conviction. "I know there must be strict discipline and +hard trying work, with no respite or relaxation to speak of; but I am +young and strong, fitter to stand such an ordeal than most girls of my +age are qualified. I am too young, you say? Yes, I admit that; it is a +pity--at least I know I have always reckoned myself too young when the +thought crossed my mind six months--a year ago, of leaving home and +becoming trained for a nurse." + +"You don't mean to say, Annie, that you ever thought of going out into +the world before our misfortunes in connection with the bank?" cried +both father and mother in one breath. + +Annie hung her shapely head a little, then held it up, and confessed +frankly, "Yes, I have. Oh, you must forgive me. It was not from any +failure of kindness on your part, or, I trust, any failure on mine to +appreciate your kindness, for I believe you are the best, dearest father +and mother in the world," she cried, carried out of herself, and +betrayed into enthusiasm. "But what were you to do with a houseful of +girls, when one would have served to give you all the help you need, +mother, in your housekeeping and the company you see? I _have_ hated the +idea of being of no use in the world, unless I chanced to marry," ended +Annie, with a quick, impatient sigh. + +"My dear, you are talking exaggerated nonsense." Mrs. Millar reproved +her daughter with unusual severity, dislodging her cap by the energy +of her remonstrance, so that Annie had to step forward promptly, +arrest it on its downward path, and set it straight before the +conversation went any further. "Nobody said such things when I was +young. I was one of a household of girls, far enough scattered now, +poor dears!"--parenthetically apostrophizing herself and her youthful +companions with unconscious pathos--"I would have liked to hear any +one say to us, or to our father and mother, that we were no good in +the world. I call it a positive sin in the young people of this +generation to be so restless and dissatisfied, and so ready to take +responsibilities upon themselves. It is a temptation of Providence to +send such calamities as the one we are suffering from. You will know +more about life when you are forced to work for yourself, and do not +set about it out of pure presumption and self-will, with a good home +to fall back upon when you are tired of your fad." + +Mrs. Millar had been hurt and mortified by Annie's avowal. She had been +further nettled by the slighting reflection on a houseful of girls, made +by one of themselves, while she, their mother, the author of their +being, poor unsophisticated woman! had always been proud of her band of +bright, fair young daughters, and felt consoled by their very number for +the lack of a son. + +"Come, come, mother," said Dr. Millar, "you must make allowance for the +march of ideas." + +"I cannot help it," said Annie, with another quick sigh. "I suppose +girls are not so easily satisfied as they once were, or they have been +taken so far, and not far enough, out of their place. I could not have +remained content with tennis-playing and skating, or _réchauffé_ school +music, French and German, or fancy work, however artistic--not even with +teaching once a week in the Rector's Sunday-school--for my object in +life. But after the way in which things have turned out, there is no +need to discuss former views. Mother dear, it is surely well that I had +not a hankering after idleness, after lying in bed half the forenoon, as +people say the Dyers do, getting up only to read the silliest and +fastest of novels, with secret aspirations after diamonds and a carriage +and pair, if not a coach and six. Of course I should not have been +contented with a one-horse shay, a mere doctor's pill-box, such as you +have put down, father, which Rose and May are determined to set up for +you again before they are many year's older." + +"Good little chits!" exclaimed the little Doctor, blowing his nose +suspiciously. "Tell them, Annie, that I like walking above all things. I +find it a great improvement on driving. I have been troubled with--let +me see, oh! yes, cold feet--a deficiency in the circulation, not at all +uncommon when one gets up in years, and after walking a bit I feel my +toes all tingling and as warm as a toast." + +"I should prefer nursing to any other mode of earning my living," said +Annie, keeping to her point. "I may be presumptuous, like the girls of +my day, as mother says, but I really think that I have a natural turn +for nursing, derived from you father, and grandfather, no doubt, which +might have made me also a good doctor supposing I had been a man, or +supposing I had sought from the first to be a medical woman and had been +educated accordingly. If I am wrong, you will set me right, won't you?" + +In place of contradicting her, he simply nodded in acquiescence, while +he linked his hands across the small of his back. + +"Mother, I do not think I should shrink from dressing wounds, if I only +knew the best thing to do to avoid danger and give relief. You remember +when Bella burnt her arm badly from the elbow to the wrist, I tied it up +to keep out the air, before father came in, and he said it was rightly +done, and would not change the dressing. And when poor Tim, who has lost +his place with the putting down of the brougham, gave his hand the +terrible hack with the axe in breaking wood for cook, I was able to stop +the loss of blood, and did not get in the least faint myself. Yes, I +know it would be very pitiful to see a human creature die whom we could +not save," she added, in a lower tone, "and very sad to prepare such a +one for the grave. But, dear mother, somebody has to do it at some time, +and I may be the somebody one day, anyhow I shall have to be indebted to +my neighbour to do the last charitable offices for me. It might be all +the easier to look forward to in my own case if I had done it for other +people, not merely because they were my own, just because they were +God's creatures, and He had set me, among other women, to do the +sorrowful work, and would lend me strength for the task." + +"I believe it, Annie," said Dr. Millar firmly, as he looked at the +reverently bent head, and listened to the faltering yet faithful words. + +Mrs. Millar said no more, though the poor lady still shivered, as she +looked at the girl in her brilliant youthful bloom. It was too terrible +to think of her associated with disease and death, she whom her father +and mother would have sheltered from every rough wind. Yet what was +pretty Annie in the ranks of humanity, in the march of history? The +frivolous product of a heathen world, the feminine counterpart of some + + "Idle singer of an empty day"? + +or-- + + "A creature breathing thoughtful breath, + A traveller 'twixt life and death"-- + +a Christian girl who with all true Christians had the Lord Christ, who +went about doing good, for an everlasting example? And had there not all +along been something fine in Annie, under her superficial hardness and +inclination to conceal her feelings, something which her family had not +suspected, brought to light by their troubles? something of which +everybody connected with her would be prouder in all humility, with +reason, in the days to come, than they had ever been proud of her +supreme prettiness and lively tongue in times past. + +"It is a pity about my age," went on Annie ingenuously, lamenting over +her deficiency in years as other people lament over their superfluity in +that respect, "but it is a fault which will mend every day. I have +found out that there are two hospitals which make twenty-three--just a +year older than I am--the age of admission for probationers, and there +is one hospital that admits them at twenty. Would not the fact of my +being a doctor's daughter go for something? Have you not interest, +father, if you care to exert it, to get the hospital authorities to +stretch a point where I am concerned? You might tell them that I am the +eldest of the family," drawing up her not very tall figure, "that I have +been treated as grown-up for years and years, and that I have several +younger sisters whom I have tried to keep in order." There was a +returning twinkle in Annie's brown eyes and a comical curve of her rosy +lips. + +But she relapsed into extreme gravity the next moment; indeed, she was +more agitated than she had yet been, and for Annie to betray an approach +to tearfulness was a rare spectacle. + +"There is something worse than my age. I am afraid I am not half good +enough. I have a hasty temper; you have frequently said so, mother. I +often speak sharply, and am not always aware when I am doing it. I hurt +people, as I hurt myself, without being able to help it--something seems +to come over me and impel me to do it. Often I cannot resist making game +of people. I am so silly and fond of fun, like a child, a great deal +worse than 'little May' ever is, when the fit is upon me. Now, if I +could think that I should lose patience with poor sick people, and wound +instead of comforting them, or that I should find them food for my love +of the ridiculous, and forget and neglect their wants in following my +own amusement, I should hate myself--I would die sooner than so disgrace +a nurse's calling." + +"You would not do it, my dear," said Dr. Millar, with calm conviction. + +"Why, what treason is this you are speaking against yourself?" cried +Mrs. Millar, bristling up in her daughter's defence, the assailant being +that daughter. "You unkind or unfeeling when there was any call for +kindness--whoever heard of such a thing? I should as soon suspect Dora +of harshness or levity in the same circumstances. Don't you remember my +bad eyes last winter, when I had to get that tincture dropped into them +so often that your father could not always be at home to do it? You +dropped the tincture as well as your father could, and though I know I +must have made faces wry enough to frighten a cat, you never vouchsafed +a remark, and I did not hear the ghost of a laugh. Poor Dora was ready +to read to me by the hour, and to fetch and carry for me all day long, +but when she tried to drop the tincture her hand shook so that she sent +the liquid down my cheeks; and she was so frightened for giving me pain +that I could see when I opened my eyes she was as white as a sheet, and +fit to faint herself." + +"Dora's hand will get steadier and her heart harder by and by," said Dr. +Millar, laughing. "Not that she has the knack of the operator, any more +than you have, Maria. I don't think one of you has it, except Annie +here." + +"That was nothing," said Annie quickly. She added in a lower tone, "And +oh, mother, how could you imagine that I should laugh at your pain?" + +"It was only for a moment, and I daresay it was not agonizing, as I was +tempted to call it; very likely your father and you would not have so +much as winced at it. Then there was Miss Sill, poor old Miss Sill. +Annie, I am afraid you girls laughed at her. Girls will be girls, and +she does dress outrageously. You all said her mantles were worse than my +cap," tenderly touching that untrustworthy piece of head-gear. "When she +sent for your father all of a sudden, just when he had been summoned to +Dr. Hewett's brother, who was very ill, as we knew, while we thought +Miss Sill had only one of her maiden-lady fancies, your father told you +to go over and say he would be with her in the course of the day. But +you found her nearly choking with bronchitis. How you were not +frightened out of your senses, I, who am a great deal more than twice +your age, and the mother of a family, cannot tell. You propped her up +in exactly the right position, saw to the temperature of the room, and +caused her cook to bring in the kitchen boiler and set it to steam on +the hob, before another doctor could be found. Miss Sill told me all +about it afterwards; she believes she owes her life to you." + +"Oh, nonsense," protested Annie, "I was a little better than her two +servants, who stood looking at her, and beginning to sob and cry; but I +made several gross mistakes. You told me about them afterwards, father; +it was a great mercy that I did not cause her death." + +"So far from that," continued Mrs. Millar, in triumphant defiance, "she +calls you her young doctor to this day, and says she will send for you +in preference to your father or any other doctor the next time she has +an attack." + +"Infatuated woman!" declared Annie. + +"I have not needed to talk to you in order to get you to go with your +sisters and see her since then. You have gone of your own accord twice +as often, and I am sure you have not laughed at her half so much. In +fact, I believe you are becoming quite attached to her." + +"I suppose I am grateful to her for not dying in my unskilled hands. I +am afraid I still think her rather fantastic and foolish; but it does +make a difference in one's judgment of a person to have really rendered +him or her a service. I ought to be fond of Miss Sill, after all, if she +is to rank as my first patient." + +Mrs. Millar sank into silence on the instant. She stood convicted in her +own eyes. What had she been doing? Proving to her daughter's +satisfaction that she had the special talents of a nurse! + +"I am very glad that mother and you think me--not by any means good +enough, of course, not that, but not too impatient, sarcastic, and +trifling to be a nurse," said Annie brightly, addressing her father, who +simply acquiesced in an absent-minded fashion. + +After that there was no serious objection made to Annie's wish, great as +the wonder was at first--a shock to her relations no less than to her +acquaintances. The former reconciled themselves sooner to it than did +the latter, with an entire faith in Annie and an affectionate admiration +which was genuine homage. It swelled Dora's heart well-nigh to bursting +with sister-worship. How good Annie was showing herself, how capable of +great acts of self-denial and self-consecration, while she was prettier +than ever with her graceful head, her merry brown eyes, and that soft, +warm colour of hers! + +Only Mrs. Millar lay awake at night and cried quietly over what lay +before her young daughter, her first-born, the flower of the flock, as +people had called her in reference to her beauty. Annie's pretty +Grand-aunt Penny had at least enjoyed her day; she had had her triumph, +however short-lived, in marrying the man of her heart, who was also a +Beauchamp of Waylands, and in being raised for even a brief space to the +charmed circle of the county. What she had to go through--whether she +would or not--in the end, was not worse than Annie was proposing to +encounter in the beginning, to live in an hospital, to spend her +blooming life amidst frightful accidents, raging fevers, the spasm of +agony replaced by the chill silence and stillness of death. Annie's +father's time and strength had been given in much the same cause, ever +since he was a young man passing his examinations and taking his +diploma. But he was a man, which changed the whole aspect of affairs; +besides he had always had a cheerful home to come back to, with the +command of all the social advantages which Redcross, his native town, +could afford. He had not lived among his patients with no life to speak +of separate from theirs. + +At the same time Mrs. Millar felt herself powerless. She dared no more +interfere to keep back Annie from her calling than a good Roman Catholic +mother would forbid her daughter's "vocation." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +STANDING AND WAITING. + + +It was all over in its earlier stages, that dividing and dispersing of +the goodly young group of sisters, that bereaving and impoverishing of +the abandoned home to which Dora and May had looked forward with such +fear and pain, for which all Dr. Millar's fortitude and all his wife's +meekness had been wanted to enable them to bear it with tolerable +calmness. It was only Annie and Rose doing what every young man, with +few exceptions, has to do. It was only their going away to work out +their bents in London. They had often gone from home and followed +various impulses and promptings before. But this was different. All who +were left behind had a sure intuition that this was the beginning of the +end, the sifting and scattering which every large family must undergo if +their time is to be long on earth. Annie and Rose might often come back +on visits. Rose might even set up a studio in Redcross and work there, +but it would not be the same. She would be an independent member of +society, with her own interests to think of--however faithfully and +affectionately she might still be concerned for the interests of +others--and her individual career to follow. Her separate existence +would no longer be merged in that of a band of sisters; it would stand +out clearly and distinctly far apart from the old state of tutelage and +subserviency of each unit to the mass. The lament of the tender old +Scotch song over the departing bride applied equally to Annie and Rose, +though there were no gallant "Jamies" to accuse of taking them "awa', +awa'." In the same manner it was not so much over the cause of their +going that Dora and May lamented, or the father and mother's hearts were +sorrowful, as + + "Just that they'd aye be awa', awa'." + +One day as May was coming back from school she met Tom Robinson, and he +stopped her to ask how the family were, and to tell her something. There +had always been less restraint in his and May's greetings than there had +been in those of the others since his dismissal as a suitor. There was +something in May's mingled studiousness and simplicity, and in the +strong dash of the child in her, which dissipated his shyness and +tickled his fancy. If matters had turned out otherwise than they had +done, he told himself vaguely, he and "little May" would have been a +pair of friends. He had no sister, and she had no brother, and he would +have liked to play the brother to this most artless of learned ladies. +"Look here, Miss May," he said, after the usual formulas, while he +turned and walked a few paces by her side, "do you remember the +fox-terrier puppy I was to have got for you and your sister Rose, in the +spring? Well, he died of distemper, poor little brute; but I have heard +of another of the same kind that has had the complaint. I could get him +for you if you cared to have him." + +"Oh! I am so much obliged to you, Mr. Robinson, so very much obliged," +cried May, beaming with gratitude and pleasure. "Rose and I did so wish +to have that dear little puppy which you brought down to show to us +once--don't you remember? and so it is dead, poor little pet; and Rose +has gone away to London to be regularly trained as an artist, just as +Annie is in St. Ebbe's learning to be a nurse. I suppose you have +heard," she ended a little solemnly. + +"Yes, I have heard--let me carry these books for you a bit--what is +there of Redcross news that one does not hear?" Then he paused abruptly, +while there darted simultaneously across his mind and May's whether his +speech did not sound as if he thought that Dora Millar's refusal of him +must be public property? "For that very reason," he went on with a +momentary shade of awkwardness, "I mean, because two of your sisters are +gone, I fancied you might like this other little dog to keep you +company." + +"I have Dora," said May simply, and then she dashed on in an unhappy +consciousness that she ought not to have mentioned Dora's name to him on +any account. "I should like it immensely though--thank you a hundred +thousand times, it was so good of you to think of me. But Rose could not +have it now, could she? and she wished it quite as much as I did. It +does not seem nice to have it when she is not here to share it," +finished May, with wistful jealousy for Rose's rights in the matter. + +"I do not see the force of that objection," said Tom Robinson, +cheerfully. "Rose has something else instead. She has all London to +occupy her. I am certain she would like you to make the best of Redcross +without her." + +"Yes, and of course the little dog would be half hers, the same as if +Rose were here. She would see it every time she came home. She might +have her turn of it at her studio, when she gets a studio. In the +meantime I could write full particulars of it, how it grew and what it +learnt. Oh, Mr. Robinson, has it white boots like the other you +brought?" + +"I am afraid I did not attend to his boots, or to his stockings either +for that matter," said Tom with a laugh; "but he has a coal-black +muzzle, his teeth are in perfect order, and I believe he has the correct +tan spots." + +"If mother would let us," said May longingly. "You know Rose and I had +not spoken to her about it; we were waiting for a good opportunity to +ask her, when you were so kind as to give us the chance of having the +other little dog. Mother seldom refuses us anything which she can let us +have, still Rose was not sure that mother would give her consent. You +see she is troubled about the stair-carpets and the drawing-room rugs, +and the garden-beds, and we were afraid she would think we should have +the dog with us everywhere." + +"Then it rested with yourself, I should say, to show her that you could +keep a dog in his proper place." + +"But I doubt if I could," said May candidly, shaking her head, with the +brown hair which had till recently hung loose on her shoulders, now +combed smoothly back, and twisted into as "grown-up" a twist as she +could accomplish the feat; while to keep the tucked-up hair in company, +her skirt was let down to the regulation length for young ladies. +"Indeed, I am almost certain I could not refuse anything to a dear +little dog coming to me and sitting up and begging for what he wanted. +What is more, if I could Dora couldn't." She could have bitten out her +tongue the next instant. What was she doing always speaking of Dora? +What would he think? That she was wilfully dragging her sister's name +into the conversation? And what had tempted her to say that Dora could +not refuse anything to a dog, when she had refused her heart in exchange +for his to the man walking beside May? + +He made no remark. If his mouth twitched a little in reproach or +sarcasm, she could not see it under his red moustache; besides, she +dared not look at him. + +"I wonder," continued Miss Malapropos, "how I could let you know what +mother thought." She never once suggested his bringing the dog for +inspection, as he had brought the other, or calling for her answer. + +"You might drop me a note," he said, stopping to give her back her +books, "and I hope for your sake that it may be favourable, for this is +a nice little dog, and I think you would like him." + +May went home more nearly on the wings of the wind than she had done +since Rose's departure, and presented her petition. Mrs. Millar could +not find it in her heart to refuse it, though the stair-carpet, the +drawing-room rugs, and the garden-beds were all to be sacrificed. + +"Poor little May! she misses Rose, though Dora and May have become great +friends of late. Dora is very good, and puts herself on an equality with +May, as Annie could not have done. Still, she does not rouse the child +as Rose roused her. What do you think, Jonathan? Would a little dog be +in your way? Would its barking disturb you?" Mrs. Millar appealed to her +husband. + +"Not in reason, Maria; not if it does not take to baying at the moon, +or yelping beyond bounds. Dora gives in too much to May, in place of +taking the child from her books, on which naturally she is inclined +to fall back. Dora has become her audience, and listens to her +performances--even aids and abets them. I caught them at it yesterday. +First May actually declaimed several paragraphs from a speech of +Cicero's, and next she got Dora to repeat after her the most crabbed +of the Greek verbs. I shall have a couple of blue-stockings, and what +is worse, one of them spurious, in the room of the single real +production I reckoned upon among my daughters. By all means let May +have a howling monster. She is not too old for a game of romps; and I +must say, though I have never opposed the higher education of women, +I don't want her cultivated into a gossamer, a woman all nerves and +sensations, before she is out of her teens." + +"Do you suppose Tom Robinson can still be thinking of Dora?" suggested +Mrs. Millar dubiously. + +"I wish he were," said the little Doctor, ruefully. "I wish he were. +Yes, Mrs. Millar, I am sufficiently mercenary or sordid, or whatever you +like to call it, where one of my daughters is concerned, to give +expression to that sentiment. But I should say he is not, unfortunately. +Robinson is a shy man, and, no doubt, proud after his fashion. It must +have taken a great effort--premature, therefore mistaken, according to +my judgment--for him to screw himself up to the pitch of proposing for a +girl of whose answering regard he was uncertain. Having made the blunder +and paid the penalty, he is not at all likely to put his fate to the +touch again, so far as Dora is concerned. He is not the style of +pertinacious, overbearing fellow who would persecute a woman with his +attentions and ask her twice. Poor Dora has lost her chance, I take it." + +"I cannot say that I think it any great loss, to this day," answered +Mrs. Millar, stubbornly. She gave a toss of her head, of such unusual +spirit, that it so nearly dislodged her cap. Dr. Millar involuntarily +put out a finger and thumb to lay hold of the truant. "We have our +worldly losses, to be sure, and the other poor dear girls have gone out +into the world very cheerfully. I must say I could not have done what +they have done with so good a grace--so heroic a grace, not to save my +life, Jonathan. But that is not to say that they are to be in haste to +marry--tradesmen. Indeed, when I come to think of it, the fact of their +being so independent and able to provide for themselves, ought to be +like having so many fortunes. It should entitle them to be more +particular, and free to pick and choose the husbands who exactly suit +them. Another thing, if our daughters are not worthy of being wooed and +wooed, and asked--not twice, but half a dozen times, before they are +persuaded to say yes, I don't know who is. The idea of their jumping at +any man!--you have drawn me into vulgar language, Jonathan,--the moment +he makes his bow is too bad or too good, I do not know which to say. You +do not mean that I ever accustomed you to such forward behaviour?" + +"No, no, Maria," the gentleman assured her with a smile, "far from it. +There was a bad epidemic raging at the time our little business came +off, don't you remember? I forget now whether it was small-pox or +scarlet fever, but I know I was not only tremendously busy, I dared not +go to your father's house. Then I heard that another swain--an officer +fellow from the barracks at Craigton was hanging about either you or +your poor sister Dolly, nobody could tell which, and I dared not delay +longer. I was driven to the supreme rashness of committing my suit to +paper, and what do you think you wrote back? Have you forgotten? You +thanked me very prettily for the compliment I had paid you, and you +promised to give the substance of my letter your best consideration. +Literally that was all--to a man worn off his feet with work and +hungering for a word of assurance." + +"Go away with you, sir," exclaimed his wife, restored to high good +humour, and tapping him on the shoulder. "You understood me +perfectly--you had wit enough for that. You went off directly and +ordered new drawing-room furniture, what we have to this day, on the +strength of that letter--you know you did." + +"Showed how far gone, and what a confiding simpleton I was," he said, +and then he tried again to set her right with regard to Tom Robinson. +"You don't understand Robinson, Maria. It is not that he was not in +earnest, or that he is fickle or anything of the kind. It is rather a +case of the better man being beaten, and fools rushing in where angels +fear to tread. Such men as he is accept a sentence without disputing it, +because they do not think too much of themselves while they think a +great deal of other people. It is not a flaw in their sensitive +manliness, it is part and parcel of it, to know when they are dismissed, +and take the dismissal as final. They are not the most light-hearted and +sanguine of mortals, but they are constant enough, and brave enough to +boot, and a brave man is not without his compensations-- + + "'For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,' + +"some poet has written." + +"So much the better," said Mrs. Millar, again with a suspicion of +hauteur in her voice. "It is lucky for all parties, since I have not the +slightest reason to suppose that Dora would change her mind." + +"Then why find fault with poor Tom Robinson?" Dr. Millar remonstrated in +vain. + +The appearance of the dog on the scene with his fine pointed nose, alert +eyes, incessantly vibrating little tail, and miniver black and white +coat picked out with tan, caused May as much excitement and delight as +if she did not know one Greek letter from another, and were innocent of +Latin quantities. She was so wrapped up in her acquisition, so devoted +to his tastes in food, the state of his appetite, his sleeping place, +the collar he was to have, that for the first time in her life she had +to be reminded of her books. It needed her great superiority to her +companions in any approach to scholarly intellect and attainment to +enable her to retain the first place in Miss Burridge's classical +department. + +"What shall we call him, Dora?" she earnestly consulted her sister, +hanging breathless on the important answer. + +"Call him whatever you like, May. You know he is your dog," said Dora +with decision. + +"Mine and Rose's," the faithful May made the amendment. "Of course Rose +must agree to any name we think of, or it cannot stand. Perhaps she +would like to choose the name as she is away. Don't you think it ought +to be put in her power--that she ought to have the compliment?" +suggested May quite seriously and anxiously. "I shall write to her this +very minute." + +But Rose, like Dora, left the name to May. + +"It was so kind of Tom Robinson to remember and offer him to me," said +May meditatively. "O Dora! do you think I might call him 'Tom'?" + +"Certainly not," said Dora, with still greater decision. "What are you +thinking of, May? I don't suppose Mr. Robinson would relish having a +dog named for him. Besides, other people might wonder. 'Tom' is not an +ordinary name for a dog, though it is common enough for a man." + +"Nobody, not even the person most concerned, would know if I were to +call him 'Son,' the termination of 'Robinson,' you know," explained May, +after a moment spent in concocting this subtle amendment, and in +fondling the unconscious recipient of a title which was to distinguish +him from the mass of dogs. + +"Are you out of your senses, May?" was the sole comment Dora deigned to +deliver with some energy. + +"'Friend,'" speculated May; "there is nothing very distinctive about +'Friend,' and I am sure it was the act of a friend to get him for me." + +"'Foe' would be shorter and more easily said," was Dora's provoking +comment; "or why not 'Fox,' since he is a fox-terrier? You might also +desire to commemorate the donor's complexion, which you all used to call +foxy," said Dora, half reproachfully, half dryly. + +"I don't like _doubles entendres_," said May with dignity, "and if I +ever said anything unkind of Tom Robinson I don't wish to be reminded of +it now; anyhow, I could never give a sneer in return for a kindness." + +"No, I don't believe you could, May," said Dora, penitently. + +May continued a little nettled in spite of her natural good temper. + +"What are Shakespeare's names for little dogs?" she asked. "'Blanche,' +'Tray,' and 'Sweetheart.' You could not be 'Blanche,' could you, pet, +unless you were '_Blanche et Noir_'? and that is too long and reminds +one of a gaming-table. You could not be 'Sweetheart,'" went on May, +revenging herself with great coolness and deliberation in view of the +red that flew into Dora's cheeks; "no, of course not, because Mr. Tom +Robinson is not, never has been, and never will be _my_ sweetheart. +There is only 'Tray' left. Well, I think it is rather a good name," +considered May, critically. "'Old dog Tray' is an English classic. It is +not altogether appropriate, because my Tray is just a baby terrier yet, +but we trust, he and I, that he will live to see a venerable age." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +A WILFUL DOG WILL HAVE HIS WAY. + + +Dora and May walked out together regularly, a practice enforced by their +father as a provision for their health. To have Tray to form a third +person in their somewhat formal promenades certainly robbed them of +their formality, and introduced such an element of lively excitement +into them as to bear out Dora's comparison of their progresses +thenceforth to a succession of fox-hunts. For Tray was still in the +later stages of his puppyhood. He was frequently inspired by a demon of +mischief or haunted by a variety of vagabond instincts which such +training as he had received, without the support of prolonged discipline +and practical experience, failed to extinguish. + +May was very particular about his education in theory, but in practice +she fell considerably short of her excellent intentions. She always +carried a whip with a whistle in the handle; and the sight of the +instrument of punishment ought to have been enough for Tray, since +there was no farther application of it. In reality, the sharp-sighted +little animal no more obeyed the veritable whistle than he winced under +the supposititious lash of the whip. He took his own way and did very +much what he liked in spite of the animated protests of his mistress. +Dora and May went out walking with Tray instead of Tray going on a walk +with them, and not infrequently the walk degenerated into an agitated +scamper at his heels. The scamper was diversified by a number of +ineffectual attempts to reclaim him from forcing his way into back-yards +and returning triumphantly with a bone or a crust between his teeth, "as +if we starved him, as if his dish at home was not generally half full, +though we've tried so hard to find out what he likes," said May +plaintively. If otherwise engaged it would be in chasing cats, running +down fowls, barking at message boys--to whom he had the greatest +antipathy--or, most serious foible of all, threatening to engage in +single combat with dogs twice his size and three times his age. + +There is no accounting for tastes, seeing that these tumultuous walks +were the delight of May's days, and that even Dora, with her inveterate +sympathy, enjoyed them, though they deranged somewhat her sense of +maidenly dignity and decorum. It was to be hoped that as Tray grew in +years he would grow in discretion, and would show a little forbearance +to the friends who were so forbearing to him. + +Tray, Dora, and May had gone on their customary expedition. The human +beings of the party were inclined to direct their steps as quickly as +possible to one of the country roads. Tray's eccentricities at the +present stage of his development were hardly calculated for the +comfortable traversing of a succession of streets and lanes. But the +canine leader of the party decided for the main street, and Dora and May +gave up their own inclinations, and followed in his erratic track with +their wonted cheerful submission. + +It was a fine October afternoon, when Redcross was looking its best. It +was rather a dull town, with little trade and few manufactories, but its +worst enemy could not deny it the corresponding virtues of cleanliness +and freedom from smoke. Here and there there was a grand old tree wedged +between the houses. In one or two instances, where the under part of the +house was brick, and the upper--an afterthought--was a projecting storey +of wood, the latter was built round the tree, with its branches +sheltering the roof in a picturesque, half foreign fashion. Here and +there were massive old houses and shops, with some approach to the size +and the substantial--even costly--fittings of "Robinson's." A side +street led down to a little sluggish canal which joined the Dewes, a +river of considerable size on which Redcross had originally been built. +This canal was crossed by a short solid stone bridge, bearing a quaint +enough bridge-house, still used as a dwelling-place. + +The sun was bright and warm without any oppressive heat. The leaves, +where leaves were to be seen, had yellow, russet, and red streaks and +stains, suggestive of brown nuts and scarlet berries in the hedges. + +The flowers in the many window-boxes in which Redcross indulged were +still, for the most part, gay with the deeper tints of autumn, the +purple of asters and the orange of chrysanthemums setting off the +geraniums blossoming on till the frost shrivelled them, and the seeded +green and straw-coloured spikes of the still fragrant mignonette. + +It was market-day, which gave but a slight agreeable stir to the drowsy +town. The ruddy faces and burly figures of farmers, whose imposing bulk +somehow did not decrease in keeping with the attenuated profits of +long-continued agricultural depression, were prominent on the pavement. +Little market carts, which closely shawled and bonneted elderly women, +laden with their market baskets, still found themselves disengaged +enough to drive, rattled over the cobble stones. An occasional farm +labourer in a well-nigh exploded smock frock, who had come in with a +bullock or two, or a small flock of sheep, to the slaughter-house, +trudging home with a straw between his teeth, and his faithful collie at +his heels, made a variety in the town population. + +The latter consisted, at this hour, of shop boys and girls, boys from +the grammar school, a file of boarders from Miss Burridge's, who walked +as if "eyes right" and "eyes left" were the only motion permitted to +them, notwithstanding May's frantic signs to them to behold and admire +Tray's gambols; a professional man, or a tradesman, leisurely doing a +business errand; one or two ladies carrying the latest fashion in +card-cases, suggestive of afternoon calls. + +Tray's devious path took him in the direction of "Robinson's," in the +windows of which the golden brown of sable furs, the silver gray of rare +foxes', and the commoner dim blue of long-haired goats', were beginning +to enrich the usual display of silk and woollen goods. + +Following his own sweet will, Tray, considerably in advance of his +companions, darted into the shop. + +"Oh, what shall we do, May?" cried Dora in dismay; "you ought really to +put that dog in a leash when he _will_ go into the town." + +"Better say a chain at once," answered May indignantly, vexed by the +imputation on her pet. "I am sure he has been as good as gold to-day. He +has not chased a single thing, and he has only once run away from us. +Couldn't I go in and fetch him out? I should not stay above a minute." + +"And I am to wait at the door while you hunt him round all the counters +and through the showrooms? I had much rather go in with you; but neither +do I care to enter the shop when I do not wish to buy anything. Really +Tray is too troublesome!" + +"Oh! don't say that," exclaimed May in distress. "Don't reflect on him +in case anything should happen to him," as if Dora's speech were likely +to bring down the vengeance of Heaven on the heads of all three. "He +soon finds out all he wants when he goes on private expeditions, and +then he runs back and looks for us. I think if we walked _very_ slowly +his dear bright face, with one ear cocked up, would appear in the +doorway by the time we reached it." + +"Or some shop-lad may ask him what his business is, and turn him out. It +will be a lesson for him in future," said Dora, severely. + +Accordingly the sisters had to slacken their steps to a snail's pace as +they approached the great shop. They had a full view of the interior, +though it was a little dark, unless to the most modern taste. There was +an air of old-fashioned substantiality, comfort, and something like +modest dignity about the long-lasting, glossy brown roof and walls, in +harmony with the heavy counters and shelves, not too heavy for the bales +of every description, which with the contents of the innumerable boxes +had an established reputation of being "all of the best quality," not +figuratively but literally. The famous oak staircase, with the broad +shallow steps and the twisted balustrade, which would not have disgraced +a manor house, ran up right in the centre and terminated in a +gallery--like a musician's gallery--hung with Turkey carpets, Moorish +rugs, and "muslin from the Indies," and from the gallery various work +and show rooms opened. It was evident that "Robinson's" was considerably +older than the lifetime of the first Robinson--the silk-weaver and +wool-stapler who had used it as a mart for his wares. Though it was only +the product of a country town, it bore a resemblance to old London city +places of business. These were wont to have a Dutch atmosphere of +industry and sobriety, together with a fair share of the learning and +refinement of the times hanging about them, so that their masters +figured as honoured and influential citizens of the metropolis. +Belonging to the category were the linen shop of a certain Alexander +Pope's father, and the law-stationer's shop, from which issued, in his +day, a beautiful youth known as "Master John Milton." + +There was the customary bustle of a market day at "Robinson's." Miss +Franklin was moving about in the women's department, seeing that +everybody there was served, and giving an occasional direction to the +women who served. She was, as Dora Millar had once described her, as +"fat as a pin-cushion," with what had been originally a fair +pink-and-white complexion, degenerated into the mottled "red all over," +into which such complexions occasionally pass in middle life. But she +looked like a lady by many small traits--by her quiet, easy movements; +by the clear enunciation and pleasant tones, which could be ringing when +necessary, of a cultivated voice that reached the ears of the +bystanders. She did not wear the conventional black silk or cashmere of +a shop-woman. There might be a lingering protest or a lurking vanity in +the myrtle-green gown and the little lace cap, with its tiny _noeuds_ +of dark green riband, which she wore instead. One might guess by their +dainty decorum and becomingness that Miss Franklin had thought a good +deal, and to purpose, about dress, in her day--had made a study of it, +and taken pleasure in its finer effects. In that light she was the right +woman in the right place--presiding over the shop-women in a +linen-draper's shop. At the same time she belonged as clearly to the +upper middle class as did the two girls advancing towards the shop, who, +in place of being studiously well and handsomely dressed, were just a +little shabby, and careless how they looked in their last year's gray +velveteens, with hats to match, which Dora in her conscientious economy +had re-trimmed not very nicely. + +Lag as the girls might, they could not delay their progress much longer, +and their bosoms were torn with conflicting emotions. What were they to +do? Leave the truant Tray to his fate? Boldly halt before the next shop +window, and trust to his seeing and joining them there? Still more +boldly, enter and request "the body of the culprit" to be delivered up +to his owner? Before they could come to a decision, Tom Robinson himself +appeared in the foreground. He was speaking, or rather listening to a +giant of a farmer in a light overcoat and streaming cravat, who, in +place of treating the master of "Robinson's" as "a whipper-snapper of a +counter-jumper," was behaving to him with the most unsophisticated +deference. Yet Tom's under size and pale complexion looked more +insignificant than ever beside the mighty thews and sinews and perennial +bloom of his customer. In spite of that, Tom Robinson was as undeniably +a gentleman in the surroundings, as Miss Franklin was a lady, and the +big honest farmer recognized and accepted the fact. While the pair stood +there, and the farmer made an elaborate explanation of the matter in +hand--broadcloth or blankets probably--to which Tom attended +courteously, as courteously as he would have heard the deliverances of +the member of the county or the bishop, Tray flashed out of the mellow +obscurity of the background and sniffed vigorously at the trowser ankles +of the master of "Robinson's." + +"Hallo!" cried Tom, looking down at his feet. + +"A bit fine terrier-dawg, Mister Robinson, sir," remarked the farmer; +"but I'm thinking he's strayed." + +At the same instant both Tray and Tom caught sight of May's anxious face +peering in at the shop door. Tray rushed to his mistress with a +boisterously gracious greeting, which did not include the slightest +self-consciousness or sense of wrongdoing in its affability. Tom took a +couple of steps after him. + +"I'm afraid, Miss May, you're spoiling that dog," he said, in friendly +remonstrance, before he observed who was with May, and stopped and bowed +with some constraint. + +"Oh! Mr. Robinson," replied May, in her volubility effacing any shy +attempt at greeting on Dora's part, "I am so sorry for Tray's rudeness +in going into your shop without being invited; but I do think he knew +you again, I am almost sure of it," she said eagerly, as if the +assurance were sufficient propitiation for any trifling lack of ceremony +where a reasonable human being was concerned. + +"It might have been better if I had known a little more of him," said +Tom musingly, biting his moustache, as he took leave of the three. + +Tray meandered down the street, followed hurriedly by his mistress and +Dora. Tom looked after them, and speculated into how many more scrapes +the brute would get the girls, wondered too if one of them would think +she had him to thank for the infliction, and that it was an odd instance +of the friendship which he had pressed her to give him in lieu of a +warmer feeling. That friendship was not progressing very rapidly, though +the world might consider the Millars more in need of friends than when +he had begged to make one of the number. But Tom Robinson knew better. +These girls were enough for themselves in any emergency. They would +never fall back on friends or depend upon them. Even Dora, who had +stayed at home with May, would suffer in silence and bear anything with +and for her family, before she would complain or ask help. + +Tray's errant fancy finally took him down a lane leading to the Dewes +and to a sheltered walk between rows of yellowing elms by the side of +the river. The girls were at last able to enjoy themselves. They +sauntered along, talking at their ease, watching the bars of sunlight on +the water, and the crowds of flies in the golden mist which the approach +of sunset was drawing down over everything, and listening to a robin +singing on a bough, when their misadventures for one day culminated and +their worst apprehensions were fulfilled. A mongrel collie advancing in +the opposite direction, with no better qualified guardian than a young +servant girl, who had also a perambulator containing a couple of small +children to look after, aroused the warlike spirit of Tray. He growled +defiance and bristled in every hair, while Dora caught nervously at his +elegant morocco collar, which burst asunder in her grasp, and May +shrieked agitated soothing endearments to no purpose. What unmagnanimous +cur could resist such a challenge? In another instant the inequal combat +was raging furiously. The two dogs first stood on their hind legs, +grappled together, and glared at each other for a second, like two +pugilists trying a preliminary fall, or a couple of duellists pointing +their pistols. The next moment the dogs were rolling over and over each +other on the narrow path, worrying each other with the horrible +snarling noise that accompanies such a performance. + +May danced a frantic dance round the combatants, screamed shrilly, and +made dangerous, ineffectual darts at Tray. The servant girl neither +danced, nor screamed, nor made darts; she stood stolidly still, with +something between a gape and a grin on her broad red face. She had not +the passion for dog-fights entertained by the _gamins_ of the streets, +such fights were simply immaterial trifles to her amidst the weightier +concerns of her life; and she had seen her master's dog get too many +kicks in the ribs--a discipline from which he rose up howling but not +greatly injured--to be troubled with any sensitive fears as to his +safety. Besides his enemy was a small beast, a lady's dog, whom Growler +could dispose of in a twinkling, if his temper were up. + +"Oh! can you not call off your dog?" wailed May in her agony. "He will +kill Tray. Oh! my Tray, my Tray," and she made another rush to rescue +her pet. + +"Don't, May, you'll be bitten," implored Dora. + +"He don't mind me, miss, not one bit, our Growler don't," said the +composed damsel, as if Growler's indifference were rather a feather in +his cap. + +Alas! for any attention that the victim paid to May's desperate +remonstrances. She had in fact no right to reproach the enemy's +temporary proprietress for her lack of authority over her four-footed +companion. But poor May in her misery was neither logical nor just. She +turned on the other with a passionate challenge, "What business have you +to bring out a horrid brute like that, which you cannot master, to kill +other people's dear little pets?" + +"Hush, hush, May," besought Dora, "I think they are leaving off." There +was a slight cessation in the hostilities. "The noise you are making may +set them on again." + +"It were your dog as begun it." Growler's sponsor defended both herself +and Growler defiantly. + +"Oh!" screamed May, "they're at it again. Tray is down and the cruel +monster is at his throat. Will nobody help us? Will nobody save my poor +little dog?" + +The girls were carrying neither sunshades nor umbrellas. They could not +reach the lower boughs of the trees to pull down a switch, but just as +May was springing forward to dare the worst herself, sooner than see +Tray perish unaided before her eyes, Dora caught sight of a large +half-loose stone in the path. "Stand back, May," she gasped, as she tore +it up. Dora's face was as white as paper; she was sick with fright and +distress; she would fain have shut her eyes if she had not known that +she needed every advantage which sight could give her to prevent her +hitting Tray, instead of his foe, as the two rolled over each other in +the struggle which was growing deadlier every second. + +"Stop," cried a voice of command behind her, "you'll have the dog turn +upon you as soon as he has finished his present job," and a welcome +deliverer ran forward just in time. He seized the first tail he could +grasp--luckily for him it was Tray's and not Growler's--and hung on to +it like a vice. The "redder" of the combatants, regardless of "the +redder's lick," which was likely to be his portion, continued to hold +the tail of the now yelling Tray, and at the same time seized him by the +scruff of the neck with the other hand, and dragged both animals, still +locked together, with his whole force nearer and nearer to the edge of +the bank by the river. + +A new terror beset May. "Take care, you'll have them in the water." + +No sooner said than done. With a plunge the two dogs fell heavily into +the Dewes, while the man who had brought them to this pass kept his own +footing with difficulty. + +"They'll both be drowned," cried May, clasping her hands in the last +depths of anguish. + +"Not at all," said Tom Robinson, panting a little from his exertions +and wiping his hands with his handkerchief. "I did it on purpose--don't +you see? It was the only way to make the beggars lose their grip. Look +there, they are swimming like brothers down the stream--that small +spitfire of yours is not badly hurt. I told you that you were spoiling +him--you ought to make him obey and come to heel, or he will become the +torment of your life. The bank shelves a little a few yards further +down; you will find that he will come to shore shaking himself nothing +the worse. It may be a lesson to him; if not, I should like to give him +a bit of my mind." + +True enough, Tray scrambled up the bank presently, bearing no more +alarming traces of the fray than were to be found in his limping on +three legs, and halting every other minute that he might ruefully attend +to the fourth. + +Growler also landed, and after glancing askance at his antagonist and at +the champion who had suddenly interposed between Tray and his deserts, +wisely agreed with the small maid-servant on the judiciousness of +immediately taking themselves off, in company with the perambulator and +the babies, to avoid any chance of awkward inquiries. + +May ran to Tray, clasped him all dripping in her arms, and prepared to +carry him tenderly home. But in spite of the injuries, for which he was +exceedingly sorry, he asserted his spirit of independence, and declined +to be made a baby of. + +"I am afraid we have given you a great deal of trouble, Mr. Tom," said +Dora, while May was still devoting herself to her rescued treasure. Dora +spoke shyly, and inadvertently used the old familiar name, which he had +borne when his father was alive. + +"Don't mention it," he said gravely, as shy as she was; "I feel +answerable for inflicting that wretched dog on you--that is, on your +sister. I was sure he would lead you a pretty dance after he was in the +shop this afternoon." + +"Oh! Mr. Robinson," cried May, tearing herself away from the +contemplation of her darling in order to pour forth her sense of relief +and the depth of her gratitude, "what a good thing it was you came up to +us! What should we have done without you? Oh! you don't think dear +little Tray is lamed for life--do you? Of course that is ever so much +better than having him killed outright in our sight; still if he would +only let me pick him up and rest his poor hurt leg it might help him," +protested May wistfully. + +"Let him alone, he is all right," he said in his short stiff way. Then +he made a bantering amendment on his speech, because he was quick to see +that his want of sympathy vexed the young girl, perhaps rendered her +burden of gratitude more difficult to bear. + +"At the worst, you know he would be as well off as Horatius Cocles, and +he is likely to escape the beating which he richly deserves." + +"Oh! Mr. Robinson, beat him! when he meant no harm, when he has been all +but drowned or worried to death by that great, coarse, rough creature," +cried May, opening large brown eyes of astonishment and indignation. + +"I wonder what _he_ would call Tray if he could speak--an insolent +little rascal, who had no proper respect for his superiors." + +Dora did not join in the conversation. Her colour came and went, and she +kept glancing at the handkerchief which Tom Robinson was fluttering +about in his hand. + +It was May who stopped short and cried in fresh dismay, "There is blood +on your handkerchief; I believe you have been bitten. What shall we do?" + +"What should you do, Miss May?" he answered with a laugh. "It is only a +minute impression left by the fine teeth of your friend. You would have +it that he knew me a little while ago, and it seems we were destined to +be more intimately acquainted." + +"Come home with us this minute," cried May, so dead in earnest, that +she grasped his arm, and made as if she would have dragged him forward. +"Father will dress it and heal it. I am so sorry, so ashamed, though +Tray did not know what he was doing." + +He laughed again quite merrily, as it sounded. "If Tray did not know, he +did his small best to get rid of me. I daresay I was not treating him +with much ceremony. I am afraid I gave his tail as sharp a pinch as I +could administer before I could get at his neck. No, I am not going home +with you; thanks for the invitation. Do you wish Dr. Millar to think me +crazy? Do you apply to your father for medical assistance when you give +yourself a pin-prick?" + +"But the bite of a dog is very different, though Tray is the dog," +moaned May. + +"Tray is in excellent health and spirits; I can vouch for that," said +Tom. "I have not the slightest apprehension of hydrophobia." + +"O--h!" said May, with a deeper moan. + +Dora had continued silent; indeed she could hardly speak, and her face +had grown more like ashes than paper. + +He was standing still, and raising his hat a little awkwardly with his +left hand, in lieu of shaking hands with his right, as they came to the +point where their roads parted. + +Dora made a great effort and uttered her remonstrance: "I wish you would +come home with us, and let father look at your hand." + +"You too, Miss Dora--nonsense," he said sharply as it sounded. + +"If Annie had been here," she persisted, "she would have been of a +hundred times more use than I, but if you'll let me I'll try to tie it +up for you." + +She spoke so humbly that he answered her with quick kindness, "And pain +you by exposing a scratch to your notice? No, indeed, all that I'll ask +of you is never to fling stones at strange dogs, though they should be +tearing that unlucky imp of mischief limb from limb." + +"It was very unkind of him to speak so rudely of poor Tray," sighed May, +as the sisters hurried home; "although it was Tom Robinson who gave him +to me, I don't think the man has ever put a proper value on the dog. But +I daresay he will call to-morrow though he has not come with us just +now, to ask for Tray, and to see how we are after our fright." + +"No, he won't come," said Dora with conviction, and she walked on +silently thinking to herself, "How strong and resolute he was, though he +is not a big man, and how little he minded being bitten. Men are +different from women. Of course, he is nothing to me, but I may be +permitted to admire his courage and coolness. No, he will not come, I +am sure of that, he is the last man to take advantage of an accident and +of his coming to our assistance. Even if he did, and I had ever cared +for him, and there had been no 'Robinson's,' it would be too late and +too bad to change one's mind after we had grown poor and had to work for +ourselves." + +Dora was right. Tom Robinson did not come. He contented himself with +intercepting Dr. Millar on his rounds, learning that Dora and May were +no worse for their misadventure, and giving their father a piece of +information. + +In consequence of that hint, and under the pretence of having Tray's +wounded leg properly seen to, he was, to May's intense chagrin and +disgust, despatched to a veterinary surgeon's, where he remained for +some time, returning at last a sadder and a wiser dog. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +LIFE IN AN HOSPITAL WARD. + + +St. Ebbe's was a model hospital, with every enlightened improvement in +the treatment of the sick poor, and every humane ordinance which the +highly developed skill and the strongly stimulated benevolence of the +nineteenth century could enforce. + +Annie Millar was one of six lady probationers, including a bishop's +daughter, two daughters of squires, and three doctor's daughters like +herself. The matron was the widow of a doctor, who had been eminent +alike for professional talent and philanthropy. She was like-minded. If +she had not her late husband's knowledge and acumen as a medical man, +she had much of his experience, and was full of energy and determination +to better the world, the sick, and the poor, almost whether they would +or not. Very few people could look Mrs. Hull in the face and contradict +her high motives and determined will. + +Fortunately, Annie's beauty had not worked the scathing destruction +which Mrs. Millar had anticipated with fear and trembling. An +inflammable medical student or two might have been just singed by the +fire of her charms; an older member of the fraternity might have +neglected for an instant to look up at the card above a bed in order to +turn his head and cast a second admiring glance after the new recruit in +the hospital uniform; but no man forgot his duty or was false to earlier +vows through her allurements. + +Mrs. Hull had cast a sharp glance at the dainty figure and flower-like +face under the nurse's linen gown and close cap. Annie's sister +probationers, four of them considerably older than herself, had +telegraphed to each other emphatic--perhaps pardonable enough--signals +that the last accession to their number was so very ornamental they +could hardly expect her to be useful. They must look out for defects, +and prepare to atone for failures by their surpassing attainments. But +the mistake was soon rectified, and fresh light dawned on the doubtful +question. Mrs. Hull was the first to recognize and testify that nothing +was to be feared from Annie Millar's youth and beauty, while something +might be gained by them, because she was far more than pretty--she was a +bright, clever girl, very obedient to orders, and exceedingly anxious +to learn her business. In her St. Ebbe's had secured an auxiliary of the +highest promise. The elder sister probationers soon found that instead +of wanting indulgence, forbearance, and pity, the newcomer was more in +danger of awakening their envy as well as their respect by her quickness +in mastering details, her mental grasp of principles, her inexhaustible +spirit. + +Yet poor Annie had no light apprenticeship to serve. The programme, +which extends from making poultices and making beds to receiving +doctors' instructions, understanding them, remembering them, and acting +on them, is neither short nor easy, though a fairly good and trained +intellect and an unswerving devotion to duty will get through it +triumphantly in time. Annie underwent the entire ordeal, while she +doubtless brought a little additional intelligence and capacity and a +few more grains of experience to the task than would have existed if she +had not been Dr. Millar's daughter. In spite of the warm woollen jacket +and cuffs which she wore under her linen gown, her little hands were +covered with the chaps and chilblains which are the scourge of +maids-of-all-work, because of their early rising, hard scrubbing, and +the frequency with which their fingers are wet and dried on chill winter +mornings. Her legs ached, as they had never ached after a night's +dancing, with being on her feet all day long, and day after day, +waiting on her patients and attending on the sisters who were placed +over the respective wards. Her mind, too, was kept on the stretch with +the serious charge of pulses and temperatures, with the grave +responsibility of shelves on shelves of medicine bottles, with acquiring +the best modes of bandaging, fomenting, bleeding, stopping the flow of +blood, so that during the little leisure she had she could not turn to a +book for relief; she fell asleep with sheer fatigue more frequently. + +Annie was too high-spirited and independent to feel the loneliness of +her position among strangers, whom she soon converted into friendly +acquaintances, if nothing more, as many a girl--as Dora, for +instance--would have done. But, accustomed as Annie had been all her +life to much closer and warmer relations, she clung to the presence of +Rose in London; and it was a proof of how much the elder sister was used +up, when, even on her days and hours for getting out, it was often with +difficulty that she could bring herself to go and see Rose, or to meet +and walk a portion of the way with her on Rose's progress from Mrs. +Jennings's boarding-house to the Misses Stone's school, where she taught +drawing, or to Mr. St. Foy's art classes, where she learned it. + +Annie had suffered considerably from what is known as hospital or +infirmary sore throat, because it is understood to be caused by inhaling +the fumes from the carbolic acid used in the wards. Her rich colour had +to Rose's dismay grown poor and pale for a time. She had laboured under +the still more trying and more dangerous infliction, when the senses +morbidly excited become morbidly acute, and she seemed still to smell +the peculiar air of the wards wherever she went. Then Mrs. Hull insisted +on Annie's leaving for a few days, and bundled her off, without the +power of resistance, to a sister of the matron's, who kindly consented, +as her part of the work, to receive and recruit the temporarily overdone +servants of St. Ebbe's Hospital. + +In spite of the strength of Annie's nerves, and her power of controlling +them, she sickened once or twice with a deadly sickness at sights and +sounds worse than her most vivid imagination could have conceived +possible. She had to summon all her courage, together with the +conviction that if she did not overcome the weakness speedily, she would +be compelled to own that she had mistaken her calling, in order to +vanquish the insidious foe. + +Sometimes, while she was ready to thank God that it was rather the +exception than the rule, she had to witness the lowest moral degradation +in addition to the sharpest human suffering, and this at an age and with +a nature when the feeling of extreme repulsion, amounting to positive +loathing, is in danger of prevailing. It needed all her faith to do +battle with this worst temptation, and force pity to conquer disgust, to +recognize humbly the frailty of the best and wisest men and women, to +acknowledge willingly, even thankfully, the propriety, if one may so use +the word, of what a preacher has called each Christian's suffering, "the +just for the unjust." + +No wonder poor Annie's bright face took frequently a worn and harassed +look in those early days of hospital work. + +Yet so great is the elasticity of youth, and so brave and cheerful was +the girl's temperament for the most part, that within an hour of such +prostrating attacks and violent revolts, she would be on her way with +her own little tea-pot to the retiring-room, where the lady probationers +and sisters assembled in order to profit by the great boiler steaming on +the hob for their women's refreshment of tea. It was about the only +servile act which they were required to do for themselves, while they +were the servants of others, and they all enjoyed doing it with true +housewifely relish. Annie, especially, was an adept at such tea-making, +and would propound her theories and circulate specimens of her +performance among her companions who profited by her skill, with a glee +not far removed from the mirth of the Millar girls on many a happy +family gathering in the old nursery or the drawing-room at Redcross. + +The whole circumstances of one of the bad days in her lot Annie could +never quite forget. It was a raw, gray winter's day, cheerless above and +below, and all went wrong on it, from the moment Annie opened her sleepy +eyes, leapt shivering out of bed, washed in cold water by her own +choice, in order to rouse herself, dressed by gaslight, swallowed her +coffee scalding hot, and hastened to her particular ward. The sister and +the house-surgeon were, as if affected by the day, a little sour and +surly, and every patient seemed more or less out of tune, dismal, +grumbling, delirious, or in a state of collapse. + +It was one of Annie's out-days, and as a matter of duty, but by no means +of enjoyment, she braced herself to change her hospital dress for a +walking dress. After she felt chilled to the bone, she started for a +walk, either to be jostled and forced along in a crowded thoroughfare, +where she too might have said-- + + + "Although so many surround me, + I know not one I meet"-- + +or to creep the length of the cleanest side of the pavement in a +depressingly empty street, where the varying arrangement of the shabby +window curtains and the cards in the dingy windows, offering an endless +supply of rooms to the absent lodging hunter, furnished the sole +entertainment to the listless passer-by. + +Annie had been afraid that she would miss Rose on her way to her +classes, and the fear was amply fulfilled--not the most distant glimpse +of Rose was forthcoming. Instead, at a crossing, Ella Carey, in her Aunt +Tyrrel's carriage, whirled by the pedestrian and administered a slight +spattering of mud to her dress. "It ought to have been the other way," +said Annie bitterly to herself, while she stood still to wipe the sleeve +of her jacket. Yet she knew very well all the time that Ella's offence +had been quite involuntary, and that she had not for a moment recognized +Annie. If it had been so, Ella's round girlish face under its smart hat, +leaning back among the soft cushions not discontentedly, would have +brightened immensely. She would have stopped the carriage and been down +in the street at Annie's side in a moment, for the girl was as +warm-hearted as she had been docile. There was nothing she would have +liked better than to hail a Redcross face, and hear the last news about +Phyllis and May, and Ella's father and mother. + +When Annie re-entered the hospital colder and more unrefreshed than she +had left it, she thought that she was at last going to be compensated +for life's rubs--beyond her deserts, she told herself a little +remorsefully. She had been longing all the morning for a letter from +Redcross, small reason as she had to complain of the negligence of her +correspondents there, and a letter with the Redcross post-mark was +awaiting her. She saw before she opened it that it was not from any of +her family. None of them used such creamily smooth and thick note-paper, +or exhibited such a cunningly contrived, elegantly designed monogram. +But even a slight communication from the merest acquaintance was welcome +as a flower in spring, when the acquaintance dwelt in dear old Redcross. +Annie had been thinking fondly of it all day as a place of human +well-being and geniality, free from continual sights and sounds of pain +and sorrow, where everybody got up and sat down, went out and came in, +worked and read, even dawdled and dreamt at will, subject to a few +simple household rules. There was no unyielding iron discipline at +Redcross. There was no hard and fast routine entering through the flesh +and penetrating into the very soul. It was just, dear, deliberate, +mannerly, yet comfortable and kindly Redcross. The writer was Thirza +Dyer, and the reason why one of the Dyers, who had hesitated about +shaking hands with one of the Millars after she was guilty of proposing +to earn her livelihood, wrote a letter to a nurse probationer and +addressed it to a public hospital, calls for an explanation. The Dyers, +in their unceasing efforts to gain by their wealth and its liberal +expenditure a footing in the county circle, had got one foot within the +coveted precincts, and there Thirza found to her own and her sisters' +amazement that nursing, not the rich and great, but common poor people, +was a curious fashion of the day. Lady Luxmore had a cousin who was a +nurse. General Wentworth's wife had a friend professionally engaged in a +London hospital for nine months out of the twelve, who was visiting the +Wentworths this winter. Of course it had begun with the Crimean War, and +the _éclat_ with which lady nurses went out to attend on the wounded +soldiers in the exceptional hospital at Scutari. But whatever was its +origin, the rule was established that nursing even day-labourers and +mechanics with their wives and children, was something very different +from being a drudging governess or broken-down companion. It was like +being a member of the Kyrle Society, with which one of the princes had +to do, or like singing in an East of London concert-room, quite _chic_, +perfectly good form, anybody might take it up and gain rather than lose +caste by the act. + +Accordingly, it became an obvious obligation on the Dyers to cultivate +and not to cut the only nurse on their visiting list. With unblushing, +well-nigh naïve suddenness, Thirza Dyer, to Annie Millar's bewildered +astonishment, proceeded to start and maintain a correspondence with her. +Two are required for a bargain-making, and Annie was not altogether +disinterested in scribbling the few lines occasionally which warranted +the continuance of the correspondence on Thirza's part. For if Thirza +had lived anywhere else than where she did live, near Redcross, the +answer to her first letter might have been different. Therefore Annie +did not perhaps deserve much solace from these letters, and certainly +this one did not contribute to her exaltation of spirit. It was chiefly +occupied with an account of several _recherchée_ afternoon teas which the +Dyers had held lately at the Manor-house, together with a full +description of the tea-gowns of salmon, canary, and cherry-coloured +plush, lined with _eau-de-nil_ satin, which the Miss Dyers had worn on +these occasions. + +Now poor Annie was rather above hankering unduly after tea-gowns, or for +that matter "smart" or "swell" dress of any kind. She liked pretty +things, and things which became her charming person, at their proper +time and season, well enough, but she was not greatly discomposed by +the lack of such adornment, and hardly at all troubled when her +neighbours displayed what she did not possess. + +It was because the foolishly exultant gorgeous description, which ought +to have been set to a fashion-plate, carried Annie back with a flash to +one winter's day last year, that it made her heart sore. On the day in +question Annie and Dora, and for that matter Rose and May, acting as +deeply interested assistants, had been tremendously busy and merry in +the old nursery, travestying national and historic costumes in calico. +It was all on behalf of a certain scenic entertainment given in the +Town-hall for the delectation of the scholars in the Rector's +Sunday-school and night classes. It had been a very simple and +intentionally inexpensive affair, and the principal charm to the +performers had lain in the contriving of their costumes. Annie and Dora +had appeared in magnificent chintz sacques--which might have represented +tea-gowns--and mob caps, and had been declared by Cyril Carey, who was +supposed to be no mean judge, a most satisfactory eighteenth century +pair. Cyril himself had broken the rule as to material, and had figured +in the black satin trunk hose, velvet doublet, and lace collar of a +Spanish grandee. But Ned Hewett had stuck to Turkey-red cotton for a +Venetian senator or a Roman cardinal, nobody had been quite certain +which. And Tom Robinson had been a Scotch beggarman, Sir Walter Scott's +immortal Edie Ochiltree, in a blue cotton gown and a goatskin beard, +which she (Annie) had wickedly pretended must have been manufactured out +of tufts purloined from the stock of boas at "Robinson's." Lucy Hewett +had been shrouded in white cotton wool, to represent the Empress Matilda +escaping from Oxford, "through the lines of King Stephen's soldiers," +under shelter of a snowstorm. Fanny Russell had never looked better than +she looked that night as a Norman peasant girl. It was all very well for +Cyril Carey to condescend to the deceit of praising Annie and Dora up to +the skies, when everybody knew whom he admired most, with reason. That +was Fanny Russell, with her splendid black eyes and hair, and the Norman +strength and fineness of her profile. + +What was Nurse Annie, in her holland gown, apron, and cap, recalling and +revelling in? The silly vanities and child's play of the past. Well, +what harm was there in them? These had been blithe moments while they +lasted, which had set young hearts bounding, young feet skipping, and +young voices laughing and singing in a manner which was natural, and not +to be forbidden lest worse came of it. + +Annie was roused from her pleasant reverie and plunged into another of +a totally different description. The last was made up of garbled +reality, but with what truth was in it tending to a false, doleful +vision. It would represent St. Ebbe's as a gloomy, ghastly prison-house +of suffering and death, and she in her tender youth and sweet beauty +immured in it by an error of judgment, a fatal mistake incidental to +rash enthusiasm and total inexperience. If Annie ever arrived at that +rueful conclusion, how could she bear the penalty she must pay? + +Annie had heard and read of young women on whom the world did not cry +shame, who turned from the decay and death they had not gone to seek, +which Providence had brought to their doors, in paroxysms of repugnance +and rebellion. They could not bear that their perfection of health and +life should come into contact with something so chillingly, gruesomely +different, that their glowing youth should be wasted in the dim shadows +of sick-rooms or amidst the dank vapours hovering over the dark river +which all must ford when their time comes. Those standing round who +heard or read the outcry called it natural, piteous, well-nigh +praiseworthy, it was so sincere. How could Annie realize for herself in +a moment that such heroines(!) are the daughters in spirit of the women +who, in outbreaks of mediæval pestilence and latter-day cholera, have +literally abandoned their nearest and dearest, fleeing from spectacles +of anguish and risks of infection? How could she guess that such women +are the spiritual sisters of poor heathen and savage Hottentot and Malay +mothers and daughters, who, sooner than be burdened with the wailing +helplessness of infancy and the mumbling fatuity of age, will expose the +children dependent on these murderesses, and the hoary heads that once +planned and prayed for the welfare of their slayers, to perish of cold +and hunger? + +It was Annie's hour for resuming work, and it was well for her, though +she went but languidly into the spotlessly white and clean ward, among +its rows of beds with the flower-stand, illuminated texts and +oleographs, which generous supporters of the hospital sent to brighten +its cold bareness and soften and cheer what was harsh and subdued in its +atmosphere. Annie was not even greatly affected by the greeting of one +of her patients, an elderly man recovering from an operation, and still +slightly off his head when the fever rose on him. She went to him with a +cooling, soothing application, and he told her incoherently to come +again and give him his dinner and his tea. He liked a young lass or +lady, be she which she liked, with red cheeks and shining eyes to wait +upon him. It minded him of a bit wench of a daughter of his he had lost +when she was twelve years--the age of the little wench in the Bible, for +parson had preached about her the Sunday after his lass's funeral. It +broke her mother's heart for all that, and he buried her too within +three months. Then the place got lonesome, and he took what was not good +for him, till he had come to this; though whether it were the House or +just an hospital he was lying in he could not clearly say. + +Then there happened what Annie was wont to describe as a miracle of +mercy to bring her to a better mind. A young boy whose leg had been +crushed by a waggon was carried into the operating theatre for an +immediate operation. It was the lecture hour, and a great professor of +surgery with his class of students, together with several of the other +doctors connected with St. Ebbe's, was in attendance. But it was also +customary, especially where a female patient or a patient so young as +the boy in question was concerned, for a nurse, generally the sister of +the ward, to be present to hold the sufferer's hand if it were wished, +or when it was possible to support the poor head against her breast. It +so chanced that the sister was out, and other available nurses were +engaged, so in circumstances which would admit of no delay Annie was for +the first time called to the front and summoned to undertake the +responsibility of the situation. Already she had lost sight of herself, +and was standing looking so calm, firm, and prepared for every +emergency, that the operating surgeon, with a glance at her, put her +youth and position as a probationer aside, and accepted what help she +could give. + +It was a critical case, and for some medical reason no anæsthetic could +be administered. The boy was past the unconsciousness of childhood, and +though nearly fainting with fright, pain, and weakness, remained quite +sensible of the further ordeal he had to undergo. He was keenly alive to +the humane motive which induced the surgeon to turn his back upon him in +selecting his instruments. He even heard, with ears morbidly acute, the +low words addressed to the interested spectators, "Now, gentlemen, I am +about to begin." + +With a stifled sob the poor little fellow suddenly managed to raise +himself from the table on which he was stretched. He looked round wildly +on the circle of men's faces, controlled and expectant, with a certain +every-day expression in anticipation of what, in its blind terror and +life and death importance to him, was a familiar occurrence to them, and +on the one woman's face, controlled too, but with an indescribable +wistfulness under the control. Then he made his childish appeal, shrill +with misery, "Oh, gentlemen, will you not stop till I say my prayers?" + +There was an instant pause of surprise, commiseration, constraint--the +peculiar awkwardness which in Englishmen waits on any provocation to +betray feeling. Nobody liked to look at his neighbour to see how he +looked, lest there should be the most distant sign of emotion in his own +face. Some strong men there had ceased to pray or to believe in prayer, +yet all were more or less touched by the lad's implicit faith. + +As for Annie she had been praying at that very moment, praying fervently +in the silence of her heart, that she might be saved from breaking down +and allowed to be of some service to the boy. + +"Certainly, certainly, my little chap; but you must be quick about it," +said the great surgeon a little hoarsely. + +"Our-Father-which-art-in-Heaven," began the boy, running the words +together and speaking with a parrot-like monotony in an unnaturally +high-pitched key. Then his voice began to quaver a little till he +stopped short with a cry of despair--"I cannot mind the words, I cannot +say my prayers. Oh! will nobody say them for me? If mother, as is not in +Lon'on, were here, she would do it fast," he ended, flinging out one +thin arm and clutching convulsively at the air in a kind of +panic-stricken terror. + +There was another second's dead silence. It was broken by a woman's +voice. Annie had taken a step forward close to the boy's elbow, so that +her voice was in his ear. She could not kneel, but instinctively she +clasped her hands and bent her head reverently as she said in low but +clear tones which were carried throughout the length and breadth of the +room, and thrilled in every ear, the Lord's Prayer. At its close she +went on without hesitation in the same wonderfully audible voice: "God +bless this little boy. Forgive him every wrong he has ever done. Keep +him safe, and raise him up again, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen." + +Another voice--a deeper one--responded to the "Amen." It was said by the +famous operator's enemies that he was lax in his religious opinions, and +that he rarely found time to go to church. Nevertheless it was he who +with grave heartiness repeated the Amen. + +The little lad had sunk back when she began to speak, and there he lay +without giving her a word or sign of thanks--his best acknowledgment of +her compliance with what might be his last wish being his quaking +submission. He could not keep still his quivering flesh, or hold back +altogether his piercing cries and piteous moans, but he bit his tongue +in seeking to stifle them. For he was not fighting with his Maker and +his fate; he was trying in his boyish way, with his small fortitude and +resignation, to endure, in the might of the support which had been asked +for him. + +Annie too clenched her teeth, while she opened her eyes to take in +everything that passed before them, as a mirror may be turned to receive +the minutest impression from the scene it reflects. But she did not hear +a single shriek or wail, because her ears were filled with the higher +harmonies which she had called forth. She clasped one of the boy's +trembling hands in her own warm one, which did not grow cold in the +contact. She was on the alert to meet his only half-seeing gaze, and to +give back a glance of tender sympathy and protection--the true mother's +look that is to be found when occasion calls for it in every good +woman's face,--ay, it may even be seen in the precociously earnest, +kindly eyes of many a loving woman-child. + +There were plenty of other helpers to render the surgeon all the +assistance he needed in his work, with far more celerity and ability +than Annie could have supplied. But while sense lingered in the little +patient's eyes, it was to the woman he turned for the pity and aid which +did not fail him; it was through her that he drew from One mightier than +all, the spiritual strength for his terrible bodily conflict. In a sense +Annie and he were both on their trial, they served their novitiate +together, and helped each other to bear and overcome. When the operation +was over he lay, with the sweat drops of agony which Annie was gently +wiping off, not gone from his forehead, but also with the reflection +still lingering on his white face of the courage and patience with which +he had been ready to meet death. + +"You have behaved remarkably well, and shown no want of pluck, my lad," +said the surgeon as a parting word of encouragement and cheer. "Lie +still and you'll be able to see your friends by and by. I believe you'll +do famously, and we'll see whether a substitute cannot be found for the +limb you have lost." + +He turned to Annie who had done all, and more than all, that was +required of her, probably because she had entirely forgotten herself. +She was not even then sensible of a swift reaction, an overwhelming +tide of embarrassment. She continued more than half unconscious of the +number of eyes which, now that the operation was over, were fixed upon +her, marvelling, admiring, condemning, or ridiculing. For what act is +there, let it be ever so disinterested or self-sacrificing, against +which no voice will rise in condemnation or in mockery? + +But it was not the operating surgeon who either condemned or scoffed at +Annie's conduct. He drew her aside, not speaking to her on the religious +side of the episode, which he did not conceive that he had the smallest +right or title to do, but addressing her on the purely medical aspect of +the incident, on which he considered that he was entitled, nay, even +bound to speak. His manner was a little blunt and brusque rather than +suave, like that of a man who had no time to waste in paying compliments +or making soft speeches, but it was thoroughly approving. + +"You did quite right, nurse; I'm much obliged to you. That poor boy +wanted all the comfort he could get. If he had gone on and worked +himself into a frenzy before I had taken up the knife, I do not know +that I could have done my work, and certainly the probability of his +recovery would have been greatly lessened." + +"I am glad," said Annie simply, with a little gasp of returning +consciousness. "It is good of you to say so, doctor," but it was +doubtful whether she knew what she was saying. She was penetrated +through and through with thankfulness, yet thanks to herself seemed so +irrelevant that she did not care to hear them. + +There was more than Annie who thought that thanks to her were out of +place and superfluous. This was specially so with one among the group of +younger men, who at the moment of entering the ward had been fully alive +to the circumstance that "the pretty nurse," as she was known to them, +was on active duty. They had speculated on whether she would stand an +operation, and what a disturbance and nice mess there would be if she +fell flat on the small of her back on the floor, or went off in a fit of +hysterics in the middle of it; and how their "boss" would endure such a +disconcerting interruption to the proceedings. As it happened, the +speculators were in their turn startled, abashed, or irritated, +according to their respective temperaments and frames of mind, by what +followed. + +But there was a young giant, with a blonde beard, who let his blue eyes +fall on the floor, drew back till he leant against the wall, and +thrusting his hands into his pockets, asked himself in a dazed, humbled +way, if an angel had come down among them, and where was the good of +presuming to thank an angel? It was a thousand times more officious and +audacious than to disregard the hackneyed quotation about the folly of +painting a lily and perfuming a rose. + +Annie, the moment she could be spared, went to her own room, fell down +on her knees, and cried as if her heart would break. Yet they were not +unhappy, but blissful tears, though they were as much for her own +unworthiness as for God's unmerited goodness. + +Then she snatched up a sheet of paper and wrote home. "I was so +discontented--such a peevish wretch, this morning, but I have had a +tonic, and now I am so unspeakably satisfied with my lot in life that I +believe I am the happiest girl in England to-night. I would not change +places with a hundred old Aunt Pennys, only I know, alas! that I am not +half good enough to be a nurse. Yet I would rather be a nurse than any +other character in the world, and I would not go back for a permanency +to dear old Redcross, after which I was hankering this very morning, and +live at home with you all again, leading the aimless, self-seeking life +I led, not though Mr. Carey's bank were to rise out of its ashes and +flourish to an extent that its greatest upholders never dreamt of--not +though I were to get a pension or an earl's ransom, or whatever else +people count magnificent compensations and rewards. But you must not +think that it is because I do not love you all as well and a thousand +times better than I ever loved you, for that would be a great mistake, +since I am just beginning to know your true value. But don't you +understand it would break my heart to think that I should no longer be a +nurse and never have such another experience as I have had this +afternoon." And then she told them in a very few words what had happened +and what the surgeon had said to her. How the sister of the ward, and +the matron, and everybody she knew in St. Ebbe's had congratulated her. +They had all united in promising that the poor little fellow should be +her patient in future; they had begun already to call him "Miss Millar's +boy." + +The little Doctor not only wiped his spectacles, he held his head +higher. Mrs. Millar read the letter again and again, appropriating it +and carrying it in her pocket till it was worn to fragments. These were +still religiously preserved and portions read to select and sympathetic +audiences. And every time she read the lines herself with a full heart, +she called on God to bless her good Annie, and thought she was honoured +among mothers in having such a daughter. + +As for Dora and May they were long of ceasing to talk with bated breath +and the height of loving enthusiasm of how Annie had mastered herself, +and what a stay she had been in the hour of need to the lad. They +planned and carried out their plans at every spare moment, in the +manufacture of knitted socks and cravats for his benefit. But their +great achievement was a quilted dressing-gown which Dora contrived to +cut out, and May, in spite of her bad sewing, to help to sew together, +that in his convalescence he might sit up in bed like a little sick +prince. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +MRS. JENNINGS AND HER DAUGHTER HESTER. + + +Rose Millar had made up her mind to like everything, if possible, in her +new surroundings, and when she came up to town it was not only by a +piece of good fortune, it was to the girl's credit, that she found so +much she could appreciate, and so little, comparatively, that it was +difficult to put up with. + +In the first place, and as of primary consequence to Rose's well-being, +Mrs. Jennings, the lady with whom Rose was boarded, turned out an +excellently-disposed gentlewoman. She had a well-ordered house, pervaded +with the spirit of a gentlewoman. The whole establishment was full of +the self-respect which showed itself in a scrupulous consideration for +the rights and claims, the doings and feelings, of others. + +Rose did not complain because Mrs. Jennings and her house alike were +also antiquated and formal. But the lady was not merely formal; it was a +point of honour and an inveterate weakness with her to refuse to own +that she had anything to do with such small but welcome boons to her as +boarders. There she sat, serenely disclaiming the slightest knowledge of +what had taken place, and attributing every attention to her old servant +Susan, who had been with Mrs. Jennings since her marriage +five-and-thirty years before. Or, if it was not Susan, it was her +coadjutor, Marianne, in her housemaid's neat dress, whom Susan, in her +working housekeeper's black cap and gold-rimmed spectacles, had trained +to all fit and proper service in a gentlewoman's house. + +In person Mrs. Jennings was tall and thin, sallow, and slightly +hook-nosed, but still handsome. Her upright, broad-shouldered, and, by +comparison, slender waisted figure was conventionally good; but it was +hard to say how far it was her own, or how much it was made up. For she +was one of those women who consider that it is a duty which they owe to +the world not only to show themselves to the best advantage in bodily +presence to the last, but so to conceal and atone for the ravages of +time as to preserve a semblance of their maturity after it is long past. +The performance is not altogether successful. For one thing, it is apt +to call forth a spirit of contemptuous pity in the youthful spectator +who is still a long way from needing to employ such laborious, +self-denying arts. + +Mrs. Jennings added to her natural air of dignity by a filmy shawl of +black lace in summer, and of white Shetland wool in winter, draped round +her without so much as a fold out of order, and by a somewhat elaborate +modification of a widow's cap which added half an inch to her height. As +Rose wrote in an early letter home, Mrs. Jennings's cap looked as if she +had been born with it on her coal black hair, or as if it were glued and +gummed there beyond any possibility of being displaced. Mother ought to +see it, take an example, and abandon her flighty, waggling head-gear. +No, on second thoughts, Rose would not like to see mother with a cap +fitted on her head like the bowl of a helmet, and giving the idea of +such stony stability that it might have been fastened with invisible +nails hammered into her skull. + +Hester Jennings, Mrs. Jennings's daughter, was the young art student +like Rose's self, to whom she and her friends had naturally looked for +congenial companionship where the girl was concerned; and if she did not +find it with Hester, she was not likely to discover it in any of the +other residents at No. 12 Welby Square. Naturally Rose did not greatly +affect the remaining members of that elderly society, on which Mrs. +Jennings professed to set store. She could not help liking Mrs. +Jennings, though, alas! Rose scarcely believed in her so much as she +would have been justified in doing. + +In Mrs. Jennings's daughter, who had been from the first thought of as +a friend for Rose, she believed entirely. Yet Rose had been in the +beginning both startled by Hester Jennings and disappointed in her. + +Hester Jennings looked considerably older than she was, which was about +Annie Millar's age; in fact, she was prematurely worn with study and +work. She was like her mother on a larger scale, with advantages of a +fair paleness and remarkable violet-blue eyes, which Mrs. Jennings had +never possessed. Hester might have passed for a lovely young woman if +she had cared in the least to do it. But never was girl more indifferent +to such claims or more capable of doing her worst to qualify them and +render them the next thing to null and void. When Annie Millar made +Hester Jennings's acquaintance, Annie maintained that there was +something left out in Hester's composition, the part which makes a woman +desire to look well in the eyes of her neighbours, and win admiration, +though the admiration be as skin deep as the beauty which creates it. + +To think that a daughter of Mrs. Jennings, an artist in her own right, +could dress so badly, with such a careless contempt for patterns and +colours, in such ill-fitting frocks and dowdy or grotesque hats! Her +preference for strident aniline dyes and gigantic stripes and checks in +the different articles of her costume looked very like perversity; +especially when it was shown that with reference to other persons, in +arranging to paint a portrait, for instance, no one, not Mrs. Jennings, +displayed such a fine sense of fitness and harmony as Hester exhibited. +Dress was to her, in her private character, mere necessary clothing, +warm or cool as the season required. It was not worth the waste of +thought implied by turning it over in her mind. Her mother dressed for +the family; or, if she did not, Hester understood that her married +sisters and sisters-in-law devoted, with success, a great deal of time +which they did not value in other respects, to the subject in question. + +Speak of Rose Millar's professional notions as to the human figure being +left easy and untrammelled! Rose was a pattern of decorous neatness and +trimness compared to Hester; indeed, Rose was appalled by the total +absence of order and ceremony, not to say of embellishment, in her +friend's toilet. Hester abandoned herself permanently to deshabilles. +She appeared in a jacket indoors as well as out. She dispensed with +collars in morning and lace in evening wear. She did her hair once when +she got up, and regarded passing her hand over her head when she took +off her hat as all that was incumbent upon her afterwards. Without +intending it, and without dreaming of copying the bushes of hair in +Rossetti's pictures, Hester Jennings's sandy-coloured locks, not a good +point in her personal appearance, were, as her great-grandmother would +have cried in horror, more like a dish-mop than anything else. She +stopped short of dirt in her slovenliness because of her purity of soul, +her deep respect for the laws of health, and because of the traditions +of her class, from which she could not altogether escape. But between +her bondage to work, and her scornful neglect of other claims which she +had known over-exalted and exaggerated, she had accomplished marvels. + +Hester Jennings had attained such eminence in her recklessness of +consequences, that, in place of being a nearly lovely woman, in +accordance with her profile, complexion, and glorious eyes, she was +barely good-looking because of them, in a style which repulsed many more +people than it attracted others. The sight of Hester was one of the +numerous lessons which she was destined to give to Rose Millar. It +frightened Rose into becoming tamely conventional and elaborately tidy +in dress, to the surprise and edification of her sister Annie, for it +was just at the time when Annie was most spent by her new life and +labours, and least inclined to put off her hospital gown and cap. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +A YOUNG ARTIST'S EXPERIENCE. + + +Rose respected Hester Jennings. She could not help respecting her--a +creature so much in earnest, so indefatigably industrious, so +indifferent to all the distractions of the outer world which might have +taken her out of herself and away from her work, while she was not above +three or four years Rose's senior. If Hester would have let her, the +respect would have deepened to reverence, when Rose discovered what the +elder girl neither hid nor boasted of, that she was not only paying for +her art lessons at the art school, and in other respects freeing her +mother from the burden of her maintenance,--she was steadily earning a +small independent income by working incessantly at every spare moment +snatched from her studies. She worked at all sorts of designs for the +most insignificant and obscure cheaply illustrated books and periodicals +which cannot exist entirely on old plates excavated from forgotten +stores, bought by the thousand at trade sales, procured by transfer +from America, or even--now that national costumes are dying out--from +France and Germany. These attempts at art were intended to pass into the +hands of children--not the favoured children reared on the charming +fancies of Caldecott and Kate Greenaway; but homelier, more stolid, and +easily satisfied children. Such art was also for the masses of the +people who cannot pay for original art, save in its first uncertain +developments, when the stagier it is, the blacker, the bolder, the more +meretriciously pretty or fantastically horrible, the better it is +relished by its public. Even the stereotyped representations of the +coarser fashion-plates, and the eccentric symbols and arbitrary groups +employed in the humbler trade advertisements which the magnates in such +advertising have left far behind, were food for Hester's unresting +pencil. She might have injured herself irreparably by such illegitimate +practice had she not studied as faithfully as she designed, with +something of a stern, merciless severity, hunting out and correcting in +her studies the errors of her crude work. + +Stress of circumstances had lent what the French would have called a +brutal side to Hester's natural candour and sincerity. It was one +comfort that she was still more brutal to herself than to the rest of +the world. + +When Rose Millar showed her sister-artist some of Rose's sketches, +Hester gave them a glance and a toss aside one after the other. + +"There is nothing in that," she said coolly, "though I can see you have +taken some trouble with it. This is not so bad. No, don't show that +thing to anybody else--it will do you harm." Her highest praise was the +"not bad" of mildest negative approval. "When you go to the class +to-morrow morning," predicted the slashing critic, "you may depend upon +it you will be turned back to a course of free-hand, or to copying from +the round again. I don't mean that Mr. St. Foy will be as plain-spoken +as I have been; he is a great deal too much afraid of hurting your +feelings and his own, and of losing a pupil, though he is not what I +should call either a bad man or a bad teacher. He is just like the rest; +but wait and see if he does not politely turn you back to very nearly +the beginning." + +"I have had good teachers before," said Rose, crumpling up her nose and +her forehead tightly, and swelling a little with wounded self-respect as +well as wounded vanity. "It is queer, to say the least, if all my +teachers were in a conspiracy to push me on to what I was not fit for, +and to give me work altogether beyond my powers." + +"You asked my opinion," said Hester Jennings, with inflexible calmness, +"and I am not surprised that you do not like it when you have got +it--few people do. The truth is not generally palatable. Not that I go +in for infallibility of judgment. Wait and see what Mr. St. Foy +does--not says--to-morrow." + +"But why were the others--one of them an exhibitor at the Academy and +the Grosvenor--so much mistaken?" inquired Rose, with natural +indignation. + +"How can I tell? But I hope you do not imagine that exhibitors are +necessarily geniuses, or not as other men, or that they must be able to +do a little bit of tolerable teaching when it pays them to condescend to +it? Mr. St. Foy never exhibits--very likely for the good reason that his +pictures are not accepted; but it does not follow on that account that +he cannot paint a fairly good picture--better even than some which are +hung on the line--and teach very tolerably to boot." + +This was a new, bewildering doctrine, and a thoroughly disheartening +state of matters, to which Rose, extinguished as she was on her own +merits, did not make any reply. + +"What I think, if you care to hear further what I think," said Hester, +with a dry smile, "is that in not taking time and in being wild to paint +a complete picture--something which everybody could recognize as a +picture, and your friends admire--as if such a thing can be done to any +good purpose for years and years--you have fallen into the disastrous +habit of forgetting, or of only half remembering, what you learnt +before, as you went on learning more. At least, that is the only way in +which I can account for the wretchedness of some of your drawing, and +the badness of your perspective, when you have got so far as to have a +feeling for a scale of colour and the tone of a picture." + +"Well, I suppose I can learn it all over again," said Rose, with a +mixture of spirit and doggedness, forcing herself not to betray further +resentment, and to swallow a little girlish weakness at the +uncompromising treatment she was receiving. What would May and Dora say? +But she durst not trust herself to think of them. + +"Of course," answered Hester, opening widely a pair of singularly clear +keen eyes. "Do you think I should have taken the trouble to say as much +if I had thought otherwise?" + +It was the one dubious compliment which Rose extracted, without meaning +it, from the fault-finder. + +Hester's openly expressed desire was to be an artist out and out, to +live like an artist, not to be troubled with the hindrances and petty +restrictions of an ordinary woman's life, which she was tempted to +despise, to which, if she yielded at all in her mother's house, it was +with scarcely concealed reluctance and aversion. Very likely she had +only the most one-sided conception of the life she would have chosen. +Certainly her notions of Bohemianism were about as ingenuous as "little +May's" might have been; to go where art called her, to do what art +demanded of her, to be art's humble, diligent, faithful servant all her +days, without being held back and fettered on every hand by set meals, +obtrusive servants, changes of dress, the obligation to pay and receive +visits. The dream of her life was to get to Paris and have lessons in +one of the French studios, where she was led to believe women have as +good a chance of being well taught as men possess. She would prefer to +live with some young women students like herself _en fille_--a +modified--much modified version of _en garçon_. They would hire an +_étage_ in some cheap, convenient quarter, get the wife or daughter of +the _conciergerie_ to prepare breakfast and supper for them, dine at one +of Duval's restaurants work all day, and sleep the sleep of the +labouring woman at night. She said she knew quite well how such artists +were considered in Paris, that they were regarded as _vauriennes_, to +whom there was no occasion to pay the respect and consideration which +were reserved for the potent _mesdames_ and the _jeunes filles ingénues_ +of society. But what had she to do with society? She belonged to the +great republic of art, and had infinitely more to occupy her than to +listen for what society would say. As to not being able to take care of +herself and behave so that the slightest indignity to her would never be +ventured upon, the bare mention of such a possibility was received by +Hester with a wrath which bordered on fierceness, and for the most part +silenced her opponents effectually. Any displeasure which Annie Millar +had displayed on a similar supposition was mild by comparison. + +Hester was not an only child. Mrs. Jennings had sons, all in the army or +navy, the mother was proud to say; but none of them in those days of +competitive examinations and expensive living was high enough up in the +service to be able to help his mother. On the contrary, grown men, with +men's callings, as they were, they found themselves under the necessity +of taking help from her. There were also other daughters besides Hester +married to men in professions as unexceptionable as those of their +brothers-in-law, but neither were they in circumstances which could make +them feel justified in granting the smallest subsidy to Mrs. Jennings. +Only Hester toiled for her mother at every moment which she could take +from her studies and her natural rest. Yet the two women, who had dwelt +under the same roof since Hester's babyhood, who were united by the +strongest and most sacred tie, were without one taste in common, were +irreconcilably different in every mode of thought and impulse of +feeling, were only alike in each being well-intentioned and desirous of +fulfilling her intuitions and justifying her beliefs. Being wise, the +pair agreed to differ. But oh! the pity of it where aims, ideals and +standards, hopes and fears, were all equally wide apart. + +Mrs. Jennings did not interfere with Hester's freedom farther than she +could help. Hester had her own engagements, her own circle of friends. + +It may not surprise those who are acquainted with the various versions +of Hester Jennings to be met with in this generation, that she was a +red-hot radical in contrast to her mother's conservatism--well-nigh a +_communiste_, to whom woman's rights and wrongs meant a burning question +of the day, which, next to her love of art, came very near to her heart. +She was almost powerless to assist her sister women, so overworked was +she on her own account, but whenever she could snatch a moment half a +dozen clubs and societies claimed her for their own. She had really a +wide personal knowledge of the working-women of London, employed and +unemployed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +MR. ST. FOY'S AND THE MISSES STONE'S. + + +There was a second and large portion of Rose's life which belonged to +her art classes, and to the classes in which she was one of the teachers +and not one of the taught. In the art classes Hester Jennings's +influence still dominated over Rose. In spite of Mr. St. Foy's +professional qualifications, for which Hester had vouched, he had not so +potent a personality as that possessed by one of his favourite pupils. +He was tall, thin, gentleman-like, and delicate-looking, with a habit of +languidly winking his eyes every second or two, as if they were weary of +the trying sights of this world. He was kind to Rose in his courteous +way, but she would not have been certain either of his ability to judge +her work or of his honest opinion of it, if it had not been for what +Hester told her. + +There were fifty pupils among whom she and Hester ranked. These occupied +the desks, worked at the easels, copied from copies, from the round +or--height of promotion--from well-known models attached to the +institution. There was the old market woman who obligingly sat alike for +wicked old hags and doting grandmothers. There was the athletic young +porter, off duty, who was a brigand or a pilot as occasion served. + +The pupils were of various styles, idle and chattering, picturesque and +sentimental, industrious, commonplace, but the most of them were +variations on that last accepted version of the lady artist--the +individual girl who aims at being independent and natural to the verge +of harmless lawlessness and Philistinism--strange reaction from +æstheticism. There were many Hester Jennings's though none so pronounced +as Hester. + +The Misses Stone's select boarding-school carried Rose twice a week into +another region, where the wind did not blow so freely and the air was a +trifle stifling. Sometimes she wondered if the Misses Stone knew the +tone of a large proportion of the young lady artists at Mr. St. Foy's +classes--not that Rose herself could see anything absolutely wrong in +it--whether they would care to have an assistant drawing-mistress from +those half-emancipated, more than half insubordinate ranks. However, +Rose's appointment was not in any great danger of being cancelled. She +had involuntarily become doubly careful in her dress and demeanour +lately, and she discovered that the Misses Stone were old and intimate +friends of Mrs. Jennings, whom they pitied sincerely for having so +troublesome a daughter. + +At first Rose did not dislike the office of teacher, which brought her +in a little income before she was out of her teens. The whole place +reminded her pleasantly of Miss Burridge's school which she had quitted +but recently, only instead of having a metropolitan superiority in +enlightenment and progress, strange to say, the Misses Stone's +establishment, as if drawing within itself and shrinking back from the +constantly moving, restlessly advancing world around, was really +older-fashioned, less in the van of public opinion than the school at +Redcross. The Misses Stone, their teachers and pupils, were well-bred, +and what might have been called in past days "prettily behaved," though +the behaviour was a little formal. Women and girls were elegantly +accomplished, in place of being solidly informed or scientifically +crammed, in accordance with the fashion of the nineteenth century. Above +all, they declined with a gentle unconquerable doggedness to be turned +from the even tenor of their ways. Italian was still largely taught in +the school, while only a fraction of the pupils learnt German. Latin had +no standing ground save in the derivation of words, Greek was unknown. +The word mathematics was not mentioned. The voice of the drill-sergeant +was not heard, but the dancing-master with his kit attended twice a +week, like Rose, all the year round. The harp was played by the pupils +instead of the violin. Withal there was much careful learning and +repeating of Sunday Collects and the Church Catechism. + +The school found ample support. What it attempted to do was in the main +well done. Undoubtedly there was an attraction, half-graceful, +half-quaint, in all connected with it, from the gentle manners of the +elderly Misses Stone, who were only bitter against what was bold, +impertinent, and eccentric, to the most dainty of their small pupils. +Strictly conservative people felt that their daughters were safe in such +an atmosphere, and patronized it accordingly. Undoubtedly they learnt a +good deal which was worth learning. + +Rose began by receiving nothing save the most considerate kindness and +approval in that house. It was a libel on its forms and ceremonies to +imagine that they contained anything tyrannical and harsh in their +essence. The very law of their being was amiability, combined with mild +steadfastness in withstanding the subversive attitude of the time. The +most highly-born, richly-endowed girl within the precincts--and the +school was rather aristocratic--would no more have ventured on being +rude to Miss Rose Millar, the junior drawing-mistress, than the girl +would have presumed to stamp her foot at one of the Misses Stone. If +Rose had dropped her pencil in the course of her work, the highly-born +pupil, by force of example, if for no other reason, would immediately +have risen and picked it up, though she might not have made the speech +about a Titian being worthy to be served by a Cæsar. In fact Rose was in +danger of being killed with kindness. Soon she was conscious of +something choking, crushing, dwarfing in this artificial system. This +was made more conspicuous to her by the choice of art subjects for the +girls' study. There was no end of flower and fruit pieces. There were +the stereotyped noble ruins, and cottages, either embowered in roses or +half-buried in snow. There were the Dutch and Venetian boats which had +never sailed on familiar waters. Stags abounded, and Rose ceased to ask +why so many of them stood at bay. The sleeping baby, which might have +been a dead baby or a stone baby, was there; so was the long-nosed, +wooden-legged collie, watching the shepherd's plaid. With what a lively +hatred Rose grew to hate that collie! + +Rose felt herself "cribbed, cabined, and confined" when she came from +the comparative open air and robust life of Mr. St. Foy's classes. Yet +even these were not the world of art. She got nervous in the fear of +unworthily committing solecisms against the silken softness and steely +rigidity of the Misses Stone's shrine. She thought if she caught up and +reproduced any of Hester's vagabond notes--the Misses Stone were +necessarily slightly acquainted with Hester, of whom, however, they +never spoke--it would be like throwing a bombshell among these quiet, +unalterable proprieties. She came to have a morbid, feverish craving to +do it, or to see some other person do it. For instance, if young Lady +Maud Devereux would but bid Rose tie her shoe, or even if she would +contradict Miss Stone, or Miss Lucilla, or Miss Charlotte, without +prefacing the contradiction by "I beg your pardon!" + +At last these two days a week of giving lessons at the Misses Stone's, +from being merely the agreeable lucrative variety in her life which they +had promised to be, became gray days of penance to Rose Millar, when she +felt she was under a spell, and did her duty badly. She ceased to refer +to them in her letters home. + +Rose arrived one morning at the Misses Stone's in a peculiarly excitable +and yet depressed frame of mind. She had not been to Mr. St. Foy's +classes that day; but Hester Jennings had known, the afternoon before, a +piece of unwelcome news which she thought fit to communicate to Rose in +the course of their morning walk, that ran so far in the same +direction. A group of peasants, with which Rose Millar had been taking a +great deal of pains, had been summarily condemned and dismissed by the +master. Rose waxed hot and restive under the sentence, and began to +dispute it vehemently, Hester defending it with equal vehemence, in what +she considered justice to Mr. St. Foy, on the ground of a lack of +dignity and repose in the central peasant. Hester was at that moment +tearing along a thoroughfare, and showing so little dignity and repose +not only in her gait, but in her "loud," ill-assorted garments, that, as +frequently happened, to Rose's vexation, several people among the +passers-by turned and looked after them. Hester to talk of a want of +dignity and repose! It was like Satan reproving sin. + +At the same time, while it is hard to admit the justness of a criticism +unaffected by the inconsistency of the person who utters it and of the +circumstances under which it is uttered, Rose was perfectly well aware +that Hester Jennings was as excellent a judge of dignity and repose, +apart from her personal proceedings, as any artist could be. + +Rose did not retaliate, save in self-defence. Hester was her senior in +art-knowledge still more than in years. She was not her sister to be +treated without ceremony, and pretty deep down in Rose's girlish heart +there was a respectful tolerance, an approach to tender reverence, for +the turbulent-minded, chaotic, gifted creature beside her. Still Rose's +equanimity was considerably disturbed. + +The unruffled serenity of the Misses Stone's domain, far from restoring +Rose's composure, seemed to smite her by contrast with an intolerable +sense of personal reproach, and to goad her into rebellion. Rose was +conscious of her variable spirits--the heritage of her years--getting +more and more uncertain, and of being wrought up to a perilously +high-strung pitch. She felt as if she were panting for liberty to +breathe, to express her discordant mood in some unconventional manner. + +As it happened, the principal drawing-mistress, a highly decorous, +self-controlled young woman, ten years Rose's senior, was absent, and +her assistant was alone at her post, with the whole class in and on her +hands. Rose had already taken off her hat and gloves, and she tried to +compose her ruffled feelings before she began her round of the +drawing-boards, as Mr. St. Foy inspected his easels. The analogy with +its disproportion struck her, and moved her to silent, unsteady +laughter, which she could not restrain, so that it broke out into a +ringing peal at the first enormity in drawing which she came across. + +Nobody laughed like that at the Misses Stone's --certainly no +low-voiced, quietly conducted teacher. Rose was further aggrieved and +tormented by the astonished heads privily raised, and the wondering eyes +covertly looking at her. She laughed no more. She went on examining, +commending, correcting, till she was tired out. Surely the morning hours +were endless that day. She was exhausted, not merely by the "smart walk" +from Welby Square, which, taken at Hester Jennings's pace, was always +tiring, as Rose knew to her cost, but also by the turmoil of spirit she +had been in. All the toils, disappointments, and drudgery of the life +which lay before her seemed suddenly to press upon her and overwhelm +her, and before she knew what she was doing she was sobbing behind her +handkerchief. She had one grain of sense left, she turned her back; but +her heaving shoulders and the muffled sound of a "good cry" were not +hidden from the electrified class. + +Nobody cried like that at the Misses Stone's, unless it might be to +somebody's pillow in the darkness of the night. For any teacher to cry +in her class was unheard of. Rose conquered herself in less time than it +has taken to recount her weakness, and resumed the lesson with moist +eyes, a reddened nose, and her whole girlish body tingling and smarting +with girlish mortification. All the rest of the morning she seemed to +hear two startling statements repeated alternately and without pause. + +"Miss Rose Millar laughed loudly in the middle of her teaching;" and oh! +shame of shames, for the womanly dignity of the last year of Rose's +teens--"Miss Rose Millar cried before the whole class." + +Rose had once joined in a girls' play, full of girlish cleverness and +girlish points and hits. No less a personage than Queen Elizabeth was +introduced into it. In the course of the plot great stress was laid on +the fact that the Queen had laughed at Lord Essex's expense, behind his +back. This was done in order to pique the proud, spoilt young courtier +to resent the laughter, and, in homely parlance, to give Her Majesty +more to laugh at. The phrase "_and the Queen laughed_," had been +emphatically repeated again and again in Lord Essex's hearing, with much +malicious meaning and effect. + +That mocking quotation was resounding in Rose's ears with a +characteristic variation. It was no longer "_and the Queen laughed_," it +was "and Miss Rose Millar laughed," then alas! alas! as a fit pendant, +"and Miss Rose Millar cried." + +What a big baby she had shown herself, without the decent reticence of a +gentlewoman's good breeding, or the proper pride of a girl who +respected herself. How these school-girls must despise her! What was she +to do? Wait for the girls to whisper and chatter as all girls will, +however trained? Or go at once to the Miss Stone with whom she had most +to do, tell her the solecism of which she, Rose, had been guilty in the +best behaved of schools, and abide by Miss Stone's decision, though it +should be that she and her sisters would in future dispense with the +services of Miss Rose Millar as assistant drawing-mistress. + +Rose had the courage and honesty to adopt the latter course, and she +tried to think that the fresh affront it brought her, was part of the +penalty which she was bound to pay for her disgraceful childishness. + +Miss Lucilla Stone listened with a little personal discomfiture, for she +was, like Mrs. Jennings, so thoroughly mistress of herself and the +situation, that any _gaucherie_ or boisterous indiscretion was positive +pain to her. Besides, the bad example to the girls for whom Miss Lucilla +and her sisters were responsible, made a matter which people who did not +understand might wrongly consider a trifle, really a serious affair. "No +doubt," acquiesced Miss Lucilla, "something had put you out, as you tell +me," in low-voiced rebuke, which yet sunk Rose in the dust, deeper than +she had been, when she was making her impulsive confession. "You were +tired with your walk, of course, but, my dear Miss Rose Millar, it is +necessary to learn to practise self-control, especially in the presence +of young people. They are so quick to notice and to encroach on their +elders and those placed in authority over them, when the necessary +distance of perfect self-control on the one side--if possible on both +sides--is not preserved between them. Perhaps," added Miss Lucilla +meditatively, and beginning to brighten a little, for she hated to give +the lecture well-nigh as much as Rose hated to receive it, "if you had +swallowed just a teaspoonful of _sel-volatile_ or something of that +kind, when you came in, the little scene would have been avoided. I +shall speak to my sister Charlotte, who has the key of our medicine +chest, and get her to administer a tiny dose to you every drawing day; +you will step into the study the first thing, and it will be ready for +you." + +"Oh, no, thank you, Miss Lucilla," exclaimed Rose hastily, "I never took +_sel-volatile_ in my life. Father says not one of us is hysterical, or +is likely to faint on an emergency, not even Dora or May. He is quite +proud of Annie--my sister Annie--for her nerve, and she needs it all, +since she is in training for a nurse." + +Miss Lucilla shook her head dubiously, whether at the modern +institution of lady nurses, or at the superiority in nerve of any family +to which Miss Rose Millar belonged. + +"You may not have been hysterical before," said Miss Lucilla with mild +obstinacy; "but that is no reason why you should not be so now. If you +dislike _sel-volatile_, you ought to try red lavender drops. I know they +have gone out of fashion, but my dear mother still used them and found +much benefit from them till she was seventy-seven years of age." + +Rose longed to say that there was a great gulf between seventy-seven and +nineteen and two months. She was stopped by the quiet determination and +self-satisfaction visible in Miss Lucilla's face and manner, as she rose +and graciously but summarily dismissed the trespasser on her valuable +time. + +"Yes, I hope this will meet the case. You have been overdoing +yourself--that explains itself to everybody. Dear Mrs. Jennings must +forbid you tea and coffee and limit you to cocoa in the meantime; +indeed, my sisters and I take that precaution before any mischief +appears. Don't forget Miss Stone's study the first thing on drawing +mornings. I trust a little sedative and stimulant in one will prepare +you nicely for the drawing lessons." + +To Rose's disgust she was compelled to make wry faces and choke over so +many doses of _sel-volatile_ and red lavender to the end of the term. +She made secret unfulfilled threats to write to her father and get him +to say that he would not permit her constitution to be tampered with, he +would himself order her what she required, if she needed to be quieted +like an incipient mad woman or a weak emotional fool. + +Rose was not sure that Annie ought not to have come to her help. The +younger sister did not see what advantage there was to the family in the +elder sister's being a nurse if she was not to interfere on occasions of +this kind. But Annie had the bad taste to take the story as a good joke +against Rose; and as for Hester Jennings, it was an instance of "_the +Queen laughed_" with a vengeance. However, Hester stepped in so far. She +would not let the soothing regimen, on which Rose was put, go the length +of depriving her of her tea and coffee in Welby Square. + +Within the next few weeks Hester did Rose a still better turn. She +(Hester) came to her friend with an order for decorative designs in +scroll-work, which had reached the elder girl from a decorator of some +repute. + +"I think you could do it, Rose," said Hester. "It would not take much +time, and if your work satisfied the great tradesman who has given such +an impetus to this kind of art, it might be a perfect windfall to art +students wishing to keep themselves. You need not despise it in the +light of house-painting. If you read your Ruskin, you will find him as +good as calling Titian and Veronese house-painters, though to be sure +frescoes are rather an extension of scroll-work." + +"Indeed, I should never dream of despising it. I should be only too +thankful for any kind of copying or pattern-drawing, or designing for +Christmas-cards--like poor Fanny Russell--if it were the beginning of +the least little bit of an order," said Rose meekly, with a stifled sigh +given to her and May's old magnificent ideas of commissions. "But why +don't you keep the work for yourself, Hester?" the young girl inquired. +"You could do it so well and so easily, and it would be no pain to you; +it would be a pleasure, for it is graceful and true work so far as it +goes--not like these cruel illustrations." + +But Hester waived aside the undertaking. "You have been more accustomed +to this kind of thing than I have. No, I mean to stick to my +illustrations, cruel or kind. There is a new man in the publisher's +office who is giving me more of my own way, and I feel it would not be +fair to leave him in the lurch. Who knows that we may not, between us, +lead the way to a revolution in the style of the cheapest original +English wood-cut. Besides, I do not want any more diversions from my +main business. I am already on four different committees for women's +trade unions, the female franchise, and all the rest of it. I must crib +a little more time for my hand and foot. Don't you know?--Drawing my own +hand and foot from their reflection in a looking-glass till I can put +them in any position, and foreshorten them to my mind." + +Rose competed for the scroll-work order, and did it so well that she got +the order, and along with it a note of commendation, a tolerably large +extension of the commission, and the first instalment of a liberal +payment for the kind of work. Her elation knew no bounds-- + +"Oh! Hester, I should never, never even have heard of this delightful +job but for you. What can I ever do for you?" + +"Don't hug me," said Hester, retreating in veritable terror, for she had +a peculiar genuine aversion to caresses, still more than to thanks. +"Don't knock off my hat, for I cannot spare another minute to put it +straight again." + +The next thing Hester heard was a half-impetuous, half-shamefaced +admission from Rose that she had resigned her post as assistant +drawing-mistress at the Misses Stone's school. + +Hester looked grave on the instant. "What did you do that for?" she +demanded gruffly. "Did you mention it to your sister? Have you told them +at home?" + +"No," Rose was forced to own--at least not till the deed was done. She +had acted on her own responsibility. "But indeed, Hester, it is the best +plan," she argued volubly. "Annie and all of them will say so when they +know how I mean to cultivate this scroll-work, which is paying me twice +as well already. I put it to you if I could do two things at once, and +if it would be wise to sacrifice the more profitable for the less +remunerative. Why it would be quite shortsighted and cowardly." + +"Humph," said Hester, without the smallest disguise, "much experience +you have had of it! Do you know, Rose Millar, these decorators' fads are +constantly changing? Perhaps in three months they will all be for +mosaic, or tiles, or peacocks' feathers again. If I had thought you were +such a rash idiotic little goose, I should never have breathed a word to +you of this man and his scroll-work." + +"Oh! but, Hester," pled Rose, determined not to be offended, "I was only +relieving the poor Misses Stone of a painful necessity. I am sure they +have never put any dependence on me since the day I broke down--I grant +you idiotically. I cannot stand the repression--suppression--whatever +you like to call it. Now that there is a way out of it, I have felt +like a wild beast in the school--the girls are so very tame--so much +tamer than we were at Miss Burridge's--where I was not a black +sheep--May will tell you if you care to ask her," protested Rose with +wounded feeling. "But I am so tired of the rosy and snowy cottages and +the ruins, and of that long-nosed collie. Sometimes I feel as if I would +give the world for him to wag his tail one day, just to give me an +excuse for crying out and flinging my india-rubber at him. I wish May +saw him; it might stop her ecstasies over her new acquisition--the brute +at home. I feel that this other brute, and the rest of the Misses +Stone's copies and models, are injuring my drawing--I know they are +making it cramped; while the scrolls help my freedom of touch like +Hogarth's line of beauty or Giotto's O. And it is such humbug, and so +horrid to have to swallow these doses of _sel-volatile_--a great healthy +girl like me!" + +"Humph!" said Hester again, "I hope you may not repent what you have +done--if so, you need not blame me." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE OLD TOWN, WITH ITS AIR STAGNANT YET TROUBLED. IS MAY TO BECOME A +SCHOLAR OR A SHOP-GIRL? + + +The spring found Redcross still staggering under the failure of Carey's +Bank. Hardly a week passed yet without some painful result of the +disaster coming to light. These results had ceased to startle, there had +been so many of them; but they still held plenty of interest for the +fellow-sufferers, and Dora and May's letters were full of the details. + +Bell Hewett had left Miss Burridge's; she had got a situation, or +rather, she had been appointed to a junior form in the Girls' Day School +at Deweshurst, going in the morning and returning in the afternoon by +train. It was a good thing for Bell on the whole. She was more +independent, had a recognized position as a public school-mistress, +which she would not have had as a private governess; and if she +continued to study, and passed various examinations, she might rise to +higher and higher forms until she blossomed into a head-mistress--fancy +Bell a head-mistress! She had quite a handsome salary, more than poor +Ned's according to the chroniclers, Dora and May. That was the bright +side of it. Unluckily for Bell, as most people thought, there was +another. The daily journeys, together with the school-work, constituted +a heavy task for a girl. Bell, toiling up from the railway station on a +rainy day, with her umbrella ready to turn inside out, and her +waterproof flying open, because her left hand, cramped and numb, was +laden with a great bundle of exercises to correct at home, presented a +dejected figure, tired out and three-fourths beaten. So the Miss Dyers +thought as they rolled past her in their carriage, and debated whether +they should not stop to pick her up and save her walking the rest of the +road. But she was such a fright, positively bedraggled with mud enough +to soil the cushions, and she could speak of nothing now save the +Deweshurst Girls' Day School and her duties there. It was too tiresome +to be borne with. Poor Bell was not clever, she was one-idea'd and slow +at work like Ned, and she had also his conscientiousness. Probably +promotion was not for her; she must drudge on as best she might. Her +great encouragement at this time, next to her father's and sister's +approbation and sympathy, was, as she told Dora, the prospect of +spending her Easter holidays with Ned at his station-house. What did she +care for its being only a station-house? after the fagging school-work +it would be great fun to put Ned's small house in order, and play at +housekeeping with him for a fortnight. She was bent on making him +comfortable, and cheering him as well as herself. If the weather would +but be fine they might have glorious rambles on the Yorkshire moors when +no trains were due. + +Colonel Russell was sailing once more for India, to lay his bones there +without fail, the little Doctor prophesied sadly. In the meantime he had +got, and been glad to get, a subordinate post in his old field. At the +last moment, after he had established Mrs. Russell and her children in a +cheerful house in Bath, he made up his mind to take his grown-up +daughter out with him. But she was not to stay in his bungalow, for he +was going to a small out-of-the-way station where there would be no +accommodation or society in the barrack circle for a solitary young +lady. Fanny was to be left with a cousin of her father's, in the Bombay +Presidency. The lady had offered to take charge of her, and have her for +a long visit. + +Did Annie and Rose know what that meant? Could they form an indignant, +affronted guess? "Father said," Dora quoted, "that if Colonel Russell, +an honourable gentleman and gallant officer, had not lived in the old +days and had his feelings blunted to the situation, he would never have +consented to such an arrangement for his daughter. But he had seen his +sisters come out to India for the well-understood purpose of getting +married to any eligible man in want of a wife, so why should not Fanny +do the same thing, when his pecuniary losses rendered it particularly +desirable and the opportunity offered itself? It was not in Colonel +Russell's eyes an unworthy resource. Of course Fanny was going out to be +married and creditably disposed of within a given time, else her father +would not have felt justified in paying her outfit and passage-money. +Certainly he had no intention of paying her passage-money home as a +single woman." + +What would the Millars have done in Fanny's case? For was it not +dreadful--particularly when all the young people interested in the +subject remembered quite well that there had been "something" between +Cyril Carey and Fanny Russell for more than a year back? Annie had +always wondered what Fanny could see in a silly, trifling fop like +Cyril. Rose had not been without a corresponding sense of wonder as to +what Cyril could find in Fanny, who, in spite of her grand Norman +peasant's carriage and profile, was dawdling and discontented with +things in general, and though she pretended to a little knowledge of +art, did not in the least understand what she was talking about. +However, Annie's and Rose's opinions were of very little consequence +when the matter concerned--not them--but Cyril and Fanny. There had been +"something" between them which had changed the whole world to them last +summer. They would never entirely outlive and forget it--not though +Fanny went to far Cathay and married, not one, but half a dozen of +Nabobs. For she was going to obey her father, and give herself to the +first eligible bidder for her hand. No doubt she would do it with set +lips, blanched face, and great black eyes looking not only twice as +large as their natural size, but hollow and worn in the young face, +because of the dark rings round them. These were produced by the +sleepless nights which she pretended were occasioned by the hurry of her +preparations, and of her having to say good-bye to all her old friends. +But she would do it all the same. + +Dora had only once caught Fanny Russell alone, and ventured on a timid, +heart-felt expostulation. + +"Must you go to India, Fanny? We shall all miss you so much, and it is +not as if you were to be with your father, but just to stay with a +distant relative whom you have never seen; it does appear such a +sacrifice." + +"And what should I do if I stayed behind papa, Dora?" asked Fanny, +turning upon her with those great burning eyes and parched lips. "The +house here is to be given up and the furniture sold immediately--of +course you know that. It will take all that he can spare after +discharging his share of the bank debts to keep Mrs. Russell and the +children. I am a useless sort of person--a blank in the world. I could +not nurse like Annie, or paint like Rose. I could not even be a +school-mistress like Bell Hewett. Supposing I were qualified I should +break down in a month. I was born in India, and spent the first five +years of my life there, so that I am idle and languid, without stamina +or moral courage; I am like the poor Bengalees, whom I can just +remember. There is nobody who will undertake to keep me in England," +ended Fanny, with a short, hard laugh. + +And Dora, thinking of Cyril Carey--still one of the unemployed, with his +old supercilious airs lost in the gait that was getting slouching, in +keeping with the clothes becoming shabbier and shabbier, and the +downcast, moody looks--could not find words with which to contradict +her. + +Indeed, when Dora was betrayed into giving her mother a hint of that +"something," unsuspected by the seniors of the circle, which had been +between Cyril Carey and Fanny Russell, and rendered Fanny's destination +still more heartless and hateful, Mrs. Millar took an entirely +different view of the circumstances from that taken by her daughters, +and was both indignant and intolerant. "What presumption in Cyril +Carey!" broke out the gentle mother of marriageable daughters, full of +righteous wrath. "To dream of making up to a girl and perhaps engaging +her simple affections, with the danger of breaking her heart and +spoiling her prospects, when he had just failed to pass at college, and +had not so much as a calling--not to say an income, with which to keep a +wife! I shall think worse of him than I did before, after hearing this." + +"But you forget, mother," remonstrated Dora, "that the bank was in +existence then. His father might have been able to do something for +Cyril." + +"He was not going to live on the bank's capital and credit. There was +too much of that going on already with poor James Carey's encroaching, +dishonest relations and their friends. And I beg to tell you, Dora, that +a man who cannot help himself, but has to wait for his father to do +something for him, is a very poor match for any girl. Fanny Russell is +well rid of him. I have no doubt she will think so before she is many +years older--that is, if this is not all a piece of foolish nonsense +such as girls are apt to take into their heads about their companions. +If there was anything in it, and she had not been going away, her +father ought to have been warned, and Cyril Carey spoken to in the way +he deserved--selfish scapegrace! As it is, the bare suspicion is enough +to reconcile one to Fanny Russell's going out to India, though that +custom for girls has fallen into disrepute, and I never had any liking +for it. Still I hope that Fanny will soon make an excellent marriage, +and will learn to laugh at Cyril Carey and his unwarrantable +presumption, together with any girlish folly of which she may have been +guilty." + +Mrs. Millar spoke in another fashion to the little Doctor. She had +happened to be at the railway station on the raw, chill morning when +Fanny Russell, in her smart new gray travelling suit--part of her +outfit--was put into a railway carriage by her father and left there +alone, while he went to look after the luggage and find a +smoking-carriage for himself. + +Fanny sat like a statue. She did not even raise her veil when she was +bidding farewell to Lucy Hewett and Dora, who were seeing her off--not +to take a last look at Redcross, where she had spent her youth. + +Mrs. Millar understood it better when she stumbled against Cyril Carey +half hidden by a lamp-post, watching the vanishing train. She might have +taken the opportunity to rebuke him for his unprincipled recklessness; +instead of doing so--after one glance at the young fellow's haggard +face--the ordinary words of greeting died away on the kind woman's lips. +She turned aside in another direction, making as if she had not seen +him, without breathing a word of the encounter until she had her +husband's ear all to herself in the privacy of the dining-room. + +"O Jonathan!" she said, "I am so glad, so thankful that you did not +interfere and use any influence, any pressure on Dora about Tom +Robinson. I think it would have broken my heart to see any daughter of +mine going off as Fanny Russell went to-day, leaving the look I declare +I beheld on that poor lad's face. I should not wonder though she has +given him the last push on the road to destruction." + +"Oh, come now; it is not so bad as that," protested Dr. Millar, and then +he was guilty of a most audacious paraphrase of a piece of schoolboy +slang, for which he had some excuse in the habits of his wife--"Keep +your cap on, Maria. In the first place, I see no analogy between the +cases. Dora had not a private love affair--at least I was never told of +it." + +"Father, what are you thinking of? A private love affair in this house! +It was very different with poor Fanny Russell, who had only her silly, +selfish young stepmother between her and her father. I dare say she +would never have looked at an empty coxcomb like Cyril Carey if she had +been happy at home." + +"And did I not hear you say," asked the gentleman, who had before now +been made the recipient of the disastrous complication of the story, +"that the girl was well quit of the jackanapes, for she could not have a +worse bargain made for her than she had nearly blundered into on her own +account?" + +"Yes, I did say so," the lady admitted, when thus brought to book; "and +I'd say it again, if I had not seen that miserable, desperate expression +on his face, and he so young, and such a light-hearted, foolish dandy +only the other day. I may be sorry for him, I suppose, though I have no +son of my own. And I am grieved for poor James Carey, who is breaking up +so fast, and for poor, poor Mrs. Carey." + +It was a positive relief when Dr. Millar came in one day and announced +that he had a piece of good news for the family, by far the best where +the Careys were concerned that he had heard for many a day. Cyril had +got an appointment at last; he had been offered the command of the +mounted police at Deweshurst. + +"A policeman. Oh! what a downfall," cried Mrs. Millar and Dora. But when +the Doctor reminded them that there were policemen and policemen, +insisted on the fact that the practice of placing gentlemen at the head +of the constabulary was gaining ground, and asked them what they had +been in the habit of calling Colonel Shaw and Sir Edmund Henderson when +they were the chiefs of the London police, his womankind gave in. + +Mrs. Carey did not say there would be another mouth less for her to +feed, but she remarked, with the same sardonic calmness, that Cyril's +clothes would be provided for him, which would be one good thing. Cyril +himself was only too glad to get away. He would have something to do, +however unpalatable in itself, instead of digging in the garden, and +going through the form of helping Robinson, his clerks, and cashier, +with their books. He would have a good horse under him once more, if he +were only to ride it to police drill. + +Dora could not be sure whether he experienced a throb of thankfulness at +the thought that this had not happened till Fanny Russell was gone. +Where was constancy to draw the line? A man was not less a man because +he was also a mounted policeman. He might even be grandiloquently +styled, by those who were particular about the names of things, the +soldier of peace. Still Dora had an irresistible conception of the +pained disdain, the latent superciliousness, which would have sprung +into full force in Fanny's dark eyes, if she had ever seen the once +magnificent Cyril in the most careful modification of a _bobby's_ +braided tunic and helmet. + +Bell Hewett would not look so, if she, in her school-mistress character, +met Cyril at Deweshurst. Bell, like Dora, would feel her heart soften +and warm to Cyril in his misfortunes. She would think of Ned, and hurry +up to Ned's old playfellow and chum, to tell him the last news from +Yorkshire, and ask what message from him she should send to Ned in her +next letter. Dora was tempted to go on and wonder whether Cyril's heart +would not be touched in turn by the cordial recognition of his Rector's +daughter, who had, on the whole, kept her position better than he, with +his advantages, had kept his, whose frank greeting had become a kind of +credential of gentle birth and breeding afforded to him in full sight of +the natives of Deweshurst. If he felt all that, he must recognize how +womanly and sweet Bell was, though she was not pretty and not one bit +clever, and be full of gratitude to her. And gratitude combined with +considerable isolation on the one hand, and on the other the constantly +present possibility of agreeable encounters with a loyal old friend, +might lead to anything--to a good deal more than Dora cared to say even +to herself, feeling frightened at the length to which she had gone on +the spur of the moment in this most recklessly unworldly match-making. +Yet was it reckless, when Bell would be such a good poor man's wife, and +when marriage with a woman like Bell might make another man of Cyril +Carey? + +However, the Careys' adversity, with its reaction on their old +associates, approached a climax shortly after Cyril left. His father +grew so much more helpless an invalid that it was found absolutely +necessary to have a resident nurse for him. Then Mrs. Carey, though she +continued the nurse-in-chief, stated clearly and dispassionately that +she was now sufficiently disengaged to look after her house and give her +single servant what assistance she required. Therefore, as it was high +time that Phyllis should be doing something for herself, Mrs. Carey +proposed to put her at once into "Robinson's," under Miss Franklin, if +Mr. Robinson would receive Phyllis for an apprentice. + +It was in vain that Phyllis cried and implored her mother to take back +her resolution, and that all her friends apprised of the proposed step +remonstrated; Dr. Millar even called expressly to enter his protest. + +Mrs. Carey would hear of no objections. Phyllis must do something for +herself, and she was not clever or qualified in any way to be a +governess. Mrs. Carey had every confidence in "Robinson's" as an +excellent shop, conducted on the best principles. She had a great +respect for both Mr. Robinson and Miss Franklin--she would never find a +more desirable place for Phyllis. As to cutting her off from all her +connections and the circumstances of her birth and education, that had +been done already pretty effectually. The sooner everybody found his or +her level the better for the world in general. If Mrs. Carey was not +much mistaken, more girls than Phyllis would have to learn that lesson +before these hard times were over. No, it was not Phyllis who was to be +cut off from her connections--from those who ought to be nearest and +dearest to her. It was poor Ella who was separated from the rest of the +family, and condemned to gilded exile. Mrs. Carey was doing her best to +keep Phyllis, not only for her mother and her poor father, but for her +brothers, who must all start in life in a humble way, by putting the +girl into "Robinson's," since Mr. Robinson had reluctantly consented to +have her. + +Dr. Millar retired from the field beaten. + +The unheard-of destination of her friend Phyllis played the most +extraordinary pranks with May Millar's mind. The fact was, there were +two Mays dwelling side by side in one goodly young tabernacle of flesh. +There was the May with the exceptional scholarly proclivities. She had +a life of her own into which none of the family except her father +possessed so much as the tools to penetrate. She cherished dreams of +Greece and Rome, with the mighty music of the undying voices of their +sages and poets, and the rich treasures of learning, among which a poor +little English girl, far far down in the centuries, could only walk with +reverend foot and bated breath. + +And there was the other May, hanging about her mother, running to bring +her father's slippers, sitting on his knee to this day, taking +possession of Dora, ordering her about like a young tyrant, adoring +Tray--the most guileless, helpless, petted simpleton of a child-woman +that ever existed. The second May was at the present date the more +prominent and prevailing of the two, so much so that all the +sharp-tongued, practical-minded ladies in Redcross made a unanimous +remark. Dr. and Mrs. Millar's youngest daughter was the most +disgracefully spoilt, badly brought-up, childish creature for her years +whom the critics knew. It was a poor preparation in view of her having +to work to maintain herself. They could not tell what was to become of +her. + +At first May lamented, day and night, over the fate of Phyllis Carey, to +have to stand behind counters, sort drawers full of ribands, tape, and +reels of cotton, and wait on her townswomen! May could think of no +fitting parallel unless the pathetic one of that miserable young +princess apprenticed to the button-maker, dying with her cheek on an +open Bible, at the text, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy +laden, and I will give you rest." + +Then, as Phyllis accommodated herself to the new yoke, and found it not +so galling as she had expected it to be, her friend May altered her tone +with sympathetic quickness, and reflected Phyllis's change of mood +almost before the mood was established. Phyllis was in mental +constitution like her father, single-hearted and submissive--not bright +any more than Bell Hewett was bright, but contented and trustful as long +as she was suffered to be so. She had been enduring harder and harder +lines at home. She found existence actually brightening instead of +darkening round her when she was transferred to "Robinson's." For +everybody, knowing all about her and her father and mother, with their +altered circumstances, began, at least, by treating her with kindly +respect and forbearance, in spite of Mrs. Carey's austere request that +she should be dealt with exactly like the other shop-girls. + +Shop-work, in which Phyllis was to be gradually trained, felt +comparatively easy to a girl who had been taken from school and +launched into the coarsest drudgery of house-work under an +inexperienced, flurried, over-burdened maid-of-all-work. Mrs. Carey was +sufficiently just to exact no more home-work from Phyllis, and to +arrange that she should have her time to herself, like other shop-girls, +after "Robinson's" was closed, while the master of "Robinson's" was +inflexible in setting his face against late hours, except for the elder +hands on one evening in the week. Everybody was good to Phyllis, who, in +truth, just because she was enough of a little lady to be free from +arrogance and assumption, while she was willing to do her best to oblige +her neighbours, provoked no harsh treatment. Above all Tom Robinson for +one person could not be too considerate to her. + +Miss Franklin looked on Phyllis Carey as a godsend, a harbinger of other +better-class girls going into trade. The woman not only took the girl +under her wing, she fell back instinctively and inevitably on Phyllis +for companionship, with a selection flattering in a woman to a girl. + +Then a complete revolution was wrought in May's opinions and wishes. +Nothing would serve her but that she too must go as a shop-girl to +"Robinson's," and share the fortunes of her friend. + +May did not yet confide her purpose to her father and mother, but she +poured it in daily and nightly outbursts into the startled ears of +Dora, to whom the hallucination sounded like a mocking retribution on +the young Millars' old scornful estimate of shopkeepers and shops. May +stuck to her point with a tenacity which, touching as it did a tender, +trembling chord in Dora's heart, threatened also to subvert her +judgment, that was at once sounder and more matured than May's. + +The vibrating chord lay in the knowledge that May too was destined to +quit Redcross at no distant day, with the aching reluctance of Dora to +give her up, and to find herself in the position that domineering, +selfish girls sometimes covet--that of being the only girl at home, +having none to share with her in the rights and privileges of the +daughter of the house. + +A sort of feverish anxiety, which was in itself ominous, had taken hold +of Dr. Millar to see all he had projected accomplished in so far as it +was still possible. That is, he would fain set in motion, at least, the +wheels which would carry out his purpose. Perhaps he had reason to +distrust his health and life; perhaps it was simply that he was not +insensible to the fact, that money had a trick of running through his +fingers and those of Mrs. Millar like water, though they did their best +to catch it up and arrest it in its rapid course. Mrs. Millar's little +private income was still in part free, and not engulfed in the needs of +the household at Redcross, as it might not long continue. Rose had only +sixty pounds of it, and Annie fifteen for pocket-money till she should +have passed her probation and be in a position to receive her nurse's +salary, which would be as soon as she had completed her first year in +the hospital. There were seventy-five pounds remaining, which might +serve to keep May at Thirlwall Hall in St. Ambrose's with the chance of +her gaining a scholarship and partly maintaining herself for the rest of +her stay in college. "Little May's" maintaining herself in any degree +was a notion half to laugh at, half to cry over, while it took +possession of Dr. Millar's imagination just as serving in "Robinson's" +along with Phyllis Carey had hold of May's. + +Another year (who knew?) it might not be in the Millars' power to afford +May the opportunity of growing up a scholar, on which her father had set +his heart. That consciousness, and the sense of the value which her +husband put on May's abilities and their culture, brought round Mrs. +Millar. She began to contemplate with something like composure what she +would otherwise have strongly objected to, the sending forth of her +youngest darling--the child who so clung to her and to home--into an +indifferent or hostile world. + +Truth to tell, it was May herself who was the great obstacle. She was +not cast in the heroic mould of Annie and Rose. It was like tearing up +her heart-strings to drag her away from her father and mother, Dora, +Tray, the Old Doctor's House, Redcross itself. She had enough perception +of what was due to everybody concerned--herself included--and just +sufficient self-control not to disgrace herself and vex her father by +openly opposing and actively fighting against his plans for her welfare. +But she threw all the discouraging weight of a passive resistance and +dumb protest into the scale. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +TOM ROBINSON TAKEN INTO COUNSEL. + + +At last May, in the innocence of her heart, took a rash step. She heard +her father say it was good, showery, fishing weather, and she was aware +Tom Robinson often fished in the Dewes; what was to hinder her from +making a detour by the river on her way home from school, and if she saw +Tom near the old bridge--the pools below were specially patronized by +fishers--she might go up to him and ask him frankly if he had an opening +for her services, along with those of Phyllis Carey, in his shop? If he +had, would he do her the great favour to speak to her father and mother, +and ask them not to send her away to be a scholar at St. Ambrose, but to +let her stay and be a shop-woman in Redcross? + +Tom Robinson, at the first word of her appeal, put up his fishing-rod, +slung his basket, in which there were only a couple of fish, on his +back, shouldered her books, and turned and walked back with her, as if +it was he who was seeking her company and not she his. How else was he +to make the little girl who might have been his pet sister see that +there was any harm in the irregular course she had pursued? How, +otherwise, was she to understand that she was big enough--nearly a head +taller than her sister Dora--and old enough with her seventeen years, +though she was still the child of the family, to render it indecorous +for her to come, out of her own head, without the knowledge of anybody, +to have a private interview with him on the banks of the Dewes? + +"'Robinson's' is highly honoured," he told her, in a tone partly +bantering, partly serious, and wholly friendly, "and I too should, and +do, thank you for the trust in me which your proposal implies, but I am +afraid it would not do, Miss May." + +May's fair young face fell. + +"Oh! I am so sorry," she said simply; "but, please, may I know why you +have Phyllis and will not have me?" + +"The case is altogether different. Mrs. Carey made up her mind that Miss +Phyllis should go into a shop--mine or another's. Phyllis was not happy +at home; she is not a clever, studious girl, though she is your friend +and is very nice--of course all young ladies are nice. There is no +comparison between you and her." + +"But why shouldn't clever people go and work in shops?" persisted May, +in her half-childish way--"not that I mean I am clever; that would be +too conceited. But I am sure it would be a great deal better for shops +if they had the very cleverest people to work in them." + +"It depends on the kind of cleverness," he told her. "With regard to one +sort you are right, of course; with respect to another it would not +answer, and it would be horrible waste." + +She opened her brown eyes wide. "Why do you waste your abilities and +college education?" she asked him naïvely--"not that everybody calls it +a waste; some people say 'Robinson's' is the high-class shop it is, +because its masters have not only been respectable people, they have +always been educated men and gentlemen." + +"I ought to say for myself and my predecessors that I am much obliged to +'some people' for acknowledging that," he remarked coolly. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Robinson," said May humbly. "I know I have been +very rude--I am constantly saying stupid things." + +"Not at all; and though you did, never mind--say them to me if you +like," he gave her _carte blanche_ to comfort her. "But look here, Miss +May, I don't wish you to make mistakes. Indeed it is my duty, since I am +a great deal older than you--old enough to be, well, your uncle I +should say--to prevent it if I can." + +"I don't see how you could be my uncle," said May bluntly, "when you are +not more than five or six years older than Annie--I have heard her say +so--you are more like my brother." + +The instant she mentioned the relationship to which he had aspired in +vain, she felt the blood tingling to her finger-tips, and she could see +him redden under the shade of his soft felt hat. + +May groaned inwardly. "Oh! I am a blundering goose; I wonder anybody can +be so infatuated as to think me clever." + +"I have not said what I wished to say," he resumed, for somehow, in +spite of her forgetfulness and lack of tact, he could talk well enough +to May. "I must set you right. I have not a grain of the scholar in me +such as you have, neither do I believe that those who went before me +had; we could never have been more than fair students. We did not go out +of our way to get learning. We did what our associates and +contemporaries did, that was all. I fancy I may take the small credit to +us of saying that we had no objection to learn what the ancients +thought, saw, and did, after we had been lugged through the Latin +grammar and caned into familiarity with Greek verbs. We were like other +men who had the same advantages. I honestly believe if we had anything +special and individual about us it was a turn for trade. That is the +only manner in which I can account for our sticking to the shop, unless +we were mere money-grubbers. But all that signifies very little; what +does signify is that you are not quite like other girls. What, May, do +you pretend that you do not prize the roll of a sonorous passage, or the +trip of an exquisite phrase in Latin or Greek? That it does not tickle +your ears, cling to your memory, and haunt you as a theme in music +haunts a composer? Do you not care to go any deeper in Plato or in the +dramatists? Is it a fact that you can bear to have heard the last of +Antigone, and Alcestis, and Electra?" + +May hung her head like one accused of gross unfaithfulness, with some +show of reason. + +"No, I cannot say that, Mr. Robinson," she owned, "I shall think and +dream of them all my life. They are so grand and persecuted and sad. But +there--if I do not turn my back on them and my books, I must go to St. +Ambrose's, there is no choice," ended May disconsolately. + +"But why not go to St. Ambrose's?" + +"Oh! you do not know, Mr. Robinson," protested May with fresh energy. +"In the first place you are a man and cannot understand. In the second, +I suppose it is because I am so silly and childish and cowardly," she +went on incoherently. "Annie always said it was cowardly; she and Rose +went away quite bravely and cheerfully, keeping up their own and +everybody's spirits to the last. But Dora and I could not do it, yet I +do not know that anybody ever thought of calling our Dora cowardly +exactly, or silly, and childish. She was not a bit cowardly with the +horrid big dog and dear little Tray, you remember?--she would not let me +interfere, but she would have stoned the dog herself." + +"Which would have been very foolish of her," said Tom Robinson with +decision. "I should say she was timid, not cowardly--there is a broad +distinction between the two conditions." + +"It is just that we cannot leave home for any length of time, Dora and +I," said May piteously. + +"So you and your sister Dora cannot leave home--that is the objection, +is it?" he repeated, slowly pulling his red moustache. "What do you call +home? The Old Doctor's House or Redcross?" + +"Both," cried May quickly; "where father and mother and the rest of us +are, of course." + +"But the rest of you are gone, and what if your father and mother were +to go too?" + +"They won't, they never will," insisted May--"not until they come to +die. You were not meaning that? Oh! you could not be so cruel, so +barbarous," cried May, passionately, "when death is such a long way off, +I trust. I know that God is good whether we live or die, and that we +shall meet again in a better world. But we are not parted yet, and it is +not wrong to pray that we may be a long time together here on this very +earth, which we know so well, where we have been so happy. Why, father +and mother are not more than middle-aged--mother is not, and if father +is older, he is as strong and hale as anybody. Think how he was able to +give up his carriage and attend his patients on foot last autumn without +feeling it," urged the girl defiantly, in her passion of love and roused +dread, which she would not admit. + +"Certainly," he strove to reassure her, feeling himself a savage for +frightening her by his inadvertence, "I never saw anybody wear so well +as Dr. Millar. He might be sixty or fifty--he may live to be a +hundred--I hope with all my heart he will; and I shall not be astonished +if I live to see it. As for Mrs. Millar, it is an insult to call her +middle-aged. It is something quite out of keeping to come across her +with such a tall daughter as you are." + +"Yes, I am the tallest of the four," exclaimed May complacently, +diverted from the main topic, as he had intended her to be. "And I have +not done growing yet; my last summer's frock had to be let down half an +inch." + +"Is it possible? What are we all coming to? You will soon have to stoop +to take my arm--if you ever condescend to take my arm." + +"No," she denied encouragingly, "I am not so far above your shoulder +now," measuring the distance with a critical eye. "I shall not grow so +much as that comes to. You are bigger than father, and you would not +call him a little man; you are hardly even short." + +"Thanks, you are too kind," said Tom Robinson, with the utmost gravity. +"But I say, Miss May, if I were you, I don't think I should do anything +to vex and thwart Dr. Millar, though he is so strong and active--long +may he continue so. You know how disappointed he would be if you were to +close your books." + +"I am afraid he would," said May reluctantly. "I had almost forgotten +all about it for the last minute or two. But don't you think if you +spoke to him as I came to ask if you would," she continued unblushingly +and coaxingly, "if you were to try and show him--it would be so kind of +you--how comfortable and happy I should be with Phyllis Carey in your +shop--doing my best--indeed, I should try hard to please you and Miss +Franklin, all day--and getting home every evening--he might change his +mind?" + +"No, he would not," said Tom with conviction; "and what is more, he +ought not. He would never cease to regret his shattered hopes for +you--which, remember, you would have shattered--and your spoilt life." + +"But your life is not spoilt?" she said wistfully, unable to resign her +last hope. + +"How can you tell?" he said, with a slight sharpness in his accent. Then +he added quickly, "No, for I am a born shopkeeper in another sense than +because I am one of a nation of shopkeepers." + +He gave himself a reassuring shake, and resumed briskly--"I crave leave +to say, Miss May, that I actually enjoy making up accounts, turning over +samples, and giving orders. Sometimes I hit on a good idea which the +commercial world acknowledges, and then I am as proud as if I had +unearthed an ancient manuscript, or found the philosopher's stone. I +pulled a fellow through a difficulty the other day, and it felt like +taking part in an exciting fight. I have speculated occasionally when I +was fishing--paying myself a huge compliment, no doubt--whether old +Izaak Walton felt like me about trade." + +"Was he in trade?" inquired May, with some surprise. "I know he wrote +_The Complete Angler_, and was a friend of Dr. Donne's and George +Herbert's, and is very much thought of to this day." + +"Deservedly," said Tom Robinson emphatically. "Yes, I am proud to say, +he was a hosier to begin with, and a linen-draper to end +with--well-to-do in both lines. They say his first wife, whom he married +while he was still in business, was a niece of the Archbishop of +Canterbury of the day, and his second wife, whom he married after he had +retired to live on his earnings, was a half-sister of good Bishop Ken's; +but I do not pretend to vouch for the truth of these statements. Now, +about your father. I cannot do what you ask--I cannot in conscience. +Will you ever forgive me, 'little May'--that is what your father and +mother and your sisters call you sometimes to this day, ain't it? and it +is what I should have called you if I had been--your uncle say? Shall we +be no longer friends?" he demanded ruefully. + +"Of course we shall," said May, with a suspicion of petulance. "You are +not bound to do what I bid you--I never thought that; and you are father +and mother's friend--how could I help being your friend?" + +"Don't try to help it," he charged her. + +Tom Robinson went farther than not feeling bound to do what May begged +of him, he was constrained to remonstrate in another quarter to prevent +trouble and disappointment to all concerned. He screwed up his courage, +and everybody knows he was a modest man, and called at the Old Doctor's +House for the express purpose. He had called seldom during the past +year--just often enough to keep up the form of visiting--to show that he +was not the surly boor, without self-respect or consideration for the +Millars, which he would have been if he had dropped all intercourse with +the family because one of them had refused to marry him. But though he +had begged for Dora's friendship when he could not have her love, and +had meant what he said, the wound was too recent for him to act as if +nothing had happened. In addition to the pain and self-consciousness, +there was a traditional atmosphere of agitation and alarm, a kind of +conventional awkwardness, together with an anxious countenance, and +protection sedulously afforded by the initiated and interested +spectators to Tom and Dora, which, like many other instances of +countenance and protection, went far towards doing the mischief they +were intended to prevent. + +Tom saw through the punctilious feints and solemn stratagems clearly; +Dora did the same as plainly. Indeed the two would have been idiots if +they could have escaped from the discomfiting perception of the care +which was taken of them and their feelings, and the fact that every eye +was upon them. + +The sole result was to render the couple more wretchedly uncomfortable +than if they had been set aside and sentenced to the company of each +other and of no one else for a bad five minutes every day of their +lives. + +Another unhappy consequence of their being thus elaborately spared and +shielded was, that when by some unfortunate chance the tactics failed, +the couple felt as flurried and guilty as if they had contrived the +fruitless accident to serve their own nefarious ends. + +Tom Robinson called on the Millars between four and five the day after +May had made her raid upon him, expecting to find what was left of the +family gathering together for afternoon tea. He had the ulterior design +of drawing May's father and mother apart, and letting them judge for +themselves the advisability of her going up at once to St. Ambrose's, +before her whole heart and mind were disastrously set against her +natural and honourable destiny. He was distinctly put out by finding +Dora alone. As for Dora, she told a faltering tale of her father's +having been called away to a poor patient who was a pensioner of her +mother's, and of Mrs. Millar's having walked over to Stokeleigh with +him to see what she could do for old Hannah Lightfoot; while May was +spending the afternoon with the Hewetts at the Rectory. + +He hesitated whether to go or stay under the circumstances, but he hated +to beat an ignominious retreat, as if _he_ thought that _she_ thought he +could not be beside her for a quarter of an hour without making an ass +of himself again and pestering her. Why should he not accept the cup of +tea which she faintly offered from the hands that visibly trembled with +nervousness? When he came to consider it, why should he not transact his +business with Dora? She was as deeply interested as anybody, unless the +culprit herself; she probably knew better what May was foolishly +planning than either their father or mother did, and would convey to +them the necessary information. + +As for Dora, she was thinking in a restless fever, "I hope--I hope he +does not see how much I mind being alone with him. It is just because I +am not used to it. How I wish somebody would come in,--not mother, +perhaps, for she would start and look put out herself, and sit down +without so much as getting rid of her sunshade; and, oh dear, not May, +for she would stare, and I do not know what on earth she would +think--some wild absurdity, I dare say; anyhow, she would look exactly +what she thought." + +"Look here, Miss Dora," he said abruptly; "you don't think your sister +May ought to renounce the object of her education hitherto, and your +father's views for her, in order to do like Miss Phyllis Carey? You are +aware that May has become enamoured of Phyllis Carey's example, and is +bent on following in her footsteps; but it won't do, and I have told her +so. I trust nobody suspects me of encouraging young ladies to become +shop-women," he added, with a slightly foolish laugh, "as old actors +used to be accused of decoying young men of rank and fashion into going +on the stage, and recruiting sergeants of beguiling country bumpkins +into taking the king's shilling." + +"Has May spoken to you about it?" cried Dora, startled out of her +engrossing private reflections. "What a child she is! I am sorry she has +troubled you; she ought not to have done that. I hope you will excuse +her." + +"Don't speak of it," he said a little stiffly, as he put down his cup +and signified he would have no more tea. + +"And you said no," remarked Dora, with an involuntary fall of her voice +reflecting the sinking of her heart. "Of course you could not do +otherwise. It was a foolish notion. I am afraid Phyllis Carey is enough +of a nuisance to Miss Franklin--and other people. It is hard that you +should be bothered by these girls. Only I suspect poor 'little May' will +be most dreadfully, unreasonably disappointed;" and there was an attempt +to smile and a quiver of the soft lips which she could not hide. + +"I am not bothered, and I hate to disappoint your sister,--I trust you +understand that," he said quickly and earnestly. "But it would be +sacrificing her and overturning your father's arrangements for +her--disappointing what I am sure are among his dearest wishes." + +She did not ask, like May, why he did not count himself sacrificed. She +only said shyly and wistfully, "I knew it was out of the question, but +if it had not been so, or if there had been any other way, it would have +been such a boon to poor May not to be torn from home." At the harrowing +picture thus conjured up her voice fairly shook, and the tears started +into her dovelike eyes. + +"Home," he said impatiently, "is not everything; at least, not the home +from which every boy must go, as a matter of course. 'Torn from home' in +order to go to school! Surely the first part of the sentence is tall +language." + +"It is neither too tall nor too strong where May is concerned," said +Dora, rousing herself to plead May's cause. "She has not been away from +home and from father--especially from mother, and one or other of the +rest of us, for longer than a week since she was born." + +"Then the sooner she begins the better for her," he said brutally, as it +sounded to himself, to the loving, shrinking girl he was addressing. + +"She has always been the little one, the pet," urged Dora; "she will not +know what to do without some of us to take care of her and be good to +her." + +"But she must go away some day," he continued his remonstrance. "How old +is your sister?" + +"She was seventeen last Christmas," Dora answered shamefacedly. + +"Why, many a woman is married before she is May's age," he protested. +"Many a woman has left her native country, gone among strangers, and had +to maintain her independence and dignity unaided, by the time she was +seventeen. Queen Charlotte was not more than sixteen when she landed in +England and married George the Third." + +Dora could not help laughing, as he meant her to do. "May and Queen +Charlotte! they are as far removed as fire and water. But," she answered +meekly, "I know the Princess Royal was no older when she went to Berlin; +and poor Marie Antoinette was a great deal younger, as May would have +reminded me if she had been here, in the old days when she travelled +from Vienna to Paris. But there--it is all so different. They were +princesses from whom a great deal is expected, and the Princess Royal +was the eldest instead of the youngest of the Queen's children." + +"Does seniority make so great a difference?" he said, with an inflection +of his voice which she noticed, though he hastened to make her forget it +by speaking again gravely the next minute. "Should May not learn to +stand alone? Would it not be dwarfing and cramping her, all her life +probably, to give way to her now. Can it ever be too early to acquire +self-reliance, and is it not one of the most necessary lessons for a +responsible human being to learn? Besides, '_ce n'est que le premier pas +qui coute_.' It is only the first wrench which will hurt her. She will +find plenty of fresh interests and congenial occupations at St. +Ambrose's. In a week, a fortnight, she will not miss you too much." + +Dora shook her head incredulously. It was little he knew of May, with +her fond family attachments, and her helplessness when left to herself +in common things. + +"Follow my advice, Miss Dora," he said, rising to take his leave, "don't +aid and abet Miss May in seeking to shirk her obligations. +Unquestionably the one nearest to her at present is that she should go +to St. Ambrose's. Don't prevent her from beginning to think and act for +herself--not like a charming child, but in the light of her dawning +womanhood." + +He gave a swift glance round him as he spoke, and a recollection which +had been in the background of both their thoughts during the whole of +the interview, flashed into the foreground. It was of that day a year +ago, a breezy spring day like this, when, as it seemed, there were the +same jonquils in the jar on the chimney-piece, and the same +cherry-blossom seen through the window against the blue sky, and he had +asked her with his heart on his lips, and the happiness of his life at +stake, to be his wife, and she had told him, with agitation and distress +almost equal to his, that he could never be anything to her. He caught +her half-averted eyes, and felt the whole scene was present with her as +with him once more, and the consciousness brought back all his old +shyness and reserve, and hurried his leave-taking. The slightest touch +to her hand, and he had bowed himself out and was gone. + +"How silly he must think me," Dora reflected, walking up and down the +empty room in perturbation, "both about poor 'little May,' and about +remembering the last time we were alone together. I dare say he is +right about May, though men never do understand what girls feel. If she +should fall ill, and break her heart, and die of home-sickness--such +things have happened before now--I wonder what he would say then about +her learning to stand alone? Very likely he would assert that St. +Ambrose's is not St. Petersburg, or even Shetland or the Scilly Isles. +It is not far away, and if she were not well or happy, she could come +back in half a day, as the other girls could come down from London. But +then he would despise her, for as quiet and good-natured as he is, and +though people have said that he himself had no proper pride in +consenting to have a shop. And I don't think May could bear contempt +from anybody whom she had ever looked on as a friend. Men are hard--the +best of them are, and they don't understand. He is kind--I am sure he +means it all in kindness; but he is not yielding; he is as masterful as +when he dragged the dogs to the edge of the bank and let them drop into +the Dewes for their good. He will never be turned from what he thinks +right. I wish he had not guessed what I could not help remembering--he +was quick enough in doing that; and I could not tell him that I did not +imagine for a moment--I was not so foolish--that he was under the same +delusion he suffered from twelve months ago. If he had been oftener +here in the interval, and we had met and been together naturally as we +used to be, sometimes, I should have forgotten all about it, and so +would he, no doubt. But how could I help thinking of it when there has +always been such a point made of mother or some one else being present +when he called? I am certain it is quite unnecessary and a great +mistake. He will not speak to me again as he spoke that day. There is no +danger of his running away with me," Dora told herself with an unsteady +laugh. "I hope he is not under the impression that I did not think and +act for myself when I was forced to do it. Because, although they all +knew about it, and of course Annie and the others teased me about +'Robinson's,' and the colour of his hair, and his size, father and +mother told me to decide for myself, and I did not hesitate for a +moment. I could no more have borne to leave them all of my own free will +than May could. Surely it was proof positive I did not like him in that +way," Dora represented to herself with the greatest emphasis. + +Tom Robinson was marching home with his hands in his pockets and his hat +drawn over his eyes. "How hard she must think me--little short of a +pragmatical, supercilious brute--not to do my best to keep 'little May' +at home, where the child wants to be. I asked her to let me call myself +her friend, and this is the first specimen of my friendship! she will +take precious good care not to ask for another. She will be horribly +dull left by herself without one girl companion, only the old people. +These sisters were so happy together--I liked to see them, perhaps all +the more because I had neither brothers nor sisters of my own--I thought +it was an assurance of what they might be in other relations of life. I +suppose she will tackle that little spitfire of a dog which I inflicted +on them. May will lay her parting injunctions on Dora to plague herself +perpetually with the monster, and these will be like dying words to +Dora, she will sooner die herself than intermit a single harassing +attention. And it will be impossible for her to avoid many deprivations. +There are more partings to be faced in the future. Millar is an old man, +even if he could hope to pay up the bank's calls and make some provision +for his widow and daughters. It was a pity poor Dora could not care for +me, when there need have been no partings where we two were concerned, +save that material separation of death which is quoted in the marriage +service. She would not have believed, nor I either, that it could touch +the spiritual side of the question and the love which is worth having, +that is God-like and belongs to immortality. I might have done what I +could if Dora had married me, so far as the other girls would have let +me, to serve as a buffer between the family and the adversity which I am +afraid not all their high spirit and gallant fight will hold entirely at +bay. It was not to be, and there is an end on't. I wonder where I found +the heart, and the cheek too for that matter, to bully Dora about May, +though, Heaven knows, I spoke no more than the truth. Well, she has her +revenge, and I am punished for it. It cut me up at the time to hurt her, +and the recollection of having contradicted and pained so sweet and +gentle a creature is very much as if I had dealt a lamb a blow or wrung +a pigeon's neck--on principle." + +Half an hour afterwards Mrs. Millar bustled into her drawing-room with +an expression of mingled annoyance and excited expectation on her still +comely face. + +"My dear Dora, I am so sorry; he gave his name to Jane, and she has told +me who has been calling in my absence. I wish I had not left you by +yourself. But who was to guess that Tom Robinson would call this +afternoon? It must have been exceedingly disagreeable for you." + +"I don't know," said Dora, vaguely and desperately; "we must meet +sometimes when there is nobody by, if we continue to live in the same +town. I wish you would not mind it for me, mother, and keep on trying to +avoid such accidents, for I really think it makes them worse when they +do happen." + +"Very well, my dear, you know your own feelings best," said Mrs. Millar, +a little puzzled. In her day it was reckoned no more than what was due +to maidenly delicacy and social propriety to preserve a respectful +distance between a rejected man and his rejector. As if the gentleman +might, as Dora had said, carry off the lady by force, or shoot her or +himself with the pistol hidden in his breast! + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +ROSE'S FOLLY AND ANNIE'S WISDOM. + + +Annie Millar not only warmed to her work in St. Ebbe's, she recovered +her full glow of health and spirits. She not only liked her nursing, she +enjoyed her holiday hours intensely with the peculiarly keen enjoyment +of busy women doing excellent service in the world. If any one wishes to +know what such enjoyment is like let him have recourse to a great +authority. "_In the few hours of holiday that--only now and then--they +(a nursing sisterhood) allow themselves, they show none of the weariness +that sometimes follows the industry of toiling after self-amusement. +Reaction, after great strain on the powers of self-sacrifice and +endurance that they have to exert, may be thought to account in some +part for the happy result; but, whatever the cause, their society has in +it all that can best and most surely attract--grace, freshness, and +natural charm._"[1] + +[Footnote 1: Kinglake in his _History of the Crimean +War_, vol. vi. p. 436.] + +Rose felt as if she had never sufficiently appreciated Annie before. She +was very proud of her sister now when she came to Welby Square, and +everybody, whether in Mrs. Jennings's set or in Hester's, was struck +with Annie's beauty and brightness. + +Even Hester Jennings saw nothing to find fault with on the ornamental +side of a girl who had gone in so heartily for the serious business of +life, nine-tenths of whose hours were occupied with grave tasks, to +which Hester owned honestly that she with all her public spirit was not +equal. + +Annie's face was not only the most unclouded, her laugh the merriest of +all the faces and laughs which appeared and were heard in Welby Square. +She became almost as much of a peacemaker, a smoother-down of rough +interludes, an allayer of irritating ebullitions, as Dora was wont to be +at home. + +"Annie is so much improved," Rose wrote to May, "I never saw her looking +prettier. She is just splendid when she comes out of St. Ebbe's for an +afternoon and evening. Everybody is delighted to see her, and wants to +have her for his or her particular friend. She and I have such jolly +walks and talks; she hardly ever calls me back or puts me down now." + +After pronouncing this high encomium it was rather a shock to Rose not +only to incur Annie's righteous displeasure, but to discover that on +occasions Annie could be as severe and relentless in her sentences as +ever. + +Rose, like most middle-class girls not fairly out of their teens, and +committed to their own discretion in the huge motley world of London, +had been solemnly charged to behave with the greatest wariness. She was +to treat every man or woman she encountered well-nigh as a dangerous +enemy in disguise till her suspicions were proved to be misplaced, and +the stranger shown to Rose's satisfaction and that of her seniors and +guardians to be a harmless friend. + +To do Rose justice, she remembered for the most part what had been told +her, and was careful not to expose herself to the slightest chance of +misapprehension--not to say rudeness, such as would have frightened her +mother and incensed her father. Rose would not be tempted by the +fearless independence of Hester Jennings and her cronies. They +maintained, in theory at least, that though there might be dens of vice +and dark places of cruelty in the great city, for those whose feet trod +the downward path, yet its crowded thoroughfares, to those who honestly +went about their own business, or to the messengers of divine charity +and mercy, were as safe, and safer, than any quiet country road. +Womanhood in the strength and confidence of its purity and fearlessness +might traverse them alone at any hour of the day or night. + +But Rose submitted to the ordinary if antiquated code, which implies the +timidity and defencelessness of young women whenever and wherever +assailed. She had not gone far enough in her emancipation to reckon as +part of it, immunity from apprehension of every kind, including the +strife of evil tongues. + +However, one day in the beginning of May, Rose went to Covent Garden in +pursuit of a pot of tulips, which she suddenly felt she must have, +without delay, as an accessory in one of her sketches. She was coming +home laden with her spoil by way of Burnet's, where there was an equal +necessity for her to procure, on the instant, a yard or two of gauzy +stuff of a certain uncertain hue, when a thunder-storm unexpectedly +broke over the haunt of artists. Torrents of rain followed, enough to +wash away whole pyramids of flowers and piles of art-materials. If the +downpour did nothing else it cleared the crowded street, with the +celerity of magic only seen in such circumstances, and left Rose +cowering in a doorway, alone as it seemed to her, but for a cab-driver +who took refuge in his cab, drawn up before one of the opposite houses. +The rain looked as if it meant to continue, while, laden as Rose was, +she could not have held up an umbrella even if she had found one ready +to her hand. + +Her slender funds did not set her up in cabs, as she had told herself on +many a weary trudge in fog and drizzle between Mr. Foy's class-rooms and +Welby Square. Besides she would like to see Hester Jennings's face when +she (Rose Millar) proposed to indulge in such a luxury. But there would +be more lost than gained if she stood shivering in that doorway till her +best spring frock was ruined, waiting for an omnibus which was sure to +arrive with every available inch of space occupied. She would catch a +chill or an influenza with no kind father near to save her a doctor's +bill, and cure her simply for the pleasure of doing it. She would brave +Hester's eagle eye, supposing it could scan Rose's misdeeds from some +coigne of vantage commanding this end of the street. She signalled to +the cab-driver opposite, who put his head out of the cab window and +signalled back that he had a fare besides himself at present ensconced +in one of the inhospitable-looking houses. + +Should she bid the thunder, lightning, and rain do their worst, and set +out to walk home in defiance of them? While she still paused irresolute, +peeping out disconsolately at the inky sky from which the downpour fell, +a young man in the conscious superiority of a waterproof and an ample +umbrella, walked leisurely along the sloppy, deserted pavement. He +looked at her, seemed arrested by something which struck him in her +appearance, hesitated a little undecidedly, stopped short, and addressed +her, colouring up to his frank, honest blue eyes as he did so. + +"I am afraid you have been caught in this tremendous shower. Can I do +nothing to help you--call a cab, for instance?" + +"Oh! thank you very much," she said gratefully, forgetting all about the +cunning enemy in disguise for whom she was to be always looking out. +Indeed she had felt so lonely a minute before that she was rather +disposed to welcome a comrade in misfortune. "The cabman in the cab +opposite tells me he is engaged, and I do not remember any cab-stand +near this." + +"There is one round the corner, which I passed a minute ago, but it was +vacant; all the world is wanting cabs in such weather. However, I can +shelter you a little, if you will allow me," and he held the umbrella in +front of her. + +"No, please; I am keeping you here in the wet, and you are exposing +yourself to the rain," protested Rose, remorsefully. "I was just +thinking of walking on, sooner than stand any longer getting gradually +soaked," she confided to him with pleasant inconsiderateness. + +"Then will you take the use of my umbrella?" he asked promptly; "and +perhaps you will let me carry your parcels for you," he suggested in the +humblest manner possible, eyeing covetously her flower-pot, and the +paper wisp from "Burnet's." + +"Oh dear, no," said Rose, pulling herself together when it was too late, +and with an adorable frankness, which was another mistake so far as an +unauthorized acquaintance's being nipped in the bud went. "I should be +taking you out of your way; you must want your own umbrella, and I can +manage perfectly well. I am accustomed to go about by myself"--the last +piece of information given with a proud inflection of the voice which +told its own tale. + +"In storm and shine?" he took it upon him to question her, with the +slightest rallying tone, and a twinkle in his blue eyes, but still with +the greatest respect in his attitude and manner--"not in storm, surely. +I shall not be going out of my way. I am only taking a stroll--that is, +I generally do take a stroll in some direction on my way back to my +lodgings. You may not think the weather nice for strolling, but I don't +mind it. I am as strong as a horse, and I certainly don't want an +umbrella. I have this waterproof affair, which, like the umbrella, is +rather a nuisance than otherwise." + +She could see at a glance that he was a broad-shouldered young fellow, +over six feet, and that his kindly, deferential face, seen through the +steaming atmosphere, was as ruddy as youth and a vigorous constitution +could make it. He was evidently speaking the truth, and she could not +resist the temptation of the friendly aid arriving thus opportunely, and +so obligingly pressed upon her. + +"Only for a little way," she bargained cheerfully. "The rain may stop in +a minute, though I must say it does not look like it, or we may come on +a return cab; anyhow, it cannot be long till an omnibus overtakes us." + +She would have demurred at his ridding her of her flowers and parcel, +which he disposed of easily under his arm and in his disengaged hand, as +if he were well accustomed to being cumbered with such small +impediments, had not a comical idea crossed her mind. He might think +that she did not trust his honesty, and was beset by a fear that he +would rush down a side street and disappear with her goods before she +could cry, "Stop, thief!" and arouse the scanty passers-by. + +Then Rose felt impelled to explain why she walked about London burdened +with flower-pots and rolls of gauze. "I have just been to Covent +Garden," she said. "I wished to get this pot of tulips--parrot +tulips--yellow and scarlet, you know, to harmonize with a Chinese screen +in a little picture I am painting. Then I had to go into 'Burnet's,' +for 'Liberty's' is too far away, for some blue stuff of the right shade +which I could drape into a frock for the little girl who is my model." + +"Are you fond of painting?" he caught her up, being to the full as +willing to speak as she was. "So is my sister, and she also goes to +'Liberty's' for queer rags and tags. I suppose they are part of the +amateur's stock-in-trade." + +"I am going to be a professional artist," said Rose again, with that +proud little inflection of the voice. But all the effect which her +communication had upon him was that he took it as an invitation, or at +least as a warrant, for responsive confidences on his own part. + +"I am a doctor," he announced. "I have been entitled to write myself one +for the last two months. I have just passed my final exams, and got my +degree--stiffish work for a fellow who does not take to sapping as +easily as to the air he breathes." + +"My father is a doctor," said Rose, brightly, with her tongue fairly +loosened. "I forget whether he says examinations were easier or more +difficult when he was young. He is Dr. Millar of Redcross." + +"Millar!" exclaimed the tall young man so excitedly, that he stopped +short for an instant, in the middle of the dismally lashing rain, and +looked at her with a gleam of delight in his blue eyes. "I thought so, +I saw it at the first glance. You have a sister among the lady +probationers at St. Ebbe's." + +"Yes--Annie," cried Rose, with equal ecstasy in the acquiescence; and +she, too, stood still for a second in the rain. "Do you know St. Ebbe's? +Have you seen Annie?" + +"I should think I do, I should think I have," he answered her fervently. +"St. Ebbe's is my hospital. I have been 'walking it' for a year past. I +was there to-day, and Miss Millar is well known all over the place. She +is a great favourite with the matron, Mrs. Hull, and the house surgeon, +and especially with the operating surgeon. He is always asking to have +Miss Millar in his cases since that boy had his leg cut off." + +"I know, I know," chimed in Rose, "the little boy who begged you to wait +till he had said his prayers, and when he could not do it for himself, +Annie was able to do it for him. Now he is hopping about on his crutches +quite actively and happily; and she has got him an engagement, to clean +the knives and boots at Mrs. Jennings, the boarding-house in Welby +Square where I stay. Isn't it too funny and nice that you should happen +to have to do with St. Ebbe's and Annie?" + +"It has been a great pleasure to me--well, these are not the right +words," said the young fellow with sudden gravity and a shade of +agitation in his manner. "I count it the greatest piece of good fortune +which ever befell me that I took St. Ebbe's for my hospital. But I ought +not to presume on my acquaintance with Miss Millar," he began again +immediately, with an infusion of cautious reserve and something like +vexation creeping into his tone; "it is purely professional. We are far +too busy people at St. Ebbe's to know each other as private persons. +Very likely if you ask her, she will deny all knowledge of me as an +individual; she may not even be able to recall the fact of my existence +apart from a circle of big uncouth medical students in the train of the +doctors--all alike to her. At the same time I have drunk tea in her +company both in the matron's room and in Dr. Moss's, and I have often +sat near her in the services at the hospital chapel," he ended a little +defiantly. + +The speech, save for its ring of half-boyish mortification, was +suspicious, as if he were providing a loophole for escape in case Annie +refused to indorse his assertion of mutual acquaintance. But Rose, in +spite of her spirit and quickness, was hardly more given to suspicion +than her sister May showed herself, and saw nothing dubious in his +remark. She was carried away with the agreeable surprise of having +stumbled on somebody connected with St. Ebbe's who knew all about Annie. +She chatted on in the frankest, friendliest way, plying him with +girlish questions, and supplying free comments on his answers; and he +was an auditor who was nothing loth to be so treated, and to be +furnished with stores of information on points which had aroused his +ardent curiosity. She forgot all about taking him out of his way, and +when they reached Welby Square she crowned her unbounded faith in him by +inviting him into the house. On his acceptance of her invitation, after +a moment's hesitation, she presented him to Mrs. Jennings as a friend of +Annie's from St. Ebbe's. + +The young man had the grace to feel his ears tingle while Mrs. Jennings, +looking a little astonished, took him on Rose's word, bowed her welcome, +begged him to sit down with her usual gracious, languid good-breeding, +and said she was glad to see any friend of Miss Annie Millar's. + +He did his best, with a flushed face, to remedy his and Rose's rashness. +He put down his card, with Harry Ironside, M.D., engraved on it, at Mrs. +Jennings's elbow. He set himself with a strenuous and sincere effort to +talk to her, and so to conduct himself as to do credit to Rose's +voucher. + +Mrs. Jennings was easily propitiated on receiving the attention which +was due to her. She thought the young man's manners perfectly good; they +had well-bred ease, and at the same time the modesty which ought to +accompany youth, though his introduction to her had been somewhat +informal. + +Irregularity and singularity were among the fashions of the day. She +would have been glad if her daughter Hester, in carrying out these +fashions, had brought forward no rougher, or commoner-looking, or more +eccentric satellites and protégés--secretaries of those horrid women's +unions and clubs--than this friend of Rose and Annie Millar's. + +Mrs. Jennings never forgot a name and its social connection. "Ironside?" +she repeated tentatively, but with an air of agreeable expectation. "I +am familiar with the name. One of my sons, Captain Lawrence Jennings, +when his regiment was at Manchester, knew and received much kindness +from a family named Ironside." + +"It must have been the family of one of my uncles," said Dr. Harry +Ironside, eagerly. "My Uncle John, and my Uncle Charles too, for that +matter, stay in Manchester. Both are married men with families. My Uncle +John was mayor a few years ago." + +"The same," cried Mrs. Jennings with bland satisfaction. "Lawrie's +Ironsides were the family of the mayor, I remember perfectly when you +mention it;" and she added the mental note, "They were among the richest +cotton-brokers in the place--well-nigh millionaires." + +"Were you all named from Cromwell's Ironsides?" inquired Rose, lightly, +inclined to laugh and colour at the absurd recollection that, though she +had seemed to know all about him from the moment he spoke of St. Ebbe's +and Annie, she had been ignorant of his very name till he put down his +card. If he had not done so, she would have had to describe him to Annie +as the big, fair-haired young doctor with the Roman nose, or by some +other nonsensical item, such as the signet-ring on his left hand, or the +trick of putting his hand to his chin. + +"I am sure I cannot tell"--he met her question with an answering +laugh--"except that, so far as I know, we have had more to do with +cotton than with cannon-balls. My father was a Manchester man, like my +uncles. I have struck out a new line in handling--not to say a sword, +but a lancet." + +"Ah!" said Mrs. Jennings with mild superiority, "all my sons are in the +services--I have given them to their Queen and country. Two of my +sons-in-law are also in the army, and I often say of the third--a +clergyman in a sadly heathen part of the Black Country--that, engaged as +he is in the Church militant, he is as much a fighter as the rest of +them." Having thus in the mildest, most ladylike manner, established her +social supremacy, Mrs. Jennings was doubly gracious to the visitor. +They made such progress in their acquaintance by means of the Manchester +Ironsides and other members of her very large circle of friends, with +regard to whom the two discovered the names at least of several were +also known to Harry Ironside, that the lady made another marked +concession. When he said he was in rooms in London, and had his only +sister with him, she signified with a kind and graceful bend of the +lace-enfolded shoulders and the bewigged head within the wonderful +edifice of a cap, that she meant to have the pleasure of calling on Miss +Ironside. + +Rose could hardly believe her ears; and she did not wonder, though she +was glad that he had the sense and good feeling to thank Mrs. Jennings +with warmth, since Rose knew what a testimony it was to the genuine +liking which the mistress of the house had taken to her chance guest. +For Mrs. Jennings went very little out, and was exceedingly particular +in adding to her visiting-list, as became the head of a select +boarding-house, and the mother of so many officers and gentlemen, not to +say gentlewomen. + +But matters did not end even there. He managed to convey the impression +that his sister and he were rather lonely in their rooms, while he +alluded to the facts that he and she were orphans, and with the +exception of each other had neither brother nor sister. They had looked +forward to being together, and making a home as soon as Kate left +school, and he had taken furnished lodgings at Campden Hill till he +settled down somewhere. But somehow the lodgings were not very +home-like. He should prize highly the friendship of Mrs. Jennings for +his sister. At this point the slightest gleam of a business interest +awoke in Mrs. Jennings's steel gray eyes, though she only told him +softly that she had known it all--the loneliness of one or two members +of a family in London, the comfortlessness of even the best of furnished +apartments. It was such considerations, in a great measure, which had +induced her to utilize her large house, much too large for herself and +the only daughter left at home with her, to receive a few old friends as +suitable boarders into her family. She had hoped to form a cheerful and +refined little society round her, and so to be of a little use to her +fellow-creatures. She might say she had succeeded in her humble mission, +she finished with artless benevolence. He met her half-way with +breathless alacrity. Had he and Kate but known in time Mrs. Jennings's +generous idea, what a boon it would have been if she had let them avail +themselves of it! Even yet if there ever occurred any change, any +opening--but he was afraid, he added in disconsolate tones, there never +would--the fortunate people would know too well when they were +happy--it would be doing him and Kate the greatest favour, the utmost +kindness to let them know. This was exactly the complimentary, +beseeching, deprecatory mode in which Mrs. Jennings liked business to be +conducted; whereas, if Hester had been present, she would have said in +the clumsiest, coarsest manner, "Mamma, there are some rooms vacant, +which any respectable person who cares to pay the rent may have." + +But that was not Mrs. Jennings's plan. She said in her blandest +voice--"Well, Dr. Ironside, we must see what we can do for you and your +sister; I cannot bear to think of your feeling forlorn after what your +cousins did for my son Lawrence. We must stretch a point with regard to +accommodating you--that is, if you are not, both of you, dreadfully +particular. No, you are not at all difficult to put up, you and your +sister, you say? I am happy to hear it. It is such a good thing for +young people to be easily pleased. I am not sure that something could +not be contrived in the course of a week or two. I think I heard my old +servant speak of rooms which were to have been kept for cousins of my +friend Mr. Lyle, two charming ladies who were to have come up from the +country for the season. But their dear old aunt died unexpectedly, and +of course they are not inclined for any gaiety at present. I leave the +details of arranging the sets of rooms and letting them to my Susan. I +never interfere with her; she knows far better than I what is wanted, +and she is a sensible, practical person to deal with. If you care to +speak to Susan, I shall ring for her to see you in the dining-room, and +she will tell you at once what she can do for you," Mrs. Jennings +finished sweetly. + +He did care; indeed he was so intent on benefiting by what Mrs. +Jennings, in her ladylike way, made so great an obligation conferred by +her on her fellow-creatures, that he caught at the hope held out to him. +He had an interview with the potent Susan, and came back radiant to tell +that the housekeeper had been nearly as kind to him as her mistress had +shown herself. He and Susan had settled everything. He was free to give +up the rooms which he and his sister were occupying the following week. + +"What, without consulting Miss Ironside?" protested Mrs. Jennings in +pretty alarm. + +"Oh! Kate will like any arrangement I make," he cried confidently; and +Rose came to the conclusion either that "Kate" was the simple +school-girl he represented her, or that Dr. Harry Ironside was an +autocrat in his domestic relations. + +He insisted on furnishing references, because business was business, +even in the light of the dawning friendship which he trusted Mrs. +Jennings was going to extend to him and Kate, and they would come as +soon as she would let them. + +Oh! he must arrange it all with Susan. Mrs. Jennings put up her still +dainty hands, and waived him off playfully. She dared not interfere with +Susan. All she would say was that she was delighted to look forward to +such an agreeable addition to her pleasant little circle. She was fond +of having young people about her, and was always ready to do what she +could (which was no more than the truth) to make them happy. + +Rose was driven to the conclusion that Dr. Harry Ironside must have +found furnished lodgings such a pandemonium, that he was induced to +believe a select boarding-house must be a paradise by comparison. It was +comical how it had all come about. It did seem as if Rose's +heedlessness, if she had been heedless in drifting without an +introduction into an acquaintance with one of Annie's doctors, was +likely to bear good fruits to Mrs. Jennings, among other people. Hester +had been looking worried lately, and had not scrupled to give as the +reason of her pre-occupation--family affairs not prosperous. The whole +of the house was not let. Old Mr. and Mrs. Foljambe had actually been +unreasonable enough to try to exchange the best rooms, which they had +chosen for themselves in the winter for shabbier, cheaper quarters +during the summer, when the husband and wife might be occasionally +absent paying visits. Old Susan, in her black cap and gold-rimmed +spectacles, was especially triumphant in seeing the scheme balked, and +confided her mingled exultation and indignation to Rose, who had helped +to balk the schemers. The confidential family servant even forgot some +of her polite mannerliness in her excitement. "Now, Miss Millar, them +Foljambes has done for themselves; serve them right for seeking to get a +catch from a friend like Missus, as is that kind to her boarders, which +you can testify, Miss; they might be her own flesh and blood. Bless you! +she'll never make a rap by keeping boarders. She never grudges them +anythink, and would sooner deny herself than that they should go without +their fancies. But there, now, that fine young gentleman you brought," +went on Susan with the slightest respectful significance, "I'm sure +we're greatly indebted to you, Miss--speaks as if he meant to stay on +here with his sister for the present. He has taken our largest rooms off +our hands, so that we may be easy on that head, and I for one won't be +sorry if Mr. and Mrs. Foljambe ain't able to shift back into them at +their will and pleasure. The young gent, as is a gent, had no +hargle-bargling about terms. He was satisfied to pay what we asked, +because he knew that though it was not a common boarding-house, and +though it was no more than right that he and his sister should pay for +the privilege of being under the roof of a real lady like Missus, we +were not the sort to ask more than our due." + +The moment Rose got quit of Susan, she said to herself complacently, "It +is very nice to have done such a service to Mrs. Jennings and Hester and +everybody, instead of having got into a scrape and being scolded, as I +almost feared at one moment. If only Miss Kate Ironside is not too much +of a dumb belle and a mere school-girl," reflected Rose, with the +supercilious consciousness of maturity in a girl who had been more than +a year away from all teaching except what she had herself practised, and +what she received as a grown-up woman at Mr. St. Foy's. "I wonder if Dr. +Harry Ironside will have spoken of our encounter, and what came of it, +to Annie before I can tell her. I should like to see her face when she +learns that I know somebody who goes to St. Ebbe's," ended Rose, with +persistent audacity. + +Annie's face was a study when she heard of it. Rose had been guilty of a +little wilful self-deception, still she received a shock. + +The first time the sisters were able to meet and have a walk together, +after Rose's encounter with Dr. Ironside, Rose broached the great piece +of news, and witnessed the effect it produced. The girls had managed to +reach the Marble Arch into Hyde Park, beyond which they found a seat for +a few minutes. It was not too early in the season for them to take +possession of it, and they were still sufficiently strangers in London +to suppose that seats were placed for the accommodation of the weary of +all ranks and both sexes, and not merely for the benefit of nurse-maids +and their charges, or of able-bodied tramps. The sisters prepared to +talk over their own concerns and Redcross with the _empressement_ of +girls, to forget all about the moving crowd around them, and the +grinding of that great mill of London in the traffic that is never for +an instant still. + +"Oh! Annie, have you seen him lately?" began Rose--"Dr. Harry Ironside, +I mean. Has he told you that he and his sister are coming to board at +Mrs. Jennings's?" + +"Seen him! Dr. Harry Ironside! What do you know about Dr. Harry +Ironside? What are you saying, Rose?" cried Annie, sitting bolt upright, +opening wide her dark eyes, and fixing them in the most amazed, +displeased, discomfiting gaze on Rose. The rate at which the two had +been walking and talking, the suspicion of east wind, the premature heat +of the May sun, had converted the soft red in Annie's cheeks to a +brilliant scarlet. + +"What I am saying," answered Rose, nodding gaily, and trying hard not to +flinch under the trying reception of her precious piece of information, +"is that, by the funniest chance, I made the acquaintance of a friend of +yours at St. Ebbe's. And the laughable coincidence of our meeting and +happening to speak to each other, and then of my finding out that he +knew all about you, is going to be a very good thing for poor dear Mrs. +Jennings," Rose hastened to add, taking the first word in self-defence. +"He is coming with his sister to board in Welby Square." + +"He is not a friend of mine," said Annie, severely. "Is it possible that +you are such a simpleton as to believe that all the doctors, medical +students, and nurses--the whole staff of St. Ebbe's, in fact, are +intimately acquainted with each other, are acquainted at all, for the +most part, unless as doctors and nurses? Please, Rose, tell me at once +what nonsense this is--what foolish thing you have been about." + +When Annie said "please" to her sisters the situation was alarming. + +On the other hand, Rose had not come up to London to be an artist, who +was already getting orders for scroll-work and executing them +successfully, to be put down by a sister not above four years her +senior. + +"What are you making such a fuss about, Annie?" protested Rose, "I am +telling you as fast as you will let me. I came out this morning for the +express purpose, and I thought--I was almost sure--you would be amused +and interested, instead of 'getting into a wax'"--using one of Hester +Jennings's slang words, which set Annie's fine little teeth on edge. "It +is you who ought to explain and apologize to me," proceeded Rose, +boldly; "I am surely at liberty to make the acquaintance of anybody you +know without your looking annoyed, and accusing me of being foolish and +nonsensical. It is very unjust and ungrateful of you besides, for he +spoke very highly of you," Rose finished innocently. + +"He spoke highly of me to my own sister!" repeated Annie, her lips +curling with unutterable disdain, and her cheeks in a wilder flame than +ever. "He had nothing to do speaking of me at all. And how did he come +to speak to you? I insist upon your telling me, Rose. I am older than +you, and we are alone in London. I am answerable for you to father and +mother." + +"Well, I always thought I was answerable for myself," said Rose, +indignantly. "But I don't want to conceal anything from you; it is +insulting me to suppose so," and Rose showed herself highly resentful +in her turn. "As to how I met and spoke with Dr. Harry Ironside, I was +just coming to that," she was going on deliberately, when she was +stopped by Annie's irritable protest-- + +"I wish you would not bring forward that man's name and dwell upon it in +the way you are doing." + +"Why, Annie, what ails you?" cried Rose in her bewilderment at Annie's +unreasonableness and excitement, forgetting any verdict that might be +passed on her own neglect of the code of conduct imposed upon her. + +"Well, if you only knew how I have been tried--and molested--and laughed +at," Annie began wrathfully, saying the last words as if to be laughed +at was equivalent to being burnt alive. Then she stopped short and +turned again upon Rose. "What have you been doing? tell me this instant, +Rose." + +"I don't think you ought to speak to me in this manner," said Rose, +rebelliously, holding her head high in the air, and forgetting in her +soreness of spirit either to crumple her nose or wrinkle her forehead; +"and I am not at all ashamed of myself. I have done nothing wrong; +indeed, I believe I have conferred a real benefit on Mrs. Jennings, +though she is apt to put it the other way, and indirectly on Hester. I +_am_ fond of Mrs. Jennings and Hester--_they_ always treat me, even +Hester does, like a rational creature. Oh! you need not fret and +fume--I am not trying to avoid telling you, though you have no right, no +sister has, to demand an account of my proceedings. Father and mother +may have, but they would never brandish their rights in my face or +refuse to trust me. I was coming home from Covent Garden on Saturday +afternoon, carrying a little pot of tulips for my picture, if you must +know, and I had also got a small parcel from 'Burnet's.' I was caught in +the thunder-storm. I was standing in a doorway not knowing what to do +when a gentleman passed--Dr. Harry Ironside, if I am to be allowed to +say his name, though I did not know it then. He was good-natured and +polite, like any other gentleman. He saw how I was encumbered, and he +must have felt the pelting rain. He stopped and asked if he could do +anything for me--call a cab or anything, and he wished to give me the +use of his umbrella till we reached a cab-stand or till an omnibus came +up. I thought I had better tell him why I was carrying things, for he +might have thought me just a shop-girl, so I merely said I required them +for a painting, and that I was learning to be an artist. He seemed to +think he ought to tell me in return what he was, and he said he was a +doctor. Then I said father was a doctor too, Dr. Millar of Redcross. He +cried out at that something about a likeness which he had seen, and he +asked had I a sister a nurse in St. Ebbe's, and oh! Annie, he looked so +pleased, and he did say you were such a favourite with the matron and +the doctors." + +"Stop!" cried Annie, peremptorily, with an evident storm raging in her +gentle breast, to which she was too proud and self-restrained to give +free expression, "you are a greater baby than May is. You are not fit to +be left to yourself--a girl who would speak to any man she might meet in +the streets of London, and tell him all about herself and her family." + +The accusation was too outrageous to be received with anything save +indignant silence. + +"And then, I suppose, the next thing was you took him to Mrs. Jennings +and arranged between you that he and his sister should board there." + +"I did not," Rose was goaded to speak. "When he had walked so far with +me in the rain I could not do less than invite him into the house. Then +I believe he gave his name, and Mrs. Jennings, who has a great deal of +knowledge of the world and a great deal of discrimination," put in poor +Rose with much emphasis, "seemed to like him immensely. She found that +one of her sons knew relations of his in Manchester, and they had other +friends in common. He spoke of his sister, who is with him, and of their +not liking living in lodgings, and who glad he would be if there ever +happened to be a vacancy in Mrs. Jennings's establishment which she +would permit them to fill. She referred him to Susan to see if there +were rooms which the Ironsides could have. It all came about quite +naturally, and was settled in less time than I have taken to tell it, +and I had nothing whatever to do with it. I should not dream of taking +it upon me to interfere with Mrs. Jennings's or anybody else's domestic +affairs." + +"I do not know," said Annie, gloomily, "after the mess you have got +yourself and other people into. But there is one thing I can tell you +for your satisfaction, I shall not put my foot within Mrs. Jennings's +door so long as he--as Dr. Ironside and his sister are staying there. +You may keep your friends to yourself and do without your sister. You +can take them instead of me; perhaps you will not miss me or care for +the loss of an occasional hour or two of my society." + +"Oh! Annie, how can you say so?" Rose was reduced to expostulation and +pleading. "What has come over you? You must not stay away; it would be +so unkind to me, so rude to everybody, and such a marked slight. We are +all so happy when you come to Welby Square, and I am sure the change is +good for you too. How can you be so cross?" + +"No," said Annie with unbending decision, "it shall not be said of me +that I went and struck up a friendship, apart from our intercourse in +the wards, with any doctor at St. Ebbe's--one of the medical students, +the other day! I am not going to make his sister's acquaintance and get +up an intimacy with her, because you have chosen to introduce them to +Mrs. Jennings. A fine story to be circulated, and tittered over, about a +girl; a fine example to the working nurses, who are always seeking to +evade the rules, to become on familiar terms with their patients and to +gossip and philander with them, when they ought to have a great deal +more to do. I call it disgusting trifling, and it was not for that I +came up to London to be trained as a nurse." + +Annie kept her word to Rose's and other people's deep chagrin. She made +no further ferment about what had happened. She did not write home and +complain of Rose's thoughtlessness, or take a single step to prevent +Mrs. Jennings securing a profitable pair of boarders--as a matter of +fact, she dropped the subject, perhaps she felt a little ashamed of the +animus she had shown. But for nearly three months, if Rose wished to see +her sister, the only plan was for her to go to St. Ebbe's, or to make an +appointment with Annie at the Academy or the British Museum, or to eat +their lunch together at some convenient restaurant. + +In whatever manner Annie disposed of her few spare moments, not one of +them was now spent in Welby Square--just at the time, too, when the +boarding-house was particularly social and cheerful (for the new-comers +found special favour with the old, and promoted much good fellowship). +At least Dr. Harry Ironside did. He was a young fellow born to be +popular whether he would or not; handsome, with pleasant manners, +kind-hearted, possessed of a respectable competence independent of his +profession, to which he brought considerable abilities and great +singleness of purpose. Everybody "took" to him, from crusty Mr. Foljambe +to jaunty Mr. Lyle; from Miss Perkins, whose ear-trumpet he improved +upon, to old Susan, into whose gold-rimmed spectacles he put new glasses +which made her see like a girl again. The one drawback to his success in +everything he aimed at was, that he was always tremendously in earnest, +so that his very earnestness overweighted him, rendering him incapable +of measuring obstacles, and marshalling his forces, as a more +indifferent man might have done. + +His sister Kate, apart from such importance as might be implied in her +finding herself presently in the enjoyment of a very pretty little +income for a young lady, was a simple, good-natured school-girl, in the +echoing and imitative stage of school-girl life. She looked up to her +brother in everything, and was disposed to regard whatever was by his +decree as infallibly best. + +Yes, Annie kept her word after the fashion of most of us, till she saw +good reason to break it. She announced herself changeless till she +changed, which, to do her justice, was when the interests of others, +still more than her own, cried out against her maintaining her +resolution. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +MAY HAS TO FIGHT HER OWN BATTLE. + + +All May's frantic efforts at resistance were useless; her destiny was +too strong for her. She had to go away from her mother and father, Dora, +and Tray, and face life all by herself as one of the girl-graduates at +Thirlwall Hall, St. Ambrose's. Dr. Millar had learnt that she would just +be in reasonable time for one of the earlier examinations at the close +of the term. Having passed it without difficulty, she might compete for +one of the Thirlwall scholarships. If she got that--as he allowed +himself to think she had a fair chance of doing--it would greatly +increase her status, as well as aid in defraying the expenses of her +residence at St. Ambrose's. The little Doctor was feverishly anxious to +compass both ends for his pet and scholar. In her own interest no notice +must be taken of her heart-broken looks, though it wrung a manly heart, +in addition to the tender hearts of Mrs. Millar and Dora, to witness +May's desperate unwillingness to depart. + +It will be better to throw a veil over the anguish of that leave-taking, +including the final closeting with Tray and the torrents of tears shed +on his irresponsive hairy coat. We shall draw up the curtain on a new +scene--St. Ambrose's, in its classic glory and stately beauty, and +Thirlwall Hall, in its youthful strong-mindedness. + +Poor May felt horribly forlorn when her father left her behind, and she +realized that she was for the first time in her life compelled to play +her part without the support of kith or kin. Nobody was in the least +unkind to her, any more than the conservative Miss Stones had been to +Rose, unless in calling "little May" "Miss Millar," a promotion which +somehow cut her to the heart. + +The lady principal, Miss Lascelles, was an excellent intellectual woman, +of mingled aristocratic and _spirituelle_ antecedents. In another +country and nation she might have been a distinguished _dame de salon_. +As it was, she was sufficiently harassed and overworked in her double +office of decorous, authoritative chaperon and qualified guide, +philosopher, and friend to the girls under her charge. These might be +vestal virgins or nymphs of Minerva, but they were also girls, so long +as the world lasted--the most of them half curious, half friendly where +May was concerned. This was true even of the wonderful young American +who came and stayed with no other object in view than to say she had +kept her terms at St. Ambrose's, according to what was the sum total of +the ambition of many a young man at the great University. She _would_ +call the Atlantic "the herring pond," and speak of "fixing" her hair; +still she was a girl like the rest of them. Miss Lascelles, with all the +other ladies in residence at Thirlwall Hall, the American included, +could not help wondering what the friends and guardians of a budding +beauty and helpless baby like Miss Millar intended by sending her to +live among a set of self-reliant, amply-occupied young women, who, as a +rule, knew exactly what they wanted to do and did it. + +The whole place and system overwhelmed May. The hoary dignity of the old +colleges, receptacles of the concentrated learning of ages, the crowds +of capped and gowned tutors and professors, potent representatives of +the learning of the present, even the shoals of young men who were able +to care for none of these things, and to carry their responsibilities +lightly, all to be encountered in the course of a morning walk, struck +May with a sense of inadjustable disproportion, and of intolerable +presumption on her part in pretending to be a scholar. She was still one +of a household largely composed of women, as she had been at home, but +here the household was planted where it was an innovation, in the midst +of a colony of men, which constantly threatened to sweep over it and +submerge it. + +The grown-up, independent, yet disciplined routine of Thirlwall Hall, +founded as closely as possible on the venerable routine of the men's +colleges, was widely, crushingly different from life in the Old Doctor's +House at Redcross. Morning chapel, the steady business of individual +reading, the attendance on the selected courses of lectures, with the +new experience of being spoken to, and expected to take notes like men; +the walks and talks, which even with the interruptions of tennis and +boating were apt to be academically shoppy; the very afternoon tea after +evening chapel had an impressively scholastic flavour utterly foreign to +the desultory proceedings of an ordinary family circle. So had the +further reading by one's self, for one's self, to get up a particular +branch of study; the "swell dinner," as May persisted in calling it in +her own mind, though it was simple and social enough--beyond certain +indispensable forms and ceremonies--to the initiated; the withdrawal +once more to the dreary retirement of her own room, since a new girl had +neither the requisite familiarity nor the heart to go and tap at her +neighbours' doors, where no substitute for "sporting the oak" had as +yet been found, and drop in for a little purely human chatter. + +May was so "hard hit," as people say--not with love, but with +home-sickness--that she did not believe she could live to the end of the +summer term. She felt as if she must die of strangeness, fright, and +pining; and that was hard, for they would be very sorry at home, and so +would Annie and Rose in London, though both of them had been able to go +and stay away quite cheerfully like the girls at Thirlwall Hall. Perhaps +May and Dora were not like other girls. There was something wanting or +something in excess about them. Perhaps they were not fit to go through +the world, as she had once heard somebody say of her--May. Perhaps they +were meant to die young--like their Aunt Dolly--and not destined to live +long and struggle helplessly with adverse circumstances. In that case, +Dora was the happy one to be left to spend her short life at home, +though, save for father and mother, she too was all alone, and poor dear +Dora would feel that, and was, perhaps, crying in another empty room as +May was crying in hers at this very moment; but at least, Dora would +pass her last days with father and mother in the old familiar places. + +This isolated doom for herself and Dora fascinated May's imagination. +She could not get it out of her head. She dreamt about it, and sat up +in her bed crying and shivering in the silence and solitude of night, +where even by day all was silent and solitary. She began to think +that she would never see Redcross or her mother again. With the +morbid sentimentality of early youth, and its lively capacity for +self-torture, in which to be sure there is that underlying luxury of +woe, she commenced to rehearse the loving farewells she would take on +paper, and the harrowing last messages she would send to every member +of her family. + +Occasionally May's hallucination took the form of conjuring up a series +of disasters which should suddenly descend on her absent friends. If she +did not die herself, one or all of those she loved might die while she +was separated from them. Her father might fall down in a fit; her mother +might be seized with small-pox or typhoid fever; and what more likely +than that Dora should catch the infection waiting on her mother? + +This distempered frame of mind was hardly calculated for the rapid +reception and assimilation of these particles, terminations, and cases +of philological nicety in which May began to recognize that she was +inaccurate and deficient. + +If Tray could but have come to her, and laid his shining black nose in +her lap, barked in her face, and invited her to take a turn in the +grounds of Thirlwall Hall, he would have ceased to be the doleful, +shadowy phantom of a Tray she was constantly seeing now, along with +other phantoms. A game of romps with her four-footed friend would have +done something to dissipate the mental sickness which was prostrating +May's powers. But Thirlwall Hall was moulded on the men's colleges, and +there were no dogs for the girl any more than for the boy graduates. + +Miss Lascelles was at once conscientious and kind, with considerable +natural sagacity; but she led a busy, rather over-burdened life, and had +little time to spare. Naturally she was tempted, in spite of the logical +faculty which made her a capital principal of Thirlwall Hall, to leap at +conclusions like many of her weaker-minded sisters. She had taken it for +granted that Miss Millar was simply a spoilt child, without more ability +and information than had just served her to surmount the preliminary +test of admission to Thirlwall Hall, where, nevertheless, she had no +business to be. Her time would be completely wasted; she would only be +wretched, and serve to make other people uncomfortable. However, as she +had stood the preliminary test, and was at Thirlwall Hall for the rest +of the term, the most humane thing to do was to set some other girl who +was not particularly engaged on her own account, who could be safely +trusted with such a charge, who had plenty of acquaintances at St. +Ambrose's to render the charge lighter, to make friends with the poor +girl, take her about, cheer and entertain her, as far as possible, till +the end of her stay. + +Miss Lascelles, in default of better, fixed on Miss Vanhansen, the +American young lady, as a friend for May. Miss Vanhansen had plenty of +time on her hands, plenty of confidence, plenty of money. She had +taken even exclusive St. Ambrose's by storm, for Athens itself would +have found it difficult to resist her racy indifference, her shrewd +mother-wit, her superb frocks, and her sublime heaps of dollars. At +the same time she was perfectly good-natured and quite trustworthy in +her own free and easy way. She had scandalized Miss Lascelles in the +earlier days of their acquaintance by her energetic determination to +have "a good time of it." She had made the lady principal's hair stand +on end by calmly suggesting nice rides and rows and luncheons at +village inns, _tête-à-tête_ with the "mooniest" young fellows who +could be laid hold of and crammed with stories about America and the +doings of American girls. + +But practically Miss Vanhansen had the good sense to do at Rome as the +Romans did; she confined her independence to those sallies of the +tongue, which were not without a rousing charm in a place grown partly +languid, partly esoteric, by dint of a superabundance of culture and of +college statutes elaborate, involved and irreversible as the laws of the +Medes and the Persians. + +Keturah Vanhansen rather liked the task imposed upon her. It appealed +at once to her kindliness of nature and her love of creating a +sensation; she would rouse this drooping young beauty who showed such +a sinful disregard of her complexion and eyes. Miss Vanhansen was +herself as sallow as a nabob, her small eyes, by an unkind perversity +on the part of her fairy god-mother, were of a fishy paleness, yet she +managed to her great satisfaction, by dint of dress and carriage, to +be a striking-looking and all but a handsome girl, so that she had no +overpowering reason to be jealous of her better-endowed neighbours. +She would astonish Miss Millar's weak nerves, and give her "a wrinkle +or two," before she had done with her. + +At first May shrank back a good deal from the advances of the conquering +princess from the Far West; but here the English girl's humility and +good feeling stood her in better stead than her judgment. May was +grateful to Miss Vanhansen, and went so far as to be flattered by her +attentions even when they gave the recipient no pleasure. That frame of +mind could not last at seventeen. May, the most unsophisticated and +easily pleased of human beings, was won from her sad dreams of Redcross. +She was deeply obliged, she was faintly amused. At last she was fairly +launched on such a mild course of St. Ambrose gaieties as two girls in +a college could with grace pursue. This included tennis parties, rowing +parties, water-lily and fritillary hunts, "strawberries," concerts +instead of lectures in the afternoons as well as in the evenings, +afternoon teas--not _tête-à-tête_, not confined to a party of three, +but under what even Miss Lascelles would have considered sufficient +surveillance in the rooms of liberal heads of houses, hospitable young +dons, social, idle undergraduates. These had no more business on their +hands than could be summed up in cricket-matches or boat-races, and in +meeting Miss Vanhansen and listening to her queer unconventional +remarks. + +At all these gatherings, May Millar in the budding beauty of seventeen +and the simplicity of her youthful dress, with her modesty and +_naïveté_, was made very welcome. Soon she began to feel herself ashamed +of the extent to which she was enjoying herself, as she was swept along +by the stream. + +She was able to write home now long letters full of girlish enthusiasm +over the kindness of Miss Vanhansen, and the beauties and delights of +St. Ambrose's. Dora, though greatly relieved in her ungrudging devotion +to May, to find that Tom Robinson's words were fulfilled, was still a +little puzzled to understand how May could find time for so many gay +doings, and her studies into the bargain. But Dr. and Mrs. Millar could +only be happy in the happiness of their child, and hug themselves on +having thought more of her welfare than of her feelings at the moment of +parting. It was right she should see all the charming sights which were +to be seen, and enter a little into the special attractions of the great +University town--_that_ would not prevent her from settling down and +doing her proper work presently. You might trust the lady principal and +a studious young creature like May, who liked to be busy with her books +far before any other occupation, with a great deal more license than +that came to. + +Then a new turn was given to the dissipation in which May was dipping. +The longing in which she had indulged, ever since she had first heard of +its possible fulfilment, was granted--a Greek play was to be acted by +the young women who stood for the "Grecians" of the year at Thirlwall +Hall, and May was there to see. From the moment the play was decided +upon to the hour of the first rehearsal, May spoke, thought, and dreamed +of nothing save "Alcestis." + +Miss Vanhansen gave her up in disgust. "The ungrateful, soft-spoken +wretch!" cried the forsaken fair one; "the hypocritical young blue-grass +Penelope Blue! she has been bluer than the blue clouds all the time she +has been imposing on me as a pining, bread-and-butter, home-sick miss +among us Titanesses and daughters of the gods. Here I am ready to +collapse with trotting her about among the few girls in St. Ambrose's +who are sensible enough not to know the Empire of the East from the +Empire of the West, and would not care which was which if they did know, +and the still wiser young men who spend the long summer days lying on +their backs in their own canoes, reading Mark Twain. Oh! she is a +brazen-faced impostor. 'Molasses!' and 'Great Scott!' are not enough to +say to her. I should like to try her with the final polite remarks of +the last chief of the Dogs' Noses." + +But contemporaneously with May's being thus dropped by her first friend, +she was peremptorily claimed and appropriated by the actresses. They had +not failed to notice her interest in their enterprise, and some of the +cleverest of them had already mastered an astonishing problem. + +They had been guilty of nicknaming Miss Millar "Baby," because she had +been so lachrymose and shiftless when she came to Thirlwall Hall, and +had never looked up till she was handed over to Miss Vanhansen, who had +given her "airings" and "outings" all very well for a baby, and much to +Baby's taste as it seemed, but not exactly severe study. Yet in spite of +it all, and in spite of the halting inaccuracy of the training in a +private ladies'-school, May Millar knew more by sheer instinct, as it +sounded, of Alcestis, and felt more with her and for her, than the best +of those who professed to be her interpreters. + +It was therefore not with wisely repairing the breaches in her Latin and +Greek, and laying these foundations afresh, as Rose was doing with her +art under Mr. St. Foy in London, that May was engrossed. It was with +becoming a bond-slave to those ambitious players. She lent herself to +the minutest details of their attempt, coached herself in them day and +night, till she could coach everybody in turn, and figured behind backs +as universal prompter, dresser, stage-manager--the girl who had been so +lifeless and incapable of looking after herself when she first came +among them that they had styled her the baby of the establishment! + +Miss Lascelles, who was deeply interested in the play, both in her +highly-finished scholarship, and for the credit of Thirlwall Hall, +was electrified when she discovered the efficient coadjutor whom +the performers had found. "I am afraid there has been a mistake +made, and time lost," she said to herself ruefully. "How could I be +so shortsighted, when there is the making of the finest scholar in +the Hall in Miss Millar, who threatened to hang so heavily on my hands +that I was fain to send her to play with our generous 'Barbarian.' +What discrimination, what taste and feeling with regard to the +selection and fit declamation of these passages which we were doubtful +whether to retain or reject, or what to do with them! With what pretty +girlish shyness and timidity she made the suggestions! Nothing but her +passionate love of the subject, and her jealousy for its honour, as it +were, with her intense craving to have it fitly expressed, would have +induced her to come forward. I should like to hear what Professor +Hennessy," naming a great name among classical authorities, "thinks +of this young girl's interpretation of several parts of the play when +he comes to hear them. I should like to introduce Miss Millar to him +if she were not so frightened, and if she had taken the place which +she ought to have held to begin with. It is too late to rectify the +mistake and set her to work this term, and she had much better not go +in for the Markham scholarship which her father spoke of--that would +be worse than useless. But we'll turn over a new leaf next term. After +all, she is very young; and I suppose it is of no great consequence +that she has wasted her first half. Her family are professional +people, and these are generally well off." (Miss Lascelles was the +portionless daughter of the impecunious younger son of a poor +nobleman.) + +When the play was performed nearly all the classical scholars of St. +Ambrose's--and what was a man doing at St. Ambrose's if he were not a +classical scholar, unless, to be sure, he happened to be a philosopher +of the first water, or a profound expounder of Anglo-Saxon, or a +strangely and wonderfully informed pundit?--came with their wives +and daughters, and graciously applauded the daring deed. + +As for Keturah Vanhansen, she wore her _rivière_ of diamonds, dripping, +dancing, flashing like water that was perpetually flowing, and yet, by +some enchantment, arrested in its flow in glorious suspension. Set in +the middle of the enchanted water was such a breast-knot of rare, +exquisite, uncannily grotesque orchids as no queen or princess had ever +been seen to wear in St. Ambrose's. Indeed, it might have suited the +Queen of Sheba. + +Miss Vanhansen announced that she wore her war-paint to do honour to the +Thirlwall Hall play, and to May Millar, whom she had forgiven, for +rancour never yet dwelt in the Yankee breast. "Alcestis" was a little +long, and "real right down funny," as her Aunt Sally would have said, +though it was a tragedy, and she, Keturah Vanhansen, did not understand +a word of it, notwithstanding this was her last year at Thirlwall Hall. +One good joke was the man who was in cats' skins, and carried a kitchen +poker for a club, and was half a head shorter than she was, and she was +not big; they should see her Aunt Abe if they wanted to know what a big +woman was like. Another joke was the sacks for the ladies' frocks, with +holes for the head and feet, and holes for the arms, so nice and simple, +and so graceful; Worth ought to get a hint of the costume. Only it was +not very distinctive, when one regarded the corresponding sacks for the +gentlemen. There was really nothing to mark out the ladies except the +large towels which they wore hanging down their backs, while the +gentlemen had Inverness capes over their sacks, fastened on the +shoulders with Highland brooches. How came the Greeks, in the time of +Euripides, to know about Inverness capes and Highland brooches? She, +Keturah Vanhansen, had been so startled by what she feared might be a +frightful anachronism that all her false hair had fallen off, and she +had been left like one of her Aunt Abe's moulting fowls. + +The truth was that, in the matter of hair, nature had favoured Miss +Vanhansen with a peculiarly fine and luxuriant crop, so that she had no +need to apply to art for its help. + +But as for May, she saw nothing and heard nothing of the discrepancies +which might mar the ancient story to far less ostentatiously +matter-of-fact and mocking critics than the would-be barbarian from +beyond the herring-pond. The piteous tragedy was enacted in all its +terror and pathos to May. She forgot even to sigh for one of the +original great open-air amphitheatres, with the cloudless blue sky of +Greece overhead, which had been the fit setting to those old-world +plays; while she appreciated, without being conscious of the +appreciation, every scenic item--the double stage, the attendant chorus, +the classic dress, that had awakened Miss Vanhansen's ridicule, from the +sandal on the foot to the toque on the head--all which could lend +verisimilitude to the spectacle. For the benefit of happy May, Alcestis +lived again in modern St. Ambrose's. Once more she suffered and died +willingly in the room of Admetus; once more the miserable husband's +half-heroic, half-savage ally, Harakles, fought Death for his pale prey, +and brought back the sacrificed wife from Hades, to restore her--a +figure veiled and motionless, yet instinct with glad life, every vein +throbbing with love and thankfulness--to the arms of her husband, more +joyful, and at the same time, in the middle of his joy, more full of +yearning sorrow and self-abasement than ever was happy bridegroom. + +On the day after the play, Miss Lascelles casually mentioned to May that +even if she went in for the coming examination, she, Miss Lascelles, +thought May had better not try for the Markham scholarship. + +"But I must, Miss Lascelles," protested May, starting up as if she +were awakening from a dream, and opening great eyes of distress and +apprehension--feelings which were only at that moment called into +life. "My father would be so vexed and disappointed if I did not." + +"If you will take my advice, my dear, you will wait till next year; +there will be another scholarship falling in then. Very many of the +Thirlwall Hall girls do much better the second year than they have done +the first," Miss Lascelles continued to warn her girl-graduate, with the +delicate consideration and tact which qualified the lady principal for +her office. "It is bad policy to enter hastily into a competition with +failure staring you in the face. It will only serve to dishearten you, +and to mislead people with regard to what I am now certain--I can +honestly congratulate you on my conviction--are your really exceptional +gifts. You will do Thirlwall Hall credit, and we shall all be proud of +you, if you will have patience. You are very young; you can afford to +wait. It is a common occurrence for clever, studious girls, and lads +too, to come up to St. Ambrose's from the country, from private schools +or home-teaching, who are not sufficiently exact in their scholarship, +and do nothing beyond remedying the defect in their first or even their +second year. You don't grudge giving what is but a fraction of your +life, after all, to thorough as opposed to superficial learning, do you, +dear? Remember, the one is worthy and the other worthless--a mere +pretentious waste." + +"I cannot help it," said May, with a little gasp of despair. "To wait is +just what I cannot afford to do. I am almost certain that my coming up +next year depends on what I can do this term. We have grown quite poor. +Father has lost a great deal of money lately. Even if he were content +to send me back here, I do not think it would be right in me to come, +unless I could do something to lessen the expense. My sister Annie is +in London learning to be a nurse, and my sister Rose is coming out as +an artist." + +"I thought they were doing it from choice. Why did you not apply +yourself before, Miss Millar? You knew what you could do, better than +any of us here could possibly guess your talents and attainments. +From your general behaviour until the play was started, I for one, I +confess, fell into the grave error of supposing that you could do +little or nothing, or that any progress you had made was entirely +forced work." Miss Lascelles spoke sharply, for she was considerably +discomfited, and full of unavailing regret for her share in the +misadventure. + +May could not tell her that she had been too miserable about coming +away from home, and leaving her mother and father, Dora and Tray, to +apply herself to learning; neither would there have been much use in +her applying if she had been destined to fade away presently as she +had imagined, and to die, bereft, among the lexicons, commentaries, +and lecture-notes of Thirlwall Hall. She preferred to say with meek +contriteness that she knew she had been very idle, but she would do +her best to atone for her idleness by working every lawful moment of +every hour of the few weeks which were left to her, if Miss Lascelles +would but allow her to go in for the examination, preparatory to +trying for the scholarship. + +Miss Lascelles could not prevent her, she told May a little dryly, for +the students of Thirlwall Hall, though some of them were no more than +seventeen--May's age--were all regarded and treated as grown-up young +women capable of judging and acting for themselves. What Miss Lascelles +was bound to do was to see that Miss Millar did not run into the +opposite extreme, and bring on a brain fever by over-study. "And you +know, my dear," finished the kind, experienced woman, who was easily +softened, who had always the greatest difficulty to keep from being +sympathetic, "that would be a great deal worse than merely being turned +back in your examinations, though Dr. Millar is not rich, and there may +be obstacles--I sincerely trust they will not be insurmountable--to your +coming back in the autumn, to work with a will and at the same time with +moderation." + +Poor May did not work herself into a brain fever, but she did in +other respects exactly as Miss Lascelles--a woman who understood +the position--had clearly foreseen. May succeeded in fretting, and +worrying, and getting herself into a state of nervous agitation. +Her brain, or that part of it which had to do with grammatical +declensions, derivations, rules, and principles, became a complete +muddle, so that in place of taking in new information, it seemed to +be rapidly letting go the old which it had once held securely. + +Before the eventful day of May's examination, she had lost the last +shred of hope, and so had all who had heard her or formed a correct +estimate of the contents of her papers, of her crossing the rubicon. Of +her own accord she sorrowfully refrained from making any move to enter +the lists for the scholarship. + +It is the fashion at St. Ambrose's not to issue the result of the +examinations for a considerable number of weeks, during which the +unhappy candidates hang on the tenterhooks of expectation. A looker-on +is inclined to consider this a refinement of cruelty till he or she has +taken into consideration that the motive of the protracted suspense is +to suit the convenience and lessen the arduous labours of the toil-worn +professors and tutors who serve as examiners. + +But in May Millar's case her failure was such a foregone conclusion, was +so remedial by reason of her youth, and so qualified by the share she +had taken in the Greek play, that a point was stretched for her, and she +was privately put out of pain at once. Latterly May had not entertained +the slightest expectation of any other sentence, yet the blow fell so +heavily upon her that it was well it was the end of the term. + +To do Thirlwall Hall no more than justice, everybody was sorry for +their youngest, gentlest, prettiest, most inspired, and withal most +inoffensive and obliging student. Miss Lascelles took May into her +private sitting-room and recklessly lavished the few moments the lady +principal had in which to rest and recruit from the fatigue of +receiving company, and playing a becoming part in the academical +gaieties with which the summer term at St. Ambrose's closes, in order +to speak encouraging words to the poor crestfallen child. Miss +Vanhansen implored May to cross the herring-pond at her expense, and +have a good time among the Barbarian's relations in Ol' Virginny and +Kentuck. The girl who had played Alcestis wanted to inaugurate a +reading-party in which May should be coached all round every day. +Failing this, the same adventurous spirit would get up a series of +Greek plays in London drawing-rooms, with Miss Millar's assistance; +and so far as she herself was concerned, she would never be contented +till Miss Millar played Admetus to her Alcestis. A large deputation of +blue-stockinged maidens from Thirlwall Hall escorted May to the +railway station, and more than one was relieved to find that she was +going first to join her sisters in London instead of carrying the +mortification of her failure straight to her country-town home. + +It might be the deferring of an ordeal, and yet it was with a white +face, as abashed and well-nigh as scared as if she had committed a +crime, that May awaited Annie in the drawing-room to which the +probationers' friends were free at St. Ebbe's. The consciousness had +come too late of having wasted the little money her father had to spare +on sentimental self-indulgence and the gratification of her own feelings +instead of employing it as it was meant to be employed, in controlling +herself and doing her duty, so as to acquire fitting arms for the battle +of life. + +It was this horrible comprehension which made her wistful eyes grow +distended and fixed in their sense of guilt and disgrace. She might have +committed a forgery, and be come to tell Annie what she had done. May +was essentially one-idea'd at this period of her life, and she had dwelt +on the fact of her failure and exaggerated its importance, like the most +egotistical of human beings, till it filled her imagination and blotted +out every other consideration. + +Annie, in the full career of a busy professional morning, snatched a +moment between two important engagements to see her sister. + +May looked with imploring, fascinated eyes at Annie in her nurse's gown +and cap. The younger girl had some faint inkling of Annie's earlier +experience in the life of an hospital; yet there she was as fresh and +fair and bright as ever--a thousand times cooler and happier-looking +than her visitor. + +"Here you are, May," Annie was saying in glad greeting, as she held her +sister by the two shoulders, after she had kissed her; "and I declare +you have grown since you went to St. Ambrose's. Oh, you incorrigible +girl, when you were so much the tallest of us before you went there." + +May could only make one answer with parched lips, faltering tongue, and +eyes dry under their heavy cloud of grief, "Annie, I have failed in my +examination!" + +Annie started in surprise, while her face fell for a second. "What a +pity!" she could not help exclaiming. "Father will be----" She broke off +in the middle of the sentence. "Don't fret about it," she added, quickly +taking another look into May's face; "that will do no good, and it is +not very much after all. I cannot stay another minute now, May," she +went on to tell the bewildered girl in the most matter-of-fact tone, so +that May was in danger of feeling half-offended at finding her +tribulation taken so cavalierly--"just like Annie!" + +"You must wait for me," Annie was saying further. "There is a poor +fellow--a patient of mine--who is to have his arm amputated this +morning, and I must be with him when it is done." + +"Oh dear!" cried May, completely taken aback, "that is dreadful. Will he +die, Annie? Will he die?" forgetting all her own high-strung woes, the +product of an advanced stage of civilization, in heart-felt, human +sympathy with the most primitive of all trials--bodily suffering and +loss. + +"Not if we can help it, please God," said Annie emphatically. Then an +inspiration came to her as she gazed on the girl's white quivering face. +"You have been working too hard, 'little May'; you shake your head like +a tragedy queen. Then you've been worrying too much, which is a great +deal worse. I shall take you in hand, but I can't stay to talk about it. +Just you think how little my poor fellow would mind not passing an +examination, in comparison with the loss of an arm--fortunately it is +the left one. He is a printer who got his arm crushed under one of the +great rollers, and he has a wife and five little children dependent on +their bread-winner." + +Annie was gone, leaving May suddenly transported out of herself, and +plunged into the trials of her neighbours, the awfully near, common +life-and-death trials, of which she had known so little. Her own seemed +to sink into insignificance beside them. St. Ambrose's and its +intellectual lists and wordy contests, even its lofty abstruse +thoughts--excellent things in their way, without which the unlettered +world would become rude, sordid and narrow--faded into the background. +She forgot everything but the poor man passing through a mortal crisis, +with Annie able to succour him in his need, and his wife and children +waiting to hear whether the end were life or death. + +May held her breath, and watched, prayed, and waited in her turn, with +no thought left for the news she had brought to town, and was to carry +to Redcross. What did it signify if only the poor man lived when May +herself was well and strong, and all her dear friends were in health, +and likely to be spared to her. + +When Annie came in again with a cheerful face, and said, "He has stood +it wonderfully; there is every prospect of his making a speedy +recovery," May's face too cleared till for the moment it was almost +radiant. She acquiesced, with responsive animation, in Annie's +arrangement that since she, Annie, had got leave of absence for the +rest of the day she would put on her walking-dress, and she and May +too would go and pick up Rose at Mr. St. Foy's class-rooms; and what +was to hinder all the three from having an expedition together in the +fine summer weather to Hampton Court, or Kew, or the Crystal Palace, +thus celebrating May's visit to town, and making the most of Annie's +holiday? It would be like dear old times of primrose hunting, blue-bell +gathering, maying, and nutting down at Redcross before the cares and +troubles of the world had taken hold of the girls. Annie had already +sent on May's luggage to Welby Square, to which May would return with +Rose. Annie excluded herself carefully from this part of the programme, +with a kind of unapproachable haughtiness which had three strains of +stubbornness and one strain of fiery youthful anger in its composition, +while it was a complete enigma to May. But all she cared to know was +that she was going with her own two sisters for an entire afternoon's +delightful excursion. In the morning she had felt that she could never +have the heart to be happy again. Even yet she would not be quite happy; +she would be very much affronted when she was telling Annie and Rose the +particulars of her, May's, silliness and selfishness; how she had given +herself up to moping, and then how she had played herself--first with +the St. Ambrose gaieties, and later with the Greek play, instead of +setting about her work methodically and diligently. Annie would, +perhaps, tell her a few home-truths, and Rose would crumple up her +nose, shake her head, and look superhumanly wise--Rose who in the +old days had been more thoughtless than May. + +Still she deserved it all a thousand times over, and it would be a +relief to have disburdened herself of the sorry tale. + +Her own sisters would defend her from every other assailant. They would +feel for her, seek to reassure her, even make much of her, as they were +doing by taking her away with them this afternoon. May was very sensible +that a burden was lifted off her back. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +DORA IS THE NEXT MESSENGER WITH BAD TIDINGS. + + +There is a curious feeling abroad in the world, that no two things +happen alike on two days, or in two weeks, or months, running. If there +has been a railway accident on Monday, there will certainly not be +another of the same kind at the same place on Tuesday. Apart from the +fresh precautions sure to be taken, it is not at all likely, in the +chapter of accidents, that a facsimile will occur where the original has +preceded it so recently. On a similar principle, if a man has been +killed or badly injured by a fall from a horse, it goes against public +opinion that his son or his brother should also be thus injured. If the +singular repetition does take place, people will speak of it with bated +breath, as of a fate or doom hanging over the family, and therefore +bound to repeat itself again and again on the old lines. All this is in +spite of the fact that there is such a word as "coincidence" in the +language, and that there is hardly one of us who cannot remember +several startling coincidences in the course of his or her history. + +Annie Millar had an experience of the kind at this time. It was on the +20th of June that May arrived unannounced at St. Ebbe's to recount her +lost battle. On the 21st Dora appeared, in a like unlooked-for manner, +to divulge her sorrowful news. + +Annie was much more troubled by the spectacle of Dora standing alone in +the middle of the hospital drawing-room, pale and agitated, than she had +been by the discovery of May in that very condition the day before. +Annie's own colour died away while she ran forward and caught Dora's +hand. "What is it, Dora? Has anything happened to father or mother?--yet +if there had, you would not have left them and come up to town by +yourself. Why are you here? Tell me quickly, for it is killing me to +keep me in suspense." + +"Don't be alarmed," entreated Dora's soft voice. "Father sent me up for +the express purpose that you might not be alarmed when you heard. I must +have managed badly to frighten you. I assure you nothing has happened, +at least nothing very particular, only,--well, father is very rheumatic, +and the warm weather has done him no good. He has not been out of the +house for a month, though we did not mention it in our letters, always +hoping that by the next time we wrote he would be better. But he has not +left his room till he contrived to go in the cab yesterday. Oh! Annie, +he has sold his business to Dr. Capes. He--father--said it was no use to +protract the struggle, it was only doing more mischief; he would never +be able, at his age, to go about again so as to act fairly by his +patients. He has given up everything to the bank's creditors, and will +pass through the bankruptcy court. He bade me tell you that he could see +no other way, and he was afraid Rose or you might read his name in the +_Gazette_ without being prepared for it." + +"Father ill, old, and a bankrupt!" Annie's cry was bitter. "It is hard +after his long life of honourable industry. I can never forgive Mr. +Carey." + +"Hush! hush! Annie, you must not say that. Nothing would grieve father +more. Nobody has suffered like the Careys. Besides, father always says +that he alone was to blame for buying the bank shares. He did it of his +own free-will, just that he might grow richer in the idlest manner +possible for him to do so. Dr. Capes has taken our house, the Old +Doctor's House too, and father and mother went into apartments--those +over Robarts the book-seller's--yesterday, till they could look about +them." Dora was crying quietly all the time she was speaking, and at the +same time she was breaking off to say with pathetic resigned trust like +her mother's, "But only think, Annie dear, how much worse it might have +been! What a great deal we have to be thankful for. Look at poor Mr. +Carey sitting paralyzed, and quite childish; and do you know the sad +news arrived last night that poor poor Colonel Russell is dead? He had a +sun-stroke, and died within twelve hours; he has not been three months +at his new post. Dear father has all his senses, and he says himself he +may live for years and years." + +"I hope so," said Annie fervently; but it is doubtful whether she fully +appreciated the blessings of her lot at that moment. She busied herself +for a few minutes with Dora, her nurse's instinct as well as her +affection telling her that Dora must be seen to first. Annie took off +Dora's hat and jacket, seated her in the easiest chair, would hear +nothing more till she--Annie--had learnt when Dora had breakfasted, and +then rung for a basin of soup and made her swallow it. "Now, Dora," she +said, sitting down by her sister, "tell me all there is to tell. What +have father and mother to live upon? We must think and act for them +now." + +Dora explained as well as she was able, since, like her mother, she had +no great head for business. In addition to the sum given for the +good-will of Dr. Millar's practice, and for his house and furniture, +which was to be paid over to the liquidators of the bank's debts, (in +return for which the debtor would get a discharge from farther +obligations,) a small percentage was to be allowed to him from his +successor's fees. + +"I am afraid it will be very small," Dora made the despondent remark, +"because, though all his former patients are fond of father, they got to +see he was breaking up, and did not like to send for him during the +night, or at odd hours. Mother and I did what we could, going round for +him and inquiring after his patients; but, as he said, such a make-shift +could not last. We were always hearing of more families calling in Dr. +Capes or Mr. Newton. Father declared he could not blame them; he would +have done the same in their place, and that every dog must have his +day." + +"That was like father," said Annie, looking up with a fleeting sparkle +in her eyes. + +"Then we thought," went on Dora, "father and mother might have part of +mother's money, since you have always said you did not need it, while +Rose is getting paid for her work, and there is hardly any doubt" +(brightening up,) "but that 'little May' will take the scholarship. +She was working so hard to pass her examination when she wrote last, +that she was quite out of spirits about her chances, which father says +is always the way with the best men when they are going in for an +examination that they are safe to win. He supposes it will be still +more so with women. He tells mother that he will not mind taking help +from her, where her money is concerned, when he can no longer stir from +his chair--not to say to earn a fee, but to save his life. He has taken +so much more help from her in other ways during all their married life, +that this in addition will not count." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE UNEMPLOYED--A FAMILIAR FACE. + + +A lodging was found near the Hospital for Dora, who was to stay in town +and look out for a situation; and for the next week, a week of hot +summer weather, Annie, relieved from her hospital work, because it was +her first holiday time, went to and fro, spending as little as possible +on omnibus fares, with Dora and May in her train, in search of +employment for them. People were beginning to leave town, and the time +did not seem propitious. When was it ever propitious for such a pursuit +where women are concerned? Even under Annie's able guidance, with the +spirit which she could summon to her aid in all difficulties, the +intentional and unintentional rebuffs which the two girl candidates, +particularly Dora, got from agents and principals in connection with +ladies in want of useful companions and nursery-governesses were +innumerable. The swarms of needy, greedy applicants for similar +situations whom the Millars were perpetually encountering in their +rounds, were enough to cause the stoutest heart to quail, and to sink +the most sanguine nature into the depths of despondency. + +Dora Millar was not constitutionally sanguine, and she grew more and +more nervous and dispirited as the fruitless efforts went on. Her little +figure drooped, her eyes had a dejected expression, her lips quivered +pathetically without any provocation. Annie was compelled to use strong +language. "The idiots!" she exclaimed, _apropos_ of the last persons who +had found Dora too young or too old, not strong enough looking, or not +lively enough looking ("not as if she could stand a large amount of +bullying and worrying," Annie read between the lines). "What a chance +they are letting slip through their fingers of getting the most +unexacting, contented creature in the world to minister to their +tiresome wants. They will never see her like again; serve them right for +their blindness." + +One particularly glaring, airless afternoon, the three sisters were +toiling back to Dora's lodging, with the London pavement like heated +iron under the feet of the crowds that trod it, and the cloudless sky, +in which the sun blazed a ball of fire, like glowing brass over their +heads. Then as the Millars turned a corner and looked longingly at the +trees in a square with their leaves already yellowing and shrivelling, +May uttered a little shriek of delight and darted forward to greet a +familiar figure and face in the stream of strangers. What did it signify +that the figure was insignificant by comparison, and the face with +nothing distinguished in its pallor, under its red beard and +moustache?--"a little foxy-headed fellow," any sharp-tongued bystander +might have called him. It was a well-known face where all the others +were drearily unknown, a Redcross face in London, the face of a man who +might have shown himself an enemy, yet had proved a friend in need; and +though there had been presented to the girls the bearing of a Jupiter +and the lineaments of an Adonis, they could not have hailed him with +greater gladness. If anybody hung back in the general acclamation it was +Dora, for Annie did not say a word to rebuke May; she was too anxious to +hear the last news of her father. + +More than one man among the passers-by, glancing at Tom Robinson +surrounded by a group of pretty girls, the two prettiest evidently +making much of him and hanging on his words, called him in their minds +"lucky dog," and speculated on the nature of the attraction. + +"'_Prope'ty, prope'ty, prope'ty_,'" no doubt. It was disgraceful to see +how mercenary even quite young women were getting. + +Tom received the ovation, at which, by the bye, he was a little taken +aback and puzzled, quietly and in a matter-of-fact way, as he received +most things. He had had the pleasure of seeing Dr. and Mrs. Millar +lately; indeed, he had availed himself of the privileges of an old +friend to call on them at once in their new quarters, he told Annie, and +he had found them, by their own account, fairly well and comfortable, +though the Doctor was still dead lame. + +Tom did not tell either Annie, or any one else interested in the +information, that he had spent the last few days pushing the circulation +of a subscription list, which he had headed with the promise of a +handsome sum. It was to provide a testimonial not altogether inadequate +to mark the esteem in which the townspeople held their old Doctor for +his many virtues, and their sympathy with him in his misfortunes. A +liberal offering on the town's part might do something to relieve the +adversity which had befallen a fellow-townsman. The talk a little time +ago had been of presenting Dr. Millar with a new brougham and horse, +which, as they would have had to be maintained at the charge of a man +who had just put down his old brougham as beyond his diminished income, +was rather an illogical method of serving him. However, his complete +breakdown, with the sale of his practice, had at once knocked that idea +on the head, and had given its motive a much wider application. If the +little Doctor were to submit to accept help, it must be commensurate +with the dignity of Redcross and the county, and with his own +professional status and merit. + +Tom Robinson looked at the girls as two of them looked at him. "It is +tiring weather," he suggested hesitatingly; "is it wise of you to walk +out in the heat?" + +"Oh! Mr. Robinson," cried May effusively, "we are so tired--just dead +beat--though Annie there does not like me to talk slang--but it is so +expressive, don't you think so? It is not to-day only, but yesterday and +the day before, we have been hunting for situations, and have not found +them yet. Do you know, Dora and I are going to take situations +immediately if we can get them?" + +His face changed, and he knit his brow involuntarily. + +"What a magpie it is!" said Annie, impatiently. "But, of course, you +have heard all about the turn father's affairs have taken since this bad +rheumatic attack, which he does not believe he can shake off. It need +not be any secret that my sisters are looking out for situations." + +He did not answer; he was prevented by the painful consciousness that +Dora appeared ready to sink into the ground. + +"Won't you avail yourself of my arm, Miss Dora? Won't you let me see you +home?" he proposed hurriedly. + +She could not refuse; indeed, she was only too thankful for the offered +support, though she murmured a protest against troubling him and taking +him out of his way. And she could not altogether conceal how put out as +well as weary she was, so that the little hand, which just touched his +coat-sleeve, fluttered on its resting-place like a newly-caught bird. + +He hailed a cab, and wished to put them all into it. + +"I dare say it would be better," said Annie, glancing at Dora's white +face, with the new trick of quivering which the lips had acquired. As +the cab was driving up, she gave Tom Robinson their address--"17, Little +St. Ebbe's Street," with the amount of the fare, looking at him almost +fiercely while she took the money from her purse. "Will you be good +enough to direct the man and pay him for us?" she said, and he dared not +dispute her will. + +But when he yielded, she seemed to think his friendliness and power of +comprehension deserved something better than they had got. "Will you +come with us?" Annie invited him; and when she softened, it was always +in such a bright frank way that it was hard to resist her. "We'll be +very pleased to give you a cup of tea at Dora's lodging--at least we can +do that for you, and it may be acceptable on such an oppressive +afternoon." + +He, a guest at a lodging of Dora Millar's: it sounded odd enough! + +"Do come, Mr. Robinson," his friend May was imploring, while Dora, +sensible that something was due from her as the ostensible mistress of +the lodging, echoed shyly, without raising her eyes to his face, "Yes, +come, please." + +Did she remember the last time she gave him tea in the drawing-room of +the Old Doctor's House, where they were not likely to meet again? How +awkward they found the _tête-à-tête_. How they shrank from their hands +touching, while he reproached her for aiding and abetting May in trying +to shirk going to St. Ambrose's; and she had borne his reproaches and +admitted the reasonableness of his arguments, with all the meek candour +of Dora, while still making a last stand for May. + +He went with the girls as if he were in a dream; but he was not left to +dream in Dora's very plain lodging, where Annie and not the mistress of +the lodging poured out tea, and May insisted on helping him to bread +and butter. He saw Rose, too, who had been awaiting the return of her +sisters. It sent another pang to his brotherly heart to discover that +Rose also was subdued and well-nigh careworn. She still wrinkled her +forehead and crumpled up her nose, but it was no longer in the old saucy +way; it was under her share of the heavy burden of trouble which had +fallen on these dauntless girls and might end by crushing them. + +May was not to be kept from the immense solace of making a clean breast +to her former ally of her stupid dawdling and trifling, and the +retribution which had at once befallen her. "Did father tell you, Mr. +Robinson, that I have failed in my examination?" she began plaintively. +"Yes, I have, and it was all my own fault. I was too silly; I would not +pull myself together and work hard from the first. Now it will never be +in my power to go back to St. Ambrose's. I'll not be able to atone for +my folly by showing that everybody was not wrong when it was believed +that I might be a fair scholar, win a scholarship, and rise to be +classical mistress in a girls' school." At the announcement of the +disastrous failure, by her own deed, of all the ambitious plans for her, +May threatened to break down, springing up and turning away, her +shoulders heaving in a paroxysm of mortification and grief. + +Tom Robinson used to say, afterwards, that he never witnessed a +prettier sight than the manner in which the three other girls rallied +round their poor "little May," from Annie downwards. They took off her +hat, pulled off her gloves, smoothed her ruffled hair, patted her +tear-stained cheeks, seated her in an arm-chair, brought her tea, and +made her drink it, bidding her not be too disheartened. They pledged +themselves--even Dora pledged herself stoutly--that, if it rested with +them, and they were young and strong, they would find work of one kind +or another--May should go back to St. Ambrose's some day and vindicate +her scholarliness. Father and mother and all of them would be proud of +her. + +It rendered the man doubly indignant from that day when he heard +scoffers say that there could be no true friendship between women, and +that the relation of sisters existed simply for the growth of rivalry +and jealousy. + +May was still shaking her head disconsolately, and reminding him, "Ah, +Mr. Robinson, it would have been better if you had let me stay at home +and go into your shop, like Phyllis Carey. I might have done some good +there, though you may not believe it, and only feel glad that you got +rid of me." + +Then he took her in hand, and administered his consolation. "Nonsense, +Miss May," he said, with sufficient peremptoriness for a man who had +been rather accustomed to efface himself in these girls' presence, "you +were not to be suffered to hide your light under a bushel. I wonder to +hear you--I thought you had more pluck and perseverance. How many times +do you think the young fellows at St. Ambrose's are turned back and have +to try again? If I passed in my first exam, it was by the merest fluke, +as three-fourths of the men will tell you they pass. As for my degree, +I had the common sense and modesty to put off taking it to the last +moment, and to stay up two different vacations, 'sapping' like a +Scotchman, before I ventured to undergo the test. You don't mean to say +you are too proud to do at Rome as the Romans do, that your genius will +brook no rejection, and declines to grapple with an obstacle? I'll tell +you what your father proposes for you, and let me say that I believe it +would do him a world of good--now that he has been forced to give up his +patients, and is confined to his chair. He has not lost heart and faith +in your powers--of course not. He is thinking quite eagerly of brushing +up his classics in his enforced leisure, and himself becoming your coach +for the next six months. I need not say that any small assistance I can +offer is heartily at your service also." + +"Oh!" said May, with wistful brown eyes and a long-drawn sigh, "you are +a great deal too good to me, all of you. I don't deserve it. It would +only be too much happiness for me to have father and you to coach +me--but I know we could not afford it." + +"Wait and see," said Tom succinctly. + +"If I got that situation," said Dora timidly, "I might do something to +help May: I mean the one where the lady said she would take me into +consideration, but we thought it would not do, because I should have to +go out to Jamaica. On second thoughts, I am not sure that I'd mind so +very much going. The lady seemed to consider I might be able to do what +she required, and I should only be away for a year or two, since the +family are coming back then. The salary was very good." + +Dora go out to Jamaica to help May, or any one else! Not though he had +to fling cheques in at the windows, and squeeze Bank of England notes +through the keyholes, to prevent it. + +"Hester Jennings says she would not be very much surprised if she heard +of a buyer for my tulip picture; but I don't know," said Rose +doubtfully, glancing at the picture, which was on an adjoining table. + +"May I look at it?" asked Tom Robinson, jumping up with alacrity, +probably to make a diversion in the conversation from the obnoxious +topic of Dora's problematical voyage to Jamaica. He had seen Rose's work +at Redcross, and he could give it as his honest opinion that she had +made a great advance in her art, though he did not profess to be a +judge. He said, however, that he had a friend, an old St. Ambrose crony, +who was an artist. They had happened to be together in Rome at a later +date, had been a good deal thrown on each other's company there, and had +continued to keep up a friendly intercourse. He requested permission for +his friend to call and look at the little picture. He might be of use to +Rose in disposing of it; he was always ready to help a fellow-artist. +Tom supposed the Millars had heard his friend's name, it was pretty well +known; indeed they might have seen him, for Pemberton and Lady Mary, his +wife, had spent a few days with Tom at Redcross, and had been in church +on the Sunday during their visit, the summer before last. + +In spite of the obligations of good breeding, the Millars looked at each +other in open-mouthed astonishment. Certainly they had heard of +Pemberton the distinguished landscape painter, and they had been told +that he had married into the peerage, as Aunt Penny had married into the +county. The girls also remembered perfectly the quiet-looking young +couple who had been noticed walking about with Tom Robinson the July +before last. People had wondered languidly who the strangers could +be--whether they were cousins far removed on Tom's father's side of the +house, since they did not quite answer to the style of his mother's +yeomen kindred. But it was an effort to the provincial mind to identify +the unobtrusive-looking pair with the Pembertons, to realize that Mr. +Pemberton and his Lady Mary had actually come and stayed the better part +of a week with Tom Robinson. They could hardly have been ignorant of +"Robinson's," whose master was only received into the upper-class houses +of the town on a species of sufferance. + +The peerage must have unique rules by which to frame its standards. +There was the Hon. Victoria, Mrs. Carey's niece by marriage, who, when +Carey's Bank was in full bloom, would hardly be seen in the streets of +Redcross, and scarcely deigned to acknowledge her own aunt-in-law. As to +the familiarity of staying a night in the Bank House, she would never +have dreamt of it. In this respect she did little credit to the teaching +of her old governess, Miss Franklin, who had shown herself a philosopher +in her own person. Perhaps, when it came to stooping at all, the peerage +felt it might as soon, and with a still more gracious and graceful +effect, bend low as bend slightly. Perhaps in the peerage, as in every +other class, there are all sorts and conditions of mind and heart. + +A little clue might have been supplied to account for the eccentricity +of the Pembertons, and to lessen the shock of their conduct to the +Millars, if the latter had been made acquainted with one circumstance. +About the time of the stay of the artist and his wife in Rome, where he +had been only too glad to run up against a favourite old college chum, +when the three had been making a long excursion in company beyond the +Campagna, Pemberton had been suddenly attacked in a remote little town +with a violent illness. + +His poor young wife would have been utterly frightened and forlorn had +it not been for the moral courage and untiring good offices of the third +person in the company--Tom Robinson. + +Tom did not appear conscious of the sensation he had created by the +mention of his friend. He arranged when Mr. Pemberton should come and +view Rose's picture to suit Rose's convenience, and not that of the +famous and courted artist. Then he explained in all sincerity, before he +took his leave, that he, Tom Robinson, was very sorry he could not have +the pleasure of bringing Pemberton and introducing him personally, +because a business engagement called the master of "Robinson's" back to +Redcross early next morning. + +The party he left were quite silent and still for a moment after he had +gone, till what she had heard of Mr. Pemberton went to Rose's head to +such a degree that she rose, whirled round on tiptoe, and caused her +spread-out frock to perform the feat which children call "making a +cheese." + +"Won't it be delicious to know Mr. Pemberton and get his advice--perhaps +one day presume to ask him how he does his hay-fields and orchards? What +will Hester Jennings say! I say, we'll have Hester to meet him; she will +come for such a painter though the whole peerage would not get her to +budge an inch. I wish we could tone her down a little bit, but he must +just swallow her whole. She is good and clever enough to be permitted +that rugged line of her own. Oh! but isn't Tom Robinson a trump? I +_will_ be slangy, Annie--as May says, it is so expressive." + +"Yes, yes," chimed in May enthusiastically, in reference to the man and +not to the slang. "I have known it ever since he came up like a +lion--why do you laugh, Rose?--and rescued Tray--don't you remember, +Dora?--from that horrid brute of a collie. Tray bit him--Mr. Robinson, I +mean--not knowing that he was his best friend, and he only laughed. He +was so kind about my wishing to go into his shop, like Phyllis Carey, +though he would not take me. I think it must be a privilege, as Miss +Franklin tells Phyllis, to serve him. She says all the nice people in +the shop have the greatest regard for him." + +"I am so sorry and ashamed that I ever drew caricatures of him," said +Rose, in pensive penitence. "I think, whenever I am able, I must paint +his portrait, as I see him now, to make up for it." + +"And ask him to have it hung above the oak staircase in the shop," +suggested Annie, a little satirically. But she added immediately, +"Though it broke no bones to dwell on his lack of height and his foxy +complexion, I am rather sorry now that I did it, because I have ceased +to think that these objectionable details deserved to be made of any +consequence. On the contrary, I own to the infatuation of beginning to +see that there is something fine in them. I suppose I shall be calling +Tom Robinson's hair golden, or tawny, or chestnut soon, and his inches +the proper height for a man. It is true," broke off Annie, with sudden, +unaccountable perversity, "I do hate great lumbering flaxen-haired +giants." She blushed furiously after she had indulged in the last +digression, and hastened to resume the main thread of the conversation. +"As for Tom Robinson's having little to say, I declare that my present +impression is that he says quite enough, and very much to the purpose +too. It was so nice and like a gentleman of him not to propose +immediately to buy Rose's picture when she talked rashly of her anxiety +that it should find a purchaser." + +"I don't think Cyril Carey, with all his airs, would have shown so much +delicacy in the old days," said Rose. + +"Or that Ned Hewett, though Ned has such a kind heart, would have been +able to avoid blundering into some such offer," remarked May. + +There was one person who remained absolutely silent while the others +sang Tom Robinson's praises, and it might be her silence which called +her sisters' attention to her. + +"I wonder what you would have, Dora?" said Rose, with several shades of +superciliousness in her voice and in her lifted-up nose. + +"I cannot understand how you could be such a cruel, hard-hearted girl," +May actually reproached her devoted slave. + +"There is such a thing as being too particular," Annie had the coolness +to say. "I am sure I do not go in for indiscriminate marriages or for +falling in love," she added with lofty decision. "It has always been a +mystery to me what poor Fanny Russell could see to care for, or to do +anything save laugh at, in Cyril Carey. I hope the elderly 'competition +wallah,' or commissioner, or whatever he is, whom she is going to marry, +has more sense as well as more money. For her marriage was arranged, +though the news had not reached England, mother writes, before the +tidings of Colonel Russell's death came. But when a man who can act as +Tom Robinson has acted crosses a woman's path and pays her the +compliment of asking her to be his wife, I do think she should be +careful what she answers." + +Dora stared as if she were losing her senses. Were they laughing at her +still? Could they be in earnest? If so, how was it possible for them to +be so flagrantly inconsistent and unjust? She could only utter a single +exclamation. But as the worm will turn, the exclamation was emphatic and +indignant enough. "Well!" she cried, in utter amazement and incipient +rebellion. "Well!" and she returned the challenging gaze of the circle +with a counter-challenge, before which all eyes except Annie's fell. + +Annie had the audacity to look Dora in the face and echo the "Well!" +nay, to say further, "You never heard of anything so disgraceful as for +us to turn upon you and find fault with you for refusing Tom Robinson, +when all the time it was we who laughed at him, and scouted his shop, +keeping you up to the point of dismissing him without delay? Quite true, +Dora, dear; but then it was you, and not _us_, whom he was proposing to +marry! and a girl old enough to receive such a proposal should have the +wit to judge for herself--should she not? She ought to cultivate the +penetration to look beneath the surface in so important a matter, and +then fewer lamentable mistakes would be made. However, nobody could +expect you to put force on your inclinations, and he does not bear you +malice." + +Annie did not regard her share in the matter so cheerfully and lightly +when she was in the privacy of a ward of St. Ebbe's, where she had +begged to sit up with an unconscious patient, just to keep her hand in +and compose her feelings. + +"What mischievous little wretches we were," she reflected, as she +deftly changed the wet cloth on the sick woman's hot forehead. "How +happy he might have made Dora, and how happy she might have made him! +She is so single-minded and tender-hearted, that she could hardly have +failed to see his merits, if we had given him the chance, let her +alone, and left the pair to themselves. Then, if the worst were to +come to the worst," and Annie frowned with anxiety and grief, as well +as with wholesome humiliation, "if poor father and mother cannot get +along, and none of us girls can help them effectually, his house might +have been their home, where he would never have let them feel other +than honoured guests. He would have been a son to them. But the +mischief is done, and there is no help for it. If Dora and he were an +ordinary couple, it might be mended; but now she will not look at him +when we none of us have a penny, because she refused him when we were +in comfortable circumstances; and he will not renew his suit with the +thought in his mind that it would look and feel to her as if any +favour he has magnanimously conferred on us, were a mere bribe to +compel her to listen to him. So, Annie Millar, this is a pretty kettle +of fish, of which you have been chief cook! There is the greater +reason for you to make up your mind from this moment to devote +yourself wholly to your family, and let nothing--_nothing_," she +protested with suspicious vehemence, "come between you and them." + +"What is it, you poor soul?" the young nurse responded quickly to a +movement of the helpless ailing creature beside her. "Do you know there +is somebody here? Will it ease you to have your head raised on my arm, +do you think? You cannot hear or answer, but we'll try that, and then it +is just possible you may drop asleep." And for the rest of the watch +Annie was absorbed in care for her patient. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +REDCROSS AGAIN. + + +Tom Robinson's subscription list attained the respectable sum-total of +two thousand pounds. Many of the subscribers were not only patients of +Dr. Millar, but creditors of the bank whose claims he had striven with +sturdy honesty to satisfy, till the task proved too hard for his years. + +The little Doctor received the token of how greatly his courage and +staunchness in the fulfilment of his obligations had been respected, +with half pained, half pleased gratitude, and this was very much the +attitude of mind of his daughter Annie. The rest of his womankind, from +Mrs. Millar to May, only felt a glad surprise, and a soft, proud +thankfulness. + +The relief from present difficulties was great, but of course the gift +did not obviate the necessity for the girls seeking work and wages. Even +May, when she ventured to hope that she might stay at home for a month +or two and be coached by her father and Tom Robinson in anticipation of +a more successful campaign at St. Ambrose's, was eagerly speculating +whether she might not become a coach in her turn. She was fain to earn a +little money by helping the very youngest of the Grammar School boys to +prepare their Latin grammar in the evenings, supposing she could get +them to sit still, and give over wishing her to play with them. + +Mr. Pemberton had not only himself called on the Miss Millar who was the +artist, he had brought Lady Mary with him, and both husband and wife had +turned out the refined, thoroughly unassuming, kindly disposed couple +they had looked. They spoke warmly of Tom Robinson as their very good +friend, and went so far as to express enthusiasm for his beautiful old +shop. Mr. Pemberton did better than merely say a few words of languid, +indiscriminating praise of Rose's picture, and then bow himself out. He +examined the picture closely, and looked at her thoughtfully and +attentively out of the dark gray eyes, the only good feature in his +face. The next moment, to Hester Jennings's great edification, he +addressed Rose seriously as a member of the Guild of St. Luke--not an +amateur, "one of ourselves, so that you must not mind what I say to you, +Miss Millar." He first displayed a generous capacity for discovering +something good, whether it were to be found in the work of a tyro or of +a veteran. Next he took the trouble of pointing out the faults, and +urging their remedy, telling her the picture was worth the pains of +making it as true as possible, until Rose hung her head in blended pride +and humility. + +What was more, he offered to enter into negotiations with a +picture-dealer on her behalf, and brought them to a triumphant +conclusion, making Rose happy with so fair a price as materially to +lighten the millstone of her resigned office at the Misses Stone's +hanging round her neck. + +It was settled that May should go home and profit by the coaching which +awaited her at Redcross, taking the chance of finding some little boys +whose Latin grammar would be the better of her supervision. + +Next Mr. Pemberton wrote that Lady Mary had been so charmed with the +neighbourhood of Redcross, and had spoken so highly of it to one of her +cousins, who had a great liking for English landscape, and was just +refurnishing his town house, that he wished to commission a set of +water-colour sketches of such and such spots for his morning-room. It +was Mr. Pemberton's opinion that Miss Rose Millar could execute the +commission to Sir John Neville's satisfaction, if she cared to accept of +it. + +"It is to help me," said Rose humbly, "for there are hundreds of good +artists who would take the work and be thankful, and do it far better, +though I will do my very best. Tom Robinson is at the bottom of it +directly or indirectly, but he is like an old friend. I don't know a man +to whom I would sooner be obliged." + +In the third instance, a totally unforeseen application was made to +Annie. A fever, in certain respects unfamiliar in its type, broke out at +Stokeleigh, one of several suburban villages on the outskirts of +Redcross. Some authorities called the fever Russian, and declared it had +been imported--they did not pretend to say how--from that remote empire. +Others insisted it was a slow fever, of English growth, with curious +complications. It appeared doubtful whether it were infectious; but +there was one thing which was unmistakable, that, whatever kind of +malaria brooding in the summer air was at the root of the complaint, +that malaria showed a disposition to spread extensively. It passed from +Stokeleigh to the adjoining village of Woodleigh, whence it took a bend +in the direction of the town, and proceeded to squat, as malarias can +squat, and settle indefinitely on all the low-lying districts of +Redcross. Neither did the epidemic improve in character with the change +of locality. For, whereas on the higher, less encumbered ground the +fever had been rarely fatal, the mortality increased with the transfer +of the disease to the crowded, damp purlieus of the older part of the +town, built more or less on the Dewes, and liable to be invaded by the +river in flood. + +A combined meeting of the Town Council and Vestry, with the Mayor, who +happened to be a public-spirited man, and the Rector heading it, +determined on taking prompt action to stop the mischief. The town had +lately built a Corn Exchange in one of the highest, best-ventilated +situations in Redcross. It was to be committed to the care of a town's +officer and his wife, who were to have the adjoining rooms rent-free for +a domicile, together with certain perquisites, in return for sweeping, +scrubbing, and looking after the hall. But the place was just finished, +and had not yet been occupied in the manner intended. It was proposed to +convert it, in the absence of other accommodation, into a temporary ward +for the sufferers from fever. The doctors consulted, pledged themselves +that there was every probability of the unwelcome visitor being thus +stamped out, while the chances of recovery for the patients would be +multiplied. It was also agreed to bring a trained nurse from some +nursing institution, to mould the raw nursing materials which Redcross +supplied on the emergency. Dr. Millar's successor had a bright idea that +it might be a graceful act on his part to mention the old Doctor's +daughter, who had gone in for nursing as a profession. She had already +served nearly a year in a great London hospital, and was no doubt +competent to undertake the duties required. It would be a compliment to +her and her father to try and get her for the occasion, and there would +be a certain _éclat_ in her coming to the help of her native town in its +need. Dr. Capes was right as to the popularity of his motion. It was +received with unanimous approval. Annie, the matron, and the directors +of St. Ebbe's, were immediately applied to in proper form. Annie burned +to go, if such a step were admissible at the present stage of her +career. The favour she had won on all sides aided in the fulfilment of +her wishes. She was promoted from the ranks of the probationers to those +of the nurses while yet her year wanted a fraction of its complete +round, and was officially sent down to represent the nurses of St. +Ebbe's at Redcross. + +"Of course, Dora, you cannot be left behind to go on by yourself hunting +for a situation with three-fourths of the great world out of town. I am +afraid you would make a poor job of it at the best, Dora dear, and at +the worst it is not to be thought of; it would be a waste of +nerve-tissue and muscle, as well as of pounds, shillings, and pence. You +will come too; we'll be all together, or nearly together, again, for a +holiday, after all." + +Dora, who had been waiting patiently for Annie's decision, was nothing +loth. + +"Rose's expenses and mine are more than paid," calculated the practical +Annie, "so that we shall be no drag on father and mother. I don't know +if Robarts's accommodation will extend beyond the additional bedroom for +Rose and May, but that can be easily managed. Oh! I have it, Dora, you +will stay with me at the hospital--the Corn Exchange I mean--and save me +from having a housekeeper for the short time one will be wanted. I'll +take care that no infection, if there be infection, will come near you. +Oh, 'won't it be jolly,' as Rose says, for you and me to keep house by +ourselves at dear old Redcross, of all places in the world?" + +It was arranged so, with only a little demur from Mrs. Millar, +over-ruled by her husband. + +There was another person, without right or power to enter his veto +against the existing order of things, who nevertheless decidedly +demurred at them. Tom Robinson showed that though he might be a humane +man there were bounds to his humanity. "It is all very well for Annie +Millar to come down and nurse the fever patients, it is in the way of +her business, she does as much every day, she is well acquainted with +all the precautions to take. But Dora is not a nurse, she never thinks +of herself, she will forget to take the precautions if she has ever +heard of them. She has not strong nerves, and she is used up with this +preposterous stumping of London in July in search of a situation. What +in the name of common sense and natural affection do they mean by +lugging Dora into the risk!" he grumbled and worried. "Oh! yes, of +course she would follow Annie or any of the rest of them fast enough if +she had the opportunity, though she were to die at the end of it; but +she ought never to have had the opportunity, it was preposterous to let +her. The whole thing is monstrous. I never heard of such rashness. What +can Dr. and Mrs. Millar be thinking of?" + +It felt queer, to say the least of it, as well as "jolly," to be at +Redcross and not at the Old Doctor's House, over which a bride of +yesterday was presiding, for Dr. Capes's marriage had taken place +simultaneously with his purchase of Dr. Millar's practice. + +Annie used to look over from the opposite side of the street, as she was +walking along, at the alterations which were being made in the garden, +and the new arrangement of the window curtains, and try to criticize +them impartially. Then she had to call and see Dr. Capes, and wait in +the familiar consulting-room till he insisted on taking her to the +drawing-room, in order to introduce her to his wife, who had come a +stranger to Redcross. Annie felt as if she were a disembodied spirit, or +a dreamer in a dream from which she could not awake, while she gazed on +the changed yet well-known aspect of everything around her. But she had +to think of Dr. and Mrs. Capes, in whose house she was, and talk civilly +to them of their improvements(!). She had to emulate the submission of +Dora, who had seen the transfer coming and taken part in it. She had to +copy the mercurial spirits of Rose and May. They were so pleased to be +with their father and mother again, and to take possession of Phyllis +Carey's every free moment, that they declared the Robarts's apartments +were the very nicest the girls had ever seen. They, the apartments, were +delightfully cosy (which meant stuffy in July). They were more cheerful +(noisier) than the Old Doctor's House. It was great fun for the pair to +stow themselves and their belongings within such narrow compass. + +A serious vexation to Annie at the commencement of her enterprise was +the arrival of Dr. Harry Ironside to diagnose and make what he could of +the fever. + +"What is he doing here? His coming at all is most impertinent," cried +Annie indignantly, sitting down on one of the still empty beds in the +barrack-like hall, and as it were daring Rose and May, who had brought +the news, and Dora who was listening to them, to contradict her. + +"He is come in the pursuit of knowledge," said Rose, with full command +of her countenance. "He does not understand Russian fever, or whatever +it is, and he thinks he had better make its acquaintance as a wind up to +taking his degree. He is still a doctor at large; he has not fixed on +where he is to go and what he is to do next, so his sister Kate writes +to me." + +"Then he and his sister Kate had better make up their minds to go away +together, somewhere else, and not trouble other people," cried Annie +quite illogically. + +"Why, Annie, father thinks it is very praiseworthy of Dr. Ironside to +seek to get all the information he can before settling down as a +doctor," remonstrated May in the guilelessness of her heart. "He has +just been calling on father, who is delighted with him--so is mother; +and, for _my_ part," finished the speaker with unconscious emphasis, as +if her opinion were of the utmost consequence, "I have thought him very +nice since the first time I met him at Mrs. Jennings's. He is so big and +handsome, without being stuck up, or a swell, like what Cyril Carey used +to be--just frank and pleasant as a man should be. I cannot comprehend +why you have such a dislike to him." + +"Upon my word!" exclaimed Annie, with a gasp. "But I don't care," she +added vehemently; "he shall not come and carry on his investigations +here. Dr. Capes and I, with father to appeal to, and Mr. Newton to call +in and consult, if necessary, are more than sufficient for all the +patients we are likely to get. I tell you, if he forces his way into my +hospital I'll have nothing more to do with it; I'll throw it all up and +go back to St. Ebbe's at once." + +"But it is not your hospital, Annie," said Rose with provoking +matter-of-factness. "It is the town's, or if it is under the control of +any private person, it is under Dr. Capes's orders. For the sake of his +professional character, medical etiquette, and all that kind of thing, +he will not refuse to allow a fellow-doctor to study the fever cases +under his care. Dr. Harry was going to stay at the 'Crown,' but he met +Tom Robinson, who said he should be his guest, and carried him off to +his house." + +"Just like Tom Robinson!" declared Annie with amazing asperity. + +"Come along, May." Rose hurried away her sister and satellite, and then +let loose her glee. "It is too funny, May; too preposterously funny. It +is ever so much better than Dora and Tom Robinson. He was so easily +rebuffed, and she was so reluctant to rebuff him. But here is Annie +like one of the furies, and Harry Ironside is silly enough to mind her, +so that he can hardly open his mouth before her, and looks as if he had +lost his wits. Before Annie! What is our Annie, I should like to know, +that she should daunt a clever, high-spirited young fellow such as he +is? What strange glamour has she thrown over him? But he has plenty of +mettle and determination for all that, and she will no more manage by +her tirades to stop him from coming after her and laying siege to her +ladyship, than she can keep the sun from shining or the rain from +falling. For that matter, I believe the poor fellow cannot help himself; +it is the case of the moth and the candle." + +"But what is it all about?" demanded May, in an utter confusion of +ideas. "She speaks as if she hated him, and I thought he had come to +Redcross to trace the course of the Russian fever." + +"To trace the course of his own fortunes. I beg your pardon, my dear, +but you might have known enough of human nature to guess that there was +a private personal motive at the bottom of his philanthropy." + +"Then it is the worse for him and a great pity," said May, with the +sweet seriousness into which one phase of her childishness was passing. +"I wonder you can laugh, Rose. I am always affronted when I remember +how we laughed at Tom Robinson and poor Dora, making game of what was no +joke to them. And Dora was not half so much opposed to Tom as Annie is +to this unfortunate, nice, pleasant young doctor. I could find it in my +heart to be very sorry for him." + +"Oh! you are a simpleton apart from Latin and Greek. Don't you see that +Annie's wrath is neither more nor less than fright? She is frightened +out of her senses at him, because she wants to keep her independence and +share our fortunes. As I do not remember to have seen her in such a +scare before, I should say that she is paying him a high compliment." + +"I think it is rather a queer compliment," objected May in much +perplexity. + + "'Though you should choose to dissemble your love, + Why need you kick me down-stairs?" + +quoted Rose. "Oh! but the poet did not know the world, or pretended not +to know it. I assure you there are many wise men who would much rather +be kicked in this way than be civilly spoken to. Kate Ironside thought +fit to confide to me how much interested she was in a suit which, if it +ever succeeded, would make us all brothers and sisters. She was so good +as to add that while she was aware Harry always knew best, and she had +entire faith in his choice, still she was not entirely of his mind--I +don't believe Annie has ever spoken to her, lest speech with the sister +should be taken for encouragement to the brother. It is only natural +perhaps that, as Kate ventured to admit, on the whole she would have +preferred _me_." + +"And what did you say to that?" asked the deeply-interested May. + +"No, thanks, though I was much obliged, or something like it. I added +with some dignity, I flatter myself, though really such dignity is +thrown away on Kate, that for the present I was wedded to my art, like +Queen Elizabeth to her kingdom, and to my sister Maisie. Besides, +nothing could, would, or should ever induce me to meddle with my sister +Annie's property, since, according to Kate's own account, it was for +love of Annie, and not of me, that Harry Ironside took up his residence +under Mrs. Jennings's roof." + +But Annie had to give way to some extent. She was compelled to grant an +interview to the aggressor. Dr. Ironside arrived on a special errand to +the hospital, and he took up the position that Miss Millar was entitled +to be consulted. Tom Robinson had been attacked with every symptom of +the fever. He and Tom had agreed, in view of the public character of +"Robinson's," and with the idea that the step might do good, by serving +as an example, that the patient should come to the hospital and be laid +up there, where Dr. Harry Ironside was ready to devote himself to the +case. + +"I believe Tom Robinson has taken the fever on purpose," said Annie to +the shocked Dora. "But he shall not have much of my attendance; he may +stick to his Dr. Ironside. Dr. Capes tells me he has induced a married +woman, with a family, who has a brother and a nephew lodging with her, +both of them down with fever, to send them here, so that I shall have +them to look after. Now that there is a beginning made," Annie smoothed +her ruffled plumes, and waxed cheerful, "if the hot weather does not +change, and the disease is not checked, we are likely to have plenty of +patients on our hands, with the opportunity of showing what service we +can render them and the town." + +Just as Annie predicted, the rows of beds began to fill, and she had no +lack of occupation; but she changed her tale with regard to Tom Robinson +when his case, among many which yielded readily to treatment, and proved +triumphantly the gain to be got from a better locality and fresher air, +was first grave, then dangerous, and at last verged on hopeless. Now she +turned to the worst case on her list, and made it her chief care. She +became totally unmindful of the fact that she was thus brought into +constant contact with Harry Ironside, that it was he and she who were +together fighting death, inch by inch, with desperate endeavour, for the +prize which the last enemy threatened to snatch from their hands. +Indeed, so entirely did Annie, like the excellent nurse and kind-hearted +woman she was, lose sight of her own concerns in the interest of her +patient, that she was heard to contradict herself, and record her +sincere thankfulness for the strong support of Harry Ironside's presence +in the light of the valuable aid he could afford at such a time. + +"He was thought very clever at St. Ebbe's. He took his degree with high +honours. He was held in much esteem by all the older doctors," she +explained to all who cared to hear. "He is in possession of all the +latest light on his profession. Now, I have heard father say, and what I +have seen confirms it, that though Dr. Capes is most painstaking, and +has had a good deal of experience as a general practitioner, he has no +great natural ability, and he was not in circumstances to pursue his +studies longer than was absolutely necessary to enable him to pass as a +medical man. After all I take back my word. I am very glad for poor Tom +Robinson's sake that Dr. Harry Ironside is here. No doubt we could have +summoned a great specialist from London, but he would only have stayed a +short time, and men like him have generally many critical cases on +their minds. Now Dr. Harry Ironside is on the spot, and he can watch +every turn of the disease which he came to master, and devote his whole +attention to this example. I consider Tom Robinson is exceedingly +fortunate in getting the chance of such scientific treatment." + +But in spite of the good fortune and the devotion spent on him; it +looked as if Tom were going to slip through the hands so bent on +detaining him, and to die as quietly as he had lived. + +When Redcross realized how even the balance was, and how heavily he was +swimming for his life, the whole town woke up to his good qualities as a +citizen, to what a useful life his comparatively short one had been, to +how many benefits he had conferred without the slightest assumption of +patronage or superiority of any kind. + +It is unnecessary to say that "Robinson's" was figuratively in the +deepest mourning, only rousing itself from its despair to proclaim his +merits and those of his father before him, as masters. Men gravely +pointed out the old servants he had pensioned; those in middle age +whom he had kept on when their best days were past; the boys he had +already taken in, fitted out, and launched on the world by judicious, +unostentatious backing. Women tearfully reminded the listener how +carefully he had provided for their comfort and well-being throughout +his establishment, from the ample time allowed for their meals and the +seats to which they could retire when not actually serving, to the +early closing hours, which afforded them and the men who were their +associates, some leisure for out-of-doors exercise and indoors +recreation. As for mental and spiritual improvement, he was always +ready to subscribe liberally to libraries, choral unions, friendly +societies, Christian associations, missionary boxes--every conceivable +means of rational pleasure, culture, and true human elevation of which +his people would avail themselves. + +Mrs. Carey called at the Corn Exchange and offered her unprofessional +services as a nurse, if further aid were wanted. + +Mr. Pemberton, acquainted with the fact of Tom Robinson's illness +through communicating with Rose Millar on her commission, wrote that he +could hardly keep Lady Mary from descending on Redcross to see after +their friend, and if it would be the least good she would come down. It +would be but a poor return for the aid Robinson had lent her when her +husband lay desperately sick and she had nobody to appeal to, save the +fat and fatuous _padrone_ of a miserable little Italian inn. + +May, who was at last prevented from coming to her sisters, presented +herself when they went to their father's, her eyes swollen with weeping +for her "coach." + +Every time Annie left the transformed hall of the Exchange and repaired +to the rooms which she and Dora occupied, she found a white face on the +watch for her, and pale lips which could hardly form the syllables, "How +is he now? Oh! Annie, must he die?" At least Dora was on the spot to +hear each hour's report, as if she had been his nearest relative, and +without asking herself the reason why, that was a little bit of comfort +to her. In the same manner Tom Robinson derived a dim satisfaction from +the fact that he was lying there under the same roof with Dora Millar, +as he would have been supposing she had listened to his suit eighteen +months ago, and he had fallen ill in the early days of their marriage. +He was afraid it was pure selfishness which made him cease to resent her +presence in close proximity to the fever ward, as he had resented it +when he did not imagine he might be one of its patients. Sometimes he +had a dim fancy that he heard her soft voice through the closed doors, +and that it soothed him, though he might be only dreaming, or it was +possible that there were tones in Annie's clear voice which under +certain emotions of pity and tenderness answered to those of her sister. + +Often Annie just shook her head sorrowfully as she warned Dora off till +the nurse's dress could be changed. Occasionally she cried out +petulantly, "If he would only be impatient, and fret and grumble like +other people; if he would not take things so quietly; if he would resist +and struggle, I believe he might fight the battle and win it yet. I +think he will get over the crisis, but what of that if there is no +rallying? He is letting life go because he will not grasp it hard, I +suppose for the reason that he has no strong ties to bind him to it. He +has either such a poor opinion of his deserts, or such a trust in +Providence, that he considers whatever is is best, and does not exert +himself to alter the course of events so far as it is in his power. It +is beautiful in theory, but it does not always answer in practice. I am +not certain whether it does not proceed, after all, from constitutional +indolence, or the want of ambition, of which I used to accuse him, or +whether he is really too good to live. Anyhow, skill and nursing are +wasted upon him." + +Dr. Hewett came to see Tom Robinson, and took the seat which Harry +Ironside vacated for him, leaving the old friends together. + +"Hallo, Rector! It is strange for me to meet you here," said Tom's +feeble voice, while the ghost of his old shy smile passed over his +haggard face. + +"It is equally strange for me to meet you, Robinson," said the Rector, +with an inconvenient lump in his throat. + +"What a deal of trouble I'm giving," said Tom regretfully. + +"Tut, man, nobody grudges the trouble, if you will but pick up and get +well again," said the clergyman, almost roughly. + +"I can see that Ironside thinks badly of me," said Tom in his quiet way, +"and as far as feelings go, it seems to me I have reason to think badly +of myself." + +"We are all in good hands, Tom," said Dr. Hewett, seeing again the boy +who used to play in the Rectory garden with Ned, and speaking to him in +the old fashion. + +"I know that," answered Tom. "I have known it all along, which has been +a blessing to me," he added, a little as if he were speaking of a third +person. Then he roused himself further. "I want to tell you where my +will is. I don't like to hurt a woman's feelings by speaking of it to my +kind, indefatigable nurse. Besides, the Millars will benefit by it." + +"The old man," sighed the Rector, "always thinking of others before +yourself." + +"'I know that my Redeemer liveth,'" was Tom's testimony; "speak to me of +Him, Rector, while I am able to hear," said the sick man, in the tone of +one whose ears were growing dull to earthly sounds. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +MISS FRANKLIN'S MISTAKE. + + +Tom Robinson went still deeper into the shadow of the valley, possibly +as far as man ever went and returned. He grew as weak and helpless as an +infant, until at last he lost consciousness, and lay prostrate and +still, with closed eyes and sealed ears--nothing alive in him save the +subtle principle which is compared to a vapour and a breath which no man +can see or handle, yet whose presence or absence makes all the +difference between an animated body still linked to both worlds and a +mass of soulless clay hastening to corruption. All that skill and +devotion could do--and Tom Robinson had them both--was to keep on +without despairing, maintaining warmth against the growing chillness, +and administering stimulants and nourishment by spoonfuls and drops. + +On the night which it was feared would be Tom Robinson's last, Miss +Franklin would no longer be denied her place among the watchers. She +had been kept away in obedience to poor Tom's express orders, that in +the attempt to minimize the fever no communication should be kept up on +his account between the Corn Exchange where he lay and either his house +or "Robinson's," notwithstanding the proofs that the disease did not +spread by contagion or infection. + +Miss Franklin did not desire to dispossess Annie of the post which, in +spite of every remonstrance, she was holding latterly almost night and +day. Miss Franklin had no faculty for nursing, and small experience to +guide her. She was rather a nervous woman in her impulsiveness, and +after one look at what was like the mask of Tom Robinson, utterly +incapable of recognizing her or communicating with her, she was so much +overcome that she was fain to retire to another room and submit to be +gently ministered to by Dora. + +Miss Franklin was only too thankful to be suffered to stay there in the +background. It did not strike her as odd that nobody in the house except +the other patients should go to sleep that night when her cousin was +hovering between life and death--nearer death than life. Neither had the +outspoken, kind-hearted gentlewoman any particular application of her +speech in her mind when she said sorrowfully--"Dear! dear! how grieved +he would be if he knew how worn out you were, Miss Dora. He thought +that his coming to the hospital would not only serve as a precedent, it +would be the simplest, safest, least troublesome plan where he himself +was concerned, though if he would have let me, I should have been only +too glad to have turned my back on 'Robinson's' for a time, and done +what I could for him. There is enough difference in our ages, and I have +known him all his life, in addition to our being connections if not near +relations, so that nobody need have found fault. Not that I pretend for +a moment that I could have done what your sister is doing--that is +something quite wonderful in every respect" (and here Miss Franklin did +draw up her bountiful figure, and fix the rather small eyes, sunk a +little in her full cheeks, pointedly on Dora). "I dare say he liked to +have her about him to the last, so long as he was sensible of her +presence. Men are extraordinary creatures--that I should say that now, +oh! my poor dear cousin Tom." + +After she had recovered from her outburst of grief, and was sipping the +tea which Dora had made for her, she turned again to her companion. "You +look like a ghost yourself, Miss Dora. Will you not lie down in your +bedroom and trust me? I shall sit here and bring you word the moment I +hear that a change has come;" and at the ill-omened phrase poor Miss +Franklin's well-bred, distinct enunciation got all blurred and +faltering. In fact she shrank a good deal from the ordeal she was +magnanimously proposing for herself. As it happened she had never +undergone anything like it before, though she had reached middle age. It +was not easy for her to contemplate sitting there all alone through the +dreary small hours, knowing that Tom Robinson's spirit--the spirit of +the best friend she had ever known--was passing away without word or +sign in the adjoining room. It was a relief to her when Dora Millar, +looking as if she had been sitting up in turn with every patient in the +ward, as pale as a moonbeam and as weak as water, yet shook her head +decisively against any suggestion of her retiring to rest. + +There was a strong contrast between the couple who were to wait together +for death or the morning. Miss Franklin herself might be on the eve of +dying--but so long as she lived and went through the mundane process of +dressing, she must dress exceedingly well. She was a good, kind woman +all the same, and this night she bore a sore heart under her carefully +contrived and nicely put on garments. + +Poor young Dora, on the contrary, looked all limp and forlorn. The +gingham morning-gown she had not changed was huddled on her, and +crumpled about her. Her neglected hair was pushed back from her little +white face. Annie in her nurse's spotless apron and cap looked a +hundred times trimmer, and was altogether a more cheerful object. It was +as if the whole world had come to an end for Dora, and she had ceased to +notice trifles. Almost the first words Miss Franklin had said to her +when the visitor began to recover from the shock she had undergone, +were-- + +"Excuse me, Miss Dora, the lace at your throat is coming undone--let me +put it right for you; and an end of your hair has fallen down. I may +fasten it up, may I not?" + +A delicate, exhausted girl was no great support for a woman under the +circumstances, still she was better than nobody. She was company in +one form, like the domestic cat, when no more available associate is +to be found. Besides, in the middle of their dissimilarity, Miss +Franklin had a natural liking for Dora Millar, and had always excepted +her from the grudge which the elder woman was inclined to feel against +one member of the Millar family. "A nice, well-meaning, gentle girl," +Miss Franklin mentally classed Dora. "The most quiet and ladylike of +them all." She was a great improvement, in Miss Franklin's estimation, +on that too bright and restless Annie, whom everybody cried up as a +beauty. She had found, Miss Franklin was creditably informed, a fine +vent for her dictatorial imperious temper as a nurse. Yet she, Miss +Franklin, ought not to find fault with Annie Millar at this time, when +Dr. Capes had said her treatment of the fever patients, with dear Tom +among them, was admirable; though, by one of the mysterious decrees of +Providence, she might not be permitted to succeed in his case. And she +was now ministering to his last wants as she, Barbara Franklin, +arrived at mature age, with all the will, had neither the skill nor +the courage to minister, much as she owed him, so long as he had other +service. She was a captious, vindictive wretch to pick holes in Miss +Millar's armour, when she was striving so hard to atone to him for any +injury she had ever done him by delivering him from the jaws of death, +or at least smoothing his path to the grave. + +The seasons had gone on till the late summer was merging into the early +autumn. It was the beginning of August, when the days are already not so +long as they have been; but, to make up for it, the lengthening nights +are balmier than they ever were, and the soft dusk remains full of +summer scents and sounds. + +It was on such a night that you might imagine a young man, dying long +before his time, and yet after he has reached full manhood, and touched +the crown of bodily and mental vigour, without ever feeling the tide on +its turn. + +The night was so warm that the windows of the room in which Dora and +Miss Franklin sat were wide open. There was a lamp lit within, but it +did not render the darkness without so great as to hide the outlines of +trees in the nearest garden, and even the dim shape of a bed of late +flowering, tall white lilies. Their heavy fragrance was on the air; and +if ever there is a fragrance which is solemn and tender like the love of +the dying and the memory of the dead, it is the all-pervading scent of +lilies. + +Annie Millar could never have been so good a listener as Dora was when +Miss Franklin, constitutionally loquacious, relieved her distress, and +got rid of the dragging hours, by indulging in a long and affectionate +oration on Tom Robinson, the man who, not so many yards from them, was +lying as indifferent to praise and blame as when he first entered this +wonderful world, with all its joys and sorrows, from which he was ready +to depart. + +"You know, he is not really my cousin," the womanly confidence began; +"the tie between us hardly counts--it is only that Mr. Robinson's +first wife was my mother's sister. But I always called Mr. Charles +Robinson and his second wife uncle and aunt. I might well do it, for +they were a good uncle and aunt to me. I should have known few +pleasures when I was growing up, and long afterwards, if it had not +been for them. The Robinsons used to go away trips every summer to +Devonshire and Derbyshire, the Yorkshire moors, the Cumberland lakes, +Scotland, the Black Forest, Switzerland, and they always took me to +see the world, and spend my summer holidays with them. How generous +and kind they were in their friendliness! Tom was usually of the +party--first as a child, then as a growing boy; but child or boy, such +a nice manly little fellow, so much thought of, yet not at all spoilt. +He was fond of reading, yet full of quiet fun, and in either light +never in anybody's way. He was so considerate of his mother and me, +and so helpful to us. The cows he has driven away! the horses going at +large he has kept off! the bulls he has held at bay! I confess I am +not brave in proportion to my size. I am very timid in such matters, +and, strange to say, Aunt Robinson, though a country-woman born and +bred, was as great a coward as I where farm animals were in question; +but we always knew ourselves safe when Tom was at hand, and he never +laughed at us more than we could stand." + +"I can understand," said Dora faintly. "He once helped us--May and +me--when a strange dog attacked Tray; and now Tray is running about with +May full of life and health, while his champion is----" She could not +say the words. + +Miss Franklin looked at her approvingly, even went so far as to stroke +one of the cold trembling hands lying nerveless in Dora's lap. "You will +allow me to say that you are a dear, tender-hearted girl, Miss Dora. You +could have appreciated my cousin Tom. What a tower of strength he was to +me when I felt I was getting middle-aged, and my system of teaching was +becoming old-fashioned. I had been in so many homes belonging to other +people, with never a home of my own, for upwards of thirty years, since +my poor father and mother both died before I was twenty. I do not say +that I was not for the most part well enough treated, because I hope I +did my best, and I believe I generally gave satisfaction. I had my happy +hours like other people. But it was all getting so stale, flat, and +unprofitable--I suppose because I was growing weary of it all, and +longing for a change. You see I had not quite come to the age when we +cease to want changes, and are resigned just to go on as we are to the +end. In reality I could see no end, except the poorest of poor lodgings +and the most pinching straits, with the very little money I had saved. +(My dear, even finishing governesses can save so little now-a-days.) Or +perhaps there was the chance of my being taken into some charitable +institution. You will admit it was not a cheerful prospect." + +"No, it was not," said Dora, in dreary abstraction. + +"As I said," resumed Miss Franklin, "I had been in so many schoolrooms; +I had seen so many pupils grow up, go out into the world, and settle in +life, leaving me behind, so that when they came back on visits to their +old homes, they were prepared to pity and patronize me. I could not +continue cudgelling my poor brains until I had not an original thought +in my head, and all to keep up such acquirements as I had, and preserve +a place among younger, better equipped girls, certain to outstrip me +eventually." + +"I suppose so," acquiesced Dora mechanically. + +"Then poor dear Tom came to see me, and I told him what I was +thinking. He got me to pay a visit to Redcross, and made a new opening +for me. I may say without self-conceit that I was always considered to +have a good taste in dress. I know it was a question which had never +failed to interest me, to which I could not help giving a great deal +of attention--making a study of it, as it were. Tom insisted that I +could be of the greatest use to him, and was worth a liberal salary, +which I was not likely to lose. And there was a comfortable refined +nest, which I could line for myself, awaiting me in the pleasant rooms +he had looked out for me." + +"I know, Miss Franklin," said Dora, with a faint smile; "you told +Phyllis Carey, and she told May, who repeated it to me. But I thought +it might be a relief to you to speak of it again." + +"Yes," cried the eager woman; "and it has all answered so well--the +duties not too heavy, and really agreeable to me; the young women and +men, under Tom's influence, no doubt, perfectly nice and respectful; and +within the last six months, dear little Phyllis like a daughter or niece +to me. I thought always I should be able to do something in return for +him one day, yet with all the will in the world I have been able to do +nothing until it has come to this;" and poor Miss Franklin sobbed +bitterly under the burden of her unrequited obligations, and beneath the +dove's neck cluster of feathers in her bonnet. + +It was for Dora in her turn to seek to soothe and compose her companion. +"I am sure you have been of the greatest service to him, and that he has +enjoyed the near neighbourhood of an old friend--his mother's friend. +Oh! think what a comfort it will be to you to have that to look back +upon," finished Dora, in a voice trembling as much as Miss Franklin's. + +Miss Franklin sat up, instinctively put her bonnet straight, wiped her +eyes with her embroidered handkerchief, and gazed pensively into the +empty air. + +"God's ways are not as our ways," she said; "and certainly we are told +that we are not to look for our reward in this world. Still one would +have expected--one would have liked that it had not been so hard all +through for Tom--not merely to have been denied the desire of his heart, +but to have had to endure in his last moments to be set aside, to lie +still and look on at what is going to happen." + +Dora sat mystified; but she had not the spirit left to seek an +explanation. + +Miss Franklin was not aware that an explanation was needed. "I know," +she added, "how kind and attentive your sister has been to Tom, and I +understand nothing can exceed the interest Dr. Ironside has taken in my +cousin, while he has made the most unremitting efforts to save him; +still you will grant that so long as my poor Tom was conscious, it must +have been very, very trying for him to see the terms these two were on. +I don't listen much to gossip"--the speaker declared, in a parenthesis, +with a little air of dignity and reserve even at that moment--"but it is +the talk of the town that he has followed her down from London, and that +they are to be married as soon as the epidemic is past. Nobody can say +anything against it. They are well matched. They will be a fine-looking +couple," she struggled to acknowledge with becoming politeness and +impartiality. + +"This is the first time I have heard of it, I can say with truth," said +Dora wearily, without so much as a smile at the characteristic report. +She thought the mention of it most unsuitable at such a season. The very +word marriage smote her. "And even if it were so, what could it have +signified to Mr. Tom Robinson?" she was about to add naïvely, when a +light flashed upon her. She had often wondered how much Miss Franklin, +"Robinson's," the whole town, knew of what had taken place eighteen +months ago. She saw now that however little the lady might care for +gossip, a distorted version of the truth in which she was interested had +reached her. Either there had been a very natural mistake on the part of +some of the local newsmongers, or Miss Franklin herself had fallen into +the error. The belle of the Millar family and not Dora had been believed +to be the object of Tom Robinson's pursuit. The blunder had been +perpetuated in Miss Franklin's case by the good feeling and good +breeding which would keep her from discussing Tom Robinson's affairs +with her neighbours more than she could help, and would prevent her +attempting such a cross-examination of the man himself as might have +elicited the truth. + +"Oh! I know now what you mean," cried Dora, on the impulse of the +moment, "and you were altogether wrong. He has been spared such misery +--nobody could have been so barbarous as to inflict it on him, if it had +been as you suppose." + +Miss Franklin was sensitive and imaginative on dress, but she was not +imaginative or even very observant with regard to anything else. She +understood Dora's protest to refer to an actual engagement between Dr. +Harry Ironside and Miss Millar. + +"Well, well," she said a little dryly, "people do exaggerate. Matters +may not have gone quite so far, and I can only trust that he, Tom, has +not been sensible of what is in the air, though I have always understood +love, while it is said to be blind in one sense, is very sharp-sighted +in another. I believe every one else sees where the land lies. I saw it +myself so far as the gentleman was concerned--he could not keep his eyes +off her, though I was not five minutes in their company, and I was full +of my poor cousin Tom. I am sure I hope they may be happy," gulping down +the hope. "Tom would have wished it, quite apart from her having done +her duty by him, at the cost of some pain to herself, no doubt; while +Dr. Ironside has been more than kind, which nobody had any call to +expect. He must be a very fine young man, likely to win what he fancies. +Every woman is entitled to her choice, and most people would applaud +your sister's choice. The thing that puzzles me--you will forgive me for +mentioning it just this once, for where is the good of discussion +now?--is that as, I have been told, she did not meet Dr. Ironside till +she went to her London hospital, how, when she had got no opportunity of +contrasting the two men, when she had not even seen one of them, she +could yet be so set against Tom's proposal, knowing him to be the man he +is--was, alas! I should say. Why was she so very hard to poor Tom?" + +"Oh, don't say that," besought Dora, in much agitation. "Don't bring +that forward at this moment." + +But Miss Franklin, in the strength of her family affections, felt that +she owed it to the manes of Tom Robinson to express to the disdainful +damsel's sister a candid opinion that he had been summarily and severely +dealt with. "I was not in his confidence, but I could tell that +something was going to happen, and that he was very much cut up when it +all came to nothing." + +"Oh, don't say that," repeated Dora, clasping her hands over her eyes, +and weeping behind them. "What good can it do except to inflict needless +torture?" + +"I don't mean to reproach _you_," said Miss Franklin, a little +bewildered, but still very hot and sore. "You had nothing to do with it, +and I am sure you could not have been so heartless. Forgive me for the +reflection on your sister, who is so much thought of, whom everybody is +praising, with reason, for what she has done in nursing the sick and +poor. But young girls ought to be more careful. I don't mean to say that +she trifled with my cousin Tom--I have no right to say that--simply that +she never gave him a thought. Tom was surely deserving of a thought," +cried Miss Franklin indignantly. "Dr. Ironside may be all very well--I +have nothing to say against him--quite the reverse. Tom is not to be +compared to him in personal appearance, and the one is a professional +man, while the other thought fit to continue a linen-draper like his +good father before him; but that is by no means to infer that Miss +Millar has chosen the better husband of the two. Girls are so +foolish--they play with fire, and never look or take it into account +where and whom it may burn. Tom Robinson deserved more respectful +treatment in Redcross. He has never been like himself since. I used to +hear him whistling and humming tunes to himself as he worked in the +office--there is no more of that, or of his hearty interest in +everything." + +"Miss Franklin, it is you who are pitiless to say this to me to-night," +panted Dora, rising against the inhumanity, and totally forgetting that +the speaker did not hold the clue which would have told her how her +words scourged her listener. + +"I am not blaming _you_, Miss Dora," said the accuser again, more +bitterly than she had yet spoken. For she was in her heart accusing Dora +Millar of affectation in pretending not to be able to hear a word +against her sister, and in declining to listen to the pardonable +utterance of a reproach directed against what Miss Franklin called in +her heart Annie Millar's arrogance and callousness. Tom Robinson's +cousin was provoked, not pacified. + +"I dare say Tom would never have had this wretched fever but for the +blow he got then," she was tempted to persist; "or if he had caught it, +he would have thrown it off without any harm done. I can bear witness to +his sound constitution to begin with. Everybody knows how disappointment +and mortification lower the system, and he was never over careful of +himself. I cannot quite understand why he took the cool rebuff he +received so much to heart; but he did so, and you see the consequence." + +"Spare me! spare me!" cried Dora passionately. "Don't say I have killed +him, or I shall die myself, perhaps it is the best thing I can do." + +Before Miss Franklin could do more than stare aghast, with a horrified +inkling of the real facts of the case, and the tremendous mess she had +got into, there was the sound of the soft opening of a door in the near +distance, and a step rapidly approaching. + +The two women who had been upbraiding each other were mute in an +instant, first held their breaths, then sprang up and clung to each +other, partners in sorrow, with teeth beginning to chatter, and eyes to +grow large and wild. What had they been doing in the name of a gentle +and manly soul, in the face of the awful news on its way, the majesty of +Death investing the house? + +It was only Annie, looking perfectly collected, nay, a trifle elated. +"He is the least shade better--we both think so; and the slightest +improvement means so much at this stage--the right crisis, I believe. He +has been really sleeping. He swallows with less difficulty. He has +roused himself ever so little, but he is fearfully faint and weak. We +cannot get him to take more stimulants than we have been giving him. I +am afraid there is no toilet-vinegar in the house. I came to see if +either of you had a smelling-bottle, which might revive him." + +All that Miss Franklin could do was to shake her head. She was so +thankful, yet she felt so guilty, so ashamed of herself. + +Dora fumbled nervously in her pocket and gave Annie something, which she +carried off in triumph. Miss Franklin sat down again and cried afresh +between trembling joy and lively vexation. "Oh, won't it be a mercy, for +which we can never praise our Maker too much, if dear Tom gets over his +illness after all?" she managed to say; but she could do no more--even +that lame speech was made awkwardly. To apologize for the heinous +offence she had committed would be a greater enormity than the offence +itself. + +But when Miss Franklin had time to think it over afterwards, she was +under the impression that Dora Millar had forgotten all about their +altercation. She sat there with hands clasped, lips parted, and brimming +eyes half raised to Heaven, as if in instinctive acknowledgment of a +thousand piteous prayers in the act of being answered by Him who counts +the stars and calls them by name, and heals the broken in heart. Miss +Franklin's account of Dora's look was that, for a moment, she was +positively frightened at the dear girl, Dora seemed so near another +world at that moment, and as likely as not to be holding communication +with it. Even Tom Robinson could not have been nearer when he was more +than half way across the border-land. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +A SHRED OF HOPE. + + +Tom Robinson's recovery continued a matter of fear and trembling for a +week longer before it became merely a process of time. But no sooner was +it clearly established to the initiated, and only likely to be +endangered by some unforeseen accident, than Annie Millar, in her +delight, lost sight of her former tactics, and called on Dr. Harry +Ironside to rejoice with her on their success. + +"We have been permitted to pull him through. Oh, isn't it glorious? I +know we ought, as we are miserable sinners, to go down on our knees and +give God the thanks, and I hope we do with all my heart; but I also want +to sing and dance--don't you, Dr. Ironside?" + +Nobody could imagine that Dr. Harry Ironside was indifferent to the +wonderful recovery, which was such a credit to his skill, of the man +whom he had nursed as if Tom Robinson had been his brother; but Dr. +Harry forgot all about his patient at that moment when he saw his +opportunity and seized it. + +He had never had a faint heart, young as he was, but he had been dealing +with an exceedingly coy and high-spirited mistress. However, even she +had not been able to defy the effect of the last month of incessant +intercourse, of being engrossed in common with one object of interest, +when both had hung, as it were, on a man's failing breath, and were +indissolubly linked while it lasted. In the light of its fitful rising +and falling, its feeble fluttering, the terrible moments when it +appeared to stop and die away, how small and vain was every other +consideration! But their joint work was done by God's help, as they had +hardly dared to hope for a time, and now it was Harry's innings. + +"I have something to say to you, Miss Millar. I have wished to say it +for a long time. You will not refuse to hear me?" + +They were alone together in the little side-room, empty but for its +hospital stores, where they had so often consulted, with and without Dr. +Capes, on the condition of the ward. There was no longer any fluster of +doubt and hesitation in his manner. He stood there in his young comely +manhood, prepared to put his fate to the test, claiming his right to do +so, and challenging her to deny his claim. + +In a moment Annie saw what Rose had seen some time ago, but had not +taken it upon her to put in so many words for Annie's benefit. It was +of this moment she had, by an unerring instinct, stood in mortal +terror, from the first dawn of her acquaintance with Harry Ironside, +to the afternoon when he had succeeded in getting an introduction to +her in the matron's room at St. Ebbe's, soon after the scene in the +operating theatre. Then he had bowed low, muttered a few words in +confused greeting, and looked at her with all his man's heart in his +eyes; and she had felt by a sure, swift intuition, that, as she valued +her dearly held personal freedom and her allegiance to her family, +there must be war to the knife between her and this self-willed young +man. She must, as discretion is the better part of valour, flee from +him, while refusing to own, even to herself, any more humiliating +reason for the flight than her duty, the honour of St. Ebbe's, and the +folly of Rose in playing into his hands. + +Now Annie was caught, and had to listen to him whether she would or not, +while she and not he quaked with fright and agitation. For he stood +before her, like a conqueror already, in the little room with its +shelves of phials, which they had all to themselves, where burly farmers +and iron-gray corn-factors would soon be thronging in the course of +transacting their every-day business. + +But presently she forgot all about herself in the interest of the tale +he had to tell, and told well in his newly-found courage and coolness, +in his personal modesty and professional enthusiasm. He had just taken +his degree as she knew. He and his sister Kate had inherited a +competence from their parents. He might look about him till he found a +lucrative and agreeable country practice in a choice neighbourhood, +where he could command good society and a little hunting, shooting, and +fishing in their seasons. Or he might be on the watch for a West End +London practice, which, while affording him all the interests and +amusements of town, ought to bring him speedily into notice, and raise +him, step by step, to the height of his profession. He had begun his +medical career by thinking of both these eventualities as desirable, +each in its kind, and had gone on cherishing a leaning to the first, +till--he must say it--her example and influence had inspired him with +greater ardour in the cause of science and of humanity. He had made +inquiries and had heard of a post--in fact he had got the refusing of +it--in connection with a new settlement, a fresh attempt to plant a +colony where the climate was favourable on one of the great African +rivers. His income at first would be small, and he must take his share +of the hardships and labours of those who aimed at being more than +gold-diggers or miners in the diamond-fields--that is, pioneers of +civilization. The prospect, so far as it referred to scientific +investigations, and to a large increase to accredited stores of +knowledge, was simply splendid. Farther, he was assured of the sympathy +and support of the leading men among the colonists, since they had +already, to their credit, sought his co-operation. Those of them who +were in the van--on the spot--had gone so far as to lay the foundation +of an hospital, in addition to a church, to deal alike with black men +and white, to labour for their spiritual and physical healing in common. +He had almost made up his mind to take the post, but he wished to ask +her opinion and advice first. + +She was tempted to say she was no authority, but her truthfulness +forbade the subterfuge. She could not meet his grave blue eyes and put +him off with an evasive answer. She spoke bravely and wisely. + +"I think it would be most right and honourable for you to go. With your +ability and training you might furnish invaluable aid to a young colony; +while it would be like another college course for you, with nature for +your teacher. Any young man of spirit and philanthropy, with love for +his calling, might well covet the chance. If the colony flourish, you +and your profession, and the hospital you speak of, will flourish with +it, and have as fine a future before you as you can desire. If the +scheme fail, you can but return to England; and you will not have lost +the time which a young man can well spare. For you will bring back all +you have gained from a far wider sphere of usefulness, and from a +fresher experience than you could ever hope to secure by staying at +home. But if what you really want," Annie corrected herself, with a +twinkle in her eyes and a curl of her lips, in the midst of her +earnestness, "is the shortest and safest road to growing well-to-do +within the briefest space of time, you had better adopt the latter +alternative. If I had been a man and a doctor, I should have tried the +former." + +"That is enough," he said with conviction. + +"But what will your sister say?" she hastened to inquire, in order to +turn the conversation from ominous personalities. + +"Oh! it will be a blow to poor little Kate," he owned regretfully, +"because she is too young to go out with me at once, and set about +keeping house for me as she has always proposed--a rough, primitive +style of housekeeping it will be out there for many a day. But she is +not without pluck, and she is as true as steel, though I say it. She +must learn some of your fearlessness and faith, and make the best of +things. She must go to one of our aunts in the meantime, and when +matters are smoother and easier, and the fate of the colony is decided, +perhaps she may join me. I do not believe that there is any danger to +speak of from the native tribes, only it will not be drawing-room work +for some time to come. You see it is not the same with a girl like Kate +as it would be with a woman like you," he had the boldness to insinuate. +"You would be a tower of strength in yourself from the beginning; you +might be the making of a newly-founded hospital." + +"Poor Kate!" said Annie, hastily apostrophizing the girl she had been +said to ignore, and speaking in accents of far deeper pity than she had +any idea of. + +"And what do you say?" he turned upon her. + +"I?" she cried in much confusion. "I have said my say." + +"No," he answered; "unless you mean to send me away to the ends of the +earth without a shred of hope. You cannot do that." + +"I think you are taking advantage of me," she protested, but quite +meekly and diffidently for Annie. "I have never been even civil to you +till Tom Robinson was in danger, and then I had to put all my private +feelings aside on his account. Before that I was more than rude." + +"And you are a little sorry now? Confess it, Annie, when I am going off +all alone, so far as old friends are concerned, to Central Africa, at +your bidding." + +"Not at my bidding," she declared hastily; "it is too bad of you to say +so." + +"And you are going to be far kinder in the end than in the beginning," +he persisted. "You are going to say, 'Harry Ironside, if you ever come +back, whether it is to stay or to go out again to your colony, you will +find me waiting for you as your earthly reward.'" + +"Of course you will come back," she exclaimed vehemently, thrown off her +guard; "but _you_ had much better wait and look out for some more +gracious person to welcome you." + +"I don't care for gracious persons," said the foolish fellow scornfully; +"that is, for persons who are always gracious whether they like or +dislike their company. But I say," he went on, in an eager boyish way, +which was not unbecoming or inharmonious where his young manhood was +concerned, only natural and pleasant, "I should care for the best and +brightest and bonniest woman in the world being gracious to me; I would +give much to make her like me, though I know I am far behind her in +cleverness and goodness." + +"Nonsense," cried Annie, quite testily. "I shall be used up in hospital +service by that time," she remonstrated, keeping to the far future. "A +faded woman with a sharp tongue would not be a great reward." + +"I ask nothing better than a woman whom I could love, and who might love +me." + +"But you deserve something better," she said, in a softer, lower tone. + +"Never mind what I deserve, if I get what I have wished, longed, and +prayed for since the first moment I saw you--think of that, Annie." + +"I can't," she said, almost piteously, while she suffered him to take +her hand. "I meant it all to be so different. I was so proud of my +independence; and I never, never will forfeit it, remember, Harry +Ironside, till all my sisters are started in the world, and father and +mother are made more comfortable. Oh! it would be doubly a shame in me +to fail them." + +"I am content to wait for my prize," he said, daring to kiss her lovely +cheek, and he was content--for the moment. + +"And you must not breathe a word of what has happened," she charged him. + +But here he grew restive. "I must, dearest. Why, it would be doubly +dishonourable not to speak at once to Dr. Millar, confined as he is to +his chair; you cannot fail to see that." + +"They will all laugh at me," sighed the subdued Annie, with comical +ruefulness. "Rose will laugh, and May. I believe even Dora and mother +will laugh." + +"Let them." He gave the permission with cheerful insensibility to the +ordeal, even though Annie's feelings were so much involved in it. "It +may be a warning to some of them." Then he was so callous as to add, +"Who cares though the whole world, including Tom Robinson, were to join +in the guffaw." + +"Oh!" she exclaimed, looking up with bright sweetness, "I think I could +bear it if I heard Tom's voice in the chorus. He used to have rather a +foolish, nervous laugh, for so sensible and brave a man. But I am sure I +should not think it foolish, or anything save delightful, if I heard it +again." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +SECOND THOUGHTS AND LAST WORDS. + + +Dr. and Mrs. Millar could make no objection to Dr. Harry Ironside as a +suitor for their daughter. It was all the other way. They were highly +satisfied with the young man's antecedents and credentials, and yet Dr. +Millar was a good deal taken aback. He had grown to look on nursing as a +career for Annie, and to take pride in her excellence in it, as he would +have done had she been his son and a young doctor. He could not help +feeling as if marriage interfered a little with his views for her. He +had to recall that Ironside was a very fine young fellow, with a +commendable spirit of inquiry in medical matters. He would do credit to +his profession, and Annie, especially if she went with him to a new +colony, might work in his company, and be his right hand. + +Mrs. Millar had too much good sense and womanly experience to approve of +long engagements, and she did not like the chance of Annie's going to +Africa--still she would fulfil what Mrs. Millar considered the highest +and happiest destiny for a woman, that of becoming the wife of a worthy +man. As to Africa, the little Doctor, a fixture in his chair, told her, +"My dear Maria, we shall simply be giving hostages to Providence, for +man was told to occupy the earth, and carry civilization and redemption +to its utmost bounds." + +To spare Annie's feelings, her relations kept her engagement and their +laughter well in the background, while Dr. Harry Ironside, having probed +the Russian fever to the bottom, and seen nearly the last of it, +returned in triumph to London, to make arrangements for his medical +mission. + +As for Annie, in her eagerness to escape from the rallying she had +provoked, she talked incessantly about going back to St. Ebbe's, where, +however, she was not yet due. A longer leave of absence had been granted +to her, in consideration of the fact that her holiday had been mainly +spent in hard work in the impromptu hospital at Redcross. She would not +have accepted the additional grant apart from the circumstance that +Harry Ironside was in London. Annie admitted to herself, in the secret +recesses of her heart, that now it had come to this, she would fain have +passed these last precious weeks near her young lover. But she would not +consent to give occasion to Rose, or any other person--not even to +Harry Ironside himself--to think or say that she, Annie Millar, was +already not able to live without him. Annie's wings might be clipped, +but she would be Annie proud and "plucky" to the last; and her lover, +instinctively knowing her to be true as steel, loved her the better +because of her regard for what she considered his credit as well as her +own. The pride was only skin deep; the pluck was part of the heroic +element in Annie. + +Rose had been delayed in her work. She had not found it in her heart to +walk about taking sketches when the good friend who had so much to do +with the commission was little likely to see its completion. But when +Tom Robinson could sit up, walk into the next room, and go back to his +own house, she felt at liberty to set about her delightful business, in +which her father took so keen an interest. She lost no time in starting +every fine day in pursuit of the selected views, to put them on canvas +while their autumnal hues were still but tinges of red, russet, and +gold. + +Rose was mostly waited on by May, who took much satisfaction in helping +to carry and set up the artist's apparatus, feeling, as she said, that +she was part of a painter when she did so. + +Dora had been with Rose, May, and Tray at a pretty reach of the Dewes. +The elder sister was returning alone, along the path between the elms +by the river, near the place where Tom Robinson had come to Tray's +rescue, when she met him face to face. He was taking what +"constitutional" he was able for, and enjoying the light breeze which +was rippling the river, just as it rippled the ripe corn and fanned the +hot brows of the men who were working the corn machine in the field +beyond. + +Dora had seen and spoken to him several times since his illness, but +there had been other people present, and now the old shy dread of a +_tête-à-tête_ again took possession of her. She would have contented +herself with a fluttered inquiry after his health, and a faltering +remark that she ought not to detain him. She would have hurried on, +as if the errand on which she was bound demanded the utmost speed, +supremely wretched while she did so, to notice how pale and worn he +still looked when she saw him in the broad sunshine. She would have +mourned over the circumstance that he wore no wrap, though there was +always some damp by the river, and speculated in despondency whether +it could be right for him, while he still looked so ill, to be walking +thus by himself? What would happen if faintness overtook him, and he +could not accomplish the distance between him and the town? + +Tom Robinson, delicate though he looked, quiet as he was, would not let +Dora have her way. He turned and walked back with her, which ought to +have set one of her fears at rest. And his appearance must have belied +him, for he was clearly in excellent spirits, with not the most distant +intention of being overcome by faintness. + +"This is very pleasant," he said, with a smile, and his smile was a +peculiarly agreeable one. + +Dora could not tell whether he meant the day, or the road, or her +company, or even her summer dress, which was fresher and better cared +for than when he had encountered the family group "place-hunting" in +London. Dora had owned more leisure lately, and, absurd as it might +sound, her heart had been singing with joy, so that she could not +resist making her dress in keeping with the gladness of her spirit. +Her little fingers had been cleverer than they had ever shown +themselves before in the manufacture of a frock and the trimming of a +hat which would not have disgraced the taste and execution of Miss +Franklin. Yet the materials were simple and inexpensive to the last +degree--a brown holland and a shady brown hat, and about the frock and +the hat some old Indian silk which in its mellowed gorgeousness of red +and maize colours softly reflected the hues of Rose's parrot tulips. + +Dora did not dare to ask her companion what he thought so pleasant. It +seemed right to take it for granted that it was the weather, so she +answered quickly, Yes, it was a fine day for the harvest, which she +believed was going to be a good one this year. + +"Our present encounter is more tranquil than our last, near this very +spot," he went on, still smiling. "Perhaps it is as well that there are +no disturbing elements of collies and terriers on the scene, for though +I am getting on famously, I am not sure that I am up to the mark of +dragging Tray and a giant assailant to the edge of the bank, and +pitching them head-foremost into the water." + +"I should think not," said Dora briefly. + +"How 'little May' screamed, and you stood, as white as a sheet, +valorously aiming your stone." + +"We were great cowards, both of us," admitted Dora, smiling too; "and I +am thankful to say Tray has been much better behaved since he was at the +veterinary surgeon's." + +"There was room for improvement," Tom Robinson said, with the gravity of +a judge. + +"I left him on in front, begging to May for a bit of chalk." + +"It is as well that it was not for a bit of beef," he said. Then he +suddenly changed the subject. "Do you know that I have something of +yours which has come into my hands that I have been wishing to give +back to you ever since I was a responsible being again?" + +As he spoke, he unfastened for the second time in their acquaintance the +tiny vinaigrette case from his watch-chain, and handed it to her. + +Dora flushed scarlet, and took it without a word. + +"I got it one night in the course of that fever, when I was at the +worst, and I know you will like to hear that I am sure it did me good. +The first thing that I recollect after a long blank, which lasted for +days, I believe, was feebly fingering and sniffing at the little box, +with a curious agreeable sense of old association. Then I was able to +look at it, and recognize it as my mother's vinaigrette. She had let me +play with it when I was a child; and when I was a boy, subject to +headache from staying too long in the hot sunshine in the cricket-field, +she used to lend me her vinaigrette for a cure. But I knew that I had +asked you to have it, and that you had done me the favour to accept it. +The fascinating puzzle was, how had it come back to me? At last I +questioned Barbara Franklin. She could not tell any more than myself at +first, and was equally puzzled, until she remembered your sister Annie's +running into the room on the night when you were listening for news of +my death, and asking for a smelling-bottle, and your fumbling for an +instant in your pocket, and giving her something. That made it perfectly +plain." + +Too plain, Dora reflected in horror, for what might not Miss Franklin +have suspected and communicated in addition to her cousin? + +"I was glad I had it in my pocket," said Dora, stammering. "I took it up +to London with me, and--and found it often refreshing in the middle of +the heat and fatigue. I am thankful to hear it was of use to you, who +have the best right to it." + +"No," he said emphatically, "though it was of the greatest use. My +cousin Barbara said also that you were very sorry for me. Dora, was that +so?" Tom himself blushed a little in asking the question, as if he had a +guilty consciousness of having taken rather a mean advantage of Dora +Millar, first by coming so near to death without actually dying, and +then by listening to what his kinswoman had to say of Miss Dora Millar's +state of mind at the crisis. + +On Dora's part there was no denying such a manifest truth; she could +only utter a tremulous "yes," and turn her head aside. + +"That was good of you, though I do not know that I am repaying the +goodness properly," he said, with another smile, very wistful this time. +"For I must add, that hearing of it tempted me to wonder once again +whether you could ever learn to think of me? If you cannot, just say no, +and I'll cease from this moment to tease you" (as if he had been doing +nothing else save besiege and pester her for the last year and a half!). + +Dora could not say "no" any more than she could say "yes" straight out, +though she was certain that to be kept any longer than was absolutely +necessary in a state of acute suspense was very bad for him in his +weakened health. By a great effort she brought herself to say in little +breaks and gasps, "I do not need to learn, Mr. Tom, because I have +thought of you for a long time now--long before you were so good and +generous to all of us--almost ever since you wished--you asked--what I +was so silly and so ungrateful as to refuse." + +He drew her hand through his arm and held it tightly; he could not trust +himself to say or do more. He was almost as shy as she was in the +revulsion of his great happiness. + +She struggled conscientiously to continue her confession. "I had thought +hardly at all of you before then. Girls are so full of themselves, and I +did not know that you wished me to think of you. I seem to see now that +if you had given me more time, and let me grow familiar with the idea, +even though we were 'donkeys,' as Annie and Rose say, and though we +were choke-full of youthful folly----" She stopped short without +finishing her sentence, or going farther into the nature of what she +seemed to see. + +"But I besought you to take time, Dora, love," he remonstrated. "You +forget, I urged you to let me wait for the chance of your answer's being +different." He could not help, even in the hour of the attainment of the +dearest wish of his heart, being just to his old modest, reasonable +self. + +"Yes," she said, with the prettiest, faintest, arch smile hovering about +the corners of her mouth. "But men ought to be wiser than to take simple +girls at their first word, which the girls can never, never unsay, +unless the men bid them. Now I'll tell you how malicious people will +view the present situation. They will say that I refused you point blank +when I thought we were well off, then got you to propose again, and +graciously accepted the proposal, when I knew we had not a penny in the +world. I own it looks very like it, and it is partly your fault; you +should not have let me go the first time. But I don't care what people +say, so long as there is not a word of truth in it." + +"Nor I," said Tom undauntedly. "They may also say that I was able to +make myself useful to your family, and like a very tradesman, traded on +the usefulness, buying a reluctant bride with it. But what do we care +when we love each other, and God has given us to each other? 'They +say,'--what do they say? Let them say." + +There was not the shadow of a cloud the size of a man's hand on Dr. and +Mrs. Millar's pleasure in their daughter Dora's marriage to Tom +Robinson. For instead of going with Annie to Africa, or starting on a +mission of her own to bring May's college fees from Jamaica, Dora +remained at Redcross to be Tom Robinson's dear wife and cherished +darling. Mrs. Millar had long seen, in her turn, that Dora could not do +better. The fine old shop, and the fantastic shade of poor Aunt Penny, +had both become of no account. The single thing which troubled Mrs. +Millar was that the instant Lady Mary Pemberton heard of the wedding in +prospect, she invited herself to come down to it. + +Dora's sisters, with the charming inconsistency of young women, were not +only acquiescent in her undignified fate--they were jubilant over it. + +It did not arrest, though it subdued the general congratulations, when +it was discovered that the event made Harry Ironside all at once both +envious and aggressive. He could not see why, if Dora Millar were +marrying a rich man, and he himself had a sufficient income not merely +to make a satisfactory settlement on his wife, but to do his part in +helping her relatives, who would also be his from the day he married +her, that his marriage should not take place as soon as Dora and Tom +Robinson's. In place of an indefinite engagement, with thousands of +miles of land and sea, and all the uncertainties of life into the +bargain, between him, Harry Ironside, and Annie Millar, would it not +be much better that he should carry away with him the brightest, +bravest woman who ever asked little from a new colony; who, in place +of asking, would give full measure and running over? For Annie was not +like poor dear little Kate--Annie would be a godsend, even though she +had to go the length of learning to fire a revolver as a defence +against lions and hostile natives. It would be nothing else than +savage pride in Dr. Millar, Harry continued to argue, to decline to +let Tom Robinson defray May's small expenses at St. Ambrose's, whether +she won a scholarship or not. He was a man with an ample fortune, as +well as the nicest fellow in the world, who was going to be not only +May's coach, but her brother-in-law. In like manner it would be +downright churlish and positively unkind to Dora if her parents +refused to occupy the pleasant small house with the large garden +belonging to Tom Robinson, and close to what would be their daughter's +house. It was conveniently vacant, and looked as if it had been made +for a couple of elderly gentle-folks, who were not rich, but were +comfortably provided for. In fact, it had been fitted up by the late +Mr. Charles Robinson for just such a pair, who had in the course of +nature left the house empty. + +With regard to Rose, she would have to submit to be more or less Harry +Ironside's charge till she painted and sold such 'stunning' pictures +that she could afford to look down on his paltry aid. What, not allow +him to assist his own sister-in-law, when he was so thankful to think +that she might be like a sister in the meantime for his poor little Kate +to fall back upon? Why, the girls could go on making a home together at +his good friend Mrs. Jennings's, till it was right for Kate, after she +was old enough to choose, to cast in her lot with him and Annie, +supposing the colony prospered. His heart was already in that strange, +far-away region, which, with all its mysteries and wonders--ay, and its +terrors--has such an attraction for the young and high-spirited, the +typical pilgrims to a later New England. + +And what did Annie think of this march stolen upon her, this attempt to +extort a yard where she had only granted an inch of favour? Perhaps she +was dazzled by what would have repelled many another woman, in the +primitive, precarious, exciting details of the life of a young colony. +Perhaps her heart and imagination were alike taken by storm when she +thought of the untenanted hospital wards and the patients calling for +her to go over and help them. Perhaps she was simply beginning so to +identify herself with Harry Ironside that what he did seemed her doing. +Anyhow Annie did not say no. + +The Miss Dyers remarked oracularly, when the double marriage was +announced in Redcross, that it was just what they had expected. The +observation was somewhat vague, like other oracles' speeches. The +general public of Redcross, including the Careys and Hewetts, were less +indefinite and more cordial in their expression of satisfaction at the +suitable settlement in life of the little Doctor's elder daughters. + +Miss Franklin could not be too thankful and pleased that, after all, she +had done no mischief to her cousin Tom by her blunder, and by what had +been her only too personal reproaches and revelations addressed to his +future wife on the night when he was believed to be lying dying. In +fact, if she, Barbara Franklin, had not been conscious of a huge +mistake, with all the deplorable consequences it might have carried in +its train, if she had not thus been kept shamefacedly humble and silent +as to her share in the business, she might have taken credit to herself, +with greater reason than Mrs. Jennings could boast, of having united a +supremely happy couple who were drifting apart. Even if Miss Franklin's +part in it had been played voluntarily and advisedly, she would never +have cause to regret that night's work. For Dora Robinson had no scruple +in being the fast friend and affectionate cousin of her husband's +forewoman. She had no more qualm than she would have felt if Miss +Franklin had never condescended to trade, but had remained within the +bounds of poor gentility by laboriously keeping up her halting classical +music and waning foreign languages, and by continuing a finishing +governess to the day of her death--or rather till she was superannuated, +and had to retire to a too literal garret. + +"Oh! Jonathan"--Mrs. Millar could not resist a long-drawn sob on the +great day of the double marriage--"it is all very well to say Annie has +got a good husband--a fine disinterested young man, certain to be +distinguished in his profession, you tell me. I believe that, and am +very thankful for it. How could I bear the parting otherwise? But to let +our eldest, our prettiest, and wittiest, with her warm heart and +untiring energy--'the flower of the flock,' as people used to call her +when the children were young--go out to Africa, it may be to meet +unheard-of trials, like your poor Aunt Penny, it may be never to see our +faces again----" Mrs. Millar could say no more. + +"Hush! hush! Maria; you must be reasonable--you must take the bad with +the good," enjoined the little Doctor from his arm-chair. "Why, you are +making as much commotion as you did when Annie said she would be a +nurse. Is an hospital ward at home so preferable to an hospital ward in +the dark continent, which is ceasing to be dark? Its sun is only too +blazingly bright, its river plains too teemingly fertile, its mountains +too grand even in the grander monotony of its deserts. There is gold in +its dust, and its rocks are glittering with diamonds. But, thank God, +that is not all. It is the great country for which Livingstone was +content to spend his life, where the Moffats made the wilderness blossom +like the rose, and Colenso won the wild heart of the Zulu to trust him +as a brother. You will have Dora and Tom next door to you, and Rose and +'little May' will be constantly coming and going. As for Annie and +Harry, how can you tell that their special gifts would not be wasted +here, as I have often thought hers would have been if she had continued +only a pretty, sprightly young lady, and not grown up into an hospital +nurse!" + +"Perhaps you are right, Jonathan," answered his wife meekly, coming +round, as she did now more than ever, to his side of the question. + +"Do you think Sir John Richardson's daughter, Bishop Selwyn's wife, +missed the highest calling she was capable of when, instead of +presiding over a pleasant country-house or a fine London drawing-room, +she consented with all her heart to be landed on an island in Melanesia, +and left among the native converts to help to prepare the Malay girls +for confirmation? Her husband was away in the meantime in his missionary +yacht on his noble enterprise, ready to take her off the island on his +return, and not fearing to trust her in the interval to their God whose +work she was doing," argued the old man, with a note of something like +exultation in his voice. "Annie and Harry are not going out to Africa, +as my Aunt Penny and poor Beauchamp of Waylands went to Australia in the +days of the earlier squatters, entirely for their own hand, and because +they cannot help themselves, since there is nothing left for them to do +here. Our children are going to render gallant service on which their +talents are well bestowed, of which we shall always be proud to hear. +They are, as I told you before, our hostages in the carrying out of the +great purpose of the Almighty Ruler of the universe, by which light is +to take the place of darkness, and good of evil, from the rivers even to +the ends of the earth." + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Houseful of Girls, by Sarah Tytler + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HOUSEFUL OF GIRLS *** + +***** This file should be named 20081-8.txt or 20081-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/0/8/20081/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jacqueline Jeremy and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +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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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: A Houseful of Girls + +Author: Sarah Tytler + +Release Date: December 10, 2006 [EBook #20081] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HOUSEFUL OF GIRLS *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jacqueline Jeremy and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div id="auto"> + + + +<h1 style="margin-top: 5em;">A HOUSEFUL OF GIRLS.</h1> +<h3 style="margin-top: 3em;">BY</h3> +<h2>SARAH TYTLER,</h2> + +<h3 style="margin-top: 5em;">AUTHOR OF</h3> + +<h5>"CITOYENNE JACQUELINE," "PAPERS FOR THOUGHTFUL GIRLS,"<br /> +ETC., ETC.</h5> + + +<h4 style="margin-top: 5em;">LONDON:</h4> +<h3>WALTER SMITH AND INNES,</h3> +<h4>31 & 32, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND.</h4> +<h5>1889.</h5> + +<h5 style="margin-top: 3em;">[<i>All rights reserved.</i>]</h5> + + +<h5 style="margin-top: 3em;"><span class="smcap">Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,<br /> +London & Bungay.</span></h5> + + +<hr style="width: 65%; margin-bottom: 10em;" /> + +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<hr style="width: 25%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 2em;" /> + +<table summary="table of contents" style="width: 500px;"> +<colgroup span="3"> +<col width="5%"></col> +<col width="80%"></col> +<col width="15%"></col> +</colgroup> +<tr> +<td class="tdb" colspan="2"><span style="font-size: small;">CHAP.</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><span style="font-size: small;">PAGE</span></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tda">I.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">A Flutter in the Dove-cot</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_i">1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">II.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The "Coup de Grâce"</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_ii">20</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">III.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Heads of the House look Grave</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_iii">35</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">IV.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Crash</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_iv">54</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">V.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Promotion</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_v">72</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">VI.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Cloud Deepens</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_vi">81</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">VII.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Rose goes West and Annie goes East</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_vii">106</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">VIII.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Standing and Waiting</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_viii">122</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">IX.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">A Wilful Dog will have his Way</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_ix">136</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">X.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Life in an Hospital Ward</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_x">157</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">XI.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Jennings and her daughter +Hester</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_xi">182</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">XII.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">A Young Artist's Experience</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_xii">188</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">XIII.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Mr. St. Foy's and the Misses Stone's</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_xiii">196</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">XIV.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Old Town, with its Air stagnant +yet troubled. Is May to become +a Scholar or a Shop-girl?</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_xiv">214</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">XV.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Tom Robinson taken into Counsel</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_xv">234</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">XVI.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Rose's Folly and Annie's Wisdom</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_xvi">257</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">XVII.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">May has to fight her own Battle</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_xvii">288</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">XVIII.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Dora is the next Messenger with bad +Tidings</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_xviii">316</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">XIX.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Unemployed—a Familiar Face</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_xix">322</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">XX.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Redcross Again</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_xx">342</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">XXI.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Miss Franklin's Mistake</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_xxi">363</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">XXII.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">A Shred of Hope</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_xxii">382</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tda">XXIII.</td> +<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Second Thoughts and Last Words</span></td> +<td class="tdc"><a href="#chapter_xxiii">392</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr style="width: 65%; margin-bottom: 10em;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> + +<h1>A HOUSEFUL OF GIRLS</h1> + +<hr style="width: 25%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 2em;" /> + +<h2><a name="chapter_i" id="chapter_i"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">A FLUTTER IN THE DOVE-COT.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">Is</span> there any sensation equal to that produced by the first lover and +the first proposal coming to a girl in a large family of girls? It is +delightfully sentimental, comical, complimentary, affronting, rousing, +tiresome—all in one. It is a herald of lovers, proposals, and wonderful +changes all round. It is the first thrill of real life in its strong +passions, grave vicissitudes, and big joys and sorrows as they come +in contact with idle fancies, hearts that have been light, simple +experiences which have hitherto been carefully guarded from rude shocks.</p> + +<p>It does not signify much whether the family of girls happen to be rich +or poor, unless indeed that early and sharp poverty causes a precocity +which deepens girls' characters betimes, and by making them sooner +women, robs them of a certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> amount of the thoughtlessness, +fearlessness, and impracticability of girlhood. But girlhood, like many +another natural condition, dies hard; and its sweet, bright illusions, +its wisdom and its folly, survive tolerably severe pinches of adversity.</p> + +<p>The younger members of such a sisterhood are politely supposed to be +kept in safe ignorance of the great event which is befalling one of the +seniors. It is thought at once a delicate and prudent precaution to +prevent the veil which hides the future, with its casualties, from being +lifted prematurely and abruptly, where juvenile minds are concerned, +lest they become unhinged and unfit for the salutary discipline of +schoolroom lessons, and the mild pleasure of schoolroom treats. The +flower in the bud ought to be kept with its petals folded, in its +innocent absence of self-consciousness, to the last moment.</p> + +<p>But there is an electric sympathy in the air which defeats precautions. +There is a freemasonry of dawning womanhood which starts into life +everywhere. How do the young people pick up with such surprising +quickness and acuteness the looks and whispers meant to pass over their +heads, the merry glances, nervous shrugs, quick blushes, and indignant +pouts, which have suddenly grown strangely prevalent in the blooming +circle? The bystanders are understood to be engrossed with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> their +music-lessons, their drawing-classes, their rudimentary Latin and +Greek—if anybody is going in for the higher education of women—their +pets, their games of lawn-tennis, their girl companions with whom these +other girls are for ever making appointments to walk, to practise +part-singing, to work or read together, to get up drawing-room +<i>tableaux</i> or plays.</p> + +<p>The general consciousness is not, in certain lights, favourable to a +lover's pretensions. For human nature is perverse, and there is such a +thing as <i>esprit-de-corps</i> running to excess. There may be a due amount +of girlish pride in knowing that one of the sisters has inspired a +grand passion. There may be a tremulous respect for the fact that she +has passed the Rubicon, that, in place of girlish trifling, she has an +affair which has to do with the happiness or misery of a fellow +creature, not to say with her own happiness or misery, on her burdened +mind. Why, if she does not take care, she may be plunged at once, first +into the whirl of choosing her trousseau and the fascinating trial of +being the principal figure at a wedding, and then involved in the +tremendous responsibilities of housekeeping, butchers' bills, grocers' +bills, cooks' delinquencies, with the heavy obligations—not only of +ordering dinners for two, but of occasionally entertaining a room full +of company, single-handed!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>And this is only one side of the shield; there is a reverse side, at +least equally prominent and alarming. The second side upholds maidenly +claims, finds nothing good enough to match with them, and is tempted to +scout and flout, laugh and mock at the rival claims of the lover upon +trial. This is true even in the most innocent of dove-cots, where satire +is still as playful and harmless as summer lightning.</p> + +<p>"The idea of Tom Robinson's thinking of one of us!" cried Annie Millar. +"What could possess him to imagine that we should ever get over the +shop—granted that it is a Brobdingnagian shop, an imposing mart of +linen-drapery, haberdashery, silk-mercery enough to serve the whole +county?"</p> + +<p>"To be sure it is only Dora, not you, Annie," burst in eighteen years' +old Rose, who had just left school, and was fain to drop the pretence of +being too young to notice the most interesting event in the world to a +family of girls.</p> + +<p>"Why do you say that, Rose? Dora may not be so pretty as Annie—I don't +know, and I don't care—it is all a matter of taste; but she is as much +one of us, father's daughter, brought up like the rest of us in the Old +Doctor's House."</p> + +<p>The speaker was May, between sixteen and seventeen. She was the tallest +of the four sisters—let them call her "Little May" as long as they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> +liked. She had so far forgotten herself as to follow Rose's lead.</p> + +<p>"Hold your tongues, you two monkeys; what should you know about it?" +Annie, who had a tendency to sit upon her younger sisters, tried to +silence them. She had reached the advanced age of twenty-two, and by +virtue of being the eldest, had been considered grown up for the last +four years, when Rose and May were chits of fourteen and a little over +twelve. Of course this gave Annie a vast advantage in womanly dignity +and knowledge of the world. But at the present moment she was herself so +interested in the discussion that she could not make up her mind to drop +it till Rose and May were out of the way.</p> + +<p>"I must say"—Annie started the subject again—"that I think it great +presumption in Tom Robinson, though he is not so ugly as that comes to, +and he's really well enough bred in spite of 'Robinson's.'"</p> + +<p>"He is a college-bred man." Dora ventured shyly to put in a word for the +dignity of her suitor, and for her own dignity as so far involved in +his. "And so were his father and grandfather before him, father says."</p> + +<p>"But the Robinsons had the silk-mill and the woollen-factory then as +well as the big shop," corrected Annie. "And Tom might have gone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> into +the Church or into some other profession if he had chosen, when things +might have been a little different. Still, if you are pleased, Dora," +with a peal of derisive laughter, "if you do not object to the—shop."</p> + +<p>"Of course I object," cried Dora, tingling with mortification and shame. +"That is, I should object to his having a shop, if I had ever thought of +him for a single moment in that light. I cannot imagine what put me into +his head—in that sense. Indeed I cannot believe it yet. I am sure it is +just some nonsense on the part of the rest of you to tease me."</p> + +<p>"No, no," Annie hastened to contradict her. "It is sober reality. He has +said something to father; you know he has, mother owned it."</p> + +<p>"He has been meeting us and throwing himself in our way everywhere," +broke in the irrepressible Rose and May.</p> + +<p>"He has been coming and coming here," resumed Annie, "where, as we +don't happen to have a brother, there is not even another young man to +form an excuse for his coming. We cannot so much as pretend, when +people remark on his visits, that he has come ever since we remember, +and is as familiar with us as we are with ourselves. No doubt, in a +little town like this, everybody who has the least claim to be a +gentleman or a lady, knows every other gentleman or lady—after a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> +fashion. But naturally father and mother were not intimate with the +late Mr. and Mrs. Robinson; and we—that is, Tom and we girls—are not +so near each other in age as to have been brought together by our +respective nurses. We did not pick daisies in company, or else pull +each other's hair, and slap each other's faces, according to our +varying moods. Tom Robinson is four or five years older than I, not to +speak of Dora."</p> + +<p>"He stopped us this very morning," Rose again joined in the chorus, +"when May and I were going with the Hewetts to gather primroses in +Parson's Meadow. He asked if our sisters—that was you, Dora, with Annie +thrown into the bargain—thought of going on the river this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"He might be an inch or two taller, I don't suppose he is above five +feet six or seven," suggested Annie, maliciously recalling a detail in +the description of Dora's future husband, that be he who or what he +might, he should certainly not be under six feet in height. Dora, who +was herself considerably below the middle size, would never yield her +freedom to a man who had to admit a lower scale of inches.</p> + +<p>"And his hair might be a little less—chestnut, shall we say, Dora?" +put in Rose with exasperating sprightliness, referring to a former +well-known prejudice of Dora's against "<i>Judas-tinted hair</i>."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>"Would you call his nose Roman or Grecian?" asked May naïvely, of a +very nondescript feature.</p> + +<p>"And he has so little to say for himself," recommenced Annie, "though +when he does speak there is no great fault to be found with what he +says; still it would be dreadfully dull and tiresome to have to do all +the speaking for a silent partner."</p> + +<p>"Oh, hold your tongues, you wretched girls," cried Dora, standing at +bay, stamping one small foot in a slipper with a preposterously large +rosette. "What does it signify? The man, like his words, is well +enough—better than any of us, I dare say," speaking indignantly; "but +what does it matter, when I could never look at him, never dream of him, +as anything more than a mere acquaintance? I don't wish for a lover or a +husband—at least not yet," with a gasp; "I don't wish to leave home, +and go away from all of you, though you are so unkind and teasing—not +for a long, long time, till I am quite a middle-aged woman. I don't see +why I should be plagued about it when Annie here, who is two years older +than I am, and ever so much prettier, as everybody knows, has escaped +such persecution."</p> + +<p>"My dear," said Annie demurely, "it is because you have the opportunity +of presenting me with a pair of green garters. If it should occur again, +and you choose to avail yourself of it, I mean to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> accept the garters +with the best grace in the world. Isn't that good of me when you have +been coolly telling me that I have been overlooked as the eldest, and +the belle of the family—flattering my conceit with one breath and +taking it down with another? But it is not a case of Leah and Rachel. +We are not in the East, and in the West the elder sister does not +necessarily take precedence in marriage. You are quite welcome to marry +first, Dora; you are all welcome to marry before me, girls," with a +sweeping curtsey to her audience all round. "I am perfectly resigned to +your leaving your poor worthy elder sister to end her days as a solitary +spinster, a meek and useful maiden-aunt."</p> + +<p>The Millars were the daughters of Dr. Millar of Redcross, an +old-fashioned country town in the Midlands. They were happy in having a +good father and mother still spared to them. The girls were what is +called "a fine family," in a stronger sense than that in which Jane +Austen has used the term. Their ages ranged from twenty-two to midway +between sixteen and seventeen. They were all good-looking girls, with a +family likeness. Annie, the eldest, was very pretty, with delicate, +regular features, a soft warm brunette colour, dark eyes, and a small +brown head and graceful throat, like the head and throat of a greyhound.</p> + +<p>Dora, the first wooed, was, at a hasty glance, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> mere shadow of Annie. +She was pale, though it was a healthy paleness. Her hair was lighter in +tint, her eyes, too, were considerably lighter—granted that they were +clear as crystal. It was difficult to think of Dora as preferred before +Annie, if one did not take into account that there are people who will +turn away from June roses to gather a cluster of honeysuckle, or pick +a sweet pea—people to whom there is an ineffable charm in simple +maidenliness and sweetness. Dora's modest unhesitating acceptance of the +second part in the family and social circle, and her perfect content to +play it, would be a crowning attraction in such people's eyes. So would +her gentle girlish diffidence, which moved her rather to meet and +reflect the tastes and opinions of others than to exercise her own, +though she was by no means without individual capacity and character.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>Rose was the least handsome of the family at this stage of her +existence. The family features in her had taken a slightly bizarre +cast, and she had a bad habit of wrinkling her smooth low forehead and +crumpling up her sharpish nose, in a manner which accentuated the +peculiarity. But Annie, who was an authority on the subject of looks, +maintained, behind Rose's back, that there was something <i>piquante</i> and +<i>recherchée</i> about Rose's face and figure. Not one of the Millars was +tall—not even May, though she came nearest to it; but Rose's slight +pliant figure had a natural grace and elegance which its quick, +careless movements did not dispel. When she held herself up, uncreased +her forehead and nose, showed to advantage her very fine, true chestnut +hair, and was full of animation—as to do Rose justice she generally +was—giving fair play to her dimples and little white teeth, Annie said +Rose had a style of her own which did no discredit to the family +reputation for more than a fair share of beauty. In addition to Annie's +high spirit and ready tongue, Rose had a decided turn for art, which +her father had taken pride in cultivating.</p> + +<p>"Little May" was like Annie, and promised to be as pretty; but she was a +rose in the bud still, with the unfilled out outlines and crude +angularities of a girl not done growing. She was very much of a child in +many things, and she had Dora's soft clinging nature, yet under it all +she was the born scholar of the family, with a simple aptitude and taste +for learning which surprised and delighted her father still more than +Rose's achievements in pastilles and water-colours pleased him. It was +seeing May at her books, when she was a very different May from the girl +who ran about with Rose, and was kept in her proper place by Annie, +which revived in Doctor Millar the old regret that Providence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> had not +blessed him with a son. He could not exactly make a son of May, since +from her early childhood she was a little sensitive woman all over, but +he did what he could. He had her taught Latin, Greek, and mathematics +just to afford her the chance of being a scholar. He never told himself, +and nobody else did, in the meantime, what she was to do with her +scholarship when she was a little older. Whether it was merely to grace +her womanhood, or whether the youngest of the family, her father and +mother's last pet, was to summon up courage, tear herself away from +familiar and dear surroundings, and carry her gifts and acquirements out +into the world, in order to win for them the best distinction of +usefulness.</p> + +<p>Dora's lightly held suitor was the head of "Robinson's." "Robinson's" +was a great and time-honoured institution in Redcross, while it and its +masters were somewhat of anomalies. The first Robinson whom the town +troubled to remember was as good as anybody in it, the proprietor of a +silk-mill, and latterly of a wool-factory in the neighbourhood. As a +mere convenient adjunct to the mill and the factory he had started a +shop in the town, and kept it going by means of a manager. Even in that +light it was a handsome old shop. The walls were lined with polished +oak, so was the low ceiling, and there was an oak staircase<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> leading +from one storey to another which a connoisseur in staircases might have +coveted. "Robinson's" was a positive feature in Redcross, and if it had +been anything else than a good shop of its kind would have been greatly +admired. The son of the founder of the shop was also reckoned, to begin +with, as good as his professional neighbours. He was college-bred, like +his father, as Dora in her jealousy for the dignity of her first lover +had stated. This was "all to begin with." Whether because it was +advisable, or from mere grovelling instincts, he dropped in turn both +the mill and the factory, neither of which did more than pay its way, +and retained the shop, which was understood to be a lucrative concern. +He did worse; though Redcross continued to acknowledge him—somewhat +dubiously to be sure—as a gentleman, because of the fine presence which +Tom had not inherited, and the perfect good breeding which had descended +to the son. In spite of the magnanimity which forgave frostily the +second Robinson for so far forgetting himself as to take the management +of his great shop into his own hands, walk up and down and receive +customers, and be seen working at his books in the glass office if he +did not go behind the counter, he went and married for his second wife a +farmer's daughter. She was an honest, sensible, comely young woman, but +she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> no pretensions to be a lady, and no more inclination to enter +the society of the Redcross upper class than the upper class had a mind +to receive her as an equal. Charles Robinson's first wife had been all +very well, though she was penniless. She had been a curate's daughter, +educated to fill the post of governess in high families. She had died +young, without children, and he had filled her place with the farmer's +daughter, who was the mother of Tom. Thenceforth the Robinson's house, a +good, old-fashioned house, though not so handsome as the shop in an +adjacent street, was effaced, nominally, from the visiting-lists of +those who had visiting-lists in Redcross. The family were ostracised, +and left to their own devices, receiving their sentence, in the case of +the farmer's daughter and her husband, with apparent equanimity.</p> + +<p>But there was an exception made in favour of Tom. He went to the Grammar +School along with the other better-class boys in the town and +neighbourhood, and was accepted as their companion and playfellow. He +was sent to college according to the traditions of his family, just as +Cyril Carey, of Carey's Bank, and Ned Hewett, of the Rectory, were sent +according to the traditions of theirs. Presumably the three young men +were on one footing at Cambridge, unless, indeed, Tom had the advantage. +He was slightly the elder of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> the three, and he took his degree with a +fair amount of honour; while, sad to say, for the credit of Redcross, +neither Cyril nor Ned made their last pass. It was confidently believed +that Tom Robinson would cut the shop, so far as any active management of +it was concerned, and enter either a gallant or a learned profession. If +he had ever entertained the intention, it was put a stop to in the first +place by the death of his father, followed within three months by that +of his mother, shortly after Tom had completed his course at the +university. He stayed at home for a time, to put his house in order it +was supposed. Then all at once, in the most cold-blooded fashion, he +told those who asked him that "Robinson's" was a good business, which he +did not see himself justified in throwing up in these hard times. He was +not such a conceited ass as to believe he must necessarily succeed in +the crowded ranks of the professions, for none of which had he any +particular bent, while he had, he added, with a certain manliness and +doggedness for a pacific fellow like Robinson, a considerable interest +in the great old shop. It had been in the family for three generations; +he had known it from childhood; many of his father's old trusted +servants still served in it. In short, he meant to keep it in his own +hands, and not to let it go to sticks and staves, possibly, in the hands +of others. He did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> not, for his part, see any mark of gentle breeding +and fine feeling in devolving his responsibilities on others, and only +reserving that tie to the shop which had to do with pecuniary profits. +As for his university training and academic degree, if they did not +benefit him in all circumstances they were not much worth. The town of +Redcross was caught in a trap. The gentle-folks of the place had already +received him as a man and a brother, and they could not refuse to know +him any longer because he stuck to the paternal shop, though they might +exercise their discretion in looking coldly on him in future. For that +matter, there was another opinion among the older professional men—the +Rector, whose tithes were only quarter paid; Dr. Millar, whose paying +patients were no longer able to call him in on all occasions; Carey, the +banker, whose private bank, it was whispered darkly, was struggling in +deep waters; Colonel Russell, who had come home from India on half-pay +and his savings, which every year he found more inadequate for the +expenses of an increasing family. All these gray-headed men, growing +haggard and careworn, agreed that in the present depressed state of the +commercial world, young Robinson was showing himself a sensible fellow +and ought to be commended for his decision. They declared that they were +the more inclined to take him up because of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> it. It was their wives, +where they had wives, and especially their daughters, with the young men +who had not known the brunt of the battle, and felt inclined to clutch +their professional dignities and privileges, that were of a different +mind. Girls like the Millars turned up their saucy little noses at the +shop. They thought it was mean-spirited and vulgar-minded, "low" of Tom +Robinson to sit down with such a calling. They held it audacious of him +to lift his eyes to Dora, and to follow his eyes with his voice, silent +fellow though he was generally, in asking her from her father.</p> + +<p>Certainly it did not help to redeem Tom Robinson's drawbacks in the +judgment of a rash young world that he lacked his late father's fine +presence. Though gentleman-like enough, he was insignificant in person, +and he had little to say for himself. Probably it would have struck his +critics as little short of profane to make the comparison, otherwise +there is a great example that might have stood him and all men not +giants and glib of tongue in good stead. It is written of an apostle, +and he not the least of the apostles, that he might have been termed in +bodily presence mean, and in speech contemptible. But boys and girls are +not wont to take up such examples and ponder their meaning in foolish +young hearts.</p> + +<p>The Millars, as one of the girls had said, were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> brought up in the Old +Doctor's House at Redcross. It would seem that professions and trades +were hereditary in the old-fashioned, stationary town. Dr. Millar's +father had not only been a doctor before him, he had been <i>the</i> doctor +in Redcross, with a practice extending from an aristocratic county to a +parish-poor class of patients. His pretty sister Penny, whom Annie was +not unlike, had married into the county, General Beauchamp of Wayland's +younger son. The marriage, with all its consequences, was a thing of the +long past, leaving little trace in the present. For young Beauchamp, +though he was a squire's son, had not been able to get on at the bar, +and had emigrated with his wife while emigration was still comparatively +untried in Australia, where it was to be hoped his county extraction had +served him in the Bush at least as well as Tom Robinson's university +education would avail him in the shop. It had all happened an age before +the young Millars could remember, still the tradition of a marriage of a +member of a former generation of the Millars into the squirearchy had +its effect on her collateral descendants. It did not signify that the +reigning Beauchamps of Waylands had almost ceased to remember the +ancient alliance in their dealings with their doctor. That dim and +distant distinction established the superior position of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> the Millars in +their native town, to the girls' entire satisfaction. Dora to marry +Robinson, of "Robinson's," a farthing candle of a man, when her +Grand-aunt Penny had married a Beauchamp of Waylands, by all accounts +the handsomest, most dashing member of the Hunt in his day, was a +descent not to be thought of for a moment.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_ii" id="chapter_ii"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">THE "COUP DE GRÂCE."</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">The</span> crisis had come. Dr. Millar had granted a final formal interview, +not without some agitation on the father's part, to the still more +agitated suitor; and after assuring him of the paternal good-will, had +turned him over to the daughter—the whole being done with a sorrowful +prescience, shared by the unfortunate young man, of what the answer +would be.</p> + +<p>Poor Dora was hardly less to be pitied, for she had to be brought up to +the supreme effort of dealing the <i>coup de grâce</i>. Nobody could do it +for her, even her mother told her that severely, in order to brace the +girlish nerves, when Dora gave way to the first cowardly instinct of +seeking to shirk the ordeal. If a girl was old enough to receive an +offer of marriage, she was old enough to answer it for herself in +person. It was the least return she could make for the high compliment +which had been paid to her, to see the man and tell him with her own +lips<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> that she would have nothing to say to the honest heart and liberal +hand, for he had hinted at generous settlements, which he had been only +too eager to lay at her feet.</p> + +<p>It was little use even for mild Dora to protest that she had not wished +for such a compliment, and had done nothing to provoke it, so that the +reckless compliment-payer was but receiving his deserts in an +unconditional refusal. It did not make the step easier for her. It was +no joke to her, whatever it might be to her hard-hearted young sisters.</p> + +<p>To tell the truth, Rose and May, aye, even Annie, took much lively +diversion, as Dora guessed, in secretly watching the entire proceeding. +The sisters found out the hour of the compulsory interview. They +covertly looked out for the arrival of the commonplace wooer—anything +save their idea of a lover and hero. They keenly took note of him from +an upper window as he walked with a certain studied composure, yet with +a blankness of aspect, through the shrubbery. They even deigned—Annie +as well as Rose and May—surreptitiously to inspect the poor wretch +between the bannisters of the staircase, as he ran desperately up the +stairs, thrusting one hand through his foxy hair and carrying his hat in +the other, and vanished into the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>After this brutal behaviour on the part of a trio<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> of English girls, one +must show a little moderation in condemning the cruel conduct of the +Roman dames, who contemplated with zest the deadly contests of the +gladiators in the arena; at least the gladiators were strangers and +barbarians, not fellow-townsmen and near relations.</p> + +<p>As for the present victim, he was happily unconscious of any spectator +beyond Bella the house-maid, but he felt relieved to be delivered from +her compassionate stare. He had an instinctive sense that she knew as +well as he did what he had come there for, and was pitying him—an +inference in which he was quite correct. For Bella was older than the +unseen "chorus" on the landing, who did not think of pitying him. She +had seen more of the world, and was better acquainted with its cares and +troubles. She called him in her own mind "the poor young gent!" It +occurred to her as it did not occur to the others, that he might take to +bad ways and be a lost man, like Jem Wade the carpenter, after her +pretty, flighty sister Lotty had given him the sack. Nothing less than +that might be the end of this day's work.</p> + +<p>But such a way of looking on a lover and his woes was far from the +thoughts of Bella's young mistresses. On the contrary, they had +difficulty in restraining merry little titters, though Annie did take +herself to task and murmur "For shame!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> when Rose made a solemn, stupid +face like what she considered Tom Robinson's on this occasion.</p> + +<p>To do the girls justice, however, they did not laugh when Dora, who had +been with her mother, came slowly across the lobby and followed the +visitor into the drawing-room in order to administer the <i>coup de +grâce</i>. It might have been a veritable dagger-thrust to be dealt by a +weak little shrinking hand, with the owner's head turned and face +averted—such a white, grieved, frightened girl's face it was.</p> + +<p>Her companions' eyes were opened, for the instant a fellow-feeling smote +them. This was no light jest or piece of child's play; it might be their +turn next. Oh! who would not be sorry for Dora to have to inflict real +pain and bitter disappointment, to be condemned to kill a man's faith in +woman, perhaps, certainly to murder his peace and happiness for the +present, to extinguish the sweetest, brightest dream of his early +manhood, for he would never have another quite so tender and radiant? +Would Dora ever be quite the same again after she had done so hard a +thing?</p> + +<p>Annie pulled herself up and accused herself of getting absolutely +maudlin. The idea of Tom Robinson of "Robinson's," with his middle size, +matter-of-fact air, and foxy hair and moustache, entertaining such a +dream and relinquishing it with a pang of mortal anguish that would +leave a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> long sickening heart-ache behind! It was the infection of all +the silly love stories she had ever read which had received a kind of +spurious galvanic life from the very ordinary circumstance, the feather +in her cap, as so many girls would have regarded it, of Dora, having to +receive and refuse an offer of marriage. Why, she—Annie—and her +sisters, including Dora herself, had been much diverted by it, as well +as interested in it, until the dramatic crisis had somehow taken their +breath away also, and startled them by a glimpse of the other side of +the question. But though Annie strove to recover her equanimity, and +Rose tried to hum a tune softly as the girls still loitered behind the +bannisters, to see the end of the play, they said nothing more to each +other; a sort of shyness and shame had stolen over them. It was not +enough to make them run away, especially as each did not realize that +what she felt was common to all. Only their lips were chained +simultaneously, and they were disposed to turn aside their heads and +avert their eyes, like Dora when she killed her man.</p> + +<p>The deed did not take long—not more than was necessary for him to plead +once or twice with small variation on the words, "Will you not think of +it, Dora? Can you not give it a little consideration? Perhaps if I were +to wait, and you were to try<span style="letter-spacing: -2px;">——</span>"</p> + +<p>And for Dora to answer with drooping head,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> panting breast, and still +less variety in her phrases, "Oh, no, no, Mr. Tom. Of course, I am very +much obliged to you for thinking a great deal more of me than I deserve. +But, indeed, indeed, it cannot be—you must give it up—this foolish +fancy. It is a great pity that you have wasted time on such an absurd +idea."</p> + +<p>"Wasted time!" he repeated, with a little irony and a little pathos. +"Well, I don't think it wasted even at this moment—and—and the idea +does not seem so absurd to me; but I will not distress you by forcing my +wishes upon you when you are so averse to them. You will allow me to +continue your friend, Miss Dora?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, oh yes," sighed Dora, who would have said anything, short of +agreeing to marry him, to get him to go away, "if you like, after what +has happened. I know I don't deserve your friendship; but, indeed, I +could not help it, Mr. Robinson. I never guessed till lately that you +thought of anything else, and then I would have stopped you, but I could +not."</p> + +<p>"Don't blame yourself," he said with a faint smile, "I am not blaming +you. I shall count it a favour, an honour, if you will let me do +anything for you that I can."</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much," she murmured humbly.</p> + +<p>"Then you will accept a little mark of my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> friendly feelings?" He took a +small case from his waistcoat pocket, opened it, and drew from it a +valuable ring, holding it out to her.</p> + +<p>They were the most beautiful rubies and sapphires she had ever seen. But +she would not touch it; she even put her hands behind her back in her +confusion and dismay. "I could not; I ought not. It is far too costly a +thing, I can see that at a glance. You must keep it; you will find some +far fitter girl to give it to."</p> + +<p>He shook his head, hesitated, and then took an old-fashioned little +vinaigrette case, shaped like a tiny gold box, from the watch-chain at +which he wore it. "Will you accept this from me, then? It was my +mother's, and I should like you to have it."</p> + +<p>"It's so good of you," the girl faltered. "I don't like to deprive you +of what was your mother's, but if you care that I should have it<span style="letter-spacing: -2px;">——</span>"</p> + +<p>"I do care," he said.</p> + +<p>That last little episode was entirely between themselves. When she +quitted the room, not crying, but paler than before, she had the +vinaigrette case clasped tightly in her hand, while nobody except Tom +Robinson knew of the gift.</p> + +<p>He let her go, and then he left the house. When he did so there was that +in his face which caused Rose Millar to cry under her breath, "Come +away.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> It is not fair to spy upon him. I'll never want to see anybody +refused again." As for "little May," she burst into tears, though the +principals had shed no tears.</p> + +<p>"Hold your tongue, you little goose," remonstrated the disturbed Annie. +"He may hear you. School-girls like you and Rose should not meddle in +grown-up people's affairs."</p> + +<p>"I thought I had left school after the Christmas holidays," said Rose, +interrogating the world in an abstract fashion. She was herself again on +the instant, carrying her funny little crumpled nose well in the air.</p> + +<p>"It is dreadful," said May, with a half-suppressed sob, "and he was so +good-natured. He promised only last week to get Rose and me a +fox-terrier puppy."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you selfish little creature! It is over the failure of the +prospective puppy and not over the sorrows of the rejected man you are +lamenting. Never mind, Maisie, I doubt if mother would have allowed us +to keep the puppy. As for Mr. Tom Robinson, he is cut up just now, of +course; but he will soon get over it. How long does it take a man to +forget, Annie? Anyhow, presently he will be busily directing his +attentions in another quarter, until the day may come, after he is +successful and triumphant, well pleased with himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> and his choice, +when he will heartily thank Dora there for having administered to him +the cold bath of a rejection, so nipping his first raw aspirations in +the bud."</p> + +<p>"No, no," insisted May; "you are so cynical, Rose, like everybody else +now-a-days, and I hate it. He can never be glad to have lost Dora."</p> + +<p>"Don't you agree with me, Annie?" Rose maintained her point.</p> + +<p>"Really, you seem to be so well informed on the subject yourself—though +I cannot think where you have got your experience, any more than your +slang, unless at second-hand"—said Annie sarcastically, "that my +opinion is of no importance."</p> + +<p>"Now, don't be nasty and elder-sisterish," was Rose's quick rejoinder.</p> + +<p>Though Dora shed no tears of contrition in public, Annie, who shared her +sister's room, heard her in the night crying softly.</p> + +<p>"What ails you, Dora dear?" Annie sat up and asked sleepily. "What is +the matter? It can't be, no," rousing herself, "it can <i>not</i> be—you +don't mean that you repent what you've done, and would swallow the shop, +foxy hair, and everything?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," denied Dora, "but I didn't think a man would care like that; +such a queer, gray shade came over his face, though I durst hardly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> look +at him; and his hands which were—well, were holding mine for a second, +you know<span style="letter-spacing: -2px;">——</span>"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't know," interrupted Annie, smiling to herself; "but go on, +what about the hands?"</p> + +<p>"They were as cold as ice."</p> + +<p>"Very likely, it is only the month of April."</p> + +<p>"And it is not above a year since he lost both his father and +mother—all the near relations he had."</p> + +<p>"Poor man!" admitted Annie. "But you could not help that, and many men, +young men especially, seem to get on quite well without near relations."</p> + +<p>There was a strain of hardness about pretty Annie, whether bred of that +cynicism in the air of which May had complained, whether it was an +integral part of Annie, or whether, as in the case of some valuable +kinds of timber, it was merely an indication of the closer grain, the +slower ripening, and the greater power of endurance of the moral fibre.</p> + +<p>"Men are not like women." Annie was continuing her lecture. "I dare say +Tom Robinson will do very well—all the better, perhaps, because he has +no ambition, and is content to make money in the most humdrum way as a +tradesman."</p> + +<p>Dora sat up in turn, like a white ghost in her place in her little bed, +seen by the dim light. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> had the instinct which causes women to look +back upon the men who have made love or proposed to them, even though +the women have rejected the men—as in a sense their property, if not +their prey, so as not by any means to relish the men's depreciation at +the hands of other women. Then it becomes a point of honour alike with +the proudest and the meekest of her sex to stand up in his absence in +defence of the discarded swain.</p> + +<p>"I don't know about ambition," began Dora hesitatingly, "but father says +Tom Robinson is not at all stupid; he took his degree with credit at +Cambridge, and was not plucked like poor Ned Hewett, or that fop, Cyril +Carey. Father says when he worked with Mr. Robinson in getting up the +bill to lay before Parliament for closing the old churchyard, he could +not have desired a more intelligent, diligent fellow-worker. All the +salesmen and women at 'Robinson's' have been well looked after, and are +superior to the other shop-people in the town, don't you know? There is +Miss Franklin at the head of both the millinery and mantua-making +departments; I am sure she looks and speaks, as well as dresses, like a +lady?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and everybody is civil to her, but nobody thinks of making her +acquaintance out of the shop, and she is wise enough to keep to her +proper sphere. They say she is a distant relation of Tom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +Robinson's—you see he is not altogether destitute of kindred. Why does +the man not marry her? That would be a suitable match."</p> + +<p>"Annie!" protested Dora, in nearly speechless indignation, and then she +recovered breath and words. "She's forty if she's a day; and she's as +fat as a pin-cushion, with her cheeks a mottled red all over."</p> + +<p>"How can you make such unkind remarks on your neighbours' looks? <i>He</i> is +not an Adonis, I may be allowed to say; and I have noticed that +shopkeepers are apt to marry women older than themselves, women who have +been in the trade—to keep the business together, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"At least, his father did not marry like that either in his first or in +his second marriage," retorted Dora; "for the first Mrs. Robinson was +the daughter of a curate, and the second of a farmer, and she was not +half his age, though she did not survive him long."</p> + +<p>"As you please. What's Hecuba to me, or what am I to Hecuba?" demanded +Annie airily.</p> + +<p>"Besides," Dora returned laboriously to the charge, "there are +shopkeepers and shopkeepers, as you must be aware, Annie. Father says +old Mr. Robinson was a man of independent ideas and original mind, and +had his own theories of trade."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>"I have nothing to say against it, especially at this hour of the night, +or morning," said Annie, professing to strangle a yawn; "only that I do +not think a linen-draper's business, however large and well-conducted, +is exactly the career of a gentleman, a man of fair ability and +education. He might leave it to any respectable well-disposed tradesman. +However, if you are going to exalt Tom Robinson, with his shop, into a +patriot and philanthropist cherishing a noble scheme for the public +good, and all that kind of thing, do it if you like, nobody will hinder +you. Call him back if you care to, I dare say it is still possible if +you are willing to make the concession. But oh, Dora!" appealed Annie, +who had talked herself wide awake by this time, "don't forget the loss +of position involved in really keeping a shop, however eccentric and +meritorious a man's intentions may be. Why, he had better become a +stonemason or a ploughman, if he is to do the thing at all; far better a +gamekeeper or a soldier in time of war, the plunge would be deeper but +more picturesque. Think of the entire breaking with the county with +which we have a right to hold ourselves connected, not merely because +father's patients are willing to take us up and make quite a fuss about +us sometimes, but because his Aunt Penny married and was welcomed into +that set. You have not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> yourself alone to consider, remember, Dora; you +might not mind, but you have the rest of us to think of, some of whom +would mind very much."</p> + +<p>"You need have no anxiety about the matter," said poor Dora hotly and +huffily. "I am not going to marry Tom Robinson; you know I have refused +him this very afternoon."</p> + +<p>But Annie was determined to empty out her whole budget of warnings. +"Even professional people like father, all our friends and +acquaintances, our relations on both sides of the house would begin to +drop us, and fight shy of us. What people that had any pretensions to +being gentle-folks would care to be mixed up with our brother-in-law the +linen-draper? And it is not as if the temptation were great; I cannot +see wherein the attraction lies; but instead of letting it beset you, +please don't lose sight of the three hundred and sixty-five days to be +spent every year in Tom Robinson's silent company. Think of the three +hundred and sixty-five breakfasts, dinners, and suppers to be eaten +opposite his mute figure."</p> + +<p>"Stop, Annie," Dora cried energetically: "you know as well as I do that +I could never face such a thing, that I never dreamt of it. Only loving +a man could make it possible for a girl to give up her family in order +to belong to him; and even if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> there had been no 'Robinson's' to shock +you, I do not care the least little bit for poor Tom Robinson; yet +surely for that very reason," protested Dora with a sudden revulsion of +feeling, "I am at liberty to pity him."</p> + +<p>"If you will take my advice, Dora," said shrewd Annie, sinking back on +her pillow as a sign that the untimely discussion ought to come to an +end, "you will get rid of your pity as quickly as you can. It is not +your pity which he seeks—very likely he would rage like a bear, for as +quiet as he can look, at the mere mention of it. But it strikes me that +it is not safe for either of you."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_iii" id="chapter_iii"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">THE HEADS OF THE HOUSE LOOK GRAVE.</h3> + + +<p>"<span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">It</span> is a thousand pities," said Dr. Millar, holding a consultation with +his wife, while he sipped his glass of sherry and ate his biscuit, +before retiring for the night, after his last round among the patients +in greatest need of his visits.</p> + +<p>In spite of his daughter Dora's preference for tall men, the Doctor was +short and rather stout. He ought to have looked comfortable, he had the +physique and air of a comfortable man, but a certain harassed, careworn +expression was beginning to settle down on the spectacled face which had +once been round, rosy, and very comely. He was at least twenty years +older than his wife. The old-fashioned practice had prevailed in the +old-fashioned town, of elderly men, whether bachelors or widowers, +ending by marrying for the first or the second time women a score or +more years their juniors. Indeed, Dr. Millar was hard upon seventy, +though he had till recent bad times carried his years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> so well that he +had looked ten years younger than his actual age.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Millar also began to look worried as a rule, though she had more of +the woman's faculty of putting the best face on things, both in public +and in private. She was a tall woman, who had enjoyed the advantages of +what was called "an elegant figure" in her youth. Now she was large and +heavy, with a mixture of unconscious stateliness and wistful +motherliness in her gait and gestures. Like Dr. Millar, she ought to +have seemed at least easy-minded, but circumstances were becoming more +and more against the happy condition, of which a pervading atmosphere of +content and cheerfulness should have been the outward expression.</p> + +<p>The man and woman were not cut out, so to speak, for adversity. They had +not been seasoned to it in their younger days. On the contrary, they had +been cradled for many years in the lap—if not of luxury, of fair +middle-class prosperity. It was a few tolerably rough jolts which had +shaken them from their cradle. Still the trouble was more in +apprehension than in reality. As yet it had not caused the sufferers to +change any one of the domestic habits which had grown second nature to +them. It had not induced them to darken the sunny sky over their young +daughters' heads with a shadow of the clouds which were already looming<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> +black on the parents' horizon. It may be said at once, that Dr. and Mrs. +Millar, though they were reckoned clever, sensible people enough by +their contemporaries, had softer hearts than they had hard heads. They +had not been used to painful self-denial and stern discipline, either +where they themselves or their children were concerned.</p> + +<p>The couple were sitting now together in the dining-room with its solidly +handsome furniture, Russian leather and walnut wood, bits of family +plate on the sideboard, bronze chimney-piece ornaments, and good +engravings on the walls. Husband and wife had spent the last part of the +evening there, for four-and-twenty years, every night they were in +Redcross, when the Doctor was not kept out late, or when the couple were +not abroad in company, or seeing company at home. Dr. Millar, in his +slightly old-fashioned professional black coat and white tie, was +leaning back in his easy-chair sipping his sherry, and occasionally +drumming lightly on the table near him with these fine long sensitive +fingers which were a born doctor's fingers.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Millar wore a demi-toilet in the shape of an expensive cashmere and +silk gown—not an evening dress, but an approach to it, as became the +wife of one of the leading professional men in Redcross, connected with +the county to boot. Her lace cap<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> was a costly trifle of its kind, but +it had an awkward habit—the odder in a woman who was neat to formality +in the other details of her dress—of slipping to one side, or tilting +forwards or backwards on the brown hair, still abundant and just +streaked with gray; so that one or other of her daughters was constantly +calling Mrs. Millar's cap to order and setting it right. She was sitting +in an arm-chair, opposite her husband. Mechanically she put one daintily +slippered, very neat foot, considering the weight it helped to carry, +beyond her skirts, and stretched it towards the fire. There was still a +good fire blazing in the steel grate, though the spring was well +advanced, the weather was not more than chilly, and the hour was late. +It was as if coals were not a marketable commodity and a serious item in +the expenses of an embarrassed household. She held up a Japanese fan +between her face and the fire, from mere custom, for she had ceased to +pay much heed to the exigencies of a florid complexion.</p> + +<p>"It's a thousand pities," repeated the little Doctor, looking quite +portentously regretful and oppressed. "It is not only that Tom Robinson +is an excellent fellow and would have made Dora the best of +husbands—given her a safe and happy home, and all that sort of thing; +but in case of anything happening, I am convinced he would have been as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> +good as a brother to the other girls, and a son to you. A man like him +is a stay and support to a household of helpless women."</p> + +<p>"But nothing is going to happen, Jonathan," said Mrs. Millar, with an +involuntary nervous quiver which sent her cap hovering over one eyebrow. +"At least nothing worse than we know. Your practice is not so lucrative +as it used to be; how can it, in these bad times, with so many poor +young fellows of doctors settling here and there and everywhere in +Redcross and the villages around, starving themselves out, while they +impoverish their seniors? Nothing more than that, except the little +trouble at Carey's Bank."</p> + +<p>"Quite enough too, Maria, quite enough," commented the Doctor deep down +in his throat, prolonging the words a little as if he were chanting the +refrain of a dismal song; "and when a man is my age and has plenty of +the young rivals you refer to, it is high time he should be looking out +for something happening. A family of girls, too. God help me! If they +had been four boys, who might have made their own way in the world, and +provided for you among them, I could have faced it better." He struck +the table again, with spasmodic force this time.</p> + +<p>"Now, Jonathan, you will wake up the house. This is not like you," +remonstrated his wife—all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> the more energetically that her heart sank +while she spoke. "I should not have expected you to give way in this +manner." She gave a quick push back to her unruly cap. "I am sure there +is no occasion for it. We are in no worse position than we were last +year, even the year before that."</p> + +<p>"Save that I am growing older every year," he said grimly, "and the +affairs of the bank are not mending, as I hoped they might."</p> + +<p>"Can't you sell out?" she suggested breathlessly, as she clasped her +hands on her knees.</p> + +<p>"I have put it off too long, supposing I had the conscience to transfer +my liabilities to some simpleton who might not draw half a dozen of the +dividends of which I have drawn scores. Besides, the thing is +impossible, as I am telling you. Between you and me, the shares are far +below par."</p> + +<p>"What is par, Jonathan?" interrupted Mrs. Millar in a praiseworthy +attempt to understand her husband.</p> + +<p>"Oh, bother," he cried, running his hand in mild exasperation through +his white hair; "the standard value, or the original value, whichever +you like best. I should not dare to propose to sell out at such a loss; +it would not only be to impoverish myself at once in order to avoid the +risk of greater ruin, it would draw attention. It would have a most +suspicious look, and might bring the rotten affair<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> down about our ears +instantly, while I should get the blame of the downfall."</p> + +<p>"But some of the large foreign investments might be realized any +day—you told me the last time you spoke of business—with the first +good turn of trade," she reminded him anxiously.</p> + +<p>"I trust so still, and I believe old Carey is an honest man and a +perfect gentleman—that is one comfort; but I cannot help thinking he +has got into bad hands. I tell you, Maria, I don't like that +brother-in-law of his who comes down from London to attend the Redcross +meetings, and tries to blarney us all round. And I cannot approve of the +bolstering up of Carey's cousins, the Carters, in their chemical works +at Stokeleigh, which it strikes me will never do much good. It—the +bolstering up—has been going on for a long time now, to what extent I +am not prepared to show. Unfortunately I have a bad head for figures," +he shrugged his shoulders as if anticipating a reproach, "the less +reason why I should have laid out my savings on bank shares, you will +say? No doubt, no doubt, but there had been fewer troubles with banks in +my day. When I made the first investment everything appeared right, and +the dividends announced were tempting."</p> + +<p>"I am not finding fault with what you did, Jonathan; I never thought of +such a thing," the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> perturbed woman found voice to reassure her husband. +"I know you did it for the best; and for that matter, I am convinced it +will all come right in the end," she ended with a little sigh.</p> + +<p>"It is very good and pretty of you to say so, Maria," he said with a +certain old-fashioned, stiff gallantry which, while it complimented her, +treated her as a much younger and more irresponsible being than he was. +As he spoke he took up the hand which lay in her lap and held it for a +moment clasped in his. "And I can say you have been all that I could +have wished as a wife and mother, you have never once failed me during +the whole of our married life."</p> + +<p>"Oh! thank you, thank you, Jonathan." She acknowledged his praise with a +momentary choke in her voice, and a bend of her head which was not +without a docile dignity.</p> + +<p>"We are all in the same boat," resumed the Doctor in the deep tones +which somehow sounded like bass recitative; "the Rector, Colonel +Russell, and I—not to say Carey himself. We all wished to increase our +incomes with as little trouble and risk as possible—so it seemed then, +but if the bank comes to smash, all the old Redcross gentle-folks, as we +were pleased to call ourselves, will go with it."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>"Don't mention such a thing, don't think of it," cried Mrs. Millar in +her dismay.</p> + +<p>He went on without noticing her. "The Bishop won't let the Rector come +down, and Russell is twenty years younger than I. He is no older than +you are, though a foreign climate has told a good deal on him; still, he +is patched up, and with care ought to have lasted as long as the rest of +us. He may exert his interest, and get a post in India again, though I +should be afraid it would finish him in six months."</p> + +<p>The poor middle-aged lady who sat listening with dry lips apart, and +pleasant hazel eyes distended with fright and distress, though she was +no older than the unfortunate colonel, had not been exposed to a foreign +climate, and had hardly suffered from a serious illness in her life, did +not look much like such an arduous undertaking as going out to India to +redeem a wrecked fortune. She pulled herself together, however, and set +herself to the good woman's business of comforting and encouraging her +husband. "I am certain it is right to go on hoping. You often say that +in your profession you have no such helpful allies as hope and courage; +you must practice what you've preached, Doctor," and the faithful soul +actually contrived to impart a playful ring to her unsteady voice. "The +Rector has not preached the duty more strenuously than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> you have; and +you are not going to be the first to break down, especially when there +is no real occasion. Depend upon it, Carey's Bank will pull through like +some of your most doubtful patients, with time and care."</p> + +<p>"With all my heart," he said, absently taking off his spectacles, +polishing, and replacing them. Then he resumed his former line of +thought. "Tom Robinson is out of the mess. He, and his father before +him, found other ways of disposing of their capital where it was more +under their own inspection and control. If that foolish girl of ours, +Maria, could only have brought herself to listen to Robinson," he worked +himself up into a fresh access of vexation, "the liking would have come +in good time. I did not expect her to have a fancy for him on the spot, +for quiet, steady young fellows like him are not apt to take girls' +fancies—the worse for the girls."</p> + +<p>"But, father"—remonstrated Mrs. Millar, involuntarily bestowing on her +husband the title the girls gave him—she drew herself up as she spoke, +and again destroyed the equilibrium of her cap—"you cannot surely think +that Tom Robinson would have been a fit match for Dora, or any of her +sisters. He is well enough in himself, I say nothing against him, but he +has not gone into a profession, instead he has identified himself with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +'Robinson's'—that shop;" a shade of ineffable disgust stole into her +ordinarily good-humoured voice.</p> + +<p>"Showed his good sense and manliness," said the Doctor gruffly. "I wish +every one else had been as wise. I wish all of us had big paying shops +at our backs instead of Carey's shaky bank. I for one would swallow the +indignity cheerfully. Why, my father kept on his dispensary in the days +when the practice was at its best. The greater fool I to give it up. I +tell you England will never be what it was till it gets rid of this +rubbish of despising trades and shops. Don't you help to put it into +these silly girls' heads. It makes me sick to think how they may live to +wish they were connected with an honest, solvent shop."</p> + +<p>"My dear, I think you are going a little too far." Mrs. Millar fired up +in defence of her young like a ruffled mother-pigeon. "I should be very +sorry to teach the girls to look down on anybody; but that there are +different sorts and conditions of men, they may learn from their very +Bibles and prayer-books. There are such things as education and +culture—not to speak of good birth. You yourself, Dr. Millar, are +fairly well born and well connected for a professional man." She +instanced this with an imperceptible bridle and toss of her matronly +head, which hinted broadly, "If it had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> not been so, Jonathan, I should +never have been Mrs. Millar." The movement threatened to deposit her cap +on the carpet behind her, but she recovered it in time, and took up the +thread of her discourse by quoting the much-prized family +distinction—"There was your Aunt Penny, who married into the county."</p> + +<p>"Oh! are you at that humbug?" he cried, with a man's disrespectful +impatience. "I thought it had seen its day, and was long over and done +with. I could not have conceived that you—" ("were such a fool," he was +going to say, when he caught himself up.) He was quick-tempered and +impulsive, but he was also suave by nature, and his long habit of +courteous indulgence to his wife caused him to alter the phrase. "I did +not know that you had so lively an imagination as to persist in +believing that old myth, Maria."</p> + +<p>"But your Aunt Penny did marry one of the Beauchamps of Waylands," +insisted Mrs. Millar.</p> + +<p>"Certainly; and she made the poorest marriage of anybody that I have +ever had to do with, though I have always understood that he was not a +bad sort, beyond being as thick-headed as his brother the squire or an +officer of dragoons. He get on at the bar! I dare say not. And he was no +quicker-witted or longer-sighted in Australia. You must have heard me +say how grieved I was once when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> I came across a fellow from Sydney who +had been up the country, and remembered something of the Beauchamps and +their straits. They were regularly hard up, and went through no end of +trouble. Poor Aunt Penny seldom had a woman-servant—women-servants were +more difficult to get out there in those days. She had to wash, cook, +and scour for the men at the station."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't they come home?" inquired Mrs. Millar rather weakly.</p> + +<p>"Come home! They had nothing to come home with, or to. You don't suppose +his brother, the squire, with a wife and family of his own, would have +kept them, though the Beauchamps had received her civilly enough at the +time of the marriage! She had to milk the cows when the cow-man was +otherwise wanted. I do not say that many a better born woman than she +was has not done as much and thought little of it, only it was not in +Aunt Penny's line. I can just remember her when I was a small boy, a +pretty creature who read Italian, sang to her guitar, and made bread +seals for her amusement. She had such a mortal terror where cows were +concerned that she would run like a lapwing when she heard one come +lowing up the lane behind the house. Paton, the man from Sydney who +remembered them, thought they did a little better towards the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> end, when +they got a store, and Mrs. Beauchamp kept it. Do you hear that, Maria?" +cried the Doctor, with a half-humorous, half-indignant emphasis.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I hear," replied Mrs. Millar, with an obstinate inflection of her +voice which said, "I am of my own opinion still." She illustrated this +by adding, in an undertone, "They were in Australia."</p> + +<p>"A store," continued the Doctor, "is the rudest, most uncouth kind of +shop; and Beauchamp was not fit to keep it, he had to turn it over to +his wife, who was thankful to serve shepherds and bush-rangers for aught +I know. She lost one child in the bush, God help her! The little thing +wandered away and was never heard of again; and her other child, a boy, +who grew up, did not turn out well. I tell you, I never like to think or +speak of the mother."</p> + +<p>"Poor Aunt Penny!" said Mrs. Millar hastily. "But there is one +thing"—with a sudden accent of triumph in the perception that she had +the advantage of her husband at last—"your Aunt Penny married the man +she cared for; she got her choice, and in that light she had no reason +to complain, though she had to abide by it."</p> + +<p>The Doctor was a little taken aback. "I do not know that she +complained—at least her people at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> home heard nothing of it. And you +must do me the justice of owning that I have done nothing to force +Dora's inclinations. Indeed, I am not clear that I have done my duty. I +ought to have reasoned with the girl. Robinson is not only a good man, +he is also a gentleman, every inch of him, so was his father before +him."</p> + +<p>"In the choice of Jenny Coppock, of Coppock's Farm, for a wife!" +exclaimed Mrs. Millar, still rebellious, even satirical and disdainful.</p> + +<p>"He was entitled to choose whom he would, I suppose, so long as she was +an honest woman, and Jenny Coppock was that quite as much as her husband +was a gentleman. She made him happy, I believe, strange as it may sound +to some people, as ladies do not always make their husbands happy—you +know I mean nothing personal, Maria. Whether she was quite happy herself +is a different question, of which I have had no means of judging. But I +have heard you yourself say that she never presumed on her rise in rank, +or sought to thrust her comely, kindly face where it was not wanted. Her +son has a look of her, without her good looks. Poor Mrs. Robinson! I was +with her in her first and last illness, as you are aware, and a more +courageous, self-forgetful soul I had never the privilege to attend."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Millar turned back in the conversation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> and took to dogmatizing. +"People who are well-informed and well-bred will never descend to a +lower level without great discomfort and serious loss. I for one, though +I have not profited by the advantages the girls have commanded, and I +daresay have not their brains"—she made the frank admission with +womanly, motherly humility—"though I could not to save my life make one +of Rose's beautiful water-colour sketches, or read Greek and Latin like +'little May,' or even talk to the point on every subject under the sun +like Annie, still I should not be happy if I had to keep company with +Wilkins the butcher's or Ord the baker's wife, and they would not be +happy either. It would not matter, in one sense, though I knew they were +respectable, worthy women, and were ever so much better off as to money +than I. That would not keep me from feeling thoroughly out of place and +having hardly an idea in common with my neighbours in their +plush-trimmed gowns and fur-lined mantles. I could not stand such +degradation for my girls," she protested, with rising agitation. "I had +far rather that they and I should be the poorest ladies in the land, +should have to pinch and deny ourselves all round."</p> + +<p>"It is little you know of it," muttered Dr. Millar, shaking his white +head, and pensively contemplating his finger-nails.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>"While we still retained the position to which we were born, and the +associations among which we were reared," ended Mrs. Millar, with a +gasp.</p> + +<p>"Bless the woman, what does she mean?" cried Dr. Millar after his lively +fashion, with an air of injured innocence. "Does she pretend that Tom +Robinson has not been educated—stamped, for that matter, with the last +university brand, to which he does credit, I must say? Stay, there goes +the night-bell. I am wanted for somebody."</p> + +<p>"You'll never go out again to-night, Jonathan," pleaded Mrs. Millar, +"after all your worry, when you have not had more than a couple of +hours' rest." She was already reproaching herself keenly for having +contradicted and argued with him. She had never been able to comprehend, +for her comfort, that to a man like him an argument is both rousing and +refreshing. In the middle of her remorse she instinctively held up her +head, and balanced her cap as a Dutchwoman of the last century balanced +her milk-pail, or a girl of the Roman Campagna her sheaf of grass and +wild flowers. "It is a shame," she reflected indignantly; "it is very +likely nothing of any consequence, just one of those inconsiderate +people who think that a professional man ought to be always at their +beck and call."</p> + +<p>"There, Maria, you're scoring another point for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> trade," said the little +doctor, getting on his feet, and buttoning up his coat as a preliminary +to obeying the call. "I'll warrant Wilkins and Ord will be toasting +their toes, and retiring to bed with the comfortable conviction that +their night's rest will not be disturbed; since Wilkins's head-man +attends to the slaughter-house, and the eldest journeyman baker sees to +the setting of the sponge. Why don't you say, <i>noblesse oblige</i>, Maria? +But I think I know the name of the inconsiderate individual who has +interrupted our conversation, and I assure you he would not if he could. +It is little Johnny Fleming—Fleming the grocer's son—whose case is +critical, I fear. I told his mother if he got worse to send for me at +once. When I am out, at any rate, I'll just look in on old Todd, in +Skinners' Buildings. He appeared in a dying state this morning; but as +the family have not sent to let me know of the death, if he has hung on +so long, the chance is he will rally and come round this bout. I'll be +some time; don't sit up for me, my dear."</p> + +<p>"It is too bad," Mrs. Millar fretted. "They ought to send at night for +Newton or Capes from Woodleigh—it is only a step for any of the young +doctors, instead of disturbing a man of your age."</p> + +<p>"Good heavens! don't breathe such a thing. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> could not afford it. I +thought of taking a young partner twenty years ago, but I put it off +till it was too late. Perhaps it was a mistake; we all make mistakes," +he sighed. "An active young practitioner, well up to date, might have +kept the business better together."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" cried his wife energetically. "Nobody would have looked at +him when they could have had your skill and experience."</p> + +<p>"Then be thankful I'm still fit for work—one must take the bad with the +good. It is the fortune of war, Maria," said the gallant old doctor as +he departed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_iv" id="chapter_iv"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">THE CRASH.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">Within</span> a month Carey's Bank broke, not altogether unexpectedly. The +breaking carried dismay and desolation into not a few households in +Redcross, and administered a sharp shock—productive of much startled +speculation, and roused distrust, even in those quarters which had not +suffered financially by the bankruptcy. The stoppage of a bank, with +little hope of its resuming its functions, is like the stoppage of a +heart which will never beat again. It may have been dreaded as a +possible calamity, and occasionally hinted at in awed whispers; but when +the blow falls it does so with a stunning, crushing force because of its +irreparable nature and far-reaching ruin.</p> + +<p>There was just a little preparation to herald the catastrophe. Poor +Carey, an honest, weak tool of dishonest speculators and birds of prey +in the shape of needy, unscrupulous relations, when the appalling +tidings reached him which could only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> betoken immediate wreck, did all +that there was left to him to do. He called a meeting of the Redcross +shareholders. These were the leading professional men in the town who +had invested their savings, and a small proportion of the neighbouring +country gentlemen who had put a little capital—not often to spare in +those days—in a concern once regarded as sound and incapable of +collapse as the Bank of England itself. With a faltering tongue and a +hanging head the nominal head of the firm told to those nearly concerned +what was coming on them. Nobody reproached him; either no man had the +heart, or all felt the uselessness of reproaches. Certainly these +shareholders' silence was his heaviest punishment.</p> + +<p>They made a hasty examination, as far as they could, for themselves, and +then the meeting broke up. Its members did not even linger to consult, +being well assured that consultation, like reproaches, would be of no +avail; the failure was so much more extensive and complete than their +worst fears had led them to anticipate. The men looked blankly in each +other's whitening faces and sought the refuge of their own houses at +first. There would be time enough for outcry, for desperate plans and +schemes a little later.</p> + +<p>Poor Dr. Millar had not even this breathing space. It happened to be a +particularly busy day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> with him. Various neutral individuals, in no way +concerned with Carey's Bank, even when its misfortunes should be made +public, took that inconvenient time for falling ill, and their medical +man had to attend upon them with spasmodic promptitude and mechanical +attention—projected, as it were, against the dazed and confused +background of his brain. After all he was glad of his profession with +its outward and immediate calls, taking him out of himself in the hour +when he had heard the worst. He preferred to be about the town doing +battle with this man's attack of paralysis and that woman's symptoms of +typhoid, even though his ears were ringing with clamorous questions +which no one else could hear or answer. How was he to pay up the +liabilities of his bank shares from his dwindling practice? What about +inexperienced young girls driven out to make their own way in the world, +and the gentlewoman (in every sense of the word) whom he had loved and +cherished for four-and-twenty years, soon to be left a desolate, all but +unprovided for widow? But better a thousand times to be dragged in +different directions than to be sitting like Russell, locked in his +room, his little children and their young mother shut out, holding +between his hands the erect head of a soldier who had come out of many a +hard battle, but none so hard as this ambuscade which had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> been sprung +upon him after he had been invalided a dozen years before, and returned +home to spend his declining years in peace. Better than to have to write +sermons and read prayers, like the Rector, and pause between every +sentence to take himself sternly to task. Was it common forethought and +prudence, with the necessity of providing for the wants of a household, +which even the apostle Paul had commended, or was it worldly-mindedness +and greed which had brought him, a beneficed clergyman, a priest in holy +orders, the vowed servant of a King whose kingdom was not of this world, +to this lamentable pass? Yes; he would be dishonoured in the eyes of +men, a debtor who could not pay his debts, and even with the support of +his bishop would be scarcely able to weather the storm, while he must +make up his mind, as he was an honest man, that he and his should endure +the pinch of poverty for the rest of his days.</p> + +<p>Annie and Dora had been out on a shopping expedition, and were coming in +talking and laughing as usual, when they were startled by the apparition +of their mother standing in the doorway of her room, and motioning to +them to come in directly and speak with her. The poor lady really looked +like a ghost, as she stood there with her fine colour gone, beckoning to +her daughters with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> her hand, as if the power of speech had suddenly +forsaken her.</p> + +<p>"What is it, mother?" cried the alarmed girls in one breath, hurrying +towards her. "Has anything happened? Is anybody ill?"</p> + +<p>"Hush! hush, my dears," said Mrs. Millar in a low tone, carefully +shutting the door of her room behind the girls, as if she were ready to +guard her secret with her life—at the same time painfully sensible that +the bad news would be all over Redcross the next day, or the next after +that. "I thought it would be better to tell you myself; nobody in the +house knows anything of it yet, except your father and me."</p> + +<p>"But what is it, mother; you have not told us?" Annie urged; while Mrs. +Millar sank down in a low wicker chair, and her daughter Dora +instinctively stooped over her, and began to set her vagrant cap right.</p> + +<p>"Never mind my cap, my love," said Mrs. Millar hurriedly, and then she +grew incoherent. "What does it matter, when perhaps I may not long have +a cap to wear."</p> + +<p>Annie and Dora stared at each other in consternation. Was their mother +going out of her senses?</p> + +<p>"It is the bank, Carey's Bank," said Mrs. Millar, recovering herself, +"Oh dear! I am afraid it is in a very bad way."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>"Is that it?" cried Annie vaguely but gravely, opening wide her brown +eyes. "Is it going to fail?" She, too, spoke of the bank as if it were a +responsible being.</p> + +<p>"Annie, Annie, take care what you say. Girls are so heedless. I tell you +it is very dangerous to make such broad statements. You do not know what +harm you may do by a single word when you are so childishly outspoken." +Mrs. Millar felt bound even yet to give her own words the timid +qualification, though she was forced to add the next moment, "Your +father has suspected things were going wrong for some time, and spoken +of his suspicions to me repeatedly. He has just come back from a private +meeting of the Redcross shareholders. He says in consequence of some +additional losses in South America, I think, and inability to realize +capital there, the bank cannot meet two or three heavy calls at home. I +daresay I am not telling you rightly, for I don't understand business, +and I don't suppose you do."</p> + +<p>"I understand so far, that if this is not failure, I don't know what +is," said Annie.</p> + +<p>"Don't, Annie," said Dora; "let mother tell us in her own way; it is not +easy for her, it is a dreadful misfortune."</p> + +<p>"You may say that, Dora," exclaimed her mother. "Your father does not +believe the bank<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> can hold out for another week; it may stop payment +to-morrow, since there are rumours afloat which will destroy what credit +it has left."</p> + +<p>"Will no other bank help it?" cried Annie shrewdly.</p> + +<p>"I believe not," said Mrs. Millar dolefully.</p> + +<p>"Then there will be a run, like what one has read of in similar +circumstances—a rush of the people, and a riot in the town," suggested +Annie, getting excited over the idea. "The police may have to guard the +bank and the Bank house—soldiers may have to come from Nenthorn!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, surely not," cried Dora; "the poor Careys—who could treat them so +cruelly?"</p> + +<p>"No, no," said Mrs. Millar; "there is one good thing, your father does +not think there will be much ill-feeling, or anything like an angry mob, +or tumult—not even when the people see the closed doors. There has +always been such confidence in Carey's Bank, the Careys have been +respected for generations; even now it is James Carey's misfortune and +not his fault, though he may have been misled and imposed upon; and, +after all, the depositors are tolerably sure of their money in time. But +your father is afraid," she ended, her voice sinking, "that it will go +hard with the shareholders."</p> + +<p>"And poor father is one of them," said Annie quickly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>"Poor father!" echoed Dora piteously; "and you, poor, poor mother, to +have to think of us, and break it to us, while your heart is with +father."</p> + +<p>"And he has not even been left in peace for a single afternoon, to make +up his mind what we shall do," lamented his sympathetic wife. "As usual, +so many tiresome people have fallen ill—as if they did it on purpose, +and sent for him."</p> + +<p>"I daresay they could not help it," said Annie, "and I don't think it +would quite suit father if they were never ill."</p> + +<p>"Don't speak so unfeelingly, child," remonstrated her mother; "well, I +suppose I gave you a bad example," she corrected herself immediately, +"but I have been in such trouble since lunch time."</p> + +<p>"Poor mother!" repeated Dora in a voice that was only more soft and +caressing because of its sorrowfulness. She was very fond of her mother, +who reciprocated the special fondness, while Dr. Millar was rather +inclined to favour Annie and Rose, and both father and mother petted +May.</p> + +<p>"Will it ruin us, mother?" inquired Annie directly, but before her +mother could answer her, Annie's practical mind took a sudden flight. It +went straight back to the purchases which she and Rose had been making +that afternoon. They had been at "Robinson's," of all places. But Tom +Robinson was only to be seen in the glass office,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> or walking about the +place in the morning, at hours which these two customers had carefully +avoided. Dora's heart had quaked all the same, in dread of an event +which, bad enough when it was confined to a passing bow, or a limp +hand-shake and half a dozen words exchanged in the street, would have +been intolerable in "Robinson's," under the eyes of his satellites. Yet +for the Millars to have refrained altogether from going to the one great +shop in the town, where women oft did congregate, would have been to +expose an event, the participators in which devoutly hoped was buried in +oblivion. They had been in Miss Franklin's department without anything +untoward happening; but it was neither "Robinson's" nor the person who +served them there that flashed like lightning across Annie's thoughts at +this crisis. It was the articles the girls had been buying, the Tussore +silk and Torchon lace for frocks that Annie and Dora had meant to wear +at a garden-party—for which the Dyers, the new people who had come to +Redcross Manor-house, had sent out invitations. If the Millars were +ruined, they were not likely to go to many more garden-parties, and +though the sisters might still want frocks, yet frocks of Tussore silk +trimmed with Torchon lace—granted that the materials had appeared a +modest and becoming wear for a doctor's daughters an hour before—might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> +not be quite an appropriate selection in the family's altered +circumstances.</p> + +<p>"It depends upon what you call ruin," Mrs. Millar was saying +falteringly, "and of course the bank's assets may turn out better than +is thought just now, though your father is far from hopeful. He says all +his savings will go, and he may count on having to pay bank 'calls' on +his income till the business is wound up, which may not be in his +lifetime. No doubt he is taking the darkest view of things at present." +Then she yielded to the relief of pouring forth some of the coming woes +in detail. "Oh, my dears, your father says, though nothing can be +settled in a moment, there is one thing certain—this house must be +given up."</p> + +<p>"Our house!" cried both of the girls in dismay.</p> + +<p>"Where we were all born, where father himself was born," pleaded Dora, +still hanging about her mother.</p> + +<p>"The Old Doctor's House—why, it seems to belong to the practice," +protested Annie, sitting down, taking off her hat and tossing it on the +bed as if the better to realize the situation.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't think it would hurt the practice—not in a town the size of +Redcross, where everybody would know where your father was to be found, +though he were to change his house again and again. Still it does seem +hard," she admitted, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> she covertly wiped away a tear, "particularly +when the fault has not been ours—we have always lived within your +father's income, even though his practice has been falling off in these +bad times, what with his getting up in years, and what with these young +doctors trying to get in their hands everywhere. He tells me that he has +never had to find fault with me for extravagance," she finished +wistfully.</p> + +<p>"I should think not," said Annie emphatically. "Why you have always been +as simple as simple could be in your own tastes and habits, not a woman +in your circle dresses more quietly. You have hardly even driven in the +brougham when father was not wanting it, in case you should over-work +the horse—you have always said, but I really believe that you chose to +walk for the simple reason that many of your acquaintances had no +choice. Nobody can ever reflect upon you, mother, for having wasted +either father's means or other people's," said Annie, with a bright +glance which became her infinitely.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, my love, for saying so," replied her mother gratefully; "and +you see it is as well that I did not accustom myself to driving, among +other indulgences, for another of the retrenchments which your father +mentioned was putting down the brougham. Yet how he is to manage his +more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> distant patients on foot, at his age, I cannot imagine," she broke +off in helpless distress, clasping her hands tightly together, according +to a way she had. "It seems downright madness to propose it."</p> + +<p>"Then you may be sure it will be prevented," said Dora with earnest +trustfulness, as she gently patted her mother's cap. "Nobody can ask a +sacrifice from him which he is unable to make. Mother, do you know what +I was thinking? that the only occasions on which you and father were +regardless of expense have been where the profit or pleasure of us girls +was concerned. You have given us every advantage you could get for us in +the shape of education. You sent Annie and me to London to take these +costly music-lessons;—Annie, I wish we had made more of them. You +arranged that we should go on that foreign tour with the Ludlows."</p> + +<p>"We did our best for you—your father and I. I think I may say that," +admitted Mrs. Millar simply.</p> + +<p>Dora went on eagerly with her generous catalogue. "There was the young +artist who exhibits at the Academy and the Grosvenor, who was sketching +at Nenthorn, you had him over at a high price once a week, and he +condescended to help Rose with her drawing and painting. Then there was +Mr. Blake, the university man whom father<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> considered so far in advance +of any classical master Miss Burridge could afford, he was induced so +long as he was staying at Woodleigh to bring on May with her Latin and +Greek."</p> + +<p>"So far so good," said Mrs. Millar, in her excitement borrowing one of +her husband's brisk, cut and dry phrases. "I hope you will reap the +benefit of any effort we made, dears, because"—she hesitated, and +nearly broke down—"well, I don't think you need mind so much your +father's giving up this house and going into a smaller one; I'm sure I +don't mind it at all when I think what other people will have to suffer; +and as for you, why, you may not be here—not always, at least. We are +afraid, your father and I, that you'll need to go and do something to +keep yourselves."</p> + +<p>"To be sure," said Annie promptly. "Don't trouble about that, mother; +we'll be only too glad to be of use!"</p> + +<p>"We'll be too thankful to relieve you and father as much as we can," +said Dora in a voice soft and fervent, but less assured.</p> + +<p>"That will be the least trial," asserted Annie fearlessly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you don't know what you're saying!" cried Mrs. Millar, fairly +giving way and permitting herself to sob for a minute or two behind her +handkerchief. "You are dear, good girls! I knew you would be,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> and so +brave that I ought to take courage; but young people are so hopeful and +inexperienced. I don't wish you to be unhopeful, of course, still you +cannot tell what it is for your father and me to send our girls—our own +girls whom we have been so proud and fond of, that have been making the +old house brighter and brighter ever since they were born—out into a +cold world, to have to struggle for a pittance, to lose their youth and +its privileges, to be knocked about, and perhaps ill-treated, and looked +down upon by people in every way their inferiors."</p> + +<p>"Don't, mother," interrupted Annie with decision; "you're conjuring up +bogies which have ceased to exist now-a-days. Think of the women who go +out into the world by no compulsion, simply for the honour and pleasure +of the thing, because they will not stay at home to lead idle, useless +lives, when there is needful work to be done abroad. I don't question +that they have difficulties to encounter, but I have yet to learn that +staying at home will keep away crosses. Brave women can bear whatever +trouble comes. I have often thought of such workers, if you will believe +me"—the girl was in a glow of animation—"with both shame and envy. It +is true I have not proposed to join them," she added in a lower tone, +"because I knew I was young for such work and not half good enough or +clever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> enough, and because we were all so happy at home—you and father +made us so," and Annie turned away her head, and forthwith came tumbling +down a few steps from the exalted position she had taken up.</p> + +<p>"No, don't tell me, Annie Millar," said her mother with something like +passionate resistance, "that any good father or mother can be glad to +send their young daughters out into the wide world to fight and suffer +by themselves. It is not natural and it is not true. It is an altogether +different thing to give them to good men who will take care of them and +make them happy."</p> + +<p>"But if the good men are not forthcoming, or if they happen to be the +wrong men," protested Annie. There was an irresistible twinkle in her +dark eyes, in spite of the care and trouble that had come upon the +household, which she was too sensible and warm-hearted a girl not to +share fully.</p> + +<p>Dora stood conscience-stricken and guilty-looking, until, as she stroked +her mother's locked hands, she at last found words to put in her humble +petition, "We shan't all go away, mother dear. Father and you must let +one of us stay to take care of you and cheer you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, we are not old enough, at least I am not old enough to +accept such a boon,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> supposing we are very poor," said Mrs. Millar +sadly, "and in that case it might be sacrificing one of you, and +spoiling your prospects in life."</p> + +<p>"No, no," cried Dora vehemently.</p> + +<p>"Dora means that one of us ought to stay at home to set your cap right," +said Annie brusquely.</p> + +<p>It sounded an inopportune jest, positively unfeeling. The truth was +Annie still laboured under the common youthful necessity to hide her +deeper feelings, an obligation made up of a touch of hysterical +excitement, pride, shyness, and possibly the unsubdued buoyance of +two-and-twenty years. The last is apt to rebound swiftly, with a mixture +of cheerfulness and defiance from any sorrow, short of the one sorrow +which cannot be trampled down or made light of, that has its root in a +grave. Annie must find something to laugh at, to get fun out of, in the +tribulation which she nevertheless felt in every nerve of her body, to +the core of her heart.</p> + +<p>"I ought to be able to keep my cap straight," said poor Mrs. Millar very +literally and meekly, looking a little puzzled by Annie's ill-timed +nonsense, and apparent hardness. "I daresay I should pin it, but the +pins drag my hair so and hurt me."</p> + +<p>"Never think of it, mother," said mild Dora indignantly, looking daggers +at Annie.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>"Of course I did not mean that, mother. I was not in earnest," Annie +made the penitent amendment.</p> + +<p>"You are right to make the best of things," said Mrs. Millar, giving a +little shivering sigh on her own account. "It is the will of Providence. +We are in God's hands, poor Mr. Carey and all of us, as we were a year +ago—twenty years ago when you two were babies."</p> + +<p>They were simple truisms which she uttered, but they were honest words, +which meant a great deal to her. They borrowed impressiveness from the +truthfulness of the speaker, in addition to the truth of the sayings, +and by force of sympathy told on the listening girls, quieting and +controlling them.</p> + +<p>"Poor Mr. Carey as you say, mother," Annie caught up the words. "Well, I +suppose the Careys will be in a far worse plight than we can be, and +Cyril has been such a fool, though I don't suppose he meant much harm, +with his dandyisms and idleness and his college airs—all that he has +brought back from college."</p> + +<p>"Hush! child," exclaimed the elder, more tolerant woman. "He has been a +silly, selfish lad, but as he will know it now, to his cost, I do not +like to hear you casting it in his teeth to-day. Perhaps it will steady +him, and then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> this misfortune will be a blessing so far as he is +concerned."</p> + +<p>"Rather hard that we should all be sacrificed to prop up Cyril's weak +moral nature," muttered Annie.</p> + +<p>"And the Russells," suggested Dora. "I have heard Colonel Russell +speaking to father, as if he and the Rector also had to do with the +bank. Oh! there is Ned Hewett, who has not passed his Cambridge +examination any more than Cyril Carey. Not that it has been Ned's fault, +or that he goes in for nothing save amusement, only he is so slow over +his books, poor fellow! He will grudge his father's having spent money +over him to no purpose more than ever now; and Lucy and Bell will be +sorry for him—they are so fond of Ned."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_v" id="chapter_v"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">PROMOTION.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">At</span> that moment a rush was heard on the stairs, and Rose and May burst +into their mother's room, Rose at the last moment bethinking herself +that she had left school, accordingly she must be grown up, or on the +brink of it, if Annie would but allow it, and therefore trying to +moderate the headlong pace, which would have better become a troop of +boys than a pair of girls.</p> + +<p>"Little May," who, in spite of her height, was still in frocks an inch +from the ground, was not troubled by any such scruples. She scampered up +to her mother, and hailed her breathlessly—"Mother, we want you to let +us—Rose and me—go with Ella and Phyllis Carey a walk to the Beeches. +Ella says she saw some periwinkles and young ferns there, and we need, +oh! ever so many fresh roots for the rockery. We should have gone +without coming home to tell you, because you wouldn't mind, but we might +have kept tea waiting, and we'll be horribly late. Besides, we are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> not +coming home for tea; Ella and Phyllis say we must go up with them to the +Bank House."</p> + +<p>"No, no, my dears, you can't do that," said Mrs. Millar, hurriedly but +decidedly. "I am sorry that you should be disappointed, but you must not +think of such a thing. Ella and Phyllis don't understand—don't +know—that their mother is particularly engaged this afternoon. She will +not wish to have people in the house, not even in the schoolroom."</p> + +<p>Rose and May looked in wonder at their mother, discomposed enough in her +own person, sitting leaning back in her chair doing nothing; she whose +motherly hands were wont to be busy with some little bit of sewing or +knitting.</p> + +<p>Annie, too, was sitting idle at a short distance, with her hat thrown on +the bed, but still wearing her jacket; and Dora, in her walking dress, +was standing like a lady-in-waiting, or a sentry, behind Mrs. Millar's +chair.</p> + +<p>Annie and Dora remained silent, looking at the intruders in a peculiar +manner. At the same time the first pair did not tell the second more or +less curtly, as the elder girls had been in the habit of doing not so +very long ago, to go away and leave grown-up people to finish important +discussions in peace.</p> + +<p>What other new thing could have come about?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> Was there a fresh wooer in +the field, a second offer of marriage to be laid at reluctant feet? Was +it Annie, their beauty, who was in request this time? Who was the lover? +not Cyril Carey, with his plush waistcoat and gold chains and odious +snuff-box? He had no means of keeping a wife, unless his father took him +into partnership in the bank, and their father would not hear of Cyril; +besides, Annie held him in supreme disdain. She had more patience with +Tom Robinson and "the shop" than with the nineteenth century dandy, whom +she pronounced a mistaken revival of one of the many curiosities of +Queen Anne's reign.</p> + +<p>But Rose and May had no certainty that Annie was the object of pursuit. +She was pretty enough, they had all pinned their faith to her beauty, +yet already Dora had been preferred before her, though it was only by +the head of "Robinson's." Was it possible that now it might be Rose, +unsuspecting, unconsulted? Could her own mother and sisters be so unfair +as to arrogate to themselves the settlement of her affairs without her +consent or knowledge, without so much as admitting her into the +conclave?</p> + +<p>Annie took the initiative, she was sufficiently quick to see both behind +and before her. She had a head for directing and managing which her +mother did not possess.</p> + +<p>"Mother, don't you see they had better be told<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> at once?" she said, with +the aplomb of a girl who, however young and irresponsible, is capable of +arriving at independent conclusions and reversing existing conditions. +"They are, as Rose says, all but grown up; indeed not so very much +younger than Dora and I. I think Rose and May are entitled to be told."</p> + +<p>Annie was proceeding to act upon the permission implied in her mother's +nod. She was not without some small sense of personal importance in +being the mouthpiece which was to announce the calamity to her younger +sisters. She did it in a very different fashion from that in which their +mother had broken the news to her and Dora.</p> + +<p>"What we are going to speak to you about is not a thing that can be long +concealed. It will not be a secret for more than a few days, if for so +long. But that does not mean that you are not to shut this room door +which you have left wide open. Thanks, May. Don't bang it! You are not +to show that you know what is going to happen. And, after it has +happened, you are not to chatter about it before the servants or to your +companions. We are trusting you because you have almost come to the +years of discretion, and ought to have a notion how to behave under the +circumstances."</p> + +<p>"Well, this is too bad of you, Annie!" cried Rose, showing instant +symptoms of revolt. "What<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> have May and I done that we should be spoken +to as if we were a pair of tell-tales, or babies—and geese into the +bargain? Dora and you are not so much older, as you confess; neither are +you so much wiser with all your pretensions. If something of so much +consequence to everybody is on the eve of happening, I think we might +have been told before. Surely mother is not afraid that we should repeat +anything which we ought not to mention," and she glanced with burning +reproach at her mother.</p> + +<p>Rose was both high-spirited and touchy. She was not disposed to play the +second part without a murmur like Dora. She was not content, with her +art as a balance to Annie's beauty and May's budding scholarship. Rose +desired everybody to acknowledge her mother-wit and trustworthiness.</p> + +<p>Dora and Mrs. Millar spoke together in reply. "Mother only told Annie +and me this afternoon," said the general peacemaker.</p> + +<p>"It was not such a pleasant piece of information for me to give, or you +to receive, child, that you and May should grudge my keeping it from you +as long as I could, as I dared," was the mother's weary reply. "Besides, +your father did not wish it spoken about before; it would have been +wrong, a great risk to many others as well as to ourselves, to have +mentioned such a thing."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>"Then don't tell us now if you don't care to, mother, and if father +disapproves of our hearing it," said Rose magnanimously, for she was +dying to be at the bottom of the mystery.</p> + +<p>"No, don't, mother dear, please don't, if it will hurt you," said May +affectionately, with something of a childish ring in her voice. Her +mother took her hand at the words and clasped it tightly.</p> + +<p>"Mother has made up her mind and father has given her leave to speak," +said Annie with determination, "because you must hear soon anyhow. There +is something wrong with the bank, Mr. Carey's bank. We have all, even +May, read and heard of bank failures, and have some idea how disastrous +they are."</p> + +<p>"The Carey's bank!" cried Rose, with sufficient intelligence in her +astonishment. "I understand now why we were not to go home with Ella and +Phyllis."</p> + +<p>"Then somebody must run over and tell them that we are not coming," +interrupted May. "Do let Bella take the message, mother, in case I +should look as if I knew something. Poor Mr. Carey! he was always so +kind to us. I am so sorry; but the bank has not anything to do with us; +father is not the banker, he is just a doctor like grandfather," ended +May composedly.</p> + +<p>"O May, you are a baby, though you read the Greek Testament and have +something to say to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> Tacitus in the original," exclaimed Annie +indignantly.</p> + +<p>"Your father has shares in the bank, my dear," explained her mother with +patient reiteration. "He bought them with his savings, and he will get +nothing for them. Nobody will buy them from him again, they will be no +better than waste paper. But that is not the worst. The shares make him +responsible for the bank's debts—I am sure I cannot tell you how far; +he told me, I daresay, but I was so grieved for him and for all of you, +and so confused, I could not take it in. But he says that what he will +have to pay up will be as much as he can do, with a hard fight, for the +rest of his days."</p> + +<p>"I am so sorry for father," murmured May in an awed tone, but with a +little of a parrot note, just as she had pitied Mr. Carey, who was only +an old acquaintance and the father of her friends. The fact was that the +young girl, brought away suddenly from her girlish interests and her +whole past experience, and plunged into the cares of older people, was +thoroughly staggered and bewildered, in spite of a small head which was +capable of construing Latin and conjugating Greek.</p> + +<p>There was a moment's pause. "Will it make a great difference to father +and the rest of us?" asked Rose, in spite of her quickness, and in spite +of what her mother had said.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>"Certainly," Annie took it upon her to answer, with a mixture of fire +and conviction, "we'll all have to earn our living."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't make such sweeping statements, Annie, frightening your +sisters," said their mother reproachfully; and unquestionably May looked +scared, and dropped her gloves without noticing it. "You must do what +you can to help your poor dear father, and I am sure you'll do that +willingly, but so long as he is spared to work for all of us<span style="letter-spacing: -2px;">——</span>" She +stopped short, unable to say any more.</p> + +<p>Then her daughters closed round her, from the youngest to the eldest, +and told her in concert that she was not to be concerned for them. They +were ready for the occasion and equal to it, and they would not mind in +the very least.</p> + +<p>"Mind!" declared Rose, with her eyes beginning to shine and her cheeks +to flush like Annie's. "Why, it is the one great comfort that we'll have +to make our way in the world, and push our fortunes like boys. We'll +have plenty of adventures and rise triumphant over them all, and be such +a help to you and father. Think of that, May, you little coward," +appealing to her younger sister who, in spite of her small dabbling in +masculine acquirements, did not look as if the prospect of pushing her +fortune like a boy was full of unmixed charm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> for her. But she +brightened up at the visionary honour and delight of being a great help +to their father and mother, and cried, "Yes, yes, Rose," with subdued +enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>Dora also echoed the "yes" with a quiet intensity.</p> + +<p>Annie, on her part, graciously approved of her juniors, and rewarded +them by patronizing them tremendously.</p> + +<p>"That is right. I don't very well know yet what Dora and I can do, but +we'll find something. However, you two young ones are the geniuses of +the family, and we'll look to you. I suspect Dora and I will have to +march under your wings. You, Rose, must be quick and paint Academy +pictures, get them hung on the line, and have them sold before the +opening day. May must pass all her examinations in no time, gain a +scholarship, and be appointed classical mistress to a Girls' Day-school, +of which she will eventually become the head. Fancy 'little May' a +full-blown school ma'am."</p> + +<p>"Dear! what creatures girls are! They are jesting and laughing already +over their own and other people's misfortunes. It is little they know of +life, it is little they guess what will befall them," sighed Mrs. Millar +to herself. Nevertheless, in the middle of her anxiety and sorrow, she +was in some respects a happy woman, and she had a dim but consoling +perception of the truth.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_vi" id="chapter_vi"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">THE CLOUD DEEPENS.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">The</span> storm burst, but the cloud did not disperse, it only closed in more +darkly over Redcross. At the same time, as the bank authorities had +foreseen, there was little or nothing of the wild, panic-stricken run on +the capital which heralds and intensifies many a bank's fall. The losers +went about their ordinary occupations. The Rector preached, presided +over meetings of the vestry and Christian Associations, and attended to +his sick. Doctor Millar looked after his sick. Colonel Russell even went +to the Literary Institute and read the newspapers as usual. Every one of +them wore his customary face, however abnormal the working of his heart. +The Redcross victims, and many another innocent man besides, behaved +like gentlemen, Englishmen, and Christians. There was neither outward +fuss nor fury.</p> + +<p>The individual who came nearest to breaking down was naturally Mr. +Carey. The very forbear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>ance with which he was treated cut to the quick +the honest man who had been the tool of fools and knaves, brazening out +their share of the business and contriving to escape with the least +damage of anybody. They had been impecunious, trading upon other +people's funds to begin with, and Carey's Bank's failure only left them +where they were originally, under circumstances in which no reasonable +person would expect redress from them. But poor James Carey, who had +been credulous and weak, was made of other stuff.</p> + +<p>"I'm not easy about Carey," the little doctor confided to his wife. "He +was talking quite in a stupid, dazed way to Russell and me this morning. +Do you observe his eyes? Have you noticed the veins on his forehead and +his throat? I'm far from comfortable about him." (As if he felt +comfortable about anything at this period!) "I question much whether +he'll ever get over it."</p> + +<p>The public of Redcross, who could remark the glassy look of the eyes, +though they might not be qualified to speak of the condition of the +veins, were still more struck by the immediate and melancholy effect the +bank's failure had on Mr. Carey, when their attention was drawn to Mrs. +Carey's behaviour. She was a woman who had seldom left her house save +for her daily drive, now she walked out with her husband every fine +after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>noon. Her arm was drawn through his; but it was evident at the +merest glance that she was supporting his failing steps and not he hers. +She was a little, thin, somewhat wizened woman, but she looked equal to +the task she had set herself, if a strong will would do it. There was a +peculiarity to be seen in her eyes too, by those who could read the +sign. It was a fixed desperate determination to keep her husband and the +father of her children by sustaining his weakness with her strength, to +fight and vanquish the enemy whose icy touch was already on his heart +and brain.</p> + +<p>But although there was little outward demonstration in Redcross, much +inner ferment and growing concern prevailed beneath the surface in what +had been considered the principal houses in Redcross—houses safe and +sure as they were honourable in their ascendancy in the past. After the +affairs of the bank were in the hands of liquidators, and it became +clear that the ruin was great and complete, hope had hardly a hole or +corner left to linger in, even in the hearts of the most simple and +sanguine. The impending changes which must follow became the talk of the +town, extending to circles far beyond that on which the blow had fallen. +Within the narrower limits, the anxious question what was to be done +became the one engrossing, breathless subject of the hour.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>Some of the reforms and retrenchments were marked by the spasmodic haste +and severity which are apt to defeat themselves. These formed pendants +to the spurts of grovelling distrust and quaking care for one's own +welfare which caused Wilkins the butcher to send in his quarter's bill +before it was due to Colonel Russell, and have the debt discharged +within the hour. In like manner, Honeyman the grocer felt bound +delicately to intimate to the Careys that he declined to give the family +more than a week's credit. He was answered in a formally polite note +from Mrs. Carey to the effect that she had not intended to ask for any +longer credit thenceforth, but from that date she would pay ready money. +These offensively defensive acts and vulgar tokens that times were +changed got wind, and were discussed in awed, indignant whispers by the +mass of Wilkins's and Honeyman's fellow-townsmen.</p> + +<p>There was little need to remind the poor Careys of their altered +circumstances, since it was in the Bank House that some of the spasmodic +sweeping reforms referred to had at once been practised by Mrs. Carey. +She had always been the ruling spirit in the house, and people now said +openly that it would have been well for everybody if she had been the +ruling spirit in the bank also. She was a woman with locally +aristocratic connections,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> of a more tangible kind than what constituted +the Millars' shadowy link with the county. Her brother was Sir Charles +Luxmore of Headley Grange, and her nephew had allied himself to the +peerage by marrying an Honourable Victoria Brackenridge. All the greater +the glaring recklessness and insolence of Honeyman to take the word into +his own mouth and refuse the Careys credit. At the same time Sir +Charles's place was nearer the town of Nenthorn than that of Redcross, +and he did not deal with Redcross tradesmen unless at election times. As +for his daughter-in-law, the Honourable Victoria, she came so seldom to +see her aunt-in-law that her face could not be said to be known in +Redcross streets, where she never entered even the "fancy shop" which +the other county ladies patronized occasionally in search of missing +shades of silks or wools.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carey had stooped considerably when she became the wife of Mr. +Carey of the bank, though the bank was nominally his own, and the Careys +were a highly respectable family of old standing in Redcross. When it +came to that, there had only been two generations of the Luxmores at +Headley Grange, and the original baronet's rise to the honours of +knighthood and a baronetage was due to his success and favour in high +places as a fashionable physician. Mrs. Carey had not been very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> young +at the date of her marriage, and her fortune was moderate enough, for +the moneyed strength of her grandfather and father had gone to found a +family and support a baronetage. Still, she had been accustomed to carry +herself, after she became Mrs. Carey, not in an obtrusive and offensive +manner, but in a quiet, well-bred way, as one who had been undeniably +better born and bred than her neighbours. Indeed, under any +circumstances she would have been a reserved woman, who would, in homely +parlance, have kept herself to herself.</p> + +<p>This was the woman who, with an absence of any sense of proportion, and +an equal lack of humour, sometimes to be found in women of her class and +character, together with an excess of mingled fiery zeal and feverish +apprehension, hidden under a quiet exterior, took her measures on the +very day after the bank's failure. These measures made a thorough +exposure of the conclusion which she had arrived at, and subjected +herself and the whole family to immediate privations, for which they +were unprepared. They were injurious as well as useless and uncalled +for, and had a ludicrous side. Acting for Mr. Carey, she dismissed the +coachman and the gardener, paying them their month's wages which were +unearned. She let the valuable horses take their chance of casual +grooming and feeding, till they were sold off.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> She left the garden at +the most critical time of the year, as the old gardener said with tears +in his eyes, when the young vegetables were only coming into use, and +the whole fruit would be lost unless it were properly seen to. The wood +pigeons would have all the later seeds springing in the beds, and the +place on which he had bestowed so much time and labour would lie waste, +instead of providing a considerable part of the food of the household in +summer and autumn. "But there was never no sense in them ladies like +missus, no more in their sparing than in their spending." At one fell +swoop she dismissed her own maid, the cook, and the parlour-maid, +retaining only a young table-maid to "do" for the family.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carey had hitherto been an indulgent mother, but all at once she +told the scandalized university dandy and failure, Cyril, that he must +brush his own boots and help his schoolboy brothers to clean the knives, +if he were not satisfied with what a maid-of-all-work could accomplish +in these departments.</p> + +<p>As for Ella and Phyllis, looking on aghast at the wholesale destruction +of what they had been accustomed to consider the ordinary comforts—not +to say the luxuries and refinements of their home—the girls were +informed that they were not to go back to Miss Burridge's, where their +quarters were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> paid in advance. The younger brothers might continue at +the Grammar School, because the fees were low; they would be kept out of +harm, and they could do nothing else to speak of. But Ella and Phyllis +had better lose no time in learning to make beds, sweep floors, and lay +tables. "For myself, I have your father to see to," said Mrs. Carey in +her somewhat deep and strong voice, the measured steadiness of which had +acquired a ringing vibration. "I do not mean to conceal from you that +Dr. Millar is apprehensive on your father's account, and I intend to +devote myself to him. We must pull him through and save him at any cost, +though his health and nerves may be shattered from this date, and he may +never be able to retrieve his losses and those of other people, which, +of course, press most heavily upon him. We can try at least for the +credit as well as the life which is so dear to us, and never have it +said for his sake, still more than for ours, that he was blind and +imposed upon, and then let himself slip out of the misery which he had +helped to bring about, while others who were not accountable were +condemned to pay the penalty."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carey would fain not have touched a farthing of the income allowed +the family till the bank's affairs were wound up—that winding-up which +Dr. Millar said might last throughout his life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> She would willingly +have resigned the bulk of her small fortune in favour of the bank's +creditors, but marriage settlements and trustees are stubborn facts to +deal with. All she could do was to stint and punish herself and her +family in the manner described, and inasmuch as the stinting and +punishment were done in good faith, doubtless they would serve their +purpose and have their reward.</p> + +<p>The Rector was a widower. Hitherto he had kept an efficient housekeeper +and chaperon for his daughters, the elder of whom must now take the +housekeeper's place. He, too, put down what had served him for a +carriage. It was remarkable how uniformly the first idea of retrenchment +took this form in Redcross, but it was natural under the circumstances. +It was difficult to say at once what was to be cut down from a not very +extensive list of supernumeraries, unless one was prepared to make a +clean sweep like Mrs. Carey. The Rector had been simple enough in his +tastes and habits. He was a member of the Church of England Temperance +Society, and so had no valuable cellar of wine to dispose of. He did not +possess more silver plate than was wanted for the Rectory table. His +library contained no rare and costly books. The very carriage in +question was no more than one of those pony-phaetons with regard to +which Bishop Pattison appealed, in one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> of his letters from Melanesia to +his brethren in peaceful, pleasant country rectories and vicarages at +home, asking the astonished clergymen, with their clergywomen in the +background, if they really considered the clerical equipage, with its +modest expense, equivalent to a divine institution? The Rector proved +his freedom from the superstition by doing away with the phaeton and its +pair, and falling back, as he was a spare man, on an old pony which the +children had ridden by turns. Though he was not a book fancier, he had +entertained a fondness for art, and since he could not indulge in much +picture buying, had dabbled in old prints, of which he had rather a fine +collection. This all at once vanished along with the phaeton.</p> + +<p>Bell Hewett, the second daughter, who was several years younger than her +sister Lucy, but had left Miss Burridge's some time before, and was as +far removed from a school-girl as Annie Millar herself, unexpectedly +appeared again on the familiar benches. She was not there as a junior +governess, she was not sufficiently clever or educated, since Miss +Burridge sought to work up to the new standards. Poor Bell was in her +old place, in her old classes, as a pupil once more, only she sat +looking deeply affronted, and nervously trying to make up for lost time, +among a set of young girls like May Millar.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>There was not much difference made in Colonel Russell's establishment. +But this was caused by one of two things. There was the probability of +the establishment's soon being broken up, if its master succeeded in +getting a post which should enable him to return to India. On the other +hand, the second Mrs. Russell was too foolish and self-willed to +comprehend without a prolonged struggle how she and her babies could get +along unless they were fortified by every imaginable aid in the shape of +an expensive table, fine clothes, a couple of under nurses, and a boy in +buttons. Fanny Russell, the Colonel's grown-up daughter by his first +wife, looked sad enough over the prospect of her father's departure at +his age, with his shattered constitution, and over what was to become of +herself, left behind with the frivolous, unreasonable young stepmother +with whom Fanny had never been able to agree.</p> + +<p>The Millars were still in the old quaintly spacious house with its great +bowery garden, for the plausible reason that Dr. Millar could not, on +the spur of the moment, find a purchaser or an available tenant. He took +some credit to himself for having more breadth of view and controlling +common sense than poor Mrs. Carey, otherwise he might have rushed off +and crammed his family into a small inconvenient house, for which, at +the same time, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> would have had to pay rent, that was not called for, +unless in the form of rates and taxes, where his old house was +concerned. There might be something to say on the other side of the +question, but as yet that had not occurred to Dr. and Mrs. Millar. +However, the Doctor's brougham, like the Rector's phaeton, was a thing +of the past. He trudged manfully on foot to his patients. There are few +evils which do not offer some compensations. It really seemed as if the +Doctor's deprivation, which weighed heavily on his wife's mind, served +to divert it from other trials, by the degree to which it was occupied +in looking after her husband's changes of coats and boots, in order to +ward off evil consequences to his health.</p> + +<p>The four girls were so engrossed with what had happened and was going to +happen to them from the failure of Mr. Carey's bank, that they had +largely lost sight of the first wooer in the family. This was strong +evidence of the extent to which their minds were filled by the rapid +descent of what they called poverty on themselves and their neighbours. +Rose and May ceased to have qualms of conscience when they caught sight +of Tom Robinson fishing in the Dewes, not knowing what desperate +promptings of despair might not suddenly lay hold of a rejected and +forlorn lover. They left off glancing covertly at him in his pew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> at +church, for the purpose of detecting the earliest symptoms of a broken +heart and a galloping consumption. Instead they speculated on whether +Bell Hewett would have had a new hat if it had not been for the bank's +failure; and whether her brother's absence from home was owing to his +having gone to London for the first look at the columns of the +advertising newspapers, and that he might be on the spot to apply in +person at the addresses given, and to haunt the agency offices, as young +men are represented doing in novels.</p> + +<p>Inevitably Tom Robinson's recent intercourse with the family had been +confined to a formal call or two, awkward and unpleasant to all +concerned. Only Dr. Millar brought him into the conversation +occasionally, dealing with his name in the spirit of a faithful +partisan. "That good fellow Robinson did not draw out a farthing of his +deposit at the bank after disquieting rumours must have reached him. +Carey tells me that Robinson, in place of seeking to be reassured, did +his best to reassure him, Carey; told him never to mind him, he could +lie out of the money; he was willing to let others who had more need be +paid first. Ah! well, it is good to have it in your power to be both +just and generous, and it is still better to have a heart to use the +power. Robinson has acted handsomely throughout, in short, like the +gentleman he is. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> wonder if his behaviour on this occasion will weigh +with snobs against the iniquity of his having a shop. I thought +Thackeray had done something to demolish similar rubbish when he +described the young cads who gave the schoolboy Dobbin the nickname +'Figs.'"</p> + +<p>The speaker was guilty of glaring rather fiercely at his daughters, +assembled for afternoon tea. They became eminently innocent and +meek-looking on the instant, but when the sisterhood were left to +themselves Annie delivered her opinion with admirable fairness and +candour.</p> + +<p>"I am sure I am glad that Tom Robinson should behave himself like a +gentleman, but that does not make his trade a profession fit for a +gentleman, neither does it render the man, with his lack of ambition and +his commonplaceness and dulness, an interesting specimen of humanity."</p> + +<p>"Not a man that a woman would care to die for," said Rose, wrinkling her +forehead and crumpling up her nose till her face was half its natural +length. "Oh, I say, think of any woman being so infatuated as to be +willing to die for an insignificant, foxy-headed, well-bred shopkeeper!"</p> + +<p>"Don't be slangy, Rose," Annie rebuked her sister.</p> + +<p>"Still I am very glad," said Dora's soft voice quite distinctly, and +while she blushed furiously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> she reared her little neck with an +unconscious gesture. It said plainly, "Yes, I am glad that the man who +sought me for his wife has shown himself liberal and merciful, so that I +can always think of him and his wishes with respect and gratitude."</p> + +<p>"And so am I glad," agreed May warmly. "It is so nice that 'Robinson's' +has not made its master grasping and greedy."</p> + +<p>"I don't know that rapacity is confined to trade," admitted Annie. "You +ought to know, May, for you have a good deal of intercourse with royalty +in your reading; but I have a notion that it has been the distinguishing +characteristic of a good many kings and emperors."</p> + +<p>Annie and Rose had grown more and more eager to take up their burdens +from the first day they were aware that there were burdens for them to +take up. They were becoming positively enamoured of pushing their +fortunes and encountering adventures—not in the least understanding, in +spite of their bright wits, what the burdens, fortunes, adventures might +mean. The two sisters' enthusiasm was just kept within bounds by two +drags on its quicksilver quality. These laggard spirits, Dora and May, +weighed upon their more enterprising companions. Neither could Annie and +Rose quite shut their eyes to the increase of wrinkles on their father's +face, and to their mother's red eyes when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> she came down of a morning. +If it had not been for these small drawbacks, it is to be feared that +Annie and Rose would have arrived at such a height of <i>tête exaltée</i> +that they would have begun to rejoice in their own and their neighbours' +misfortunes. There was something so fresh and exciting in looking about +for openings and careers, in calculating how they were to earn their +bread—which would taste so sweet to those who earned it—and at the +same time save money. They were not quite so insane as to propose to +amass fortunes and fling them into the gulf caused by the crumbling away +of the late bank in order to redeem their father's pledge as a +shareholder. But surely in the course of a year or two they might help +him, and generally assist in keeping the old folks at home in state and +bounty.</p> + +<p>Annie and Rose looked on working for themselves in a very different +light from that in which they regarded Tom Robinson's sticking to his +father's and grandfather's shop. To be sure, they did not start with any +intention of keeping shops. Even if they had done so, the descent might +have been redeemed by a dash of sentiment and romance which did not +apply in the least to a man with only himself to look to, a man of +independent means to boot, who had forgotten what was expected from a +gentleman.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>There was no danger of Dora or May's being infected with their sisters' +frame of mind. Dora and May were mortally ashamed of themselves. They +feared they were not of the stuff of which heroines—not to say +martyrs—were made. They looked back almost as fondly and sadly as their +mother looked on the old state of matters. They dreaded with a shrinking +terror going away from home, leaving their people, facing the cold, +critical world, being left to their own slender resources. It was bad +enough in Dora, but it was really dreadfully disappointing in May, with +her youthful learning, to have so little spirit and courage; still so it +was, and in the meantime there was no help for it. Dora might have been +glad for purely personal reasons to get away from Redcross for a time; +but she was not thrown into Tom Robinson's company, and the fact of his +refusal had been kept so quiet by the Millars that, unless he himself +betrayed it, which was not likely, the greatest gossip in the place +could only suspect the truth.</p> + +<p>It was a small comfort to the unheroic pair, and perhaps to Annie and +Rose also, though they did not consciously take it into account, that +all the older professional men in the town, the leaders and those who +were on most intimate terms, were "in the same boat," as Dr. Millar had +said. But there was a family named Dyer lately settled at Red<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>cross, a +semi-retired stockbroker, with his wife and daughters, who had come from +London to occupy Redcross Manor-house—naturally they had nothing to do +with Carey's Bank, and were still supposed to be rolling in wealth, as +they had been reported from the first. However, there was a notion that +the Dyers' riches had not been acquired in any very refined fashion. +Cyril Carey had always insisted, as he settled his collar and twirled +his cane, that stockbroker was simply pawnbroker writ large. Anyhow the +Dyers were not so distinguished in mind and manners as they were +wealthy. Old conservative folks sighed at the idea of Redcross +Manor-house, which had belonged to the Cliftons from time immemorial, +till the last Clifton fell into the hands of the Jews before he was +twenty, and was driven to break the entail by the time he was forty, +passing to a family of Dyers. The best that could be said of them was, +that the old people were comparatively inoffensive and the young were +presentable. They were inclined to be friendly with the town—it might +be till they could secure a footing with the county people, if that were +possible. They dressed well, thanks to their milliners and dressmakers, +kept a good table, a good stable, and a good staff of domestics, and +furnished Redcross—especially young Redcross—with country-house +hospitalities and gay gather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>ings, which they would otherwise have +lacked. Yet fanatics of young people like Annie and Rose Millar, who +were persuaded that they were now well acquainted with a reverse of +fortune, began to behave as if they considered it was no longer the +<i>crême de la crême</i> of human experience to amass and retain a fortune. +They began to pity the rampantly prosperous family for the lack on their +part of any knowledge of life's vicissitudes, with their trumpet call to +earnest effort and supreme self-devotion—all that makes man or woman +worthy of the name. As for the younger Dyers, they were content to echo +the sentiments of their mouthpiece, the head of their house. He spoke in +the privacy of his family with a half-affable, half-contemptuous concern +for those unfortunate beggars of uppish Redcross townspeople who had all +come to smash by the failure of one paltry twopenny-halfpenny local +bank.</p> + +<p>The Millars were constantly hearing of fresh examples of hardship, and +courage to meet the hardship, piquing and inciting them to enterprise +and self-sacrifice on their own account. Now it would be May, who would +come in from Miss Burridge's with a blanched face, crying, "Oh! you +girls, do you know Ella Carey has gone and is not coming back again? +Phyllis is crying her eyes out, because she and Ella were never +separated before.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> No, Ella has not gone to be a lady-help, as she +thought she might do, after she had got a little more practice in +washing dishes and peeling potatoes. It is nothing bad, except that she +is gone for good and all, and it has been so sudden. And Mrs. Carey says +Ella is not to come back. One of her sisters, the one without children, +Mrs. Tyrrel, wrote and offered to take either of the girls. And what do +you think Mrs. Carey said? That Ella must go, because if she went there +would be a mouth less to feed. She was sorry, because she said it was +giving up Ella, and she told her she must not expect to have much more +to do with Phyllis and the rest of them at home, for it would be out of +the question, in the different circumstances of the Tyrrels and Careys, +for them to carry on frequent or intimate intercourse. Ella would have +refused if she had dared, for she is so fond of Phyllis and all of them, +even of her mother, though she has grown very hard since the bank +failed. She used to let the girls have their own way. Don't you +remember, Rose, she allowed us to dress up for charades out of her +wardrobe? Why, you once wore her wedding-gown pinned up round you. But +Mrs. Carey would not give Ella any choice. She repeated that there would +be one mouth the less to feed. She said Ella was the elder, and it was +her duty to her father and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> creditors to go. So all poor Ella's +things were sought out and packed up last night—the letter only came +yesterday. She has had no time to bid Rose and me, or any of her other +friends, good-bye. She started with Cyril early this morning, and I +don't know what Phyllis will do without her."</p> + +<p>"She must do the best she can," said Annie promptly, "and occupy herself +with something better than gossiping with you when she chances to meet +you coming from school. I suppose that was the manner in which you heard +all this; I don't think Mrs. Carey will approve of such a waste of +time."</p> + +<p>"But, Annie," pled May, with her dark eyes ready to brim over, "poor +Phyllis has only me now, and she has a great many messages to go, +because their single servant has so much work to do in the house that +she cannot get out marketing. Mrs. Carey is always walking or sitting +with Mr. Carey. If it were not so, Phyllis is sure that her mother would +go out and not mind taking the market-basket herself—a rough, heavy +market-basket. The Careys' servants used to complain because one of them +was expected to carry it in the mornings. Phyllis is glad to let me have +it sometimes, her arms get tired and ache so. You see Jack and Dick are +not often home from school<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> in time, and then they have the boots and +knives to clean. Cyril would carry it for her after it was dark, but +Mrs. Carey won't let her go out then, and sends her off to bed that she +may get up earlier for what she has to do in the morning."</p> + +<p>That rough market-basket over which the Careys' former servants had +grumbled, was like a badge of honour in certain shining eyes—far more +so than Thirza Dyer's thoroughbred, or Camilla and Gussy Dyer's +exquisite hats and dainty parasols. Even Annie Millar was not too old or +too wise to refrain from wishing that Mrs. Millar, who still would not +let her daughters soil their fingers if she could help it, had sent them +out marketing in their native town, each in her turn flourishing a +market-basket.</p> + +<p>At another time it would be Rose who would arrive flushed and breathless +with the great piece of news that Ned Hewett had taken the post of +station-master at a small station somewhere on the Yorkshire moors. He +had done it when nothing else turned up, without waiting to consult his +father. But the Rector had not forbidden him when he heard. Steadiness +and punctuality had always been Ned's strong points, so that, though he +had not taken his degree at the university, and his old masters had said +they were not surprised to hear it, he might be trusted not to wreck +trains, slay<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> their passengers, and find himself tried for manslaughter. +The difficulty was to fancy a big, slow fellow like Ned rushing here and +there in a noisy, fussy little station. After all, it would only be +noisy and fussy at long intervals, and on rare occasions, "somewhere on +the Yorkshire moors." Ned might have time and space to walk about in. +But what of the uniform? Would the poor boy—they had all known him as a +boy—who had once cherished the notion of going into the army, have to +wear a railway company's coat and a station-master's cap? How funny it +sounded! Well, not altogether funny. There were Dora and May crying at +the bare anticipation. If they were ever on the Yorkshire moors, and had +to greet Ned in this extraordinary guise, it would be awkward for all +parties, to say the least. What were they thinking of? Of course they +would be proud to greet him when he was twice the man that he had ever +been. No doubt Cyril Carey would be glad to have Ned's chance; Cyril, +who had renounced his delicate plush vests and Indian gold chains and +charms, his loitering and dawdling, and taken to a shabby shooting-suit +and spade-husbandry. He was getting rid of his time and keeping out of +his mother's way by digging aimlessly in the garden. He was inquiring, +in a desultory fashion, all over Redcross for any opening in an office +which he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> could fill. He was not likely to find such an opening unless +it were made for him out of charity. He had not been trained to office +work, and he was far from having Ned Hewett's reputation for steadiness +and punctuality. If Tom Robinson should be the charitable man and ask +Cyril, a schoolfellow and college chum, to help him with his accounts, +the head of "Robinson's" would have to be at the trouble of running up +every column of figures over again. Cyril might ride to hounds and row +in a boat-race with the best; he might even have some elegant +acquaintance with the renaissance and old French, and be capable of +distinguishing himself in stately Latin verse, though that sounded more +than doubtful when he had been plucked at his university—the +inhabitants of Redcross did not, as a rule, pretend to be judges in such +matters. What they did know, because it had oozed out some time before, +was that Cyril Carey, though a banker's son, was lamentably weak in +arithmetic, and his handwriting would have been held a disgrace to any +shop-boy.</p> + +<p>Money was required to start lads in the world in the humblest fashion. +Ned Hewett wanted an outfit, and if possible furniture for his +station-house, that he might not begin on credit. Even girls, though +they had been a good deal set aside in such consideration, could not +enter on an independent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> career without money any more than boys could. +The Millars were therefore thankful that Mrs. Millar had a little money +of her own, not above a hundred and fifty pounds a year, settled upon +her from the first, by one of those marriage contracts which are so hard +to break, and she could use it to supply what was needed for the girls, +who were going into the world with such dauntless spirits and light +hearts.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_vii" id="chapter_vii"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">ROSE GOES WEST AND ANNIE GOES EAST.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">In</span> the end it was settled, to Annie and Rose's great satisfaction, and +no less to the temporary relief of Dora and May's quaking hearts, that +the two former were to take the first plunge into unknown waters. If +things had been as they were formerly, and there had been leisure to +spare from rougher rubs for highly delicate considerations, it might, as +has been hinted, have been held that Dora should have been the sister +selected to go away from Redcross—at least for a time.</p> + +<p>But a great deal had happened since Tom Robinson's unsuccessful suit and +all connected with it had been in honour hushed up. People had too many +weighty matters to think of to keep in mind that small sentimental +episode between a couple of young people.</p> + +<p>Rose's fate was chalked out from the first. She was to be an +artist—that went without saying. She had certainly artistic talent, she +might have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> genius. But though she had been tolerably well trained so +far, by a good drawing-master at Miss Burridge's, and by the lessons she +had received from the wandering exhibitor at the Academy and the +Grosvenor, neither she nor her family could be sufficiently infatuated +to imagine she wanted no more teaching. Their conceptions of art might +be crude, and their faith in Rose unbounded, but they did not suppose +that she had only to open her portfolio and sell its contents as often +as it was full. Dr. and Mrs. Millar made up their minds, Rose agreeing +with them, that she should have at least a year in a London studio.</p> + +<p>All the three considered it very fortunate when the artist who had +given her lessons at Redcross, hearing of her intention, and of what +had rendered it incumbent on her to work for her living, not only +recommended a studio in which art classes were held, but good-naturedly +gave her a testimonial and helped her to a post as assistant +drawing-mistress in a ladies' school, a situation which she could fill +on two days of the week, while she attended the art classes on the +remaining four. The salary thus obtained was of the smallest, but it +would supplement Mrs. Millar's allowance to Rose, and help to pay her +board in some quiet, respectable family living midway between the +school and the studio. Rose was a lucky girl, and she thought herself +so. Indeed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> that minimum salary raised her to such a giddy pinnacle in +her own estimation that it nearly turned her head. It was only her +sisters, the wise Annie among them, who regarded the assistant +drawing-mistress-ship with impatience as a waste of Rose's valuable +time and remarkable talents.</p> + +<p>A qualification came soon to Rose's exultation and to her pride in being +the first of her father's daughters—and she the third in point of +age—who had just left school, and had hardly been reckoned grown-up by +Annie till quite lately—to earn real tangible money, gold guineas, +however few. For something better still befell Annie. If Rose was lucky, +Annie was luckier. True, she would never be a great artist, she would +never get hundreds and thousands for a picture. At the utmost she would +only be at the head of a charitable institution. She might save the +greater part of her income then, and hand it over to her father, but +that was a very different prospect from the other. Still, from the +beginning Annie would be, so to speak, self-supporting; she need not +cost her mother or anybody else a penny, her very dress would be +provided for her. Above all Annie was going to do a great deal of good, +to be a comfort and blessing, not only to her people, but to multitudes +besides. She was, please God, to help to lessen the great crushing mass +of pain and misery in the world, not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> by passive, sentimental sympathy, +not by little fitful, desultory doles of practical aid, but by the +constant daily work of her life. Young as Rose was, and enamoured of art +in her way, she was able to comprehend that if Annie could do that +worthy deed, her life would be greater in a sense, fuller in its +humanity, perhaps also sweeter than that of the most famous and +successful painter.</p> + +<p>Annie had always taken a lively interest in her father's profession, and +he had liked her to do so. He had been fond of talking to her about it, +and enlightening her on some of its leading principles. He had even +pressed her into his service in little things, and been gratified by the +hereditary firmness and lightness of grasp and touch, the control over +her own nerves and power of holding those of others in check, the quick +and correct faculty of observation she had displayed. But with all his +loyal allegiance to the calling which had been his father's before it +was his, which he would have liked to see his son fill, if a son had +been born to him, he was taken aback and well-nigh dismayed, as her +mother was, when Annie came and told them quietly that she had made up +her mind, if they would consent, to go into an hospital and be trained +for a nurse. He laid before her as calmly and clearly as he could the +conditions of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> undertaking, and reminded her that it could not be +gone into by halves, while he thought, as he spoke, that Annie was not +the style of young woman to go into anything by halves.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Millar followed with a trembling recital of the painfulness, the +absolute horror to a young girl of many of the details of the office. +But Annie was not shaken in the least. "I should not mind that," she +asserted with conviction. "I know there must be strict discipline and +hard trying work, with no respite or relaxation to speak of; but I am +young and strong, fitter to stand such an ordeal than most girls of my +age are qualified. I am too young, you say? Yes, I admit that; it is a +pity—at least I know I have always reckoned myself too young when the +thought crossed my mind six months—a year ago, of leaving home and +becoming trained for a nurse."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to say, Annie, that you ever thought of going out into +the world before our misfortunes in connection with the bank?" cried +both father and mother in one breath.</p> + +<p>Annie hung her shapely head a little, then held it up, and confessed +frankly, "Yes, I have. Oh, you must forgive me. It was not from any +failure of kindness on your part, or, I trust, any failure on mine to +appreciate your kindness, for I believe you are the best, dearest father +and mother in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> world," she cried, carried out of herself, and +betrayed into enthusiasm. "But what were you to do with a houseful of +girls, when one would have served to give you all the help you need, +mother, in your housekeeping and the company you see? I <i>have</i> hated the +idea of being of no use in the world, unless I chanced to marry," ended +Annie, with a quick, impatient sigh.</p> + +<p>"My dear, you are talking exaggerated nonsense." Mrs. Millar reproved +her daughter with unusual severity, dislodging her cap by the energy +of her remonstrance, so that Annie had to step forward promptly, +arrest it on its downward path, and set it straight before the +conversation went any further. "Nobody said such things when I was +young. I was one of a household of girls, far enough scattered now, +poor dears!"—parenthetically apostrophizing herself and her youthful +companions with unconscious pathos—"I would have liked to hear any +one say to us, or to our father and mother, that we were no good in +the world. I call it a positive sin in the young people of this +generation to be so restless and dissatisfied, and so ready to take +responsibilities upon themselves. It is a temptation of Providence to +send such calamities as the one we are suffering from. You will know +more about life when you are forced to work for yourself, and do not +set about it out of pure presumption <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>and self-will, with a good home +to fall back upon when you are tired of your fad."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Millar had been hurt and mortified by Annie's avowal. She had been +further nettled by the slighting reflection on a houseful of girls, made +by one of themselves, while she, their mother, the author of their +being, poor unsophisticated woman! had always been proud of her band of +bright, fair young daughters, and felt consoled by their very number for +the lack of a son.</p> + +<p>"Come, come, mother," said Dr. Millar, "you must make allowance for the +march of ideas."</p> + +<p>"I cannot help it," said Annie, with another quick sigh. "I suppose +girls are not so easily satisfied as they once were, or they have been +taken so far, and not far enough, out of their place. I could not have +remained content with tennis-playing and skating, or <i>réchauffé</i> school +music, French and German, or fancy work, however artistic—not even with +teaching once a week in the Rector's Sunday-school—for my object in +life. But after the way in which things have turned out, there is no +need to discuss former views. Mother dear, it is surely well that I had +not a hankering after idleness, after lying in bed half the forenoon, as +people say the Dyers do, getting up only to read the silliest and +fastest of novels, with secret aspirations after diamonds and a carriage +and pair,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> if not a coach and six. Of course I should not have been +contented with a one-horse shay, a mere doctor's pill-box, such as you +have put down, father, which Rose and May are determined to set up for +you again before they are many year's older."</p> + +<p>"Good little chits!" exclaimed the little Doctor, blowing his nose +suspiciously. "Tell them, Annie, that I like walking above all things. I +find it a great improvement on driving. I have been troubled with—let +me see, oh! yes, cold feet—a deficiency in the circulation, not at all +uncommon when one gets up in years, and after walking a bit I feel my +toes all tingling and as warm as a toast."</p> + +<p>"I should prefer nursing to any other mode of earning my living," said +Annie, keeping to her point. "I may be presumptuous, like the girls of +my day, as mother says, but I really think that I have a natural turn +for nursing, derived from you father, and grandfather, no doubt, which +might have made me also a good doctor supposing I had been a man, or +supposing I had sought from the first to be a medical woman and had been +educated accordingly. If I am wrong, you will set me right, won't you?"</p> + +<p>In place of contradicting her, he simply nodded in acquiescence, while +he linked his hands across the small of his back.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>"Mother, I do not think I should shrink from dressing wounds, if I only +knew the best thing to do to avoid danger and give relief. You remember +when Bella burnt her arm badly from the elbow to the wrist, I tied it up +to keep out the air, before father came in, and he said it was rightly +done, and would not change the dressing. And when poor Tim, who has lost +his place with the putting down of the brougham, gave his hand the +terrible hack with the axe in breaking wood for cook, I was able to stop +the loss of blood, and did not get in the least faint myself. Yes, I +know it would be very pitiful to see a human creature die whom we could +not save," she added, in a lower tone, "and very sad to prepare such a +one for the grave. But, dear mother, somebody has to do it at some time, +and I may be the somebody one day, anyhow I shall have to be indebted to +my neighbour to do the last charitable offices for me. It might be all +the easier to look forward to in my own case if I had done it for other +people, not merely because they were my own, just because they were +God's creatures, and He had set me, among other women, to do the +sorrowful work, and would lend me strength for the task."</p> + +<p>"I believe it, Annie," said Dr. Millar firmly, as he looked at the +reverently bent head, and listened to the faltering yet faithful words.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>Mrs. Millar said no more, though the poor lady still shivered, as she +looked at the girl in her brilliant youthful bloom. It was too terrible +to think of her associated with disease and death, she whom her father +and mother would have sheltered from every rough wind. Yet what was +pretty Annie in the ranks of humanity, in the march of history? The +frivolous product of a heathen world, the feminine counterpart of some</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 280px;"> +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">"Idle singer of an empty day"?</p> +</div> + +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">or—</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 360px;"> +<p style="text-indent: 0px:">"A creature breathing thoughtful breath,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">A traveller 'twixt life and death"—</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">a Christian girl who with all true Christians had the Lord Christ, who +went about doing good, for an everlasting example? And had there not all +along been something fine in Annie, under her superficial hardness and +inclination to conceal her feelings, something which her family had not +suspected, brought to light by their troubles? something of which +everybody connected with her would be prouder in all humility, with +reason, in the days to come, than they had ever been proud of her +supreme prettiness and lively tongue in times past.</p> + +<p>"It is a pity about my age," went on Annie ingenuously, lamenting over +her deficiency in years as other people lament over their superfluity in +that respect, "but it is a fault which will mend<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> every day. I have +found out that there are two hospitals which make twenty-three—just a +year older than I am—the age of admission for probationers, and there +is one hospital that admits them at twenty. Would not the fact of my +being a doctor's daughter go for something? Have you not interest, +father, if you care to exert it, to get the hospital authorities to +stretch a point where I am concerned? You might tell them that I am the +eldest of the family," drawing up her not very tall figure, "that I have +been treated as grown-up for years and years, and that I have several +younger sisters whom I have tried to keep in order." There was a +returning twinkle in Annie's brown eyes and a comical curve of her rosy +lips.</p> + +<p>But she relapsed into extreme gravity the next moment; indeed, she was +more agitated than she had yet been, and for Annie to betray an approach +to tearfulness was a rare spectacle.</p> + +<p>"There is something worse than my age. I am afraid I am not half good +enough. I have a hasty temper; you have frequently said so, mother. I +often speak sharply, and am not always aware when I am doing it. I hurt +people, as I hurt myself, without being able to help it—something seems +to come over me and impel me to do it. Often I cannot resist making game +of people. I am so silly and fond of fun, like a child, a great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> deal +worse than 'little May' ever is, when the fit is upon me. Now, if I +could think that I should lose patience with poor sick people, and wound +instead of comforting them, or that I should find them food for my love +of the ridiculous, and forget and neglect their wants in following my +own amusement, I should hate myself—I would die sooner than so disgrace +a nurse's calling."</p> + +<p>"You would not do it, my dear," said Dr. Millar, with calm conviction.</p> + +<p>"Why, what treason is this you are speaking against yourself?" cried +Mrs. Millar, bristling up in her daughter's defence, the assailant being +that daughter. "You unkind or unfeeling when there was any call for +kindness—whoever heard of such a thing? I should as soon suspect Dora +of harshness or levity in the same circumstances. Don't you remember my +bad eyes last winter, when I had to get that tincture dropped into them +so often that your father could not always be at home to do it? You +dropped the tincture as well as your father could, and though I know I +must have made faces wry enough to frighten a cat, you never vouchsafed +a remark, and I did not hear the ghost of a laugh. Poor Dora was ready +to read to me by the hour, and to fetch and carry for me all day long, +but when she tried to drop the tincture her hand shook so that she sent +the liquid down my cheeks; and she was so frightened for giving me pain +that I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> could see when I opened my eyes she was as white as a sheet, and +fit to faint herself."</p> + +<p>"Dora's hand will get steadier and her heart harder by and by," said Dr. +Millar, laughing. "Not that she has the knack of the operator, any more +than you have, Maria. I don't think one of you has it, except Annie +here."</p> + +<p>"That was nothing," said Annie quickly. She added in a lower tone, "And +oh, mother, how could you imagine that I should laugh at your pain?"</p> + +<p>"It was only for a moment, and I daresay it was not agonizing, as I was +tempted to call it; very likely your father and you would not have so +much as winced at it. Then there was Miss Sill, poor old Miss Sill. +Annie, I am afraid you girls laughed at her. Girls will be girls, and +she does dress outrageously. You all said her mantles were worse than my +cap," tenderly touching that untrustworthy piece of head-gear. "When she +sent for your father all of a sudden, just when he had been summoned to +Dr. Hewett's brother, who was very ill, as we knew, while we thought +Miss Sill had only one of her maiden-lady fancies, your father told you +to go over and say he would be with her in the course of the day. But +you found her nearly choking with bronchitis. How you were not +frightened out of your senses, I, who am a great deal more than twice +your age, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> mother of a family, cannot tell. You propped her up +in exactly the right position, saw to the temperature of the room, and +caused her cook to bring in the kitchen boiler and set it to steam on +the hob, before another doctor could be found. Miss Sill told me all +about it afterwards; she believes she owes her life to you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, nonsense," protested Annie, "I was a little better than her two +servants, who stood looking at her, and beginning to sob and cry; but I +made several gross mistakes. You told me about them afterwards, father; +it was a great mercy that I did not cause her death."</p> + +<p>"So far from that," continued Mrs. Millar, in triumphant defiance, "she +calls you her young doctor to this day, and says she will send for you +in preference to your father or any other doctor the next time she has +an attack."</p> + +<p>"Infatuated woman!" declared Annie.</p> + +<p>"I have not needed to talk to you in order to get you to go with your +sisters and see her since then. You have gone of your own accord twice +as often, and I am sure you have not laughed at her half so much. In +fact, I believe you are becoming quite attached to her."</p> + +<p>"I suppose I am grateful to her for not dying in my unskilled hands. I +am afraid I still think her rather fantastic and foolish; but it does +make a difference in one's judgment of a person to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> really rendered +him or her a service. I ought to be fond of Miss Sill, after all, if she +is to rank as my first patient."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Millar sank into silence on the instant. She stood convicted in her +own eyes. What had she been doing? Proving to her daughter's +satisfaction that she had the special talents of a nurse!</p> + +<p>"I am very glad that mother and you think me—not by any means good +enough, of course, not that, but not too impatient, sarcastic, and +trifling to be a nurse," said Annie brightly, addressing her father, who +simply acquiesced in an absent-minded fashion.</p> + +<p>After that there was no serious objection made to Annie's wish, great as +the wonder was at first—a shock to her relations no less than to her +acquaintances. The former reconciled themselves sooner to it than did +the latter, with an entire faith in Annie and an affectionate admiration +which was genuine homage. It swelled Dora's heart well-nigh to bursting +with sister-worship. How good Annie was showing herself, how capable of +great acts of self-denial and self-consecration, while she was prettier +than ever with her graceful head, her merry brown eyes, and that soft, +warm colour of hers!</p> + +<p>Only Mrs. Millar lay awake at night and cried quietly over what lay +before her young daughter, her first-born, the flower of the flock, as +people had called her in reference to her beauty. Annie's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> pretty +Grand-aunt Penny had at least enjoyed her day; she had had her triumph, +however short-lived, in marrying the man of her heart, who was also a +Beauchamp of Waylands, and in being raised for even a brief space to the +charmed circle of the county. What she had to go through—whether she +would or not—in the end, was not worse than Annie was proposing to +encounter in the beginning, to live in an hospital, to spend her +blooming life amidst frightful accidents, raging fevers, the spasm of +agony replaced by the chill silence and stillness of death. Annie's +father's time and strength had been given in much the same cause, ever +since he was a young man passing his examinations and taking his +diploma. But he was a man, which changed the whole aspect of affairs; +besides he had always had a cheerful home to come back to, with the +command of all the social advantages which Redcross, his native town, +could afford. He had not lived among his patients with no life to speak +of separate from theirs.</p> + +<p>At the same time Mrs. Millar felt herself powerless. She dared no more +interfere to keep back Annie from her calling than a good Roman Catholic +mother would forbid her daughter's "vocation."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_viii" id="chapter_viii"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">STANDING AND WAITING.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">It</span> was all over in its earlier stages, that dividing and dispersing of +the goodly young group of sisters, that bereaving and impoverishing of +the abandoned home to which Dora and May had looked forward with such +fear and pain, for which all Dr. Millar's fortitude and all his wife's +meekness had been wanted to enable them to bear it with tolerable +calmness. It was only Annie and Rose doing what every young man, with +few exceptions, has to do. It was only their going away to work out +their bents in London. They had often gone from home and followed +various impulses and promptings before. But this was different. All who +were left behind had a sure intuition that this was the beginning of the +end, the sifting and scattering which every large family must undergo if +their time is to be long on earth. Annie and Rose might often come back +on visits. Rose might even set up a studio in Redcross and work<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> there, +but it would not be the same. She would be an independent member of +society, with her own interests to think of—however faithfully and +affectionately she might still be concerned for the interests of +others—and her individual career to follow. Her separate existence +would no longer be merged in that of a band of sisters; it would stand +out clearly and distinctly far apart from the old state of tutelage and +subserviency of each unit to the mass. The lament of the tender old +Scotch song over the departing bride applied equally to Annie and Rose, +though there were no gallant "Jamies" to accuse of taking them "awa', +awa'." In the same manner it was not so much over the cause of their +going that Dora and May lamented, or the father and mother's hearts were +sorrowful, as</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 310px;"> +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">"Just that they'd aye be awa', awa'."</p> +</div> + +<p>One day as May was coming back from school she met Tom Robinson, and he +stopped her to ask how the family were, and to tell her something. There +had always been less restraint in his and May's greetings than there had +been in those of the others since his dismissal as a suitor. There was +something in May's mingled studiousness and simplicity, and in the +strong dash of the child in her, which dissipated his shyness and +tickled his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> fancy. If matters had turned out otherwise than they had +done, he told himself vaguely, he and "little May" would have been a +pair of friends. He had no sister, and she had no brother, and he would +have liked to play the brother to this most artless of learned ladies. +"Look here, Miss May," he said, after the usual formulas, while he +turned and walked a few paces by her side, "do you remember the +fox-terrier puppy I was to have got for you and your sister Rose, in the +spring? Well, he died of distemper, poor little brute; but I have heard +of another of the same kind that has had the complaint. I could get him +for you if you cared to have him."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I am so much obliged to you, Mr. Robinson, so very much obliged," +cried May, beaming with gratitude and pleasure. "Rose and I did so wish +to have that dear little puppy which you brought down to show to us +once—don't you remember? and so it is dead, poor little pet; and Rose +has gone away to London to be regularly trained as an artist, just as +Annie is in St. Ebbe's learning to be a nurse. I suppose you have +heard," she ended a little solemnly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have heard—let me carry these books for you a bit—what is +there of Redcross news that one does not hear?" Then he paused abruptly, +while there darted simultaneously across his mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> and May's whether his +speech did not sound as if he thought that Dora Millar's refusal of him +must be public property? "For that very reason," he went on with a +momentary shade of awkwardness, "I mean, because two of your sisters are +gone, I fancied you might like this other little dog to keep you +company."</p> + +<p>"I have Dora," said May simply, and then she dashed on in an unhappy +consciousness that she ought not to have mentioned Dora's name to him on +any account. "I should like it immensely though—thank you a hundred +thousand times, it was so good of you to think of me. But Rose could not +have it now, could she? and she wished it quite as much as I did. It +does not seem nice to have it when she is not here to share it," +finished May, with wistful jealousy for Rose's rights in the matter.</p> + +<p>"I do not see the force of that objection," said Tom Robinson, +cheerfully. "Rose has something else instead. She has all London to +occupy her. I am certain she would like you to make the best of Redcross +without her."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and of course the little dog would be half hers, the same as if +Rose were here. She would see it every time she came home. She might +have her turn of it at her studio, when she gets a studio. In the +meantime I could write full<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> particulars of it, how it grew and what it +learnt. Oh, Mr. Robinson, has it white boots like the other you +brought?"</p> + +<p>"I am afraid I did not attend to his boots, or to his stockings either +for that matter," said Tom with a laugh; "but he has a coal-black +muzzle, his teeth are in perfect order, and I believe he has the correct +tan spots."</p> + +<p>"If mother would let us," said May longingly. "You know Rose and I had +not spoken to her about it; we were waiting for a good opportunity to +ask her, when you were so kind as to give us the chance of having the +other little dog. Mother seldom refuses us anything which she can let us +have, still Rose was not sure that mother would give her consent. You +see she is troubled about the stair-carpets and the drawing-room rugs, +and the garden-beds, and we were afraid she would think we should have +the dog with us everywhere."</p> + +<p>"Then it rested with yourself, I should say, to show her that you could +keep a dog in his proper place."</p> + +<p>"But I doubt if I could," said May candidly, shaking her head, with the +brown hair which had till recently hung loose on her shoulders, now +combed smoothly back, and twisted into as "grown-up" a twist as she +could accomplish the feat; while to keep the tucked-up hair in company,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> +her skirt was let down to the regulation length for young ladies. +"Indeed, I am almost certain I could not refuse anything to a dear +little dog coming to me and sitting up and begging for what he wanted. +What is more, if I could Dora couldn't." She could have bitten out her +tongue the next instant. What was she doing always speaking of Dora? +What would he think? That she was wilfully dragging her sister's name +into the conversation? And what had tempted her to say that Dora could +not refuse anything to a dog, when she had refused her heart in exchange +for his to the man walking beside May?</p> + +<p>He made no remark. If his mouth twitched a little in reproach or +sarcasm, she could not see it under his red moustache; besides, she +dared not look at him.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," continued Miss Malapropos, "how I could let you know what +mother thought." She never once suggested his bringing the dog for +inspection, as he had brought the other, or calling for her answer.</p> + +<p>"You might drop me a note," he said, stopping to give her back her +books, "and I hope for your sake that it may be favourable, for this is +a nice little dog, and I think you would like him."</p> + +<p>May went home more nearly on the wings of the wind than she had done +since Rose's departure,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> and presented her petition. Mrs. Millar could +not find it in her heart to refuse it, though the stair-carpet, the +drawing-room rugs, and the garden-beds were all to be sacrificed.</p> + +<p>"Poor little May! she misses Rose, though Dora and May have become great +friends of late. Dora is very good, and puts herself on an equality with +May, as Annie could not have done. Still, she does not rouse the child +as Rose roused her. What do you think, Jonathan? Would a little dog be +in your way? Would its barking disturb you?" Mrs. Millar appealed to her +husband.</p> + +<p>"Not in reason, Maria; not if it does not take to baying at the moon, +or yelping beyond bounds. Dora gives in too much to May, in place of +taking the child from her books, on which naturally she is inclined +to fall back. Dora has become her audience, and listens to her +performances—even aids and abets them. I caught them at it yesterday. +First May actually declaimed several paragraphs from a speech of +Cicero's, and next she got Dora to repeat after her the most crabbed +of the Greek verbs. I shall have a couple of blue-stockings, and what +is worse, one of them spurious, in the room of the single real +production I reckoned upon among my daughters. By all means let May +have a howling monster. She is not too old for a game of romps; and I +must say,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> though I have never opposed the higher education of women, +I don't want her cultivated into a gossamer, a woman all nerves and +sensations, before she is out of her teens."</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose Tom Robinson can still be thinking of Dora?" suggested +Mrs. Millar dubiously.</p> + +<p>"I wish he were," said the little Doctor, ruefully. "I wish he were. +Yes, Mrs. Millar, I am sufficiently mercenary or sordid, or whatever you +like to call it, where one of my daughters is concerned, to give +expression to that sentiment. But I should say he is not, unfortunately. +Robinson is a shy man, and, no doubt, proud after his fashion. It must +have taken a great effort—premature, therefore mistaken, according to +my judgment—for him to screw himself up to the pitch of proposing for a +girl of whose answering regard he was uncertain. Having made the blunder +and paid the penalty, he is not at all likely to put his fate to the +touch again, so far as Dora is concerned. He is not the style of +pertinacious, overbearing fellow who would persecute a woman with his +attentions and ask her twice. Poor Dora has lost her chance, I take it."</p> + +<p>"I cannot say that I think it any great loss, to this day," answered +Mrs. Millar, stubbornly. She gave a toss of her head, of such unusual +spirit,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> that it so nearly dislodged her cap. Dr. Millar involuntarily +put out a finger and thumb to lay hold of the truant. "We have our +worldly losses, to be sure, and the other poor dear girls have gone out +into the world very cheerfully. I must say I could not have done what +they have done with so good a grace—so heroic a grace, not to save my +life, Jonathan. But that is not to say that they are to be in haste to +marry—tradesmen. Indeed, when I come to think of it, the fact of their +being so independent and able to provide for themselves, ought to be +like having so many fortunes. It should entitle them to be more +particular, and free to pick and choose the husbands who exactly suit +them. Another thing, if our daughters are not worthy of being wooed and +wooed, and asked—not twice, but half a dozen times, before they are +persuaded to say yes, I don't know who is. The idea of their jumping at +any man!—you have drawn me into vulgar language, Jonathan,—the moment +he makes his bow is too bad or too good, I do not know which to say. You +do not mean that I ever accustomed you to such forward behaviour?"</p> + +<p>"No, no, Maria," the gentleman assured her with a smile, "far from it. +There was a bad epidemic raging at the time our little business came +off, don't you remember? I forget now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> whether it was small-pox or +scarlet fever, but I know I was not only tremendously busy, I dared not +go to your father's house. Then I heard that another swain—an officer +fellow from the barracks at Craigton was hanging about either you or +your poor sister Dolly, nobody could tell which, and I dared not delay +longer. I was driven to the supreme rashness of committing my suit to +paper, and what do you think you wrote back? Have you forgotten? You +thanked me very prettily for the compliment I had paid you, and you +promised to give the substance of my letter your best consideration. +Literally that was all—to a man worn off his feet with work and +hungering for a word of assurance."</p> + +<p>"Go away with you, sir," exclaimed his wife, restored to high good +humour, and tapping him on the shoulder. "You understood me +perfectly—you had wit enough for that. You went off directly and +ordered new drawing-room furniture, what we have to this day, on the +strength of that letter—you know you did."</p> + +<p>"Showed how far gone, and what a confiding simpleton I was," he said, +and then he tried again to set her right with regard to Tom Robinson. +"You don't understand Robinson, Maria. It is not that he was not in +earnest, or that he is fickle or anything of the kind. It is rather a +case of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> better man being beaten, and fools rushing in where angels +fear to tread. Such men as he is accept a sentence without disputing it, +because they do not think too much of themselves while they think a +great deal of other people. It is not a flaw in their sensitive +manliness, it is part and parcel of it, to know when they are dismissed, +and take the dismissal as final. They are not the most light-hearted and +sanguine of mortals, but they are constant enough, and brave enough to +boot, and a brave man is not without his compensations—</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 450px;"> +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">"'For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,'</p> +</div> + +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">"some poet has written."</p> + +<p>"So much the better," said Mrs. Millar, again with a suspicion of +hauteur in her voice. "It is lucky for all parties, since I have not the +slightest reason to suppose that Dora would change her mind."</p> + +<p>"Then why find fault with poor Tom Robinson?" Dr. Millar remonstrated in +vain.</p> + +<p>The appearance of the dog on the scene with his fine pointed nose, alert +eyes, incessantly vibrating little tail, and miniver black and white +coat picked out with tan, caused May as much excitement and delight as +if she did not know one Greek letter from another, and were innocent of +Latin quantities. She was so wrapped up in her acquisition,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> so devoted +to his tastes in food, the state of his appetite, his sleeping place, +the collar he was to have, that for the first time in her life she had +to be reminded of her books. It needed her great superiority to her +companions in any approach to scholarly intellect and attainment to +enable her to retain the first place in Miss Burridge's classical +department.</p> + +<p>"What shall we call him, Dora?" she earnestly consulted her sister, +hanging breathless on the important answer.</p> + +<p>"Call him whatever you like, May. You know he is your dog," said Dora +with decision.</p> + +<p>"Mine and Rose's," the faithful May made the amendment. "Of course Rose +must agree to any name we think of, or it cannot stand. Perhaps she +would like to choose the name as she is away. Don't you think it ought +to be put in her power—that she ought to have the compliment?" +suggested May quite seriously and anxiously. "I shall write to her this +very minute."</p> + +<p>But Rose, like Dora, left the name to May.</p> + +<p>"It was so kind of Tom Robinson to remember and offer him to me," said +May meditatively. "O Dora! do you think I might call him 'Tom'?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not," said Dora, with still greater decision. "What are you +thinking of, May? I don't suppose Mr. Robinson would relish having a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> +dog named for him. Besides, other people might wonder. 'Tom' is not an +ordinary name for a dog, though it is common enough for a man."</p> + +<p>"Nobody, not even the person most concerned, would know if I were to +call him 'Son,' the termination of 'Robinson,' you know," explained May, +after a moment spent in concocting this subtle amendment, and in +fondling the unconscious recipient of a title which was to distinguish +him from the mass of dogs.</p> + +<p>"Are you out of your senses, May?" was the sole comment Dora deigned to +deliver with some energy.</p> + +<p>"'Friend,'" speculated May; "there is nothing very distinctive about +'Friend,' and I am sure it was the act of a friend to get him for me."</p> + +<p>"'Foe' would be shorter and more easily said," was Dora's provoking +comment; "or why not 'Fox,' since he is a fox-terrier? You might also +desire to commemorate the donor's complexion, which you all used to call +foxy," said Dora, half reproachfully, half dryly.</p> + +<p>"I don't like <i>doubles entendres</i>," said May with dignity, "and if I +ever said anything unkind of Tom Robinson I don't wish to be reminded of +it now; anyhow, I could never give a sneer in return for a kindness."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't believe you could, May," said Dora, penitently.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>May continued a little nettled in spite of her natural good temper.</p> + +<p>"What are Shakespeare's names for little dogs?" she asked. "'Blanche,' +'Tray,' and 'Sweetheart.' You could not be 'Blanche,' could you, pet, +unless you were '<i>Blanche et Noir</i>'? and that is too long and reminds +one of a gaming-table. You could not be 'Sweetheart,'" went on May, +revenging herself with great coolness and deliberation in view of the +red that flew into Dora's cheeks; "no, of course not, because Mr. Tom +Robinson is not, never has been, and never will be <i>my</i> sweetheart. +There is only 'Tray' left. Well, I think it is rather a good name," +considered May, critically. "'Old dog Tray' is an English classic. It is +not altogether appropriate, because my Tray is just a baby terrier yet, +but we trust, he and I, that he will live to see a venerable age."</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_ix" id="chapter_ix"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">A WILFUL DOG WILL HAVE HIS WAY.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">Dora</span> and May walked out together regularly, a practice enforced by their +father as a provision for their health. To have Tray to form a third +person in their somewhat formal promenades certainly robbed them of +their formality, and introduced such an element of lively excitement +into them as to bear out Dora's comparison of their progresses +thenceforth to a succession of fox-hunts. For Tray was still in the +later stages of his puppyhood. He was frequently inspired by a demon of +mischief or haunted by a variety of vagabond instincts which such +training as he had received, without the support of prolonged discipline +and practical experience, failed to extinguish.</p> + +<p>May was very particular about his education in theory, but in practice +she fell considerably short of her excellent intentions. She always +carried a whip with a whistle in the handle; and the sight of the +instrument of punishment ought to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> been enough for Tray, since +there was no farther application of it. In reality, the sharp-sighted +little animal no more obeyed the veritable whistle than he winced under +the supposititious lash of the whip. He took his own way and did very +much what he liked in spite of the animated protests of his mistress. +Dora and May went out walking with Tray instead of Tray going on a walk +with them, and not infrequently the walk degenerated into an agitated +scamper at his heels. The scamper was diversified by a number of +ineffectual attempts to reclaim him from forcing his way into back-yards +and returning triumphantly with a bone or a crust between his teeth, "as +if we starved him, as if his dish at home was not generally half full, +though we've tried so hard to find out what he likes," said May +plaintively. If otherwise engaged it would be in chasing cats, running +down fowls, barking at message boys—to whom he had the greatest +antipathy—or, most serious foible of all, threatening to engage in +single combat with dogs twice his size and three times his age.</p> + +<p>There is no accounting for tastes, seeing that these tumultuous walks +were the delight of May's days, and that even Dora, with her inveterate +sympathy, enjoyed them, though they deranged somewhat her sense of +maidenly dignity and decorum. It was to be hoped that as Tray grew in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> +years he would grow in discretion, and would show a little forbearance +to the friends who were so forbearing to him.</p> + +<p>Tray, Dora, and May had gone on their customary expedition. The human +beings of the party were inclined to direct their steps as quickly as +possible to one of the country roads. Tray's eccentricities at the +present stage of his development were hardly calculated for the +comfortable traversing of a succession of streets and lanes. But the +canine leader of the party decided for the main street, and Dora and May +gave up their own inclinations, and followed in his erratic track with +their wonted cheerful submission.</p> + +<p>It was a fine October afternoon, when Redcross was looking its best. It +was rather a dull town, with little trade and few manufactories, but its +worst enemy could not deny it the corresponding virtues of cleanliness +and freedom from smoke. Here and there there was a grand old tree wedged +between the houses. In one or two instances, where the under part of the +house was brick, and the upper—an afterthought—was a projecting storey +of wood, the latter was built round the tree, with its branches +sheltering the roof in a picturesque, half foreign fashion. Here and +there were massive old houses and shops, with some approach to the size +and the substantial—even costly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>—fittings of "Robinson's." A side +street led down to a little sluggish canal which joined the Dewes, a +river of considerable size on which Redcross had originally been built. +This canal was crossed by a short solid stone bridge, bearing a quaint +enough bridge-house, still used as a dwelling-place.</p> + +<p>The sun was bright and warm without any oppressive heat. The leaves, +where leaves were to be seen, had yellow, russet, and red streaks and +stains, suggestive of brown nuts and scarlet berries in the hedges.</p> + +<p>The flowers in the many window-boxes in which Redcross indulged were +still, for the most part, gay with the deeper tints of autumn, the +purple of asters and the orange of chrysanthemums setting off the +geraniums blossoming on till the frost shrivelled them, and the seeded +green and straw-coloured spikes of the still fragrant mignonette.</p> + +<p>It was market-day, which gave but a slight agreeable stir to the drowsy +town. The ruddy faces and burly figures of farmers, whose imposing bulk +somehow did not decrease in keeping with the attenuated profits of +long-continued agricultural depression, were prominent on the pavement. +Little market carts, which closely shawled and bonneted elderly women, +laden with their market baskets, still found themselves disengaged +enough to drive, rattled over the cobble stones. An occasional<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> farm +labourer in a well-nigh exploded smock frock, who had come in with a +bullock or two, or a small flock of sheep, to the slaughter-house, +trudging home with a straw between his teeth, and his faithful collie at +his heels, made a variety in the town population.</p> + +<p>The latter consisted, at this hour, of shop boys and girls, boys from +the grammar school, a file of boarders from Miss Burridge's, who walked +as if "eyes right" and "eyes left" were the only motion permitted to +them, notwithstanding May's frantic signs to them to behold and admire +Tray's gambols; a professional man, or a tradesman, leisurely doing a +business errand; one or two ladies carrying the latest fashion in +card-cases, suggestive of afternoon calls.</p> + +<p>Tray's devious path took him in the direction of "Robinson's," in the +windows of which the golden brown of sable furs, the silver gray of rare +foxes', and the commoner dim blue of long-haired goats', were beginning +to enrich the usual display of silk and woollen goods.</p> + +<p>Following his own sweet will, Tray, considerably in advance of his +companions, darted into the shop.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what shall we do, May?" cried Dora in dismay; "you ought really to +put that dog in a leash when he <i>will</i> go into the town."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>"Better say a chain at once," answered May indignantly, vexed by the +imputation on her pet. "I am sure he has been as good as gold to-day. He +has not chased a single thing, and he has only once run away from us. +Couldn't I go in and fetch him out? I should not stay above a minute."</p> + +<p>"And I am to wait at the door while you hunt him round all the counters +and through the showrooms? I had much rather go in with you; but neither +do I care to enter the shop when I do not wish to buy anything. Really +Tray is too troublesome!"</p> + +<p>"Oh! don't say that," exclaimed May in distress. "Don't reflect on him +in case anything should happen to him," as if Dora's speech were likely +to bring down the vengeance of Heaven on the heads of all three. "He +soon finds out all he wants when he goes on private expeditions, and +then he runs back and looks for us. I think if we walked <i>very</i> slowly +his dear bright face, with one ear cocked up, would appear in the +doorway by the time we reached it."</p> + +<p>"Or some shop-lad may ask him what his business is, and turn him out. It +will be a lesson for him in future," said Dora, severely.</p> + +<p>Accordingly the sisters had to slacken their steps to a snail's pace as +they approached the great shop. They had a full view of the interior,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> +though it was a little dark, unless to the most modern taste. There was +an air of old-fashioned substantiality, comfort, and something like +modest dignity about the long-lasting, glossy brown roof and walls, in +harmony with the heavy counters and shelves, not too heavy for the bales +of every description, which with the contents of the innumerable boxes +had an established reputation of being "all of the best quality," not +figuratively but literally. The famous oak staircase, with the broad +shallow steps and the twisted balustrade, which would not have disgraced +a manor house, ran up right in the centre and terminated in a +gallery—like a musician's gallery—hung with Turkey carpets, Moorish +rugs, and "muslin from the Indies," and from the gallery various work +and show rooms opened. It was evident that "Robinson's" was considerably +older than the lifetime of the first Robinson—the silk-weaver and +wool-stapler who had used it as a mart for his wares. Though it was only +the product of a country town, it bore a resemblance to old London city +places of business. These were wont to have a Dutch atmosphere of +industry and sobriety, together with a fair share of the learning and +refinement of the times hanging about them, so that their masters +figured as honoured and influential citizens of the metropolis. +Belonging to the cate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>gory were the linen shop of a certain Alexander +Pope's father, and the law-stationer's shop, from which issued, in his +day, a beautiful youth known as "Master John Milton."</p> + +<p>There was the customary bustle of a market day at "Robinson's." Miss +Franklin was moving about in the women's department, seeing that +everybody there was served, and giving an occasional direction to the +women who served. She was, as Dora Millar had once described her, as +"fat as a pin-cushion," with what had been originally a fair +pink-and-white complexion, degenerated into the mottled "red all over," +into which such complexions occasionally pass in middle life. But she +looked like a lady by many small traits—by her quiet, easy movements; +by the clear enunciation and pleasant tones, which could be ringing when +necessary, of a cultivated voice that reached the ears of the +bystanders. She did not wear the conventional black silk or cashmere of +a shop-woman. There might be a lingering protest or a lurking vanity in +the myrtle-green gown and the little lace cap, with its tiny <i>nœuds</i> +of dark green riband, which she wore instead. One might guess by their +dainty decorum and becomingness that Miss Franklin had thought a good +deal, and to purpose, about dress, in her day—had made a study of it, +and taken pleasure in its finer effects. In that light she was the right +woman in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> the right place—presiding over the shop-women in a +linen-draper's shop. At the same time she belonged as clearly to the +upper middle class as did the two girls advancing towards the shop, who, +in place of being studiously well and handsomely dressed, were just a +little shabby, and careless how they looked in their last year's gray +velveteens, with hats to match, which Dora in her conscientious economy +had re-trimmed not very nicely.</p> + +<p>Lag as the girls might, they could not delay their progress much longer, +and their bosoms were torn with conflicting emotions. What were they to +do? Leave the truant Tray to his fate? Boldly halt before the next shop +window, and trust to his seeing and joining them there? Still more +boldly, enter and request "the body of the culprit" to be delivered up +to his owner? Before they could come to a decision, Tom Robinson himself +appeared in the foreground. He was speaking, or rather listening to a +giant of a farmer in a light overcoat and streaming cravat, who, in +place of treating the master of "Robinson's" as "a whipper-snapper of a +counter-jumper," was behaving to him with the most unsophisticated +deference. Yet Tom's under size and pale complexion looked more +insignificant than ever beside the mighty thews and sinews and perennial +bloom of his customer. In spite of that, Tom Robinson was as undeniably +a gentleman in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> the surroundings, as Miss Franklin was a lady, and the +big honest farmer recognized and accepted the fact. While the pair stood +there, and the farmer made an elaborate explanation of the matter in +hand—broadcloth or blankets probably—to which Tom attended +courteously, as courteously as he would have heard the deliverances of +the member of the county or the bishop, Tray flashed out of the mellow +obscurity of the background and sniffed vigorously at the trowser ankles +of the master of "Robinson's."</p> + +<p>"Hallo!" cried Tom, looking down at his feet.</p> + +<p>"A bit fine terrier-dawg, Mister Robinson, sir," remarked the farmer; +"but I'm thinking he's strayed."</p> + +<p>At the same instant both Tray and Tom caught sight of May's anxious face +peering in at the shop door. Tray rushed to his mistress with a +boisterously gracious greeting, which did not include the slightest +self-consciousness or sense of wrongdoing in its affability. Tom took a +couple of steps after him.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid, Miss May, you're spoiling that dog," he said, in friendly +remonstrance, before he observed who was with May, and stopped and bowed +with some constraint.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Mr. Robinson," replied May, in her volubility effacing any shy +attempt at greeting on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> Dora's part, "I am so sorry for Tray's rudeness +in going into your shop without being invited; but I do think he knew +you again, I am almost sure of it," she said eagerly, as if the +assurance were sufficient propitiation for any trifling lack of ceremony +where a reasonable human being was concerned.</p> + +<p>"It might have been better if I had known a little more of him," said +Tom musingly, biting his moustache, as he took leave of the three.</p> + +<p>Tray meandered down the street, followed hurriedly by his mistress and +Dora. Tom looked after them, and speculated into how many more scrapes +the brute would get the girls, wondered too if one of them would think +she had him to thank for the infliction, and that it was an odd instance +of the friendship which he had pressed her to give him in lieu of a +warmer feeling. That friendship was not progressing very rapidly, though +the world might consider the Millars more in need of friends than when +he had begged to make one of the number. But Tom Robinson knew better. +These girls were enough for themselves in any emergency. They would +never fall back on friends or depend upon them. Even Dora, who had +stayed at home with May, would suffer in silence and bear anything with +and for her family, before she would complain or ask help.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>Tray's errant fancy finally took him down a lane leading to the Dewes +and to a sheltered walk between rows of yellowing elms by the side of +the river. The girls were at last able to enjoy themselves. They +sauntered along, talking at their ease, watching the bars of sunlight on +the water, and the crowds of flies in the golden mist which the approach +of sunset was drawing down over everything, and listening to a robin +singing on a bough, when their misadventures for one day culminated and +their worst apprehensions were fulfilled. A mongrel collie advancing in +the opposite direction, with no better qualified guardian than a young +servant girl, who had also a perambulator containing a couple of small +children to look after, aroused the warlike spirit of Tray. He growled +defiance and bristled in every hair, while Dora caught nervously at his +elegant morocco collar, which burst asunder in her grasp, and May +shrieked agitated soothing endearments to no purpose. What unmagnanimous +cur could resist such a challenge? In another instant the inequal combat +was raging furiously. The two dogs first stood on their hind legs, +grappled together, and glared at each other for a second, like two +pugilists trying a preliminary fall, or a couple of duellists pointing +their pistols. The next moment the dogs were rolling over and over each +other on the narrow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> path, worrying each other with the horrible +snarling noise that accompanies such a performance.</p> + +<p>May danced a frantic dance round the combatants, screamed shrilly, and +made dangerous, ineffectual darts at Tray. The servant girl neither +danced, nor screamed, nor made darts; she stood stolidly still, with +something between a gape and a grin on her broad red face. She had not +the passion for dog-fights entertained by the <i>gamins</i> of the streets, +such fights were simply immaterial trifles to her amidst the weightier +concerns of her life; and she had seen her master's dog get too many +kicks in the ribs—a discipline from which he rose up howling but not +greatly injured—to be troubled with any sensitive fears as to his +safety. Besides his enemy was a small beast, a lady's dog, whom Growler +could dispose of in a twinkling, if his temper were up.</p> + +<p>"Oh! can you not call off your dog?" wailed May in her agony. "He will +kill Tray. Oh! my Tray, my Tray," and she made another rush to rescue +her pet.</p> + +<p>"Don't, May, you'll be bitten," implored Dora.</p> + +<p>"He don't mind me, miss, not one bit, our Growler don't," said the +composed damsel, as if Growler's indifference were rather a feather in +his cap.</p> + +<p>Alas! for any attention that the victim paid to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> May's desperate +remonstrances. She had in fact no right to reproach the enemy's +temporary proprietress for her lack of authority over her four-footed +companion. But poor May in her misery was neither logical nor just. She +turned on the other with a passionate challenge, "What business have you +to bring out a horrid brute like that, which you cannot master, to kill +other people's dear little pets?"</p> + +<p>"Hush, hush, May," besought Dora, "I think they are leaving off." There +was a slight cessation in the hostilities. "The noise you are making may +set them on again."</p> + +<p>"It were your dog as begun it." Growler's sponsor defended both herself +and Growler defiantly.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" screamed May, "they're at it again. Tray is down and the cruel +monster is at his throat. Will nobody help us? Will nobody save my poor +little dog?"</p> + +<p>The girls were carrying neither sunshades nor umbrellas. They could not +reach the lower boughs of the trees to pull down a switch, but just as +May was springing forward to dare the worst herself, sooner than see +Tray perish unaided before her eyes, Dora caught sight of a large +half-loose stone in the path. "Stand back, May," she gasped, as she tore +it up. Dora's face was as white as paper; she was sick with fright and +distress; she would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> fain have shut her eyes if she had not known that +she needed every advantage which sight could give her to prevent her +hitting Tray, instead of his foe, as the two rolled over each other in +the struggle which was growing deadlier every second.</p> + +<p>"Stop," cried a voice of command behind her, "you'll have the dog turn +upon you as soon as he has finished his present job," and a welcome +deliverer ran forward just in time. He seized the first tail he could +grasp—luckily for him it was Tray's and not Growler's—and hung on to +it like a vice. The "redder" of the combatants, regardless of "the +redder's lick," which was likely to be his portion, continued to hold +the tail of the now yelling Tray, and at the same time seized him by the +scruff of the neck with the other hand, and dragged both animals, still +locked together, with his whole force nearer and nearer to the edge of +the bank by the river.</p> + +<p>A new terror beset May. "Take care, you'll have them in the water."</p> + +<p>No sooner said than done. With a plunge the two dogs fell heavily into +the Dewes, while the man who had brought them to this pass kept his own +footing with difficulty.</p> + +<p>"They'll both be drowned," cried May, clasping her hands in the last +depths of anguish.</p> + +<p>"Not at all," said Tom Robinson, panting a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> little from his exertions +and wiping his hands with his handkerchief. "I did it on purpose—don't +you see? It was the only way to make the beggars lose their grip. Look +there, they are swimming like brothers down the stream—that small +spitfire of yours is not badly hurt. I told you that you were spoiling +him—you ought to make him obey and come to heel, or he will become the +torment of your life. The bank shelves a little a few yards further +down; you will find that he will come to shore shaking himself nothing +the worse. It may be a lesson to him; if not, I should like to give him +a bit of my mind."</p> + +<p>True enough, Tray scrambled up the bank presently, bearing no more +alarming traces of the fray than were to be found in his limping on +three legs, and halting every other minute that he might ruefully attend +to the fourth.</p> + +<p>Growler also landed, and after glancing askance at his antagonist and at +the champion who had suddenly interposed between Tray and his deserts, +wisely agreed with the small maid-servant on the judiciousness of +immediately taking themselves off, in company with the perambulator and +the babies, to avoid any chance of awkward inquiries.</p> + +<p>May ran to Tray, clasped him all dripping in her arms, and prepared to +carry him tenderly home. But in spite of the injuries, for which he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> +exceedingly sorry, he asserted his spirit of independence, and declined +to be made a baby of.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid we have given you a great deal of trouble, Mr. Tom," said +Dora, while May was still devoting herself to her rescued treasure. Dora +spoke shyly, and inadvertently used the old familiar name, which he had +borne when his father was alive.</p> + +<p>"Don't mention it," he said gravely, as shy as she was; "I feel +answerable for inflicting that wretched dog on you—that is, on your +sister. I was sure he would lead you a pretty dance after he was in the +shop this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Mr. Robinson," cried May, tearing herself away from the +contemplation of her darling in order to pour forth her sense of relief +and the depth of her gratitude, "what a good thing it was you came up to +us! What should we have done without you? Oh! you don't think dear +little Tray is lamed for life—do you? Of course that is ever so much +better than having him killed outright in our sight; still if he would +only let me pick him up and rest his poor hurt leg it might help him," +protested May wistfully.</p> + +<p>"Let him alone, he is all right," he said in his short stiff way. Then +he made a bantering amendment on his speech, because he was quick to see +that his want of sympathy vexed the young girl,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> perhaps rendered her +burden of gratitude more difficult to bear.</p> + +<p>"At the worst, you know he would be as well off as Horatius Cocles, and +he is likely to escape the beating which he richly deserves."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Mr. Robinson, beat him! when he meant no harm, when he has been all +but drowned or worried to death by that great, coarse, rough creature," +cried May, opening large brown eyes of astonishment and indignation.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what <i>he</i> would call Tray if he could speak—an insolent +little rascal, who had no proper respect for his superiors."</p> + +<p>Dora did not join in the conversation. Her colour came and went, and she +kept glancing at the handkerchief which Tom Robinson was fluttering +about in his hand.</p> + +<p>It was May who stopped short and cried in fresh dismay, "There is blood +on your handkerchief; I believe you have been bitten. What shall we do?"</p> + +<p>"What should you do, Miss May?" he answered with a laugh. "It is only a +minute impression left by the fine teeth of your friend. You would have +it that he knew me a little while ago, and it seems we were destined to +be more intimately acquainted."</p> + +<p>"Come home with us this minute," cried May,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> so dead in earnest, that +she grasped his arm, and made as if she would have dragged him forward. +"Father will dress it and heal it. I am so sorry, so ashamed, though +Tray did not know what he was doing."</p> + +<p>He laughed again quite merrily, as it sounded. "If Tray did not know, he +did his small best to get rid of me. I daresay I was not treating him +with much ceremony. I am afraid I gave his tail as sharp a pinch as I +could administer before I could get at his neck. No, I am not going home +with you; thanks for the invitation. Do you wish Dr. Millar to think me +crazy? Do you apply to your father for medical assistance when you give +yourself a pin-prick?"</p> + +<p>"But the bite of a dog is very different, though Tray is the dog," +moaned May.</p> + +<p>"Tray is in excellent health and spirits; I can vouch for that," said +Tom. "I have not the slightest apprehension of hydrophobia."</p> + +<p>"O—h!" said May, with a deeper moan.</p> + +<p>Dora had continued silent; indeed she could hardly speak, and her face +had grown more like ashes than paper.</p> + +<p>He was standing still, and raising his hat a little awkwardly with his +left hand, in lieu of shaking hands with his right, as they came to the +point where their roads parted.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>Dora made a great effort and uttered her remonstrance: "I wish you would +come home with us, and let father look at your hand."</p> + +<p>"You too, Miss Dora—nonsense," he said sharply as it sounded.</p> + +<p>"If Annie had been here," she persisted, "she would have been of a +hundred times more use than I, but if you'll let me I'll try to tie it +up for you."</p> + +<p>She spoke so humbly that he answered her with quick kindness, "And pain +you by exposing a scratch to your notice? No, indeed, all that I'll ask +of you is never to fling stones at strange dogs, though they should be +tearing that unlucky imp of mischief limb from limb."</p> + +<p>"It was very unkind of him to speak so rudely of poor Tray," sighed May, +as the sisters hurried home; "although it was Tom Robinson who gave him +to me, I don't think the man has ever put a proper value on the dog. But +I daresay he will call to-morrow though he has not come with us just +now, to ask for Tray, and to see how we are after our fright."</p> + +<p>"No, he won't come," said Dora with conviction, and she walked on +silently thinking to herself, "How strong and resolute he was, though he +is not a big man, and how little he minded being bitten. Men are +different from women. Of course, he is nothing to me, but I may be +permitted to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> admire his courage and coolness. No, he will not come, I +am sure of that, he is the last man to take advantage of an accident and +of his coming to our assistance. Even if he did, and I had ever cared +for him, and there had been no 'Robinson's,' it would be too late and +too bad to change one's mind after we had grown poor and had to work for +ourselves."</p> + +<p>Dora was right. Tom Robinson did not come. He contented himself with +intercepting Dr. Millar on his rounds, learning that Dora and May were +no worse for their misadventure, and giving their father a piece of +information.</p> + +<p>In consequence of that hint, and under the pretence of having Tray's +wounded leg properly seen to, he was, to May's intense chagrin and +disgust, despatched to a veterinary surgeon's, where he remained for +some time, returning at last a sadder and a wiser dog.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_x" id="chapter_x"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">LIFE IN AN HOSPITAL WARD.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">St. Ebbe's</span> was a model hospital, with every enlightened improvement in +the treatment of the sick poor, and every humane ordinance which the +highly developed skill and the strongly stimulated benevolence of the +nineteenth century could enforce.</p> + +<p>Annie Millar was one of six lady probationers, including a bishop's +daughter, two daughters of squires, and three doctor's daughters like +herself. The matron was the widow of a doctor, who had been eminent +alike for professional talent and philanthropy. She was like-minded. If +she had not her late husband's knowledge and acumen as a medical man, +she had much of his experience, and was full of energy and determination +to better the world, the sick, and the poor, almost whether they would +or not. Very few people could look Mrs. Hull in the face and contradict +her high motives and determined will.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>Fortunately, Annie's beauty had not worked the scathing destruction +which Mrs. Millar had anticipated with fear and trembling. An +inflammable medical student or two might have been just singed by the +fire of her charms; an older member of the fraternity might have +neglected for an instant to look up at the card above a bed in order to +turn his head and cast a second admiring glance after the new recruit in +the hospital uniform; but no man forgot his duty or was false to earlier +vows through her allurements.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hull had cast a sharp glance at the dainty figure and flower-like +face under the nurse's linen gown and close cap. Annie's sister +probationers, four of them considerably older than herself, had +telegraphed to each other emphatic—perhaps pardonable enough—signals +that the last accession to their number was so very ornamental they +could hardly expect her to be useful. They must look out for defects, +and prepare to atone for failures by their surpassing attainments. But +the mistake was soon rectified, and fresh light dawned on the doubtful +question. Mrs. Hull was the first to recognize and testify that nothing +was to be feared from Annie Millar's youth and beauty, while something +might be gained by them, because she was far more than pretty—she was a +bright, clever girl, very obedient to orders, and exceedingly anxious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> +to learn her business. In her St. Ebbe's had secured an auxiliary of the +highest promise. The elder sister probationers soon found that instead +of wanting indulgence, forbearance, and pity, the newcomer was more in +danger of awakening their envy as well as their respect by her quickness +in mastering details, her mental grasp of principles, her inexhaustible +spirit.</p> + +<p>Yet poor Annie had no light apprenticeship to serve. The programme, +which extends from making poultices and making beds to receiving +doctors' instructions, understanding them, remembering them, and acting +on them, is neither short nor easy, though a fairly good and trained +intellect and an unswerving devotion to duty will get through it +triumphantly in time. Annie underwent the entire ordeal, while she +doubtless brought a little additional intelligence and capacity and a +few more grains of experience to the task than would have existed if she +had not been Dr. Millar's daughter. In spite of the warm woollen jacket +and cuffs which she wore under her linen gown, her little hands were +covered with the chaps and chilblains which are the scourge of +maids-of-all-work, because of their early rising, hard scrubbing, and +the frequency with which their fingers are wet and dried on chill winter +mornings. Her legs ached, as they had never ached after a night's +dancing, with being on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> her feet all day long, and day after day, +waiting on her patients and attending on the sisters who were placed +over the respective wards. Her mind, too, was kept on the stretch with +the serious charge of pulses and temperatures, with the grave +responsibility of shelves on shelves of medicine bottles, with acquiring +the best modes of bandaging, fomenting, bleeding, stopping the flow of +blood, so that during the little leisure she had she could not turn to a +book for relief; she fell asleep with sheer fatigue more frequently.</p> + +<p>Annie was too high-spirited and independent to feel the loneliness of +her position among strangers, whom she soon converted into friendly +acquaintances, if nothing more, as many a girl—as Dora, for +instance—would have done. But, accustomed as Annie had been all her +life to much closer and warmer relations, she clung to the presence of +Rose in London; and it was a proof of how much the elder sister was used +up, when, even on her days and hours for getting out, it was often with +difficulty that she could bring herself to go and see Rose, or to meet +and walk a portion of the way with her on Rose's progress from Mrs. +Jennings's boarding-house to the Misses Stone's school, where she taught +drawing, or to Mr. St. Foy's art classes, where she learned it.</p> + +<p>Annie had suffered considerably from what is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> known as hospital or +infirmary sore throat, because it is understood to be caused by inhaling +the fumes from the carbolic acid used in the wards. Her rich colour had +to Rose's dismay grown poor and pale for a time. She had laboured under +the still more trying and more dangerous infliction, when the senses +morbidly excited become morbidly acute, and she seemed still to smell +the peculiar air of the wards wherever she went. Then Mrs. Hull insisted +on Annie's leaving for a few days, and bundled her off, without the +power of resistance, to a sister of the matron's, who kindly consented, +as her part of the work, to receive and recruit the temporarily overdone +servants of St. Ebbe's Hospital.</p> + +<p>In spite of the strength of Annie's nerves, and her power of controlling +them, she sickened once or twice with a deadly sickness at sights and +sounds worse than her most vivid imagination could have conceived +possible. She had to summon all her courage, together with the +conviction that if she did not overcome the weakness speedily, she would +be compelled to own that she had mistaken her calling, in order to +vanquish the insidious foe.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, while she was ready to thank God that it was rather the +exception than the rule, she had to witness the lowest moral degradation +in addition to the sharpest human suffering, and this at an age and with +a nature when the feeling of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> extreme repulsion, amounting to positive +loathing, is in danger of prevailing. It needed all her faith to do +battle with this worst temptation, and force pity to conquer disgust, to +recognize humbly the frailty of the best and wisest men and women, to +acknowledge willingly, even thankfully, the propriety, if one may so use +the word, of what a preacher has called each Christian's suffering, "the +just for the unjust."</p> + +<p>No wonder poor Annie's bright face took frequently a worn and harassed +look in those early days of hospital work.</p> + +<p>Yet so great is the elasticity of youth, and so brave and cheerful was +the girl's temperament for the most part, that within an hour of such +prostrating attacks and violent revolts, she would be on her way with +her own little tea-pot to the retiring-room, where the lady probationers +and sisters assembled in order to profit by the great boiler steaming on +the hob for their women's refreshment of tea. It was about the only +servile act which they were required to do for themselves, while they +were the servants of others, and they all enjoyed doing it with true +housewifely relish. Annie, especially, was an adept at such tea-making, +and would propound her theories and circulate specimens of her +performance among her companions who profited by her skill, with a glee +not far removed from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> mirth of the Millar girls on many a happy +family gathering in the old nursery or the drawing-room at Redcross.</p> + +<p>The whole circumstances of one of the bad days in her lot Annie could +never quite forget. It was a raw, gray winter's day, cheerless above and +below, and all went wrong on it, from the moment Annie opened her sleepy +eyes, leapt shivering out of bed, washed in cold water by her own +choice, in order to rouse herself, dressed by gaslight, swallowed her +coffee scalding hot, and hastened to her particular ward. The sister and +the house-surgeon were, as if affected by the day, a little sour and +surly, and every patient seemed more or less out of tune, dismal, +grumbling, delirious, or in a state of collapse.</p> + +<p>It was one of Annie's out-days, and as a matter of duty, but by no means +of enjoyment, she braced herself to change her hospital dress for a +walking dress. After she felt chilled to the bone, she started for a +walk, either to be jostled and forced along in a crowded thoroughfare, +where she too might have said—</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 300px;"> +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">"Although so many surround me,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .5em;">I know not one I meet"—</span></p> +</div> + +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">or to creep the length of the cleanest side of the pavement in a +depressingly empty street, where<span class="pagenum" style="text-indent: 1.6em;"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> the varying arrangement of the shabby +window curtains and the cards in the dingy windows, offering an endless +supply of rooms to the absent lodging hunter, furnished the sole +entertainment to the listless passer-by.</p> + +<p>Annie had been afraid that she would miss Rose on her way to her +classes, and the fear was amply fulfilled—not the most distant glimpse +of Rose was forthcoming. Instead, at a crossing, Ella Carey, in her Aunt +Tyrrel's carriage, whirled by the pedestrian and administered a slight +spattering of mud to her dress. "It ought to have been the other way," +said Annie bitterly to herself, while she stood still to wipe the sleeve +of her jacket. Yet she knew very well all the time that Ella's offence +had been quite involuntary, and that she had not for a moment recognized +Annie. If it had been so, Ella's round girlish face under its smart hat, +leaning back among the soft cushions not discontentedly, would have +brightened immensely. She would have stopped the carriage and been down +in the street at Annie's side in a moment, for the girl was as +warm-hearted as she had been docile. There was nothing she would have +liked better than to hail a Redcross face, and hear the last news about +Phyllis and May, and Ella's father and mother.</p> + +<p>When Annie re-entered the hospital colder and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> more unrefreshed than she +had left it, she thought that she was at last going to be compensated +for life's rubs—beyond her deserts, she told herself a little +remorsefully. She had been longing all the morning for a letter from +Redcross, small reason as she had to complain of the negligence of her +correspondents there, and a letter with the Redcross post-mark was +awaiting her. She saw before she opened it that it was not from any of +her family. None of them used such creamily smooth and thick note-paper, +or exhibited such a cunningly contrived, elegantly designed monogram. +But even a slight communication from the merest acquaintance was welcome +as a flower in spring, when the acquaintance dwelt in dear old Redcross. +Annie had been thinking fondly of it all day as a place of human +well-being and geniality, free from continual sights and sounds of pain +and sorrow, where everybody got up and sat down, went out and came in, +worked and read, even dawdled and dreamt at will, subject to a few +simple household rules. There was no unyielding iron discipline at +Redcross. There was no hard and fast routine entering through the flesh +and penetrating into the very soul. It was just, dear, deliberate, +mannerly, yet comfortable and kindly Redcross. The writer was Thirza +Dyer, and the reason why one of the Dyers, who had hesitated about +shaking hands with one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> of the Millars after she was guilty of proposing +to earn her livelihood, wrote a letter to a nurse probationer and +addressed it to a public hospital, calls for an explanation. The Dyers, +in their unceasing efforts to gain by their wealth and its liberal +expenditure a footing in the county circle, had got one foot within the +coveted precincts, and there Thirza found to her own and her sisters' +amazement that nursing, not the rich and great, but common poor people, +was a curious fashion of the day. Lady Luxmore had a cousin who was a +nurse. General Wentworth's wife had a friend professionally engaged in a +London hospital for nine months out of the twelve, who was visiting the +Wentworths this winter. Of course it had begun with the Crimean War, and +the <i>éclat</i> with which lady nurses went out to attend on the wounded +soldiers in the exceptional hospital at Scutari. But whatever was its +origin, the rule was established that nursing even day-labourers and +mechanics with their wives and children, was something very different +from being a drudging governess or broken-down companion. It was like +being a member of the Kyrle Society, with which one of the princes had +to do, or like singing in an East of London concert-room, quite <i>chic</i>, +perfectly good form, anybody might take it up and gain rather than lose +caste by the act.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>Accordingly, it became an obvious obligation on the Dyers to cultivate +and not to cut the only nurse on their visiting list. With unblushing, +well-nigh naïve suddenness, Thirza Dyer, to Annie Millar's bewildered +astonishment, proceeded to start and maintain a correspondence with her. +Two are required for a bargain-making, and Annie was not altogether +disinterested in scribbling the few lines occasionally which warranted +the continuance of the correspondence on Thirza's part. For if Thirza +had lived anywhere else than where she did live, near Redcross, the +answer to her first letter might have been different. Therefore Annie +did not perhaps deserve much solace from these letters, and certainly +this one did not contribute to her exaltation of spirit. It was chiefly +occupied with an account of several <i>recherché</i> afternoon teas which the +Dyers had held lately at the Manor-house, together with a full +description of the tea-gowns of salmon, canary, and cherry-coloured +plush, lined with <i>eau-de-nil</i> satin, which the Miss Dyers had worn on +these occasions.</p> + +<p>Now poor Annie was rather above hankering unduly after tea-gowns, or for +that matter "smart" or "swell" dress of any kind. She liked pretty +things, and things which became her charming person, at their proper +time and season, well enough, but she was not greatly discomposed by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> +the lack of such adornment, and hardly at all troubled when her +neighbours displayed what she did not possess.</p> + +<p>It was because the foolishly exultant gorgeous description, which ought +to have been set to a fashion-plate, carried Annie back with a flash to +one winter's day last year, that it made her heart sore. On the day in +question Annie and Dora, and for that matter Rose and May, acting as +deeply interested assistants, had been tremendously busy and merry in +the old nursery, travestying national and historic costumes in calico. +It was all on behalf of a certain scenic entertainment given in the +Town-hall for the delectation of the scholars in the Rector's +Sunday-school and night classes. It had been a very simple and +intentionally inexpensive affair, and the principal charm to the +performers had lain in the contriving of their costumes. Annie and Dora +had appeared in magnificent chintz sacques—which might have represented +tea-gowns—and mob caps, and had been declared by Cyril Carey, who was +supposed to be no mean judge, a most satisfactory eighteenth century +pair. Cyril himself had broken the rule as to material, and had figured +in the black satin trunk hose, velvet doublet, and lace collar of a +Spanish grandee. But Ned Hewett had stuck to Turkey-red cotton for a +Venetian senator or a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> Roman cardinal, nobody had been quite certain +which. And Tom Robinson had been a Scotch beggarman, Sir Walter Scott's +immortal Edie Ochiltree, in a blue cotton gown and a goatskin beard, +which she (Annie) had wickedly pretended must have been manufactured out +of tufts purloined from the stock of boas at "Robinson's." Lucy Hewett +had been shrouded in white cotton wool, to represent the Empress Matilda +escaping from Oxford, "through the lines of King Stephen's soldiers," +under shelter of a snowstorm. Fanny Russell had never looked better than +she looked that night as a Norman peasant girl. It was all very well for +Cyril Carey to condescend to the deceit of praising Annie and Dora up to +the skies, when everybody knew whom he admired most, with reason. That +was Fanny Russell, with her splendid black eyes and hair, and the Norman +strength and fineness of her profile.</p> + +<p>What was Nurse Annie, in her holland gown, apron, and cap, recalling and +revelling in? The silly vanities and child's play of the past. Well, +what harm was there in them? These had been blithe moments while they +lasted, which had set young hearts bounding, young feet skipping, and +young voices laughing and singing in a manner which was natural, and not +to be forbidden lest worse came of it.</p> + +<p>Annie was roused from her pleasant reverie and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> plunged into another of +a totally different description. The last was made up of garbled +reality, but with what truth was in it tending to a false, doleful +vision. It would represent St. Ebbe's as a gloomy, ghastly prison-house +of suffering and death, and she in her tender youth and sweet beauty +immured in it by an error of judgment, a fatal mistake incidental to +rash enthusiasm and total inexperience. If Annie ever arrived at that +rueful conclusion, how could she bear the penalty she must pay?</p> + +<p>Annie had heard and read of young women on whom the world did not cry +shame, who turned from the decay and death they had not gone to seek, +which Providence had brought to their doors, in paroxysms of repugnance +and rebellion. They could not bear that their perfection of health and +life should come into contact with something so chillingly, gruesomely +different, that their glowing youth should be wasted in the dim shadows +of sick-rooms or amidst the dank vapours hovering over the dark river +which all must ford when their time comes. Those standing round who +heard or read the outcry called it natural, piteous, well-nigh +praiseworthy, it was so sincere. How could Annie realize for herself in +a moment that such heroines(!) are the daughters in spirit of the women +who, in outbreaks of mediæval pestilence and latter-day cholera, have +literally abandoned their nearest and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> dearest, fleeing from spectacles +of anguish and risks of infection? How could she guess that such women +are the spiritual sisters of poor heathen and savage Hottentot and Malay +mothers and daughters, who, sooner than be burdened with the wailing +helplessness of infancy and the mumbling fatuity of age, will expose the +children dependent on these murderesses, and the hoary heads that once +planned and prayed for the welfare of their slayers, to perish of cold +and hunger?</p> + +<p>It was Annie's hour for resuming work, and it was well for her, though +she went but languidly into the spotlessly white and clean ward, among +its rows of beds with the flower-stand, illuminated texts and +oleographs, which generous supporters of the hospital sent to brighten +its cold bareness and soften and cheer what was harsh and subdued in its +atmosphere. Annie was not even greatly affected by the greeting of one +of her patients, an elderly man recovering from an operation, and still +slightly off his head when the fever rose on him. She went to him with a +cooling, soothing application, and he told her incoherently to come +again and give him his dinner and his tea. He liked a young lass or +lady, be she which she liked, with red cheeks and shining eyes to wait +upon him. It minded him of a bit wench of a daughter of his he had lost +when she was twelve years—the age of the little wench in the Bible, for +parson had preached<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> about her the Sunday after his lass's funeral. It +broke her mother's heart for all that, and he buried her too within +three months. Then the place got lonesome, and he took what was not good +for him, till he had come to this; though whether it were the House or +just an hospital he was lying in he could not clearly say.</p> + +<p>Then there happened what Annie was wont to describe as a miracle of +mercy to bring her to a better mind. A young boy whose leg had been +crushed by a waggon was carried into the operating theatre for an +immediate operation. It was the lecture hour, and a great professor of +surgery with his class of students, together with several of the other +doctors connected with St. Ebbe's, was in attendance. But it was also +customary, especially where a female patient or a patient so young as +the boy in question was concerned, for a nurse, generally the sister of +the ward, to be present to hold the sufferer's hand if it were wished, +or when it was possible to support the poor head against her breast. It +so chanced that the sister was out, and other available nurses were +engaged, so in circumstances which would admit of no delay Annie was for +the first time called to the front and summoned to undertake the +responsibility of the situation. Already she had lost sight of herself, +and was standing looking so calm, firm, and prepared for every +emergency, that the operating<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> surgeon, with a glance at her, put her +youth and position as a probationer aside, and accepted what help she +could give.</p> + +<p>It was a critical case, and for some medical reason no anæsthetic could +be administered. The boy was past the unconsciousness of childhood, and +though nearly fainting with fright, pain, and weakness, remained quite +sensible of the further ordeal he had to undergo. He was keenly alive to +the humane motive which induced the surgeon to turn his back upon him in +selecting his instruments. He even heard, with ears morbidly acute, the +low words addressed to the interested spectators, "Now, gentlemen, I am +about to begin."</p> + +<p>With a stifled sob the poor little fellow suddenly managed to raise +himself from the table on which he was stretched. He looked round wildly +on the circle of men's faces, controlled and expectant, with a certain +every-day expression in anticipation of what, in its blind terror and +life and death importance to him, was a familiar occurrence to them, and +on the one woman's face, controlled too, but with an indescribable +wistfulness under the control. Then he made his childish appeal, shrill +with misery, "Oh, gentlemen, will you not stop till I say my prayers?"</p> + +<p>There was an instant pause of surprise, commiseration, constraint—the +peculiar awkwardness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> which in Englishmen waits on any provocation to +betray feeling. Nobody liked to look at his neighbour to see how he +looked, lest there should be the most distant sign of emotion in his own +face. Some strong men there had ceased to pray or to believe in prayer, +yet all were more or less touched by the lad's implicit faith.</p> + +<p>As for Annie she had been praying at that very moment, praying fervently +in the silence of her heart, that she might be saved from breaking down +and allowed to be of some service to the boy.</p> + +<p>"Certainly, certainly, my little chap; but you must be quick about it," +said the great surgeon a little hoarsely.</p> + +<p>"Our-Father-which-art-in-Heaven," began the boy, running the words +together and speaking with a parrot-like monotony in an unnaturally +high-pitched key. Then his voice began to quaver a little till he +stopped short with a cry of despair—"I cannot mind the words, I cannot +say my prayers. Oh! will nobody say them for me? If mother, as is not in +Lon'on, were here, she would do it fast," he ended, flinging out one +thin arm and clutching convulsively at the air in a kind of +panic-stricken terror.</p> + +<p>There was another second's dead silence. It was broken by a woman's +voice. Annie had taken a step forward close to the boy's elbow, so that +her voice was in his ear. She could not kneel,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> but instinctively she +clasped her hands and bent her head reverently as she said in low but +clear tones which were carried throughout the length and breadth of the +room, and thrilled in every ear, the Lord's Prayer. At its close she +went on without hesitation in the same wonderfully audible voice: "God +bless this little boy. Forgive him every wrong he has ever done. Keep +him safe, and raise him up again, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen."</p> + +<p>Another voice—a deeper one—responded to the "Amen." It was said by the +famous operator's enemies that he was lax in his religious opinions, and +that he rarely found time to go to church. Nevertheless it was he who +with grave heartiness repeated the Amen.</p> + +<p>The little lad had sunk back when she began to speak, and there he lay +without giving her a word or sign of thanks—his best acknowledgment of +her compliance with what might be his last wish being his quaking +submission. He could not keep still his quivering flesh, or hold back +altogether his piercing cries and piteous moans, but he bit his tongue +in seeking to stifle them. For he was not fighting with his Maker and +his fate; he was trying in his boyish way, with his small fortitude and +resignation, to endure, in the might of the support which had been asked +for him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>Annie too clenched her teeth, while she opened her eyes to take in +everything that passed before them, as a mirror may be turned to receive +the minutest impression from the scene it reflects. But she did not hear +a single shriek or wail, because her ears were filled with the higher +harmonies which she had called forth. She clasped one of the boy's +trembling hands in her own warm one, which did not grow cold in the +contact. She was on the alert to meet his only half-seeing gaze, and to +give back a glance of tender sympathy and protection—the true mother's +look that is to be found when occasion calls for it in every good +woman's face,—ay, it may even be seen in the precociously earnest, +kindly eyes of many a loving woman-child.</p> + +<p>There were plenty of other helpers to render the surgeon all the +assistance he needed in his work, with far more celerity and ability +than Annie could have supplied. But while sense lingered in the little +patient's eyes, it was to the woman he turned for the pity and aid which +did not fail him; it was through her that he drew from One mightier than +all, the spiritual strength for his terrible bodily conflict. In a sense +Annie and he were both on their trial, they served their novitiate +together, and helped each other to bear and overcome. When the operation +was over he lay, with the sweat drops<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> of agony which Annie was gently +wiping off, not gone from his forehead, but also with the reflection +still lingering on his white face of the courage and patience with which +he had been ready to meet death.</p> + +<p>"You have behaved remarkably well, and shown no want of pluck, my lad," +said the surgeon as a parting word of encouragement and cheer. "Lie +still and you'll be able to see your friends by and by. I believe you'll +do famously, and we'll see whether a substitute cannot be found for the +limb you have lost."</p> + +<p>He turned to Annie who had done all, and more than all, that was +required of her, probably because she had entirely forgotten herself. +She was not even then sensible of a swift reaction, an overwhelming +tide of embarrassment. She continued more than half unconscious of the +number of eyes which, now that the operation was over, were fixed upon +her, marvelling, admiring, condemning, or ridiculing. For what act is +there, let it be ever so disinterested or self-sacrificing, against +which no voice will rise in condemnation or in mockery?</p> + +<p>But it was not the operating surgeon who either condemned or scoffed at +Annie's conduct. He drew her aside, not speaking to her on the religious +side of the episode, which he did not conceive that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> he had the smallest +right or title to do, but addressing her on the purely medical aspect of +the incident, on which he considered that he was entitled, nay, even +bound to speak. His manner was a little blunt and brusque rather than +suave, like that of a man who had no time to waste in paying compliments +or making soft speeches, but it was thoroughly approving.</p> + +<p>"You did quite right, nurse; I'm much obliged to you. That poor boy +wanted all the comfort he could get. If he had gone on and worked +himself into a frenzy before I had taken up the knife, I do not know +that I could have done my work, and certainly the probability of his +recovery would have been greatly lessened."</p> + +<p>"I am glad," said Annie simply, with a little gasp of returning +consciousness. "It is good of you to say so, doctor," but it was +doubtful whether she knew what she was saying. She was penetrated +through and through with thankfulness, yet thanks to herself seemed so +irrelevant that she did not care to hear them.</p> + +<p>There was more than Annie who thought that thanks to her were out of +place and superfluous. This was specially so with one among the group of +younger men, who at the moment of entering the ward had been fully alive +to the circumstance that "the pretty nurse," as she was known to them,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> +was on active duty. They had speculated on whether she would stand an +operation, and what a disturbance and nice mess there would be if she +fell flat on the small of her back on the floor, or went off in a fit of +hysterics in the middle of it; and how their "boss" would endure such a +disconcerting interruption to the proceedings. As it happened, the +speculators were in their turn startled, abashed, or irritated, +according to their respective temperaments and frames of mind, by what +followed.</p> + +<p>But there was a young giant, with a blonde beard, who let his blue eyes +fall on the floor, drew back till he leant against the wall, and +thrusting his hands into his pockets, asked himself in a dazed, humbled +way, if an angel had come down among them, and where was the good of +presuming to thank an angel? It was a thousand times more officious and +audacious than to disregard the hackneyed quotation about the folly of +painting a lily and perfuming a rose.</p> + +<p>Annie, the moment she could be spared, went to her own room, fell down +on her knees, and cried as if her heart would break. Yet they were not +unhappy, but blissful tears, though they were as much for her own +unworthiness as for God's unmerited goodness.</p> + +<p>Then she snatched up a sheet of paper and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> wrote home. "I was so +discontented—such a peevish wretch, this morning, but I have had a +tonic, and now I am so unspeakably satisfied with my lot in life that I +believe I am the happiest girl in England to-night. I would not change +places with a hundred old Aunt Pennys, only I know, alas! that I am not +half good enough to be a nurse. Yet I would rather be a nurse than any +other character in the world, and I would not go back for a permanency +to dear old Redcross, after which I was hankering this very morning, and +live at home with you all again, leading the aimless, self-seeking life +I led, not though Mr. Carey's bank were to rise out of its ashes and +flourish to an extent that its greatest upholders never dreamt of—not +though I were to get a pension or an earl's ransom, or whatever else +people count magnificent compensations and rewards. But you must not +think that it is because I do not love you all as well and a thousand +times better than I ever loved you, for that would be a great mistake, +since I am just beginning to know your true value. But don't you +understand it would break my heart to think that I should no longer be a +nurse and never have such another experience as I have had this +afternoon." And then she told them in a very few words what had happened +and what the surgeon had said to her. How the sister of the ward, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> +the matron, and everybody she knew in St. Ebbe's had congratulated her. +They had all united in promising that the poor little fellow should be +her patient in future; they had begun already to call him "Miss Millar's +boy."</p> + +<p>The little Doctor not only wiped his spectacles, he held his head +higher. Mrs. Millar read the letter again and again, appropriating it +and carrying it in her pocket till it was worn to fragments. These were +still religiously preserved and portions read to select and sympathetic +audiences. And every time she read the lines herself with a full heart, +she called on God to bless her good Annie, and thought she was honoured +among mothers in having such a daughter.</p> + +<p>As for Dora and May they were long of ceasing to talk with bated breath +and the height of loving enthusiasm of how Annie had mastered herself, +and what a stay she had been in the hour of need to the lad. They +planned and carried out their plans at every spare moment, in the +manufacture of knitted socks and cravats for his benefit. But their +great achievement was a quilted dressing-gown which Dora contrived to +cut out, and May, in spite of her bad sewing, to help to sew together, +that in his convalescence he might sit up in bed like a little sick +prince.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_xi" id="chapter_xi"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">MRS. JENNINGS AND HER DAUGHTER HESTER.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">Rose Millar</span> had made up her mind to like everything, if possible, in her +new surroundings, and when she came up to town it was not only by a +piece of good fortune, it was to the girl's credit, that she found so +much she could appreciate, and so little, comparatively, that it was +difficult to put up with.</p> + +<p>In the first place, and as of primary consequence to Rose's well-being, +Mrs. Jennings, the lady with whom Rose was boarded, turned out an +excellently-disposed gentlewoman. She had a well-ordered house, pervaded +with the spirit of a gentlewoman. The whole establishment was full of +the self-respect which showed itself in a scrupulous consideration for +the rights and claims, the doings and feelings, of others.</p> + +<p>Rose did not complain because Mrs. Jennings and her house alike were +also antiquated and formal. But the lady was not merely formal; it was a +point of honour and an inveterate weak<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>ness with her to refuse to own +that she had anything to do with such small but welcome boons to her as +boarders. There she sat, serenely disclaiming the slightest knowledge of +what had taken place, and attributing every attention to her old servant +Susan, who had been with Mrs. Jennings since her marriage +five-and-thirty years before. Or, if it was not Susan, it was her +coadjutor, Marianne, in her housemaid's neat dress, whom Susan, in her +working housekeeper's black cap and gold-rimmed spectacles, had trained +to all fit and proper service in a gentlewoman's house.</p> + +<p>In person Mrs. Jennings was tall and thin, sallow, and slightly +hook-nosed, but still handsome. Her upright, broad-shouldered, and, by +comparison, slender waisted figure was conventionally good; but it was +hard to say how far it was her own, or how much it was made up. For she +was one of those women who consider that it is a duty which they owe to +the world not only to show themselves to the best advantage in bodily +presence to the last, but so to conceal and atone for the ravages of +time as to preserve a semblance of their maturity after it is long past. +The performance is not altogether successful. For one thing, it is apt +to call forth a spirit of contemptuous pity in the youthful spectator +who is still a long way from needing to employ such laborious, +self-denying arts.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Jennings added to her natural air of dignity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> by a filmy shawl of +black lace in summer, and of white Shetland wool in winter, draped round +her without so much as a fold out of order, and by a somewhat elaborate +modification of a widow's cap which added half an inch to her height. As +Rose wrote in an early letter home, Mrs. Jennings's cap looked as if she +had been born with it on her coal black hair, or as if it were glued and +gummed there beyond any possibility of being displaced. Mother ought to +see it, take an example, and abandon her flighty, waggling head-gear. +No, on second thoughts, Rose would not like to see mother with a cap +fitted on her head like the bowl of a helmet, and giving the idea of +such stony stability that it might have been fastened with invisible +nails hammered into her skull.</p> + +<p>Hester Jennings, Mrs. Jennings's daughter, was the young art student +like Rose's self, to whom she and her friends had naturally looked for +congenial companionship where the girl was concerned; and if she did not +find it with Hester, she was not likely to discover it in any of the +other residents at No. 12 Welby Square. Naturally Rose did not greatly +affect the remaining members of that elderly society, on which Mrs. +Jennings professed to set store. She could not help liking Mrs. +Jennings, though, alas! Rose scarcely believed in her so much as she +would have been justified in doing.</p> + +<p>In Mrs. Jennings's daughter, who had been from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> the first thought of as +a friend for Rose, she believed entirely. Yet Rose had been in the +beginning both startled by Hester Jennings and disappointed in her.</p> + +<p>Hester Jennings looked considerably older than she was, which was about +Annie Millar's age; in fact, she was prematurely worn with study and +work. She was like her mother on a larger scale, with advantages of a +fair paleness and remarkable violet-blue eyes, which Mrs. Jennings had +never possessed. Hester might have passed for a lovely young woman if +she had cared in the least to do it. But never was girl more indifferent +to such claims or more capable of doing her worst to qualify them and +render them the next thing to null and void. When Annie Millar made +Hester Jennings's acquaintance, Annie maintained that there was +something left out in Hester's composition, the part which makes a woman +desire to look well in the eyes of her neighbours, and win admiration, +though the admiration be as skin deep as the beauty which creates it.</p> + +<p>To think that a daughter of Mrs. Jennings, an artist in her own right, +could dress so badly, with such a careless contempt for patterns and +colours, in such ill-fitting frocks and dowdy or grotesque hats! Her +preference for strident aniline dyes and gigantic stripes and checks in +the different<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> articles of her costume looked very like perversity; +especially when it was shown that with reference to other persons, in +arranging to paint a portrait, for instance, no one, not Mrs. Jennings, +displayed such a fine sense of fitness and harmony as Hester exhibited. +Dress was to her, in her private character, mere necessary clothing, +warm or cool as the season required. It was not worth the waste of +thought implied by turning it over in her mind. Her mother dressed for +the family; or, if she did not, Hester understood that her married +sisters and sisters-in-law devoted, with success, a great deal of time +which they did not value in other respects, to the subject in question.</p> + +<p>Speak of Rose Millar's professional notions as to the human figure being +left easy and untrammelled! Rose was a pattern of decorous neatness and +trimness compared to Hester; indeed, Rose was appalled by the total +absence of order and ceremony, not to say of embellishment, in her +friend's toilet. Hester abandoned herself permanently to deshabilles. +She appeared in a jacket indoors as well as out. She dispensed with +collars in morning and lace in evening wear. She did her hair once when +she got up, and regarded passing her hand over her head when she took +off her hat as all that was incumbent upon her afterwards. Without +intending it, and without dreaming of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> copying the bushes of hair in +Rossetti's pictures, Hester Jennings's sandy-coloured locks, not a good +point in her personal appearance, were, as her great-grandmother would +have cried in horror, more like a dish-mop than anything else. She +stopped short of dirt in her slovenliness because of her purity of soul, +her deep respect for the laws of health, and because of the traditions +of her class, from which she could not altogether escape. But between +her bondage to work, and her scornful neglect of other claims which she +had known over-exalted and exaggerated, she had accomplished marvels.</p> + +<p>Hester Jennings had attained such eminence in her recklessness of +consequences, that, in place of being a nearly lovely woman, in +accordance with her profile, complexion, and glorious eyes, she was +barely good-looking because of them, in a style which repulsed many more +people than it attracted others. The sight of Hester was one of the +numerous lessons which she was destined to give to Rose Millar. It +frightened Rose into becoming tamely conventional and elaborately tidy +in dress, to the surprise and edification of her sister Annie, for it +was just at the time when Annie was most spent by her new life and +labours, and least inclined to put off her hospital gown and cap.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_xii" id="chapter_xii"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">A YOUNG ARTIST'S EXPERIENCE.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">Rose</span> respected Hester Jennings. She could not help respecting her—a +creature so much in earnest, so indefatigably industrious, so +indifferent to all the distractions of the outer world which might have +taken her out of herself and away from her work, while she was not above +three or four years Rose's senior. If Hester would have let her, the +respect would have deepened to reverence, when Rose discovered what the +elder girl neither hid nor boasted of, that she was not only paying for +her art lessons at the art school, and in other respects freeing her +mother from the burden of her maintenance,—she was steadily earning a +small independent income by working incessantly at every spare moment +snatched from her studies. She worked at all sorts of designs for the +most insignificant and obscure cheaply illustrated books and periodicals +which cannot exist entirely on old plates excavated from forgotten +stores, bought by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> the thousand at trade sales, procured by transfer +from America, or even—now that national costumes are dying out—from +France and Germany. These attempts at art were intended to pass into the +hands of children—not the favoured children reared on the charming +fancies of Caldecott and Kate Greenaway; but homelier, more stolid, and +easily satisfied children. Such art was also for the masses of the +people who cannot pay for original art, save in its first uncertain +developments, when the stagier it is, the blacker, the bolder, the more +meretriciously pretty or fantastically horrible, the better it is +relished by its public. Even the stereotyped representations of the +coarser fashion-plates, and the eccentric symbols and arbitrary groups +employed in the humbler trade advertisements which the magnates in such +advertising have left far behind, were food for Hester's unresting +pencil. She might have injured herself irreparably by such illegitimate +practice had she not studied as faithfully as she designed, with +something of a stern, merciless severity, hunting out and correcting in +her studies the errors of her crude work.</p> + +<p>Stress of circumstances had lent what the French would have called a +brutal side to Hester's natural candour and sincerity. It was one +comfort that she was still more brutal to herself than to the rest of +the world.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>When Rose Millar showed her sister-artist some of Rose's sketches, +Hester gave them a glance and a toss aside one after the other.</p> + +<p>"There is nothing in that," she said coolly, "though I can see you have +taken some trouble with it. This is not so bad. No, don't show that +thing to anybody else—it will do you harm." Her highest praise was the +"not bad" of mildest negative approval. "When you go to the class +to-morrow morning," predicted the slashing critic, "you may depend upon +it you will be turned back to a course of free-hand, or to copying from +the round again. I don't mean that Mr. St. Foy will be as plain-spoken +as I have been; he is a great deal too much afraid of hurting your +feelings and his own, and of losing a pupil, though he is not what I +should call either a bad man or a bad teacher. He is just like the rest; +but wait and see if he does not politely turn you back to very nearly +the beginning."</p> + +<p>"I have had good teachers before," said Rose, crumpling up her nose and +her forehead tightly, and swelling a little with wounded self-respect as +well as wounded vanity. "It is queer, to say the least, if all my +teachers were in a conspiracy to push me on to what I was not fit for, +and to give me work altogether beyond my powers."</p> + +<p>"You asked my opinion," said Hester Jennings,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> with inflexible calmness, +"and I am not surprised that you do not like it when you have got +it—few people do. The truth is not generally palatable. Not that I go +in for infallibility of judgment. Wait and see what Mr. St. Foy +does—not says—to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"But why were the others—one of them an exhibitor at the Academy and +the Grosvenor—so much mistaken?" inquired Rose, with natural +indignation.</p> + +<p>"How can I tell? But I hope you do not imagine that exhibitors are +necessarily geniuses, or not as other men, or that they must be able to +do a little bit of tolerable teaching when it pays them to condescend to +it? Mr. St. Foy never exhibits—very likely for the good reason that his +pictures are not accepted; but it does not follow on that account that +he cannot paint a fairly good picture—better even than some which are +hung on the line—and teach very tolerably to boot."</p> + +<p>This was a new, bewildering doctrine, and a thoroughly disheartening +state of matters, to which Rose, extinguished as she was on her own +merits, did not make any reply.</p> + +<p>"What I think, if you care to hear further what I think," said Hester, +with a dry smile, "is that in not taking time and in being wild to paint +a complete picture—something which everybody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> could recognize as a +picture, and your friends admire—as if such a thing can be done to any +good purpose for years and years—you have fallen into the disastrous +habit of forgetting, or of only half remembering, what you learnt +before, as you went on learning more. At least, that is the only way in +which I can account for the wretchedness of some of your drawing, and +the badness of your perspective, when you have got so far as to have a +feeling for a scale of colour and the tone of a picture."</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose I can learn it all over again," said Rose, with a +mixture of spirit and doggedness, forcing herself not to betray further +resentment, and to swallow a little girlish weakness at the +uncompromising treatment she was receiving. What would May and Dora say? +But she durst not trust herself to think of them.</p> + +<p>"Of course," answered Hester, opening widely a pair of singularly clear +keen eyes. "Do you think I should have taken the trouble to say as much +if I had thought otherwise?"</p> + +<p>It was the one dubious compliment which Rose extracted, without meaning +it, from the fault-finder.</p> + +<p>Hester's openly expressed desire was to be an artist out and out, to +live like an artist, not to be troubled with the hindrances and petty +restrictions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> of an ordinary woman's life, which she was tempted to +despise, to which, if she yielded at all in her mother's house, it was +with scarcely concealed reluctance and aversion. Very likely she had +only the most one-sided conception of the life she would have chosen. +Certainly her notions of Bohemianism were about as ingenuous as "little +May's" might have been; to go where art called her, to do what art +demanded of her, to be art's humble, diligent, faithful servant all her +days, without being held back and fettered on every hand by set meals, +obtrusive servants, changes of dress, the obligation to pay and receive +visits. The dream of her life was to get to Paris and have lessons in +one of the French studios, where she was led to believe women have as +good a chance of being well taught as men possess. She would prefer to +live with some young women students like herself <i>en fille</i>—a +modified—much modified version of <i>en garçon</i>. They would hire an +<i>étage</i> in some cheap, convenient quarter, get the wife or daughter of +the <i>conciergerie</i> to prepare breakfast and supper for them, dine at one +of Duval's restaurants work all day, and sleep the sleep of the +labouring woman at night. She said she knew quite well how such artists +were considered in Paris, that they were regarded as <i>vauriennes</i>, to +whom there was no occasion to pay the respect and consideration<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> which +were reserved for the potent <i>mesdames</i> and the <i>jeunes filles ingénues</i> +of society. But what had she to do with society? She belonged to the +great republic of art, and had infinitely more to occupy her than to +listen for what society would say. As to not being able to take care of +herself and behave so that the slightest indignity to her would never be +ventured upon, the bare mention of such a possibility was received by +Hester with a wrath which bordered on fierceness, and for the most part +silenced her opponents effectually. Any displeasure which Annie Millar +had displayed on a similar supposition was mild by comparison.</p> + +<p>Hester was not an only child. Mrs. Jennings had sons, all in the army or +navy, the mother was proud to say; but none of them in those days of +competitive examinations and expensive living was high enough up in the +service to be able to help his mother. On the contrary, grown men, with +men's callings, as they were, they found themselves under the necessity +of taking help from her. There were also other daughters besides Hester +married to men in professions as unexceptionable as those of their +brothers-in-law, but neither were they in circumstances which could make +them feel justified in granting the smallest subsidy to Mrs. Jennings. +Only Hester toiled for her mother at every moment which she could take +from her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> studies and her natural rest. Yet the two women, who had dwelt +under the same roof since Hester's babyhood, who were united by the +strongest and most sacred tie, were without one taste in common, were +irreconcilably different in every mode of thought and impulse of +feeling, were only alike in each being well-intentioned and desirous of +fulfilling her intuitions and justifying her beliefs. Being wise, the +pair agreed to differ. But oh! the pity of it where aims, ideals and +standards, hopes and fears, were all equally wide apart.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Jennings did not interfere with Hester's freedom farther than she +could help. Hester had her own engagements, her own circle of friends.</p> + +<p>It may not surprise those who are acquainted with the various versions +of Hester Jennings to be met with in this generation, that she was a +red-hot radical in contrast to her mother's conservatism—well-nigh a +<i>communiste</i>, to whom woman's rights and wrongs meant a burning question +of the day, which, next to her love of art, came very near to her heart. +She was almost powerless to assist her sister women, so overworked was +she on her own account, but whenever she could snatch a moment half a +dozen clubs and societies claimed her for their own. She had really a +wide personal knowledge of the working-women of London, employed and +unemployed.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_xiii" id="chapter_xiii"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">MR. ST. FOY'S AND THE MISSES STONE'S.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">There</span> was a second and large portion of Rose's life which belonged to +her art classes, and to the classes in which she was one of the teachers +and not one of the taught. In the art classes Hester Jennings's +influence still dominated over Rose. In spite of Mr. St. Foy's +professional qualifications, for which Hester had vouched, he had not so +potent a personality as that possessed by one of his favourite pupils. +He was tall, thin, gentleman-like, and delicate-looking, with a habit of +languidly winking his eyes every second or two, as if they were weary of +the trying sights of this world. He was kind to Rose in his courteous +way, but she would not have been certain either of his ability to judge +her work or of his honest opinion of it, if it had not been for what +Hester told her.</p> + +<p>There were fifty pupils among whom she and Hester ranked. These occupied +the desks, worked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> at the easels, copied from copies, from the round +or—height of promotion—from well-known models attached to the +institution. There was the old market woman who obligingly sat alike for +wicked old hags and doting grandmothers. There was the athletic young +porter, off duty, who was a brigand or a pilot as occasion served.</p> + +<p>The pupils were of various styles, idle and chattering, picturesque and +sentimental, industrious, commonplace, but the most of them were +variations on that last accepted version of the lady artist—the +individual girl who aims at being independent and natural to the verge +of harmless lawlessness and Philistinism—strange reaction from +æstheticism. There were many Hester Jennings's though none so pronounced +as Hester.</p> + +<p>The Misses Stone's select boarding-school carried Rose twice a week into +another region, where the wind did not blow so freely and the air was a +trifle stifling. Sometimes she wondered if the Misses Stone knew the +tone of a large proportion of the young lady artists at Mr. St. Foy's +classes—not that Rose herself could see anything absolutely wrong in +it—whether they would care to have an assistant drawing-mistress from +those half-emancipated, more than half insubordinate ranks. However, +Rose's appointment was not in any great danger of being cancelled. She +had involuntarily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> become doubly careful in her dress and demeanour +lately, and she discovered that the Misses Stone were old and intimate +friends of Mrs. Jennings, whom they pitied sincerely for having so +troublesome a daughter.</p> + +<p>At first Rose did not dislike the office of teacher, which brought her +in a little income before she was out of her teens. The whole place +reminded her pleasantly of Miss Burridge's school which she had quitted +but recently, only instead of having a metropolitan superiority in +enlightenment and progress, strange to say, the Misses Stone's +establishment, as if drawing within itself and shrinking back from the +constantly moving, restlessly advancing world around, was really +older-fashioned, less in the van of public opinion than the school at +Redcross. The Misses Stone, their teachers and pupils, were well-bred, +and what might have been called in past days "prettily behaved," though +the behaviour was a little formal. Women and girls were elegantly +accomplished, in place of being solidly informed or scientifically +crammed, in accordance with the fashion of the nineteenth century. Above +all, they declined with a gentle unconquerable doggedness to be turned +from the even tenor of their ways. Italian was still largely taught in +the school, while only a fraction of the pupils learnt German. Latin had +no standing ground save in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> the derivation of words, Greek was unknown. +The word mathematics was not mentioned. The voice of the drill-sergeant +was not heard, but the dancing-master with his kit attended twice a +week, like Rose, all the year round. The harp was played by the pupils +instead of the violin. Withal there was much careful learning and +repeating of Sunday Collects and the Church Catechism.</p> + +<p>The school found ample support. What it attempted to do was in the main +well done. Undoubtedly there was an attraction, half-graceful, +half-quaint, in all connected with it, from the gentle manners of the +elderly Misses Stone, who were only bitter against what was bold, +impertinent, and eccentric, to the most dainty of their small pupils. +Strictly conservative people felt that their daughters were safe in such +an atmosphere, and patronized it accordingly. Undoubtedly they learnt a +good deal which was worth learning.</p> + +<p>Rose began by receiving nothing save the most considerate kindness and +approval in that house. It was a libel on its forms and ceremonies to +imagine that they contained anything tyrannical and harsh in their +essence. The very law of their being was amiability, combined with mild +steadfastness in withstanding the subversive attitude of the time. The +most highly-born, richly-endowed girl within the precincts—and the +school was rather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> aristocratic—would no more have ventured on being +rude to Miss Rose Millar, the junior drawing-mistress, than the girl +would have presumed to stamp her foot at one of the Misses Stone. If +Rose had dropped her pencil in the course of her work, the highly-born +pupil, by force of example, if for no other reason, would immediately +have risen and picked it up, though she might not have made the speech +about a Titian being worthy to be served by a Cæsar. In fact Rose was in +danger of being killed with kindness. Soon she was conscious of +something choking, crushing, dwarfing in this artificial system. This +was made more conspicuous to her by the choice of art subjects for the +girls' study. There was no end of flower and fruit pieces. There were +the stereotyped noble ruins, and cottages, either embowered in roses or +half-buried in snow. There were the Dutch and Venetian boats which had +never sailed on familiar waters. Stags abounded, and Rose ceased to ask +why so many of them stood at bay. The sleeping baby, which might have +been a dead baby or a stone baby, was there; so was the long-nosed, +wooden-legged collie, watching the shepherd's plaid. With what a lively +hatred Rose grew to hate that collie!</p> + +<p>Rose felt herself "cribbed, cabined, and confined" when she came from +the comparative open air and robust life of Mr. St. Foy's classes. Yet +even these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> were not the world of art. She got nervous in the fear of +unworthily committing solecisms against the silken softness and steely +rigidity of the Misses Stone's shrine. She thought if she caught up and +reproduced any of Hester's vagabond notes—the Misses Stone were +necessarily slightly acquainted with Hester, of whom, however, they +never spoke—it would be like throwing a bombshell among these quiet, +unalterable proprieties. She came to have a morbid, feverish craving to +do it, or to see some other person do it. For instance, if young Lady +Maud Devereux would but bid Rose tie her shoe, or even if she would +contradict Miss Stone, or Miss Lucilla, or Miss Charlotte, without +prefacing the contradiction by "I beg your pardon!"</p> + +<p>At last these two days a week of giving lessons at the Misses Stone's, +from being merely the agreeable lucrative variety in her life which they +had promised to be, became gray days of penance to Rose Millar, when she +felt she was under a spell, and did her duty badly. She ceased to refer +to them in her letters home.</p> + +<p>Rose arrived one morning at the Misses Stone's in a peculiarly excitable +and yet depressed frame of mind. She had not been to Mr. St. Foy's +classes that day; but Hester Jennings had known, the afternoon before, a +piece of unwelcome news which she thought fit to communicate to Rose in +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> course of their morning walk, that ran so far in the same +direction. A group of peasants, with which Rose Millar had been taking a +great deal of pains, had been summarily condemned and dismissed by the +master. Rose waxed hot and restive under the sentence, and began to +dispute it vehemently, Hester defending it with equal vehemence, in what +she considered justice to Mr. St. Foy, on the ground of a lack of +dignity and repose in the central peasant. Hester was at that moment +tearing along a thoroughfare, and showing so little dignity and repose +not only in her gait, but in her "loud," ill-assorted garments, that, as +frequently happened, to Rose's vexation, several people among the +passers-by turned and looked after them. Hester to talk of a want of +dignity and repose! It was like Satan reproving sin.</p> + +<p>At the same time, while it is hard to admit the justness of a criticism +unaffected by the inconsistency of the person who utters it and of the +circumstances under which it is uttered, Rose was perfectly well aware +that Hester Jennings was as excellent a judge of dignity and repose, +apart from her personal proceedings, as any artist could be.</p> + +<p>Rose did not retaliate, save in self-defence. Hester was her senior in +art-knowledge still more than in years. She was not her sister to be +treated without ceremony, and pretty deep down in Rose's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> girlish heart +there was a respectful tolerance, an approach to tender reverence, for +the turbulent-minded, chaotic, gifted creature beside her. Still Rose's +equanimity was considerably disturbed.</p> + +<p>The unruffled serenity of the Misses Stone's domain, far from restoring +Rose's composure, seemed to smite her by contrast with an intolerable +sense of personal reproach, and to goad her into rebellion. Rose was +conscious of her variable spirits—the heritage of her years—getting +more and more uncertain, and of being wrought up to a perilously +high-strung pitch. She felt as if she were panting for liberty to +breathe, to express her discordant mood in some unconventional manner.</p> + +<p>As it happened, the principal drawing-mistress, a highly decorous, +self-controlled young woman, ten years Rose's senior, was absent, and +her assistant was alone at her post, with the whole class in and on her +hands. Rose had already taken off her hat and gloves, and she tried to +compose her ruffled feelings before she began her round of the +drawing-boards, as Mr. St. Foy inspected his easels. The analogy with +its disproportion struck her, and moved her to silent, unsteady +laughter, which she could not restrain, so that it broke out into a +ringing peal at the first enormity in drawing which she came across.</p> + +<p>Nobody laughed like that at the Misses Stone's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> —certainly no +low-voiced, quietly conducted teacher. Rose was further aggrieved and +tormented by the astonished heads privily raised, and the wondering eyes +covertly looking at her. She laughed no more. She went on examining, +commending, correcting, till she was tired out. Surely the morning hours +were endless that day. She was exhausted, not merely by the "smart walk" +from Welby Square, which, taken at Hester Jennings's pace, was always +tiring, as Rose knew to her cost, but also by the turmoil of spirit she +had been in. All the toils, disappointments, and drudgery of the life +which lay before her seemed suddenly to press upon her and overwhelm +her, and before she knew what she was doing she was sobbing behind her +handkerchief. She had one grain of sense left, she turned her back; but +her heaving shoulders and the muffled sound of a "good cry" were not +hidden from the electrified class.</p> + +<p>Nobody cried like that at the Misses Stone's, unless it might be to +somebody's pillow in the darkness of the night. For any teacher to cry +in her class was unheard of. Rose conquered herself in less time than it +has taken to recount her weakness, and resumed the lesson with moist +eyes, a reddened nose, and her whole girlish body tingling and smarting +with girlish mortification. All the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> rest of the morning she seemed to +hear two startling statements repeated alternately and without pause.</p> + +<p>"Miss Rose Millar laughed loudly in the middle of her teaching;" and oh! +shame of shames, for the womanly dignity of the last year of Rose's +teens—"Miss Rose Millar cried before the whole class."</p> + +<p>Rose had once joined in a girls' play, full of girlish cleverness and +girlish points and hits. No less a personage than Queen Elizabeth was +introduced into it. In the course of the plot great stress was laid on +the fact that the Queen had laughed at Lord Essex's expense, behind his +back. This was done in order to pique the proud, spoilt young courtier +to resent the laughter, and, in homely parlance, to give Her Majesty +more to laugh at. The phrase "<i>and the Queen laughed</i>," had been +emphatically repeated again and again in Lord Essex's hearing, with much +malicious meaning and effect.</p> + +<p>That mocking quotation was resounding in Rose's ears with a +characteristic variation. It was no longer "<i>and the Queen laughed</i>," it +was "and Miss Rose Millar laughed," then alas! alas! as a fit pendant, +"and Miss Rose Millar cried."</p> + +<p>What a big baby she had shown herself, without the decent reticence of a +gentlewoman's good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> breeding, or the proper pride of a girl who +respected herself. How these school-girls must despise her! What was she +to do? Wait for the girls to whisper and chatter as all girls will, +however trained? Or go at once to the Miss Stone with whom she had most +to do, tell her the solecism of which she, Rose, had been guilty in the +best behaved of schools, and abide by Miss Stone's decision, though it +should be that she and her sisters would in future dispense with the +services of Miss Rose Millar as assistant drawing-mistress.</p> + +<p>Rose had the courage and honesty to adopt the latter course, and she +tried to think that the fresh affront it brought her, was part of the +penalty which she was bound to pay for her disgraceful childishness.</p> + +<p>Miss Lucilla Stone listened with a little personal discomfiture, for she +was, like Mrs. Jennings, so thoroughly mistress of herself and the +situation, that any <i>gaucherie</i> or boisterous indiscretion was positive +pain to her. Besides, the bad example to the girls for whom Miss Lucilla +and her sisters were responsible, made a matter which people who did not +understand might wrongly consider a trifle, really a serious affair. "No +doubt," acquiesced Miss Lucilla, "something had put you out, as you tell +me," in low-voiced rebuke, which yet sunk Rose in the dust, deeper than +she had been, when she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> was making her impulsive confession. "You were +tired with your walk, of course, but, my dear Miss Rose Millar, it is +necessary to learn to practise self-control, especially in the presence +of young people. They are so quick to notice and to encroach on their +elders and those placed in authority over them, when the necessary +distance of perfect self-control on the one side—if possible on both +sides—is not preserved between them. Perhaps," added Miss Lucilla +meditatively, and beginning to brighten a little, for she hated to give +the lecture well-nigh as much as Rose hated to receive it, "if you had +swallowed just a teaspoonful of <i>sel-volatile</i> or something of that +kind, when you came in, the little scene would have been avoided. I +shall speak to my sister Charlotte, who has the key of our medicine +chest, and get her to administer a tiny dose to you every drawing day; +you will step into the study the first thing, and it will be ready for +you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, thank you, Miss Lucilla," exclaimed Rose hastily, "I never took +<i>sel-volatile</i> in my life. Father says not one of us is hysterical, or +is likely to faint on an emergency, not even Dora or May. He is quite +proud of Annie—my sister Annie—for her nerve, and she needs it all, +since she is in training for a nurse."</p> + +<p>Miss Lucilla shook her head dubiously, whether<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> at the modern +institution of lady nurses, or at the superiority in nerve of any family +to which Miss Rose Millar belonged.</p> + +<p>"You may not have been hysterical before," said Miss Lucilla with mild +obstinacy; "but that is no reason why you should not be so now. If you +dislike <i>sel-volatile</i>, you ought to try red lavender drops. I know they +have gone out of fashion, but my dear mother still used them and found +much benefit from them till she was seventy-seven years of age."</p> + +<p>Rose longed to say that there was a great gulf between seventy-seven and +nineteen and two months. She was stopped by the quiet determination and +self-satisfaction visible in Miss Lucilla's face and manner, as she rose +and graciously but summarily dismissed the trespasser on her valuable +time.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I hope this will meet the case. You have been overdoing +yourself—that explains itself to everybody. Dear Mrs. Jennings must +forbid you tea and coffee and limit you to cocoa in the meantime; +indeed, my sisters and I take that precaution before any mischief +appears. Don't forget Miss Stone's study the first thing on drawing +mornings. I trust a little sedative and stimulant in one will prepare +you nicely for the drawing lessons."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>To Rose's disgust she was compelled to make wry faces and choke over so +many doses of <i>sel-volatile</i> and red lavender to the end of the term. +She made secret unfulfilled threats to write to her father and get him +to say that he would not permit her constitution to be tampered with, he +would himself order her what she required, if she needed to be quieted +like an incipient mad woman or a weak emotional fool.</p> + +<p>Rose was not sure that Annie ought not to have come to her help. The +younger sister did not see what advantage there was to the family in the +elder sister's being a nurse if she was not to interfere on occasions of +this kind. But Annie had the bad taste to take the story as a good joke +against Rose; and as for Hester Jennings, it was an instance of "<i>the +Queen laughed</i>" with a vengeance. However, Hester stepped in so far. She +would not let the soothing regimen, on which Rose was put, go the length +of depriving her of her tea and coffee in Welby Square.</p> + +<p>Within the next few weeks Hester did Rose a still better turn. She +(Hester) came to her friend with an order for decorative designs in +scroll-work, which had reached the elder girl from a decorator of some +repute.</p> + +<p>"I think you could do it, Rose," said Hester. "It would not take much +time, and if your work<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> satisfied the great tradesman who has given such +an impetus to this kind of art, it might be a perfect windfall to art +students wishing to keep themselves. You need not despise it in the +light of house-painting. If you read your Ruskin, you will find him as +good as calling Titian and Veronese house-painters, though to be sure +frescoes are rather an extension of scroll-work."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I should never dream of despising it. I should be only too +thankful for any kind of copying or pattern-drawing, or designing for +Christmas-cards—like poor Fanny Russell—if it were the beginning of +the least little bit of an order," said Rose meekly, with a stifled sigh +given to her and May's old magnificent ideas of commissions. "But why +don't you keep the work for yourself, Hester?" the young girl inquired. +"You could do it so well and so easily, and it would be no pain to you; +it would be a pleasure, for it is graceful and true work so far as it +goes—not like these cruel illustrations."</p> + +<p>But Hester waived aside the undertaking. "You have been more accustomed +to this kind of thing than I have. No, I mean to stick to my +illustrations, cruel or kind. There is a new man in the publisher's +office who is giving me more of my own way, and I feel it would not be +fair to leave him in the lurch. Who knows that we may not, between us, +lead the way to a revolution in the style of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> cheapest original +English wood-cut. Besides, I do not want any more diversions from my +main business. I am already on four different committees for women's +trade unions, the female franchise, and all the rest of it. I must crib +a little more time for my hand and foot. Don't you know?—Drawing my own +hand and foot from their reflection in a looking-glass till I can put +them in any position, and foreshorten them to my mind."</p> + +<p>Rose competed for the scroll-work order, and did it so well that she got +the order, and along with it a note of commendation, a tolerably large +extension of the commission, and the first instalment of a liberal +payment for the kind of work. Her elation knew no bounds—</p> + +<p>"Oh! Hester, I should never, never even have heard of this delightful +job but for you. What can I ever do for you?"</p> + +<p>"Don't hug me," said Hester, retreating in veritable terror, for she had +a peculiar genuine aversion to caresses, still more than to thanks. +"Don't knock off my hat, for I cannot spare another minute to put it +straight again."</p> + +<p>The next thing Hester heard was a half-impetuous, half-shamefaced +admission from Rose that she had resigned her post as assistant +drawing-mistress at the Misses Stone's school.</p> + +<p>Hester looked grave on the instant. "What did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> you do that for?" she +demanded gruffly. "Did you mention it to your sister? Have you told them +at home?"</p> + +<p>"No," Rose was forced to own—at least not till the deed was done. She +had acted on her own responsibility. "But indeed, Hester, it is the best +plan," she argued volubly. "Annie and all of them will say so when they +know how I mean to cultivate this scroll-work, which is paying me twice +as well already. I put it to you if I could do two things at once, and +if it would be wise to sacrifice the more profitable for the less +remunerative. Why it would be quite shortsighted and cowardly."</p> + +<p>"Humph," said Hester, without the smallest disguise, "much experience +you have had of it! Do you know, Rose Millar, these decorators' fads are +constantly changing? Perhaps in three months they will all be for +mosaic, or tiles, or peacocks' feathers again. If I had thought you were +such a rash idiotic little goose, I should never have breathed a word to +you of this man and his scroll-work."</p> + +<p>"Oh! but, Hester," pled Rose, determined not to be offended, "I was only +relieving the poor Misses Stone of a painful necessity. I am sure they +have never put any dependence on me since the day I broke down—I grant +you idiotically. I cannot stand the repression—suppression—whatever +you like to call it. Now that there is a way out of it, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> have felt +like a wild beast in the school—the girls are so very tame—so much +tamer than we were at Miss Burridge's—where I was not a black +sheep—May will tell you if you care to ask her," protested Rose with +wounded feeling. "But I am so tired of the rosy and snowy cottages and +the ruins, and of that long-nosed collie. Sometimes I feel as if I would +give the world for him to wag his tail one day, just to give me an +excuse for crying out and flinging my india-rubber at him. I wish May +saw him; it might stop her ecstasies over her new acquisition—the brute +at home. I feel that this other brute, and the rest of the Misses +Stone's copies and models, are injuring my drawing—I know they are +making it cramped; while the scrolls help my freedom of touch like +Hogarth's line of beauty or Giotto's O. And it is such humbug, and so +horrid to have to swallow these doses of <i>sel-volatile</i>—a great healthy +girl like me!"</p> + +<p>"Humph!" said Hester again, "I hope you may not repent what you have +done—if so, you need not blame me."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_xiv" id="chapter_xiv"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">THE OLD TOWN, WITH ITS AIR STAGNANT YET TROUBLED. IS MAY TO BECOME A SCHOLAR OR A SHOP-GIRL?</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">The</span> spring found Redcross still staggering under the failure of Carey's +Bank. Hardly a week passed yet without some painful result of the +disaster coming to light. These results had ceased to startle, there had +been so many of them; but they still held plenty of interest for the +fellow-sufferers, and Dora and May's letters were full of the details.</p> + +<p>Bell Hewett had left Miss Burridge's; she had got a situation, or +rather, she had been appointed to a junior form in the Girls' Day School +at Deweshurst, going in the morning and returning in the afternoon by +train. It was a good thing for Bell on the whole. She was more +independent, had a recognized position as a public school-mistress, +which she would not have had as a private governess; and if she +continued to study, and passed various examinations, she might rise to +higher and higher<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> forms until she blossomed into a head-mistress—fancy +Bell a head-mistress! She had quite a handsome salary, more than poor +Ned's according to the chroniclers, Dora and May. That was the bright +side of it. Unluckily for Bell, as most people thought, there was +another. The daily journeys, together with the school-work, constituted +a heavy task for a girl. Bell, toiling up from the railway station on a +rainy day, with her umbrella ready to turn inside out, and her +waterproof flying open, because her left hand, cramped and numb, was +laden with a great bundle of exercises to correct at home, presented a +dejected figure, tired out and three-fourths beaten. So the Miss Dyers +thought as they rolled past her in their carriage, and debated whether +they should not stop to pick her up and save her walking the rest of the +road. But she was such a fright, positively bedraggled with mud enough +to soil the cushions, and she could speak of nothing now save the +Deweshurst Girls' Day School and her duties there. It was too tiresome +to be borne with. Poor Bell was not clever, she was one-idea'd and slow +at work like Ned, and she had also his conscientiousness. Probably +promotion was not for her; she must drudge on as best she might. Her +great encouragement at this time, next to her father's and sister's +approbation and sympathy, was, as she told Dora, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> prospect of +spending her Easter holidays with Ned at his station-house. What did she +care for its being only a station-house? after the fagging school-work +it would be great fun to put Ned's small house in order, and play at +housekeeping with him for a fortnight. She was bent on making him +comfortable, and cheering him as well as herself. If the weather would +but be fine they might have glorious rambles on the Yorkshire moors when +no trains were due.</p> + +<p>Colonel Russell was sailing once more for India, to lay his bones there +without fail, the little Doctor prophesied sadly. In the meantime he had +got, and been glad to get, a subordinate post in his old field. At the +last moment, after he had established Mrs. Russell and her children in a +cheerful house in Bath, he made up his mind to take his grown-up +daughter out with him. But she was not to stay in his bungalow, for he +was going to a small out-of-the-way station where there would be no +accommodation or society in the barrack circle for a solitary young +lady. Fanny was to be left with a cousin of her father's, in the Bombay +Presidency. The lady had offered to take charge of her, and have her for +a long visit.</p> + +<p>Did Annie and Rose know what that meant? Could they form an indignant, +affronted guess? "Father said," Dora quoted, "that if Colonel Rus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>sell, +an honourable gentleman and gallant officer, had not lived in the old +days and had his feelings blunted to the situation, he would never have +consented to such an arrangement for his daughter. But he had seen his +sisters come out to India for the well-understood purpose of getting +married to any eligible man in want of a wife, so why should not Fanny +do the same thing, when his pecuniary losses rendered it particularly +desirable and the opportunity offered itself? It was not in Colonel +Russell's eyes an unworthy resource. Of course Fanny was going out to be +married and creditably disposed of within a given time, else her father +would not have felt justified in paying her outfit and passage-money. +Certainly he had no intention of paying her passage-money home as a +single woman."</p> + +<p>What would the Millars have done in Fanny's case? For was it not +dreadful—particularly when all the young people interested in the +subject remembered quite well that there had been "something" between +Cyril Carey and Fanny Russell for more than a year back? Annie had +always wondered what Fanny could see in a silly, trifling fop like +Cyril. Rose had not been without a corresponding sense of wonder as to +what Cyril could find in Fanny, who, in spite of her grand Norman +peasant's carriage and profile, was dawdling and discontented with +things in general, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> though she pretended to a little knowledge of +art, did not in the least understand what she was talking about. +However, Annie's and Rose's opinions were of very little consequence +when the matter concerned—not them—but Cyril and Fanny. There had been +"something" between them which had changed the whole world to them last +summer. They would never entirely outlive and forget it—not though +Fanny went to far Cathay and married, not one, but half a dozen of +Nabobs. For she was going to obey her father, and give herself to the +first eligible bidder for her hand. No doubt she would do it with set +lips, blanched face, and great black eyes looking not only twice as +large as their natural size, but hollow and worn in the young face, +because of the dark rings round them. These were produced by the +sleepless nights which she pretended were occasioned by the hurry of her +preparations, and of her having to say good-bye to all her old friends. +But she would do it all the same.</p> + +<p>Dora had only once caught Fanny Russell alone, and ventured on a timid, +heart-felt expostulation.</p> + +<p>"Must you go to India, Fanny? We shall all miss you so much, and it is +not as if you were to be with your father, but just to stay with a +distant relative whom you have never seen; it does appear such a +sacrifice."</p> + +<p>"And what should I do if I stayed behind papa,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> Dora?" asked Fanny, +turning upon her with those great burning eyes and parched lips. "The +house here is to be given up and the furniture sold immediately—of +course you know that. It will take all that he can spare after +discharging his share of the bank debts to keep Mrs. Russell and the +children. I am a useless sort of person—a blank in the world. I could +not nurse like Annie, or paint like Rose. I could not even be a +school-mistress like Bell Hewett. Supposing I were qualified I should +break down in a month. I was born in India, and spent the first five +years of my life there, so that I am idle and languid, without stamina +or moral courage; I am like the poor Bengalees, whom I can just +remember. There is nobody who will undertake to keep me in England," +ended Fanny, with a short, hard laugh.</p> + +<p>And Dora, thinking of Cyril Carey—still one of the unemployed, with his +old supercilious airs lost in the gait that was getting slouching, in +keeping with the clothes becoming shabbier and shabbier, and the +downcast, moody looks—could not find words with which to contradict +her.</p> + +<p>Indeed, when Dora was betrayed into giving her mother a hint of that +"something," unsuspected by the seniors of the circle, which had been +between Cyril Carey and Fanny Russell, and rendered Fanny's destination +still more heartless and hateful,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> Mrs. Millar took an entirely +different view of the circumstances from that taken by her daughters, +and was both indignant and intolerant. "What presumption in Cyril +Carey!" broke out the gentle mother of marriageable daughters, full of +righteous wrath. "To dream of making up to a girl and perhaps engaging +her simple affections, with the danger of breaking her heart and +spoiling her prospects, when he had just failed to pass at college, and +had not so much as a calling—not to say an income, with which to keep a +wife! I shall think worse of him than I did before, after hearing this."</p> + +<p>"But you forget, mother," remonstrated Dora, "that the bank was in +existence then. His father might have been able to do something for +Cyril."</p> + +<p>"He was not going to live on the bank's capital and credit. There was +too much of that going on already with poor James Carey's encroaching, +dishonest relations and their friends. And I beg to tell you, Dora, that +a man who cannot help himself, but has to wait for his father to do +something for him, is a very poor match for any girl. Fanny Russell is +well rid of him. I have no doubt she will think so before she is many +years older—that is, if this is not all a piece of foolish nonsense +such as girls are apt to take into their heads about their companions. +If there was anything in it, and she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> had not been going away, her +father ought to have been warned, and Cyril Carey spoken to in the way +he deserved—selfish scapegrace! As it is, the bare suspicion is enough +to reconcile one to Fanny Russell's going out to India, though that +custom for girls has fallen into disrepute, and I never had any liking +for it. Still I hope that Fanny will soon make an excellent marriage, +and will learn to laugh at Cyril Carey and his unwarrantable +presumption, together with any girlish folly of which she may have been +guilty."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Millar spoke in another fashion to the little Doctor. She had +happened to be at the railway station on the raw, chill morning when +Fanny Russell, in her smart new gray travelling suit—part of her +outfit—was put into a railway carriage by her father and left there +alone, while he went to look after the luggage and find a +smoking-carriage for himself.</p> + +<p>Fanny sat like a statue. She did not even raise her veil when she was +bidding farewell to Lucy Hewett and Dora, who were seeing her off—not +to take a last look at Redcross, where she had spent her youth.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Millar understood it better when she stumbled against Cyril Carey +half hidden by a lamp-post, watching the vanishing train. She might have +taken the opportunity to rebuke him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> for his unprincipled recklessness; +instead of doing so—after one glance at the young fellow's haggard +face—the ordinary words of greeting died away on the kind woman's lips. +She turned aside in another direction, making as if she had not seen +him, without breathing a word of the encounter until she had her +husband's ear all to herself in the privacy of the dining-room.</p> + +<p>"O Jonathan!" she said, "I am so glad, so thankful that you did not +interfere and use any influence, any pressure on Dora about Tom +Robinson. I think it would have broken my heart to see any daughter of +mine going off as Fanny Russell went to-day, leaving the look I declare +I beheld on that poor lad's face. I should not wonder though she has +given him the last push on the road to destruction."</p> + +<p>"Oh, come now; it is not so bad as that," protested Dr. Millar, and then +he was guilty of a most audacious paraphrase of a piece of schoolboy +slang, for which he had some excuse in the habits of his wife—"Keep +your cap on, Maria. In the first place, I see no analogy between the +cases. Dora had not a private love affair—at least I was never told of +it."</p> + +<p>"Father, what are you thinking of? A private love affair in this house! +It was very different with poor Fanny Russell, who had only her silly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> +selfish young stepmother between her and her father. I dare say she +would never have looked at an empty coxcomb like Cyril Carey if she had +been happy at home."</p> + +<p>"And did I not hear you say," asked the gentleman, who had before now +been made the recipient of the disastrous complication of the story, +"that the girl was well quit of the jackanapes, for she could not have a +worse bargain made for her than she had nearly blundered into on her own +account?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I did say so," the lady admitted, when thus brought to book; "and +I'd say it again, if I had not seen that miserable, desperate expression +on his face, and he so young, and such a light-hearted, foolish dandy +only the other day. I may be sorry for him, I suppose, though I have no +son of my own. And I am grieved for poor James Carey, who is breaking up +so fast, and for poor, poor Mrs. Carey."</p> + +<p>It was a positive relief when Dr. Millar came in one day and announced +that he had a piece of good news for the family, by far the best where +the Careys were concerned that he had heard for many a day. Cyril had +got an appointment at last; he had been offered the command of the +mounted police at Deweshurst.</p> + +<p>"A policeman. Oh! what a downfall," cried Mrs. Millar and Dora. But when +the Doctor reminded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> them that there were policemen and policemen, +insisted on the fact that the practice of placing gentlemen at the head +of the constabulary was gaining ground, and asked them what they had +been in the habit of calling Colonel Shaw and Sir Edmund Henderson when +they were the chiefs of the London police, his womankind gave in.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carey did not say there would be another mouth less for her to +feed, but she remarked, with the same sardonic calmness, that Cyril's +clothes would be provided for him, which would be one good thing. Cyril +himself was only too glad to get away. He would have something to do, +however unpalatable in itself, instead of digging in the garden, and +going through the form of helping Robinson, his clerks, and cashier, +with their books. He would have a good horse under him once more, if he +were only to ride it to police drill.</p> + +<p>Dora could not be sure whether he experienced a throb of thankfulness at +the thought that this had not happened till Fanny Russell was gone. +Where was constancy to draw the line? A man was not less a man because +he was also a mounted policeman. He might even be grandiloquently +styled, by those who were particular about the names of things, the +soldier of peace. Still Dora had an irresistible conception of the +pained disdain, the latent superciliousness, which would have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> sprung +into full force in Fanny's dark eyes, if she had ever seen the once +magnificent Cyril in the most careful modification of a <i>bobby's</i> +braided tunic and helmet.</p> + +<p>Bell Hewett would not look so, if she, in her school-mistress character, +met Cyril at Deweshurst. Bell, like Dora, would feel her heart soften +and warm to Cyril in his misfortunes. She would think of Ned, and hurry +up to Ned's old playfellow and chum, to tell him the last news from +Yorkshire, and ask what message from him she should send to Ned in her +next letter. Dora was tempted to go on and wonder whether Cyril's heart +would not be touched in turn by the cordial recognition of his Rector's +daughter, who had, on the whole, kept her position better than he, with +his advantages, had kept his, whose frank greeting had become a kind of +credential of gentle birth and breeding afforded to him in full sight of +the natives of Deweshurst. If he felt all that, he must recognize how +womanly and sweet Bell was, though she was not pretty and not one bit +clever, and be full of gratitude to her. And gratitude combined with +considerable isolation on the one hand, and on the other the constantly +present possibility of agreeable encounters with a loyal old friend, +might lead to anything—to a good deal more than Dora cared to say even +to herself, feeling frightened at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> length to which she had gone on +the spur of the moment in this most recklessly unworldly match-making. +Yet was it reckless, when Bell would be such a good poor man's wife, and +when marriage with a woman like Bell might make another man of Cyril +Carey?</p> + +<p>However, the Careys' adversity, with its reaction on their old +associates, approached a climax shortly after Cyril left. His father +grew so much more helpless an invalid that it was found absolutely +necessary to have a resident nurse for him. Then Mrs. Carey, though she +continued the nurse-in-chief, stated clearly and dispassionately that +she was now sufficiently disengaged to look after her house and give her +single servant what assistance she required. Therefore, as it was high +time that Phyllis should be doing something for herself, Mrs. Carey +proposed to put her at once into "Robinson's," under Miss Franklin, if +Mr. Robinson would receive Phyllis for an apprentice.</p> + +<p>It was in vain that Phyllis cried and implored her mother to take back +her resolution, and that all her friends apprised of the proposed step +remonstrated; Dr. Millar even called expressly to enter his protest.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carey would hear of no objections. Phyllis must do something for +herself, and she was not clever or qualified in any way to be a +governess.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> Mrs. Carey had every confidence in "Robinson's" as an +excellent shop, conducted on the best principles. She had a great +respect for both Mr. Robinson and Miss Franklin—she would never find a +more desirable place for Phyllis. As to cutting her off from all her +connections and the circumstances of her birth and education, that had +been done already pretty effectually. The sooner everybody found his or +her level the better for the world in general. If Mrs. Carey was not +much mistaken, more girls than Phyllis would have to learn that lesson +before these hard times were over. No, it was not Phyllis who was to be +cut off from her connections—from those who ought to be nearest and +dearest to her. It was poor Ella who was separated from the rest of the +family, and condemned to gilded exile. Mrs. Carey was doing her best to +keep Phyllis, not only for her mother and her poor father, but for her +brothers, who must all start in life in a humble way, by putting the +girl into "Robinson's," since Mr. Robinson had reluctantly consented to +have her.</p> + +<p>Dr. Millar retired from the field beaten.</p> + +<p>The unheard-of destination of her friend Phyllis played the most +extraordinary pranks with May Millar's mind. The fact was, there were +two Mays dwelling side by side in one goodly young tabernacle of flesh. +There was the May with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> exceptional scholarly proclivities. She had +a life of her own into which none of the family except her father +possessed so much as the tools to penetrate. She cherished dreams of +Greece and Rome, with the mighty music of the undying voices of their +sages and poets, and the rich treasures of learning, among which a poor +little English girl, far far down in the centuries, could only walk with +reverend foot and bated breath.</p> + +<p>And there was the other May, hanging about her mother, running to bring +her father's slippers, sitting on his knee to this day, taking +possession of Dora, ordering her about like a young tyrant, adoring +Tray—the most guileless, helpless, petted simpleton of a child-woman +that ever existed. The second May was at the present date the more +prominent and prevailing of the two, so much so that all the +sharp-tongued, practical-minded ladies in Redcross made a unanimous +remark. Dr. and Mrs. Millar's youngest daughter was the most +disgracefully spoilt, badly brought-up, childish creature for her years +whom the critics knew. It was a poor preparation in view of her having +to work to maintain herself. They could not tell what was to become of +her.</p> + +<p>At first May lamented, day and night, over the fate of Phyllis Carey, to +have to stand behind counters, sort drawers full of ribands, tape,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> and +reels of cotton, and wait on her townswomen! May could think of no +fitting parallel unless the pathetic one of that miserable young +princess apprenticed to the button-maker, dying with her cheek on an +open Bible, at the text, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy +laden, and I will give you rest."</p> + +<p>Then, as Phyllis accommodated herself to the new yoke, and found it not +so galling as she had expected it to be, her friend May altered her tone +with sympathetic quickness, and reflected Phyllis's change of mood +almost before the mood was established. Phyllis was in mental +constitution like her father, single-hearted and submissive—not bright +any more than Bell Hewett was bright, but contented and trustful as long +as she was suffered to be so. She had been enduring harder and harder +lines at home. She found existence actually brightening instead of +darkening round her when she was transferred to "Robinson's." For +everybody, knowing all about her and her father and mother, with their +altered circumstances, began, at least, by treating her with kindly +respect and forbearance, in spite of Mrs. Carey's austere request that +she should be dealt with exactly like the other shop-girls.</p> + +<p>Shop-work, in which Phyllis was to be gradually trained, felt +comparatively easy to a girl who had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> been taken from school and +launched into the coarsest drudgery of house-work under an +inexperienced, flurried, over-burdened maid-of-all-work. Mrs. Carey was +sufficiently just to exact no more home-work from Phyllis, and to +arrange that she should have her time to herself, like other shop-girls, +after "Robinson's" was closed, while the master of "Robinson's" was +inflexible in setting his face against late hours, except for the elder +hands on one evening in the week. Everybody was good to Phyllis, who, in +truth, just because she was enough of a little lady to be free from +arrogance and assumption, while she was willing to do her best to oblige +her neighbours, provoked no harsh treatment. Above all Tom Robinson for +one person could not be too considerate to her.</p> + +<p>Miss Franklin looked on Phyllis Carey as a godsend, a harbinger of other +better-class girls going into trade. The woman not only took the girl +under her wing, she fell back instinctively and inevitably on Phyllis +for companionship, with a selection flattering in a woman to a girl.</p> + +<p>Then a complete revolution was wrought in May's opinions and wishes. +Nothing would serve her but that she too must go as a shop-girl to +"Robinson's," and share the fortunes of her friend.</p> + +<p>May did not yet confide her purpose to her father and mother, but she +poured it in daily and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> nightly outbursts into the startled ears of +Dora, to whom the hallucination sounded like a mocking retribution on +the young Millars' old scornful estimate of shopkeepers and shops. May +stuck to her point with a tenacity which, touching as it did a tender, +trembling chord in Dora's heart, threatened also to subvert her +judgment, that was at once sounder and more matured than May's.</p> + +<p>The vibrating chord lay in the knowledge that May too was destined to +quit Redcross at no distant day, with the aching reluctance of Dora to +give her up, and to find herself in the position that domineering, +selfish girls sometimes covet—that of being the only girl at home, +having none to share with her in the rights and privileges of the +daughter of the house.</p> + +<p>A sort of feverish anxiety, which was in itself ominous, had taken hold +of Dr. Millar to see all he had projected accomplished in so far as it +was still possible. That is, he would fain set in motion, at least, the +wheels which would carry out his purpose. Perhaps he had reason to +distrust his health and life; perhaps it was simply that he was not +insensible to the fact, that money had a trick of running through his +fingers and those of Mrs. Millar like water, though they did their best +to catch it up and arrest it in its rapid course. Mrs. Millar's little +private income was still in part free,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> and not engulfed in the needs of +the household at Redcross, as it might not long continue. Rose had only +sixty pounds of it, and Annie fifteen for pocket-money till she should +have passed her probation and be in a position to receive her nurse's +salary, which would be as soon as she had completed her first year in +the hospital. There were seventy-five pounds remaining, which might +serve to keep May at Thirlwall Hall in St. Ambrose's with the chance of +her gaining a scholarship and partly maintaining herself for the rest of +her stay in college. "Little May's" maintaining herself in any degree +was a notion half to laugh at, half to cry over, while it took +possession of Dr. Millar's imagination just as serving in "Robinson's" +along with Phyllis Carey had hold of May's.</p> + +<p>Another year (who knew?) it might not be in the Millars' power to afford +May the opportunity of growing up a scholar, on which her father had set +his heart. That consciousness, and the sense of the value which her +husband put on May's abilities and their culture, brought round Mrs. +Millar. She began to contemplate with something like composure what she +would otherwise have strongly objected to, the sending forth of her +youngest darling—the child who so clung to her and to home—into an +indifferent or hostile world.</p> + +<p>Truth to tell, it was May herself who was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> great obstacle. She was +not cast in the heroic mould of Annie and Rose. It was like tearing up +her heart-strings to drag her away from her father and mother, Dora, +Tray, the Old Doctor's House, Redcross itself. She had enough perception +of what was due to everybody concerned—herself included—and just +sufficient self-control not to disgrace herself and vex her father by +openly opposing and actively fighting against his plans for her welfare. +But she threw all the discouraging weight of a passive resistance and +dumb protest into the scale.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_xv" id="chapter_xv"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">TOM ROBINSON TAKEN INTO COUNSEL.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">At</span> last May, in the innocence of her heart, took a rash step. She heard +her father say it was good, showery, fishing weather, and she was aware +Tom Robinson often fished in the Dewes; what was to hinder her from +making a detour by the river on her way home from school, and if she saw +Tom near the old bridge—the pools below were specially patronized by +fishers—she might go up to him and ask him frankly if he had an opening +for her services, along with those of Phyllis Carey, in his shop? If he +had, would he do her the great favour to speak to her father and mother, +and ask them not to send her away to be a scholar at St. Ambrose, but to +let her stay and be a shop-woman in Redcross?</p> + +<p>Tom Robinson, at the first word of her appeal, put up his fishing-rod, +slung his basket, in which there were only a couple of fish, on his +back, shouldered her books, and turned and walked back<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> with her, as if +it was he who was seeking her company and not she his. How else was he +to make the little girl who might have been his pet sister see that +there was any harm in the irregular course she had pursued? How, +otherwise, was she to understand that she was big enough—nearly a head +taller than her sister Dora—and old enough with her seventeen years, +though she was still the child of the family, to render it indecorous +for her to come, out of her own head, without the knowledge of anybody, +to have a private interview with him on the banks of the Dewes?</p> + +<p>"'Robinson's' is highly honoured," he told her, in a tone partly +bantering, partly serious, and wholly friendly, "and I too should, and +do, thank you for the trust in me which your proposal implies, but I am +afraid it would not do, Miss May."</p> + +<p>May's fair young face fell.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I am so sorry," she said simply; "but, please, may I know why you +have Phyllis and will not have me?"</p> + +<p>"The case is altogether different. Mrs. Carey made up her mind that Miss +Phyllis should go into a shop—mine or another's. Phyllis was not happy +at home; she is not a clever, studious girl, though she is your friend +and is very nice—of course all young ladies are nice. There is no +comparison between you and her."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>"But why shouldn't clever people go and work in shops?" persisted May, +in her half-childish way—"not that I mean I am clever; that would be +too conceited. But I am sure it would be a great deal better for shops +if they had the very cleverest people to work in them."</p> + +<p>"It depends on the kind of cleverness," he told her. "With regard to one +sort you are right, of course; with respect to another it would not +answer, and it would be horrible waste."</p> + +<p>She opened her brown eyes wide. "Why do you waste your abilities and +college education?" she asked him naïvely—"not that everybody calls it +a waste; some people say 'Robinson's' is the high-class shop it is, +because its masters have not only been respectable people, they have +always been educated men and gentlemen."</p> + +<p>"I ought to say for myself and my predecessors that I am much obliged to +'some people' for acknowledging that," he remarked coolly.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Mr. Robinson," said May humbly. "I know I have been +very rude—I am constantly saying stupid things."</p> + +<p>"Not at all; and though you did, never mind—say them to me if you +like," he gave her <i>carte blanche</i> to comfort her. "But look here, Miss +May, I don't wish you to make mistakes. Indeed it is my duty, since I am +a great deal older than you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>—old enough to be, well, your uncle I +should say—to prevent it if I can."</p> + +<p>"I don't see how you could be my uncle," said May bluntly, "when you are +not more than five or six years older than Annie—I have heard her say +so—you are more like my brother."</p> + +<p>The instant she mentioned the relationship to which he had aspired in +vain, she felt the blood tingling to her finger-tips, and she could see +him redden under the shade of his soft felt hat.</p> + +<p>May groaned inwardly. "Oh! I am a blundering goose; I wonder anybody can +be so infatuated as to think me clever."</p> + +<p>"I have not said what I wished to say," he resumed, for somehow, in +spite of her forgetfulness and lack of tact, he could talk well enough +to May. "I must set you right. I have not a grain of the scholar in me +such as you have, neither do I believe that those who went before me +had; we could never have been more than fair students. We did not go out +of our way to get learning. We did what our associates and +contemporaries did, that was all. I fancy I may take the small credit to +us of saying that we had no objection to learn what the ancients +thought, saw, and did, after we had been lugged through the Latin +grammar and caned into familiarity with Greek verbs. We were like other +men who had the same advantages.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> I honestly believe if we had anything +special and individual about us it was a turn for trade. That is the +only manner in which I can account for our sticking to the shop, unless +we were mere money-grubbers. But all that signifies very little; what +does signify is that you are not quite like other girls. What, May, do +you pretend that you do not prize the roll of a sonorous passage, or the +trip of an exquisite phrase in Latin or Greek? That it does not tickle +your ears, cling to your memory, and haunt you as a theme in music +haunts a composer? Do you not care to go any deeper in Plato or in the +dramatists? Is it a fact that you can bear to have heard the last of +Antigone, and Alcestis, and Electra?"</p> + +<p>May hung her head like one accused of gross unfaithfulness, with some +show of reason.</p> + +<p>"No, I cannot say that, Mr. Robinson," she owned, "I shall think and +dream of them all my life. They are so grand and persecuted and sad. But +there—if I do not turn my back on them and my books, I must go to St. +Ambrose's, there is no choice," ended May disconsolately.</p> + +<p>"But why not go to St. Ambrose's?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! you do not know, Mr. Robinson," protested May with fresh energy. +"In the first place you are a man and cannot understand. In the second, +I suppose it is because I am so silly and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> childish and cowardly," she +went on incoherently. "Annie always said it was cowardly; she and Rose +went away quite bravely and cheerfully, keeping up their own and +everybody's spirits to the last. But Dora and I could not do it, yet I +do not know that anybody ever thought of calling our Dora cowardly +exactly, or silly, and childish. She was not a bit cowardly with the +horrid big dog and dear little Tray, you remember?—she would not let me +interfere, but she would have stoned the dog herself."</p> + +<p>"Which would have been very foolish of her," said Tom Robinson with +decision. "I should say she was timid, not cowardly—there is a broad +distinction between the two conditions."</p> + +<p>"It is just that we cannot leave home for any length of time, Dora and +I," said May piteously.</p> + +<p>"So you and your sister Dora cannot leave home—that is the objection, +is it?" he repeated, slowly pulling his red moustache. "What do you call +home? The Old Doctor's House or Redcross?"</p> + +<p>"Both," cried May quickly; "where father and mother and the rest of us +are, of course."</p> + +<p>"But the rest of you are gone, and what if your father and mother were +to go too?"</p> + +<p>"They won't, they never will," insisted May—"not until they come to +die. You were not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> meaning that? Oh! you could not be so cruel, so +barbarous," cried May, passionately, "when death is such a long way off, +I trust. I know that God is good whether we live or die, and that we +shall meet again in a better world. But we are not parted yet, and it is +not wrong to pray that we may be a long time together here on this very +earth, which we know so well, where we have been so happy. Why, father +and mother are not more than middle-aged—mother is not, and if father +is older, he is as strong and hale as anybody. Think how he was able to +give up his carriage and attend his patients on foot last autumn without +feeling it," urged the girl defiantly, in her passion of love and roused +dread, which she would not admit.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," he strove to reassure her, feeling himself a savage for +frightening her by his inadvertence, "I never saw anybody wear so well +as Dr. Millar. He might be sixty or fifty—he may live to be a +hundred—I hope with all my heart he will; and I shall not be astonished +if I live to see it. As for Mrs. Millar, it is an insult to call her +middle-aged. It is something quite out of keeping to come across her +with such a tall daughter as you are."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am the tallest of the four," exclaimed May complacently, +diverted from the main topic,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> as he had intended her to be. "And I have +not done growing yet; my last summer's frock had to be let down half an +inch."</p> + +<p>"Is it possible? What are we all coming to? You will soon have to stoop +to take my arm—if you ever condescend to take my arm."</p> + +<p>"No," she denied encouragingly, "I am not so far above your shoulder +now," measuring the distance with a critical eye. "I shall not grow so +much as that comes to. You are bigger than father, and you would not +call him a little man; you are hardly even short."</p> + +<p>"Thanks, you are too kind," said Tom Robinson, with the utmost gravity. +"But I say, Miss May, if I were you, I don't think I should do anything +to vex and thwart Dr. Millar, though he is so strong and active—long +may he continue so. You know how disappointed he would be if you were to +close your books."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid he would," said May reluctantly. "I had almost forgotten +all about it for the last minute or two. But don't you think if you +spoke to him as I came to ask if you would," she continued unblushingly +and coaxingly, "if you were to try and show him—it would be so kind of +you—how comfortable and happy I should be with Phyllis Carey in your +shop—doing my best—indeed, I should try hard to please you and Miss<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> +Franklin, all day—and getting home every evening—he might change his +mind?"</p> + +<p>"No, he would not," said Tom with conviction; "and what is more, he +ought not. He would never cease to regret his shattered hopes for +you—which, remember, you would have shattered—and your spoilt life."</p> + +<p>"But your life is not spoilt?" she said wistfully, unable to resign her +last hope.</p> + +<p>"How can you tell?" he said, with a slight sharpness in his accent. Then +he added quickly, "No, for I am a born shopkeeper in another sense than +because I am one of a nation of shopkeepers."</p> + +<p>He gave himself a reassuring shake, and resumed briskly—"I crave leave +to say, Miss May, that I actually enjoy making up accounts, turning over +samples, and giving orders. Sometimes I hit on a good idea which the +commercial world acknowledges, and then I am as proud as if I had +unearthed an ancient manuscript, or found the philosopher's stone. I +pulled a fellow through a difficulty the other day, and it felt like +taking part in an exciting fight. I have speculated occasionally when I +was fishing—paying myself a huge compliment, no doubt—whether old +Izaak Walton felt like me about trade."</p> + +<p>"Was he in trade?" inquired May, with some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> surprise. "I know he wrote +<i>The Complete Angler</i>, and was a friend of Dr. Donne's and George +Herbert's, and is very much thought of to this day."</p> + +<p>"Deservedly," said Tom Robinson emphatically. "Yes, I am proud to say, +he was a hosier to begin with, and a linen-draper to end +with—well-to-do in both lines. They say his first wife, whom he married +while he was still in business, was a niece of the Archbishop of +Canterbury of the day, and his second wife, whom he married after he had +retired to live on his earnings, was a half-sister of good Bishop Ken's; +but I do not pretend to vouch for the truth of these statements. Now, +about your father. I cannot do what you ask—I cannot in conscience. +Will you ever forgive me, 'little May'—that is what your father and +mother and your sisters call you sometimes to this day, ain't it? and it +is what I should have called you if I had been—your uncle say? Shall we +be no longer friends?" he demanded ruefully.</p> + +<p>"Of course we shall," said May, with a suspicion of petulance. "You are +not bound to do what I bid you—I never thought that; and you are father +and mother's friend—how could I help being your friend?"</p> + +<p>"Don't try to help it," he charged her.</p> + +<p>Tom Robinson went farther than not feeling bound to do what May begged +of him, he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> constrained to remonstrate in another quarter to prevent +trouble and disappointment to all concerned. He screwed up his courage, +and everybody knows he was a modest man, and called at the Old Doctor's +House for the express purpose. He had called seldom during the past +year—just often enough to keep up the form of visiting—to show that he +was not the surly boor, without self-respect or consideration for the +Millars, which he would have been if he had dropped all intercourse with +the family because one of them had refused to marry him. But though he +had begged for Dora's friendship when he could not have her love, and +had meant what he said, the wound was too recent for him to act as if +nothing had happened. In addition to the pain and self-consciousness, +there was a traditional atmosphere of agitation and alarm, a kind of +conventional awkwardness, together with an anxious countenance, and +protection sedulously afforded by the initiated and interested +spectators to Tom and Dora, which, like many other instances of +countenance and protection, went far towards doing the mischief they +were intended to prevent.</p> + +<p>Tom saw through the punctilious feints and solemn stratagems clearly; +Dora did the same as plainly. Indeed the two would have been idiots if +they could have escaped from the discomfiting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> perception of the care +which was taken of them and their feelings, and the fact that every eye +was upon them.</p> + +<p>The sole result was to render the couple more wretchedly uncomfortable +than if they had been set aside and sentenced to the company of each +other and of no one else for a bad five minutes every day of their +lives.</p> + +<p>Another unhappy consequence of their being thus elaborately spared and +shielded was, that when by some unfortunate chance the tactics failed, +the couple felt as flurried and guilty as if they had contrived the +fruitless accident to serve their own nefarious ends.</p> + +<p>Tom Robinson called on the Millars between four and five the day after +May had made her raid upon him, expecting to find what was left of the +family gathering together for afternoon tea. He had the ulterior design +of drawing May's father and mother apart, and letting them judge for +themselves the advisability of her going up at once to St. Ambrose's, +before her whole heart and mind were disastrously set against her +natural and honourable destiny. He was distinctly put out by finding +Dora alone. As for Dora, she told a faltering tale of her father's +having been called away to a poor patient who was a pensioner of her +mother's, and of Mrs. Millar's having walked over to Stokeleigh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> with +him to see what she could do for old Hannah Lightfoot; while May was +spending the afternoon with the Hewetts at the Rectory.</p> + +<p>He hesitated whether to go or stay under the circumstances, but he hated +to beat an ignominious retreat, as if <i>he</i> thought that <i>she</i> thought he +could not be beside her for a quarter of an hour without making an ass +of himself again and pestering her. Why should he not accept the cup of +tea which she faintly offered from the hands that visibly trembled with +nervousness? When he came to consider it, why should he not transact his +business with Dora? She was as deeply interested as anybody, unless the +culprit herself; she probably knew better what May was foolishly +planning than either their father or mother did, and would convey to +them the necessary information.</p> + +<p>As for Dora, she was thinking in a restless fever, "I hope—I hope he +does not see how much I mind being alone with him. It is just because I +am not used to it. How I wish somebody would come in,—not mother, +perhaps, for she would start and look put out herself, and sit down +without so much as getting rid of her sunshade; and, oh dear, not May, +for she would stare, and I do not know what on earth she would +think—some wild absurdity, I dare say; anyhow, she would look exactly +what she thought."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>"Look here, Miss Dora," he said abruptly; "you don't think your sister +May ought to renounce the object of her education hitherto, and your +father's views for her, in order to do like Miss Phyllis Carey? You are +aware that May has become enamoured of Phyllis Carey's example, and is +bent on following in her footsteps; but it won't do, and I have told her +so. I trust nobody suspects me of encouraging young ladies to become +shop-women," he added, with a slightly foolish laugh, "as old actors +used to be accused of decoying young men of rank and fashion into going +on the stage, and recruiting sergeants of beguiling country bumpkins +into taking the king's shilling."</p> + +<p>"Has May spoken to you about it?" cried Dora, startled out of her +engrossing private reflections. "What a child she is! I am sorry she has +troubled you; she ought not to have done that. I hope you will excuse +her."</p> + +<p>"Don't speak of it," he said a little stiffly, as he put down his cup +and signified he would have no more tea.</p> + +<p>"And you said no," remarked Dora, with an involuntary fall of her voice +reflecting the sinking of her heart. "Of course you could not do +otherwise. It was a foolish notion. I am afraid Phyllis Carey is enough +of a nuisance to Miss Franklin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>—and other people. It is hard that you +should be bothered by these girls. Only I suspect poor 'little May' will +be most dreadfully, unreasonably disappointed;" and there was an attempt +to smile and a quiver of the soft lips which she could not hide.</p> + +<p>"I am not bothered, and I hate to disappoint your sister,—I trust you +understand that," he said quickly and earnestly. "But it would be +sacrificing her and overturning your father's arrangements for +her—disappointing what I am sure are among his dearest wishes."</p> + +<p>She did not ask, like May, why he did not count himself sacrificed. She +only said shyly and wistfully, "I knew it was out of the question, but +if it had not been so, or if there had been any other way, it would have +been such a boon to poor May not to be torn from home." At the harrowing +picture thus conjured up her voice fairly shook, and the tears started +into her dovelike eyes.</p> + +<p>"Home," he said impatiently, "is not everything; at least, not the home +from which every boy must go, as a matter of course. 'Torn from home' in +order to go to school! Surely the first part of the sentence is tall +language."</p> + +<p>"It is neither too tall nor too strong where May is concerned," said +Dora, rousing herself to plead May's cause. "She has not been away from +home<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> and from father—especially from mother, and one or other of the +rest of us, for longer than a week since she was born."</p> + +<p>"Then the sooner she begins the better for her," he said brutally, as it +sounded to himself, to the loving, shrinking girl he was addressing.</p> + +<p>"She has always been the little one, the pet," urged Dora; "she will not +know what to do without some of us to take care of her and be good to +her."</p> + +<p>"But she must go away some day," he continued his remonstrance. "How old +is your sister?"</p> + +<p>"She was seventeen last Christmas," Dora answered shamefacedly.</p> + +<p>"Why, many a woman is married before she is May's age," he protested. +"Many a woman has left her native country, gone among strangers, and had +to maintain her independence and dignity unaided, by the time she was +seventeen. Queen Charlotte was not more than sixteen when she landed in +England and married George the Third."</p> + +<p>Dora could not help laughing, as he meant her to do. "May and Queen +Charlotte! they are as far removed as fire and water. But," she answered +meekly, "I know the Princess Royal was no older when she went to Berlin; +and poor Marie Antoinette was a great deal younger, as May<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> would have +reminded me if she had been here, in the old days when she travelled +from Vienna to Paris. But there—it is all so different. They were +princesses from whom a great deal is expected, and the Princess Royal +was the eldest instead of the youngest of the Queen's children."</p> + +<p>"Does seniority make so great a difference?" he said, with an inflection +of his voice which she noticed, though he hastened to make her forget it +by speaking again gravely the next minute. "Should May not learn to +stand alone? Would it not be dwarfing and cramping her, all her life +probably, to give way to her now. Can it ever be too early to acquire +self-reliance, and is it not one of the most necessary lessons for a +responsible human being to learn? Besides, '<i>ce n'est que le premier pas +qui coute</i>.' It is only the first wrench which will hurt her. She will +find plenty of fresh interests and congenial occupations at St. +Ambrose's. In a week, a fortnight, she will not miss you too much."</p> + +<p>Dora shook her head incredulously. It was little he knew of May, with +her fond family attachments, and her helplessness when left to herself +in common things.</p> + +<p>"Follow my advice, Miss Dora," he said, rising to take his leave, "don't +aid and abet Miss May in seeking to shirk her obligations. +Unques<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>tionably the one nearest to her at present is that she should go +to St. Ambrose's. Don't prevent her from beginning to think and act for +herself—not like a charming child, but in the light of her dawning +womanhood."</p> + +<p>He gave a swift glance round him as he spoke, and a recollection which +had been in the background of both their thoughts during the whole of +the interview, flashed into the foreground. It was of that day a year +ago, a breezy spring day like this, when, as it seemed, there were the +same jonquils in the jar on the chimney-piece, and the same +cherry-blossom seen through the window against the blue sky, and he had +asked her with his heart on his lips, and the happiness of his life at +stake, to be his wife, and she had told him, with agitation and distress +almost equal to his, that he could never be anything to her. He caught +her half-averted eyes, and felt the whole scene was present with her as +with him once more, and the consciousness brought back all his old +shyness and reserve, and hurried his leave-taking. The slightest touch +to her hand, and he had bowed himself out and was gone.</p> + +<p>"How silly he must think me," Dora reflected, walking up and down the +empty room in perturbation, "both about poor 'little May,' and about +remembering the last time we were alone together.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> I dare say he is +right about May, though men never do understand what girls feel. If she +should fall ill, and break her heart, and die of home-sickness—such +things have happened before now—I wonder what he would say then about +her learning to stand alone? Very likely he would assert that St. +Ambrose's is not St. Petersburg, or even Shetland or the Scilly Isles. +It is not far away, and if she were not well or happy, she could come +back in half a day, as the other girls could come down from London. But +then he would despise her, for as quiet and good-natured as he is, and +though people have said that he himself had no proper pride in +consenting to have a shop. And I don't think May could bear contempt +from anybody whom she had ever looked on as a friend. Men are hard—the +best of them are, and they don't understand. He is kind—I am sure he +means it all in kindness; but he is not yielding; he is as masterful as +when he dragged the dogs to the edge of the bank and let them drop into +the Dewes for their good. He will never be turned from what he thinks +right. I wish he had not guessed what I could not help remembering—he +was quick enough in doing that; and I could not tell him that I did not +imagine for a moment—I was not so foolish—that he was under the same +delusion he suffered from twelve months<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> ago. If he had been oftener +here in the interval, and we had met and been together naturally as we +used to be, sometimes, I should have forgotten all about it, and so +would he, no doubt. But how could I help thinking of it when there has +always been such a point made of mother or some one else being present +when he called? I am certain it is quite unnecessary and a great +mistake. He will not speak to me again as he spoke that day. There is no +danger of his running away with me," Dora told herself with an unsteady +laugh. "I hope he is not under the impression that I did not think and +act for myself when I was forced to do it. Because, although they all +knew about it, and of course Annie and the others teased me about +'Robinson's,' and the colour of his hair, and his size, father and +mother told me to decide for myself, and I did not hesitate for a +moment. I could no more have borne to leave them all of my own free will +than May could. Surely it was proof positive I did not like him in that +way," Dora represented to herself with the greatest emphasis.</p> + +<p>Tom Robinson was marching home with his hands in his pockets and his hat +drawn over his eyes. "How hard she must think me—little short of a +pragmatical, supercilious brute—not to do my best to keep 'little May' +at home, where the child<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> wants to be. I asked her to let me call myself +her friend, and this is the first specimen of my friendship! she will +take precious good care not to ask for another. She will be horribly +dull left by herself without one girl companion, only the old people. +These sisters were so happy together—I liked to see them, perhaps all +the more because I had neither brothers nor sisters of my own—I thought +it was an assurance of what they might be in other relations of life. I +suppose she will tackle that little spitfire of a dog which I inflicted +on them. May will lay her parting injunctions on Dora to plague herself +perpetually with the monster, and these will be like dying words to +Dora, she will sooner die herself than intermit a single harassing +attention. And it will be impossible for her to avoid many deprivations. +There are more partings to be faced in the future. Millar is an old man, +even if he could hope to pay up the bank's calls and make some provision +for his widow and daughters. It was a pity poor Dora could not care for +me, when there need have been no partings where we two were concerned, +save that material separation of death which is quoted in the marriage +service. She would not have believed, nor I either, that it could touch +the spiritual side of the question and the love which is worth having, +that is God-like and belongs to immor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>tality. I might have done what I +could if Dora had married me, so far as the other girls would have let +me, to serve as a buffer between the family and the adversity which I am +afraid not all their high spirit and gallant fight will hold entirely at +bay. It was not to be, and there is an end on't. I wonder where I found +the heart, and the cheek too for that matter, to bully Dora about May, +though, Heaven knows, I spoke no more than the truth. Well, she has her +revenge, and I am punished for it. It cut me up at the time to hurt her, +and the recollection of having contradicted and pained so sweet and +gentle a creature is very much as if I had dealt a lamb a blow or wrung +a pigeon's neck—on principle."</p> + +<p>Half an hour afterwards Mrs. Millar bustled into her drawing-room with +an expression of mingled annoyance and excited expectation on her still +comely face.</p> + +<p>"My dear Dora, I am so sorry; he gave his name to Jane, and she has told +me who has been calling in my absence. I wish I had not left you by +yourself. But who was to guess that Tom Robinson would call this +afternoon? It must have been exceedingly disagreeable for you."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Dora, vaguely and desperately; "we must meet +sometimes when there is nobody by, if we continue to live in the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> +town. I wish you would not mind it for me, mother, and keep on trying to +avoid such accidents, for I really think it makes them worse when they +do happen."</p> + +<p>"Very well, my dear, you know your own feelings best," said Mrs. Millar, +a little puzzled. In her day it was reckoned no more than what was due +to maidenly delicacy and social propriety to preserve a respectful +distance between a rejected man and his rejector. As if the gentleman +might, as Dora had said, carry off the lady by force, or shoot her or +himself with the pistol hidden in his breast!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_xvi" id="chapter_xvi"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">ROSE'S FOLLY AND ANNIE'S WISDOM.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">Annie Millar</span> not only warmed to her work in St. Ebbe's, she recovered +her full glow of health and spirits. She not only liked her nursing, she +enjoyed her holiday hours intensely with the peculiarly keen enjoyment +of busy women doing excellent service in the world. If any one wishes to +know what such enjoyment is like let him have recourse to a great +authority. <span class="super">"<i>In the few hours of holiday that—only now and then—they +(a nursing sisterhood) allow themselves, they show none of the weariness +that sometimes follows the industry of toiling after self-amusement. +Reaction, after great strain on the powers of self-sacrifice and +endurance that they have to exert, may be thought to account in some +part for the happy result; but, whatever the cause, their society has in +it all that can best and most surely attract—grace, freshness, and +natural charm.</i>"<sup>[1]</sup></span></p> + +<p class="super" style="text-indent: 0em;"><sup>[1]</sup> Kinglake in his <i>History of the Crimean +War</i>, vol. vi. p. 436.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>Rose felt as if she had never sufficiently appreciated Annie before. She +was very proud of her sister now when she came to Welby Square, and +everybody, whether in Mrs. Jennings's set or in Hester's, was struck +with Annie's beauty and brightness.</p> + +<p>Even Hester Jennings saw nothing to find fault with on the ornamental +side of a girl who had gone in so heartily for the serious business of +life, nine-tenths of whose hours were occupied with grave tasks, to +which Hester owned honestly that she with all her public spirit was not +equal.</p> + +<p>Annie's face was not only the most unclouded, her laugh the merriest of +all the faces and laughs which appeared and were heard in Welby Square. +She became almost as much of a peacemaker, a smoother-down of rough +interludes, an allayer of irritating ebullitions, as Dora was wont to be +at home.</p> + +<p>"Annie is so much improved," Rose wrote to May, "I never saw her looking +prettier. She is just splendid when she comes out of St. Ebbe's for an +afternoon and evening. Everybody is delighted to see her, and wants to +have her for his or her particular friend. She and I have such jolly +walks and talks; she hardly ever calls me back or puts me down now."</p> + +<p>After pronouncing this high encomium it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> rather a shock to Rose not +only to incur Annie's righteous displeasure, but to discover that on +occasions Annie could be as severe and relentless in her sentences as +ever.</p> + +<p>Rose, like most middle-class girls not fairly out of their teens, and +committed to their own discretion in the huge motley world of London, +had been solemnly charged to behave with the greatest wariness. She was +to treat every man or woman she encountered well-nigh as a dangerous +enemy in disguise till her suspicions were proved to be misplaced, and +the stranger shown to Rose's satisfaction and that of her seniors and +guardians to be a harmless friend.</p> + +<p>To do Rose justice, she remembered for the most part what had been told +her, and was careful not to expose herself to the slightest chance of +misapprehension—not to say rudeness, such as would have frightened her +mother and incensed her father. Rose would not be tempted by the +fearless independence of Hester Jennings and her cronies. They +maintained, in theory at least, that though there might be dens of vice +and dark places of cruelty in the great city, for those whose feet trod +the downward path, yet its crowded thoroughfares, to those who honestly +went about their own business, or to the messengers of divine charity +and mercy, were as safe, and safer, than any quiet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> country road. +Womanhood in the strength and confidence of its purity and fearlessness +might traverse them alone at any hour of the day or night.</p> + +<p>But Rose submitted to the ordinary if antiquated code, which implies the +timidity and defencelessness of young women whenever and wherever +assailed. She had not gone far enough in her emancipation to reckon as +part of it, immunity from apprehension of every kind, including the +strife of evil tongues.</p> + +<p>However, one day in the beginning of May, Rose went to Covent Garden in +pursuit of a pot of tulips, which she suddenly felt she must have, +without delay, as an accessory in one of her sketches. She was coming +home laden with her spoil by way of Burnet's, where there was an equal +necessity for her to procure, on the instant, a yard or two of gauzy +stuff of a certain uncertain hue, when a thunder-storm unexpectedly +broke over the haunt of artists. Torrents of rain followed, enough to +wash away whole pyramids of flowers and piles of art-materials. If the +downpour did nothing else it cleared the crowded street, with the +celerity of magic only seen in such circumstances, and left Rose +cowering in a doorway, alone as it seemed to her, but for a cab-driver +who took refuge in his cab, drawn up before one of the opposite houses. +The rain looked as if it meant to continue, while, laden as Rose was, +she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> could not have held up an umbrella even if she had found one ready +to her hand.</p> + +<p>Her slender funds did not set her up in cabs, as she had told herself on +many a weary trudge in fog and drizzle between Mr. Foy's class-rooms and +Welby Square. Besides she would like to see Hester Jennings's face when +she (Rose Millar) proposed to indulge in such a luxury. But there would +be more lost than gained if she stood shivering in that doorway till her +best spring frock was ruined, waiting for an omnibus which was sure to +arrive with every available inch of space occupied. She would catch a +chill or an influenza with no kind father near to save her a doctor's +bill, and cure her simply for the pleasure of doing it. She would brave +Hester's eagle eye, supposing it could scan Rose's misdeeds from some +coigne of vantage commanding this end of the street. She signalled to +the cab-driver opposite, who put his head out of the cab window and +signalled back that he had a fare besides himself at present ensconced +in one of the inhospitable-looking houses.</p> + +<p>Should she bid the thunder, lightning, and rain do their worst, and set +out to walk home in defiance of them? While she still paused irresolute, +peeping out disconsolately at the inky sky from which the downpour fell, +a young man in the conscious superiority of a waterproof and an ample<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> +umbrella, walked leisurely along the sloppy, deserted pavement. He +looked at her, seemed arrested by something which struck him in her +appearance, hesitated a little undecidedly, stopped short, and addressed +her, colouring up to his frank, honest blue eyes as he did so.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid you have been caught in this tremendous shower. Can I do +nothing to help you—call a cab, for instance?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! thank you very much," she said gratefully, forgetting all about the +cunning enemy in disguise for whom she was to be always looking out. +Indeed she had felt so lonely a minute before that she was rather +disposed to welcome a comrade in misfortune. "The cabman in the cab +opposite tells me he is engaged, and I do not remember any cab-stand +near this."</p> + +<p>"There is one round the corner, which I passed a minute ago, but it was +vacant; all the world is wanting cabs in such weather. However, I can +shelter you a little, if you will allow me," and he held the umbrella in +front of her.</p> + +<p>"No, please; I am keeping you here in the wet, and you are exposing +yourself to the rain," protested Rose, remorsefully. "I was just +thinking of walking on, sooner than stand any longer getting gradually +soaked," she confided to him with pleasant inconsiderateness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>"Then will you take the use of my umbrella?" he asked promptly; "and +perhaps you will let me carry your parcels for you," he suggested in the +humblest manner possible, eyeing covetously her flower-pot, and the +paper wisp from "Burnet's."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, no," said Rose, pulling herself together when it was too late, +and with an adorable frankness, which was another mistake so far as an +unauthorized acquaintance's being nipped in the bud went. "I should be +taking you out of your way; you must want your own umbrella, and I can +manage perfectly well. I am accustomed to go about by myself"—the last +piece of information given with a proud inflection of the voice which +told its own tale.</p> + +<p>"In storm and shine?" he took it upon him to question her, with the +slightest rallying tone, and a twinkle in his blue eyes, but still with +the greatest respect in his attitude and manner—"not in storm, surely. +I shall not be going out of my way. I am only taking a stroll—that is, +I generally do take a stroll in some direction on my way back to my +lodgings. You may not think the weather nice for strolling, but I don't +mind it. I am as strong as a horse, and I certainly don't want an +umbrella. I have this waterproof affair, which, like the umbrella, is +rather a nuisance than otherwise."</p> + +<p>She could see at a glance that he was a broad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>-shouldered young fellow, +over six feet, and that his kindly, deferential face, seen through the +steaming atmosphere, was as ruddy as youth and a vigorous constitution +could make it. He was evidently speaking the truth, and she could not +resist the temptation of the friendly aid arriving thus opportunely, and +so obligingly pressed upon her.</p> + +<p>"Only for a little way," she bargained cheerfully. "The rain may stop in +a minute, though I must say it does not look like it, or we may come on +a return cab; anyhow, it cannot be long till an omnibus overtakes us."</p> + +<p>She would have demurred at his ridding her of her flowers and parcel, +which he disposed of easily under his arm and in his disengaged hand, as +if he were well accustomed to being cumbered with such small +impediments, had not a comical idea crossed her mind. He might think +that she did not trust his honesty, and was beset by a fear that he +would rush down a side street and disappear with her goods before she +could cry, "Stop, thief!" and arouse the scanty passers-by.</p> + +<p>Then Rose felt impelled to explain why she walked about London burdened +with flower-pots and rolls of gauze. "I have just been to Covent +Garden," she said. "I wished to get this pot of tulips—parrot +tulips—yellow and scarlet, you know, to harmonize with a Chinese screen +in a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> picture I am painting. Then I had to go into 'Burnet's,' +for 'Liberty's' is too far away, for some blue stuff of the right shade +which I could drape into a frock for the little girl who is my model."</p> + +<p>"Are you fond of painting?" he caught her up, being to the full as +willing to speak as she was. "So is my sister, and she also goes to +'Liberty's' for queer rags and tags. I suppose they are part of the +amateur's stock-in-trade."</p> + +<p>"I am going to be a professional artist," said Rose again, with that +proud little inflection of the voice. But all the effect which her +communication had upon him was that he took it as an invitation, or at +least as a warrant, for responsive confidences on his own part.</p> + +<p>"I am a doctor," he announced. "I have been entitled to write myself one +for the last two months. I have just passed my final exams, and got my +degree—stiffish work for a fellow who does not take to sapping as +easily as to the air he breathes."</p> + +<p>"My father is a doctor," said Rose, brightly, with her tongue fairly +loosened. "I forget whether he says examinations were easier or more +difficult when he was young. He is Dr. Millar of Redcross."</p> + +<p>"Millar!" exclaimed the tall young man so excitedly, that he stopped +short for an instant, in the middle of the dismally lashing rain, and +looked at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> her with a gleam of delight in his blue eyes. "I thought so, +I saw it at the first glance. You have a sister among the lady +probationers at St. Ebbe's."</p> + +<p>"Yes—Annie," cried Rose, with equal ecstasy in the acquiescence; and +she, too, stood still for a second in the rain. "Do you know St. Ebbe's? +Have you seen Annie?"</p> + +<p>"I should think I do, I should think I have," he answered her fervently. +"St. Ebbe's is my hospital. I have been 'walking it' for a year past. I +was there to-day, and Miss Millar is well known all over the place. She +is a great favourite with the matron, Mrs. Hull, and the house surgeon, +and especially with the operating surgeon. He is always asking to have +Miss Millar in his cases since that boy had his leg cut off."</p> + +<p>"I know, I know," chimed in Rose, "the little boy who begged you to wait +till he had said his prayers, and when he could not do it for himself, +Annie was able to do it for him. Now he is hopping about on his crutches +quite actively and happily; and she has got him an engagement, to clean +the knives and boots at Mrs. Jennings, the boarding-house in Welby +Square where I stay. Isn't it too funny and nice that you should happen +to have to do with St. Ebbe's and Annie?"</p> + +<p>"It has been a great pleasure to me—well, these are not the right +words," said the young fellow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> with sudden gravity and a shade of +agitation in his manner. "I count it the greatest piece of good fortune +which ever befell me that I took St. Ebbe's for my hospital. But I ought +not to presume on my acquaintance with Miss Millar," he began again +immediately, with an infusion of cautious reserve and something like +vexation creeping into his tone; "it is purely professional. We are far +too busy people at St. Ebbe's to know each other as private persons. +Very likely if you ask her, she will deny all knowledge of me as an +individual; she may not even be able to recall the fact of my existence +apart from a circle of big uncouth medical students in the train of the +doctors—all alike to her. At the same time I have drunk tea in her +company both in the matron's room and in Dr. Moss's, and I have often +sat near her in the services at the hospital chapel," he ended a little +defiantly.</p> + +<p>The speech, save for its ring of half-boyish mortification, was +suspicious, as if he were providing a loophole for escape in case Annie +refused to indorse his assertion of mutual acquaintance. But Rose, in +spite of her spirit and quickness, was hardly more given to suspicion +than her sister May showed herself, and saw nothing dubious in his +remark. She was carried away with the agreeable surprise of having +stumbled on somebody connected with St. Ebbe's who knew all about Annie. +She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> chatted on in the frankest, friendliest way, plying him with +girlish questions, and supplying free comments on his answers; and he +was an auditor who was nothing loth to be so treated, and to be +furnished with stores of information on points which had aroused his +ardent curiosity. She forgot all about taking him out of his way, and +when they reached Welby Square she crowned her unbounded faith in him by +inviting him into the house. On his acceptance of her invitation, after +a moment's hesitation, she presented him to Mrs. Jennings as a friend of +Annie's from St. Ebbe's.</p> + +<p>The young man had the grace to feel his ears tingle while Mrs. Jennings, +looking a little astonished, took him on Rose's word, bowed her welcome, +begged him to sit down with her usual gracious, languid good-breeding, +and said she was glad to see any friend of Miss Annie Millar's.</p> + +<p>He did his best, with a flushed face, to remedy his and Rose's rashness. +He put down his card, with Harry Ironside, M.D., engraved on it, at Mrs. +Jennings's elbow. He set himself with a strenuous and sincere effort to +talk to her, and so to conduct himself as to do credit to Rose's +voucher.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Jennings was easily propitiated on receiving the attention which +was due to her. She thought the young man's manners perfectly good; they +had well-bred ease, and at the same time the modesty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> which ought to +accompany youth, though his introduction to her had been somewhat +informal.</p> + +<p>Irregularity and singularity were among the fashions of the day. She +would have been glad if her daughter Hester, in carrying out these +fashions, had brought forward no rougher, or commoner-looking, or more +eccentric satellites and protégés—secretaries of those horrid women's +unions and clubs—than this friend of Rose and Annie Millar's.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Jennings never forgot a name and its social connection. "Ironside?" +she repeated tentatively, but with an air of agreeable expectation. "I +am familiar with the name. One of my sons, Captain Lawrence Jennings, +when his regiment was at Manchester, knew and received much kindness +from a family named Ironside."</p> + +<p>"It must have been the family of one of my uncles," said Dr. Harry +Ironside, eagerly. "My Uncle John, and my Uncle Charles too, for that +matter, stay in Manchester. Both are married men with families. My Uncle +John was mayor a few years ago."</p> + +<p>"The same," cried Mrs. Jennings with bland satisfaction. "Lawrie's +Ironsides were the family of the mayor, I remember perfectly when you +mention it;" and she added the mental note, "They were among the richest +cotton-brokers in the place—well-nigh millionaires."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>"Were you all named from Cromwell's Ironsides?" inquired Rose, lightly, +inclined to laugh and colour at the absurd recollection that, though she +had seemed to know all about him from the moment he spoke of St. Ebbe's +and Annie, she had been ignorant of his very name till he put down his +card. If he had not done so, she would have had to describe him to Annie +as the big, fair-haired young doctor with the Roman nose, or by some +other nonsensical item, such as the signet-ring on his left hand, or the +trick of putting his hand to his chin.</p> + +<p>"I am sure I cannot tell"—he met her question with an answering +laugh—"except that, so far as I know, we have had more to do with +cotton than with cannon-balls. My father was a Manchester man, like my +uncles. I have struck out a new line in handling—not to say a sword, +but a lancet."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Mrs. Jennings with mild superiority, "all my sons are in the +services—I have given them to their Queen and country. Two of my +sons-in-law are also in the army, and I often say of the third—a +clergyman in a sadly heathen part of the Black Country—that, engaged as +he is in the Church militant, he is as much a fighter as the rest of +them." Having thus in the mildest, most ladylike manner, established her +social supremacy, Mrs. Jennings was doubly gracious to the visitor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> +They made such progress in their acquaintance by means of the Manchester +Ironsides and other members of her very large circle of friends, with +regard to whom the two discovered the names at least of several were +also known to Harry Ironside, that the lady made another marked +concession. When he said he was in rooms in London, and had his only +sister with him, she signified with a kind and graceful bend of the +lace-enfolded shoulders and the bewigged head within the wonderful +edifice of a cap, that she meant to have the pleasure of calling on Miss +Ironside.</p> + +<p>Rose could hardly believe her ears; and she did not wonder, though she +was glad that he had the sense and good feeling to thank Mrs. Jennings +with warmth, since Rose knew what a testimony it was to the genuine +liking which the mistress of the house had taken to her chance guest. +For Mrs. Jennings went very little out, and was exceedingly particular +in adding to her visiting-list, as became the head of a select +boarding-house, and the mother of so many officers and gentlemen, not to +say gentlewomen.</p> + +<p>But matters did not end even there. He managed to convey the impression +that his sister and he were rather lonely in their rooms, while he +alluded to the facts that he and she were orphans, and with the +exception of each other had neither brother<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> nor sister. They had looked +forward to being together, and making a home as soon as Kate left +school, and he had taken furnished lodgings at Campden Hill till he +settled down somewhere. But somehow the lodgings were not very +home-like. He should prize highly the friendship of Mrs. Jennings for +his sister. At this point the slightest gleam of a business interest +awoke in Mrs. Jennings's steel gray eyes, though she only told him +softly that she had known it all—the loneliness of one or two members +of a family in London, the comfortlessness of even the best of furnished +apartments. It was such considerations, in a great measure, which had +induced her to utilize her large house, much too large for herself and +the only daughter left at home with her, to receive a few old friends as +suitable boarders into her family. She had hoped to form a cheerful and +refined little society round her, and so to be of a little use to her +fellow-creatures. She might say she had succeeded in her humble mission, +she finished with artless benevolence. He met her half-way with +breathless alacrity. Had he and Kate but known in time Mrs. Jennings's +generous idea, what a boon it would have been if she had let them avail +themselves of it! Even yet if there ever occurred any change, any +opening—but he was afraid, he added in disconsolate tones, there never +would—the for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>tunate people would know too well when they were +happy—it would be doing him and Kate the greatest favour, the utmost +kindness to let them know. This was exactly the complimentary, +beseeching, deprecatory mode in which Mrs. Jennings liked business to be +conducted; whereas, if Hester had been present, she would have said in +the clumsiest, coarsest manner, "Mamma, there are some rooms vacant, +which any respectable person who cares to pay the rent may have."</p> + +<p>But that was not Mrs. Jennings's plan. She said in her blandest +voice—"Well, Dr. Ironside, we must see what we can do for you and your +sister; I cannot bear to think of your feeling forlorn after what your +cousins did for my son Lawrence. We must stretch a point with regard to +accommodating you—that is, if you are not, both of you, dreadfully +particular. No, you are not at all difficult to put up, you and your +sister, you say? I am happy to hear it. It is such a good thing for +young people to be easily pleased. I am not sure that something could +not be contrived in the course of a week or two. I think I heard my old +servant speak of rooms which were to have been kept for cousins of my +friend Mr. Lyle, two charming ladies who were to have come up from the +country for the season. But their dear old aunt died unexpectedly, and +of course they are not inclined for any gaiety<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> at present. I leave the +details of arranging the sets of rooms and letting them to my Susan. I +never interfere with her; she knows far better than I what is wanted, +and she is a sensible, practical person to deal with. If you care to +speak to Susan, I shall ring for her to see you in the dining-room, and +she will tell you at once what she can do for you," Mrs. Jennings +finished sweetly.</p> + +<p>He did care; indeed he was so intent on benefiting by what Mrs. +Jennings, in her ladylike way, made so great an obligation conferred by +her on her fellow-creatures, that he caught at the hope held out to him. +He had an interview with the potent Susan, and came back radiant to tell +that the housekeeper had been nearly as kind to him as her mistress had +shown herself. He and Susan had settled everything. He was free to give +up the rooms which he and his sister were occupying the following week.</p> + +<p>"What, without consulting Miss Ironside?" protested Mrs. Jennings in +pretty alarm.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Kate will like any arrangement I make," he cried confidently; and +Rose came to the conclusion either that "Kate" was the simple +school-girl he represented her, or that Dr. Harry Ironside was an +autocrat in his domestic relations.</p> + +<p>He insisted on furnishing references, because business was business, +even in the light of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> dawning friendship which he trusted Mrs. +Jennings was going to extend to him and Kate, and they would come as +soon as she would let them.</p> + +<p>Oh! he must arrange it all with Susan. Mrs. Jennings put up her still +dainty hands, and waived him off playfully. She dared not interfere with +Susan. All she would say was that she was delighted to look forward to +such an agreeable addition to her pleasant little circle. She was fond +of having young people about her, and was always ready to do what she +could (which was no more than the truth) to make them happy.</p> + +<p>Rose was driven to the conclusion that Dr. Harry Ironside must have +found furnished lodgings such a pandemonium, that he was induced to +believe a select boarding-house must be a paradise by comparison. It was +comical how it had all come about. It did seem as if Rose's +heedlessness, if she had been heedless in drifting without an +introduction into an acquaintance with one of Annie's doctors, was +likely to bear good fruits to Mrs. Jennings, among other people. Hester +had been looking worried lately, and had not scrupled to give as the +reason of her pre-occupation—family affairs not prosperous. The whole +of the house was not let. Old Mr. and Mrs. Foljambe had actually been +unreasonable enough to try to exchange the best rooms, which they had +chosen for themselves in the winter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> for shabbier, cheaper quarters +during the summer, when the husband and wife might be occasionally +absent paying visits. Old Susan, in her black cap and gold-rimmed +spectacles, was especially triumphant in seeing the scheme balked, and +confided her mingled exultation and indignation to Rose, who had helped +to balk the schemers. The confidential family servant even forgot some +of her polite mannerliness in her excitement. "Now, Miss Millar, them +Foljambes has done for themselves; serve them right for seeking to get a +catch from a friend like Missus, as is that kind to her boarders, which +you can testify, Miss; they might be her own flesh and blood. Bless you! +she'll never make a rap by keeping boarders. She never grudges them +anythink, and would sooner deny herself than that they should go without +their fancies. But there, now, that fine young gentleman you brought," +went on Susan with the slightest respectful significance, "I'm sure +we're greatly indebted to you, Miss—speaks as if he meant to stay on +here with his sister for the present. He has taken our largest rooms off +our hands, so that we may be easy on that head, and I for one won't be +sorry if Mr. and Mrs. Foljambe ain't able to shift back into them at +their will and pleasure. The young gent, as is a gent, had no +hargle-bargling about terms. He was satisfied to pay what we asked,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> +because he knew that though it was not a common boarding-house, and +though it was no more than right that he and his sister should pay for +the privilege of being under the roof of a real lady like Missus, we +were not the sort to ask more than our due."</p> + +<p>The moment Rose got quit of Susan, she said to herself complacently, "It +is very nice to have done such a service to Mrs. Jennings and Hester and +everybody, instead of having got into a scrape and being scolded, as I +almost feared at one moment. If only Miss Kate Ironside is not too much +of a dumb belle and a mere school-girl," reflected Rose, with the +supercilious consciousness of maturity in a girl who had been more than +a year away from all teaching except what she had herself practised, and +what she received as a grown-up woman at Mr. St. Foy's. "I wonder if Dr. +Harry Ironside will have spoken of our encounter, and what came of it, +to Annie before I can tell her. I should like to see her face when she +learns that I know somebody who goes to St. Ebbe's," ended Rose, with +persistent audacity.</p> + +<p>Annie's face was a study when she heard of it. Rose had been guilty of a +little wilful self-deception, still she received a shock.</p> + +<p>The first time the sisters were able to meet and have a walk together, +after Rose's encounter with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> Dr. Ironside, Rose broached the great piece +of news, and witnessed the effect it produced. The girls had managed to +reach the Marble Arch into Hyde Park, beyond which they found a seat for +a few minutes. It was not too early in the season for them to take +possession of it, and they were still sufficiently strangers in London +to suppose that seats were placed for the accommodation of the weary of +all ranks and both sexes, and not merely for the benefit of nurse-maids +and their charges, or of able-bodied tramps. The sisters prepared to +talk over their own concerns and Redcross with the <i>empressement</i> of +girls, to forget all about the moving crowd around them, and the +grinding of that great mill of London in the traffic that is never for +an instant still.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Annie, have you seen him lately?" began Rose—"Dr. Harry Ironside, +I mean. Has he told you that he and his sister are coming to board at +Mrs. Jennings's?"</p> + +<p>"Seen him! Dr. Harry Ironside! What do you know about Dr. Harry +Ironside? What are you saying, Rose?" cried Annie, sitting bolt upright, +opening wide her dark eyes, and fixing them in the most amazed, +displeased, discomfiting gaze on Rose. The rate at which the two had +been walking and talking, the suspicion of east wind, the premature heat +of the May sun, had con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>verted the soft red in Annie's cheeks to a +brilliant scarlet.</p> + +<p>"What I am saying," answered Rose, nodding gaily, and trying hard not to +flinch under the trying reception of her precious piece of information, +"is that, by the funniest chance, I made the acquaintance of a friend of +yours at St. Ebbe's. And the laughable coincidence of our meeting and +happening to speak to each other, and then of my finding out that he +knew all about you, is going to be a very good thing for poor dear Mrs. +Jennings," Rose hastened to add, taking the first word in self-defence. +"He is coming with his sister to board in Welby Square."</p> + +<p>"He is not a friend of mine," said Annie, severely. "Is it possible that +you are such a simpleton as to believe that all the doctors, medical +students, and nurses—the whole staff of St. Ebbe's, in fact, are +intimately acquainted with each other, are acquainted at all, for the +most part, unless as doctors and nurses? Please, Rose, tell me at once +what nonsense this is—what foolish thing you have been about."</p> + +<p>When Annie said "please" to her sisters the situation was alarming.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, Rose had not come up to London to be an artist, who +was already getting orders for scroll-work and executing them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> +successfully, to be put down by a sister not above four years her +senior.</p> + +<p>"What are you making such a fuss about, Annie?" protested Rose, "I am +telling you as fast as you will let me. I came out this morning for the +express purpose, and I thought—I was almost sure—you would be amused +and interested, instead of 'getting into a wax'"—using one of Hester +Jennings's slang words, which set Annie's fine little teeth on edge. "It +is you who ought to explain and apologize to me," proceeded Rose, +boldly; "I am surely at liberty to make the acquaintance of anybody you +know without your looking annoyed, and accusing me of being foolish and +nonsensical. It is very unjust and ungrateful of you besides, for he +spoke very highly of you," Rose finished innocently.</p> + +<p>"He spoke highly of me to my own sister!" repeated Annie, her lips +curling with unutterable disdain, and her cheeks in a wilder flame than +ever. "He had nothing to do speaking of me at all. And how did he come +to speak to you? I insist upon your telling me, Rose. I am older than +you, and we are alone in London. I am answerable for you to father and +mother."</p> + +<p>"Well, I always thought I was answerable for myself," said Rose, +indignantly. "But I don't want to conceal anything from you; it is +insulting me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> to suppose so," and Rose showed herself highly resentful +in her turn. "As to how I met and spoke with Dr. Harry Ironside, I was +just coming to that," she was going on deliberately, when she was +stopped by Annie's irritable protest—</p> + +<p>"I wish you would not bring forward that man's name and dwell upon it in +the way you are doing."</p> + +<p>"Why, Annie, what ails you?" cried Rose in her bewilderment at Annie's +unreasonableness and excitement, forgetting any verdict that might be +passed on her own neglect of the code of conduct imposed upon her.</p> + +<p>"Well, if you only knew how I have been tried—and molested—and laughed +at," Annie began wrathfully, saying the last words as if to be laughed +at was equivalent to being burnt alive. Then she stopped short and +turned again upon Rose. "What have you been doing? tell me this instant, +Rose."</p> + +<p>"I don't think you ought to speak to me in this manner," said Rose, +rebelliously, holding her head high in the air, and forgetting in her +soreness of spirit either to crumple her nose or wrinkle her forehead; +"and I am not at all ashamed of myself. I have done nothing wrong; +indeed, I believe I have conferred a real benefit on Mrs. Jennings, +though she is apt to put it the other way, and indirectly on Hester. I +<i>am</i> fond of Mrs. Jennings and Hester—<i>they</i> always treat me, even +Hester<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> does, like a rational creature. Oh! you need not fret and +fume—I am not trying to avoid telling you, though you have no right, no +sister has, to demand an account of my proceedings. Father and mother +may have, but they would never brandish their rights in my face or +refuse to trust me. I was coming home from Covent Garden on Saturday +afternoon, carrying a little pot of tulips for my picture, if you must +know, and I had also got a small parcel from 'Burnet's.' I was caught in +the thunder-storm. I was standing in a doorway not knowing what to do +when a gentleman passed—Dr. Harry Ironside, if I am to be allowed to +say his name, though I did not know it then. He was good-natured and +polite, like any other gentleman. He saw how I was encumbered, and he +must have felt the pelting rain. He stopped and asked if he could do +anything for me—call a cab or anything, and he wished to give me the +use of his umbrella till we reached a cab-stand or till an omnibus came +up. I thought I had better tell him why I was carrying things, for he +might have thought me just a shop-girl, so I merely said I required them +for a painting, and that I was learning to be an artist. He seemed to +think he ought to tell me in return what he was, and he said he was a +doctor. Then I said father was a doctor too, Dr. Millar of Redcross. He +cried out at that something about a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> likeness which he had seen, and he +asked had I a sister a nurse in St. Ebbe's, and oh! Annie, he looked so +pleased, and he did say you were such a favourite with the matron and +the doctors."</p> + +<p>"Stop!" cried Annie, peremptorily, with an evident storm raging in her +gentle breast, to which she was too proud and self-restrained to give +free expression, "you are a greater baby than May is. You are not fit to +be left to yourself—a girl who would speak to any man she might meet in +the streets of London, and tell him all about herself and her family."</p> + +<p>The accusation was too outrageous to be received with anything save +indignant silence.</p> + +<p>"And then, I suppose, the next thing was you took him to Mrs. Jennings +and arranged between you that he and his sister should board there."</p> + +<p>"I did not," Rose was goaded to speak. "When he had walked so far with +me in the rain I could not do less than invite him into the house. Then +I believe he gave his name, and Mrs. Jennings, who has a great deal of +knowledge of the world and a great deal of discrimination," put in poor +Rose with much emphasis, "seemed to like him immensely. She found that +one of her sons knew relations of his in Manchester, and they had other +friends in common. He spoke of his sister, who is with him, and of their +not liking living in lodgings, and who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> glad he would be if there ever +happened to be a vacancy in Mrs. Jennings's establishment which she +would permit them to fill. She referred him to Susan to see if there +were rooms which the Ironsides could have. It all came about quite +naturally, and was settled in less time than I have taken to tell it, +and I had nothing whatever to do with it. I should not dream of taking +it upon me to interfere with Mrs. Jennings's or anybody else's domestic +affairs."</p> + +<p>"I do not know," said Annie, gloomily, "after the mess you have got +yourself and other people into. But there is one thing I can tell you +for your satisfaction, I shall not put my foot within Mrs. Jennings's +door so long as he—as Dr. Ironside and his sister are staying there. +You may keep your friends to yourself and do without your sister. You +can take them instead of me; perhaps you will not miss me or care for +the loss of an occasional hour or two of my society."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Annie, how can you say so?" Rose was reduced to expostulation and +pleading. "What has come over you? You must not stay away; it would be +so unkind to me, so rude to everybody, and such a marked slight. We are +all so happy when you come to Welby Square, and I am sure the change is +good for you too. How can you be so cross?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Annie with unbending decision, "it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> shall not be said of me +that I went and struck up a friendship, apart from our intercourse in +the wards, with any doctor at St. Ebbe's—one of the medical students, +the other day! I am not going to make his sister's acquaintance and get +up an intimacy with her, because you have chosen to introduce them to +Mrs. Jennings. A fine story to be circulated, and tittered over, about a +girl; a fine example to the working nurses, who are always seeking to +evade the rules, to become on familiar terms with their patients and to +gossip and philander with them, when they ought to have a great deal +more to do. I call it disgusting trifling, and it was not for that I +came up to London to be trained as a nurse."</p> + +<p>Annie kept her word to Rose's and other people's deep chagrin. She made +no further ferment about what had happened. She did not write home and +complain of Rose's thoughtlessness, or take a single step to prevent +Mrs. Jennings securing a profitable pair of boarders—as a matter of +fact, she dropped the subject, perhaps she felt a little ashamed of the +animus she had shown. But for nearly three months, if Rose wished to see +her sister, the only plan was for her to go to St. Ebbe's, or to make an +appointment with Annie at the Academy or the British Museum, or to eat +their lunch together at some convenient restaurant.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>In whatever manner Annie disposed of her few spare moments, not one of +them was now spent in Welby Square—just at the time, too, when the +boarding-house was particularly social and cheerful (for the new-comers +found special favour with the old, and promoted much good fellowship). +At least Dr. Harry Ironside did. He was a young fellow born to be +popular whether he would or not; handsome, with pleasant manners, +kind-hearted, possessed of a respectable competence independent of his +profession, to which he brought considerable abilities and great +singleness of purpose. Everybody "took" to him, from crusty Mr. Foljambe +to jaunty Mr. Lyle; from Miss Perkins, whose ear-trumpet he improved +upon, to old Susan, into whose gold-rimmed spectacles he put new glasses +which made her see like a girl again. The one drawback to his success in +everything he aimed at was, that he was always tremendously in earnest, +so that his very earnestness overweighted him, rendering him incapable +of measuring obstacles, and marshalling his forces, as a more +indifferent man might have done.</p> + +<p>His sister Kate, apart from such importance as might be implied in her +finding herself presently in the enjoyment of a very pretty little +income for a young lady, was a simple, good-natured school-girl, in the +echoing and imitative stage of school-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>girl life. She looked up to her +brother in everything, and was disposed to regard whatever was by his +decree as infallibly best.</p> + +<p>Yes, Annie kept her word after the fashion of most of us, till she saw +good reason to break it. She announced herself changeless till she +changed, which, to do her justice, was when the interests of others, +still more than her own, cried out against her maintaining her +resolution.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_xvii" id="chapter_xvii"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">MAY HAS TO FIGHT HER OWN BATTLE.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">All</span> May's frantic efforts at resistance were useless; her destiny was +too strong for her. She had to go away from her mother and father, Dora, +and Tray, and face life all by herself as one of the girl-graduates at +Thirlwall Hall, St. Ambrose's. Dr. Millar had learnt that she would just +be in reasonable time for one of the earlier examinations at the close +of the term. Having passed it without difficulty, she might compete for +one of the Thirlwall scholarships. If she got that—as he allowed +himself to think she had a fair chance of doing—it would greatly +increase her status, as well as aid in defraying the expenses of her +residence at St. Ambrose's. The little Doctor was feverishly anxious to +compass both ends for his pet and scholar. In her own interest no notice +must be taken of her heart-broken looks, though it wrung a manly heart, +in addition to the tender hearts of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> Mrs. Millar and Dora, to witness +May's desperate unwillingness to depart.</p> + +<p>It will be better to throw a veil over the anguish of that leave-taking, +including the final closeting with Tray and the torrents of tears shed +on his irresponsive hairy coat. We shall draw up the curtain on a new +scene—St. Ambrose's, in its classic glory and stately beauty, and +Thirlwall Hall, in its youthful strong-mindedness.</p> + +<p>Poor May felt horribly forlorn when her father left her behind, and she +realized that she was for the first time in her life compelled to play +her part without the support of kith or kin. Nobody was in the least +unkind to her, any more than the conservative Miss Stones had been to +Rose, unless in calling "little May" "Miss Millar," a promotion which +somehow cut her to the heart.</p> + +<p>The lady principal, Miss Lascelles, was an excellent intellectual woman, +of mingled aristocratic and <i>spirituelle</i> antecedents. In another +country and nation she might have been a distinguished <i>dame de salon</i>. +As it was, she was sufficiently harassed and overworked in her double +office of decorous, authoritative chaperon and qualified guide, +philosopher, and friend to the girls under her charge. These might be +vestal virgins or nymphs of Minerva, but they were also girls, so long +as the world lasted—the most of them half curious, half<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> friendly where +May was concerned. This was true even of the wonderful young American +who came and stayed with no other object in view than to say she had +kept her terms at St. Ambrose's, according to what was the sum total of +the ambition of many a young man at the great University. She <i>would</i> +call the Atlantic "the herring pond," and speak of "fixing" her hair; +still she was a girl like the rest of them. Miss Lascelles, with all the +other ladies in residence at Thirlwall Hall, the American included, +could not help wondering what the friends and guardians of a budding +beauty and helpless baby like Miss Millar intended by sending her to +live among a set of self-reliant, amply-occupied young women, who, as a +rule, knew exactly what they wanted to do and did it.</p> + +<p>The whole place and system overwhelmed May. The hoary dignity of the old +colleges, receptacles of the concentrated learning of ages, the crowds +of capped and gowned tutors and professors, potent representatives of +the learning of the present, even the shoals of young men who were able +to care for none of these things, and to carry their responsibilities +lightly, all to be encountered in the course of a morning walk, struck +May with a sense of inadjustable disproportion, and of intolerable +presumption on her part in pretending to be a scholar. She was still one +of a household largely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> composed of women, as she had been at home, but +here the household was planted where it was an innovation, in the midst +of a colony of men, which constantly threatened to sweep over it and +submerge it.</p> + +<p>The grown-up, independent, yet disciplined routine of Thirlwall Hall, +founded as closely as possible on the venerable routine of the men's +colleges, was widely, crushingly different from life in the Old Doctor's +House at Redcross. Morning chapel, the steady business of individual +reading, the attendance on the selected courses of lectures, with the +new experience of being spoken to, and expected to take notes like men; +the walks and talks, which even with the interruptions of tennis and +boating were apt to be academically shoppy; the very afternoon tea after +evening chapel had an impressively scholastic flavour utterly foreign to +the desultory proceedings of an ordinary family circle. So had the +further reading by one's self, for one's self, to get up a particular +branch of study; the "swell dinner," as May persisted in calling it in +her own mind, though it was simple and social enough—beyond certain +indispensable forms and ceremonies—to the initiated; the withdrawal +once more to the dreary retirement of her own room, since a new girl had +neither the requisite familiarity nor the heart to go and tap at her +neighbours' doors,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> where no substitute for "sporting the oak" had as +yet been found, and drop in for a little purely human chatter.</p> + +<p>May was so "hard hit," as people say—not with love, but with +home-sickness—that she did not believe she could live to the end of the +summer term. She felt as if she must die of strangeness, fright, and +pining; and that was hard, for they would be very sorry at home, and so +would Annie and Rose in London, though both of them had been able to go +and stay away quite cheerfully like the girls at Thirlwall Hall. Perhaps +May and Dora were not like other girls. There was something wanting or +something in excess about them. Perhaps they were not fit to go through +the world, as she had once heard somebody say of her—May. Perhaps they +were meant to die young—like their Aunt Dolly—and not destined to live +long and struggle helplessly with adverse circumstances. In that case, +Dora was the happy one to be left to spend her short life at home, +though, save for father and mother, she too was all alone, and poor dear +Dora would feel that, and was, perhaps, crying in another empty room as +May was crying in hers at this very moment; but at least, Dora would +pass her last days with father and mother in the old familiar places.</p> + +<p>This isolated doom for herself and Dora fasci<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>nated May's imagination. +She could not get it out of her head. She dreamt about it, and sat up in +her bed crying and shivering in the silence and solitude of night, where +even by day all was silent and solitary. She began to think that she +would never see Redcross or her mother again. With the morbid +sentimentality of early youth, and its lively capacity for self-torture, +in which to be sure there is that underlying luxury of woe, she +commenced to rehearse the loving farewells she would take on paper, and +the harrowing last messages she would send to every member of her +family.</p> + +<p>Occasionally May's hallucination took the form of conjuring up a series +of disasters which should suddenly descend on her absent friends. If she +did not die herself, one or all of those she loved might die while she +was separated from them. Her father might fall down in a fit; her mother +might be seized with small-pox or typhoid fever; and what more likely +than that Dora should catch the infection waiting on her mother?</p> + +<p>This distempered frame of mind was hardly calculated for the rapid +reception and assimilation of these particles, terminations, and cases +of philological nicety in which May began to recognize that she was +inaccurate and deficient.</p> + +<p>If Tray could but have come to her, and laid his shining black nose in +her lap, barked in her face,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> and invited her to take a turn in the +grounds of Thirlwall Hall, he would have ceased to be the doleful, +shadowy phantom of a Tray she was constantly seeing now, along with +other phantoms. A game of romps with her four-footed friend would have +done something to dissipate the mental sickness which was prostrating +May's powers. But Thirlwall Hall was moulded on the men's colleges, and +there were no dogs for the girl any more than for the boy graduates.</p> + +<p>Miss Lascelles was at once conscientious and kind, with considerable +natural sagacity; but she led a busy, rather over-burdened life, and had +little time to spare. Naturally she was tempted, in spite of the logical +faculty which made her a capital principal of Thirlwall Hall, to leap at +conclusions like many of her weaker-minded sisters. She had taken it for +granted that Miss Millar was simply a spoilt child, without more ability +and information than had just served her to surmount the preliminary +test of admission to Thirlwall Hall, where, nevertheless, she had no +business to be. Her time would be completely wasted; she would only be +wretched, and serve to make other people uncomfortable. However, as she +had stood the preliminary test, and was at Thirlwall Hall for the rest +of the term, the most humane thing to do was to set some other girl who +was not particularly engaged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> on her own account, who could be safely +trusted with such a charge, who had plenty of acquaintances at St. +Ambrose's to render the charge lighter, to make friends with the poor +girl, take her about, cheer and entertain her, as far as possible, till +the end of her stay.</p> + +<p>Miss Lascelles, in default of better, fixed on Miss Vanhansen, the +American young lady, as a friend for May. Miss Vanhansen had plenty of +time on her hands, plenty of confidence, plenty of money. She had taken +even exclusive St. Ambrose's by storm, for Athens itself would have +found it difficult to resist her racy indifference, her shrewd +mother-wit, her superb frocks, and her sublime heaps of dollars. At the +same time she was perfectly good-natured and quite trustworthy in her +own free and easy way. She had scandalized Miss Lascelles in the earlier +days of their acquaintance by her energetic determination to have "a +good time of it." She had made the lady principal's hair stand on end by +calmly suggesting nice rides and rows and luncheons at village inns, +<i>tête-à-tête</i> with the "mooniest" young fellows who could be laid hold +of and crammed with stories about America and the doings of American +girls.</p> + +<p>But practically Miss Vanhansen had the good sense to do at Rome as the +Romans did; she confined her independence to those sallies of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> +tongue, which were not without a rousing charm in a place grown partly +languid, partly esoteric, by dint of a superabundance of culture and of +college statutes elaborate, involved and irreversible as the laws of the +Medes and the Persians.</p> + +<p>Keturah Vanhansen rather liked the task imposed upon her. It appealed at +once to her kindliness of nature and her love of creating a sensation; +she would rouse this drooping young beauty who showed such a sinful +disregard of her complexion and eyes. Miss Vanhansen was herself as +sallow as a nabob, her small eyes, by an unkind perversity on the part +of her fairy god-mother, were of a fishy paleness, yet she managed to +her great satisfaction, by dint of dress and carriage, to be a +striking-looking and all but a handsome girl, so that she had no +overpowering reason to be jealous of her better-endowed neighbours. She +would astonish Miss Millar's weak nerves, and give her "a wrinkle or +two," before she had done with her.</p> + +<p>At first May shrank back a good deal from the advances of the conquering +princess from the Far West; but here the English girl's humility and +good feeling stood her in better stead than her judgment. May was +grateful to Miss Vanhansen, and went so far as to be flattered by her +attentions even when they gave the recipient no pleasure.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> That frame of +mind could not last at seventeen. May, the most unsophisticated and +easily pleased of human beings, was won from her sad dreams of Redcross. +She was deeply obliged, she was faintly amused. At last she was fairly +launched on such a mild course of St. Ambrose gaieties as two girls in a +college could with grace pursue. This included tennis parties, rowing +parties, water-lily and fritillary hunts, "strawberries," concerts +instead of lectures in the afternoons as well as in the evenings, +afternoon teas—not <i>tête-à-tête</i>, not confined to a party of three, but +under what even Miss Lascelles would have considered sufficient +surveillance in the rooms of liberal heads of houses, hospitable young +dons, social, idle undergraduates. These had no more business on their +hands than could be summed up in cricket-matches or boat-races, and in +meeting Miss Vanhansen and listening to her queer unconventional +remarks.</p> + +<p>At all these gatherings, May Millar in the budding beauty of seventeen +and the simplicity of her youthful dress, with her modesty and +<i>naïveté</i>, was made very welcome. Soon she began to feel herself ashamed +of the extent to which she was enjoying herself, as she was swept along +by the stream.</p> + +<p>She was able to write home now long letters full of girlish enthusiasm +over the kindness of Miss Vanhansen, and the beauties and delights of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> +St. Ambrose's. Dora, though greatly relieved in her ungrudging devotion +to May, to find that Tom Robinson's words were fulfilled, was still a +little puzzled to understand how May could find time for so many gay +doings, and her studies into the bargain. But Dr. and Mrs. Millar could +only be happy in the happiness of their child, and hug themselves on +having thought more of her welfare than of her feelings at the moment of +parting. It was right she should see all the charming sights which were +to be seen, and enter a little into the special attractions of the great +University town—<i>that</i> would not prevent her from settling down and +doing her proper work presently. You might trust the lady principal and +a studious young creature like May, who liked to be busy with her books +far before any other occupation, with a great deal more license than +that came to.</p> + +<p>Then a new turn was given to the dissipation in which May was dipping. +The longing in which she had indulged, ever since she had first heard of +its possible fulfilment, was granted—a Greek play was to be acted by +the young women who stood for the "Grecians" of the year at Thirlwall +Hall, and May was there to see. From the moment the play was decided +upon to the hour of the first rehearsal, May spoke, thought, and dreamed +of nothing save "Alcestis."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>Miss Vanhansen gave her up in disgust. "The ungrateful, soft-spoken +wretch!" cried the forsaken fair one; "the hypocritical young blue-grass +Penelope Blue! she has been bluer than the blue clouds all the time she +has been imposing on me as a pining, bread-and-butter, home-sick miss +among us Titanesses and daughters of the gods. Here I am ready to +collapse with trotting her about among the few girls in St. Ambrose's +who are sensible enough not to know the Empire of the East from the +Empire of the West, and would not care which was which if they did know, +and the still wiser young men who spend the long summer days lying on +their backs in their own canoes, reading Mark Twain. Oh! she is a +brazen-faced impostor. 'Molasses!' and 'Great Scott!' are not enough to +say to her. I should like to try her with the final polite remarks of +the last chief of the Dogs' Noses."</p> + +<p>But contemporaneously with May's being thus dropped by her first friend, +she was peremptorily claimed and appropriated by the actresses. They had +not failed to notice her interest in their enterprise, and some of the +cleverest of them had already mastered an astonishing problem.</p> + +<p>They had been guilty of nicknaming Miss Millar "Baby," because she had +been so lachrymose and shiftless when she came to Thirlwall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> Hall, and +had never looked up till she was handed over to Miss Vanhansen, who had +given her "airings" and "outings" all very well for a baby, and much to +Baby's taste as it seemed, but not exactly severe study. Yet in spite of +it all, and in spite of the halting inaccuracy of the training in a +private ladies'-school, May Millar knew more by sheer instinct, as it +sounded, of Alcestis, and felt more with her and for her, than the best +of those who professed to be her interpreters.</p> + +<p>It was therefore not with wisely repairing the breaches in her Latin and +Greek, and laying these foundations afresh, as Rose was doing with her +art under Mr. St. Foy in London, that May was engrossed. It was with +becoming a bond-slave to those ambitious players. She lent herself to +the minutest details of their attempt, coached herself in them day and +night, till she could coach everybody in turn, and figured behind backs +as universal prompter, dresser, stage-manager—the girl who had been so +lifeless and incapable of looking after herself when she first came +among them that they had styled her the baby of the establishment!</p> + +<p>Miss Lascelles, who was deeply interested in the play, both in her +highly-finished scholarship, and for the credit of Thirlwall Hall, was +electrified when she discovered the efficient coadjutor whom the +performers had found. "I am afraid there has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> been a mistake made, and +time lost," she said to herself ruefully. "How could I be so +shortsighted, when there is the making of the finest scholar in the Hall +in Miss Millar, who threatened to hang so heavily on my hands that I was +fain to send her to play with our generous 'Barbarian.' What +discrimination, what taste and feeling with regard to the selection and +fit declamation of these passages which we were doubtful whether to +retain or reject, or what to do with them! With what pretty girlish +shyness and timidity she made the suggestions! Nothing but her +passionate love of the subject, and her jealousy for its honour, as it +were, with her intense craving to have it fitly expressed, would have +induced her to come forward. I should like to hear what Professor +Hennessy," naming a great name among classical authorities, "thinks of +this young girl's interpretation of several parts of the play when he +comes to hear them. I should like to introduce Miss Millar to him if she +were not so frightened, and if she had taken the place which she ought +to have held to begin with. It is too late to rectify the mistake and +set her to work this term, and she had much better not go in for the +Markham scholarship which her father spoke of—that would be worse than +useless. But we'll turn over a new leaf next term. After all, she is +very young; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> I suppose it is of no great consequence that she has +wasted her first half. Her family are professional people, and these are +generally well off." (Miss Lascelles was the portionless daughter of the +impecunious younger son of a poor nobleman.)</p> + +<p>When the play was performed nearly all the classical scholars of St. +Ambrose's—and what was a man doing at St. Ambrose's if he were not a +classical scholar, unless, to be sure, he happened to be a philosopher +of the first water, or a profound expounder of Anglo-Saxon, or a +strangely and wonderfully informed pundit?—came with their wives and +daughters, and graciously applauded the daring deed.</p> + +<p>As for Keturah Vanhansen, she wore her <i>rivière</i> of diamonds, dripping, +dancing, flashing like water that was perpetually flowing, and yet, by +some enchantment, arrested in its flow in glorious suspension. Set in +the middle of the enchanted water was such a breast-knot of rare, +exquisite, uncannily grotesque orchids as no queen or princess had ever +been seen to wear in St. Ambrose's. Indeed, it might have suited the +Queen of Sheba.</p> + +<p>Miss Vanhansen announced that she wore her war-paint to do honour to the +Thirlwall Hall play, and to May Millar, whom she had forgiven, for +rancour never yet dwelt in the Yankee breast. "Alcestis" was a little +long, and "real right down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> funny," as her Aunt Sally would have said, +though it was a tragedy, and she, Keturah Vanhansen, did not understand +a word of it, notwithstanding this was her last year at Thirlwall Hall. +One good joke was the man who was in cats' skins, and carried a kitchen +poker for a club, and was half a head shorter than she was, and she was +not big; they should see her Aunt Abe if they wanted to know what a big +woman was like. Another joke was the sacks for the ladies' frocks, with +holes for the head and feet, and holes for the arms, so nice and simple, +and so graceful; Worth ought to get a hint of the costume. Only it was +not very distinctive, when one regarded the corresponding sacks for the +gentlemen. There was really nothing to mark out the ladies except the +large towels which they wore hanging down their backs, while the +gentlemen had Inverness capes over their sacks, fastened on the +shoulders with Highland brooches. How came the Greeks, in the time of +Euripides, to know about Inverness capes and Highland brooches? She, +Keturah Vanhansen, had been so startled by what she feared might be a +frightful anachronism that all her false hair had fallen off, and she +had been left like one of her Aunt Abe's moulting fowls.</p> + +<p>The truth was that, in the matter of hair, nature had favoured Miss +Vanhansen with a peculiarly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> fine and luxuriant crop, so that she had no +need to apply to art for its help.</p> + +<p>But as for May, she saw nothing and heard nothing of the discrepancies +which might mar the ancient story to far less ostentatiously +matter-of-fact and mocking critics than the would-be barbarian from +beyond the herring-pond. The piteous tragedy was enacted in all its +terror and pathos to May. She forgot even to sigh for one of the +original great open-air amphitheatres, with the cloudless blue sky of +Greece overhead, which had been the fit setting to those old-world +plays; while she appreciated, without being conscious of the +appreciation, every scenic item—the double stage, the attendant chorus, +the classic dress, that had awakened Miss Vanhansen's ridicule, from the +sandal on the foot to the toque on the head—all which could lend +verisimilitude to the spectacle. For the benefit of happy May, Alcestis +lived again in modern St. Ambrose's. Once more she suffered and died +willingly in the room of Admetus; once more the miserable husband's +half-heroic, half-savage ally, Harakles, fought Death for his pale prey, +and brought back the sacrificed wife from Hades, to restore her—a +figure veiled and motionless, yet instinct with glad life, every vein +throbbing with love and thankfulness—to the arms of her husband, more +joyful, and at the same time,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> in the middle of his joy, more full of +yearning sorrow and self-abasement than ever was happy bridegroom.</p> + +<p>On the day after the play, Miss Lascelles casually mentioned to May that +even if she went in for the coming examination, she, Miss Lascelles, +thought May had better not try for the Markham scholarship.</p> + +<p>"But I must, Miss Lascelles," protested May, starting up as if she were +awakening from a dream, and opening great eyes of distress and +apprehension—feelings which were only at that moment called into life. +"My father would be so vexed and disappointed if I did not."</p> + +<p>"If you will take my advice, my dear, you will wait till next year; +there will be another scholarship falling in then. Very many of the +Thirlwall Hall girls do much better the second year than they have done +the first," Miss Lascelles continued to warn her girl-graduate, with the +delicate consideration and tact which qualified the lady principal for +her office. "It is bad policy to enter hastily into a competition with +failure staring you in the face. It will only serve to dishearten you, +and to mislead people with regard to what I am now certain—I can +honestly congratulate you on my conviction—are your really exceptional +gifts. You will do Thirlwall Hall credit, and we shall all be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> proud of +you, if you will have patience. You are very young; you can afford to +wait. It is a common occurrence for clever, studious girls, and lads +too, to come up to St. Ambrose's from the country, from private schools +or home-teaching, who are not sufficiently exact in their scholarship, +and do nothing beyond remedying the defect in their first or even their +second year. You don't grudge giving what is but a fraction of your +life, after all, to thorough as opposed to superficial learning, do you, +dear? Remember, the one is worthy and the other worthless—a mere +pretentious waste."</p> + +<p>"I cannot help it," said May, with a little gasp of despair. "To wait is +just what I cannot afford to do. I am almost certain that my coming up +next year depends on what I can do this term. We have grown quite poor. +Father has lost a great deal of money lately. Even if he were content to +send me back here, I do not think it would be right in me to come, +unless I could do something to lessen the expense. My sister Annie is in +London learning to be a nurse, and my sister Rose is coming out as an +artist."</p> + +<p>"I thought they were doing it from choice. Why did you not apply +yourself before, Miss Millar? You knew what you could do, better than +any of us here could possibly guess your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> talents and attainments. From +your general behaviour until the play was started, I for one, I confess, +fell into the grave error of supposing that you could do little or +nothing, or that any progress you had made was entirely forced work." +Miss Lascelles spoke sharply, for she was considerably discomfited, and +full of unavailing regret for her share in the misadventure.</p> + +<p>May could not tell her that she had been too miserable about coming away +from home, and leaving her mother and father, Dora and Tray, to apply +herself to learning; neither would there have been much use in her +applying if she had been destined to fade away presently as she had +imagined, and to die, bereft, among the lexicons, commentaries, and +lecture-notes of Thirlwall Hall. She preferred to say with meek +contriteness that she knew she had been very idle, but she would do her +best to atone for her idleness by working every lawful moment of every +hour of the few weeks which were left to her, if Miss Lascelles would +but allow her to go in for the examination, preparatory to trying for +the scholarship.</p> + +<p>Miss Lascelles could not prevent her, she told May a little dryly, for +the students of Thirlwall Hall, though some of them were no more than +seventeen—May's age—were all regarded and treated as grown-up young +women capable of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> judging and acting for themselves. What Miss Lascelles +was bound to do was to see that Miss Millar did not run into the +opposite extreme, and bring on a brain fever by over-study. "And you +know, my dear," finished the kind, experienced woman, who was easily +softened, who had always the greatest difficulty to keep from being +sympathetic, "that would be a great deal worse than merely being turned +back in your examinations, though Dr. Millar is not rich, and there may +be obstacles—I sincerely trust they will not be insurmountable—to your +coming back in the autumn, to work with a will and at the same time with +moderation."</p> + +<p>Poor May did not work herself into a brain fever, but she did in other +respects exactly as Miss Lascelles—a woman who understood the +position—had clearly foreseen. May succeeded in fretting, and worrying, +and getting herself into a state of nervous agitation. Her brain, or +that part of it which had to do with grammatical declensions, +derivations, rules, and principles, became a complete muddle, so that in +place of taking in new information, it seemed to be rapidly letting go +the old which it had once held securely.</p> + +<p>Before the eventful day of May's examination, she had lost the last +shred of hope, and so had all who had heard her or formed a correct +estimate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> of the contents of her papers, of her crossing the rubicon. Of +her own accord she sorrowfully refrained from making any move to enter +the lists for the scholarship.</p> + +<p>It is the fashion at St. Ambrose's not to issue the result of the +examinations for a considerable number of weeks, during which the +unhappy candidates hang on the tenterhooks of expectation. A looker-on +is inclined to consider this a refinement of cruelty till he or she has +taken into consideration that the motive of the protracted suspense is +to suit the convenience and lessen the arduous labours of the toil-worn +professors and tutors who serve as examiners.</p> + +<p>But in May Millar's case her failure was such a foregone conclusion, was +so remedial by reason of her youth, and so qualified by the share she +had taken in the Greek play, that a point was stretched for her, and she +was privately put out of pain at once. Latterly May had not entertained +the slightest expectation of any other sentence, yet the blow fell so +heavily upon her that it was well it was the end of the term.</p> + +<p>To do Thirlwall Hall no more than justice, everybody was sorry for their +youngest, gentlest, prettiest, most inspired, and withal most +inoffensive and obliging student. Miss Lascelles took May into her +private sitting-room and recklessly lavished the few<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> moments the lady +principal had in which to rest and recruit from the fatigue of receiving +company, and playing a becoming part in the academical gaieties with +which the summer term at St. Ambrose's closes, in order to speak +encouraging words to the poor crestfallen child. Miss Vanhansen implored +May to cross the herring-pond at her expense, and have a good time among +the Barbarian's relations in Ol' Virginny and Kentuck. The girl who had +played Alcestis wanted to inaugurate a reading-party in which May should +be coached all round every day. Failing this, the same adventurous +spirit would get up a series of Greek plays in London drawing-rooms, +with Miss Millar's assistance; and so far as she herself was concerned, +she would never be contented till Miss Millar played Admetus to her +Alcestis. A large deputation of blue-stockinged maidens from Thirlwall +Hall escorted May to the railway station, and more than one was relieved +to find that she was going first to join her sisters in London instead +of carrying the mortification of her failure straight to her +country-town home.</p> + +<p>It might be the deferring of an ordeal, and yet it was with a white +face, as abashed and well-nigh as scared as if she had committed a +crime, that May awaited Annie in the drawing-room to which the +probationers' friends were free at St. Ebbe's. The consciousness had +come too late of having<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> wasted the little money her father had to spare +on sentimental self-indulgence and the gratification of her own feelings +instead of employing it as it was meant to be employed, in controlling +herself and doing her duty, so as to acquire fitting arms for the battle +of life.</p> + +<p>It was this horrible comprehension which made her wistful eyes grow +distended and fixed in their sense of guilt and disgrace. She might have +committed a forgery, and be come to tell Annie what she had done. May +was essentially one-idea'd at this period of her life, and she had dwelt +on the fact of her failure and exaggerated its importance, like the most +egotistical of human beings, till it filled her imagination and blotted +out every other consideration.</p> + +<p>Annie, in the full career of a busy professional morning, snatched a +moment between two important engagements to see her sister.</p> + +<p>May looked with imploring, fascinated eyes at Annie in her nurse's gown +and cap. The younger girl had some faint inkling of Annie's earlier +experience in the life of an hospital; yet there she was as fresh and +fair and bright as ever—a thousand times cooler and happier-looking +than her visitor.</p> + +<p>"Here you are, May," Annie was saying in glad greeting, as she held her +sister by the two shoulders, after she had kissed her; "and I declare +you have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> grown since you went to St. Ambrose's. Oh, you incorrigible +girl, when you were so much the tallest of us before you went there."</p> + +<p>May could only make one answer with parched lips, faltering tongue, and +eyes dry under their heavy cloud of grief, "Annie, I have failed in my +examination!"</p> + +<p>Annie started in surprise, while her face fell for a second. "What a +pity!" she could not help exclaiming. "Father will be<span style="letter-spacing: -2px;">——</span>" She broke off +in the middle of the sentence. "Don't fret about it," she added, quickly +taking another look into May's face; "that will do no good, and it is +not very much after all. I cannot stay another minute now, May," she +went on to tell the bewildered girl in the most matter-of-fact tone, so +that May was in danger of feeling half-offended at finding her +tribulation taken so cavalierly—"just like Annie!"</p> + +<p>"You must wait for me," Annie was saying further. "There is a poor +fellow—a patient of mine—who is to have his arm amputated this +morning, and I must be with him when it is done."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear!" cried May, completely taken aback, "that is dreadful. Will he +die, Annie? Will he die?" forgetting all her own high-strung woes, the +product of an advanced stage of civilization, in heart-felt, human +sympathy with the most primitive of all trials—bodily suffering and +loss.</p> + +<p>"Not if we can help it, please God," said Annie<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> emphatically. Then an +inspiration came to her as she gazed on the girl's white quivering face. +"You have been working too hard, 'little May'; you shake your head like +a tragedy queen. Then you've been worrying too much, which is a great +deal worse. I shall take you in hand, but I can't stay to talk about it. +Just you think how little my poor fellow would mind not passing an +examination, in comparison with the loss of an arm—fortunately it is +the left one. He is a printer who got his arm crushed under one of the +great rollers, and he has a wife and five little children dependent on +their bread-winner."</p> + +<p>Annie was gone, leaving May suddenly transported out of herself, and +plunged into the trials of her neighbours, the awfully near, common +life-and-death trials, of which she had known so little. Her own seemed +to sink into insignificance beside them. St. Ambrose's and its +intellectual lists and wordy contests, even its lofty abstruse +thoughts—excellent things in their way, without which the unlettered +world would become rude, sordid and narrow—faded into the background. +She forgot everything but the poor man passing through a mortal crisis, +with Annie able to succour him in his need, and his wife and children +waiting to hear whether the end were life or death.</p> + +<p>May held her breath, and watched, prayed, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> waited in her turn, with +no thought left for the news she had brought to town, and was to carry +to Redcross. What did it signify if only the poor man lived when May +herself was well and strong, and all her dear friends were in health, +and likely to be spared to her.</p> + +<p>When Annie came in again with a cheerful face, and said, "He has stood +it wonderfully; there is every prospect of his making a speedy +recovery," May's face too cleared till for the moment it was almost +radiant. She acquiesced, with responsive animation, in Annie's +arrangement that since she, Annie, had got leave of absence for the rest +of the day she would put on her walking-dress, and she and May too would +go and pick up Rose at Mr. St. Foy's class-rooms; and what was to hinder +all the three from having an expedition together in the fine summer +weather to Hampton Court, or Kew, or the Crystal Palace, thus +celebrating May's visit to town, and making the most of Annie's holiday? +It would be like dear old times of primrose hunting, blue-bell +gathering, maying, and nutting down at Redcross before the cares and +troubles of the world had taken hold of the girls. Annie had already +sent on May's luggage to Welby Square, to which May would return with +Rose. Annie excluded herself carefully from this part of the programme, +with a kind of unapproachable haughtiness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> which had three strains of +stubbornness and one strain of fiery youthful anger in its composition, +while it was a complete enigma to May. But all she cared to know was +that she was going with her own two sisters for an entire afternoon's +delightful excursion. In the morning she had felt that she could never +have the heart to be happy again. Even yet she would not be quite happy; +she would be very much affronted when she was telling Annie and Rose the +particulars of her, May's, silliness and selfishness; how she had given +herself up to moping, and then how she had played herself—first with +the St. Ambrose gaieties, and later with the Greek play, instead of +setting about her work methodically and diligently. Annie would, +perhaps, tell her a few home-truths, and Rose would crumple up her nose, +shake her head, and look superhumanly wise—Rose who in the old days had +been more thoughtless than May.</p> + +<p>Still she deserved it all a thousand times over, and it would be a +relief to have disburdened herself of the sorry tale.</p> + +<p>Her own sisters would defend her from every other assailant. They would +feel for her, seek to reassure her, even make much of her, as they were +doing by taking her away with them this afternoon. May was very sensible +that a burden was lifted off her back.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_xviii" id="chapter_xviii"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">DORA IS THE NEXT MESSENGER WITH BAD TIDINGS.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">There</span> is a curious feeling abroad in the world, that no two things +happen alike on two days, or in two weeks, or months, running. If there +has been a railway accident on Monday, there will certainly not be +another of the same kind at the same place on Tuesday. Apart from the +fresh precautions sure to be taken, it is not at all likely, in the +chapter of accidents, that a facsimile will occur where the original has +preceded it so recently. On a similar principle, if a man has been +killed or badly injured by a fall from a horse, it goes against public +opinion that his son or his brother should also be thus injured. If the +singular repetition does take place, people will speak of it with bated +breath, as of a fate or doom hanging over the family, and therefore +bound to repeat itself again and again on the old lines. All this is in +spite of the fact that there is such a word as "coincidence" in the +language,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span> and that there is hardly one of us who cannot remember +several startling coincidences in the course of his or her history.</p> + +<p>Annie Millar had an experience of the kind at this time. It was on the +20th of June that May arrived unannounced at St. Ebbe's to recount her +lost battle. On the 21st Dora appeared, in a like unlooked-for manner, +to divulge her sorrowful news.</p> + +<p>Annie was much more troubled by the spectacle of Dora standing alone in +the middle of the hospital drawing-room, pale and agitated, than she had +been by the discovery of May in that very condition the day before. +Annie's own colour died away while she ran forward and caught Dora's +hand. "What is it, Dora? Has anything happened to father or mother?—yet +if there had, you would not have left them and come up to town by +yourself. Why are you here? Tell me quickly, for it is killing me to +keep me in suspense."</p> + +<p>"Don't be alarmed," entreated Dora's soft voice. "Father sent me up for +the express purpose that you might not be alarmed when you heard. I must +have managed badly to frighten you. I assure you nothing has happened, +at least nothing very particular, only,—well, father is very rheumatic, +and the warm weather has done him no good. He has not been out of the +house for a month, though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> we did not mention it in our letters, always +hoping that by the next time we wrote he would be better. But he has not +left his room till he contrived to go in the cab yesterday. Oh! Annie, +he has sold his business to Dr. Capes. He—father—said it was no use to +protract the struggle, it was only doing more mischief; he would never +be able, at his age, to go about again so as to act fairly by his +patients. He has given up everything to the bank's creditors, and will +pass through the bankruptcy court. He bade me tell you that he could see +no other way, and he was afraid Rose or you might read his name in the +<i>Gazette</i> without being prepared for it."</p> + +<p>"Father ill, old, and a bankrupt!" Annie's cry was bitter. "It is hard +after his long life of honourable industry. I can never forgive Mr. +Carey."</p> + +<p>"Hush! hush! Annie, you must not say that. Nothing would grieve father +more. Nobody has suffered like the Careys. Besides, father always says +that he alone was to blame for buying the bank shares. He did it of his +own free-will, just that he might grow richer in the idlest manner +possible for him to do so. Dr. Capes has taken our house, the Old +Doctor's House too, and father and mother went into apartments—those +over Robarts the book-seller's—yesterday, till they could look about +them." Dora was crying quietly all the time she was speaking, and at the +same time she was breaking off to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> say with pathetic resigned trust like +her mother's, "But only think, Annie dear, how much worse it might have +been! What a great deal we have to be thankful for. Look at poor Mr. +Carey sitting paralyzed, and quite childish; and do you know the sad +news arrived last night that poor poor Colonel Russell is dead? He had a +sun-stroke, and died within twelve hours; he has not been three months +at his new post. Dear father has all his senses, and he says himself he +may live for years and years."</p> + +<p>"I hope so," said Annie fervently; but it is doubtful whether she fully +appreciated the blessings of her lot at that moment. She busied herself +for a few minutes with Dora, her nurse's instinct as well as her +affection telling her that Dora must be seen to first. Annie took off +Dora's hat and jacket, seated her in the easiest chair, would hear +nothing more till she—Annie—had learnt when Dora had breakfasted, and +then rung for a basin of soup and made her swallow it. "Now, Dora," she +said, sitting down by her sister, "tell me all there is to tell. What +have father and mother to live upon? We must think and act for them +now."</p> + +<p>Dora explained as well as she was able, since, like her mother, she had +no great head for business. In addition to the sum given for the +good-will of Dr. Millar's practice, and for his house and furniture,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span> +which was to be paid over to the liquidators of the bank's debts, (in +return for which the debtor would get a discharge from farther +obligations,) a small percentage was to be allowed to him from his +successor's fees.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid it will be very small," Dora made the despondent remark, +"because, though all his former patients are fond of father, they got to +see he was breaking up, and did not like to send for him during the +night, or at odd hours. Mother and I did what we could, going round for +him and inquiring after his patients; but, as he said, such a make-shift +could not last. We were always hearing of more families calling in Dr. +Capes or Mr. Newton. Father declared he could not blame them; he would +have done the same in their place, and that every dog must have his +day."</p> + +<p>"That was like father," said Annie, looking up with a fleeting sparkle +in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Then we thought," went on Dora, "father and mother might have part of +mother's money, since you have always said you did not need it, while +Rose is getting paid for her work, and there is hardly any doubt" +(brightening up,) "but that 'little May' will take the scholarship. She +was working so hard to pass her examination when she wrote last, that +she was quite out of spirits about her chances, which father says is +always the way<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span> with the best men when they are going in for an +examination that they are safe to win. He supposes it will be still more +so with women. He tells mother that he will not mind taking help from +her, where her money is concerned, when he can no longer stir from his +chair—not to say to earn a fee, but to save his life. He has taken so +much more help from her in other ways during all their married life, +that this in addition will not count."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_xix" id="chapter_xix"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">THE UNEMPLOYED—A FAMILIAR FACE.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">A lodging</span> was found near the Hospital for Dora, who was to stay in town +and look out for a situation; and for the next week, a week of hot +summer weather, Annie, relieved from her hospital work, because it was +her first holiday time, went to and fro, spending as little as possible +on omnibus fares, with Dora and May in her train, in search of +employment for them. People were beginning to leave town, and the time +did not seem propitious. When was it ever propitious for such a pursuit +where women are concerned? Even under Annie's able guidance, with the +spirit which she could summon to her aid in all difficulties, the +intentional and unintentional rebuffs which the two girl candidates, +particularly Dora, got from agents and principals in connection with +ladies in want of useful companions and nursery-governesses were +innumerable. The swarms of needy, greedy applicants for similar +situations whom the Millars<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> were perpetually encountering in their +rounds, were enough to cause the stoutest heart to quail, and to sink +the most sanguine nature into the depths of despondency.</p> + +<p>Dora Millar was not constitutionally sanguine, and she grew more and +more nervous and dispirited as the fruitless efforts went on. Her little +figure drooped, her eyes had a dejected expression, her lips quivered +pathetically without any provocation. Annie was compelled to use strong +language. "The idiots!" she exclaimed, <i>apropos</i> of the last persons who +had found Dora too young or too old, not strong enough looking, or not +lively enough looking ("not as if she could stand a large amount of +bullying and worrying," Annie read between the lines). "What a chance +they are letting slip through their fingers of getting the most +unexacting, contented creature in the world to minister to their +tiresome wants. They will never see her like again; serve them right for +their blindness."</p> + +<p>One particularly glaring, airless afternoon, the three sisters were +toiling back to Dora's lodging, with the London pavement like heated +iron under the feet of the crowds that trod it, and the cloudless sky, +in which the sun blazed a ball of fire, like glowing brass over their +heads. Then as the Millars turned a corner and looked longingly at the +trees in a square with their leaves already<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span> yellowing and shrivelling, +May uttered a little shriek of delight and darted forward to greet a +familiar figure and face in the stream of strangers. What did it signify +that the figure was insignificant by comparison, and the face with +nothing distinguished in its pallor, under its red beard and +moustache?—"a little foxy-headed fellow," any sharp-tongued bystander +might have called him. It was a well-known face where all the others +were drearily unknown, a Redcross face in London, the face of a man who +might have shown himself an enemy, yet had proved a friend in need; and +though there had been presented to the girls the bearing of a Jupiter +and the lineaments of an Adonis, they could not have hailed him with +greater gladness. If anybody hung back in the general acclamation it was +Dora, for Annie did not say a word to rebuke May; she was too anxious to +hear the last news of her father.</p> + +<p>More than one man among the passers-by, glancing at Tom Robinson +surrounded by a group of pretty girls, the two prettiest evidently +making much of him and hanging on his words, called him in their minds +"lucky dog," and speculated on the nature of the attraction.</p> + +<p>"'<i>Prope'ty, prope'ty, prope'ty</i>,'" no doubt. It was disgraceful to see +how mercenary even quite young women were getting.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>Tom received the ovation, at which, by the bye, he was a little taken +aback and puzzled, quietly and in a matter-of-fact way, as he received +most things. He had had the pleasure of seeing Dr. and Mrs. Millar +lately; indeed, he had availed himself of the privileges of an old +friend to call on them at once in their new quarters, he told Annie, and +he had found them, by their own account, fairly well and comfortable, +though the Doctor was still dead lame.</p> + +<p>Tom did not tell either Annie, or any one else interested in the +information, that he had spent the last few days pushing the circulation +of a subscription list, which he had headed with the promise of a +handsome sum. It was to provide a testimonial not altogether inadequate +to mark the esteem in which the townspeople held their old Doctor for +his many virtues, and their sympathy with him in his misfortunes. A +liberal offering on the town's part might do something to relieve the +adversity which had befallen a fellow-townsman. The talk a little time +ago had been of presenting Dr. Millar with a new brougham and horse, +which, as they would have had to be maintained at the charge of a man +who had just put down his old brougham as beyond his diminished income, +was rather an illogical method of serving him. However, his complete +breakdown, with the sale of his practice,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span> had at once knocked that idea +on the head, and had given its motive a much wider application. If the +little Doctor were to submit to accept help, it must be commensurate +with the dignity of Redcross and the county, and with his own +professional status and merit.</p> + +<p>Tom Robinson looked at the girls as two of them looked at him. "It is +tiring weather," he suggested hesitatingly; "is it wise of you to walk +out in the heat?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! Mr. Robinson," cried May effusively, "we are so tired—just dead +beat—though Annie there does not like me to talk slang—but it is so +expressive, don't you think so? It is not to-day only, but yesterday and +the day before, we have been hunting for situations, and have not found +them yet. Do you know, Dora and I are going to take situations +immediately if we can get them?"</p> + +<p>His face changed, and he knit his brow involuntarily.</p> + +<p>"What a magpie it is!" said Annie, impatiently. "But, of course, you +have heard all about the turn father's affairs have taken since this bad +rheumatic attack, which he does not believe he can shake off. It need +not be any secret that my sisters are looking out for situations."</p> + +<p>He did not answer; he was prevented by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span> painful consciousness that +Dora appeared ready to sink into the ground.</p> + +<p>"Won't you avail yourself of my arm, Miss Dora? Won't you let me see you +home?" he proposed hurriedly.</p> + +<p>She could not refuse; indeed, she was only too thankful for the offered +support, though she murmured a protest against troubling him and taking +him out of his way. And she could not altogether conceal how put out as +well as weary she was, so that the little hand, which just touched his +coat-sleeve, fluttered on its resting-place like a newly-caught bird.</p> + +<p>He hailed a cab, and wished to put them all into it.</p> + +<p>"I dare say it would be better," said Annie, glancing at Dora's white +face, with the new trick of quivering which the lips had acquired. As +the cab was driving up, she gave Tom Robinson their address—"17, Little +St. Ebbe's Street," with the amount of the fare, looking at him almost +fiercely while she took the money from her purse. "Will you be good +enough to direct the man and pay him for us?" she said, and he dared not +dispute her will.</p> + +<p>But when he yielded, she seemed to think his friendliness and power of +comprehension deserved something better than they had got. "Will you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span> +come with us?" Annie invited him; and when she softened, it was always +in such a bright frank way that it was hard to resist her. "We'll be +very pleased to give you a cup of tea at Dora's lodging—at least we can +do that for you, and it may be acceptable on such an oppressive +afternoon."</p> + +<p>He, a guest at a lodging of Dora Millar's: it sounded odd enough!</p> + +<p>"Do come, Mr. Robinson," his friend May was imploring, while Dora, +sensible that something was due from her as the ostensible mistress of +the lodging, echoed shyly, without raising her eyes to his face, "Yes, +come, please."</p> + +<p>Did she remember the last time she gave him tea in the drawing-room of +the Old Doctor's House, where they were not likely to meet again? How +awkward they found the <i>tête-à-tête</i>. How they shrank from their hands +touching, while he reproached her for aiding and abetting May in trying +to shirk going to St. Ambrose's; and she had borne his reproaches and +admitted the reasonableness of his arguments, with all the meek candour +of Dora, while still making a last stand for May.</p> + +<p>He went with the girls as if he were in a dream; but he was not left to +dream in Dora's very plain lodging, where Annie and not the mistress of +the lodging poured out tea, and May insisted on helping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span> him to bread +and butter. He saw Rose, too, who had been awaiting the return of her +sisters. It sent another pang to his brotherly heart to discover that +Rose also was subdued and well-nigh careworn. She still wrinkled her +forehead and crumpled up her nose, but it was no longer in the old saucy +way; it was under her share of the heavy burden of trouble which had +fallen on these dauntless girls and might end by crushing them.</p> + +<p>May was not to be kept from the immense solace of making a clean breast +to her former ally of her stupid dawdling and trifling, and the +retribution which had at once befallen her. "Did father tell you, Mr. +Robinson, that I have failed in my examination?" she began plaintively. +"Yes, I have, and it was all my own fault. I was too silly; I would not +pull myself together and work hard from the first. Now it will never be +in my power to go back to St. Ambrose's. I'll not be able to atone for +my folly by showing that everybody was not wrong when it was believed +that I might be a fair scholar, win a scholarship, and rise to be +classical mistress in a girls' school." At the announcement of the +disastrous failure, by her own deed, of all the ambitious plans for her, +May threatened to break down, springing up and turning away, her +shoulders heaving in a paroxysm of mortification and grief.</p> + +<p>Tom Robinson used to say, afterwards, that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span> never witnessed a +prettier sight than the manner in which the three other girls rallied +round their poor "little May," from Annie downwards. They took off her +hat, pulled off her gloves, smoothed her ruffled hair, patted her +tear-stained cheeks, seated her in an arm-chair, brought her tea, and +made her drink it, bidding her not be too disheartened. They pledged +themselves—even Dora pledged herself stoutly—that, if it rested with +them, and they were young and strong, they would find work of one kind +or another—May should go back to St. Ambrose's some day and vindicate +her scholarliness. Father and mother and all of them would be proud of +her.</p> + +<p>It rendered the man doubly indignant from that day when he heard +scoffers say that there could be no true friendship between women, and +that the relation of sisters existed simply for the growth of rivalry +and jealousy.</p> + +<p>May was still shaking her head disconsolately, and reminding him, "Ah, +Mr. Robinson, it would have been better if you had let me stay at home +and go into your shop, like Phyllis Carey. I might have done some good +there, though you may not believe it, and only feel glad that you got +rid of me."</p> + +<p>Then he took her in hand, and administered his consolation. "Nonsense, +Miss May," he said, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span> sufficient peremptoriness for a man who had +been rather accustomed to efface himself in these girls' presence, "you +were not to be suffered to hide your light under a bushel. I wonder to +hear you—I thought you had more pluck and perseverance. How many times +do you think the young fellows at St. Ambrose's are turned back and have +to try again? If I passed in my first exam, it was by the merest fluke, +as three-fourths of the men will tell you they pass. As for my degree, I +had the common sense and modesty to put off taking it to the last +moment, and to stay up two different vacations, 'sapping' like a +Scotchman, before I ventured to undergo the test. You don't mean to say +you are too proud to do at Rome as the Romans do, that your genius will +brook no rejection, and declines to grapple with an obstacle? I'll tell +you what your father proposes for you, and let me say that I believe it +would do him a world of good—now that he has been forced to give up his +patients, and is confined to his chair. He has not lost heart and faith +in your powers—of course not. He is thinking quite eagerly of brushing +up his classics in his enforced leisure, and himself becoming your coach +for the next six months. I need not say that any small assistance I can +offer is heartily at your service also."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said May, with wistful brown eyes and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span> a long-drawn sigh, "you are +a great deal too good to me, all of you. I don't deserve it. It would +only be too much happiness for me to have father and you to coach +me—but I know we could not afford it."</p> + +<p>"Wait and see," said Tom succinctly.</p> + +<p>"If I got that situation," said Dora timidly, "I might do something to +help May: I mean the one where the lady said she would take me into +consideration, but we thought it would not do, because I should have to +go out to Jamaica. On second thoughts, I am not sure that I'd mind so +very much going. The lady seemed to consider I might be able to do what +she required, and I should only be away for a year or two, since the +family are coming back then. The salary was very good."</p> + +<p>Dora go out to Jamaica to help May, or any one else! Not though he had +to fling cheques in at the windows, and squeeze Bank of England notes +through the keyholes, to prevent it.</p> + +<p>"Hester Jennings says she would not be very much surprised if she heard +of a buyer for my tulip picture; but I don't know," said Rose +doubtfully, glancing at the picture, which was on an adjoining table.</p> + +<p>"May I look at it?" asked Tom Robinson, jumping up with alacrity, +probably to make a diversion in the conversation from the obnoxious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span> +topic of Dora's problematical voyage to Jamaica. He had seen Rose's work +at Redcross, and he could give it as his honest opinion that she had +made a great advance in her art, though he did not profess to be a +judge. He said, however, that he had a friend, an old St. Ambrose crony, +who was an artist. They had happened to be together in Rome at a later +date, had been a good deal thrown on each other's company there, and had +continued to keep up a friendly intercourse. He requested permission for +his friend to call and look at the little picture. He might be of use to +Rose in disposing of it; he was always ready to help a fellow-artist. +Tom supposed the Millars had heard his friend's name, it was pretty well +known; indeed they might have seen him, for Pemberton and Lady Mary, his +wife, had spent a few days with Tom at Redcross, and had been in church +on the Sunday during their visit, the summer before last.</p> + +<p>In spite of the obligations of good breeding, the Millars looked at each +other in open-mouthed astonishment. Certainly they had heard of +Pemberton the distinguished landscape painter, and they had been told +that he had married into the peerage, as Aunt Penny had married into the +county. The girls also remembered perfectly the quiet-looking young +couple who had been noticed walking about with Tom Robinson the July +before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span> last. People had wondered languidly who the strangers could +be—whether they were cousins far removed on Tom's father's side of the +house, since they did not quite answer to the style of his mother's +yeomen kindred. But it was an effort to the provincial mind to identify +the unobtrusive-looking pair with the Pembertons, to realize that Mr. +Pemberton and his Lady Mary had actually come and stayed the better part +of a week with Tom Robinson. They could hardly have been ignorant of +"Robinson's," whose master was only received into the upper-class houses +of the town on a species of sufferance.</p> + +<p>The peerage must have unique rules by which to frame its standards. +There was the Hon. Victoria, Mrs. Carey's niece by marriage, who, when +Carey's Bank was in full bloom, would hardly be seen in the streets of +Redcross, and scarcely deigned to acknowledge her own aunt-in-law. As to +the familiarity of staying a night in the Bank House, she would never +have dreamt of it. In this respect she did little credit to the teaching +of her old governess, Miss Franklin, who had shown herself a philosopher +in her own person. Perhaps, when it came to stooping at all, the peerage +felt it might as soon, and with a still more gracious and graceful +effect, bend low as bend slightly. Perhaps in the peerage, as in every +other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span> class, there are all sorts and conditions of mind and heart.</p> + +<p>A little clue might have been supplied to account for the eccentricity +of the Pembertons, and to lessen the shock of their conduct to the +Millars, if the latter had been made acquainted with one circumstance. +About the time of the stay of the artist and his wife in Rome, where he +had been only too glad to run up against a favourite old college chum, +when the three had been making a long excursion in company beyond the +Campagna, Pemberton had been suddenly attacked in a remote little town +with a violent illness.</p> + +<p>His poor young wife would have been utterly frightened and forlorn had +it not been for the moral courage and untiring good offices of the third +person in the company—Tom Robinson.</p> + +<p>Tom did not appear conscious of the sensation he had created by the +mention of his friend. He arranged when Mr. Pemberton should come and +view Rose's picture to suit Rose's convenience, and not that of the +famous and courted artist. Then he explained in all sincerity, before he +took his leave, that he, Tom Robinson, was very sorry he could not have +the pleasure of bringing Pemberton and introducing him personally, +because a business engagement called the master of "Robinson's" back to +Redcross early next morning.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>The party he left were quite silent and still for a moment after he had +gone, till what she had heard of Mr. Pemberton went to Rose's head to +such a degree that she rose, whirled round on tiptoe, and caused her +spread-out frock to perform the feat which children call "making a +cheese."</p> + +<p>"Won't it be delicious to know Mr. Pemberton and get his advice—perhaps +one day presume to ask him how he does his hay-fields and orchards? What +will Hester Jennings say! I say, we'll have Hester to meet him; she will +come for such a painter though the whole peerage would not get her to +budge an inch. I wish we could tone her down a little bit, but he must +just swallow her whole. She is good and clever enough to be permitted +that rugged line of her own. Oh! but isn't Tom Robinson a trump? I +<i>will</i> be slangy, Annie—as May says, it is so expressive."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," chimed in May enthusiastically, in reference to the man and +not to the slang. "I have known it ever since he came up like a +lion—why do you laugh, Rose?—and rescued Tray—don't you remember, +Dora?—from that horrid brute of a collie. Tray bit him—Mr. Robinson, I +mean—not knowing that he was his best friend, and he only laughed. He +was so kind about my wishing to go into his shop, like Phyllis Carey, +though he would not take me. I think it must be a privilege,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span> as Miss +Franklin tells Phyllis, to serve him. She says all the nice people in +the shop have the greatest regard for him."</p> + +<p>"I am so sorry and ashamed that I ever drew caricatures of him," said +Rose, in pensive penitence. "I think, whenever I am able, I must paint +his portrait, as I see him now, to make up for it."</p> + +<p>"And ask him to have it hung above the oak staircase in the shop," +suggested Annie, a little satirically. But she added immediately, +"Though it broke no bones to dwell on his lack of height and his foxy +complexion, I am rather sorry now that I did it, because I have ceased +to think that these objectionable details deserved to be made of any +consequence. On the contrary, I own to the infatuation of beginning to +see that there is something fine in them. I suppose I shall be calling +Tom Robinson's hair golden, or tawny, or chestnut soon, and his inches +the proper height for a man. It is true," broke off Annie, with sudden, +unaccountable perversity, "I do hate great lumbering flaxen-haired +giants." She blushed furiously after she had indulged in the last +digression, and hastened to resume the main thread of the conversation. +"As for Tom Robinson's having little to say, I declare that my present +impression is that he says quite enough, and very much to the purpose +too. It was so nice and like a gentleman of him not to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span> propose +immediately to buy Rose's picture when she talked rashly of her anxiety +that it should find a purchaser."</p> + +<p>"I don't think Cyril Carey, with all his airs, would have shown so much +delicacy in the old days," said Rose.</p> + +<p>"Or that Ned Hewett, though Ned has such a kind heart, would have been +able to avoid blundering into some such offer," remarked May.</p> + +<p>There was one person who remained absolutely silent while the others +sang Tom Robinson's praises, and it might be her silence which called +her sisters' attention to her.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what you would have, Dora?" said Rose, with several shades of +superciliousness in her voice and in her lifted-up nose.</p> + +<p>"I cannot understand how you could be such a cruel, hard-hearted girl," +May actually reproached her devoted slave.</p> + +<p>"There is such a thing as being too particular," Annie had the coolness +to say. "I am sure I do not go in for indiscriminate marriages or for +falling in love," she added with lofty decision. "It has always been a +mystery to me what poor Fanny Russell could see to care for, or to do +anything save laugh at, in Cyril Carey. I hope the elderly 'competition +wallah,' or commissioner, or whatever he is, whom she is going to marry, +has more sense<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span> as well as more money. For her marriage was arranged, +though the news had not reached England, mother writes, before the +tidings of Colonel Russell's death came. But when a man who can act as +Tom Robinson has acted crosses a woman's path and pays her the +compliment of asking her to be his wife, I do think she should be +careful what she answers."</p> + +<p>Dora stared as if she were losing her senses. Were they laughing at her +still? Could they be in earnest? If so, how was it possible for them to +be so flagrantly inconsistent and unjust? She could only utter a single +exclamation. But as the worm will turn, the exclamation was emphatic and +indignant enough. "Well!" she cried, in utter amazement and incipient +rebellion. "Well!" and she returned the challenging gaze of the circle +with a counter-challenge, before which all eyes except Annie's fell.</p> + +<p>Annie had the audacity to look Dora in the face and echo the "Well!" +nay, to say further, "You never heard of anything so disgraceful as for +us to turn upon you and find fault with you for refusing Tom Robinson, +when all the time it was we who laughed at him, and scouted his shop, +keeping you up to the point of dismissing him without delay? Quite true, +Dora, dear; but then it was you, and not <i>us</i>, whom he was proposing to +marry! and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span> girl old enough to receive such a proposal should have the +wit to judge for herself—should she not? She ought to cultivate the +penetration to look beneath the surface in so important a matter, and +then fewer lamentable mistakes would be made. However, nobody could +expect you to put force on your inclinations, and he does not bear you +malice."</p> + +<p>Annie did not regard her share in the matter so cheerfully and lightly +when she was in the privacy of a ward of St. Ebbe's, where she had +begged to sit up with an unconscious patient, just to keep her hand in +and compose her feelings.</p> + +<p>"What mischievous little wretches we were," she reflected, as she deftly +changed the wet cloth on the sick woman's hot forehead. "How happy he +might have made Dora, and how happy she might have made him! She is so +single-minded and tender-hearted, that she could hardly have failed to +see his merits, if we had given him the chance, let her alone, and left +the pair to themselves. Then, if the worst were to come to the worst," +and Annie frowned with anxiety and grief, as well as with wholesome +humiliation, "if poor father and mother cannot get along, and none of us +girls can help them effectually, his house might have been their home, +where he would never have let them feel other than honoured guests. He +would have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span> been a son to them. But the mischief is done, and there is +no help for it. If Dora and he were an ordinary couple, it might be +mended; but now she will not look at him when we none of us have a +penny, because she refused him when we were in comfortable +circumstances; and he will not renew his suit with the thought in his +mind that it would look and feel to her as if any favour he has +magnanimously conferred on us, were a mere bribe to compel her to listen +to him. So, Annie Millar, this is a pretty kettle of fish, of which you +have been chief cook! There is the greater reason for you to make up +your mind from this moment to devote yourself wholly to your family, and +let nothing—<i>nothing</i>," she protested with suspicious vehemence, "come +between you and them."</p> + +<p>"What is it, you poor soul?" the young nurse responded quickly to a +movement of the helpless ailing creature beside her. "Do you know there +is somebody here? Will it ease you to have your head raised on my arm, +do you think? You cannot hear or answer, but we'll try that, and then it +is just possible you may drop asleep." And for the rest of the watch +Annie was absorbed in care for her patient.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_xx" id="chapter_xx"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">REDCROSS AGAIN.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">Tom Robinson's</span> subscription list attained the respectable sum-total of +two thousand pounds. Many of the subscribers were not only patients of +Dr. Millar, but creditors of the bank whose claims he had striven with +sturdy honesty to satisfy, till the task proved too hard for his years.</p> + +<p>The little Doctor received the token of how greatly his courage and +staunchness in the fulfilment of his obligations had been respected, +with half pained, half pleased gratitude, and this was very much the +attitude of mind of his daughter Annie. The rest of his womankind, from +Mrs. Millar to May, only felt a glad surprise, and a soft, proud +thankfulness.</p> + +<p>The relief from present difficulties was great, but of course the gift +did not obviate the necessity for the girls seeking work and wages. Even +May, when she ventured to hope that she might stay at home for a month +or two and be coached by her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span> father and Tom Robinson in anticipation of +a more successful campaign at St. Ambrose's, was eagerly speculating +whether she might not become a coach in her turn. She was fain to earn a +little money by helping the very youngest of the Grammar School boys to +prepare their Latin grammar in the evenings, supposing she could get +them to sit still, and give over wishing her to play with them.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pemberton had not only himself called on the Miss Millar who was the +artist, he had brought Lady Mary with him, and both husband and wife had +turned out the refined, thoroughly unassuming, kindly disposed couple +they had looked. They spoke warmly of Tom Robinson as their very good +friend, and went so far as to express enthusiasm for his beautiful old +shop. Mr. Pemberton did better than merely say a few words of languid, +indiscriminating praise of Rose's picture, and then bow himself out. He +examined the picture closely, and looked at her thoughtfully and +attentively out of the dark gray eyes, the only good feature in his +face. The next moment, to Hester Jennings's great edification, he +addressed Rose seriously as a member of the Guild of St. Luke—not an +amateur, "one of ourselves, so that you must not mind what I say to you, +Miss Millar." He first displayed a generous capacity for discovering +something good, whether it were to be found in the work of a tyro or of +a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span> veteran. Next he took the trouble of pointing out the faults, and +urging their remedy, telling her the picture was worth the pains of +making it as true as possible, until Rose hung her head in blended pride +and humility.</p> + +<p>What was more, he offered to enter into negotiations with a +picture-dealer on her behalf, and brought them to a triumphant +conclusion, making Rose happy with so fair a price as materially to +lighten the millstone of her resigned office at the Misses Stone's +hanging round her neck.</p> + +<p>It was settled that May should go home and profit by the coaching which +awaited her at Redcross, taking the chance of finding some little boys +whose Latin grammar would be the better of her supervision.</p> + +<p>Next Mr. Pemberton wrote that Lady Mary had been so charmed with the +neighbourhood of Redcross, and had spoken so highly of it to one of her +cousins, who had a great liking for English landscape, and was just +refurnishing his town house, that he wished to commission a set of +water-colour sketches of such and such spots for his morning-room. It +was Mr. Pemberton's opinion that Miss Rose Millar could execute the +commission to Sir John Neville's satisfaction, if she cared to accept of +it.</p> + +<p>"It is to help me," said Rose humbly, "for there are hundreds of good +artists who would take the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span> work and be thankful, and do it far better, +though I will do my very best. Tom Robinson is at the bottom of it +directly or indirectly, but he is like an old friend. I don't know a man +to whom I would sooner be obliged."</p> + +<p>In the third instance, a totally unforeseen application was made to +Annie. A fever, in certain respects unfamiliar in its type, broke out at +Stokeleigh, one of several suburban villages on the outskirts of +Redcross. Some authorities called the fever Russian, and declared it had +been imported—they did not pretend to say how—from that remote empire. +Others insisted it was a slow fever, of English growth, with curious +complications. It appeared doubtful whether it were infectious; but +there was one thing which was unmistakable, that, whatever kind of +malaria brooding in the summer air was at the root of the complaint, +that malaria showed a disposition to spread extensively. It passed from +Stokeleigh to the adjoining village of Woodleigh, whence it took a bend +in the direction of the town, and proceeded to squat, as malarias can +squat, and settle indefinitely on all the low-lying districts of +Redcross. Neither did the epidemic improve in character with the change +of locality. For, whereas on the higher, less encumbered ground the +fever had been rarely fatal, the mortality increased with the transfer +of the disease<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span> to the crowded, damp purlieus of the older part of the +town, built more or less on the Dewes, and liable to be invaded by the +river in flood.</p> + +<p>A combined meeting of the Town Council and Vestry, with the Mayor, who +happened to be a public-spirited man, and the Rector heading it, +determined on taking prompt action to stop the mischief. The town had +lately built a Corn Exchange in one of the highest, best-ventilated +situations in Redcross. It was to be committed to the care of a town's +officer and his wife, who were to have the adjoining rooms rent-free for +a domicile, together with certain perquisites, in return for sweeping, +scrubbing, and looking after the hall. But the place was just finished, +and had not yet been occupied in the manner intended. It was proposed to +convert it, in the absence of other accommodation, into a temporary ward +for the sufferers from fever. The doctors consulted, pledged themselves +that there was every probability of the unwelcome visitor being thus +stamped out, while the chances of recovery for the patients would be +multiplied. It was also agreed to bring a trained nurse from some +nursing institution, to mould the raw nursing materials which Redcross +supplied on the emergency. Dr. Millar's successor had a bright idea that +it might be a graceful act on his part to mention the old Doctor's +daughter, who had gone in for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span> nursing as a profession. She had already +served nearly a year in a great London hospital, and was no doubt +competent to undertake the duties required. It would be a compliment to +her and her father to try and get her for the occasion, and there would +be a certain <i>éclat</i> in her coming to the help of her native town in its +need. Dr. Capes was right as to the popularity of his motion. It was +received with unanimous approval. Annie, the matron, and the directors +of St. Ebbe's, were immediately applied to in proper form. Annie burned +to go, if such a step were admissible at the present stage of her +career. The favour she had won on all sides aided in the fulfilment of +her wishes. She was promoted from the ranks of the probationers to those +of the nurses while yet her year wanted a fraction of its complete +round, and was officially sent down to represent the nurses of St. +Ebbe's at Redcross.</p> + +<p>"Of course, Dora, you cannot be left behind to go on by yourself hunting +for a situation with three-fourths of the great world out of town. I am +afraid you would make a poor job of it at the best, Dora dear, and at +the worst it is not to be thought of; it would be a waste of +nerve-tissue and muscle, as well as of pounds, shillings, and pence. You +will come too; we'll be all together, or nearly together, again, for a +holiday, after all."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span>Dora, who had been waiting patiently for Annie's decision, was nothing +loth.</p> + +<p>"Rose's expenses and mine are more than paid," calculated the practical +Annie, "so that we shall be no drag on father and mother. I don't know +if Robarts's accommodation will extend beyond the additional bedroom for +Rose and May, but that can be easily managed. Oh! I have it, Dora, you +will stay with me at the hospital—the Corn Exchange I mean—and save me +from having a housekeeper for the short time one will be wanted. I'll +take care that no infection, if there be infection, will come near you. +Oh, 'won't it be jolly,' as Rose says, for you and me to keep house by +ourselves at dear old Redcross, of all places in the world?"</p> + +<p>It was arranged so, with only a little demur from Mrs. Millar, +over-ruled by her husband.</p> + +<p>There was another person, without right or power to enter his veto +against the existing order of things, who nevertheless decidedly +demurred at them. Tom Robinson showed that though he might be a humane +man there were bounds to his humanity. "It is all very well for Annie +Millar to come down and nurse the fever patients, it is in the way of +her business, she does as much every day, she is well acquainted with +all the precautions to take. But Dora is not a nurse, she never thinks +of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span> herself, she will forget to take the precautions if she has ever +heard of them. She has not strong nerves, and she is used up with this +preposterous stumping of London in July in search of a situation. What +in the name of common sense and natural affection do they mean by +lugging Dora into the risk!" he grumbled and worried. "Oh! yes, of +course she would follow Annie or any of the rest of them fast enough if +she had the opportunity, though she were to die at the end of it; but +she ought never to have had the opportunity, it was preposterous to let +her. The whole thing is monstrous. I never heard of such rashness. What +can Dr. and Mrs. Millar be thinking of?"</p> + +<p>It felt queer, to say the least of it, as well as "jolly," to be at +Redcross and not at the Old Doctor's House, over which a bride of +yesterday was presiding, for Dr. Capes's marriage had taken place +simultaneously with his purchase of Dr. Millar's practice.</p> + +<p>Annie used to look over from the opposite side of the street, as she was +walking along, at the alterations which were being made in the garden, +and the new arrangement of the window curtains, and try to criticize +them impartially. Then she had to call and see Dr. Capes, and wait in +the familiar consulting-room till he insisted on taking her to the +drawing-room, in order to introduce her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span> to his wife, who had come a +stranger to Redcross. Annie felt as if she were a disembodied spirit, or +a dreamer in a dream from which she could not awake, while she gazed on +the changed yet well-known aspect of everything around her. But she had +to think of Dr. and Mrs. Capes, in whose house she was, and talk civilly +to them of their improvements(!). She had to emulate the submission of +Dora, who had seen the transfer coming and taken part in it. She had to +copy the mercurial spirits of Rose and May. They were so pleased to be +with their father and mother again, and to take possession of Phyllis +Carey's every free moment, that they declared the Robarts's apartments +were the very nicest the girls had ever seen. They, the apartments, were +delightfully cosy (which meant stuffy in July). They were more cheerful +(noisier) than the Old Doctor's House. It was great fun for the pair to +stow themselves and their belongings within such narrow compass.</p> + +<p>A serious vexation to Annie at the commencement of her enterprise was +the arrival of Dr. Harry Ironside to diagnose and make what he could of +the fever.</p> + +<p>"What is he doing here? His coming at all is most impertinent," cried +Annie indignantly, sitting down on one of the still empty beds in the +barrack-like hall, and as it were daring Rose and May, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span> had brought +the news, and Dora who was listening to them, to contradict her.</p> + +<p>"He is come in the pursuit of knowledge," said Rose, with full command +of her countenance. "He does not understand Russian fever, or whatever +it is, and he thinks he had better make its acquaintance as a wind up to +taking his degree. He is still a doctor at large; he has not fixed on +where he is to go and what he is to do next, so his sister Kate writes +to me."</p> + +<p>"Then he and his sister Kate had better make up their minds to go away +together, somewhere else, and not trouble other people," cried Annie +quite illogically.</p> + +<p>"Why, Annie, father thinks it is very praiseworthy of Dr. Ironside to +seek to get all the information he can before settling down as a +doctor," remonstrated May in the guilelessness of her heart. "He has +just been calling on father, who is delighted with him—so is mother; +and, for <i>my</i> part," finished the speaker with unconscious emphasis, as +if her opinion were of the utmost consequence, "I have thought him very +nice since the first time I met him at Mrs. Jennings's. He is so big and +handsome, without being stuck up, or a swell, like what Cyril Carey used +to be—just frank and pleasant as a man should be. I cannot comprehend +why you have such a dislike to him."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span>"Upon my word!" exclaimed Annie, with a gasp. "But I don't care," she +added vehemently; "he shall not come and carry on his investigations +here. Dr. Capes and I, with father to appeal to, and Mr. Newton to call +in and consult, if necessary, are more than sufficient for all the +patients we are likely to get. I tell you, if he forces his way into my +hospital I'll have nothing more to do with it; I'll throw it all up and +go back to St. Ebbe's at once."</p> + +<p>"But it is not your hospital, Annie," said Rose with provoking +matter-of-factness. "It is the town's, or if it is under the control of +any private person, it is under Dr. Capes's orders. For the sake of his +professional character, medical etiquette, and all that kind of thing, +he will not refuse to allow a fellow-doctor to study the fever cases +under his care. Dr. Harry was going to stay at the 'Crown,' but he met +Tom Robinson, who said he should be his guest, and carried him off to +his house."</p> + +<p>"Just like Tom Robinson!" declared Annie with amazing asperity.</p> + +<p>"Come along, May." Rose hurried away her sister and satellite, and then +let loose her glee. "It is too funny, May; too preposterously funny. It +is ever so much better than Dora and Tom Robinson. He was so easily +rebuffed, and she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span> so reluctant to rebuff him. But here is Annie +like one of the furies, and Harry Ironside is silly enough to mind her, +so that he can hardly open his mouth before her, and looks as if he had +lost his wits. Before Annie! What is our Annie, I should like to know, +that she should daunt a clever, high-spirited young fellow such as he +is? What strange glamour has she thrown over him? But he has plenty of +mettle and determination for all that, and she will no more manage by +her tirades to stop him from coming after her and laying siege to her +ladyship, than she can keep the sun from shining or the rain from +falling. For that matter, I believe the poor fellow cannot help himself; +it is the case of the moth and the candle."</p> + +<p>"But what is it all about?" demanded May, in an utter confusion of +ideas. "She speaks as if she hated him, and I thought he had come to +Redcross to trace the course of the Russian fever."</p> + +<p>"To trace the course of his own fortunes. I beg your pardon, my dear, +but you might have known enough of human nature to guess that there was +a private personal motive at the bottom of his philanthropy."</p> + +<p>"Then it is the worse for him and a great pity," said May, with the +sweet seriousness into which one phase of her childishness was passing. +"I wonder you can laugh, Rose. I am always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span> affronted when I remember +how we laughed at Tom Robinson and poor Dora, making game of what was no +joke to them. And Dora was not half so much opposed to Tom as Annie is +to this unfortunate, nice, pleasant young doctor. I could find it in my +heart to be very sorry for him."</p> + +<p>"Oh! you are a simpleton apart from Latin and Greek. Don't you see that +Annie's wrath is neither more nor less than fright? She is frightened +out of her senses at him, because she wants to keep her independence and +share our fortunes. As I do not remember to have seen her in such a +scare before, I should say that she is paying him a high compliment."</p> + +<p>"I think it is rather a queer compliment," objected May in much +perplexity.</p> + +<div class="block" style="width: 450px;"> +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">"'Though you should choose to dissemble your love,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: .7em;">Why need you kick me down-stairs?"</span></p> +</div> + +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">quoted Rose. "Oh! but the poet did not know the world, or pretended not +to know it. I assure you there are many wise men who would much rather +be kicked in this way than be civilly spoken to. Kate Ironside thought +fit to confide to me how much interested she was in a suit which, if it +ever succeeded, would make us all brothers and sisters. She was so good +as to add that while she was aware Harry always knew best, and she had<span class="pagenum" style="text-indent: 1.6em;"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span> +entire faith in his choice, still she was not entirely of his mind—I +don't believe Annie has ever spoken to her, lest speech with the sister +should be taken for encouragement to the brother. It is only natural +perhaps that, as Kate ventured to admit, on the whole she would have +preferred <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>"And what did you say to that?" asked the deeply-interested May.</p> + +<p>"No, thanks, though I was much obliged, or something like it. I added +with some dignity, I flatter myself, though really such dignity is +thrown away on Kate, that for the present I was wedded to my art, like +Queen Elizabeth to her kingdom, and to my sister Maisie. Besides, +nothing could, would, or should ever induce me to meddle with my sister +Annie's property, since, according to Kate's own account, it was for +love of Annie, and not of me, that Harry Ironside took up his residence +under Mrs. Jennings's roof."</p> + +<p>But Annie had to give way to some extent. She was compelled to grant an +interview to the aggressor. Dr. Ironside arrived on a special errand to +the hospital, and he took up the position that Miss Millar was entitled +to be consulted. Tom Robinson had been attacked with every symptom of +the fever. He and Tom had agreed, in view of the public character of +"Robinson's," and with the idea that the step might do good, by serving +as an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span> example, that the patient should come to the hospital and be laid +up there, where Dr. Harry Ironside was ready to devote himself to the +case.</p> + +<p>"I believe Tom Robinson has taken the fever on purpose," said Annie to +the shocked Dora. "But he shall not have much of my attendance; he may +stick to his Dr. Ironside. Dr. Capes tells me he has induced a married +woman, with a family, who has a brother and a nephew lodging with her, +both of them down with fever, to send them here, so that I shall have +them to look after. Now that there is a beginning made," Annie smoothed +her ruffled plumes, and waxed cheerful, "if the hot weather does not +change, and the disease is not checked, we are likely to have plenty of +patients on our hands, with the opportunity of showing what service we +can render them and the town."</p> + +<p>Just as Annie predicted, the rows of beds began to fill, and she had no +lack of occupation; but she changed her tale with regard to Tom Robinson +when his case, among many which yielded readily to treatment, and proved +triumphantly the gain to be got from a better locality and fresher air, +was first grave, then dangerous, and at last verged on hopeless. Now she +turned to the worst case on her list, and made it her chief care. She +became totally unmindful of the fact that she was thus brought into +constant contact with Harry Ironside,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span> that it was he and she who were +together fighting death, inch by inch, with desperate endeavour, for the +prize which the last enemy threatened to snatch from their hands. +Indeed, so entirely did Annie, like the excellent nurse and kind-hearted +woman she was, lose sight of her own concerns in the interest of her +patient, that she was heard to contradict herself, and record her +sincere thankfulness for the strong support of Harry Ironside's presence +in the light of the valuable aid he could afford at such a time.</p> + +<p>"He was thought very clever at St. Ebbe's. He took his degree with high +honours. He was held in much esteem by all the older doctors," she +explained to all who cared to hear. "He is in possession of all the +latest light on his profession. Now, I have heard father say, and what I +have seen confirms it, that though Dr. Capes is most painstaking, and +has had a good deal of experience as a general practitioner, he has no +great natural ability, and he was not in circumstances to pursue his +studies longer than was absolutely necessary to enable him to pass as a +medical man. After all I take back my word. I am very glad for poor Tom +Robinson's sake that Dr. Harry Ironside is here. No doubt we could have +summoned a great specialist from London, but he would only have stayed a +short time, and men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span> like him have generally many critical cases on +their minds. Now Dr. Harry Ironside is on the spot, and he can watch +every turn of the disease which he came to master, and devote his whole +attention to this example. I consider Tom Robinson is exceedingly +fortunate in getting the chance of such scientific treatment."</p> + +<p>But in spite of the good fortune and the devotion spent on him; it +looked as if Tom were going to slip through the hands so bent on +detaining him, and to die as quietly as he had lived.</p> + +<p>When Redcross realized how even the balance was, and how heavily he was +swimming for his life, the whole town woke up to his good qualities as a +citizen, to what a useful life his comparatively short one had been, to +how many benefits he had conferred without the slightest assumption of +patronage or superiority of any kind.</p> + +<p>It is unnecessary to say that "Robinson's" was figuratively in the +deepest mourning, only rousing itself from its despair to proclaim his +merits and those of his father before him, as masters. Men gravely +pointed out the old servants he had pensioned; those in middle age whom +he had kept on when their best days were past; the boys he had already +taken in, fitted out, and launched on the world by judicious, +unostentatious backing. Women tearfully reminded the listener<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span> how +carefully he had provided for their comfort and well-being throughout +his establishment, from the ample time allowed for their meals and the +seats to which they could retire when not actually serving, to the early +closing hours, which afforded them and the men who were their +associates, some leisure for out-of-doors exercise and indoors +recreation. As for mental and spiritual improvement, he was always ready +to subscribe liberally to libraries, choral unions, friendly societies, +Christian associations, missionary boxes—every conceivable means of +rational pleasure, culture, and true human elevation of which his people +would avail themselves.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Carey called at the Corn Exchange and offered her unprofessional +services as a nurse, if further aid were wanted.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pemberton, acquainted with the fact of Tom Robinson's illness +through communicating with Rose Millar on her commission, wrote that he +could hardly keep Lady Mary from descending on Redcross to see after +their friend, and if it would be the least good she would come down. It +would be but a poor return for the aid Robinson had lent her when her +husband lay desperately sick and she had nobody to appeal to, save the +fat and fatuous <i>padrone</i> of a miserable little Italian inn.</p> + +<p>May, who was at last prevented from coming to her sisters, presented +herself when they went to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span> their father's, her eyes swollen with weeping +for her "coach."</p> + +<p>Every time Annie left the transformed hall of the Exchange and repaired +to the rooms which she and Dora occupied, she found a white face on the +watch for her, and pale lips which could hardly form the syllables, "How +is he now? Oh! Annie, must he die?" At least Dora was on the spot to +hear each hour's report, as if she had been his nearest relative, and +without asking herself the reason why, that was a little bit of comfort +to her. In the same manner Tom Robinson derived a dim satisfaction from +the fact that he was lying there under the same roof with Dora Millar, +as he would have been supposing she had listened to his suit eighteen +months ago, and he had fallen ill in the early days of their marriage. +He was afraid it was pure selfishness which made him cease to resent her +presence in close proximity to the fever ward, as he had resented it +when he did not imagine he might be one of its patients. Sometimes he +had a dim fancy that he heard her soft voice through the closed doors, +and that it soothed him, though he might be only dreaming, or it was +possible that there were tones in Annie's clear voice which under +certain emotions of pity and tenderness answered to those of her sister.</p> + +<p>Often Annie just shook her head sorrowfully as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span> she warned Dora off till +the nurse's dress could be changed. Occasionally she cried out +petulantly, "If he would only be impatient, and fret and grumble like +other people; if he would not take things so quietly; if he would resist +and struggle, I believe he might fight the battle and win it yet. I +think he will get over the crisis, but what of that if there is no +rallying? He is letting life go because he will not grasp it hard, I +suppose for the reason that he has no strong ties to bind him to it. He +has either such a poor opinion of his deserts, or such a trust in +Providence, that he considers whatever is is best, and does not exert +himself to alter the course of events so far as it is in his power. It +is beautiful in theory, but it does not always answer in practice. I am +not certain whether it does not proceed, after all, from constitutional +indolence, or the want of ambition, of which I used to accuse him, or +whether he is really too good to live. Anyhow, skill and nursing are +wasted upon him."</p> + +<p>Dr. Hewett came to see Tom Robinson, and took the seat which Harry +Ironside vacated for him, leaving the old friends together.</p> + +<p>"Hallo, Rector! It is strange for me to meet you here," said Tom's +feeble voice, while the ghost of his old shy smile passed over his +haggard face.</p> + +<p>"It is equally strange for me to meet you,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span> Robinson," said the Rector, +with an inconvenient lump in his throat.</p> + +<p>"What a deal of trouble I'm giving," said Tom regretfully.</p> + +<p>"Tut, man, nobody grudges the trouble, if you will but pick up and get +well again," said the clergyman, almost roughly.</p> + +<p>"I can see that Ironside thinks badly of me," said Tom in his quiet way, +"and as far as feelings go, it seems to me I have reason to think badly +of myself."</p> + +<p>"We are all in good hands, Tom," said Dr. Hewett, seeing again the boy +who used to play in the Rectory garden with Ned, and speaking to him in +the old fashion.</p> + +<p>"I know that," answered Tom. "I have known it all along, which has been +a blessing to me," he added, a little as if he were speaking of a third +person. Then he roused himself further. "I want to tell you where my +will is. I don't like to hurt a woman's feelings by speaking of it to my +kind, indefatigable nurse. Besides, the Millars will benefit by it."</p> + +<p>"The old man," sighed the Rector, "always thinking of others before +yourself."</p> + +<p>"'I know that my Redeemer liveth,'" was Tom's testimony; "speak to me of +Him, Rector, while I am able to hear," said the sick man, in the tone of +one whose ears were growing dull to earthly sounds.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_xxi" id="chapter_xxi"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">MISS FRANKLIN'S MISTAKE.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">Tom Robinson</span> went still deeper into the shadow of the valley, possibly +as far as man ever went and returned. He grew as weak and helpless as an +infant, until at last he lost consciousness, and lay prostrate and +still, with closed eyes and sealed ears—nothing alive in him save the +subtle principle which is compared to a vapour and a breath which no man +can see or handle, yet whose presence or absence makes all the +difference between an animated body still linked to both worlds and a +mass of soulless clay hastening to corruption. All that skill and +devotion could do—and Tom Robinson had them both—was to keep on +without despairing, maintaining warmth against the growing chillness, +and administering stimulants and nourishment by spoonfuls and drops.</p> + +<p>On the night which it was feared would be Tom Robinson's last, Miss +Franklin would no longer be denied her place among the watchers. She +had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span> been kept away in obedience to poor Tom's express orders, that in +the attempt to minimize the fever no communication should be kept up on +his account between the Corn Exchange where he lay and either his house +or "Robinson's," notwithstanding the proofs that the disease did not +spread by contagion or infection.</p> + +<p>Miss Franklin did not desire to dispossess Annie of the post which, in +spite of every remonstrance, she was holding latterly almost night and +day. Miss Franklin had no faculty for nursing, and small experience to +guide her. She was rather a nervous woman in her impulsiveness, and +after one look at what was like the mask of Tom Robinson, utterly +incapable of recognizing her or communicating with her, she was so much +overcome that she was fain to retire to another room and submit to be +gently ministered to by Dora.</p> + +<p>Miss Franklin was only too thankful to be suffered to stay there in the +background. It did not strike her as odd that nobody in the house except +the other patients should go to sleep that night when her cousin was +hovering between life and death—nearer death than life. Neither had the +outspoken, kind-hearted gentlewoman any particular application of her +speech in her mind when she said sorrowfully—"Dear! dear! how grieved +he would be if he knew how worn out you were, Miss Dora.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span> He thought +that his coming to the hospital would not only serve as a precedent, it +would be the simplest, safest, least troublesome plan where he himself +was concerned, though if he would have let me, I should have been only +too glad to have turned my back on 'Robinson's' for a time, and done +what I could for him. There is enough difference in our ages, and I have +known him all his life, in addition to our being connections if not near +relations, so that nobody need have found fault. Not that I pretend for +a moment that I could have done what your sister is doing—that is +something quite wonderful in every respect" (and here Miss Franklin did +draw up her bountiful figure, and fix the rather small eyes, sunk a +little in her full cheeks, pointedly on Dora). "I dare say he liked to +have her about him to the last, so long as he was sensible of her +presence. Men are extraordinary creatures—that I should say that now, +oh! my poor dear cousin Tom."</p> + +<p>After she had recovered from her outburst of grief, and was sipping the +tea which Dora had made for her, she turned again to her companion. "You +look like a ghost yourself, Miss Dora. Will you not lie down in your +bedroom and trust me? I shall sit here and bring you word the moment I +hear that a change has come;" and at the ill-omened phrase poor Miss +Franklin's well-bred,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span> distinct enunciation got all blurred and +faltering. In fact she shrank a good deal from the ordeal she was +magnanimously proposing for herself. As it happened she had never +undergone anything like it before, though she had reached middle age. It +was not easy for her to contemplate sitting there all alone through the +dreary small hours, knowing that Tom Robinson's spirit—the spirit of +the best friend she had ever known—was passing away without word or +sign in the adjoining room. It was a relief to her when Dora Millar, +looking as if she had been sitting up in turn with every patient in the +ward, as pale as a moonbeam and as weak as water, yet shook her head +decisively against any suggestion of her retiring to rest.</p> + +<p>There was a strong contrast between the couple who were to wait together +for death or the morning. Miss Franklin herself might be on the eve of +dying—but so long as she lived and went through the mundane process of +dressing, she must dress exceedingly well. She was a good, kind woman +all the same, and this night she bore a sore heart under her carefully +contrived and nicely put on garments.</p> + +<p>Poor young Dora, on the contrary, looked all limp and forlorn. The +gingham morning-gown she had not changed was huddled on her, and +crumpled about her. Her neglected hair was pushed back from her little +white face. Annie in her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span> nurse's spotless apron and cap looked a +hundred times trimmer, and was altogether a more cheerful object. It was +as if the whole world had come to an end for Dora, and she had ceased to +notice trifles. Almost the first words Miss Franklin had said to her +when the visitor began to recover from the shock she had undergone, +were—</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, Miss Dora, the lace at your throat is coming undone—let me +put it right for you; and an end of your hair has fallen down. I may +fasten it up, may I not?"</p> + +<p>A delicate, exhausted girl was no great support for a woman under the +circumstances, still she was better than nobody. She was company in one +form, like the domestic cat, when no more available associate is to be +found. Besides, in the middle of their dissimilarity, Miss Franklin had +a natural liking for Dora Millar, and had always excepted her from the +grudge which the elder woman was inclined to feel against one member of +the Millar family. "A nice, well-meaning, gentle girl," Miss Franklin +mentally classed Dora. "The most quiet and ladylike of them all." She +was a great improvement, in Miss Franklin's estimation, on that too +bright and restless Annie, whom everybody cried up as a beauty. She had +found, Miss Franklin was creditably informed, a fine vent for her +dictatorial imperious temper as a nurse. Yet she,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span> Miss Franklin, ought +not to find fault with Annie Millar at this time, when Dr. Capes had +said her treatment of the fever patients, with dear Tom among them, was +admirable; though, by one of the mysterious decrees of Providence, she +might not be permitted to succeed in his case. And she was now +ministering to his last wants as she, Barbara Franklin, arrived at +mature age, with all the will, had neither the skill nor the courage to +minister, much as she owed him, so long as he had other service. She was +a captious, vindictive wretch to pick holes in Miss Millar's armour, +when she was striving so hard to atone to him for any injury she had +ever done him by delivering him from the jaws of death, or at least +smoothing his path to the grave.</p> + +<p>The seasons had gone on till the late summer was merging into the early +autumn. It was the beginning of August, when the days are already not so +long as they have been; but, to make up for it, the lengthening nights +are balmier than they ever were, and the soft dusk remains full of +summer scents and sounds.</p> + +<p>It was on such a night that you might imagine a young man, dying long +before his time, and yet after he has reached full manhood, and touched +the crown of bodily and mental vigour, without ever feeling the tide on +its turn.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span>The night was so warm that the windows of the room in which Dora and +Miss Franklin sat were wide open. There was a lamp lit within, but it +did not render the darkness without so great as to hide the outlines of +trees in the nearest garden, and even the dim shape of a bed of late +flowering, tall white lilies. Their heavy fragrance was on the air; and +if ever there is a fragrance which is solemn and tender like the love of +the dying and the memory of the dead, it is the all-pervading scent of +lilies.</p> + +<p>Annie Millar could never have been so good a listener as Dora was when +Miss Franklin, constitutionally loquacious, relieved her distress, and +got rid of the dragging hours, by indulging in a long and affectionate +oration on Tom Robinson, the man who, not so many yards from them, was +lying as indifferent to praise and blame as when he first entered this +wonderful world, with all its joys and sorrows, from which he was ready +to depart.</p> + +<p>"You know, he is not really my cousin," the womanly confidence began; +"the tie between us hardly counts—it is only that Mr. Robinson's first +wife was my mother's sister. But I always called Mr. Charles Robinson +and his second wife uncle and aunt. I might well do it, for they were a +good uncle and aunt to me. I should have known few pleasures when I was +growing up, and long afterwards, if it had not been for them. The +Robinsons<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span> used to go away trips every summer to Devonshire and +Derbyshire, the Yorkshire moors, the Cumberland lakes, Scotland, the +Black Forest, Switzerland, and they always took me to see the world, and +spend my summer holidays with them. How generous and kind they were in +their friendliness! Tom was usually of the party—first as a child, then +as a growing boy; but child or boy, such a nice manly little fellow, so +much thought of, yet not at all spoilt. He was fond of reading, yet full +of quiet fun, and in either light never in anybody's way. He was so +considerate of his mother and me, and so helpful to us. The cows he has +driven away! the horses going at large he has kept off! the bulls he has +held at bay! I confess I am not brave in proportion to my size. I am +very timid in such matters, and, strange to say, Aunt Robinson, though a +country-woman born and bred, was as great a coward as I where farm +animals were in question; but we always knew ourselves safe when Tom was +at hand, and he never laughed at us more than we could stand."</p> + +<p>"I can understand," said Dora faintly. "He once helped us—May and +me—when a strange dog attacked Tray; and now Tray is running about with +May full of life and health, while his champion is<span style="letter-spacing: -2px;">——</span>" She could not +say the words.</p> + +<p>Miss Franklin looked at her approvingly, even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span> went so far as to stroke +one of the cold trembling hands lying nerveless in Dora's lap. "You will +allow me to say that you are a dear, tender-hearted girl, Miss Dora. You +could have appreciated my cousin Tom. What a tower of strength he was to +me when I felt I was getting middle-aged, and my system of teaching was +becoming old-fashioned. I had been in so many homes belonging to other +people, with never a home of my own, for upwards of thirty years, since +my poor father and mother both died before I was twenty. I do not say +that I was not for the most part well enough treated, because I hope I +did my best, and I believe I generally gave satisfaction. I had my happy +hours like other people. But it was all getting so stale, flat, and +unprofitable—I suppose because I was growing weary of it all, and +longing for a change. You see I had not quite come to the age when we +cease to want changes, and are resigned just to go on as we are to the +end. In reality I could see no end, except the poorest of poor lodgings +and the most pinching straits, with the very little money I had saved. +(My dear, even finishing governesses can save so little now-a-days.) Or +perhaps there was the chance of my being taken into some charitable +institution. You will admit it was not a cheerful prospect."</p> + +<p>"No, it was not," said Dora, in dreary abstraction.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span>"As I said," resumed Miss Franklin, "I had been in so many schoolrooms; +I had seen so many pupils grow up, go out into the world, and settle in +life, leaving me behind, so that when they came back on visits to their +old homes, they were prepared to pity and patronize me. I could not +continue cudgelling my poor brains until I had not an original thought +in my head, and all to keep up such acquirements as I had, and preserve +a place among younger, better equipped girls, certain to outstrip me +eventually."</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," acquiesced Dora mechanically.</p> + +<p>"Then poor dear Tom came to see me, and I told him what I was thinking. +He got me to pay a visit to Redcross, and made a new opening for me. I +may say without self-conceit that I was always considered to have a good +taste in dress. I know it was a question which had never failed to +interest me, to which I could not help giving a great deal of +attention—making a study of it, as it were. Tom insisted that I could +be of the greatest use to him, and was worth a liberal salary, which I +was not likely to lose. And there was a comfortable refined nest, which +I could line for myself, awaiting me in the pleasant rooms he had looked +out for me."</p> + +<p>"I know, Miss Franklin," said Dora, with a faint smile; "you told +Phyllis Carey, and she told May,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span> who repeated it to me. But I thought +it might be a relief to you to speak of it again."</p> + +<p>"Yes," cried the eager woman; "and it has all answered so well—the +duties not too heavy, and really agreeable to me; the young women and +men, under Tom's influence, no doubt, perfectly nice and respectful; and +within the last six months, dear little Phyllis like a daughter or niece +to me. I thought always I should be able to do something in return for +him one day, yet with all the will in the world I have been able to do +nothing until it has come to this;" and poor Miss Franklin sobbed +bitterly under the burden of her unrequited obligations, and beneath the +dove's neck cluster of feathers in her bonnet.</p> + +<p>It was for Dora in her turn to seek to soothe and compose her companion. +"I am sure you have been of the greatest service to him, and that he has +enjoyed the near neighbourhood of an old friend—his mother's friend. +Oh! think what a comfort it will be to you to have that to look back +upon," finished Dora, in a voice trembling as much as Miss Franklin's.</p> + +<p>Miss Franklin sat up, instinctively put her bonnet straight, wiped her +eyes with her embroidered handkerchief, and gazed pensively into the +empty air.</p> + +<p>"God's ways are not as our ways," she said;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span> "and certainly we are told +that we are not to look for our reward in this world. Still one would +have expected—one would have liked that it had not been so hard all +through for Tom—not merely to have been denied the desire of his heart, +but to have had to endure in his last moments to be set aside, to lie +still and look on at what is going to happen."</p> + +<p>Dora sat mystified; but she had not the spirit left to seek an +explanation.</p> + +<p>Miss Franklin was not aware that an explanation was needed. "I know," +she added, "how kind and attentive your sister has been to Tom, and I +understand nothing can exceed the interest Dr. Ironside has taken in my +cousin, while he has made the most unremitting efforts to save him; +still you will grant that so long as my poor Tom was conscious, it must +have been very, very trying for him to see the terms these two were on. +I don't listen much to gossip"—the speaker declared, in a parenthesis, +with a little air of dignity and reserve even at that moment—"but it is +the talk of the town that he has followed her down from London, and that +they are to be married as soon as the epidemic is past. Nobody can say +anything against it. They are well matched. They will be a fine-looking +couple," she struggled to acknowledge with becoming politeness and +impartiality.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span>"This is the first time I have heard of it, I can say with truth," said +Dora wearily, without so much as a smile at the characteristic report. +She thought the mention of it most unsuitable at such a season. The very +word marriage smote her. "And even if it were so, what could it have +signified to Mr. Tom Robinson?" she was about to add naïvely, when a +light flashed upon her. She had often wondered how much Miss Franklin, +"Robinson's," the whole town, knew of what had taken place eighteen +months ago. She saw now that however little the lady might care for +gossip, a distorted version of the truth in which she was interested had +reached her. Either there had been a very natural mistake on the part of +some of the local newsmongers, or Miss Franklin herself had fallen into +the error. The belle of the Millar family and not Dora had been believed +to be the object of Tom Robinson's pursuit. The blunder had been +perpetuated in Miss Franklin's case by the good feeling and good +breeding which would keep her from discussing Tom Robinson's affairs +with her neighbours more than she could help, and would prevent her +attempting such a cross-examination of the man himself as might have +elicited the truth.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I know now what you mean," cried Dora, on the impulse of the +moment, "and you were altogether wrong. He has been spared such misery<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span> +—nobody could have been so barbarous as to inflict it on him, if it had +been as you suppose."</p> + +<p>Miss Franklin was sensitive and imaginative on dress, but she was not +imaginative or even very observant with regard to anything else. She +understood Dora's protest to refer to an actual engagement between Dr. +Harry Ironside and Miss Millar.</p> + +<p>"Well, well," she said a little dryly, "people do exaggerate. Matters +may not have gone quite so far, and I can only trust that he, Tom, has +not been sensible of what is in the air, though I have always understood +love, while it is said to be blind in one sense, is very sharp-sighted +in another. I believe every one else sees where the land lies. I saw it +myself so far as the gentleman was concerned—he could not keep his eyes +off her, though I was not five minutes in their company, and I was full +of my poor cousin Tom. I am sure I hope they may be happy," gulping down +the hope. "Tom would have wished it, quite apart from her having done +her duty by him, at the cost of some pain to herself, no doubt; while +Dr. Ironside has been more than kind, which nobody had any call to +expect. He must be a very fine young man, likely to win what he fancies. +Every woman is entitled to her choice, and most people would applaud +your sister's choice. The thing that puzzles me—you will forgive me for +mentioning it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span> just this once, for where is the good of discussion +now?—is that as, I have been told, she did not meet Dr. Ironside till +she went to her London hospital, how, when she had got no opportunity of +contrasting the two men, when she had not even seen one of them, she +could yet be so set against Tom's proposal, knowing him to be the man he +is—was, alas! I should say. Why was she so very hard to poor Tom?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't say that," besought Dora, in much agitation. "Don't bring +that forward at this moment."</p> + +<p>But Miss Franklin, in the strength of her family affections, felt that +she owed it to the manes of Tom Robinson to express to the disdainful +damsel's sister a candid opinion that he had been summarily and severely +dealt with. "I was not in his confidence, but I could tell that +something was going to happen, and that he was very much cut up when it +all came to nothing."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't say that," repeated Dora, clasping her hands over her eyes, +and weeping behind them. "What good can it do except to inflict needless +torture?"</p> + +<p>"I don't mean to reproach <i>you</i>," said Miss Franklin, a little +bewildered, but still very hot and sore. "You had nothing to do with it, +and I am sure you could not have been so heartless.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span> Forgive me for the +reflection on your sister, who is so much thought of, whom everybody is +praising, with reason, for what she has done in nursing the sick and +poor. But young girls ought to be more careful. I don't mean to say that +she trifled with my cousin Tom—I have no right to say that—simply that +she never gave him a thought. Tom was surely deserving of a thought," +cried Miss Franklin indignantly. "Dr. Ironside may be all very well—I +have nothing to say against him—quite the reverse. Tom is not to be +compared to him in personal appearance, and the one is a professional +man, while the other thought fit to continue a linen-draper like his +good father before him; but that is by no means to infer that Miss +Millar has chosen the better husband of the two. Girls are so +foolish—they play with fire, and never look or take it into account +where and whom it may burn. Tom Robinson deserved more respectful +treatment in Redcross. He has never been like himself since. I used to +hear him whistling and humming tunes to himself as he worked in the +office—there is no more of that, or of his hearty interest in +everything."</p> + +<p>"Miss Franklin, it is you who are pitiless to say this to me to-night," +panted Dora, rising against the inhumanity, and totally forgetting that +the speaker did not hold the clue which would have told her how her +words scourged her listener.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span>"I am not blaming <i>you</i>, Miss Dora," said the accuser again, more +bitterly than she had yet spoken. For she was in her heart accusing Dora +Millar of affectation in pretending not to be able to hear a word +against her sister, and in declining to listen to the pardonable +utterance of a reproach directed against what Miss Franklin called in +her heart Annie Millar's arrogance and callousness. Tom Robinson's +cousin was provoked, not pacified.</p> + +<p>"I dare say Tom would never have had this wretched fever but for the +blow he got then," she was tempted to persist; "or if he had caught it, +he would have thrown it off without any harm done. I can bear witness to +his sound constitution to begin with. Everybody knows how disappointment +and mortification lower the system, and he was never over careful of +himself. I cannot quite understand why he took the cool rebuff he +received so much to heart; but he did so, and you see the consequence."</p> + +<p>"Spare me! spare me!" cried Dora passionately. "Don't say I have killed +him, or I shall die myself, perhaps it is the best thing I can do."</p> + +<p>Before Miss Franklin could do more than stare aghast, with a horrified +inkling of the real facts of the case, and the tremendous mess she had +got into, there was the sound of the soft opening of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span> door in the near +distance, and a step rapidly approaching.</p> + +<p>The two women who had been upbraiding each other were mute in an +instant, first held their breaths, then sprang up and clung to each +other, partners in sorrow, with teeth beginning to chatter, and eyes to +grow large and wild. What had they been doing in the name of a gentle +and manly soul, in the face of the awful news on its way, the majesty of +Death investing the house?</p> + +<p>It was only Annie, looking perfectly collected, nay, a trifle elated. +"He is the least shade better—we both think so; and the slightest +improvement means so much at this stage—the right crisis, I believe. He +has been really sleeping. He swallows with less difficulty. He has +roused himself ever so little, but he is fearfully faint and weak. We +cannot get him to take more stimulants than we have been giving him. I +am afraid there is no toilet-vinegar in the house. I came to see if +either of you had a smelling-bottle, which might revive him."</p> + +<p>All that Miss Franklin could do was to shake her head. She was so +thankful, yet she felt so guilty, so ashamed of herself.</p> + +<p>Dora fumbled nervously in her pocket and gave Annie something, which she +carried off in triumph. Miss Franklin sat down again and cried afresh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span> +between trembling joy and lively vexation. "Oh, won't it be a mercy, for +which we can never praise our Maker too much, if dear Tom gets over his +illness after all?" she managed to say; but she could do no more—even +that lame speech was made awkwardly. To apologize for the heinous +offence she had committed would be a greater enormity than the offence +itself.</p> + +<p>But when Miss Franklin had time to think it over afterwards, she was +under the impression that Dora Millar had forgotten all about their +altercation. She sat there with hands clasped, lips parted, and brimming +eyes half raised to Heaven, as if in instinctive acknowledgment of a +thousand piteous prayers in the act of being answered by Him who counts +the stars and calls them by name, and heals the broken in heart. Miss +Franklin's account of Dora's look was that, for a moment, she was +positively frightened at the dear girl, Dora seemed so near another +world at that moment, and as likely as not to be holding communication +with it. Even Tom Robinson could not have been nearer when he was more +than half way across the border-land.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_xxii" id="chapter_xxii"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">A SHRED OF HOPE.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">Tom Robinson's</span> recovery continued a matter of fear and trembling for a +week longer before it became merely a process of time. But no sooner was +it clearly established to the initiated, and only likely to be +endangered by some unforeseen accident, than Annie Millar, in her +delight, lost sight of her former tactics, and called on Dr. Harry +Ironside to rejoice with her on their success.</p> + +<p>"We have been permitted to pull him through. Oh, isn't it glorious? I +know we ought, as we are miserable sinners, to go down on our knees and +give God the thanks, and I hope we do with all my heart; but I also want +to sing and dance—don't you, Dr. Ironside?"</p> + +<p>Nobody could imagine that Dr. Harry Ironside was indifferent to the +wonderful recovery, which was such a credit to his skill, of the man +whom he had nursed as if Tom Robinson had been his brother; but Dr. +Harry forgot all about his patient<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span> at that moment when he saw his +opportunity and seized it.</p> + +<p>He had never had a faint heart, young as he was, but he had been dealing +with an exceedingly coy and high-spirited mistress. However, even she +had not been able to defy the effect of the last month of incessant +intercourse, of being engrossed in common with one object of interest, +when both had hung, as it were, on a man's failing breath, and were +indissolubly linked while it lasted. In the light of its fitful rising +and falling, its feeble fluttering, the terrible moments when it +appeared to stop and die away, how small and vain was every other +consideration! But their joint work was done by God's help, as they had +hardly dared to hope for a time, and now it was Harry's innings.</p> + +<p>"I have something to say to you, Miss Millar. I have wished to say it +for a long time. You will not refuse to hear me?"</p> + +<p>They were alone together in the little side-room, empty but for its +hospital stores, where they had so often consulted, with and without Dr. +Capes, on the condition of the ward. There was no longer any fluster of +doubt and hesitation in his manner. He stood there in his young comely +manhood, prepared to put his fate to the test, claiming his right to do +so, and challenging her to deny his claim.</p> + +<p>In a moment Annie saw what Rose had seen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span> some time ago, but had not +taken it upon her to put in so many words for Annie's benefit. It was of +this moment she had, by an unerring instinct, stood in mortal terror, +from the first dawn of her acquaintance with Harry Ironside, to the +afternoon when he had succeeded in getting an introduction to her in the +matron's room at St. Ebbe's, soon after the scene in the operating +theatre. Then he had bowed low, muttered a few words in confused +greeting, and looked at her with all his man's heart in his eyes; and +she had felt by a sure, swift intuition, that, as she valued her dearly +held personal freedom and her allegiance to her family, there must be +war to the knife between her and this self-willed young man. She must, +as discretion is the better part of valour, flee from him, while +refusing to own, even to herself, any more humiliating reason for the +flight than her duty, the honour of St. Ebbe's, and the folly of Rose in +playing into his hands.</p> + +<p>Now Annie was caught, and had to listen to him whether she would or not, +while she and not he quaked with fright and agitation. For he stood +before her, like a conqueror already, in the little room with its +shelves of phials, which they had all to themselves, where burly farmers +and iron-gray corn-factors would soon be thronging in the course of +transacting their every-day business.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span>But presently she forgot all about herself in the interest of the tale +he had to tell, and told well in his newly-found courage and coolness, +in his personal modesty and professional enthusiasm. He had just taken +his degree as she knew. He and his sister Kate had inherited a +competence from their parents. He might look about him till he found a +lucrative and agreeable country practice in a choice neighbourhood, +where he could command good society and a little hunting, shooting, and +fishing in their seasons. Or he might be on the watch for a West End +London practice, which, while affording him all the interests and +amusements of town, ought to bring him speedily into notice, and raise +him, step by step, to the height of his profession. He had begun his +medical career by thinking of both these eventualities as desirable, +each in its kind, and had gone on cherishing a leaning to the first, +till—he must say it—her example and influence had inspired him with +greater ardour in the cause of science and of humanity. He had made +inquiries and had heard of a post—in fact he had got the refusing of +it—in connection with a new settlement, a fresh attempt to plant a +colony where the climate was favourable on one of the great African +rivers. His income at first would be small, and he must take his share +of the hardships and labours of those who aimed at being more than +gold-diggers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span> or miners in the diamond-fields—that is, pioneers of +civilization. The prospect, so far as it referred to scientific +investigations, and to a large increase to accredited stores of +knowledge, was simply splendid. Farther, he was assured of the sympathy +and support of the leading men among the colonists, since they had +already, to their credit, sought his co-operation. Those of them who +were in the van—on the spot—had gone so far as to lay the foundation +of an hospital, in addition to a church, to deal alike with black men +and white, to labour for their spiritual and physical healing in common. +He had almost made up his mind to take the post, but he wished to ask +her opinion and advice first.</p> + +<p>She was tempted to say she was no authority, but her truthfulness +forbade the subterfuge. She could not meet his grave blue eyes and put +him off with an evasive answer. She spoke bravely and wisely.</p> + +<p>"I think it would be most right and honourable for you to go. With your +ability and training you might furnish invaluable aid to a young colony; +while it would be like another college course for you, with nature for +your teacher. Any young man of spirit and philanthropy, with love for +his calling, might well covet the chance. If the colony flourish, you +and your profession, and the hospital you speak of, will flourish with +it, and have as fine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span> a future before you as you can desire. If the +scheme fail, you can but return to England; and you will not have lost +the time which a young man can well spare. For you will bring back all +you have gained from a far wider sphere of usefulness, and from a +fresher experience than you could ever hope to secure by staying at +home. But if what you really want," Annie corrected herself, with a +twinkle in her eyes and a curl of her lips, in the midst of her +earnestness, "is the shortest and safest road to growing well-to-do +within the briefest space of time, you had better adopt the latter +alternative. If I had been a man and a doctor, I should have tried the +former."</p> + +<p>"That is enough," he said with conviction.</p> + +<p>"But what will your sister say?" she hastened to inquire, in order to +turn the conversation from ominous personalities.</p> + +<p>"Oh! it will be a blow to poor little Kate," he owned regretfully, +"because she is too young to go out with me at once, and set about +keeping house for me as she has always proposed—a rough, primitive +style of housekeeping it will be out there for many a day. But she is +not without pluck, and she is as true as steel, though I say it. She +must learn some of your fearlessness and faith, and make the best of +things. She must go to one of our aunts in the meantime, and when +matters are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span> smoother and easier, and the fate of the colony is decided, +perhaps she may join me. I do not believe that there is any danger to +speak of from the native tribes, only it will not be drawing-room work +for some time to come. You see it is not the same with a girl like Kate +as it would be with a woman like you," he had the boldness to insinuate. +"You would be a tower of strength in yourself from the beginning; you +might be the making of a newly-founded hospital."</p> + +<p>"Poor Kate!" said Annie, hastily apostrophizing the girl she had been +said to ignore, and speaking in accents of far deeper pity than she had +any idea of.</p> + +<p>"And what do you say?" he turned upon her.</p> + +<p>"I?" she cried in much confusion. "I have said my say."</p> + +<p>"No," he answered; "unless you mean to send me away to the ends of the +earth without a shred of hope. You cannot do that."</p> + +<p>"I think you are taking advantage of me," she protested, but quite +meekly and diffidently for Annie. "I have never been even civil to you +till Tom Robinson was in danger, and then I had to put all my private +feelings aside on his account. Before that I was more than rude."</p> + +<p>"And you are a little sorry now? Confess it, Annie, when I am going off +all alone, so far as old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span> friends are concerned, to Central Africa, at +your bidding."</p> + +<p>"Not at my bidding," she declared hastily; "it is too bad of you to say +so."</p> + +<p>"And you are going to be far kinder in the end than in the beginning," +he persisted. "You are going to say, 'Harry Ironside, if you ever come +back, whether it is to stay or to go out again to your colony, you will +find me waiting for you as your earthly reward.'"</p> + +<p>"Of course you will come back," she exclaimed vehemently, thrown off her +guard; "but <i>you</i> had much better wait and look out for some more +gracious person to welcome you."</p> + +<p>"I don't care for gracious persons," said the foolish fellow scornfully; +"that is, for persons who are always gracious whether they like or +dislike their company. But I say," he went on, in an eager boyish way, +which was not unbecoming or inharmonious where his young manhood was +concerned, only natural and pleasant, "I should care for the best and +brightest and bonniest woman in the world being gracious to me; I would +give much to make her like me, though I know I am far behind her in +cleverness and goodness."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," cried Annie, quite testily. "I shall be used up in hospital +service by that time," she remonstrated, keeping to the far future. "A +faded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span> woman with a sharp tongue would not be a great reward."</p> + +<p>"I ask nothing better than a woman whom I could love, and who might love +me."</p> + +<p>"But you deserve something better," she said, in a softer, lower tone.</p> + +<p>"Never mind what I deserve, if I get what I have wished, longed, and +prayed for since the first moment I saw you—think of that, Annie."</p> + +<p>"I can't," she said, almost piteously, while she suffered him to take +her hand. "I meant it all to be so different. I was so proud of my +independence; and I never, never will forfeit it, remember, Harry +Ironside, till all my sisters are started in the world, and father and +mother are made more comfortable. Oh! it would be doubly a shame in me +to fail them."</p> + +<p>"I am content to wait for my prize," he said, daring to kiss her lovely +cheek, and he was content—for the moment.</p> + +<p>"And you must not breathe a word of what has happened," she charged him.</p> + +<p>But here he grew restive. "I must, dearest. Why, it would be doubly +dishonourable not to speak at once to Dr. Millar, confined as he is to +his chair; you cannot fail to see that."</p> + +<p>"They will all laugh at me," sighed the subdued Annie, with comical +ruefulness. "Rose will laugh,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span> and May. I believe even Dora and mother +will laugh."</p> + +<p>"Let them." He gave the permission with cheerful insensibility to the +ordeal, even though Annie's feelings were so much involved in it. "It +may be a warning to some of them." Then he was so callous as to add, +"Who cares though the whole world, including Tom Robinson, were to join +in the guffaw."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she exclaimed, looking up with bright sweetness, "I think I could +bear it if I heard Tom's voice in the chorus. He used to have rather a +foolish, nervous laugh, for so sensible and brave a man. But I am sure I +should not think it foolish, or anything save delightful, if I heard it +again."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chapter_xxiii" id="chapter_xxiii"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + +<h3 class="block2" style="width: 80%;">SECOND THOUGHTS AND LAST WORDS.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap" style="font-size: 105%;">Dr.</span> and Mrs. Millar could make no objection to Dr. Harry Ironside as a +suitor for their daughter. It was all the other way. They were highly +satisfied with the young man's antecedents and credentials, and yet Dr. +Millar was a good deal taken aback. He had grown to look on nursing as a +career for Annie, and to take pride in her excellence in it, as he would +have done had she been his son and a young doctor. He could not help +feeling as if marriage interfered a little with his views for her. He +had to recall that Ironside was a very fine young fellow, with a +commendable spirit of inquiry in medical matters. He would do credit to +his profession, and Annie, especially if she went with him to a new +colony, might work in his company, and be his right hand.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Millar had too much good sense and womanly experience to approve of +long engagements, and she did not like the chance of Annie's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span> going to +Africa—still she would fulfil what Mrs. Millar considered the highest +and happiest destiny for a woman, that of becoming the wife of a worthy +man. As to Africa, the little Doctor, a fixture in his chair, told her, +"My dear Maria, we shall simply be giving hostages to Providence, for +man was told to occupy the earth, and carry civilization and redemption +to its utmost bounds."</p> + +<p>To spare Annie's feelings, her relations kept her engagement and their +laughter well in the background, while Dr. Harry Ironside, having probed +the Russian fever to the bottom, and seen nearly the last of it, +returned in triumph to London, to make arrangements for his medical +mission.</p> + +<p>As for Annie, in her eagerness to escape from the rallying she had +provoked, she talked incessantly about going back to St. Ebbe's, where, +however, she was not yet due. A longer leave of absence had been granted +to her, in consideration of the fact that her holiday had been mainly +spent in hard work in the impromptu hospital at Redcross. She would not +have accepted the additional grant apart from the circumstance that +Harry Ironside was in London. Annie admitted to herself, in the secret +recesses of her heart, that now it had come to this, she would fain have +passed these last precious weeks near her young lover. But she would not +consent to give occasion to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span> Rose, or any other person—not even to +Harry Ironside himself—to think or say that she, Annie Millar, was +already not able to live without him. Annie's wings might be clipped, +but she would be Annie proud and "plucky" to the last; and her lover, +instinctively knowing her to be true as steel, loved her the better +because of her regard for what she considered his credit as well as her +own. The pride was only skin deep; the pluck was part of the heroic +element in Annie.</p> + +<p>Rose had been delayed in her work. She had not found it in her heart to +walk about taking sketches when the good friend who had so much to do +with the commission was little likely to see its completion. But when +Tom Robinson could sit up, walk into the next room, and go back to his +own house, she felt at liberty to set about her delightful business, in +which her father took so keen an interest. She lost no time in starting +every fine day in pursuit of the selected views, to put them on canvas +while their autumnal hues were still but tinges of red, russet, and +gold.</p> + +<p>Rose was mostly waited on by May, who took much satisfaction in helping +to carry and set up the artist's apparatus, feeling, as she said, that +she was part of a painter when she did so.</p> + +<p>Dora had been with Rose, May, and Tray at a pretty reach of the Dewes. +The elder sister was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span> returning alone, along the path between the elms +by the river, near the place where Tom Robinson had come to Tray's +rescue, when she met him face to face. He was taking what +"constitutional" he was able for, and enjoying the light breeze which +was rippling the river, just as it rippled the ripe corn and fanned the +hot brows of the men who were working the corn machine in the field +beyond.</p> + +<p>Dora had seen and spoken to him several times since his illness, but +there had been other people present, and now the old shy dread of a +<i>tête-à-tête</i> again took possession of her. She would have contented +herself with a fluttered inquiry after his health, and a faltering +remark that she ought not to detain him. She would have hurried on, as +if the errand on which she was bound demanded the utmost speed, +supremely wretched while she did so, to notice how pale and worn he +still looked when she saw him in the broad sunshine. She would have +mourned over the circumstance that he wore no wrap, though there was +always some damp by the river, and speculated in despondency whether it +could be right for him, while he still looked so ill, to be walking thus +by himself? What would happen if faintness overtook him, and he could +not accomplish the distance between him and the town?</p> + +<p>Tom Robinson, delicate though he looked, quiet as he was, would not let +Dora have her way. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span> turned and walked back with her, which ought to +have set one of her fears at rest. And his appearance must have belied +him, for he was clearly in excellent spirits, with not the most distant +intention of being overcome by faintness.</p> + +<p>"This is very pleasant," he said, with a smile, and his smile was a +peculiarly agreeable one.</p> + +<p>Dora could not tell whether he meant the day, or the road, or her +company, or even her summer dress, which was fresher and better cared +for than when he had encountered the family group "place-hunting" in +London. Dora had owned more leisure lately, and, absurd as it might +sound, her heart had been singing with joy, so that she could not resist +making her dress in keeping with the gladness of her spirit. Her little +fingers had been cleverer than they had ever shown themselves before in +the manufacture of a frock and the trimming of a hat which would not +have disgraced the taste and execution of Miss Franklin. Yet the +materials were simple and inexpensive to the last degree—a brown +holland and a shady brown hat, and about the frock and the hat some old +Indian silk which in its mellowed gorgeousness of red and maize colours +softly reflected the hues of Rose's parrot tulips.</p> + +<p>Dora did not dare to ask her companion what he thought so pleasant. It +seemed right to take it for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span> granted that it was the weather, so she +answered quickly, Yes, it was a fine day for the harvest, which she +believed was going to be a good one this year.</p> + +<p>"Our present encounter is more tranquil than our last, near this very +spot," he went on, still smiling. "Perhaps it is as well that there are +no disturbing elements of collies and terriers on the scene, for though +I am getting on famously, I am not sure that I am up to the mark of +dragging Tray and a giant assailant to the edge of the bank, and +pitching them head-foremost into the water."</p> + +<p>"I should think not," said Dora briefly.</p> + +<p>"How 'little May' screamed, and you stood, as white as a sheet, +valorously aiming your stone."</p> + +<p>"We were great cowards, both of us," admitted Dora, smiling too; "and I +am thankful to say Tray has been much better behaved since he was at the +veterinary surgeon's."</p> + +<p>"There was room for improvement," Tom Robinson said, with the gravity of +a judge.</p> + +<p>"I left him on in front, begging to May for a bit of chalk."</p> + +<p>"It is as well that it was not for a bit of beef," he said. Then he +suddenly changed the subject. "Do you know that I have something of +yours which has come into my hands that I have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span> wishing to give +back to you ever since I was a responsible being again?"</p> + +<p>As he spoke, he unfastened for the second time in their acquaintance the +tiny vinaigrette case from his watch-chain, and handed it to her.</p> + +<p>Dora flushed scarlet, and took it without a word.</p> + +<p>"I got it one night in the course of that fever, when I was at the +worst, and I know you will like to hear that I am sure it did me good. +The first thing that I recollect after a long blank, which lasted for +days, I believe, was feebly fingering and sniffing at the little box, +with a curious agreeable sense of old association. Then I was able to +look at it, and recognize it as my mother's vinaigrette. She had let me +play with it when I was a child; and when I was a boy, subject to +headache from staying too long in the hot sunshine in the cricket-field, +she used to lend me her vinaigrette for a cure. But I knew that I had +asked you to have it, and that you had done me the favour to accept it. +The fascinating puzzle was, how had it come back to me? At last I +questioned Barbara Franklin. She could not tell any more than myself at +first, and was equally puzzled, until she remembered your sister Annie's +running into the room on the night when you were listening for news of +my death, and asking for a smelling-bottle, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span> your fumbling for an +instant in your pocket, and giving her something. That made it perfectly +plain."</p> + +<p>Too plain, Dora reflected in horror, for what might not Miss Franklin +have suspected and communicated in addition to her cousin?</p> + +<p>"I was glad I had it in my pocket," said Dora, stammering. "I took it up +to London with me, and—and found it often refreshing in the middle of +the heat and fatigue. I am thankful to hear it was of use to you, who +have the best right to it."</p> + +<p>"No," he said emphatically, "though it was of the greatest use. My +cousin Barbara said also that you were very sorry for me. Dora, was that +so?" Tom himself blushed a little in asking the question, as if he had a +guilty consciousness of having taken rather a mean advantage of Dora +Millar, first by coming so near to death without actually dying, and +then by listening to what his kinswoman had to say of Miss Dora Millar's +state of mind at the crisis.</p> + +<p>On Dora's part there was no denying such a manifest truth; she could +only utter a tremulous "yes," and turn her head aside.</p> + +<p>"That was good of you, though I do not know that I am repaying the +goodness properly," he said, with another smile, very wistful this time. +"For I must add, that hearing of it tempted me to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span> wonder once again +whether you could ever learn to think of me? If you cannot, just say no, +and I'll cease from this moment to tease you" (as if he had been doing +nothing else save besiege and pester her for the last year and a half!).</p> + +<p>Dora could not say "no" any more than she could say "yes" straight out, +though she was certain that to be kept any longer than was absolutely +necessary in a state of acute suspense was very bad for him in his +weakened health. By a great effort she brought herself to say in little +breaks and gasps, "I do not need to learn, Mr. Tom, because I have +thought of you for a long time now—long before you were so good and +generous to all of us—almost ever since you wished—you asked—what I +was so silly and so ungrateful as to refuse."</p> + +<p>He drew her hand through his arm and held it tightly; he could not trust +himself to say or do more. He was almost as shy as she was in the +revulsion of his great happiness.</p> + +<p>She struggled conscientiously to continue her confession. "I had thought +hardly at all of you before then. Girls are so full of themselves, and I +did not know that you wished me to think of you. I seem to see now that +if you had given me more time, and let me grow familiar with the idea, +even though we were 'donkeys,' as Annie and Rose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span> say, and though we +were choke-full of youthful folly<span style="letter-spacing: -2px;">——</span>" She stopped short without +finishing her sentence, or going farther into the nature of what she +seemed to see.</p> + +<p>"But I besought you to take time, Dora, love," he remonstrated. "You +forget, I urged you to let me wait for the chance of your answer's being +different." He could not help, even in the hour of the attainment of the +dearest wish of his heart, being just to his old modest, reasonable +self.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, with the prettiest, faintest, arch smile hovering about +the corners of her mouth. "But men ought to be wiser than to take simple +girls at their first word, which the girls can never, never unsay, +unless the men bid them. Now I'll tell you how malicious people will +view the present situation. They will say that I refused you point blank +when I thought we were well off, then got you to propose again, and +graciously accepted the proposal, when I knew we had not a penny in the +world. I own it looks very like it, and it is partly your fault; you +should not have let me go the first time. But I don't care what people +say, so long as there is not a word of truth in it."</p> + +<p>"Nor I," said Tom undauntedly. "They may also say that I was able to +make myself useful to your family, and like a very tradesman, traded on +the usefulness, buying a reluctant bride with it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span> But what do we care +when we love each other, and God has given us to each other? 'They +say,'—what do they say? Let them say."</p> + +<p>There was not the shadow of a cloud the size of a man's hand on Dr. and +Mrs. Millar's pleasure in their daughter Dora's marriage to Tom +Robinson. For instead of going with Annie to Africa, or starting on a +mission of her own to bring May's college fees from Jamaica, Dora +remained at Redcross to be Tom Robinson's dear wife and cherished +darling. Mrs. Millar had long seen, in her turn, that Dora could not do +better. The fine old shop, and the fantastic shade of poor Aunt Penny, +had both become of no account. The single thing which troubled Mrs. +Millar was that the instant Lady Mary Pemberton heard of the wedding in +prospect, she invited herself to come down to it.</p> + +<p>Dora's sisters, with the charming inconsistency of young women, were not +only acquiescent in her undignified fate—they were jubilant over it.</p> + +<p>It did not arrest, though it subdued the general congratulations, when +it was discovered that the event made Harry Ironside all at once both +envious and aggressive. He could not see why, if Dora Millar were +marrying a rich man, and he himself had a sufficient income not merely +to make a satisfactory settlement on his wife, but to do his part in +helping her relatives, who would also be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span> his from the day he married +her, that his marriage should not take place as soon as Dora and Tom +Robinson's. In place of an indefinite engagement, with thousands of +miles of land and sea, and all the uncertainties of life into the +bargain, between him, Harry Ironside, and Annie Millar, would it not be +much better that he should carry away with him the brightest, bravest +woman who ever asked little from a new colony; who, in place of asking, +would give full measure and running over? For Annie was not like poor +dear little Kate—Annie would be a godsend, even though she had to go +the length of learning to fire a revolver as a defence against lions and +hostile natives. It would be nothing else than savage pride in Dr. +Millar, Harry continued to argue, to decline to let Tom Robinson defray +May's small expenses at St. Ambrose's, whether she won a scholarship or +not. He was a man with an ample fortune, as well as the nicest fellow in +the world, who was going to be not only May's coach, but her +brother-in-law. In like manner it would be downright churlish and +positively unkind to Dora if her parents refused to occupy the pleasant +small house with the large garden belonging to Tom Robinson, and close +to what would be their daughter's house. It was conveniently vacant, and +looked as if it had been made for a couple of elderly gentle-folks, who +were not rich, but were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span> comfortably provided for. In fact, it had been +fitted up by the late Mr. Charles Robinson for just such a pair, who had +in the course of nature left the house empty.</p> + +<p>With regard to Rose, she would have to submit to be more or less Harry +Ironside's charge till she painted and sold such 'stunning' pictures +that she could afford to look down on his paltry aid. What, not allow +him to assist his own sister-in-law, when he was so thankful to think +that she might be like a sister in the meantime for his poor little Kate +to fall back upon? Why, the girls could go on making a home together at +his good friend Mrs. Jennings's, till it was right for Kate, after she +was old enough to choose, to cast in her lot with him and Annie, +supposing the colony prospered. His heart was already in that strange, +far-away region, which, with all its mysteries and wonders—ay, and its +terrors—has such an attraction for the young and high-spirited, the +typical pilgrims to a later New England.</p> + +<p>And what did Annie think of this march stolen upon her, this attempt to +extort a yard where she had only granted an inch of favour? Perhaps she +was dazzled by what would have repelled many another woman, in the +primitive, precarious, exciting details of the life of a young colony. +Perhaps her heart and imagination were alike taken by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span> storm when she +thought of the untenanted hospital wards and the patients calling for +her to go over and help them. Perhaps she was simply beginning so to +identify herself with Harry Ironside that what he did seemed her doing. +Anyhow Annie did not say no.</p> + +<p>The Miss Dyers remarked oracularly, when the double marriage was +announced in Redcross, that it was just what they had expected. The +observation was somewhat vague, like other oracles' speeches. The +general public of Redcross, including the Careys and Hewetts, were less +indefinite and more cordial in their expression of satisfaction at the +suitable settlement in life of the little Doctor's elder daughters.</p> + +<p>Miss Franklin could not be too thankful and pleased that, after all, she +had done no mischief to her cousin Tom by her blunder, and by what had +been her only too personal reproaches and revelations addressed to his +future wife on the night when he was believed to be lying dying. In +fact, if she, Barbara Franklin, had not been conscious of a huge +mistake, with all the deplorable consequences it might have carried in +its train, if she had not thus been kept shamefacedly humble and silent +as to her share in the business, she might have taken credit to herself, +with greater reason than Mrs. Jennings could boast, of having united a +supremely happy couple who were drifting apart.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span> Even if Miss Franklin's +part in it had been played voluntarily and advisedly, she would never +have cause to regret that night's work. For Dora Robinson had no scruple +in being the fast friend and affectionate cousin of her husband's +forewoman. She had no more qualm than she would have felt if Miss +Franklin had never condescended to trade, but had remained within the +bounds of poor gentility by laboriously keeping up her halting classical +music and waning foreign languages, and by continuing a finishing +governess to the day of her death—or rather till she was superannuated, +and had to retire to a too literal garret.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Jonathan"—Mrs. Millar could not resist a long-drawn sob on the +great day of the double marriage—"it is all very well to say Annie has +got a good husband—a fine disinterested young man, certain to be +distinguished in his profession, you tell me. I believe that, and am +very thankful for it. How could I bear the parting otherwise? But to let +our eldest, our prettiest, and wittiest, with her warm heart and +untiring energy—'the flower of the flock,' as people used to call her +when the children were young—go out to Africa, it may be to meet +unheard-of trials, like your poor Aunt Penny, it may be never to see our +faces again<span style="letter-spacing: -2px;">——</span>" Mrs. Millar could say no more.</p> + +<p>"Hush! hush! Maria; you must be reasonable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span>—you must take the bad with +the good," enjoined the little Doctor from his arm-chair. "Why, you are +making as much commotion as you did when Annie said she would be a +nurse. Is an hospital ward at home so preferable to an hospital ward in +the dark continent, which is ceasing to be dark? Its sun is only too +blazingly bright, its river plains too teemingly fertile, its mountains +too grand even in the grander monotony of its deserts. There is gold in +its dust, and its rocks are glittering with diamonds. But, thank God, +that is not all. It is the great country for which Livingstone was +content to spend his life, where the Moffats made the wilderness blossom +like the rose, and Colenso won the wild heart of the Zulu to trust him +as a brother. You will have Dora and Tom next door to you, and Rose and +'little May' will be constantly coming and going. As for Annie and +Harry, how can you tell that their special gifts would not be wasted +here, as I have often thought hers would have been if she had continued +only a pretty, sprightly young lady, and not grown up into an hospital +nurse!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you are right, Jonathan," answered his wife meekly, coming +round, as she did now more than ever, to his side of the question.</p> + +<p>"Do you think Sir John Richardson's daughter, Bishop Selwyn's wife, +missed the highest calling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span> she was capable of when, instead of +presiding over a pleasant country-house or a fine London drawing-room, +she consented with all her heart to be landed on an island in Melanesia, +and left among the native converts to help to prepare the Malay girls +for confirmation? Her husband was away in the meantime in his missionary +yacht on his noble enterprise, ready to take her off the island on his +return, and not fearing to trust her in the interval to their God whose +work she was doing," argued the old man, with a note of something like +exultation in his voice. "Annie and Harry are not going out to Africa, +as my Aunt Penny and poor Beauchamp of Waylands went to Australia in the +days of the earlier squatters, entirely for their own hand, and because +they cannot help themselves, since there is nothing left for them to do +here. Our children are going to render gallant service on which their +talents are well bestowed, of which we shall always be proud to hear. +They are, as I told you before, our hostages in the carrying out of the +great purpose of the Almighty Ruler of the universe, by which light is +to take the place of darkness, and good of evil, from the rivers even to +the ends of the earth."</p> + + +<h5>THE END.</h5> + + +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Houseful of Girls, by Sarah Tytler + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HOUSEFUL OF GIRLS *** + +***** This file should be named 20081-h.htm or 20081-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/0/8/20081/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jacqueline Jeremy and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +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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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: A Houseful of Girls + +Author: Sarah Tytler + +Release Date: December 10, 2006 [EBook #20081] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HOUSEFUL OF GIRLS *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jacqueline Jeremy and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +A HOUSEFUL OF GIRLS. +BY +SARAH TYTLER, + +AUTHOR OF + +"CITOYENNE JACQUELINE," "PAPERS FOR THOUGHTFUL GIRLS," +ETC., ETC. + + +LONDON: +WALTER SMITH AND INNES, +31 & 32, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND. +1889. + +[_All rights reserved._] + + +RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, +LONDON & BUNGAY. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + CHAP. PAGE + + I. A FLUTTER IN THE DOVE-COT 1 + + II. THE "COUP DE GRACE" 20 + + III. THE HEADS OF THE HOUSE LOOK GRAVE 35 + + IV. THE CRASH 54 + + V. PROMOTION 72 + + VI. THE CLOUD DEEPENS 81 + + VII. ROSE GOES WEST AND ANNIE GOES EAST 106 + + VIII. STANDING AND WAITING 122 + + IX. A WILFUL DOG WILL HAVE HIS WAY 136 + + X. LIFE IN AN HOSPITAL WARD 157 + + XI. MRS. JENNINGS AND HER DAUGHTER HESTER 182 + + XII. A YOUNG ARTIST'S EXPERIENCE 188 + + XIII. MR. ST. FOY'S AND THE MISSES STONE'S 196 + + XIV. THE OLD TOWN, WITH ITS AIR STAGNANT YET TROUBLED. + IS MAY TO BECOME A SCHOLAR OR A SHOP-GIRL? 214 + + XV. TOM ROBINSON TAKEN INTO COUNSEL 234 + + XVI. ROSE'S FOLLY AND ANNIE'S WISDOM 257 + + XVII. MAY HAS TO FIGHT HER OWN BATTLE 288 + +XVIII. DORA IS THE NEXT MESSENGER WITH BAD TIDINGS 316 + + XIX. THE UNEMPLOYED--A FAMILIAR FACE 322 + + XX. REDCROSS AGAIN 342 + + XXI. MISS FRANKLIN'S MISTAKE 363 + + XXII. A SHRED OF HOPE 382 + +XXIII. SECOND THOUGHTS AND LAST WORDS 392 + + + + +A HOUSEFUL OF GIRLS + +CHAPTER I. + +A FLUTTER IN THE DOVE-COT. + + +Is there any sensation equal to that produced by the first lover and +the first proposal coming to a girl in a large family of girls? It is +delightfully sentimental, comical, complimentary, affronting, rousing, +tiresome--all in one. It is a herald of lovers, proposals, and wonderful +changes all round. It is the first thrill of real life in its strong +passions, grave vicissitudes, and big joys and sorrows as they come +in contact with idle fancies, hearts that have been light, simple +experiences which have hitherto been carefully guarded from rude shocks. + +It does not signify much whether the family of girls happen to be rich +or poor, unless indeed that early and sharp poverty causes a precocity +which deepens girls' characters betimes, and by making them sooner +women, robs them of a certain amount of the thoughtlessness, +fearlessness, and impracticability of girlhood. But girlhood, like many +another natural condition, dies hard; and its sweet, bright illusions, +its wisdom and its folly, survive tolerably severe pinches of adversity. + +The younger members of such a sisterhood are politely supposed to be +kept in safe ignorance of the great event which is befalling one of the +seniors. It is thought at once a delicate and prudent precaution to +prevent the veil which hides the future, with its casualties, from being +lifted prematurely and abruptly, where juvenile minds are concerned, +lest they become unhinged and unfit for the salutary discipline of +schoolroom lessons, and the mild pleasure of schoolroom treats. The +flower in the bud ought to be kept with its petals folded, in its +innocent absence of self-consciousness, to the last moment. + +But there is an electric sympathy in the air which defeats precautions. +There is a freemasonry of dawning womanhood which starts into life +everywhere. How do the young people pick up with such surprising +quickness and acuteness the looks and whispers meant to pass over their +heads, the merry glances, nervous shrugs, quick blushes, and indignant +pouts, which have suddenly grown strangely prevalent in the blooming +circle? The bystanders are understood to be engrossed with their +music-lessons, their drawing-classes, their rudimentary Latin and +Greek--if anybody is going in for the higher education of women--their +pets, their games of lawn-tennis, their girl companions with whom these +other girls are for ever making appointments to walk, to practise +part-singing, to work or read together, to get up drawing-room +_tableaux_ or plays. + +The general consciousness is not, in certain lights, favourable to a +lover's pretensions. For human nature is perverse, and there is such a +thing as _esprit-de-corps_ running to excess. There may be a due amount +of girlish pride in knowing that one of the sisters has inspired a +grand passion. There may be a tremulous respect for the fact that she +has passed the Rubicon, that, in place of girlish trifling, she has an +affair which has to do with the happiness or misery of a fellow +creature, not to say with her own happiness or misery, on her burdened +mind. Why, if she does not take care, she may be plunged at once, first +into the whirl of choosing her trousseau and the fascinating trial of +being the principal figure at a wedding, and then involved in the +tremendous responsibilities of housekeeping, butchers' bills, grocers' +bills, cooks' delinquencies, with the heavy obligations--not only of +ordering dinners for two, but of occasionally entertaining a room full +of company, single-handed! + +And this is only one side of the shield; there is a reverse side, at +least equally prominent and alarming. The second side upholds maidenly +claims, finds nothing good enough to match with them, and is tempted to +scout and flout, laugh and mock at the rival claims of the lover upon +trial. This is true even in the most innocent of dove-cots, where satire +is still as playful and harmless as summer lightning. + +"The idea of Tom Robinson's thinking of one of us!" cried Annie Millar. +"What could possess him to imagine that we should ever get over the +shop--granted that it is a Brobdingnagian shop, an imposing mart of +linen-drapery, haberdashery, silk-mercery enough to serve the whole +county?" + +"To be sure it is only Dora, not you, Annie," burst in eighteen years' +old Rose, who had just left school, and was fain to drop the pretence of +being too young to notice the most interesting event in the world to a +family of girls. + +"Why do you say that, Rose? Dora may not be so pretty as Annie--I don't +know, and I don't care--it is all a matter of taste; but she is as much +one of us, father's daughter, brought up like the rest of us in the Old +Doctor's House." + +The speaker was May, between sixteen and seventeen. She was the tallest +of the four sisters--let them call her "Little May" as long as they +liked. She had so far forgotten herself as to follow Rose's lead. + +"Hold your tongues, you two monkeys; what should you know about it?" +Annie, who had a tendency to sit upon her younger sisters, tried to +silence them. She had reached the advanced age of twenty-two, and by +virtue of being the eldest, had been considered grown up for the last +four years, when Rose and May were chits of fourteen and a little over +twelve. Of course this gave Annie a vast advantage in womanly dignity +and knowledge of the world. But at the present moment she was herself so +interested in the discussion that she could not make up her mind to drop +it till Rose and May were out of the way. + +"I must say"--Annie started the subject again--"that I think it great +presumption in Tom Robinson, though he is not so ugly as that comes to, +and he's really well enough bred in spite of 'Robinson's.'" + +"He is a college-bred man." Dora ventured shyly to put in a word for the +dignity of her suitor, and for her own dignity as so far involved in +his. "And so were his father and grandfather before him, father says." + +"But the Robinsons had the silk-mill and the woollen-factory then as +well as the big shop," corrected Annie. "And Tom might have gone into +the Church or into some other profession if he had chosen, when things +might have been a little different. Still, if you are pleased, Dora," +with a peal of derisive laughter, "if you do not object to the--shop." + +"Of course I object," cried Dora, tingling with mortification and shame. +"That is, I should object to his having a shop, if I had ever thought of +him for a single moment in that light. I cannot imagine what put me into +his head--in that sense. Indeed I cannot believe it yet. I am sure it is +just some nonsense on the part of the rest of you to tease me." + +"No, no," Annie hastened to contradict her. "It is sober reality. He has +said something to father; you know he has, mother owned it." + +"He has been meeting us and throwing himself in our way everywhere," +broke in the irrepressible Rose and May. + +"He has been coming and coming here," resumed Annie, "where, as we +don't happen to have a brother, there is not even another young man to +form an excuse for his coming. We cannot so much as pretend, when +people remark on his visits, that he has come ever since we remember, +and is as familiar with us as we are with ourselves. No doubt, in a +little town like this, everybody who has the least claim to be a +gentleman or a lady, knows every other gentleman or lady--after a +fashion. But naturally father and mother were not intimate with the +late Mr. and Mrs. Robinson; and we--that is, Tom and we girls--are not +so near each other in age as to have been brought together by our +respective nurses. We did not pick daisies in company, or else pull +each other's hair, and slap each other's faces, according to our +varying moods. Tom Robinson is four or five years older than I, not to +speak of Dora." + +"He stopped us this very morning," Rose again joined in the chorus, +"when May and I were going with the Hewetts to gather primroses in +Parson's Meadow. He asked if our sisters--that was you, Dora, with Annie +thrown into the bargain--thought of going on the river this afternoon." + +"He might be an inch or two taller, I don't suppose he is above five +feet six or seven," suggested Annie, maliciously recalling a detail in +the description of Dora's future husband, that be he who or what he +might, he should certainly not be under six feet in height. Dora, who +was herself considerably below the middle size, would never yield her +freedom to a man who had to admit a lower scale of inches. + +"And his hair might be a little less--chestnut, shall we say, Dora?" +put in Rose with exasperating sprightliness, referring to a former +well-known prejudice of Dora's against "_Judas-tinted hair_." + +"Would you call his nose Roman or Grecian?" asked May naively, of a +very nondescript feature. + +"And he has so little to say for himself," recommenced Annie, "though +when he does speak there is no great fault to be found with what he +says; still it would be dreadfully dull and tiresome to have to do all +the speaking for a silent partner." + +"Oh, hold your tongues, you wretched girls," cried Dora, standing at +bay, stamping one small foot in a slipper with a preposterously large +rosette. "What does it signify? The man, like his words, is well +enough--better than any of us, I dare say," speaking indignantly; "but +what does it matter, when I could never look at him, never dream of him, +as anything more than a mere acquaintance? I don't wish for a lover or a +husband--at least not yet," with a gasp; "I don't wish to leave home, +and go away from all of you, though you are so unkind and teasing--not +for a long, long time, till I am quite a middle-aged woman. I don't see +why I should be plagued about it when Annie here, who is two years older +than I am, and ever so much prettier, as everybody knows, has escaped +such persecution." + +"My dear," said Annie demurely, "it is because you have the opportunity +of presenting me with a pair of green garters. If it should occur again, +and you choose to avail yourself of it, I mean to accept the garters +with the best grace in the world. Isn't that good of me when you have +been coolly telling me that I have been overlooked as the eldest, and +the belle of the family--flattering my conceit with one breath and +taking it down with another? But it is not a case of Leah and Rachel. +We are not in the East, and in the West the elder sister does not +necessarily take precedence in marriage. You are quite welcome to marry +first, Dora; you are all welcome to marry before me, girls," with a +sweeping curtsey to her audience all round. "I am perfectly resigned to +your leaving your poor worthy elder sister to end her days as a solitary +spinster, a meek and useful maiden-aunt." + +The Millars were the daughters of Dr. Millar of Redcross, an +old-fashioned country town in the Midlands. They were happy in having a +good father and mother still spared to them. The girls were what is +called "a fine family," in a stronger sense than that in which Jane +Austen has used the term. Their ages ranged from twenty-two to midway +between sixteen and seventeen. They were all good-looking girls, with a +family likeness. Annie, the eldest, was very pretty, with delicate, +regular features, a soft warm brunette colour, dark eyes, and a small +brown head and graceful throat, like the head and throat of a greyhound. + +Dora, the first wooed, was, at a hasty glance, a mere shadow of Annie. +She was pale, though it was a healthy paleness. Her hair was lighter in +tint, her eyes, too, were considerably lighter--granted that they were +clear as crystal. It was difficult to think of Dora as preferred before +Annie, if one did not take into account that there are people who will +turn away from June roses to gather a cluster of honeysuckle, or pick +a sweet pea--people to whom there is an ineffable charm in simple +maidenliness and sweetness. Dora's modest unhesitating acceptance of the +second part in the family and social circle, and her perfect content to +play it, would be a crowning attraction in such people's eyes. So would +her gentle girlish diffidence, which moved her rather to meet and +reflect the tastes and opinions of others than to exercise her own, +though she was by no means without individual capacity and character. + +Rose was the least handsome of the family at this stage of her +existence. The family features in her had taken a slightly bizarre +cast, and she had a bad habit of wrinkling her smooth low forehead and +crumpling up her sharpish nose, in a manner which accentuated the +peculiarity. But Annie, who was an authority on the subject of looks, +maintained, behind Rose's back, that there was something _piquante_ and +_recherchee_ about Rose's face and figure. Not one of the Millars was +tall--not even May, though she came nearest to it; but Rose's slight +pliant figure had a natural grace and elegance which its quick, +careless movements did not dispel. When she held herself up, uncreased +her forehead and nose, showed to advantage her very fine, true chestnut +hair, and was full of animation--as to do Rose justice she generally +was--giving fair play to her dimples and little white teeth, Annie said +Rose had a style of her own which did no discredit to the family +reputation for more than a fair share of beauty. In addition to Annie's +high spirit and ready tongue, Rose had a decided turn for art, which +her father had taken pride in cultivating. + +"Little May" was like Annie, and promised to be as pretty; but she was a +rose in the bud still, with the unfilled out outlines and crude +angularities of a girl not done growing. She was very much of a child in +many things, and she had Dora's soft clinging nature, yet under it all +she was the born scholar of the family, with a simple aptitude and taste +for learning which surprised and delighted her father still more than +Rose's achievements in pastilles and water-colours pleased him. It was +seeing May at her books, when she was a very different May from the girl +who ran about with Rose, and was kept in her proper place by Annie, +which revived in Doctor Millar the old regret that Providence had not +blessed him with a son. He could not exactly make a son of May, since +from her early childhood she was a little sensitive woman all over, but +he did what he could. He had her taught Latin, Greek, and mathematics +just to afford her the chance of being a scholar. He never told himself, +and nobody else did, in the meantime, what she was to do with her +scholarship when she was a little older. Whether it was merely to grace +her womanhood, or whether the youngest of the family, her father and +mother's last pet, was to summon up courage, tear herself away from +familiar and dear surroundings, and carry her gifts and acquirements out +into the world, in order to win for them the best distinction of +usefulness. + +Dora's lightly held suitor was the head of "Robinson's." "Robinson's" +was a great and time-honoured institution in Redcross, while it and its +masters were somewhat of anomalies. The first Robinson whom the town +troubled to remember was as good as anybody in it, the proprietor of a +silk-mill, and latterly of a wool-factory in the neighbourhood. As a +mere convenient adjunct to the mill and the factory he had started a +shop in the town, and kept it going by means of a manager. Even in that +light it was a handsome old shop. The walls were lined with polished +oak, so was the low ceiling, and there was an oak staircase leading +from one storey to another which a connoisseur in staircases might have +coveted. "Robinson's" was a positive feature in Redcross, and if it had +been anything else than a good shop of its kind would have been greatly +admired. The son of the founder of the shop was also reckoned, to begin +with, as good as his professional neighbours. He was college-bred, like +his father, as Dora in her jealousy for the dignity of her first lover +had stated. This was "all to begin with." Whether because it was +advisable, or from mere grovelling instincts, he dropped in turn both +the mill and the factory, neither of which did more than pay its way, +and retained the shop, which was understood to be a lucrative concern. +He did worse; though Redcross continued to acknowledge him--somewhat +dubiously to be sure--as a gentleman, because of the fine presence which +Tom had not inherited, and the perfect good breeding which had descended +to the son. In spite of the magnanimity which forgave frostily the +second Robinson for so far forgetting himself as to take the management +of his great shop into his own hands, walk up and down and receive +customers, and be seen working at his books in the glass office if he +did not go behind the counter, he went and married for his second wife a +farmer's daughter. She was an honest, sensible, comely young woman, but +she had no pretensions to be a lady, and no more inclination to enter +the society of the Redcross upper class than the upper class had a mind +to receive her as an equal. Charles Robinson's first wife had been all +very well, though she was penniless. She had been a curate's daughter, +educated to fill the post of governess in high families. She had died +young, without children, and he had filled her place with the farmer's +daughter, who was the mother of Tom. Thenceforth the Robinson's house, +a good, old-fashioned house, though not so handsome as the shop in an +adjacent street, was effaced, nominally, from the visiting-lists of +those who had visiting-lists in Redcross. The family were ostracised, +and left to their own devices, receiving their sentence, in the case of +the farmer's daughter and her husband, with apparent equanimity. + +But there was an exception made in favour of Tom. He went to the Grammar +School along with the other better-class boys in the town and +neighbourhood, and was accepted as their companion and playfellow. He +was sent to college according to the traditions of his family, just as +Cyril Carey, of Carey's Bank, and Ned Hewett, of the Rectory, were sent +according to the traditions of theirs. Presumably the three young men +were on one footing at Cambridge, unless, indeed, Tom had the advantage. +He was slightly the elder of the three, and he took his degree with a +fair amount of honour; while, sad to say, for the credit of Redcross, +neither Cyril nor Ned made their last pass. It was confidently believed +that Tom Robinson would cut the shop, so far as any active management of +it was concerned, and enter either a gallant or a learned profession. If +he had ever entertained the intention, it was put a stop to in the first +place by the death of his father, followed within three months by that +of his mother, shortly after Tom had completed his course at the +university. He stayed at home for a time, to put his house in order it +was supposed. Then all at once, in the most cold-blooded fashion, he +told those who asked him that "Robinson's" was a good business, which he +did not see himself justified in throwing up in these hard times. He was +not such a conceited ass as to believe he must necessarily succeed in +the crowded ranks of the professions, for none of which had he any +particular bent, while he had, he added, with a certain manliness and +doggedness for a pacific fellow like Robinson, a considerable interest +in the great old shop. It had been in the family for three generations; +he had known it from childhood; many of his father's old trusted +servants still served in it. In short, he meant to keep it in his own +hands, and not to let it go to sticks and staves, possibly, in the hands +of others. He did not, for his part, see any mark of gentle breeding +and fine feeling in devolving his responsibilities on others, and only +reserving that tie to the shop which had to do with pecuniary profits. +As for his university training and academic degree, if they did not +benefit him in all circumstances they were not much worth. The town of +Redcross was caught in a trap. The gentle-folks of the place had already +received him as a man and a brother, and they could not refuse to know +him any longer because he stuck to the paternal shop, though they might +exercise their discretion in looking coldly on him in future. For that +matter, there was another opinion among the older professional men--the +Rector, whose tithes were only quarter paid; Dr. Millar, whose paying +patients were no longer able to call him in on all occasions; Carey, the +banker, whose private bank, it was whispered darkly, was struggling in +deep waters; Colonel Russell, who had come home from India on half-pay +and his savings, which every year he found more inadequate for the +expenses of an increasing family. All these gray-headed men, growing +haggard and careworn, agreed that in the present depressed state of the +commercial world, young Robinson was showing himself a sensible fellow +and ought to be commended for his decision. They declared that they were +the more inclined to take him up because of it. It was their wives, +where they had wives, and especially their daughters, with the young men +who had not known the brunt of the battle, and felt inclined to clutch +their professional dignities and privileges, that were of a different +mind. Girls like the Millars turned up their saucy little noses at the +shop. They thought it was mean-spirited and vulgar-minded, "low" of Tom +Robinson to sit down with such a calling. They held it audacious of him +to lift his eyes to Dora, and to follow his eyes with his voice, silent +fellow though he was generally, in asking her from her father. + +Certainly it did not help to redeem Tom Robinson's drawbacks in the +judgment of a rash young world that he lacked his late father's fine +presence. Though gentleman-like enough, he was insignificant in person, +and he had little to say for himself. Probably it would have struck his +critics as little short of profane to make the comparison, otherwise +there is a great example that might have stood him and all men not +giants and glib of tongue in good stead. It is written of an apostle, +and he not the least of the apostles, that he might have been termed in +bodily presence mean, and in speech contemptible. But boys and girls are +not wont to take up such examples and ponder their meaning in foolish +young hearts. + +The Millars, as one of the girls had said, were brought up in the Old +Doctor's House at Redcross. It would seem that professions and trades +were hereditary in the old-fashioned, stationary town. Dr. Millar's +father had not only been a doctor before him, he had been _the_ doctor +in Redcross, with a practice extending from an aristocratic county to a +parish-poor class of patients. His pretty sister Penny, whom Annie was +not unlike, had married into the county, General Beauchamp of Wayland's +younger son. The marriage, with all its consequences, was a thing of the +long past, leaving little trace in the present. For young Beauchamp, +though he was a squire's son, had not been able to get on at the bar, +and had emigrated with his wife while emigration was still comparatively +untried in Australia, where it was to be hoped his county extraction had +served him in the Bush at least as well as Tom Robinson's university +education would avail him in the shop. It had all happened an age before +the young Millars could remember, still the tradition of a marriage of a +member of a former generation of the Millars into the squirearchy had +its effect on her collateral descendants. It did not signify that the +reigning Beauchamps of Waylands had almost ceased to remember the +ancient alliance in their dealings with their doctor. That dim and +distant distinction established the superior position of the Millars in +their native town, to the girls' entire satisfaction. Dora to marry +Robinson, of "Robinson's," a farthing candle of a man, when her +Grand-aunt Penny had married a Beauchamp of Waylands, by all accounts +the handsomest, most dashing member of the Hunt in his day, was a +descent not to be thought of for a moment. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE "COUP DE GRACE." + + +The crisis had come. Dr. Millar had granted a final formal interview, +not without some agitation on the father's part, to the still more +agitated suitor; and after assuring him of the paternal good-will, had +turned him over to the daughter--the whole being done with a sorrowful +prescience, shared by the unfortunate young man, of what the answer +would be. + +Poor Dora was hardly less to be pitied, for she had to be brought up to +the supreme effort of dealing the _coup de grace_. Nobody could do it +for her, even her mother told her that severely, in order to brace the +girlish nerves, when Dora gave way to the first cowardly instinct of +seeking to shirk the ordeal. If a girl was old enough to receive an +offer of marriage, she was old enough to answer it for herself in +person. It was the least return she could make for the high compliment +which had been paid to her, to see the man and tell him with her own +lips that she would have nothing to say to the honest heart and liberal +hand, for he had hinted at generous settlements, which he had been only +too eager to lay at her feet. + +It was little use even for mild Dora to protest that she had not +wished for such a compliment, and had done nothing to provoke it, so +that the reckless compliment-payer was but receiving his deserts in an +unconditional refusal. It did not make the step easier for her. It was +no joke to her, whatever it might be to her hard-hearted young sisters. + +To tell the truth, Rose and May, aye, even Annie, took much lively +diversion, as Dora guessed, in secretly watching the entire proceeding. +The sisters found out the hour of the compulsory interview. They +covertly looked out for the arrival of the commonplace wooer--anything +save their idea of a lover and hero. They keenly took note of him from +an upper window as he walked with a certain studied composure, yet with +a blankness of aspect, through the shrubbery. They even deigned--Annie +as well as Rose and May--surreptitiously to inspect the poor wretch +between the bannisters of the staircase, as he ran desperately up the +stairs, thrusting one hand through his foxy hair and carrying his hat +in the other, and vanished into the drawing-room. + +After this brutal behaviour on the part of a trio of English girls, one +must show a little moderation in condemning the cruel conduct of the +Roman dames, who contemplated with zest the deadly contests of the +gladiators in the arena; at least the gladiators were strangers and +barbarians, not fellow-townsmen and near relations. + +As for the present victim, he was happily unconscious of any spectator +beyond Bella the house-maid, but he felt relieved to be delivered from +her compassionate stare. He had an instinctive sense that she knew as +well as he did what he had come there for, and was pitying him--an +inference in which he was quite correct. For Bella was older than the +unseen "chorus" on the landing, who did not think of pitying him. She +had seen more of the world, and was better acquainted with its cares +and troubles. She called him in her own mind "the poor young gent!" It +occurred to her as it did not occur to the others, that he might take +to bad ways and be a lost man, like Jem Wade the carpenter, after her +pretty, flighty sister Lotty had given him the sack. Nothing less than +that might be the end of this day's work. + +But such a way of looking on a lover and his woes was far from the +thoughts of Bella's young mistresses. On the contrary, they had +difficulty in restraining merry little titters, though Annie did take +herself to task and murmur "For shame!" when Rose made a solemn, stupid +face like what she considered Tom Robinson's on this occasion. + +To do the girls justice, however, they did not laugh when Dora, who had +been with her mother, came slowly across the lobby and followed the +visitor into the drawing-room in order to administer the _coup de +grace_. It might have been a veritable dagger-thrust to be dealt by a +weak little shrinking hand, with the owner's head turned and face +averted--such a white, grieved, frightened girl's face it was. + +Her companions' eyes were opened, for the instant a fellow-feeling smote +them. This was no light jest or piece of child's play; it might be their +turn next. Oh! who would not be sorry for Dora to have to inflict real +pain and bitter disappointment, to be condemned to kill a man's faith +in woman, perhaps, certainly to murder his peace and happiness for the +present, to extinguish the sweetest, brightest dream of his early +manhood, for he would never have another quite so tender and radiant? +Would Dora ever be quite the same again after she had done so hard a +thing? + +Annie pulled herself up and accused herself of getting absolutely +maudlin. The idea of Tom Robinson of "Robinson's," with his middle size, +matter-of-fact air, and foxy hair and moustache, entertaining such a +dream and relinquishing it with a pang of mortal anguish that would +leave a long sickening heart-ache behind! It was the infection of all +the silly love stories she had ever read which had received a kind of +spurious galvanic life from the very ordinary circumstance, the feather +in her cap, as so many girls would have regarded it, of Dora, having to +receive and refuse an offer of marriage. Why, she--Annie--and her +sisters, including Dora herself, had been much diverted by it, as well +as interested in it, until the dramatic crisis had somehow taken their +breath away also, and startled them by a glimpse of the other side of +the question. But though Annie strove to recover her equanimity, and +Rose tried to hum a tune softly as the girls still loitered behind the +bannisters, to see the end of the play, they said nothing more to each +other; a sort of shyness and shame had stolen over them. It was not +enough to make them run away, especially as each did not realize that +what she felt was common to all. Only their lips were chained +simultaneously, and they were disposed to turn aside their heads and +avert their eyes, like Dora when she killed her man. + +The deed did not take long--not more than was necessary for him to plead +once or twice with small variation on the words, "Will you not think of +it, Dora? Can you not give it a little consideration? Perhaps if I were +to wait, and you were to try----" + +And for Dora to answer with drooping head, panting breast, and still +less variety in her phrases, "Oh, no, no, Mr. Tom. Of course, I am very +much obliged to you for thinking a great deal more of me than I deserve. +But, indeed, indeed, it cannot be--you must give it up--this foolish +fancy. It is a great pity that you have wasted time on such an absurd +idea." + +"Wasted time!" he repeated, with a little irony and a little pathos. +"Well, I don't think it wasted even at this moment--and--and the idea +does not seem so absurd to me; but I will not distress you by forcing my +wishes upon you when you are so averse to them. You will allow me to +continue your friend, Miss Dora?" + +"Yes, oh yes," sighed Dora, who would have said anything, short of +agreeing to marry him, to get him to go away, "if you like, after what +has happened. I know I don't deserve your friendship; but, indeed, I +could not help it, Mr. Robinson. I never guessed till lately that you +thought of anything else, and then I would have stopped you, but I +could not." + +"Don't blame yourself," he said with a faint smile, "I am not blaming +you. I shall count it a favour, an honour, if you will let me do +anything for you that I can." + +"Thank you very much," she murmured humbly. + +"Then you will accept a little mark of my friendly feelings?" He took a +small case from his waistcoat pocket, opened it, and drew from it a +valuable ring, holding it out to her. + +They were the most beautiful rubies and sapphires she had ever seen. But +she would not touch it; she even put her hands behind her back in her +confusion and dismay. "I could not; I ought not. It is far too costly a +thing, I can see that at a glance. You must keep it; you will find some +far fitter girl to give it to." + +He shook his head, hesitated, and then took an old-fashioned little +vinaigrette case, shaped like a tiny gold box, from the watch-chain at +which he wore it. "Will you accept this from me, then? It was my +mother's, and I should like you to have it." + +"It's so good of you," the girl faltered. "I don't like to deprive you +of what was your mother's, but if you care that I should have it----" + +"I do care," he said. + +That last little episode was entirely between themselves. When she +quitted the room, not crying, but paler than before, she had the +vinaigrette case clasped tightly in her hand, while nobody except +Tom Robinson knew of the gift. + +He let her go, and then he left the house. When he did so there was that +in his face which caused Rose Millar to cry under her breath, "Come +away. It is not fair to spy upon him. I'll never want to see anybody +refused again." As for "little May," she burst into tears, though the +principals had shed no tears. + +"Hold your tongue, you little goose," remonstrated the disturbed Annie. +"He may hear you. School-girls like you and Rose should not meddle in +grown-up people's affairs." + +"I thought I had left school after the Christmas holidays," said Rose, +interrogating the world in an abstract fashion. She was herself again on +the instant, carrying her funny little crumpled nose well in the air. + +"It is dreadful," said May, with a half-suppressed sob, "and he was +so good-natured. He promised only last week to get Rose and me a +fox-terrier puppy." + +"Oh, you selfish little creature! It is over the failure of the +prospective puppy and not over the sorrows of the rejected man you are +lamenting. Never mind, Maisie, I doubt if mother would have allowed us +to keep the puppy. As for Mr. Tom Robinson, he is cut up just now, of +course; but he will soon get over it. How long does it take a man to +forget, Annie? Anyhow, presently he will be busily directing his +attentions in another quarter, until the day may come, after he is +successful and triumphant, well pleased with himself and his choice, +when he will heartily thank Dora there for having administered to him +the cold bath of a rejection, so nipping his first raw aspirations in +the bud." + +"No, no," insisted May; "you are so cynical, Rose, like everybody else +now-a-days, and I hate it. He can never be glad to have lost Dora." + +"Don't you agree with me, Annie?" Rose maintained her point. + +"Really, you seem to be so well informed on the subject yourself--though +I cannot think where you have got your experience, any more than your +slang, unless at second-hand"--said Annie sarcastically, "that my +opinion is of no importance." + +"Now, don't be nasty and elder-sisterish," was Rose's quick rejoinder. + +Though Dora shed no tears of contrition in public, Annie, who shared her +sister's room, heard her in the night crying softly. + +"What ails you, Dora dear?" Annie sat up and asked sleepily. "What is +the matter? It can't be, no," rousing herself, "it can _not_ be--you +don't mean that you repent what you've done, and would swallow the shop, +foxy hair, and everything?" + +"Oh, no," denied Dora, "but I didn't think a man would care like that; +such a queer, gray shade came over his face, though I durst hardly look +at him; and his hands which were--well, were holding mine for a second, +you know----" + +"No, I don't know," interrupted Annie, smiling to herself; "but go on, +what about the hands?" + +"They were as cold as ice." + +"Very likely, it is only the month of April." + +"And it is not above a year since he lost both his father and +mother--all the near relations he had." + +"Poor man!" admitted Annie. "But you could not help that, and many men, +young men especially, seem to get on quite well without near relations." + +There was a strain of hardness about pretty Annie, whether bred of that +cynicism in the air of which May had complained, whether it was an +integral part of Annie, or whether, as in the case of some valuable +kinds of timber, it was merely an indication of the closer grain, the +slower ripening, and the greater power of endurance of the moral fibre. + +"Men are not like women." Annie was continuing her lecture. "I dare say +Tom Robinson will do very well--all the better, perhaps, because he has +no ambition, and is content to make money in the most humdrum way as a +tradesman." + +Dora sat up in turn, like a white ghost in her place in her little bed, +seen by the dim light. She had the instinct which causes women to look +back upon the men who have made love or proposed to them, even though +the women have rejected the men--as in a sense their property, if not +their prey, so as not by any means to relish the men's depreciation at +the hands of other women. Then it becomes a point of honour alike with +the proudest and the meekest of her sex to stand up in his absence in +defence of the discarded swain. + +"I don't know about ambition," began Dora hesitatingly, "but father says +Tom Robinson is not at all stupid; he took his degree with credit at +Cambridge, and was not plucked like poor Ned Hewett, or that fop, Cyril +Carey. Father says when he worked with Mr. Robinson in getting up the +bill to lay before Parliament for closing the old churchyard, he could +not have desired a more intelligent, diligent fellow-worker. All the +salesmen and women at 'Robinson's' have been well looked after, and are +superior to the other shop-people in the town, don't you know? There is +Miss Franklin at the head of both the millinery and mantua-making +departments; I am sure she looks and speaks, as well as dresses, +like a lady?" + +"Yes, and everybody is civil to her, but nobody thinks of making +her acquaintance out of the shop, and she is wise enough to keep +to her proper sphere. They say she is a distant relation of Tom +Robinson's--you see he is not altogether destitute of kindred. +Why does the man not marry her? That would be a suitable match." + +"Annie!" protested Dora, in nearly speechless indignation, and then she +recovered breath and words. "She's forty if she's a day; and she's as +fat as a pin-cushion, with her cheeks a mottled red all over." + +"How can you make such unkind remarks on your neighbours' looks? _He_ +is not an Adonis, I may be allowed to say; and I have noticed that +shopkeepers are apt to marry women older than themselves, women who +have been in the trade--to keep the business together, I suppose." + +"At least, his father did not marry like that either in his first or in +his second marriage," retorted Dora; "for the first Mrs. Robinson was +the daughter of a curate, and the second of a farmer, and she was not +half his age, though she did not survive him long." + +"As you please. What's Hecuba to me, or what am I to Hecuba?" demanded +Annie airily. + +"Besides," Dora returned laboriously to the charge, "there are +shopkeepers and shopkeepers, as you must be aware, Annie. Father says +old Mr. Robinson was a man of independent ideas and original mind, and +had his own theories of trade." + +"I have nothing to say against it, especially at this hour of the night, +or morning," said Annie, professing to strangle a yawn; "only that I do +not think a linen-draper's business, however large and well-conducted, +is exactly the career of a gentleman, a man of fair ability and +education. He might leave it to any respectable well-disposed tradesman. +However, if you are going to exalt Tom Robinson, with his shop, into a +patriot and philanthropist cherishing a noble scheme for the public +good, and all that kind of thing, do it if you like, nobody will hinder +you. Call him back if you care to, I dare say it is still possible if +you are willing to make the concession. But oh, Dora!" appealed Annie, +who had talked herself wide awake by this time, "don't forget the loss +of position involved in really keeping a shop, however eccentric and +meritorious a man's intentions may be. Why, he had better become a +stonemason or a ploughman, if he is to do the thing at all; far better a +gamekeeper or a soldier in time of war, the plunge would be deeper but +more picturesque. Think of the entire breaking with the county with +which we have a right to hold ourselves connected, not merely because +father's patients are willing to take us up and make quite a fuss about +us sometimes, but because his Aunt Penny married and was welcomed into +that set. You have not yourself alone to consider, remember, Dora; you +might not mind, but you have the rest of us to think of, some of whom +would mind very much." + +"You need have no anxiety about the matter," said poor Dora hotly and +huffily. "I am not going to marry Tom Robinson; you know I have refused +him this very afternoon." + +But Annie was determined to empty out her whole budget of warnings. +"Even professional people like father, all our friends and +acquaintances, our relations on both sides of the house would begin to +drop us, and fight shy of us. What people that had any pretensions to +being gentle-folks would care to be mixed up with our brother-in-law the +linen-draper? And it is not as if the temptation were great; I cannot +see wherein the attraction lies; but instead of letting it beset you, +please don't lose sight of the three hundred and sixty-five days to be +spent every year in Tom Robinson's silent company. Think of the three +hundred and sixty-five breakfasts, dinners, and suppers to be eaten +opposite his mute figure." + +"Stop, Annie," Dora cried energetically: "you know as well as I do that +I could never face such a thing, that I never dreamt of it. Only loving +a man could make it possible for a girl to give up her family in order +to belong to him; and even if there had been no 'Robinson's' to shock +you, I do not care the least little bit for poor Tom Robinson; yet +surely for that very reason," protested Dora with a sudden revulsion of +feeling, "I am at liberty to pity him." + +"If you will take my advice, Dora," said shrewd Annie, sinking back on +her pillow as a sign that the untimely discussion ought to come to an +end, "you will get rid of your pity as quickly as you can. It is not +your pity which he seeks--very likely he would rage like a bear, for as +quiet as he can look, at the mere mention of it. But it strikes me that +it is not safe for either of you." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE HEADS OF THE HOUSE LOOK GRAVE. + + +"It is a thousand pities," said Dr. Millar, holding a consultation with +his wife, while he sipped his glass of sherry and ate his biscuit, +before retiring for the night, after his last round among the patients +in greatest need of his visits. + +In spite of his daughter Dora's preference for tall men, the Doctor was +short and rather stout. He ought to have looked comfortable, he had the +physique and air of a comfortable man, but a certain harassed, careworn +expression was beginning to settle down on the spectacled face which had +once been round, rosy, and very comely. He was at least twenty years +older than his wife. The old-fashioned practice had prevailed in the +old-fashioned town, of elderly men, whether bachelors or widowers, +ending by marrying for the first or the second time women a score or +more years their juniors. Indeed, Dr. Millar was hard upon seventy, +though he had till recent bad times carried his years so well that he +had looked ten years younger than his actual age. + +Mrs. Millar also began to look worried as a rule, though she had more of +the woman's faculty of putting the best face on things, both in public +and in private. She was a tall woman, who had enjoyed the advantages of +what was called "an elegant figure" in her youth. Now she was large and +heavy, with a mixture of unconscious stateliness and wistful +motherliness in her gait and gestures. Like Dr. Millar, she ought to +have seemed at least easy-minded, but circumstances were becoming more +and more against the happy condition, of which a pervading atmosphere of +content and cheerfulness should have been the outward expression. + +The man and woman were not cut out, so to speak, for adversity. They had +not been seasoned to it in their younger days. On the contrary, they had +been cradled for many years in the lap--if not of luxury, of fair +middle-class prosperity. It was a few tolerably rough jolts which had +shaken them from their cradle. Still the trouble was more in +apprehension than in reality. As yet it had not caused the sufferers to +change any one of the domestic habits which had grown second nature to +them. It had not induced them to darken the sunny sky over their young +daughters' heads with a shadow of the clouds which were already looming +black on the parents' horizon. It may be said at once, that Dr. and Mrs. +Millar, though they were reckoned clever, sensible people enough by +their contemporaries, had softer hearts than they had hard heads. They +had not been used to painful self-denial and stern discipline, either +where they themselves or their children were concerned. + +The couple were sitting now together in the dining-room with its solidly +handsome furniture, Russian leather and walnut wood, bits of family +plate on the sideboard, bronze chimney-piece ornaments, and good +engravings on the walls. Husband and wife had spent the last part of the +evening there, for four-and-twenty years, every night they were in +Redcross, when the Doctor was not kept out late, or when the couple were +not abroad in company, or seeing company at home. Dr. Millar, in his +slightly old-fashioned professional black coat and white tie, was +leaning back in his easy-chair sipping his sherry, and occasionally +drumming lightly on the table near him with these fine long sensitive +fingers which were a born doctor's fingers. + +Mrs. Millar wore a demi-toilet in the shape of an expensive cashmere and +silk gown--not an evening dress, but an approach to it, as became the +wife of one of the leading professional men in Redcross, connected with +the county to boot. Her lace cap was a costly trifle of its kind, but +it had an awkward habit--the odder in a woman who was neat to formality +in the other details of her dress--of slipping to one side, or tilting +forwards or backwards on the brown hair, still abundant and just +streaked with gray; so that one or other of her daughters was constantly +calling Mrs. Millar's cap to order and setting it right. She was sitting +in an arm-chair, opposite her husband. Mechanically she put one daintily +slippered, very neat foot, considering the weight it helped to carry, +beyond her skirts, and stretched it towards the fire. There was still a +good fire blazing in the steel grate, though the spring was well +advanced, the weather was not more than chilly, and the hour was late. +It was as if coals were not a marketable commodity and a serious item in +the expenses of an embarrassed household. She held up a Japanese fan +between her face and the fire, from mere custom, for she had ceased to +pay much heed to the exigencies of a florid complexion. + +"It's a thousand pities," repeated the little Doctor, looking quite +portentously regretful and oppressed. "It is not only that Tom Robinson +is an excellent fellow and would have made Dora the best of +husbands--given her a safe and happy home, and all that sort of thing; +but in case of anything happening, I am convinced he would have been as +good as a brother to the other girls, and a son to you. A man like him +is a stay and support to a household of helpless women." + +"But nothing is going to happen, Jonathan," said Mrs. Millar, with an +involuntary nervous quiver which sent her cap hovering over one eyebrow. +"At least nothing worse than we know. Your practice is not so lucrative +as it used to be; how can it, in these bad times, with so many poor +young fellows of doctors settling here and there and everywhere in +Redcross and the villages around, starving themselves out, while they +impoverish their seniors? Nothing more than that, except the little +trouble at Carey's Bank." + +"Quite enough too, Maria, quite enough," commented the Doctor deep down +in his throat, prolonging the words a little as if he were chanting the +refrain of a dismal song; "and when a man is my age and has plenty of +the young rivals you refer to, it is high time he should be looking out +for something happening. A family of girls, too. God help me! If they +had been four boys, who might have made their own way in the world, and +provided for you among them, I could have faced it better." He struck +the table again, with spasmodic force this time. + +"Now, Jonathan, you will wake up the house. This is not like you," +remonstrated his wife--all the more energetically that her heart sank +while she spoke. "I should not have expected you to give way in this +manner." She gave a quick push back to her unruly cap. "I am sure there +is no occasion for it. We are in no worse position than we were last +year, even the year before that." + +"Save that I am growing older every year," he said grimly, "and the +affairs of the bank are not mending, as I hoped they might." + +"Can't you sell out?" she suggested breathlessly, as she clasped her +hands on her knees. + +"I have put it off too long, supposing I had the conscience to transfer +my liabilities to some simpleton who might not draw half a dozen of the +dividends of which I have drawn scores. Besides, the thing is +impossible, as I am telling you. Between you and me, the shares are far +below par." + +"What is par, Jonathan?" interrupted Mrs. Millar in a praiseworthy +attempt to understand her husband. + +"Oh, bother," he cried, running his hand in mild exasperation through +his white hair; "the standard value, or the original value, whichever +you like best. I should not dare to propose to sell out at such a loss; +it would not only be to impoverish myself at once in order to avoid the +risk of greater ruin, it would draw attention. It would have a most +suspicious look, and might bring the rotten affair down about our ears +instantly, while I should get the blame of the downfall." + +"But some of the large foreign investments might be realized any +day--you told me the last time you spoke of business--with the first +good turn of trade," she reminded him anxiously. + +"I trust so still, and I believe old Carey is an honest man and a +perfect gentleman--that is one comfort; but I cannot help thinking he +has got into bad hands. I tell you, Maria, I don't like that +brother-in-law of his who comes down from London to attend the Redcross +meetings, and tries to blarney us all round. And I cannot approve of the +bolstering up of Carey's cousins, the Carters, in their chemical works +at Stokeleigh, which it strikes me will never do much good. It--the +bolstering up--has been going on for a long time now, to what extent I +am not prepared to show. Unfortunately I have a bad head for figures," +he shrugged his shoulders as if anticipating a reproach, "the less +reason why I should have laid out my savings on bank shares, you will +say? No doubt, no doubt, but there had been fewer troubles with banks in +my day. When I made the first investment everything appeared right, and +the dividends announced were tempting." + +"I am not finding fault with what you did, Jonathan; I never thought of +such a thing," the perturbed woman found voice to reassure her husband. +"I know you did it for the best; and for that matter, I am convinced it +will all come right in the end," she ended with a little sigh. + +"It is very good and pretty of you to say so, Maria," he said with a +certain old-fashioned, stiff gallantry which, while it complimented her, +treated her as a much younger and more irresponsible being than he was. +As he spoke he took up the hand which lay in her lap and held it for a +moment clasped in his. "And I can say you have been all that I could +have wished as a wife and mother, you have never once failed me during +the whole of our married life." + +"Oh! thank you, thank you, Jonathan." She acknowledged his praise with a +momentary choke in her voice, and a bend of her head which was not +without a docile dignity. + +"We are all in the same boat," resumed the Doctor in the deep tones +which somehow sounded like bass recitative; "the Rector, Colonel +Russell, and I--not to say Carey himself. We all wished to increase our +incomes with as little trouble and risk as possible--so it seemed then, +but if the bank comes to smash, all the old Redcross gentle-folks, as we +were pleased to call ourselves, will go with it." + +"Don't mention such a thing, don't think of it," cried Mrs. Millar in +her dismay. + +He went on without noticing her. "The Bishop won't let the Rector come +down, and Russell is twenty years younger than I. He is no older than +you are, though a foreign climate has told a good deal on him; still, he +is patched up, and with care ought to have lasted as long as the rest of +us. He may exert his interest, and get a post in India again, though I +should be afraid it would finish him in six months." + +The poor middle-aged lady who sat listening with dry lips apart, and +pleasant hazel eyes distended with fright and distress, though she was +no older than the unfortunate colonel, had not been exposed to a foreign +climate, and had hardly suffered from a serious illness in her life, did +not look much like such an arduous undertaking as going out to India to +redeem a wrecked fortune. She pulled herself together, however, and set +herself to the good woman's business of comforting and encouraging her +husband. "I am certain it is right to go on hoping. You often say that +in your profession you have no such helpful allies as hope and courage; +you must practice what you've preached, Doctor," and the faithful soul +actually contrived to impart a playful ring to her unsteady voice. "The +Rector has not preached the duty more strenuously than you have; and +you are not going to be the first to break down, especially when there +is no real occasion. Depend upon it, Carey's Bank will pull through like +some of your most doubtful patients, with time and care." + +"With all my heart," he said, absently taking off his spectacles, +polishing, and replacing them. Then he resumed his former line of +thought. "Tom Robinson is out of the mess. He, and his father before +him, found other ways of disposing of their capital where it was more +under their own inspection and control. If that foolish girl of ours, +Maria, could only have brought herself to listen to Robinson," he worked +himself up into a fresh access of vexation, "the liking would have come +in good time. I did not expect her to have a fancy for him on the spot, +for quiet, steady young fellows like him are not apt to take girls' +fancies--the worse for the girls." + +"But, father"--remonstrated Mrs. Millar, involuntarily bestowing on her +husband the title the girls gave him--she drew herself up as she spoke, +and again destroyed the equilibrium of her cap--"you cannot surely think +that Tom Robinson would have been a fit match for Dora, or any of her +sisters. He is well enough in himself, I say nothing against him, but he +has not gone into a profession, instead he has identified himself with +'Robinson's'--that shop;" a shade of ineffable disgust stole into her +ordinarily good-humoured voice. + +"Showed his good sense and manliness," said the Doctor gruffly. "I wish +every one else had been as wise. I wish all of us had big paying shops +at our backs instead of Carey's shaky bank. I for one would swallow the +indignity cheerfully. Why, my father kept on his dispensary in the days +when the practice was at its best. The greater fool I to give it up. I +tell you England will never be what it was till it gets rid of this +rubbish of despising trades and shops. Don't you help to put it into +these silly girls' heads. It makes me sick to think how they may live to +wish they were connected with an honest, solvent shop." + +"My dear, I think you are going a little too far." Mrs. Millar fired up +in defence of her young like a ruffled mother-pigeon. "I should be very +sorry to teach the girls to look down on anybody; but that there are +different sorts and conditions of men, they may learn from their very +Bibles and prayer-books. There are such things as education and +culture--not to speak of good birth. You yourself, Dr. Millar, are +fairly well born and well connected for a professional man." She +instanced this with an imperceptible bridle and toss of her matronly +head, which hinted broadly, "If it had not been so, Jonathan, I should +never have been Mrs. Millar." The movement threatened to deposit her cap +on the carpet behind her, but she recovered it in time, and took up the +thread of her discourse by quoting the much-prized family +distinction--"There was your Aunt Penny, who married into the county." + +"Oh! are you at that humbug?" he cried, with a man's disrespectful +impatience. "I thought it had seen its day, and was long over and done +with. I could not have conceived that you--" ("were such a fool," he was +going to say, when he caught himself up.) He was quick-tempered and +impulsive, but he was also suave by nature, and his long habit of +courteous indulgence to his wife caused him to alter the phrase. "I did +not know that you had so lively an imagination as to persist in +believing that old myth, Maria." + +"But your Aunt Penny did marry one of the Beauchamps of Waylands," +insisted Mrs. Millar. + +"Certainly; and she made the poorest marriage of anybody that I have +ever had to do with, though I have always understood that he was not a +bad sort, beyond being as thick-headed as his brother the squire or an +officer of dragoons. He get on at the bar! I dare say not. And he was no +quicker-witted or longer-sighted in Australia. You must have heard me +say how grieved I was once when I came across a fellow from Sydney who +had been up the country, and remembered something of the Beauchamps and +their straits. They were regularly hard up, and went through no end of +trouble. Poor Aunt Penny seldom had a woman-servant--women-servants were +more difficult to get out there in those days. She had to wash, cook, +and scour for the men at the station." + +"Why didn't they come home?" inquired Mrs. Millar rather weakly. + +"Come home! They had nothing to come home with, or to. You don't suppose +his brother, the squire, with a wife and family of his own, would have +kept them, though the Beauchamps had received her civilly enough at the +time of the marriage! She had to milk the cows when the cow-man was +otherwise wanted. I do not say that many a better born woman than she +was has not done as much and thought little of it, only it was not in +Aunt Penny's line. I can just remember her when I was a small boy, a +pretty creature who read Italian, sang to her guitar, and made bread +seals for her amusement. She had such a mortal terror where cows were +concerned that she would run like a lapwing when she heard one come +lowing up the lane behind the house. Paton, the man from Sydney who +remembered them, thought they did a little better towards the end, when +they got a store, and Mrs. Beauchamp kept it. Do you hear that, Maria?" +cried the Doctor, with a half-humorous, half-indignant emphasis. + +"Yes, I hear," replied Mrs. Millar, with an obstinate inflection of her +voice which said, "I am of my own opinion still." She illustrated this +by adding, in an undertone, "They were in Australia." + +"A store," continued the Doctor, "is the rudest, most uncouth kind of +shop; and Beauchamp was not fit to keep it, he had to turn it over to +his wife, who was thankful to serve shepherds and bush-rangers for aught +I know. She lost one child in the bush, God help her! The little thing +wandered away and was never heard of again; and her other child, a boy, +who grew up, did not turn out well. I tell you, I never like to think or +speak of the mother." + +"Poor Aunt Penny!" said Mrs. Millar hastily. "But there is one +thing"--with a sudden accent of triumph in the perception that she had +the advantage of her husband at last--"your Aunt Penny married the man +she cared for; she got her choice, and in that light she had no reason +to complain, though she had to abide by it." + +The Doctor was a little taken aback. "I do not know that she +complained--at least her people at home heard nothing of it. And you +must do me the justice of owning that I have done nothing to force +Dora's inclinations. Indeed, I am not clear that I have done my duty. I +ought to have reasoned with the girl. Robinson is not only a good man, +he is also a gentleman, every inch of him, so was his father before +him." + +"In the choice of Jenny Coppock, of Coppock's Farm, for a wife!" +exclaimed Mrs. Millar, still rebellious, even satirical and disdainful. + +"He was entitled to choose whom he would, I suppose, so long as she was +an honest woman, and Jenny Coppock was that quite as much as her husband +was a gentleman. She made him happy, I believe, strange as it may sound +to some people, as ladies do not always make their husbands happy--you +know I mean nothing personal, Maria. Whether she was quite happy herself +is a different question, of which I have had no means of judging. But I +have heard you yourself say that she never presumed on her rise in rank, +or sought to thrust her comely, kindly face where it was not wanted. Her +son has a look of her, without her good looks. Poor Mrs. Robinson! I was +with her in her first and last illness, as you are aware, and a more +courageous, self-forgetful soul I had never the privilege to attend." + +Mrs. Millar turned back in the conversation, and took to dogmatizing. +"People who are well-informed and well-bred will never descend to a +lower level without great discomfort and serious loss. I for one, though +I have not profited by the advantages the girls have commanded, and I +daresay have not their brains"--she made the frank admission with +womanly, motherly humility--"though I could not to save my life make one +of Rose's beautiful water-colour sketches, or read Greek and Latin like +'little May,' or even talk to the point on every subject under the sun +like Annie, still I should not be happy if I had to keep company with +Wilkins the butcher's or Ord the baker's wife, and they would not be +happy either. It would not matter, in one sense, though I knew they were +respectable, worthy women, and were ever so much better off as to money +than I. That would not keep me from feeling thoroughly out of place and +having hardly an idea in common with my neighbours in their +plush-trimmed gowns and fur-lined mantles. I could not stand such +degradation for my girls," she protested, with rising agitation. "I had +far rather that they and I should be the poorest ladies in the land, +should have to pinch and deny ourselves all round." + +"It is little you know of it," muttered Dr. Millar, shaking his white +head, and pensively contemplating his finger-nails. + +"While we still retained the position to which we were born, and the +associations among which we were reared," ended Mrs. Millar, with a +gasp. + +"Bless the woman, what does she mean?" cried Dr. Millar after his lively +fashion, with an air of injured innocence. "Does she pretend that Tom +Robinson has not been educated--stamped, for that matter, with the last +university brand, to which he does credit, I must say? Stay, there goes +the night-bell. I am wanted for somebody." + +"You'll never go out again to-night, Jonathan," pleaded Mrs. Millar, +"after all your worry, when you have not had more than a couple of +hours' rest." She was already reproaching herself keenly for having +contradicted and argued with him. She had never been able to comprehend, +for her comfort, that to a man like him an argument is both rousing and +refreshing. In the middle of her remorse she instinctively held up her +head, and balanced her cap as a Dutchwoman of the last century balanced +her milk-pail, or a girl of the Roman Campagna her sheaf of grass and +wild flowers. "It is a shame," she reflected indignantly; "it is very +likely nothing of any consequence, just one of those inconsiderate +people who think that a professional man ought to be always at their +beck and call." + +"There, Maria, you're scoring another point for trade," said the little +doctor, getting on his feet, and buttoning up his coat as a preliminary +to obeying the call. "I'll warrant Wilkins and Ord will be toasting +their toes, and retiring to bed with the comfortable conviction that +their night's rest will not be disturbed; since Wilkins's head-man +attends to the slaughter-house, and the eldest journeyman baker sees to +the setting of the sponge. Why don't you say, _noblesse oblige_, Maria? +But I think I know the name of the inconsiderate individual who has +interrupted our conversation, and I assure you he would not if he could. +It is little Johnny Fleming--Fleming the grocer's son--whose case is +critical, I fear. I told his mother if he got worse to send for me at +once. When I am out, at any rate, I'll just look in on old Todd, in +Skinners' Buildings. He appeared in a dying state this morning; but as +the family have not sent to let me know of the death, if he has hung on +so long, the chance is he will rally and come round this bout. I'll be +some time; don't sit up for me, my dear." + +"It is too bad," Mrs. Millar fretted. "They ought to send at night for +Newton or Capes from Woodleigh--it is only a step for any of the young +doctors, instead of disturbing a man of your age." + +"Good heavens! don't breathe such a thing. I could not afford it. I +thought of taking a young partner twenty years ago, but I put it off +till it was too late. Perhaps it was a mistake; we all make mistakes," +he sighed. "An active young practitioner, well up to date, might have +kept the business better together." + +"Nonsense!" cried his wife energetically. "Nobody would have looked at +him when they could have had your skill and experience." + +"Then be thankful I'm still fit for work--one must take the bad with the +good. It is the fortune of war, Maria," said the gallant old doctor as +he departed. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE CRASH. + + +Within a month Carey's Bank broke, not altogether unexpectedly. The +breaking carried dismay and desolation into not a few households in +Redcross, and administered a sharp shock--productive of much startled +speculation, and roused distrust, even in those quarters which had not +suffered financially by the bankruptcy. The stoppage of a bank, with +little hope of its resuming its functions, is like the stoppage of a +heart which will never beat again. It may have been dreaded as a +possible calamity, and occasionally hinted at in awed whispers; but when +the blow falls it does so with a stunning, crushing force because of its +irreparable nature and far-reaching ruin. + +There was just a little preparation to herald the catastrophe. Poor +Carey, an honest, weak tool of dishonest speculators and birds of prey +in the shape of needy, unscrupulous relations, when the appalling +tidings reached him which could only betoken immediate wreck, did all +that there was left to him to do. He called a meeting of the Redcross +shareholders. These were the leading professional men in the town who +had invested their savings, and a small proportion of the neighbouring +country gentlemen who had put a little capital--not often to spare in +those days--in a concern once regarded as sound and incapable of +collapse as the Bank of England itself. With a faltering tongue and a +hanging head the nominal head of the firm told to those nearly concerned +what was coming on them. Nobody reproached him; either no man had the +heart, or all felt the uselessness of reproaches. Certainly these +shareholders' silence was his heaviest punishment. + +They made a hasty examination, as far as they could, for themselves, and +then the meeting broke up. Its members did not even linger to consult, +being well assured that consultation, like reproaches, would be of no +avail; the failure was so much more extensive and complete than their +worst fears had led them to anticipate. The men looked blankly in each +other's whitening faces and sought the refuge of their own houses at +first. There would be time enough for outcry, for desperate plans and +schemes a little later. + +Poor Dr. Millar had not even this breathing space. It happened to be a +particularly busy day with him. Various neutral individuals, in no way +concerned with Carey's Bank, even when its misfortunes should be made +public, took that inconvenient time for falling ill, and their medical +man had to attend upon them with spasmodic promptitude and mechanical +attention--projected, as it were, against the dazed and confused +background of his brain. After all he was glad of his profession with +its outward and immediate calls, taking him out of himself in the hour +when he had heard the worst. He preferred to be about the town doing +battle with this man's attack of paralysis and that woman's symptoms of +typhoid, even though his ears were ringing with clamorous questions +which no one else could hear or answer. How was he to pay up the +liabilities of his bank shares from his dwindling practice? What about +inexperienced young girls driven out to make their own way in the world, +and the gentlewoman (in every sense of the word) whom he had loved and +cherished for four-and-twenty years, soon to be left a desolate, all but +unprovided for widow? But better a thousand times to be dragged in +different directions than to be sitting like Russell, locked in his +room, his little children and their young mother shut out, holding +between his hands the erect head of a soldier who had come out of many a +hard battle, but none so hard as this ambuscade which had been sprung +upon him after he had been invalided a dozen years before, and returned +home to spend his declining years in peace. Better than to have to write +sermons and read prayers, like the Rector, and pause between every +sentence to take himself sternly to task. Was it common forethought and +prudence, with the necessity of providing for the wants of a household, +which even the apostle Paul had commended, or was it worldly-mindedness +and greed which had brought him, a beneficed clergyman, a priest in holy +orders, the vowed servant of a King whose kingdom was not of this world, +to this lamentable pass? Yes; he would be dishonoured in the eyes of +men, a debtor who could not pay his debts, and even with the support of +his bishop would be scarcely able to weather the storm, while he must +make up his mind, as he was an honest man, that he and his should endure +the pinch of poverty for the rest of his days. + +Annie and Dora had been out on a shopping expedition, and were coming in +talking and laughing as usual, when they were startled by the apparition +of their mother standing in the doorway of her room, and motioning to +them to come in directly and speak with her. The poor lady really looked +like a ghost, as she stood there with her fine colour gone, beckoning to +her daughters with her hand, as if the power of speech had suddenly +forsaken her. + +"What is it, mother?" cried the alarmed girls in one breath, hurrying +towards her. "Has anything happened? Is anybody ill?" + +"Hush! hush, my dears," said Mrs. Millar in a low tone, carefully +shutting the door of her room behind the girls, as if she were ready to +guard her secret with her life--at the same time painfully sensible that +the bad news would be all over Redcross the next day, or the next after +that. "I thought it would be better to tell you myself; nobody in the +house knows anything of it yet, except your father and me." + +"But what is it, mother; you have not told us?" Annie urged; while Mrs. +Millar sank down in a low wicker chair, and her daughter Dora +instinctively stooped over her, and began to set her vagrant cap right. + +"Never mind my cap, my love," said Mrs. Millar hurriedly, and then she +grew incoherent. "What does it matter, when perhaps I may not long have +a cap to wear." + +Annie and Dora stared at each other in consternation. Was their mother +going out of her senses? + +"It is the bank, Carey's Bank," said Mrs. Millar, recovering herself, +"Oh dear! I am afraid it is in a very bad way." + +"Is that it?" cried Annie vaguely but gravely, opening wide her brown +eyes. "Is it going to fail?" She, too, spoke of the bank as if it were a +responsible being. + +"Annie, Annie, take care what you say. Girls are so heedless. I tell you +it is very dangerous to make such broad statements. You do not know what +harm you may do by a single word when you are so childishly outspoken." +Mrs. Millar felt bound even yet to give her own words the timid +qualification, though she was forced to add the next moment, "Your +father has suspected things were going wrong for some time, and spoken +of his suspicions to me repeatedly. He has just come back from a private +meeting of the Redcross shareholders. He says in consequence of some +additional losses in South America, I think, and inability to realize +capital there, the bank cannot meet two or three heavy calls at home. I +daresay I am not telling you rightly, for I don't understand business, +and I don't suppose you do." + +"I understand so far, that if this is not failure, I don't know what +is," said Annie. + +"Don't, Annie," said Dora; "let mother tell us in her own way; it is not +easy for her, it is a dreadful misfortune." + +"You may say that, Dora," exclaimed her mother. "Your father does not +believe the bank can hold out for another week; it may stop payment +to-morrow, since there are rumours afloat which will destroy what credit +it has left." + +"Will no other bank help it?" cried Annie shrewdly. + +"I believe not," said Mrs. Millar dolefully. + +"Then there will be a run, like what one has read of in similar +circumstances--a rush of the people, and a riot in the town," suggested +Annie, getting excited over the idea. "The police may have to guard the +bank and the Bank house--soldiers may have to come from Nenthorn!" + +"Oh, surely not," cried Dora; "the poor Careys--who could treat them so +cruelly?" + +"No, no," said Mrs. Millar; "there is one good thing, your father does +not think there will be much ill-feeling, or anything like an angry mob, +or tumult--not even when the people see the closed doors. There has +always been such confidence in Carey's Bank, the Careys have been +respected for generations; even now it is James Carey's misfortune and +not his fault, though he may have been misled and imposed upon; and, +after all, the depositors are tolerably sure of their money in time. But +your father is afraid," she ended, her voice sinking, "that it will go +hard with the shareholders." + +"And poor father is one of them," said Annie quickly. + +"Poor father!" echoed Dora piteously; "and you, poor, poor mother, to +have to think of us, and break it to us, while your heart is with +father." + +"And he has not even been left in peace for a single afternoon, to make +up his mind what we shall do," lamented his sympathetic wife. "As usual, +so many tiresome people have fallen ill--as if they did it on purpose, +and sent for him." + +"I daresay they could not help it," said Annie, "and I don't think it +would quite suit father if they were never ill." + +"Don't speak so unfeelingly, child," remonstrated her mother; "well, I +suppose I gave you a bad example," she corrected herself immediately, +"but I have been in such trouble since lunch time." + +"Poor mother!" repeated Dora in a voice that was only more soft and +caressing because of its sorrowfulness. She was very fond of her mother, +who reciprocated the special fondness, while Dr. Millar was rather +inclined to favour Annie and Rose, and both father and mother petted +May. + +"Will it ruin us, mother?" inquired Annie directly, but before her +mother could answer her, Annie's practical mind took a sudden flight. It +went straight back to the purchases which she and Rose had been making +that afternoon. They had been at "Robinson's," of all places. But Tom +Robinson was only to be seen in the glass office, or walking about the +place in the morning, at hours which these two customers had carefully +avoided. Dora's heart had quaked all the same, in dread of an event +which, bad enough when it was confined to a passing bow, or a limp +hand-shake and half a dozen words exchanged in the street, would have +been intolerable in "Robinson's," under the eyes of his satellites. Yet +for the Millars to have refrained altogether from going to the one great +shop in the town, where women oft did congregate, would have been to +expose an event, the participators in which devoutly hoped was buried in +oblivion. They had been in Miss Franklin's department without anything +untoward happening; but it was neither "Robinson's" nor the person who +served them there that flashed like lightning across Annie's thoughts at +this crisis. It was the articles the girls had been buying, the Tussore +silk and Torchon lace for frocks that Annie and Dora had meant to wear +at a garden-party--for which the Dyers, the new people who had come to +Redcross Manor-house, had sent out invitations. If the Millars were +ruined, they were not likely to go to many more garden-parties, and +though the sisters might still want frocks, yet frocks of Tussore silk +trimmed with Torchon lace--granted that the materials had appeared a +modest and becoming wear for a doctor's daughters an hour before--might +not be quite an appropriate selection in the family's altered +circumstances. + +"It depends upon what you call ruin," Mrs. Millar was saying +falteringly, "and of course the bank's assets may turn out better than +is thought just now, though your father is far from hopeful. He says all +his savings will go, and he may count on having to pay bank 'calls' on +his income till the business is wound up, which may not be in his +lifetime. No doubt he is taking the darkest view of things at present." +Then she yielded to the relief of pouring forth some of the coming woes +in detail. "Oh, my dears, your father says, though nothing can be +settled in a moment, there is one thing certain--this house must be +given up." + +"Our house!" cried both of the girls in dismay. + +"Where we were all born, where father himself was born," pleaded Dora, +still hanging about her mother. + +"The Old Doctor's House--why, it seems to belong to the practice," +protested Annie, sitting down, taking off her hat and tossing it on the +bed as if the better to realize the situation. + +"No, I don't think it would hurt the practice--not in a town the size of +Redcross, where everybody would know where your father was to be found, +though he were to change his house again and again. Still it does seem +hard," she admitted, as she covertly wiped away a tear, "particularly +when the fault has not been ours--we have always lived within your +father's income, even though his practice has been falling off in these +bad times, what with his getting up in years, and what with these young +doctors trying to get in their hands everywhere. He tells me that he has +never had to find fault with me for extravagance," she finished +wistfully. + +"I should think not," said Annie emphatically. "Why you have always been +as simple as simple could be in your own tastes and habits, not a woman +in your circle dresses more quietly. You have hardly even driven in the +brougham when father was not wanting it, in case you should over-work +the horse--you have always said, but I really believe that you chose to +walk for the simple reason that many of your acquaintances had no +choice. Nobody can ever reflect upon you, mother, for having wasted +either father's means or other people's," said Annie, with a bright +glance which became her infinitely. + +"Thank you, my love, for saying so," replied her mother gratefully; "and +you see it is as well that I did not accustom myself to driving, among +other indulgences, for another of the retrenchments which your father +mentioned was putting down the brougham. Yet how he is to manage his +more distant patients on foot, at his age, I cannot imagine," she broke +off in helpless distress, clasping her hands tightly together, according +to a way she had. "It seems downright madness to propose it." + +"Then you may be sure it will be prevented," said Dora with earnest +trustfulness, as she gently patted her mother's cap. "Nobody can ask a +sacrifice from him which he is unable to make. Mother, do you know what +I was thinking? that the only occasions on which you and father were +regardless of expense have been where the profit or pleasure of us girls +was concerned. You have given us every advantage you could get for us in +the shape of education. You sent Annie and me to London to take these +costly music-lessons;--Annie, I wish we had made more of them. You +arranged that we should go on that foreign tour with the Ludlows." + +"We did our best for you--your father and I. I think I may say that," +admitted Mrs. Millar simply. + +Dora went on eagerly with her generous catalogue. "There was the young +artist who exhibits at the Academy and the Grosvenor, who was sketching +at Nenthorn, you had him over at a high price once a week, and he +condescended to help Rose with her drawing and painting. Then there was +Mr. Blake, the university man whom father considered so far in advance +of any classical master Miss Burridge could afford, he was induced so +long as he was staying at Woodleigh to bring on May with her Latin and +Greek." + +"So far so good," said Mrs. Millar, in her excitement borrowing one of +her husband's brisk, cut and dry phrases. "I hope you will reap the +benefit of any effort we made, dears, because"--she hesitated, and +nearly broke down--"well, I don't think you need mind so much your +father's giving up this house and going into a smaller one; I'm sure I +don't mind it at all when I think what other people will have to suffer; +and as for you, why, you may not be here--not always, at least. We are +afraid, your father and I, that you'll need to go and do something to +keep yourselves." + +"To be sure," said Annie promptly. "Don't trouble about that, mother; +we'll be only too glad to be of use!" + +"We'll be too thankful to relieve you and father as much as we can," +said Dora in a voice soft and fervent, but less assured. + +"That will be the least trial," asserted Annie fearlessly. + +"Oh, you don't know what you're saying!" cried Mrs. Millar, fairly +giving way and permitting herself to sob for a minute or two behind her +handkerchief. "You are dear, good girls! I knew you would be, and so +brave that I ought to take courage; but young people are so hopeful and +inexperienced. I don't wish you to be unhopeful, of course, still you +cannot tell what it is for your father and me to send our girls--our own +girls whom we have been so proud and fond of, that have been making the +old house brighter and brighter ever since they were born--out into a +cold world, to have to struggle for a pittance, to lose their youth and +its privileges, to be knocked about, and perhaps ill-treated, and looked +down upon by people in every way their inferiors." + +"Don't, mother," interrupted Annie with decision; "you're conjuring up +bogies which have ceased to exist now-a-days. Think of the women who go +out into the world by no compulsion, simply for the honour and pleasure +of the thing, because they will not stay at home to lead idle, useless +lives, when there is needful work to be done abroad. I don't question +that they have difficulties to encounter, but I have yet to learn that +staying at home will keep away crosses. Brave women can bear whatever +trouble comes. I have often thought of such workers, if you will believe +me"--the girl was in a glow of animation--"with both shame and envy. It +is true I have not proposed to join them," she added in a lower tone, +"because I knew I was young for such work and not half good enough or +clever enough, and because we were all so happy at home--you and father +made us so," and Annie turned away her head, and forthwith came tumbling +down a few steps from the exalted position she had taken up. + +"No, don't tell me, Annie Millar," said her mother with something like +passionate resistance, "that any good father or mother can be glad to +send their young daughters out into the wide world to fight and suffer +by themselves. It is not natural and it is not true. It is an altogether +different thing to give them to good men who will take care of them and +make them happy." + +"But if the good men are not forthcoming, or if they happen to be the +wrong men," protested Annie. There was an irresistible twinkle in her +dark eyes, in spite of the care and trouble that had come upon the +household, which she was too sensible and warm-hearted a girl not to +share fully. + +Dora stood conscience-stricken and guilty-looking, until, as she stroked +her mother's locked hands, she at last found words to put in her humble +petition, "We shan't all go away, mother dear. Father and you must let +one of us stay to take care of you and cheer you?" + +"Oh, my dear, we are not old enough, at least I am not old enough to +accept such a boon, supposing we are very poor," said Mrs. Millar +sadly, "and in that case it might be sacrificing one of you, and +spoiling your prospects in life." + +"No, no," cried Dora vehemently. + +"Dora means that one of us ought to stay at home to set your cap right," +said Annie brusquely. + +It sounded an inopportune jest, positively unfeeling. The truth was +Annie still laboured under the common youthful necessity to hide her +deeper feelings, an obligation made up of a touch of hysterical +excitement, pride, shyness, and possibly the unsubdued buoyance of +two-and-twenty years. The last is apt to rebound swiftly, with a mixture +of cheerfulness and defiance from any sorrow, short of the one sorrow +which cannot be trampled down or made light of, that has its root in a +grave. Annie must find something to laugh at, to get fun out of, in the +tribulation which she nevertheless felt in every nerve of her body, to +the core of her heart. + +"I ought to be able to keep my cap straight," said poor Mrs. Millar very +literally and meekly, looking a little puzzled by Annie's ill-timed +nonsense, and apparent hardness. "I daresay I should pin it, but the +pins drag my hair so and hurt me." + +"Never think of it, mother," said mild Dora indignantly, looking daggers +at Annie. + +"Of course I did not mean that, mother. I was not in earnest," Annie +made the penitent amendment. + +"You are right to make the best of things," said Mrs. Millar, giving a +little shivering sigh on her own account. "It is the will of Providence. +We are in God's hands, poor Mr. Carey and all of us, as we were a year +ago--twenty years ago when you two were babies." + +They were simple truisms which she uttered, but they were honest words, +which meant a great deal to her. They borrowed impressiveness from the +truthfulness of the speaker, in addition to the truth of the sayings, +and by force of sympathy told on the listening girls, quieting and +controlling them. + +"Poor Mr. Carey as you say, mother," Annie caught up the words. "Well, I +suppose the Careys will be in a far worse plight than we can be, and +Cyril has been such a fool, though I don't suppose he meant much harm, +with his dandyisms and idleness and his college airs--all that he has +brought back from college." + +"Hush! child," exclaimed the elder, more tolerant woman. "He has been a +silly, selfish lad, but as he will know it now, to his cost, I do not +like to hear you casting it in his teeth to-day. Perhaps it will steady +him, and then this misfortune will be a blessing so far as he is +concerned." + +"Rather hard that we should all be sacrificed to prop up Cyril's weak +moral nature," muttered Annie. + +"And the Russells," suggested Dora. "I have heard Colonel Russell +speaking to father, as if he and the Rector also had to do with the +bank. Oh! there is Ned Hewett, who has not passed his Cambridge +examination any more than Cyril Carey. Not that it has been Ned's fault, +or that he goes in for nothing save amusement, only he is so slow over +his books, poor fellow! He will grudge his father's having spent money +over him to no purpose more than ever now; and Lucy and Bell will be +sorry for him--they are so fond of Ned." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +PROMOTION. + + +At that moment a rush was heard on the stairs, and Rose and May burst +into their mother's room, Rose at the last moment bethinking herself +that she had left school, accordingly she must be grown up, or on the +brink of it, if Annie would but allow it, and therefore trying to +moderate the headlong pace, which would have better become a troop of +boys than a pair of girls. + +"Little May," who, in spite of her height, was still in frocks an inch +from the ground, was not troubled by any such scruples. She scampered up +to her mother, and hailed her breathlessly--"Mother, we want you to let +us--Rose and me--go with Ella and Phyllis Carey a walk to the Beeches. +Ella says she saw some periwinkles and young ferns there, and we need, +oh! ever so many fresh roots for the rockery. We should have gone +without coming home to tell you, because you wouldn't mind, but we might +have kept tea waiting, and we'll be horribly late. Besides, we are not +coming home for tea; Ella and Phyllis say we must go up with them to the +Bank House." + +"No, no, my dears, you can't do that," said Mrs. Millar, hurriedly but +decidedly. "I am sorry that you should be disappointed, but you must not +think of such a thing. Ella and Phyllis don't understand--don't +know--that their mother is particularly engaged this afternoon. She will +not wish to have people in the house, not even in the schoolroom." + +Rose and May looked in wonder at their mother, discomposed enough in her +own person, sitting leaning back in her chair doing nothing; she whose +motherly hands were wont to be busy with some little bit of sewing or +knitting. + +Annie, too, was sitting idle at a short distance, with her hat thrown on +the bed, but still wearing her jacket; and Dora, in her walking dress, +was standing like a lady-in-waiting, or a sentry, behind Mrs. Millar's +chair. + +Annie and Dora remained silent, looking at the intruders in a peculiar +manner. At the same time the first pair did not tell the second more or +less curtly, as the elder girls had been in the habit of doing not so +very long ago, to go away and leave grown-up people to finish important +discussions in peace. + +What other new thing could have come about? Was there a fresh wooer in +the field, a second offer of marriage to be laid at reluctant feet? Was +it Annie, their beauty, who was in request this time? Who was the lover? +not Cyril Carey, with his plush waistcoat and gold chains and odious +snuff-box? He had no means of keeping a wife, unless his father took him +into partnership in the bank, and their father would not hear of Cyril; +besides, Annie held him in supreme disdain. She had more patience with +Tom Robinson and "the shop" than with the nineteenth century dandy, whom +she pronounced a mistaken revival of one of the many curiosities of +Queen Anne's reign. + +But Rose and May had no certainty that Annie was the object of pursuit. +She was pretty enough, they had all pinned their faith to her beauty, +yet already Dora had been preferred before her, though it was only by +the head of "Robinson's." Was it possible that now it might be Rose, +unsuspecting, unconsulted? Could her own mother and sisters be so unfair +as to arrogate to themselves the settlement of her affairs without her +consent or knowledge, without so much as admitting her into the +conclave? + +Annie took the initiative, she was sufficiently quick to see both behind +and before her. She had a head for directing and managing which her +mother did not possess. + +"Mother, don't you see they had better be told at once?" she said, with +the aplomb of a girl who, however young and irresponsible, is capable of +arriving at independent conclusions and reversing existing conditions. +"They are, as Rose says, all but grown up; indeed not so very much +younger than Dora and I. I think Rose and May are entitled to be told." + +Annie was proceeding to act upon the permission implied in her mother's +nod. She was not without some small sense of personal importance in +being the mouthpiece which was to announce the calamity to her younger +sisters. She did it in a very different fashion from that in which their +mother had broken the news to her and Dora. + +"What we are going to speak to you about is not a thing that can be long +concealed. It will not be a secret for more than a few days, if for so +long. But that does not mean that you are not to shut this room door +which you have left wide open. Thanks, May. Don't bang it! You are not +to show that you know what is going to happen. And, after it has +happened, you are not to chatter about it before the servants or to your +companions. We are trusting you because you have almost come to the +years of discretion, and ought to have a notion how to behave under the +circumstances." + +"Well, this is too bad of you, Annie!" cried Rose, showing instant +symptoms of revolt. "What have May and I done that we should be spoken +to as if we were a pair of tell-tales, or babies--and geese into the +bargain? Dora and you are not so much older, as you confess; neither are +you so much wiser with all your pretensions. If something of so much +consequence to everybody is on the eve of happening, I think we might +have been told before. Surely mother is not afraid that we should repeat +anything which we ought not to mention," and she glanced with burning +reproach at her mother. + +Rose was both high-spirited and touchy. She was not disposed to play the +second part without a murmur like Dora. She was not content, with her +art as a balance to Annie's beauty and May's budding scholarship. Rose +desired everybody to acknowledge her mother-wit and trustworthiness. + +Dora and Mrs. Millar spoke together in reply. "Mother only told Annie +and me this afternoon," said the general peacemaker. + +"It was not such a pleasant piece of information for me to give, or you +to receive, child, that you and May should grudge my keeping it from you +as long as I could, as I dared," was the mother's weary reply. "Besides, +your father did not wish it spoken about before; it would have been +wrong, a great risk to many others as well as to ourselves, to have +mentioned such a thing." + +"Then don't tell us now if you don't care to, mother, and if father +disapproves of our hearing it," said Rose magnanimously, for she was +dying to be at the bottom of the mystery. + +"No, don't, mother dear, please don't, if it will hurt you," said May +affectionately, with something of a childish ring in her voice. Her +mother took her hand at the words and clasped it tightly. + +"Mother has made up her mind and father has given her leave to speak," +said Annie with determination, "because you must hear soon anyhow. There +is something wrong with the bank, Mr. Carey's bank. We have all, even +May, read and heard of bank failures, and have some idea how disastrous +they are." + +"The Carey's bank!" cried Rose, with sufficient intelligence in her +astonishment. "I understand now why we were not to go home with Ella and +Phyllis." + +"Then somebody must run over and tell them that we are not coming," +interrupted May. "Do let Bella take the message, mother, in case I +should look as if I knew something. Poor Mr. Carey! he was always so +kind to us. I am so sorry; but the bank has not anything to do with us; +father is not the banker, he is just a doctor like grandfather," ended +May composedly. + +"O May, you are a baby, though you read the Greek Testament and have +something to say to Tacitus in the original," exclaimed Annie +indignantly. + +"Your father has shares in the bank, my dear," explained her mother with +patient reiteration. "He bought them with his savings, and he will get +nothing for them. Nobody will buy them from him again, they will be no +better than waste paper. But that is not the worst. The shares make him +responsible for the bank's debts--I am sure I cannot tell you how far; +he told me, I daresay, but I was so grieved for him and for all of you, +and so confused, I could not take it in. But he says that what he will +have to pay up will be as much as he can do, with a hard fight, for the +rest of his days." + +"I am so sorry for father," murmured May in an awed tone, but with a +little of a parrot note, just as she had pitied Mr. Carey, who was only +an old acquaintance and the father of her friends. The fact was that the +young girl, brought away suddenly from her girlish interests and her +whole past experience, and plunged into the cares of older people, was +thoroughly staggered and bewildered, in spite of a small head which was +capable of construing Latin and conjugating Greek. + +There was a moment's pause. "Will it make a great difference to father +and the rest of us?" asked Rose, in spite of her quickness, and in spite +of what her mother had said. + +"Certainly," Annie took it upon her to answer, with a mixture of fire +and conviction, "we'll all have to earn our living." + +"Oh, don't make such sweeping statements, Annie, frightening your +sisters," said their mother reproachfully; and unquestionably May looked +scared, and dropped her gloves without noticing it. "You must do what +you can to help your poor dear father, and I am sure you'll do that +willingly, but so long as he is spared to work for all of us----" She +stopped short, unable to say any more. + +Then her daughters closed round her, from the youngest to the eldest, +and told her in concert that she was not to be concerned for them. They +were ready for the occasion and equal to it, and they would not mind in +the very least. + +"Mind!" declared Rose, with her eyes beginning to shine and her cheeks +to flush like Annie's. "Why, it is the one great comfort that we'll have +to make our way in the world, and push our fortunes like boys. We'll +have plenty of adventures and rise triumphant over them all, and be such +a help to you and father. Think of that, May, you little coward," +appealing to her younger sister who, in spite of her small dabbling in +masculine acquirements, did not look as if the prospect of pushing her +fortune like a boy was full of unmixed charm for her. But she +brightened up at the visionary honour and delight of being a great help +to their father and mother, and cried, "Yes, yes, Rose," with subdued +enthusiasm. + +Dora also echoed the "yes" with a quiet intensity. + +Annie, on her part, graciously approved of her juniors, and rewarded +them by patronizing them tremendously. + +"That is right. I don't very well know yet what Dora and I can do, but +we'll find something. However, you two young ones are the geniuses of +the family, and we'll look to you. I suspect Dora and I will have to +march under your wings. You, Rose, must be quick and paint Academy +pictures, get them hung on the line, and have them sold before the +opening day. May must pass all her examinations in no time, gain a +scholarship, and be appointed classical mistress to a Girls' Day-school, +of which she will eventually become the head. Fancy 'little May' a +full-blown school ma'am." + +"Dear! what creatures girls are! They are jesting and laughing already +over their own and other people's misfortunes. It is little they know of +life, it is little they guess what will befall them," sighed Mrs. Millar +to herself. Nevertheless, in the middle of her anxiety and sorrow, she +was in some respects a happy woman, and she had a dim but consoling +perception of the truth. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE CLOUD DEEPENS. + + +The storm burst, but the cloud did not disperse, it only closed in more +darkly over Redcross. At the same time, as the bank authorities had +foreseen, there was little or nothing of the wild, panic-stricken run on +the capital which heralds and intensifies many a bank's fall. The losers +went about their ordinary occupations. The Rector preached, presided +over meetings of the vestry and Christian Associations, and attended to +his sick. Doctor Millar looked after his sick. Colonel Russell even went +to the Literary Institute and read the newspapers as usual. Every one of +them wore his customary face, however abnormal the working of his heart. +The Redcross victims, and many another innocent man besides, behaved +like gentlemen, Englishmen, and Christians. There was neither outward +fuss nor fury. + +The individual who came nearest to breaking down was naturally Mr. +Carey. The very forbearance with which he was treated cut to the quick +the honest man who had been the tool of fools and knaves, brazening out +their share of the business and contriving to escape with the least +damage of anybody. They had been impecunious, trading upon other +people's funds to begin with, and Carey's Bank's failure only left them +where they were originally, under circumstances in which no reasonable +person would expect redress from them. But poor James Carey, who had +been credulous and weak, was made of other stuff. + +"I'm not easy about Carey," the little doctor confided to his wife. "He +was talking quite in a stupid, dazed way to Russell and me this morning. +Do you observe his eyes? Have you noticed the veins on his forehead and +his throat? I'm far from comfortable about him." (As if he felt +comfortable about anything at this period!) "I question much whether +he'll ever get over it." + +The public of Redcross, who could remark the glassy look of the eyes, +though they might not be qualified to speak of the condition of the +veins, were still more struck by the immediate and melancholy effect the +bank's failure had on Mr. Carey, when their attention was drawn to Mrs. +Carey's behaviour. She was a woman who had seldom left her house save +for her daily drive, now she walked out with her husband every fine +afternoon. Her arm was drawn through his; but it was evident at the +merest glance that she was supporting his failing steps and not he hers. +She was a little, thin, somewhat wizened woman, but she looked equal to +the task she had set herself, if a strong will would do it. There was a +peculiarity to be seen in her eyes too, by those who could read the +sign. It was a fixed desperate determination to keep her husband and the +father of her children by sustaining his weakness with her strength, to +fight and vanquish the enemy whose icy touch was already on his heart +and brain. + +But although there was little outward demonstration in Redcross, much +inner ferment and growing concern prevailed beneath the surface in what +had been considered the principal houses in Redcross--houses safe and +sure as they were honourable in their ascendancy in the past. After the +affairs of the bank were in the hands of liquidators, and it became +clear that the ruin was great and complete, hope had hardly a hole or +corner left to linger in, even in the hearts of the most simple and +sanguine. The impending changes which must follow became the talk of the +town, extending to circles far beyond that on which the blow had fallen. +Within the narrower limits, the anxious question what was to be done +became the one engrossing, breathless subject of the hour. + +Some of the reforms and retrenchments were marked by the spasmodic haste +and severity which are apt to defeat themselves. These formed pendants +to the spurts of grovelling distrust and quaking care for one's own +welfare which caused Wilkins the butcher to send in his quarter's bill +before it was due to Colonel Russell, and have the debt discharged +within the hour. In like manner, Honeyman the grocer felt bound +delicately to intimate to the Careys that he declined to give the family +more than a week's credit. He was answered in a formally polite note +from Mrs. Carey to the effect that she had not intended to ask for any +longer credit thenceforth, but from that date she would pay ready money. +These offensively defensive acts and vulgar tokens that times were +changed got wind, and were discussed in awed, indignant whispers by the +mass of Wilkins's and Honeyman's fellow-townsmen. + +There was little need to remind the poor Careys of their altered +circumstances, since it was in the Bank House that some of the spasmodic +sweeping reforms referred to had at once been practised by Mrs. Carey. +She had always been the ruling spirit in the house, and people now said +openly that it would have been well for everybody if she had been the +ruling spirit in the bank also. She was a woman with locally +aristocratic connections, of a more tangible kind than what constituted +the Millars' shadowy link with the county. Her brother was Sir Charles +Luxmore of Headley Grange, and her nephew had allied himself to the +peerage by marrying an Honourable Victoria Brackenridge. All the greater +the glaring recklessness and insolence of Honeyman to take the word into +his own mouth and refuse the Careys credit. At the same time Sir +Charles's place was nearer the town of Nenthorn than that of Redcross, +and he did not deal with Redcross tradesmen unless at election times. As +for his daughter-in-law, the Honourable Victoria, she came so seldom to +see her aunt-in-law that her face could not be said to be known in +Redcross streets, where she never entered even the "fancy shop" which +the other county ladies patronized occasionally in search of missing +shades of silks or wools. + +Mrs. Carey had stooped considerably when she became the wife of Mr. +Carey of the bank, though the bank was nominally his own, and the Careys +were a highly respectable family of old standing in Redcross. When it +came to that, there had only been two generations of the Luxmores at +Headley Grange, and the original baronet's rise to the honours of +knighthood and a baronetage was due to his success and favour in high +places as a fashionable physician. Mrs. Carey had not been very young +at the date of her marriage, and her fortune was moderate enough, for +the moneyed strength of her grandfather and father had gone to found a +family and support a baronetage. Still, she had been accustomed to carry +herself, after she became Mrs. Carey, not in an obtrusive and offensive +manner, but in a quiet, well-bred way, as one who had been undeniably +better born and bred than her neighbours. Indeed, under any +circumstances she would have been a reserved woman, who would, in homely +parlance, have kept herself to herself. + +This was the woman who, with an absence of any sense of proportion, and +an equal lack of humour, sometimes to be found in women of her class and +character, together with an excess of mingled fiery zeal and feverish +apprehension, hidden under a quiet exterior, took her measures on the +very day after the bank's failure. These measures made a thorough +exposure of the conclusion which she had arrived at, and subjected +herself and the whole family to immediate privations, for which they +were unprepared. They were injurious as well as useless and uncalled +for, and had a ludicrous side. Acting for Mr. Carey, she dismissed the +coachman and the gardener, paying them their month's wages which were +unearned. She let the valuable horses take their chance of casual +grooming and feeding, till they were sold off. She left the garden at +the most critical time of the year, as the old gardener said with tears +in his eyes, when the young vegetables were only coming into use, and +the whole fruit would be lost unless it were properly seen to. The wood +pigeons would have all the later seeds springing in the beds, and the +place on which he had bestowed so much time and labour would lie waste, +instead of providing a considerable part of the food of the household in +summer and autumn. "But there was never no sense in them ladies like +missus, no more in their sparing than in their spending." At one fell +swoop she dismissed her own maid, the cook, and the parlour-maid, +retaining only a young table-maid to "do" for the family. + +Mrs. Carey had hitherto been an indulgent mother, but all at once she +told the scandalized university dandy and failure, Cyril, that he must +brush his own boots and help his schoolboy brothers to clean the knives, +if he were not satisfied with what a maid-of-all-work could accomplish +in these departments. + +As for Ella and Phyllis, looking on aghast at the wholesale destruction +of what they had been accustomed to consider the ordinary comforts--not +to say the luxuries and refinements of their home--the girls were +informed that they were not to go back to Miss Burridge's, where their +quarters were paid in advance. The younger brothers might continue at +the Grammar School, because the fees were low; they would be kept out of +harm, and they could do nothing else to speak of. But Ella and Phyllis +had better lose no time in learning to make beds, sweep floors, and lay +tables. "For myself, I have your father to see to," said Mrs. Carey in +her somewhat deep and strong voice, the measured steadiness of which had +acquired a ringing vibration. "I do not mean to conceal from you that +Dr. Millar is apprehensive on your father's account, and I intend to +devote myself to him. We must pull him through and save him at any cost, +though his health and nerves may be shattered from this date, and he may +never be able to retrieve his losses and those of other people, which, +of course, press most heavily upon him. We can try at least for the +credit as well as the life which is so dear to us, and never have it +said for his sake, still more than for ours, that he was blind and +imposed upon, and then let himself slip out of the misery which he had +helped to bring about, while others who were not accountable were +condemned to pay the penalty." + +Mrs. Carey would fain not have touched a farthing of the income allowed +the family till the bank's affairs were wound up--that winding-up which +Dr. Millar said might last throughout his life. She would willingly +have resigned the bulk of her small fortune in favour of the bank's +creditors, but marriage settlements and trustees are stubborn facts to +deal with. All she could do was to stint and punish herself and her +family in the manner described, and inasmuch as the stinting and +punishment were done in good faith, doubtless they would serve their +purpose and have their reward. + +The Rector was a widower. Hitherto he had kept an efficient housekeeper +and chaperon for his daughters, the elder of whom must now take the +housekeeper's place. He, too, put down what had served him for a +carriage. It was remarkable how uniformly the first idea of retrenchment +took this form in Redcross, but it was natural under the circumstances. +It was difficult to say at once what was to be cut down from a not very +extensive list of supernumeraries, unless one was prepared to make a +clean sweep like Mrs. Carey. The Rector had been simple enough in his +tastes and habits. He was a member of the Church of England Temperance +Society, and so had no valuable cellar of wine to dispose of. He did not +possess more silver plate than was wanted for the Rectory table. His +library contained no rare and costly books. The very carriage in +question was no more than one of those pony-phaetons with regard to +which Bishop Pattison appealed, in one of his letters from Melanesia to +his brethren in peaceful, pleasant country rectories and vicarages at +home, asking the astonished clergymen, with their clergywomen in the +background, if they really considered the clerical equipage, with its +modest expense, equivalent to a divine institution? The Rector proved +his freedom from the superstition by doing away with the phaeton and its +pair, and falling back, as he was a spare man, on an old pony which the +children had ridden by turns. Though he was not a book fancier, he had +entertained a fondness for art, and since he could not indulge in much +picture buying, had dabbled in old prints, of which he had rather a fine +collection. This all at once vanished along with the phaeton. + +Bell Hewett, the second daughter, who was several years younger than her +sister Lucy, but had left Miss Burridge's some time before, and was as +far removed from a school-girl as Annie Millar herself, unexpectedly +appeared again on the familiar benches. She was not there as a junior +governess, she was not sufficiently clever or educated, since Miss +Burridge sought to work up to the new standards. Poor Bell was in her +old place, in her old classes, as a pupil once more, only she sat +looking deeply affronted, and nervously trying to make up for lost time, +among a set of young girls like May Millar. + +There was not much difference made in Colonel Russell's establishment. +But this was caused by one of two things. There was the probability of +the establishment's soon being broken up, if its master succeeded in +getting a post which should enable him to return to India. On the other +hand, the second Mrs. Russell was too foolish and self-willed to +comprehend without a prolonged struggle how she and her babies could get +along unless they were fortified by every imaginable aid in the shape of +an expensive table, fine clothes, a couple of under nurses, and a boy in +buttons. Fanny Russell, the Colonel's grown-up daughter by his first +wife, looked sad enough over the prospect of her father's departure at +his age, with his shattered constitution, and over what was to become of +herself, left behind with the frivolous, unreasonable young stepmother +with whom Fanny had never been able to agree. + +The Millars were still in the old quaintly spacious house with its great +bowery garden, for the plausible reason that Dr. Millar could not, on +the spur of the moment, find a purchaser or an available tenant. He took +some credit to himself for having more breadth of view and controlling +common sense than poor Mrs. Carey, otherwise he might have rushed off +and crammed his family into a small inconvenient house, for which, at +the same time, he would have had to pay rent, that was not called for, +unless in the form of rates and taxes, where his old house was +concerned. There might be something to say on the other side of the +question, but as yet that had not occurred to Dr. and Mrs. Millar. +However, the Doctor's brougham, like the Rector's phaeton, was a thing +of the past. He trudged manfully on foot to his patients. There are few +evils which do not offer some compensations. It really seemed as if the +Doctor's deprivation, which weighed heavily on his wife's mind, served +to divert it from other trials, by the degree to which it was occupied +in looking after her husband's changes of coats and boots, in order to +ward off evil consequences to his health. + +The four girls were so engrossed with what had happened and was going to +happen to them from the failure of Mr. Carey's bank, that they had +largely lost sight of the first wooer in the family. This was strong +evidence of the extent to which their minds were filled by the rapid +descent of what they called poverty on themselves and their neighbours. +Rose and May ceased to have qualms of conscience when they caught sight +of Tom Robinson fishing in the Dewes, not knowing what desperate +promptings of despair might not suddenly lay hold of a rejected and +forlorn lover. They left off glancing covertly at him in his pew at +church, for the purpose of detecting the earliest symptoms of a broken +heart and a galloping consumption. Instead they speculated on whether +Bell Hewett would have had a new hat if it had not been for the bank's +failure; and whether her brother's absence from home was owing to his +having gone to London for the first look at the columns of the +advertising newspapers, and that he might be on the spot to apply in +person at the addresses given, and to haunt the agency offices, as young +men are represented doing in novels. + +Inevitably Tom Robinson's recent intercourse with the family had been +confined to a formal call or two, awkward and unpleasant to all +concerned. Only Dr. Millar brought him into the conversation +occasionally, dealing with his name in the spirit of a faithful +partisan. "That good fellow Robinson did not draw out a farthing of his +deposit at the bank after disquieting rumours must have reached him. +Carey tells me that Robinson, in place of seeking to be reassured, did +his best to reassure him, Carey; told him never to mind him, he could +lie out of the money; he was willing to let others who had more need be +paid first. Ah! well, it is good to have it in your power to be both +just and generous, and it is still better to have a heart to use the +power. Robinson has acted handsomely throughout, in short, like the +gentleman he is. I wonder if his behaviour on this occasion will weigh +with snobs against the iniquity of his having a shop. I thought +Thackeray had done something to demolish similar rubbish when he +described the young cads who gave the schoolboy Dobbin the nickname +'Figs.'" + +The speaker was guilty of glaring rather fiercely at his daughters, +assembled for afternoon tea. They became eminently innocent and +meek-looking on the instant, but when the sisterhood were left to +themselves Annie delivered her opinion with admirable fairness and +candour. + +"I am sure I am glad that Tom Robinson should behave himself like a +gentleman, but that does not make his trade a profession fit for a +gentleman, neither does it render the man, with his lack of ambition and +his commonplaceness and dulness, an interesting specimen of humanity." + +"Not a man that a woman would care to die for," said Rose, wrinkling her +forehead and crumpling up her nose till her face was half its natural +length. "Oh, I say, think of any woman being so infatuated as to be +willing to die for an insignificant, foxy-headed, well-bred shopkeeper!" + +"Don't be slangy, Rose," Annie rebuked her sister. + +"Still I am very glad," said Dora's soft voice quite distinctly, and +while she blushed furiously she reared her little neck with an +unconscious gesture. It said plainly, "Yes, I am glad that the man who +sought me for his wife has shown himself liberal and merciful, so that I +can always think of him and his wishes with respect and gratitude." + +"And so am I glad," agreed May warmly. "It is so nice that 'Robinson's' +has not made its master grasping and greedy." + +"I don't know that rapacity is confined to trade," admitted Annie. "You +ought to know, May, for you have a good deal of intercourse with royalty +in your reading; but I have a notion that it has been the distinguishing +characteristic of a good many kings and emperors." + +Annie and Rose had grown more and more eager to take up their burdens +from the first day they were aware that there were burdens for them to +take up. They were becoming positively enamoured of pushing their +fortunes and encountering adventures--not in the least understanding, in +spite of their bright wits, what the burdens, fortunes, adventures might +mean. The two sisters' enthusiasm was just kept within bounds by two +drags on its quicksilver quality. These laggard spirits, Dora and May, +weighed upon their more enterprising companions. Neither could Annie and +Rose quite shut their eyes to the increase of wrinkles on their father's +face, and to their mother's red eyes when she came down of a morning. +If it had not been for these small drawbacks, it is to be feared that +Annie and Rose would have arrived at such a height of _tete exaltee_ +that they would have begun to rejoice in their own and their neighbours' +misfortunes. There was something so fresh and exciting in looking about +for openings and careers, in calculating how they were to earn their +bread--which would taste so sweet to those who earned it--and at the +same time save money. They were not quite so insane as to propose to +amass fortunes and fling them into the gulf caused by the crumbling away +of the late bank in order to redeem their father's pledge as a +shareholder. But surely in the course of a year or two they might help +him, and generally assist in keeping the old folks at home in state and +bounty. + +Annie and Rose looked on working for themselves in a very different +light from that in which they regarded Tom Robinson's sticking to his +father's and grandfather's shop. To be sure, they did not start with any +intention of keeping shops. Even if they had done so, the descent might +have been redeemed by a dash of sentiment and romance which did not +apply in the least to a man with only himself to look to, a man of +independent means to boot, who had forgotten what was expected from a +gentleman. + +There was no danger of Dora or May's being infected with their sisters' +frame of mind. Dora and May were mortally ashamed of themselves. They +feared they were not of the stuff of which heroines--not to say +martyrs--were made. They looked back almost as fondly and sadly as their +mother looked on the old state of matters. They dreaded with a shrinking +terror going away from home, leaving their people, facing the cold, +critical world, being left to their own slender resources. It was bad +enough in Dora, but it was really dreadfully disappointing in May, with +her youthful learning, to have so little spirit and courage; still so it +was, and in the meantime there was no help for it. Dora might have been +glad for purely personal reasons to get away from Redcross for a time; +but she was not thrown into Tom Robinson's company, and the fact of his +refusal had been kept so quiet by the Millars that, unless he himself +betrayed it, which was not likely, the greatest gossip in the place +could only suspect the truth. + +It was a small comfort to the unheroic pair, and perhaps to Annie and +Rose also, though they did not consciously take it into account, that +all the older professional men in the town, the leaders and those who +were on most intimate terms, were "in the same boat," as Dr. Millar had +said. But there was a family named Dyer lately settled at Redcross, a +semi-retired stockbroker, with his wife and daughters, who had come from +London to occupy Redcross Manor-house--naturally they had nothing to do +with Carey's Bank, and were still supposed to be rolling in wealth, as +they had been reported from the first. However, there was a notion that +the Dyers' riches had not been acquired in any very refined fashion. +Cyril Carey had always insisted, as he settled his collar and twirled +his cane, that stockbroker was simply pawnbroker writ large. Anyhow the +Dyers were not so distinguished in mind and manners as they were +wealthy. Old conservative folks sighed at the idea of Redcross +Manor-house, which had belonged to the Cliftons from time immemorial, +till the last Clifton fell into the hands of the Jews before he was +twenty, and was driven to break the entail by the time he was forty, +passing to a family of Dyers. The best that could be said of them was, +that the old people were comparatively inoffensive and the young were +presentable. They were inclined to be friendly with the town--it might +be till they could secure a footing with the county people, if that were +possible. They dressed well, thanks to their milliners and dressmakers, +kept a good table, a good stable, and a good staff of domestics, and +furnished Redcross--especially young Redcross--with country-house +hospitalities and gay gatherings, which they would otherwise have +lacked. Yet fanatics of young people like Annie and Rose Millar, who +were persuaded that they were now well acquainted with a reverse of +fortune, began to behave as if they considered it was no longer the +_creme de la creme_ of human experience to amass and retain a fortune. +They began to pity the rampantly prosperous family for the lack on their +part of any knowledge of life's vicissitudes, with their trumpet call to +earnest effort and supreme self-devotion--all that makes man or woman +worthy of the name. As for the younger Dyers, they were content to echo +the sentiments of their mouthpiece, the head of their house. He spoke in +the privacy of his family with a half-affable, half-contemptuous concern +for those unfortunate beggars of uppish Redcross townspeople who had all +come to smash by the failure of one paltry twopenny-halfpenny local +bank. + +The Millars were constantly hearing of fresh examples of hardship, and +courage to meet the hardship, piquing and inciting them to enterprise +and self-sacrifice on their own account. Now it would be May, who would +come in from Miss Burridge's with a blanched face, crying, "Oh! you +girls, do you know Ella Carey has gone and is not coming back again? +Phyllis is crying her eyes out, because she and Ella were never +separated before. No, Ella has not gone to be a lady-help, as she +thought she might do, after she had got a little more practice in +washing dishes and peeling potatoes. It is nothing bad, except that she +is gone for good and all, and it has been so sudden. And Mrs. Carey says +Ella is not to come back. One of her sisters, the one without children, +Mrs. Tyrrel, wrote and offered to take either of the girls. And what do +you think Mrs. Carey said? That Ella must go, because if she went there +would be a mouth less to feed. She was sorry, because she said it was +giving up Ella, and she told her she must not expect to have much more +to do with Phyllis and the rest of them at home, for it would be out of +the question, in the different circumstances of the Tyrrels and Careys, +for them to carry on frequent or intimate intercourse. Ella would have +refused if she had dared, for she is so fond of Phyllis and all of them, +even of her mother, though she has grown very hard since the bank +failed. She used to let the girls have their own way. Don't you +remember, Rose, she allowed us to dress up for charades out of her +wardrobe? Why, you once wore her wedding-gown pinned up round you. But +Mrs. Carey would not give Ella any choice. She repeated that there would +be one mouth the less to feed. She said Ella was the elder, and it was +her duty to her father and his creditors to go. So all poor Ella's +things were sought out and packed up last night--the letter only came +yesterday. She has had no time to bid Rose and me, or any of her other +friends, good-bye. She started with Cyril early this morning, and I +don't know what Phyllis will do without her." + +"She must do the best she can," said Annie promptly, "and occupy herself +with something better than gossiping with you when she chances to meet +you coming from school. I suppose that was the manner in which you heard +all this; I don't think Mrs. Carey will approve of such a waste of +time." + +"But, Annie," pled May, with her dark eyes ready to brim over, "poor +Phyllis has only me now, and she has a great many messages to go, +because their single servant has so much work to do in the house that +she cannot get out marketing. Mrs. Carey is always walking or sitting +with Mr. Carey. If it were not so, Phyllis is sure that her mother would +go out and not mind taking the market-basket herself--a rough, heavy +market-basket. The Careys' servants used to complain because one of them +was expected to carry it in the mornings. Phyllis is glad to let me have +it sometimes, her arms get tired and ache so. You see Jack and Dick are +not often home from school in time, and then they have the boots and +knives to clean. Cyril would carry it for her after it was dark, but +Mrs. Carey won't let her go out then, and sends her off to bed that she +may get up earlier for what she has to do in the morning." + +That rough market-basket over which the Careys' former servants had +grumbled, was like a badge of honour in certain shining eyes--far more +so than Thirza Dyer's thoroughbred, or Camilla and Gussy Dyer's +exquisite hats and dainty parasols. Even Annie Millar was not too old or +too wise to refrain from wishing that Mrs. Millar, who still would not +let her daughters soil their fingers if she could help it, had sent them +out marketing in their native town, each in her turn flourishing a +market-basket. + +At another time it would be Rose who would arrive flushed and breathless +with the great piece of news that Ned Hewett had taken the post of +station-master at a small station somewhere on the Yorkshire moors. He +had done it when nothing else turned up, without waiting to consult his +father. But the Rector had not forbidden him when he heard. Steadiness +and punctuality had always been Ned's strong points, so that, though he +had not taken his degree at the university, and his old masters had said +they were not surprised to hear it, he might be trusted not to wreck +trains, slay their passengers, and find himself tried for manslaughter. +The difficulty was to fancy a big, slow fellow like Ned rushing here and +there in a noisy, fussy little station. After all, it would only be +noisy and fussy at long intervals, and on rare occasions, "somewhere on +the Yorkshire moors." Ned might have time and space to walk about in. +But what of the uniform? Would the poor boy--they had all known him as a +boy--who had once cherished the notion of going into the army, have to +wear a railway company's coat and a station-master's cap? How funny it +sounded! Well, not altogether funny. There were Dora and May crying at +the bare anticipation. If they were ever on the Yorkshire moors, and had +to greet Ned in this extraordinary guise, it would be awkward for all +parties, to say the least. What were they thinking of? Of course they +would be proud to greet him when he was twice the man that he had ever +been. No doubt Cyril Carey would be glad to have Ned's chance; Cyril, +who had renounced his delicate plush vests and Indian gold chains and +charms, his loitering and dawdling, and taken to a shabby shooting-suit +and spade-husbandry. He was getting rid of his time and keeping out of +his mother's way by digging aimlessly in the garden. He was inquiring, +in a desultory fashion, all over Redcross for any opening in an office +which he could fill. He was not likely to find such an opening unless +it were made for him out of charity. He had not been trained to office +work, and he was far from having Ned Hewett's reputation for steadiness +and punctuality. If Tom Robinson should be the charitable man and ask +Cyril, a schoolfellow and college chum, to help him with his accounts, +the head of "Robinson's" would have to be at the trouble of running up +every column of figures over again. Cyril might ride to hounds and row +in a boat-race with the best; he might even have some elegant +acquaintance with the renaissance and old French, and be capable of +distinguishing himself in stately Latin verse, though that sounded more +than doubtful when he had been plucked at his university--the +inhabitants of Redcross did not, as a rule, pretend to be judges in such +matters. What they did know, because it had oozed out some time before, +was that Cyril Carey, though a banker's son, was lamentably weak in +arithmetic, and his handwriting would have been held a disgrace to any +shop-boy. + +Money was required to start lads in the world in the humblest fashion. +Ned Hewett wanted an outfit, and if possible furniture for his +station-house, that he might not begin on credit. Even girls, though +they had been a good deal set aside in such consideration, could not +enter on an independent career without money any more than boys could. +The Millars were therefore thankful that Mrs. Millar had a little money +of her own, not above a hundred and fifty pounds a year, settled upon +her from the first, by one of those marriage contracts which are so hard +to break, and she could use it to supply what was needed for the girls, +who were going into the world with such dauntless spirits and light +hearts. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +ROSE GOES WEST AND ANNIE GOES EAST. + + +In the end it was settled, to Annie and Rose's great satisfaction, and +no less to the temporary relief of Dora and May's quaking hearts, that +the two former were to take the first plunge into unknown waters. If +things had been as they were formerly, and there had been leisure to +spare from rougher rubs for highly delicate considerations, it might, as +has been hinted, have been held that Dora should have been the sister +selected to go away from Redcross--at least for a time. + +But a great deal had happened since Tom Robinson's unsuccessful suit and +all connected with it had been in honour hushed up. People had too many +weighty matters to think of to keep in mind that small sentimental +episode between a couple of young people. + +Rose's fate was chalked out from the first. She was to be an +artist--that went without saying. She had certainly artistic talent, she +might have genius. But though she had been tolerably well trained so +far, by a good drawing-master at Miss Burridge's, and by the lessons she +had received from the wandering exhibitor at the Academy and the +Grosvenor, neither she nor her family could be sufficiently infatuated +to imagine she wanted no more teaching. Their conceptions of art might +be crude, and their faith in Rose unbounded, but they did not suppose +that she had only to open her portfolio and sell its contents as often +as it was full. Dr. and Mrs. Millar made up their minds, Rose agreeing +with them, that she should have at least a year in a London studio. + +All the three considered it very fortunate when the artist who had +given her lessons at Redcross, hearing of her intention, and of what +had rendered it incumbent on her to work for her living, not only +recommended a studio in which art classes were held, but good-naturedly +gave her a testimonial and helped her to a post as assistant +drawing-mistress in a ladies' school, a situation which she could fill +on two days of the week, while she attended the art classes on the +remaining four. The salary thus obtained was of the smallest, but it +would supplement Mrs. Millar's allowance to Rose, and help to pay her +board in some quiet, respectable family living midway between the +school and the studio. Rose was a lucky girl, and she thought herself +so. Indeed that minimum salary raised her to such a giddy pinnacle in +her own estimation that it nearly turned her head. It was only her +sisters, the wise Annie among them, who regarded the assistant +drawing-mistress-ship with impatience as a waste of Rose's valuable +time and remarkable talents. + +A qualification came soon to Rose's exultation and to her pride in being +the first of her father's daughters--and she the third in point of +age--who had just left school, and had hardly been reckoned grown-up by +Annie till quite lately--to earn real tangible money, gold guineas, +however few. For something better still befell Annie. If Rose was lucky, +Annie was luckier. True, she would never be a great artist, she would +never get hundreds and thousands for a picture. At the utmost she would +only be at the head of a charitable institution. She might save the +greater part of her income then, and hand it over to her father, but +that was a very different prospect from the other. Still, from the +beginning Annie would be, so to speak, self-supporting; she need not +cost her mother or anybody else a penny, her very dress would be +provided for her. Above all Annie was going to do a great deal of good, +to be a comfort and blessing, not only to her people, but to multitudes +besides. She was, please God, to help to lessen the great crushing mass +of pain and misery in the world, not by passive, sentimental sympathy, +not by little fitful, desultory doles of practical aid, but by the +constant daily work of her life. Young as Rose was, and enamoured of art +in her way, she was able to comprehend that if Annie could do that +worthy deed, her life would be greater in a sense, fuller in its +humanity, perhaps also sweeter than that of the most famous and +successful painter. + +Annie had always taken a lively interest in her father's profession, and +he had liked her to do so. He had been fond of talking to her about it, +and enlightening her on some of its leading principles. He had even +pressed her into his service in little things, and been gratified by the +hereditary firmness and lightness of grasp and touch, the control over +her own nerves and power of holding those of others in check, the quick +and correct faculty of observation she had displayed. But with all his +loyal allegiance to the calling which had been his father's before it +was his, which he would have liked to see his son fill, if a son had +been born to him, he was taken aback and well-nigh dismayed, as her +mother was, when Annie came and told them quietly that she had made up +her mind, if they would consent, to go into an hospital and be trained +for a nurse. He laid before her as calmly and clearly as he could the +conditions of the undertaking, and reminded her that it could not be +gone into by halves, while he thought, as he spoke, that Annie was not +the style of young woman to go into anything by halves. + +Mrs. Millar followed with a trembling recital of the painfulness, the +absolute horror to a young girl of many of the details of the office. +But Annie was not shaken in the least. "I should not mind that," she +asserted with conviction. "I know there must be strict discipline and +hard trying work, with no respite or relaxation to speak of; but I am +young and strong, fitter to stand such an ordeal than most girls of my +age are qualified. I am too young, you say? Yes, I admit that; it is a +pity--at least I know I have always reckoned myself too young when the +thought crossed my mind six months--a year ago, of leaving home and +becoming trained for a nurse." + +"You don't mean to say, Annie, that you ever thought of going out into +the world before our misfortunes in connection with the bank?" cried +both father and mother in one breath. + +Annie hung her shapely head a little, then held it up, and confessed +frankly, "Yes, I have. Oh, you must forgive me. It was not from any +failure of kindness on your part, or, I trust, any failure on mine to +appreciate your kindness, for I believe you are the best, dearest father +and mother in the world," she cried, carried out of herself, and +betrayed into enthusiasm. "But what were you to do with a houseful of +girls, when one would have served to give you all the help you need, +mother, in your housekeeping and the company you see? I _have_ hated the +idea of being of no use in the world, unless I chanced to marry," ended +Annie, with a quick, impatient sigh. + +"My dear, you are talking exaggerated nonsense." Mrs. Millar reproved +her daughter with unusual severity, dislodging her cap by the energy +of her remonstrance, so that Annie had to step forward promptly, +arrest it on its downward path, and set it straight before the +conversation went any further. "Nobody said such things when I was +young. I was one of a household of girls, far enough scattered now, +poor dears!"--parenthetically apostrophizing herself and her youthful +companions with unconscious pathos--"I would have liked to hear any +one say to us, or to our father and mother, that we were no good in +the world. I call it a positive sin in the young people of this +generation to be so restless and dissatisfied, and so ready to take +responsibilities upon themselves. It is a temptation of Providence to +send such calamities as the one we are suffering from. You will know +more about life when you are forced to work for yourself, and do not +set about it out of pure presumption and self-will, with a good home +to fall back upon when you are tired of your fad." + +Mrs. Millar had been hurt and mortified by Annie's avowal. She had been +further nettled by the slighting reflection on a houseful of girls, made +by one of themselves, while she, their mother, the author of their +being, poor unsophisticated woman! had always been proud of her band of +bright, fair young daughters, and felt consoled by their very number for +the lack of a son. + +"Come, come, mother," said Dr. Millar, "you must make allowance for the +march of ideas." + +"I cannot help it," said Annie, with another quick sigh. "I suppose +girls are not so easily satisfied as they once were, or they have been +taken so far, and not far enough, out of their place. I could not have +remained content with tennis-playing and skating, or _rechauffe_ school +music, French and German, or fancy work, however artistic--not even with +teaching once a week in the Rector's Sunday-school--for my object in +life. But after the way in which things have turned out, there is no +need to discuss former views. Mother dear, it is surely well that I had +not a hankering after idleness, after lying in bed half the forenoon, as +people say the Dyers do, getting up only to read the silliest and +fastest of novels, with secret aspirations after diamonds and a carriage +and pair, if not a coach and six. Of course I should not have been +contented with a one-horse shay, a mere doctor's pill-box, such as you +have put down, father, which Rose and May are determined to set up for +you again before they are many year's older." + +"Good little chits!" exclaimed the little Doctor, blowing his nose +suspiciously. "Tell them, Annie, that I like walking above all things. I +find it a great improvement on driving. I have been troubled with--let +me see, oh! yes, cold feet--a deficiency in the circulation, not at all +uncommon when one gets up in years, and after walking a bit I feel my +toes all tingling and as warm as a toast." + +"I should prefer nursing to any other mode of earning my living," said +Annie, keeping to her point. "I may be presumptuous, like the girls of +my day, as mother says, but I really think that I have a natural turn +for nursing, derived from you father, and grandfather, no doubt, which +might have made me also a good doctor supposing I had been a man, or +supposing I had sought from the first to be a medical woman and had been +educated accordingly. If I am wrong, you will set me right, won't you?" + +In place of contradicting her, he simply nodded in acquiescence, while +he linked his hands across the small of his back. + +"Mother, I do not think I should shrink from dressing wounds, if I only +knew the best thing to do to avoid danger and give relief. You remember +when Bella burnt her arm badly from the elbow to the wrist, I tied it up +to keep out the air, before father came in, and he said it was rightly +done, and would not change the dressing. And when poor Tim, who has lost +his place with the putting down of the brougham, gave his hand the +terrible hack with the axe in breaking wood for cook, I was able to stop +the loss of blood, and did not get in the least faint myself. Yes, I +know it would be very pitiful to see a human creature die whom we could +not save," she added, in a lower tone, "and very sad to prepare such a +one for the grave. But, dear mother, somebody has to do it at some time, +and I may be the somebody one day, anyhow I shall have to be indebted to +my neighbour to do the last charitable offices for me. It might be all +the easier to look forward to in my own case if I had done it for other +people, not merely because they were my own, just because they were +God's creatures, and He had set me, among other women, to do the +sorrowful work, and would lend me strength for the task." + +"I believe it, Annie," said Dr. Millar firmly, as he looked at the +reverently bent head, and listened to the faltering yet faithful words. + +Mrs. Millar said no more, though the poor lady still shivered, as she +looked at the girl in her brilliant youthful bloom. It was too terrible +to think of her associated with disease and death, she whom her father +and mother would have sheltered from every rough wind. Yet what was +pretty Annie in the ranks of humanity, in the march of history? The +frivolous product of a heathen world, the feminine counterpart of some + + "Idle singer of an empty day"? + +or-- + + "A creature breathing thoughtful breath, + A traveller 'twixt life and death"-- + +a Christian girl who with all true Christians had the Lord Christ, who +went about doing good, for an everlasting example? And had there not all +along been something fine in Annie, under her superficial hardness and +inclination to conceal her feelings, something which her family had not +suspected, brought to light by their troubles? something of which +everybody connected with her would be prouder in all humility, with +reason, in the days to come, than they had ever been proud of her +supreme prettiness and lively tongue in times past. + +"It is a pity about my age," went on Annie ingenuously, lamenting over +her deficiency in years as other people lament over their superfluity in +that respect, "but it is a fault which will mend every day. I have +found out that there are two hospitals which make twenty-three--just a +year older than I am--the age of admission for probationers, and there +is one hospital that admits them at twenty. Would not the fact of my +being a doctor's daughter go for something? Have you not interest, +father, if you care to exert it, to get the hospital authorities to +stretch a point where I am concerned? You might tell them that I am the +eldest of the family," drawing up her not very tall figure, "that I have +been treated as grown-up for years and years, and that I have several +younger sisters whom I have tried to keep in order." There was a +returning twinkle in Annie's brown eyes and a comical curve of her rosy +lips. + +But she relapsed into extreme gravity the next moment; indeed, she was +more agitated than she had yet been, and for Annie to betray an approach +to tearfulness was a rare spectacle. + +"There is something worse than my age. I am afraid I am not half good +enough. I have a hasty temper; you have frequently said so, mother. I +often speak sharply, and am not always aware when I am doing it. I hurt +people, as I hurt myself, without being able to help it--something seems +to come over me and impel me to do it. Often I cannot resist making game +of people. I am so silly and fond of fun, like a child, a great deal +worse than 'little May' ever is, when the fit is upon me. Now, if I +could think that I should lose patience with poor sick people, and wound +instead of comforting them, or that I should find them food for my love +of the ridiculous, and forget and neglect their wants in following my +own amusement, I should hate myself--I would die sooner than so disgrace +a nurse's calling." + +"You would not do it, my dear," said Dr. Millar, with calm conviction. + +"Why, what treason is this you are speaking against yourself?" cried +Mrs. Millar, bristling up in her daughter's defence, the assailant being +that daughter. "You unkind or unfeeling when there was any call for +kindness--whoever heard of such a thing? I should as soon suspect Dora +of harshness or levity in the same circumstances. Don't you remember my +bad eyes last winter, when I had to get that tincture dropped into them +so often that your father could not always be at home to do it? You +dropped the tincture as well as your father could, and though I know I +must have made faces wry enough to frighten a cat, you never vouchsafed +a remark, and I did not hear the ghost of a laugh. Poor Dora was ready +to read to me by the hour, and to fetch and carry for me all day long, +but when she tried to drop the tincture her hand shook so that she sent +the liquid down my cheeks; and she was so frightened for giving me pain +that I could see when I opened my eyes she was as white as a sheet, and +fit to faint herself." + +"Dora's hand will get steadier and her heart harder by and by," said Dr. +Millar, laughing. "Not that she has the knack of the operator, any more +than you have, Maria. I don't think one of you has it, except Annie +here." + +"That was nothing," said Annie quickly. She added in a lower tone, "And +oh, mother, how could you imagine that I should laugh at your pain?" + +"It was only for a moment, and I daresay it was not agonizing, as I was +tempted to call it; very likely your father and you would not have so +much as winced at it. Then there was Miss Sill, poor old Miss Sill. +Annie, I am afraid you girls laughed at her. Girls will be girls, and +she does dress outrageously. You all said her mantles were worse than my +cap," tenderly touching that untrustworthy piece of head-gear. "When she +sent for your father all of a sudden, just when he had been summoned to +Dr. Hewett's brother, who was very ill, as we knew, while we thought +Miss Sill had only one of her maiden-lady fancies, your father told you +to go over and say he would be with her in the course of the day. But +you found her nearly choking with bronchitis. How you were not +frightened out of your senses, I, who am a great deal more than twice +your age, and the mother of a family, cannot tell. You propped her up +in exactly the right position, saw to the temperature of the room, and +caused her cook to bring in the kitchen boiler and set it to steam on +the hob, before another doctor could be found. Miss Sill told me all +about it afterwards; she believes she owes her life to you." + +"Oh, nonsense," protested Annie, "I was a little better than her two +servants, who stood looking at her, and beginning to sob and cry; but I +made several gross mistakes. You told me about them afterwards, father; +it was a great mercy that I did not cause her death." + +"So far from that," continued Mrs. Millar, in triumphant defiance, "she +calls you her young doctor to this day, and says she will send for you +in preference to your father or any other doctor the next time she has +an attack." + +"Infatuated woman!" declared Annie. + +"I have not needed to talk to you in order to get you to go with your +sisters and see her since then. You have gone of your own accord twice +as often, and I am sure you have not laughed at her half so much. In +fact, I believe you are becoming quite attached to her." + +"I suppose I am grateful to her for not dying in my unskilled hands. I +am afraid I still think her rather fantastic and foolish; but it does +make a difference in one's judgment of a person to have really rendered +him or her a service. I ought to be fond of Miss Sill, after all, if she +is to rank as my first patient." + +Mrs. Millar sank into silence on the instant. She stood convicted in her +own eyes. What had she been doing? Proving to her daughter's +satisfaction that she had the special talents of a nurse! + +"I am very glad that mother and you think me--not by any means good +enough, of course, not that, but not too impatient, sarcastic, and +trifling to be a nurse," said Annie brightly, addressing her father, who +simply acquiesced in an absent-minded fashion. + +After that there was no serious objection made to Annie's wish, great as +the wonder was at first--a shock to her relations no less than to her +acquaintances. The former reconciled themselves sooner to it than did +the latter, with an entire faith in Annie and an affectionate admiration +which was genuine homage. It swelled Dora's heart well-nigh to bursting +with sister-worship. How good Annie was showing herself, how capable of +great acts of self-denial and self-consecration, while she was prettier +than ever with her graceful head, her merry brown eyes, and that soft, +warm colour of hers! + +Only Mrs. Millar lay awake at night and cried quietly over what lay +before her young daughter, her first-born, the flower of the flock, as +people had called her in reference to her beauty. Annie's pretty +Grand-aunt Penny had at least enjoyed her day; she had had her triumph, +however short-lived, in marrying the man of her heart, who was also a +Beauchamp of Waylands, and in being raised for even a brief space to the +charmed circle of the county. What she had to go through--whether she +would or not--in the end, was not worse than Annie was proposing to +encounter in the beginning, to live in an hospital, to spend her +blooming life amidst frightful accidents, raging fevers, the spasm of +agony replaced by the chill silence and stillness of death. Annie's +father's time and strength had been given in much the same cause, ever +since he was a young man passing his examinations and taking his +diploma. But he was a man, which changed the whole aspect of affairs; +besides he had always had a cheerful home to come back to, with the +command of all the social advantages which Redcross, his native town, +could afford. He had not lived among his patients with no life to speak +of separate from theirs. + +At the same time Mrs. Millar felt herself powerless. She dared no more +interfere to keep back Annie from her calling than a good Roman Catholic +mother would forbid her daughter's "vocation." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +STANDING AND WAITING. + + +It was all over in its earlier stages, that dividing and dispersing of +the goodly young group of sisters, that bereaving and impoverishing of +the abandoned home to which Dora and May had looked forward with such +fear and pain, for which all Dr. Millar's fortitude and all his wife's +meekness had been wanted to enable them to bear it with tolerable +calmness. It was only Annie and Rose doing what every young man, with +few exceptions, has to do. It was only their going away to work out +their bents in London. They had often gone from home and followed +various impulses and promptings before. But this was different. All who +were left behind had a sure intuition that this was the beginning of the +end, the sifting and scattering which every large family must undergo if +their time is to be long on earth. Annie and Rose might often come back +on visits. Rose might even set up a studio in Redcross and work there, +but it would not be the same. She would be an independent member of +society, with her own interests to think of--however faithfully and +affectionately she might still be concerned for the interests of +others--and her individual career to follow. Her separate existence +would no longer be merged in that of a band of sisters; it would stand +out clearly and distinctly far apart from the old state of tutelage and +subserviency of each unit to the mass. The lament of the tender old +Scotch song over the departing bride applied equally to Annie and Rose, +though there were no gallant "Jamies" to accuse of taking them "awa', +awa'." In the same manner it was not so much over the cause of their +going that Dora and May lamented, or the father and mother's hearts were +sorrowful, as + + "Just that they'd aye be awa', awa'." + +One day as May was coming back from school she met Tom Robinson, and he +stopped her to ask how the family were, and to tell her something. There +had always been less restraint in his and May's greetings than there had +been in those of the others since his dismissal as a suitor. There was +something in May's mingled studiousness and simplicity, and in the +strong dash of the child in her, which dissipated his shyness and +tickled his fancy. If matters had turned out otherwise than they had +done, he told himself vaguely, he and "little May" would have been a +pair of friends. He had no sister, and she had no brother, and he would +have liked to play the brother to this most artless of learned ladies. +"Look here, Miss May," he said, after the usual formulas, while he +turned and walked a few paces by her side, "do you remember the +fox-terrier puppy I was to have got for you and your sister Rose, in the +spring? Well, he died of distemper, poor little brute; but I have heard +of another of the same kind that has had the complaint. I could get him +for you if you cared to have him." + +"Oh! I am so much obliged to you, Mr. Robinson, so very much obliged," +cried May, beaming with gratitude and pleasure. "Rose and I did so wish +to have that dear little puppy which you brought down to show to us +once--don't you remember? and so it is dead, poor little pet; and Rose +has gone away to London to be regularly trained as an artist, just as +Annie is in St. Ebbe's learning to be a nurse. I suppose you have +heard," she ended a little solemnly. + +"Yes, I have heard--let me carry these books for you a bit--what is +there of Redcross news that one does not hear?" Then he paused abruptly, +while there darted simultaneously across his mind and May's whether his +speech did not sound as if he thought that Dora Millar's refusal of him +must be public property? "For that very reason," he went on with a +momentary shade of awkwardness, "I mean, because two of your sisters are +gone, I fancied you might like this other little dog to keep you +company." + +"I have Dora," said May simply, and then she dashed on in an unhappy +consciousness that she ought not to have mentioned Dora's name to him on +any account. "I should like it immensely though--thank you a hundred +thousand times, it was so good of you to think of me. But Rose could not +have it now, could she? and she wished it quite as much as I did. It +does not seem nice to have it when she is not here to share it," +finished May, with wistful jealousy for Rose's rights in the matter. + +"I do not see the force of that objection," said Tom Robinson, +cheerfully. "Rose has something else instead. She has all London to +occupy her. I am certain she would like you to make the best of Redcross +without her." + +"Yes, and of course the little dog would be half hers, the same as if +Rose were here. She would see it every time she came home. She might +have her turn of it at her studio, when she gets a studio. In the +meantime I could write full particulars of it, how it grew and what it +learnt. Oh, Mr. Robinson, has it white boots like the other you +brought?" + +"I am afraid I did not attend to his boots, or to his stockings either +for that matter," said Tom with a laugh; "but he has a coal-black +muzzle, his teeth are in perfect order, and I believe he has the correct +tan spots." + +"If mother would let us," said May longingly. "You know Rose and I had +not spoken to her about it; we were waiting for a good opportunity to +ask her, when you were so kind as to give us the chance of having the +other little dog. Mother seldom refuses us anything which she can let us +have, still Rose was not sure that mother would give her consent. You +see she is troubled about the stair-carpets and the drawing-room rugs, +and the garden-beds, and we were afraid she would think we should have +the dog with us everywhere." + +"Then it rested with yourself, I should say, to show her that you could +keep a dog in his proper place." + +"But I doubt if I could," said May candidly, shaking her head, with the +brown hair which had till recently hung loose on her shoulders, now +combed smoothly back, and twisted into as "grown-up" a twist as she +could accomplish the feat; while to keep the tucked-up hair in company, +her skirt was let down to the regulation length for young ladies. +"Indeed, I am almost certain I could not refuse anything to a dear +little dog coming to me and sitting up and begging for what he wanted. +What is more, if I could Dora couldn't." She could have bitten out her +tongue the next instant. What was she doing always speaking of Dora? +What would he think? That she was wilfully dragging her sister's name +into the conversation? And what had tempted her to say that Dora could +not refuse anything to a dog, when she had refused her heart in exchange +for his to the man walking beside May? + +He made no remark. If his mouth twitched a little in reproach or +sarcasm, she could not see it under his red moustache; besides, she +dared not look at him. + +"I wonder," continued Miss Malapropos, "how I could let you know what +mother thought." She never once suggested his bringing the dog for +inspection, as he had brought the other, or calling for her answer. + +"You might drop me a note," he said, stopping to give her back her +books, "and I hope for your sake that it may be favourable, for this is +a nice little dog, and I think you would like him." + +May went home more nearly on the wings of the wind than she had done +since Rose's departure, and presented her petition. Mrs. Millar could +not find it in her heart to refuse it, though the stair-carpet, the +drawing-room rugs, and the garden-beds were all to be sacrificed. + +"Poor little May! she misses Rose, though Dora and May have become great +friends of late. Dora is very good, and puts herself on an equality with +May, as Annie could not have done. Still, she does not rouse the child +as Rose roused her. What do you think, Jonathan? Would a little dog be +in your way? Would its barking disturb you?" Mrs. Millar appealed to her +husband. + +"Not in reason, Maria; not if it does not take to baying at the moon, +or yelping beyond bounds. Dora gives in too much to May, in place of +taking the child from her books, on which naturally she is inclined +to fall back. Dora has become her audience, and listens to her +performances--even aids and abets them. I caught them at it yesterday. +First May actually declaimed several paragraphs from a speech of +Cicero's, and next she got Dora to repeat after her the most crabbed +of the Greek verbs. I shall have a couple of blue-stockings, and what +is worse, one of them spurious, in the room of the single real +production I reckoned upon among my daughters. By all means let May +have a howling monster. She is not too old for a game of romps; and I +must say, though I have never opposed the higher education of women, +I don't want her cultivated into a gossamer, a woman all nerves and +sensations, before she is out of her teens." + +"Do you suppose Tom Robinson can still be thinking of Dora?" suggested +Mrs. Millar dubiously. + +"I wish he were," said the little Doctor, ruefully. "I wish he were. +Yes, Mrs. Millar, I am sufficiently mercenary or sordid, or whatever you +like to call it, where one of my daughters is concerned, to give +expression to that sentiment. But I should say he is not, unfortunately. +Robinson is a shy man, and, no doubt, proud after his fashion. It must +have taken a great effort--premature, therefore mistaken, according to +my judgment--for him to screw himself up to the pitch of proposing for a +girl of whose answering regard he was uncertain. Having made the blunder +and paid the penalty, he is not at all likely to put his fate to the +touch again, so far as Dora is concerned. He is not the style of +pertinacious, overbearing fellow who would persecute a woman with his +attentions and ask her twice. Poor Dora has lost her chance, I take it." + +"I cannot say that I think it any great loss, to this day," answered +Mrs. Millar, stubbornly. She gave a toss of her head, of such unusual +spirit, that it so nearly dislodged her cap. Dr. Millar involuntarily +put out a finger and thumb to lay hold of the truant. "We have our +worldly losses, to be sure, and the other poor dear girls have gone out +into the world very cheerfully. I must say I could not have done what +they have done with so good a grace--so heroic a grace, not to save my +life, Jonathan. But that is not to say that they are to be in haste to +marry--tradesmen. Indeed, when I come to think of it, the fact of their +being so independent and able to provide for themselves, ought to be +like having so many fortunes. It should entitle them to be more +particular, and free to pick and choose the husbands who exactly suit +them. Another thing, if our daughters are not worthy of being wooed and +wooed, and asked--not twice, but half a dozen times, before they are +persuaded to say yes, I don't know who is. The idea of their jumping at +any man!--you have drawn me into vulgar language, Jonathan,--the moment +he makes his bow is too bad or too good, I do not know which to say. You +do not mean that I ever accustomed you to such forward behaviour?" + +"No, no, Maria," the gentleman assured her with a smile, "far from it. +There was a bad epidemic raging at the time our little business came +off, don't you remember? I forget now whether it was small-pox or +scarlet fever, but I know I was not only tremendously busy, I dared not +go to your father's house. Then I heard that another swain--an officer +fellow from the barracks at Craigton was hanging about either you or +your poor sister Dolly, nobody could tell which, and I dared not delay +longer. I was driven to the supreme rashness of committing my suit to +paper, and what do you think you wrote back? Have you forgotten? You +thanked me very prettily for the compliment I had paid you, and you +promised to give the substance of my letter your best consideration. +Literally that was all--to a man worn off his feet with work and +hungering for a word of assurance." + +"Go away with you, sir," exclaimed his wife, restored to high good +humour, and tapping him on the shoulder. "You understood me +perfectly--you had wit enough for that. You went off directly and +ordered new drawing-room furniture, what we have to this day, on the +strength of that letter--you know you did." + +"Showed how far gone, and what a confiding simpleton I was," he said, +and then he tried again to set her right with regard to Tom Robinson. +"You don't understand Robinson, Maria. It is not that he was not in +earnest, or that he is fickle or anything of the kind. It is rather a +case of the better man being beaten, and fools rushing in where angels +fear to tread. Such men as he is accept a sentence without disputing it, +because they do not think too much of themselves while they think a +great deal of other people. It is not a flaw in their sensitive +manliness, it is part and parcel of it, to know when they are dismissed, +and take the dismissal as final. They are not the most light-hearted and +sanguine of mortals, but they are constant enough, and brave enough to +boot, and a brave man is not without his compensations-- + + "'For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,' + +"some poet has written." + +"So much the better," said Mrs. Millar, again with a suspicion of +hauteur in her voice. "It is lucky for all parties, since I have not the +slightest reason to suppose that Dora would change her mind." + +"Then why find fault with poor Tom Robinson?" Dr. Millar remonstrated in +vain. + +The appearance of the dog on the scene with his fine pointed nose, alert +eyes, incessantly vibrating little tail, and miniver black and white +coat picked out with tan, caused May as much excitement and delight as +if she did not know one Greek letter from another, and were innocent of +Latin quantities. She was so wrapped up in her acquisition, so devoted +to his tastes in food, the state of his appetite, his sleeping place, +the collar he was to have, that for the first time in her life she had +to be reminded of her books. It needed her great superiority to her +companions in any approach to scholarly intellect and attainment to +enable her to retain the first place in Miss Burridge's classical +department. + +"What shall we call him, Dora?" she earnestly consulted her sister, +hanging breathless on the important answer. + +"Call him whatever you like, May. You know he is your dog," said Dora +with decision. + +"Mine and Rose's," the faithful May made the amendment. "Of course Rose +must agree to any name we think of, or it cannot stand. Perhaps she +would like to choose the name as she is away. Don't you think it ought +to be put in her power--that she ought to have the compliment?" +suggested May quite seriously and anxiously. "I shall write to her this +very minute." + +But Rose, like Dora, left the name to May. + +"It was so kind of Tom Robinson to remember and offer him to me," said +May meditatively. "O Dora! do you think I might call him 'Tom'?" + +"Certainly not," said Dora, with still greater decision. "What are you +thinking of, May? I don't suppose Mr. Robinson would relish having a +dog named for him. Besides, other people might wonder. 'Tom' is not an +ordinary name for a dog, though it is common enough for a man." + +"Nobody, not even the person most concerned, would know if I were to +call him 'Son,' the termination of 'Robinson,' you know," explained May, +after a moment spent in concocting this subtle amendment, and in +fondling the unconscious recipient of a title which was to distinguish +him from the mass of dogs. + +"Are you out of your senses, May?" was the sole comment Dora deigned to +deliver with some energy. + +"'Friend,'" speculated May; "there is nothing very distinctive about +'Friend,' and I am sure it was the act of a friend to get him for me." + +"'Foe' would be shorter and more easily said," was Dora's provoking +comment; "or why not 'Fox,' since he is a fox-terrier? You might also +desire to commemorate the donor's complexion, which you all used to call +foxy," said Dora, half reproachfully, half dryly. + +"I don't like _doubles entendres_," said May with dignity, "and if I +ever said anything unkind of Tom Robinson I don't wish to be reminded of +it now; anyhow, I could never give a sneer in return for a kindness." + +"No, I don't believe you could, May," said Dora, penitently. + +May continued a little nettled in spite of her natural good temper. + +"What are Shakespeare's names for little dogs?" she asked. "'Blanche,' +'Tray,' and 'Sweetheart.' You could not be 'Blanche,' could you, pet, +unless you were '_Blanche et Noir_'? and that is too long and reminds +one of a gaming-table. You could not be 'Sweetheart,'" went on May, +revenging herself with great coolness and deliberation in view of the +red that flew into Dora's cheeks; "no, of course not, because Mr. Tom +Robinson is not, never has been, and never will be _my_ sweetheart. +There is only 'Tray' left. Well, I think it is rather a good name," +considered May, critically. "'Old dog Tray' is an English classic. It is +not altogether appropriate, because my Tray is just a baby terrier yet, +but we trust, he and I, that he will live to see a venerable age." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +A WILFUL DOG WILL HAVE HIS WAY. + + +Dora and May walked out together regularly, a practice enforced by their +father as a provision for their health. To have Tray to form a third +person in their somewhat formal promenades certainly robbed them of +their formality, and introduced such an element of lively excitement +into them as to bear out Dora's comparison of their progresses +thenceforth to a succession of fox-hunts. For Tray was still in the +later stages of his puppyhood. He was frequently inspired by a demon of +mischief or haunted by a variety of vagabond instincts which such +training as he had received, without the support of prolonged discipline +and practical experience, failed to extinguish. + +May was very particular about his education in theory, but in practice +she fell considerably short of her excellent intentions. She always +carried a whip with a whistle in the handle; and the sight of the +instrument of punishment ought to have been enough for Tray, since +there was no farther application of it. In reality, the sharp-sighted +little animal no more obeyed the veritable whistle than he winced under +the supposititious lash of the whip. He took his own way and did very +much what he liked in spite of the animated protests of his mistress. +Dora and May went out walking with Tray instead of Tray going on a walk +with them, and not infrequently the walk degenerated into an agitated +scamper at his heels. The scamper was diversified by a number of +ineffectual attempts to reclaim him from forcing his way into back-yards +and returning triumphantly with a bone or a crust between his teeth, "as +if we starved him, as if his dish at home was not generally half full, +though we've tried so hard to find out what he likes," said May +plaintively. If otherwise engaged it would be in chasing cats, running +down fowls, barking at message boys--to whom he had the greatest +antipathy--or, most serious foible of all, threatening to engage in +single combat with dogs twice his size and three times his age. + +There is no accounting for tastes, seeing that these tumultuous walks +were the delight of May's days, and that even Dora, with her inveterate +sympathy, enjoyed them, though they deranged somewhat her sense of +maidenly dignity and decorum. It was to be hoped that as Tray grew in +years he would grow in discretion, and would show a little forbearance +to the friends who were so forbearing to him. + +Tray, Dora, and May had gone on their customary expedition. The human +beings of the party were inclined to direct their steps as quickly as +possible to one of the country roads. Tray's eccentricities at the +present stage of his development were hardly calculated for the +comfortable traversing of a succession of streets and lanes. But the +canine leader of the party decided for the main street, and Dora and May +gave up their own inclinations, and followed in his erratic track with +their wonted cheerful submission. + +It was a fine October afternoon, when Redcross was looking its best. It +was rather a dull town, with little trade and few manufactories, but its +worst enemy could not deny it the corresponding virtues of cleanliness +and freedom from smoke. Here and there there was a grand old tree wedged +between the houses. In one or two instances, where the under part of the +house was brick, and the upper--an afterthought--was a projecting storey +of wood, the latter was built round the tree, with its branches +sheltering the roof in a picturesque, half foreign fashion. Here and +there were massive old houses and shops, with some approach to the size +and the substantial--even costly--fittings of "Robinson's." A side +street led down to a little sluggish canal which joined the Dewes, a +river of considerable size on which Redcross had originally been built. +This canal was crossed by a short solid stone bridge, bearing a quaint +enough bridge-house, still used as a dwelling-place. + +The sun was bright and warm without any oppressive heat. The leaves, +where leaves were to be seen, had yellow, russet, and red streaks and +stains, suggestive of brown nuts and scarlet berries in the hedges. + +The flowers in the many window-boxes in which Redcross indulged were +still, for the most part, gay with the deeper tints of autumn, the +purple of asters and the orange of chrysanthemums setting off the +geraniums blossoming on till the frost shrivelled them, and the seeded +green and straw-coloured spikes of the still fragrant mignonette. + +It was market-day, which gave but a slight agreeable stir to the drowsy +town. The ruddy faces and burly figures of farmers, whose imposing bulk +somehow did not decrease in keeping with the attenuated profits of +long-continued agricultural depression, were prominent on the pavement. +Little market carts, which closely shawled and bonneted elderly women, +laden with their market baskets, still found themselves disengaged +enough to drive, rattled over the cobble stones. An occasional farm +labourer in a well-nigh exploded smock frock, who had come in with a +bullock or two, or a small flock of sheep, to the slaughter-house, +trudging home with a straw between his teeth, and his faithful collie at +his heels, made a variety in the town population. + +The latter consisted, at this hour, of shop boys and girls, boys from +the grammar school, a file of boarders from Miss Burridge's, who walked +as if "eyes right" and "eyes left" were the only motion permitted to +them, notwithstanding May's frantic signs to them to behold and admire +Tray's gambols; a professional man, or a tradesman, leisurely doing a +business errand; one or two ladies carrying the latest fashion in +card-cases, suggestive of afternoon calls. + +Tray's devious path took him in the direction of "Robinson's," in the +windows of which the golden brown of sable furs, the silver gray of rare +foxes', and the commoner dim blue of long-haired goats', were beginning +to enrich the usual display of silk and woollen goods. + +Following his own sweet will, Tray, considerably in advance of his +companions, darted into the shop. + +"Oh, what shall we do, May?" cried Dora in dismay; "you ought really to +put that dog in a leash when he _will_ go into the town." + +"Better say a chain at once," answered May indignantly, vexed by the +imputation on her pet. "I am sure he has been as good as gold to-day. He +has not chased a single thing, and he has only once run away from us. +Couldn't I go in and fetch him out? I should not stay above a minute." + +"And I am to wait at the door while you hunt him round all the counters +and through the showrooms? I had much rather go in with you; but neither +do I care to enter the shop when I do not wish to buy anything. Really +Tray is too troublesome!" + +"Oh! don't say that," exclaimed May in distress. "Don't reflect on him +in case anything should happen to him," as if Dora's speech were likely +to bring down the vengeance of Heaven on the heads of all three. "He +soon finds out all he wants when he goes on private expeditions, and +then he runs back and looks for us. I think if we walked _very_ slowly +his dear bright face, with one ear cocked up, would appear in the +doorway by the time we reached it." + +"Or some shop-lad may ask him what his business is, and turn him out. It +will be a lesson for him in future," said Dora, severely. + +Accordingly the sisters had to slacken their steps to a snail's pace as +they approached the great shop. They had a full view of the interior, +though it was a little dark, unless to the most modern taste. There was +an air of old-fashioned substantiality, comfort, and something like +modest dignity about the long-lasting, glossy brown roof and walls, in +harmony with the heavy counters and shelves, not too heavy for the bales +of every description, which with the contents of the innumerable boxes +had an established reputation of being "all of the best quality," not +figuratively but literally. The famous oak staircase, with the broad +shallow steps and the twisted balustrade, which would not have disgraced +a manor house, ran up right in the centre and terminated in a +gallery--like a musician's gallery--hung with Turkey carpets, Moorish +rugs, and "muslin from the Indies," and from the gallery various work +and show rooms opened. It was evident that "Robinson's" was considerably +older than the lifetime of the first Robinson--the silk-weaver and +wool-stapler who had used it as a mart for his wares. Though it was only +the product of a country town, it bore a resemblance to old London city +places of business. These were wont to have a Dutch atmosphere of +industry and sobriety, together with a fair share of the learning and +refinement of the times hanging about them, so that their masters +figured as honoured and influential citizens of the metropolis. +Belonging to the category were the linen shop of a certain Alexander +Pope's father, and the law-stationer's shop, from which issued, in his +day, a beautiful youth known as "Master John Milton." + +There was the customary bustle of a market day at "Robinson's." Miss +Franklin was moving about in the women's department, seeing that +everybody there was served, and giving an occasional direction to the +women who served. She was, as Dora Millar had once described her, as +"fat as a pin-cushion," with what had been originally a fair +pink-and-white complexion, degenerated into the mottled "red all over," +into which such complexions occasionally pass in middle life. But she +looked like a lady by many small traits--by her quiet, easy movements; +by the clear enunciation and pleasant tones, which could be ringing when +necessary, of a cultivated voice that reached the ears of the +bystanders. She did not wear the conventional black silk or cashmere of +a shop-woman. There might be a lingering protest or a lurking vanity in +the myrtle-green gown and the little lace cap, with its tiny _noeuds_ +of dark green riband, which she wore instead. One might guess by their +dainty decorum and becomingness that Miss Franklin had thought a good +deal, and to purpose, about dress, in her day--had made a study of it, +and taken pleasure in its finer effects. In that light she was the right +woman in the right place--presiding over the shop-women in a +linen-draper's shop. At the same time she belonged as clearly to the +upper middle class as did the two girls advancing towards the shop, who, +in place of being studiously well and handsomely dressed, were just a +little shabby, and careless how they looked in their last year's gray +velveteens, with hats to match, which Dora in her conscientious economy +had re-trimmed not very nicely. + +Lag as the girls might, they could not delay their progress much longer, +and their bosoms were torn with conflicting emotions. What were they to +do? Leave the truant Tray to his fate? Boldly halt before the next shop +window, and trust to his seeing and joining them there? Still more +boldly, enter and request "the body of the culprit" to be delivered up +to his owner? Before they could come to a decision, Tom Robinson himself +appeared in the foreground. He was speaking, or rather listening to a +giant of a farmer in a light overcoat and streaming cravat, who, in +place of treating the master of "Robinson's" as "a whipper-snapper of a +counter-jumper," was behaving to him with the most unsophisticated +deference. Yet Tom's under size and pale complexion looked more +insignificant than ever beside the mighty thews and sinews and perennial +bloom of his customer. In spite of that, Tom Robinson was as undeniably +a gentleman in the surroundings, as Miss Franklin was a lady, and the +big honest farmer recognized and accepted the fact. While the pair stood +there, and the farmer made an elaborate explanation of the matter in +hand--broadcloth or blankets probably--to which Tom attended +courteously, as courteously as he would have heard the deliverances of +the member of the county or the bishop, Tray flashed out of the mellow +obscurity of the background and sniffed vigorously at the trowser ankles +of the master of "Robinson's." + +"Hallo!" cried Tom, looking down at his feet. + +"A bit fine terrier-dawg, Mister Robinson, sir," remarked the farmer; +"but I'm thinking he's strayed." + +At the same instant both Tray and Tom caught sight of May's anxious face +peering in at the shop door. Tray rushed to his mistress with a +boisterously gracious greeting, which did not include the slightest +self-consciousness or sense of wrongdoing in its affability. Tom took a +couple of steps after him. + +"I'm afraid, Miss May, you're spoiling that dog," he said, in friendly +remonstrance, before he observed who was with May, and stopped and bowed +with some constraint. + +"Oh! Mr. Robinson," replied May, in her volubility effacing any shy +attempt at greeting on Dora's part, "I am so sorry for Tray's rudeness +in going into your shop without being invited; but I do think he knew +you again, I am almost sure of it," she said eagerly, as if the +assurance were sufficient propitiation for any trifling lack of ceremony +where a reasonable human being was concerned. + +"It might have been better if I had known a little more of him," said +Tom musingly, biting his moustache, as he took leave of the three. + +Tray meandered down the street, followed hurriedly by his mistress and +Dora. Tom looked after them, and speculated into how many more scrapes +the brute would get the girls, wondered too if one of them would think +she had him to thank for the infliction, and that it was an odd instance +of the friendship which he had pressed her to give him in lieu of a +warmer feeling. That friendship was not progressing very rapidly, though +the world might consider the Millars more in need of friends than when +he had begged to make one of the number. But Tom Robinson knew better. +These girls were enough for themselves in any emergency. They would +never fall back on friends or depend upon them. Even Dora, who had +stayed at home with May, would suffer in silence and bear anything with +and for her family, before she would complain or ask help. + +Tray's errant fancy finally took him down a lane leading to the Dewes +and to a sheltered walk between rows of yellowing elms by the side of +the river. The girls were at last able to enjoy themselves. They +sauntered along, talking at their ease, watching the bars of sunlight on +the water, and the crowds of flies in the golden mist which the approach +of sunset was drawing down over everything, and listening to a robin +singing on a bough, when their misadventures for one day culminated and +their worst apprehensions were fulfilled. A mongrel collie advancing in +the opposite direction, with no better qualified guardian than a young +servant girl, who had also a perambulator containing a couple of small +children to look after, aroused the warlike spirit of Tray. He growled +defiance and bristled in every hair, while Dora caught nervously at his +elegant morocco collar, which burst asunder in her grasp, and May +shrieked agitated soothing endearments to no purpose. What unmagnanimous +cur could resist such a challenge? In another instant the inequal combat +was raging furiously. The two dogs first stood on their hind legs, +grappled together, and glared at each other for a second, like two +pugilists trying a preliminary fall, or a couple of duellists pointing +their pistols. The next moment the dogs were rolling over and over each +other on the narrow path, worrying each other with the horrible +snarling noise that accompanies such a performance. + +May danced a frantic dance round the combatants, screamed shrilly, and +made dangerous, ineffectual darts at Tray. The servant girl neither +danced, nor screamed, nor made darts; she stood stolidly still, with +something between a gape and a grin on her broad red face. She had not +the passion for dog-fights entertained by the _gamins_ of the streets, +such fights were simply immaterial trifles to her amidst the weightier +concerns of her life; and she had seen her master's dog get too many +kicks in the ribs--a discipline from which he rose up howling but not +greatly injured--to be troubled with any sensitive fears as to his +safety. Besides his enemy was a small beast, a lady's dog, whom Growler +could dispose of in a twinkling, if his temper were up. + +"Oh! can you not call off your dog?" wailed May in her agony. "He will +kill Tray. Oh! my Tray, my Tray," and she made another rush to rescue +her pet. + +"Don't, May, you'll be bitten," implored Dora. + +"He don't mind me, miss, not one bit, our Growler don't," said the +composed damsel, as if Growler's indifference were rather a feather in +his cap. + +Alas! for any attention that the victim paid to May's desperate +remonstrances. She had in fact no right to reproach the enemy's +temporary proprietress for her lack of authority over her four-footed +companion. But poor May in her misery was neither logical nor just. She +turned on the other with a passionate challenge, "What business have you +to bring out a horrid brute like that, which you cannot master, to kill +other people's dear little pets?" + +"Hush, hush, May," besought Dora, "I think they are leaving off." There +was a slight cessation in the hostilities. "The noise you are making may +set them on again." + +"It were your dog as begun it." Growler's sponsor defended both herself +and Growler defiantly. + +"Oh!" screamed May, "they're at it again. Tray is down and the cruel +monster is at his throat. Will nobody help us? Will nobody save my poor +little dog?" + +The girls were carrying neither sunshades nor umbrellas. They could not +reach the lower boughs of the trees to pull down a switch, but just as +May was springing forward to dare the worst herself, sooner than see +Tray perish unaided before her eyes, Dora caught sight of a large +half-loose stone in the path. "Stand back, May," she gasped, as she tore +it up. Dora's face was as white as paper; she was sick with fright and +distress; she would fain have shut her eyes if she had not known that +she needed every advantage which sight could give her to prevent her +hitting Tray, instead of his foe, as the two rolled over each other in +the struggle which was growing deadlier every second. + +"Stop," cried a voice of command behind her, "you'll have the dog turn +upon you as soon as he has finished his present job," and a welcome +deliverer ran forward just in time. He seized the first tail he could +grasp--luckily for him it was Tray's and not Growler's--and hung on to +it like a vice. The "redder" of the combatants, regardless of "the +redder's lick," which was likely to be his portion, continued to hold +the tail of the now yelling Tray, and at the same time seized him by the +scruff of the neck with the other hand, and dragged both animals, still +locked together, with his whole force nearer and nearer to the edge of +the bank by the river. + +A new terror beset May. "Take care, you'll have them in the water." + +No sooner said than done. With a plunge the two dogs fell heavily into +the Dewes, while the man who had brought them to this pass kept his own +footing with difficulty. + +"They'll both be drowned," cried May, clasping her hands in the last +depths of anguish. + +"Not at all," said Tom Robinson, panting a little from his exertions +and wiping his hands with his handkerchief. "I did it on purpose--don't +you see? It was the only way to make the beggars lose their grip. Look +there, they are swimming like brothers down the stream--that small +spitfire of yours is not badly hurt. I told you that you were spoiling +him--you ought to make him obey and come to heel, or he will become the +torment of your life. The bank shelves a little a few yards further +down; you will find that he will come to shore shaking himself nothing +the worse. It may be a lesson to him; if not, I should like to give him +a bit of my mind." + +True enough, Tray scrambled up the bank presently, bearing no more +alarming traces of the fray than were to be found in his limping on +three legs, and halting every other minute that he might ruefully attend +to the fourth. + +Growler also landed, and after glancing askance at his antagonist and at +the champion who had suddenly interposed between Tray and his deserts, +wisely agreed with the small maid-servant on the judiciousness of +immediately taking themselves off, in company with the perambulator and +the babies, to avoid any chance of awkward inquiries. + +May ran to Tray, clasped him all dripping in her arms, and prepared to +carry him tenderly home. But in spite of the injuries, for which he was +exceedingly sorry, he asserted his spirit of independence, and declined +to be made a baby of. + +"I am afraid we have given you a great deal of trouble, Mr. Tom," said +Dora, while May was still devoting herself to her rescued treasure. Dora +spoke shyly, and inadvertently used the old familiar name, which he had +borne when his father was alive. + +"Don't mention it," he said gravely, as shy as she was; "I feel +answerable for inflicting that wretched dog on you--that is, on your +sister. I was sure he would lead you a pretty dance after he was in the +shop this afternoon." + +"Oh! Mr. Robinson," cried May, tearing herself away from the +contemplation of her darling in order to pour forth her sense of relief +and the depth of her gratitude, "what a good thing it was you came up to +us! What should we have done without you? Oh! you don't think dear +little Tray is lamed for life--do you? Of course that is ever so much +better than having him killed outright in our sight; still if he would +only let me pick him up and rest his poor hurt leg it might help him," +protested May wistfully. + +"Let him alone, he is all right," he said in his short stiff way. Then +he made a bantering amendment on his speech, because he was quick to see +that his want of sympathy vexed the young girl, perhaps rendered her +burden of gratitude more difficult to bear. + +"At the worst, you know he would be as well off as Horatius Cocles, and +he is likely to escape the beating which he richly deserves." + +"Oh! Mr. Robinson, beat him! when he meant no harm, when he has been all +but drowned or worried to death by that great, coarse, rough creature," +cried May, opening large brown eyes of astonishment and indignation. + +"I wonder what _he_ would call Tray if he could speak--an insolent +little rascal, who had no proper respect for his superiors." + +Dora did not join in the conversation. Her colour came and went, and she +kept glancing at the handkerchief which Tom Robinson was fluttering +about in his hand. + +It was May who stopped short and cried in fresh dismay, "There is blood +on your handkerchief; I believe you have been bitten. What shall we do?" + +"What should you do, Miss May?" he answered with a laugh. "It is only a +minute impression left by the fine teeth of your friend. You would have +it that he knew me a little while ago, and it seems we were destined to +be more intimately acquainted." + +"Come home with us this minute," cried May, so dead in earnest, that +she grasped his arm, and made as if she would have dragged him forward. +"Father will dress it and heal it. I am so sorry, so ashamed, though +Tray did not know what he was doing." + +He laughed again quite merrily, as it sounded. "If Tray did not know, he +did his small best to get rid of me. I daresay I was not treating him +with much ceremony. I am afraid I gave his tail as sharp a pinch as I +could administer before I could get at his neck. No, I am not going home +with you; thanks for the invitation. Do you wish Dr. Millar to think me +crazy? Do you apply to your father for medical assistance when you give +yourself a pin-prick?" + +"But the bite of a dog is very different, though Tray is the dog," +moaned May. + +"Tray is in excellent health and spirits; I can vouch for that," said +Tom. "I have not the slightest apprehension of hydrophobia." + +"O--h!" said May, with a deeper moan. + +Dora had continued silent; indeed she could hardly speak, and her face +had grown more like ashes than paper. + +He was standing still, and raising his hat a little awkwardly with his +left hand, in lieu of shaking hands with his right, as they came to the +point where their roads parted. + +Dora made a great effort and uttered her remonstrance: "I wish you would +come home with us, and let father look at your hand." + +"You too, Miss Dora--nonsense," he said sharply as it sounded. + +"If Annie had been here," she persisted, "she would have been of a +hundred times more use than I, but if you'll let me I'll try to tie it +up for you." + +She spoke so humbly that he answered her with quick kindness, "And pain +you by exposing a scratch to your notice? No, indeed, all that I'll ask +of you is never to fling stones at strange dogs, though they should be +tearing that unlucky imp of mischief limb from limb." + +"It was very unkind of him to speak so rudely of poor Tray," sighed May, +as the sisters hurried home; "although it was Tom Robinson who gave him +to me, I don't think the man has ever put a proper value on the dog. But +I daresay he will call to-morrow though he has not come with us just +now, to ask for Tray, and to see how we are after our fright." + +"No, he won't come," said Dora with conviction, and she walked on +silently thinking to herself, "How strong and resolute he was, though he +is not a big man, and how little he minded being bitten. Men are +different from women. Of course, he is nothing to me, but I may be +permitted to admire his courage and coolness. No, he will not come, I +am sure of that, he is the last man to take advantage of an accident and +of his coming to our assistance. Even if he did, and I had ever cared +for him, and there had been no 'Robinson's,' it would be too late and +too bad to change one's mind after we had grown poor and had to work for +ourselves." + +Dora was right. Tom Robinson did not come. He contented himself with +intercepting Dr. Millar on his rounds, learning that Dora and May were +no worse for their misadventure, and giving their father a piece of +information. + +In consequence of that hint, and under the pretence of having Tray's +wounded leg properly seen to, he was, to May's intense chagrin and +disgust, despatched to a veterinary surgeon's, where he remained for +some time, returning at last a sadder and a wiser dog. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +LIFE IN AN HOSPITAL WARD. + + +St. Ebbe's was a model hospital, with every enlightened improvement in +the treatment of the sick poor, and every humane ordinance which the +highly developed skill and the strongly stimulated benevolence of the +nineteenth century could enforce. + +Annie Millar was one of six lady probationers, including a bishop's +daughter, two daughters of squires, and three doctor's daughters like +herself. The matron was the widow of a doctor, who had been eminent +alike for professional talent and philanthropy. She was like-minded. If +she had not her late husband's knowledge and acumen as a medical man, +she had much of his experience, and was full of energy and determination +to better the world, the sick, and the poor, almost whether they would +or not. Very few people could look Mrs. Hull in the face and contradict +her high motives and determined will. + +Fortunately, Annie's beauty had not worked the scathing destruction +which Mrs. Millar had anticipated with fear and trembling. An +inflammable medical student or two might have been just singed by the +fire of her charms; an older member of the fraternity might have +neglected for an instant to look up at the card above a bed in order to +turn his head and cast a second admiring glance after the new recruit in +the hospital uniform; but no man forgot his duty or was false to earlier +vows through her allurements. + +Mrs. Hull had cast a sharp glance at the dainty figure and flower-like +face under the nurse's linen gown and close cap. Annie's sister +probationers, four of them considerably older than herself, had +telegraphed to each other emphatic--perhaps pardonable enough--signals +that the last accession to their number was so very ornamental they +could hardly expect her to be useful. They must look out for defects, +and prepare to atone for failures by their surpassing attainments. But +the mistake was soon rectified, and fresh light dawned on the doubtful +question. Mrs. Hull was the first to recognize and testify that nothing +was to be feared from Annie Millar's youth and beauty, while something +might be gained by them, because she was far more than pretty--she was a +bright, clever girl, very obedient to orders, and exceedingly anxious +to learn her business. In her St. Ebbe's had secured an auxiliary of the +highest promise. The elder sister probationers soon found that instead +of wanting indulgence, forbearance, and pity, the newcomer was more in +danger of awakening their envy as well as their respect by her quickness +in mastering details, her mental grasp of principles, her inexhaustible +spirit. + +Yet poor Annie had no light apprenticeship to serve. The programme, +which extends from making poultices and making beds to receiving +doctors' instructions, understanding them, remembering them, and acting +on them, is neither short nor easy, though a fairly good and trained +intellect and an unswerving devotion to duty will get through it +triumphantly in time. Annie underwent the entire ordeal, while she +doubtless brought a little additional intelligence and capacity and a +few more grains of experience to the task than would have existed if she +had not been Dr. Millar's daughter. In spite of the warm woollen jacket +and cuffs which she wore under her linen gown, her little hands were +covered with the chaps and chilblains which are the scourge of +maids-of-all-work, because of their early rising, hard scrubbing, and +the frequency with which their fingers are wet and dried on chill winter +mornings. Her legs ached, as they had never ached after a night's +dancing, with being on her feet all day long, and day after day, +waiting on her patients and attending on the sisters who were placed +over the respective wards. Her mind, too, was kept on the stretch with +the serious charge of pulses and temperatures, with the grave +responsibility of shelves on shelves of medicine bottles, with acquiring +the best modes of bandaging, fomenting, bleeding, stopping the flow of +blood, so that during the little leisure she had she could not turn to a +book for relief; she fell asleep with sheer fatigue more frequently. + +Annie was too high-spirited and independent to feel the loneliness of +her position among strangers, whom she soon converted into friendly +acquaintances, if nothing more, as many a girl--as Dora, for +instance--would have done. But, accustomed as Annie had been all her +life to much closer and warmer relations, she clung to the presence of +Rose in London; and it was a proof of how much the elder sister was used +up, when, even on her days and hours for getting out, it was often with +difficulty that she could bring herself to go and see Rose, or to meet +and walk a portion of the way with her on Rose's progress from Mrs. +Jennings's boarding-house to the Misses Stone's school, where she taught +drawing, or to Mr. St. Foy's art classes, where she learned it. + +Annie had suffered considerably from what is known as hospital or +infirmary sore throat, because it is understood to be caused by inhaling +the fumes from the carbolic acid used in the wards. Her rich colour had +to Rose's dismay grown poor and pale for a time. She had laboured under +the still more trying and more dangerous infliction, when the senses +morbidly excited become morbidly acute, and she seemed still to smell +the peculiar air of the wards wherever she went. Then Mrs. Hull insisted +on Annie's leaving for a few days, and bundled her off, without the +power of resistance, to a sister of the matron's, who kindly consented, +as her part of the work, to receive and recruit the temporarily overdone +servants of St. Ebbe's Hospital. + +In spite of the strength of Annie's nerves, and her power of controlling +them, she sickened once or twice with a deadly sickness at sights and +sounds worse than her most vivid imagination could have conceived +possible. She had to summon all her courage, together with the +conviction that if she did not overcome the weakness speedily, she would +be compelled to own that she had mistaken her calling, in order to +vanquish the insidious foe. + +Sometimes, while she was ready to thank God that it was rather the +exception than the rule, she had to witness the lowest moral degradation +in addition to the sharpest human suffering, and this at an age and with +a nature when the feeling of extreme repulsion, amounting to positive +loathing, is in danger of prevailing. It needed all her faith to do +battle with this worst temptation, and force pity to conquer disgust, to +recognize humbly the frailty of the best and wisest men and women, to +acknowledge willingly, even thankfully, the propriety, if one may so use +the word, of what a preacher has called each Christian's suffering, "the +just for the unjust." + +No wonder poor Annie's bright face took frequently a worn and harassed +look in those early days of hospital work. + +Yet so great is the elasticity of youth, and so brave and cheerful was +the girl's temperament for the most part, that within an hour of such +prostrating attacks and violent revolts, she would be on her way with +her own little tea-pot to the retiring-room, where the lady probationers +and sisters assembled in order to profit by the great boiler steaming on +the hob for their women's refreshment of tea. It was about the only +servile act which they were required to do for themselves, while they +were the servants of others, and they all enjoyed doing it with true +housewifely relish. Annie, especially, was an adept at such tea-making, +and would propound her theories and circulate specimens of her +performance among her companions who profited by her skill, with a glee +not far removed from the mirth of the Millar girls on many a happy +family gathering in the old nursery or the drawing-room at Redcross. + +The whole circumstances of one of the bad days in her lot Annie could +never quite forget. It was a raw, gray winter's day, cheerless above and +below, and all went wrong on it, from the moment Annie opened her sleepy +eyes, leapt shivering out of bed, washed in cold water by her own +choice, in order to rouse herself, dressed by gaslight, swallowed her +coffee scalding hot, and hastened to her particular ward. The sister and +the house-surgeon were, as if affected by the day, a little sour and +surly, and every patient seemed more or less out of tune, dismal, +grumbling, delirious, or in a state of collapse. + +It was one of Annie's out-days, and as a matter of duty, but by no means +of enjoyment, she braced herself to change her hospital dress for a +walking dress. After she felt chilled to the bone, she started for a +walk, either to be jostled and forced along in a crowded thoroughfare, +where she too might have said-- + + + "Although so many surround me, + I know not one I meet"-- + +or to creep the length of the cleanest side of the pavement in a +depressingly empty street, where the varying arrangement of the shabby +window curtains and the cards in the dingy windows, offering an endless +supply of rooms to the absent lodging hunter, furnished the sole +entertainment to the listless passer-by. + +Annie had been afraid that she would miss Rose on her way to her +classes, and the fear was amply fulfilled--not the most distant glimpse +of Rose was forthcoming. Instead, at a crossing, Ella Carey, in her Aunt +Tyrrel's carriage, whirled by the pedestrian and administered a slight +spattering of mud to her dress. "It ought to have been the other way," +said Annie bitterly to herself, while she stood still to wipe the sleeve +of her jacket. Yet she knew very well all the time that Ella's offence +had been quite involuntary, and that she had not for a moment recognized +Annie. If it had been so, Ella's round girlish face under its smart hat, +leaning back among the soft cushions not discontentedly, would have +brightened immensely. She would have stopped the carriage and been down +in the street at Annie's side in a moment, for the girl was as +warm-hearted as she had been docile. There was nothing she would have +liked better than to hail a Redcross face, and hear the last news about +Phyllis and May, and Ella's father and mother. + +When Annie re-entered the hospital colder and more unrefreshed than she +had left it, she thought that she was at last going to be compensated +for life's rubs--beyond her deserts, she told herself a little +remorsefully. She had been longing all the morning for a letter from +Redcross, small reason as she had to complain of the negligence of her +correspondents there, and a letter with the Redcross post-mark was +awaiting her. She saw before she opened it that it was not from any of +her family. None of them used such creamily smooth and thick note-paper, +or exhibited such a cunningly contrived, elegantly designed monogram. +But even a slight communication from the merest acquaintance was welcome +as a flower in spring, when the acquaintance dwelt in dear old Redcross. +Annie had been thinking fondly of it all day as a place of human +well-being and geniality, free from continual sights and sounds of pain +and sorrow, where everybody got up and sat down, went out and came in, +worked and read, even dawdled and dreamt at will, subject to a few +simple household rules. There was no unyielding iron discipline at +Redcross. There was no hard and fast routine entering through the flesh +and penetrating into the very soul. It was just, dear, deliberate, +mannerly, yet comfortable and kindly Redcross. The writer was Thirza +Dyer, and the reason why one of the Dyers, who had hesitated about +shaking hands with one of the Millars after she was guilty of proposing +to earn her livelihood, wrote a letter to a nurse probationer and +addressed it to a public hospital, calls for an explanation. The Dyers, +in their unceasing efforts to gain by their wealth and its liberal +expenditure a footing in the county circle, had got one foot within the +coveted precincts, and there Thirza found to her own and her sisters' +amazement that nursing, not the rich and great, but common poor people, +was a curious fashion of the day. Lady Luxmore had a cousin who was a +nurse. General Wentworth's wife had a friend professionally engaged in a +London hospital for nine months out of the twelve, who was visiting the +Wentworths this winter. Of course it had begun with the Crimean War, and +the _eclat_ with which lady nurses went out to attend on the wounded +soldiers in the exceptional hospital at Scutari. But whatever was its +origin, the rule was established that nursing even day-labourers and +mechanics with their wives and children, was something very different +from being a drudging governess or broken-down companion. It was like +being a member of the Kyrle Society, with which one of the princes had +to do, or like singing in an East of London concert-room, quite _chic_, +perfectly good form, anybody might take it up and gain rather than lose +caste by the act. + +Accordingly, it became an obvious obligation on the Dyers to cultivate +and not to cut the only nurse on their visiting list. With unblushing, +well-nigh naive suddenness, Thirza Dyer, to Annie Millar's bewildered +astonishment, proceeded to start and maintain a correspondence with her. +Two are required for a bargain-making, and Annie was not altogether +disinterested in scribbling the few lines occasionally which warranted +the continuance of the correspondence on Thirza's part. For if Thirza +had lived anywhere else than where she did live, near Redcross, the +answer to her first letter might have been different. Therefore Annie +did not perhaps deserve much solace from these letters, and certainly +this one did not contribute to her exaltation of spirit. It was chiefly +occupied with an account of several _recherchee_ afternoon teas which the +Dyers had held lately at the Manor-house, together with a full +description of the tea-gowns of salmon, canary, and cherry-coloured +plush, lined with _eau-de-nil_ satin, which the Miss Dyers had worn on +these occasions. + +Now poor Annie was rather above hankering unduly after tea-gowns, or for +that matter "smart" or "swell" dress of any kind. She liked pretty +things, and things which became her charming person, at their proper +time and season, well enough, but she was not greatly discomposed by +the lack of such adornment, and hardly at all troubled when her +neighbours displayed what she did not possess. + +It was because the foolishly exultant gorgeous description, which ought +to have been set to a fashion-plate, carried Annie back with a flash to +one winter's day last year, that it made her heart sore. On the day in +question Annie and Dora, and for that matter Rose and May, acting as +deeply interested assistants, had been tremendously busy and merry in +the old nursery, travestying national and historic costumes in calico. +It was all on behalf of a certain scenic entertainment given in the +Town-hall for the delectation of the scholars in the Rector's +Sunday-school and night classes. It had been a very simple and +intentionally inexpensive affair, and the principal charm to the +performers had lain in the contriving of their costumes. Annie and Dora +had appeared in magnificent chintz sacques--which might have represented +tea-gowns--and mob caps, and had been declared by Cyril Carey, who was +supposed to be no mean judge, a most satisfactory eighteenth century +pair. Cyril himself had broken the rule as to material, and had figured +in the black satin trunk hose, velvet doublet, and lace collar of a +Spanish grandee. But Ned Hewett had stuck to Turkey-red cotton for a +Venetian senator or a Roman cardinal, nobody had been quite certain +which. And Tom Robinson had been a Scotch beggarman, Sir Walter Scott's +immortal Edie Ochiltree, in a blue cotton gown and a goatskin beard, +which she (Annie) had wickedly pretended must have been manufactured out +of tufts purloined from the stock of boas at "Robinson's." Lucy Hewett +had been shrouded in white cotton wool, to represent the Empress Matilda +escaping from Oxford, "through the lines of King Stephen's soldiers," +under shelter of a snowstorm. Fanny Russell had never looked better than +she looked that night as a Norman peasant girl. It was all very well for +Cyril Carey to condescend to the deceit of praising Annie and Dora up to +the skies, when everybody knew whom he admired most, with reason. That +was Fanny Russell, with her splendid black eyes and hair, and the Norman +strength and fineness of her profile. + +What was Nurse Annie, in her holland gown, apron, and cap, recalling and +revelling in? The silly vanities and child's play of the past. Well, +what harm was there in them? These had been blithe moments while they +lasted, which had set young hearts bounding, young feet skipping, and +young voices laughing and singing in a manner which was natural, and not +to be forbidden lest worse came of it. + +Annie was roused from her pleasant reverie and plunged into another of +a totally different description. The last was made up of garbled +reality, but with what truth was in it tending to a false, doleful +vision. It would represent St. Ebbe's as a gloomy, ghastly prison-house +of suffering and death, and she in her tender youth and sweet beauty +immured in it by an error of judgment, a fatal mistake incidental to +rash enthusiasm and total inexperience. If Annie ever arrived at that +rueful conclusion, how could she bear the penalty she must pay? + +Annie had heard and read of young women on whom the world did not cry +shame, who turned from the decay and death they had not gone to seek, +which Providence had brought to their doors, in paroxysms of repugnance +and rebellion. They could not bear that their perfection of health and +life should come into contact with something so chillingly, gruesomely +different, that their glowing youth should be wasted in the dim shadows +of sick-rooms or amidst the dank vapours hovering over the dark river +which all must ford when their time comes. Those standing round who +heard or read the outcry called it natural, piteous, well-nigh +praiseworthy, it was so sincere. How could Annie realize for herself in +a moment that such heroines(!) are the daughters in spirit of the women +who, in outbreaks of mediaeval pestilence and latter-day cholera, have +literally abandoned their nearest and dearest, fleeing from spectacles +of anguish and risks of infection? How could she guess that such women +are the spiritual sisters of poor heathen and savage Hottentot and Malay +mothers and daughters, who, sooner than be burdened with the wailing +helplessness of infancy and the mumbling fatuity of age, will expose the +children dependent on these murderesses, and the hoary heads that once +planned and prayed for the welfare of their slayers, to perish of cold +and hunger? + +It was Annie's hour for resuming work, and it was well for her, though +she went but languidly into the spotlessly white and clean ward, among +its rows of beds with the flower-stand, illuminated texts and +oleographs, which generous supporters of the hospital sent to brighten +its cold bareness and soften and cheer what was harsh and subdued in its +atmosphere. Annie was not even greatly affected by the greeting of one +of her patients, an elderly man recovering from an operation, and still +slightly off his head when the fever rose on him. She went to him with a +cooling, soothing application, and he told her incoherently to come +again and give him his dinner and his tea. He liked a young lass or +lady, be she which she liked, with red cheeks and shining eyes to wait +upon him. It minded him of a bit wench of a daughter of his he had lost +when she was twelve years--the age of the little wench in the Bible, for +parson had preached about her the Sunday after his lass's funeral. It +broke her mother's heart for all that, and he buried her too within +three months. Then the place got lonesome, and he took what was not good +for him, till he had come to this; though whether it were the House or +just an hospital he was lying in he could not clearly say. + +Then there happened what Annie was wont to describe as a miracle of +mercy to bring her to a better mind. A young boy whose leg had been +crushed by a waggon was carried into the operating theatre for an +immediate operation. It was the lecture hour, and a great professor of +surgery with his class of students, together with several of the other +doctors connected with St. Ebbe's, was in attendance. But it was also +customary, especially where a female patient or a patient so young as +the boy in question was concerned, for a nurse, generally the sister of +the ward, to be present to hold the sufferer's hand if it were wished, +or when it was possible to support the poor head against her breast. It +so chanced that the sister was out, and other available nurses were +engaged, so in circumstances which would admit of no delay Annie was for +the first time called to the front and summoned to undertake the +responsibility of the situation. Already she had lost sight of herself, +and was standing looking so calm, firm, and prepared for every +emergency, that the operating surgeon, with a glance at her, put her +youth and position as a probationer aside, and accepted what help she +could give. + +It was a critical case, and for some medical reason no anaesthetic could +be administered. The boy was past the unconsciousness of childhood, and +though nearly fainting with fright, pain, and weakness, remained quite +sensible of the further ordeal he had to undergo. He was keenly alive to +the humane motive which induced the surgeon to turn his back upon him in +selecting his instruments. He even heard, with ears morbidly acute, the +low words addressed to the interested spectators, "Now, gentlemen, I am +about to begin." + +With a stifled sob the poor little fellow suddenly managed to raise +himself from the table on which he was stretched. He looked round wildly +on the circle of men's faces, controlled and expectant, with a certain +every-day expression in anticipation of what, in its blind terror and +life and death importance to him, was a familiar occurrence to them, and +on the one woman's face, controlled too, but with an indescribable +wistfulness under the control. Then he made his childish appeal, shrill +with misery, "Oh, gentlemen, will you not stop till I say my prayers?" + +There was an instant pause of surprise, commiseration, constraint--the +peculiar awkwardness which in Englishmen waits on any provocation to +betray feeling. Nobody liked to look at his neighbour to see how he +looked, lest there should be the most distant sign of emotion in his own +face. Some strong men there had ceased to pray or to believe in prayer, +yet all were more or less touched by the lad's implicit faith. + +As for Annie she had been praying at that very moment, praying fervently +in the silence of her heart, that she might be saved from breaking down +and allowed to be of some service to the boy. + +"Certainly, certainly, my little chap; but you must be quick about it," +said the great surgeon a little hoarsely. + +"Our-Father-which-art-in-Heaven," began the boy, running the words +together and speaking with a parrot-like monotony in an unnaturally +high-pitched key. Then his voice began to quaver a little till he +stopped short with a cry of despair--"I cannot mind the words, I cannot +say my prayers. Oh! will nobody say them for me? If mother, as is not in +Lon'on, were here, she would do it fast," he ended, flinging out one +thin arm and clutching convulsively at the air in a kind of +panic-stricken terror. + +There was another second's dead silence. It was broken by a woman's +voice. Annie had taken a step forward close to the boy's elbow, so that +her voice was in his ear. She could not kneel, but instinctively she +clasped her hands and bent her head reverently as she said in low but +clear tones which were carried throughout the length and breadth of the +room, and thrilled in every ear, the Lord's Prayer. At its close she +went on without hesitation in the same wonderfully audible voice: "God +bless this little boy. Forgive him every wrong he has ever done. Keep +him safe, and raise him up again, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen." + +Another voice--a deeper one--responded to the "Amen." It was said by the +famous operator's enemies that he was lax in his religious opinions, and +that he rarely found time to go to church. Nevertheless it was he who +with grave heartiness repeated the Amen. + +The little lad had sunk back when she began to speak, and there he lay +without giving her a word or sign of thanks--his best acknowledgment of +her compliance with what might be his last wish being his quaking +submission. He could not keep still his quivering flesh, or hold back +altogether his piercing cries and piteous moans, but he bit his tongue +in seeking to stifle them. For he was not fighting with his Maker and +his fate; he was trying in his boyish way, with his small fortitude and +resignation, to endure, in the might of the support which had been asked +for him. + +Annie too clenched her teeth, while she opened her eyes to take in +everything that passed before them, as a mirror may be turned to receive +the minutest impression from the scene it reflects. But she did not hear +a single shriek or wail, because her ears were filled with the higher +harmonies which she had called forth. She clasped one of the boy's +trembling hands in her own warm one, which did not grow cold in the +contact. She was on the alert to meet his only half-seeing gaze, and to +give back a glance of tender sympathy and protection--the true mother's +look that is to be found when occasion calls for it in every good +woman's face,--ay, it may even be seen in the precociously earnest, +kindly eyes of many a loving woman-child. + +There were plenty of other helpers to render the surgeon all the +assistance he needed in his work, with far more celerity and ability +than Annie could have supplied. But while sense lingered in the little +patient's eyes, it was to the woman he turned for the pity and aid which +did not fail him; it was through her that he drew from One mightier than +all, the spiritual strength for his terrible bodily conflict. In a sense +Annie and he were both on their trial, they served their novitiate +together, and helped each other to bear and overcome. When the operation +was over he lay, with the sweat drops of agony which Annie was gently +wiping off, not gone from his forehead, but also with the reflection +still lingering on his white face of the courage and patience with which +he had been ready to meet death. + +"You have behaved remarkably well, and shown no want of pluck, my lad," +said the surgeon as a parting word of encouragement and cheer. "Lie +still and you'll be able to see your friends by and by. I believe you'll +do famously, and we'll see whether a substitute cannot be found for the +limb you have lost." + +He turned to Annie who had done all, and more than all, that was +required of her, probably because she had entirely forgotten herself. +She was not even then sensible of a swift reaction, an overwhelming +tide of embarrassment. She continued more than half unconscious of the +number of eyes which, now that the operation was over, were fixed upon +her, marvelling, admiring, condemning, or ridiculing. For what act is +there, let it be ever so disinterested or self-sacrificing, against +which no voice will rise in condemnation or in mockery? + +But it was not the operating surgeon who either condemned or scoffed at +Annie's conduct. He drew her aside, not speaking to her on the religious +side of the episode, which he did not conceive that he had the smallest +right or title to do, but addressing her on the purely medical aspect of +the incident, on which he considered that he was entitled, nay, even +bound to speak. His manner was a little blunt and brusque rather than +suave, like that of a man who had no time to waste in paying compliments +or making soft speeches, but it was thoroughly approving. + +"You did quite right, nurse; I'm much obliged to you. That poor boy +wanted all the comfort he could get. If he had gone on and worked +himself into a frenzy before I had taken up the knife, I do not know +that I could have done my work, and certainly the probability of his +recovery would have been greatly lessened." + +"I am glad," said Annie simply, with a little gasp of returning +consciousness. "It is good of you to say so, doctor," but it was +doubtful whether she knew what she was saying. She was penetrated +through and through with thankfulness, yet thanks to herself seemed so +irrelevant that she did not care to hear them. + +There was more than Annie who thought that thanks to her were out of +place and superfluous. This was specially so with one among the group of +younger men, who at the moment of entering the ward had been fully alive +to the circumstance that "the pretty nurse," as she was known to them, +was on active duty. They had speculated on whether she would stand an +operation, and what a disturbance and nice mess there would be if she +fell flat on the small of her back on the floor, or went off in a fit of +hysterics in the middle of it; and how their "boss" would endure such a +disconcerting interruption to the proceedings. As it happened, the +speculators were in their turn startled, abashed, or irritated, +according to their respective temperaments and frames of mind, by what +followed. + +But there was a young giant, with a blonde beard, who let his blue eyes +fall on the floor, drew back till he leant against the wall, and +thrusting his hands into his pockets, asked himself in a dazed, humbled +way, if an angel had come down among them, and where was the good of +presuming to thank an angel? It was a thousand times more officious and +audacious than to disregard the hackneyed quotation about the folly of +painting a lily and perfuming a rose. + +Annie, the moment she could be spared, went to her own room, fell down +on her knees, and cried as if her heart would break. Yet they were not +unhappy, but blissful tears, though they were as much for her own +unworthiness as for God's unmerited goodness. + +Then she snatched up a sheet of paper and wrote home. "I was so +discontented--such a peevish wretch, this morning, but I have had a +tonic, and now I am so unspeakably satisfied with my lot in life that I +believe I am the happiest girl in England to-night. I would not change +places with a hundred old Aunt Pennys, only I know, alas! that I am not +half good enough to be a nurse. Yet I would rather be a nurse than any +other character in the world, and I would not go back for a permanency +to dear old Redcross, after which I was hankering this very morning, and +live at home with you all again, leading the aimless, self-seeking life +I led, not though Mr. Carey's bank were to rise out of its ashes and +flourish to an extent that its greatest upholders never dreamt of--not +though I were to get a pension or an earl's ransom, or whatever else +people count magnificent compensations and rewards. But you must not +think that it is because I do not love you all as well and a thousand +times better than I ever loved you, for that would be a great mistake, +since I am just beginning to know your true value. But don't you +understand it would break my heart to think that I should no longer be a +nurse and never have such another experience as I have had this +afternoon." And then she told them in a very few words what had happened +and what the surgeon had said to her. How the sister of the ward, and +the matron, and everybody she knew in St. Ebbe's had congratulated her. +They had all united in promising that the poor little fellow should be +her patient in future; they had begun already to call him "Miss Millar's +boy." + +The little Doctor not only wiped his spectacles, he held his head +higher. Mrs. Millar read the letter again and again, appropriating it +and carrying it in her pocket till it was worn to fragments. These were +still religiously preserved and portions read to select and sympathetic +audiences. And every time she read the lines herself with a full heart, +she called on God to bless her good Annie, and thought she was honoured +among mothers in having such a daughter. + +As for Dora and May they were long of ceasing to talk with bated breath +and the height of loving enthusiasm of how Annie had mastered herself, +and what a stay she had been in the hour of need to the lad. They +planned and carried out their plans at every spare moment, in the +manufacture of knitted socks and cravats for his benefit. But their +great achievement was a quilted dressing-gown which Dora contrived to +cut out, and May, in spite of her bad sewing, to help to sew together, +that in his convalescence he might sit up in bed like a little sick +prince. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +MRS. JENNINGS AND HER DAUGHTER HESTER. + + +Rose Millar had made up her mind to like everything, if possible, in her +new surroundings, and when she came up to town it was not only by a +piece of good fortune, it was to the girl's credit, that she found so +much she could appreciate, and so little, comparatively, that it was +difficult to put up with. + +In the first place, and as of primary consequence to Rose's well-being, +Mrs. Jennings, the lady with whom Rose was boarded, turned out an +excellently-disposed gentlewoman. She had a well-ordered house, pervaded +with the spirit of a gentlewoman. The whole establishment was full of +the self-respect which showed itself in a scrupulous consideration for +the rights and claims, the doings and feelings, of others. + +Rose did not complain because Mrs. Jennings and her house alike were +also antiquated and formal. But the lady was not merely formal; it was a +point of honour and an inveterate weakness with her to refuse to own +that she had anything to do with such small but welcome boons to her as +boarders. There she sat, serenely disclaiming the slightest knowledge of +what had taken place, and attributing every attention to her old servant +Susan, who had been with Mrs. Jennings since her marriage +five-and-thirty years before. Or, if it was not Susan, it was her +coadjutor, Marianne, in her housemaid's neat dress, whom Susan, in her +working housekeeper's black cap and gold-rimmed spectacles, had trained +to all fit and proper service in a gentlewoman's house. + +In person Mrs. Jennings was tall and thin, sallow, and slightly +hook-nosed, but still handsome. Her upright, broad-shouldered, and, by +comparison, slender waisted figure was conventionally good; but it was +hard to say how far it was her own, or how much it was made up. For she +was one of those women who consider that it is a duty which they owe to +the world not only to show themselves to the best advantage in bodily +presence to the last, but so to conceal and atone for the ravages of +time as to preserve a semblance of their maturity after it is long past. +The performance is not altogether successful. For one thing, it is apt +to call forth a spirit of contemptuous pity in the youthful spectator +who is still a long way from needing to employ such laborious, +self-denying arts. + +Mrs. Jennings added to her natural air of dignity by a filmy shawl of +black lace in summer, and of white Shetland wool in winter, draped round +her without so much as a fold out of order, and by a somewhat elaborate +modification of a widow's cap which added half an inch to her height. As +Rose wrote in an early letter home, Mrs. Jennings's cap looked as if she +had been born with it on her coal black hair, or as if it were glued and +gummed there beyond any possibility of being displaced. Mother ought to +see it, take an example, and abandon her flighty, waggling head-gear. +No, on second thoughts, Rose would not like to see mother with a cap +fitted on her head like the bowl of a helmet, and giving the idea of +such stony stability that it might have been fastened with invisible +nails hammered into her skull. + +Hester Jennings, Mrs. Jennings's daughter, was the young art student +like Rose's self, to whom she and her friends had naturally looked for +congenial companionship where the girl was concerned; and if she did not +find it with Hester, she was not likely to discover it in any of the +other residents at No. 12 Welby Square. Naturally Rose did not greatly +affect the remaining members of that elderly society, on which Mrs. +Jennings professed to set store. She could not help liking Mrs. +Jennings, though, alas! Rose scarcely believed in her so much as she +would have been justified in doing. + +In Mrs. Jennings's daughter, who had been from the first thought of as +a friend for Rose, she believed entirely. Yet Rose had been in the +beginning both startled by Hester Jennings and disappointed in her. + +Hester Jennings looked considerably older than she was, which was about +Annie Millar's age; in fact, she was prematurely worn with study and +work. She was like her mother on a larger scale, with advantages of a +fair paleness and remarkable violet-blue eyes, which Mrs. Jennings had +never possessed. Hester might have passed for a lovely young woman if +she had cared in the least to do it. But never was girl more indifferent +to such claims or more capable of doing her worst to qualify them and +render them the next thing to null and void. When Annie Millar made +Hester Jennings's acquaintance, Annie maintained that there was +something left out in Hester's composition, the part which makes a woman +desire to look well in the eyes of her neighbours, and win admiration, +though the admiration be as skin deep as the beauty which creates it. + +To think that a daughter of Mrs. Jennings, an artist in her own right, +could dress so badly, with such a careless contempt for patterns and +colours, in such ill-fitting frocks and dowdy or grotesque hats! Her +preference for strident aniline dyes and gigantic stripes and checks in +the different articles of her costume looked very like perversity; +especially when it was shown that with reference to other persons, in +arranging to paint a portrait, for instance, no one, not Mrs. Jennings, +displayed such a fine sense of fitness and harmony as Hester exhibited. +Dress was to her, in her private character, mere necessary clothing, +warm or cool as the season required. It was not worth the waste of +thought implied by turning it over in her mind. Her mother dressed for +the family; or, if she did not, Hester understood that her married +sisters and sisters-in-law devoted, with success, a great deal of time +which they did not value in other respects, to the subject in question. + +Speak of Rose Millar's professional notions as to the human figure being +left easy and untrammelled! Rose was a pattern of decorous neatness and +trimness compared to Hester; indeed, Rose was appalled by the total +absence of order and ceremony, not to say of embellishment, in her +friend's toilet. Hester abandoned herself permanently to deshabilles. +She appeared in a jacket indoors as well as out. She dispensed with +collars in morning and lace in evening wear. She did her hair once when +she got up, and regarded passing her hand over her head when she took +off her hat as all that was incumbent upon her afterwards. Without +intending it, and without dreaming of copying the bushes of hair in +Rossetti's pictures, Hester Jennings's sandy-coloured locks, not a good +point in her personal appearance, were, as her great-grandmother would +have cried in horror, more like a dish-mop than anything else. She +stopped short of dirt in her slovenliness because of her purity of soul, +her deep respect for the laws of health, and because of the traditions +of her class, from which she could not altogether escape. But between +her bondage to work, and her scornful neglect of other claims which she +had known over-exalted and exaggerated, she had accomplished marvels. + +Hester Jennings had attained such eminence in her recklessness of +consequences, that, in place of being a nearly lovely woman, in +accordance with her profile, complexion, and glorious eyes, she was +barely good-looking because of them, in a style which repulsed many more +people than it attracted others. The sight of Hester was one of the +numerous lessons which she was destined to give to Rose Millar. It +frightened Rose into becoming tamely conventional and elaborately tidy +in dress, to the surprise and edification of her sister Annie, for it +was just at the time when Annie was most spent by her new life and +labours, and least inclined to put off her hospital gown and cap. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +A YOUNG ARTIST'S EXPERIENCE. + + +Rose respected Hester Jennings. She could not help respecting her--a +creature so much in earnest, so indefatigably industrious, so +indifferent to all the distractions of the outer world which might have +taken her out of herself and away from her work, while she was not above +three or four years Rose's senior. If Hester would have let her, the +respect would have deepened to reverence, when Rose discovered what the +elder girl neither hid nor boasted of, that she was not only paying for +her art lessons at the art school, and in other respects freeing her +mother from the burden of her maintenance,--she was steadily earning a +small independent income by working incessantly at every spare moment +snatched from her studies. She worked at all sorts of designs for the +most insignificant and obscure cheaply illustrated books and periodicals +which cannot exist entirely on old plates excavated from forgotten +stores, bought by the thousand at trade sales, procured by transfer +from America, or even--now that national costumes are dying out--from +France and Germany. These attempts at art were intended to pass into the +hands of children--not the favoured children reared on the charming +fancies of Caldecott and Kate Greenaway; but homelier, more stolid, and +easily satisfied children. Such art was also for the masses of the +people who cannot pay for original art, save in its first uncertain +developments, when the stagier it is, the blacker, the bolder, the more +meretriciously pretty or fantastically horrible, the better it is +relished by its public. Even the stereotyped representations of the +coarser fashion-plates, and the eccentric symbols and arbitrary groups +employed in the humbler trade advertisements which the magnates in such +advertising have left far behind, were food for Hester's unresting +pencil. She might have injured herself irreparably by such illegitimate +practice had she not studied as faithfully as she designed, with +something of a stern, merciless severity, hunting out and correcting in +her studies the errors of her crude work. + +Stress of circumstances had lent what the French would have called a +brutal side to Hester's natural candour and sincerity. It was one +comfort that she was still more brutal to herself than to the rest of +the world. + +When Rose Millar showed her sister-artist some of Rose's sketches, +Hester gave them a glance and a toss aside one after the other. + +"There is nothing in that," she said coolly, "though I can see you have +taken some trouble with it. This is not so bad. No, don't show that +thing to anybody else--it will do you harm." Her highest praise was the +"not bad" of mildest negative approval. "When you go to the class +to-morrow morning," predicted the slashing critic, "you may depend upon +it you will be turned back to a course of free-hand, or to copying from +the round again. I don't mean that Mr. St. Foy will be as plain-spoken +as I have been; he is a great deal too much afraid of hurting your +feelings and his own, and of losing a pupil, though he is not what I +should call either a bad man or a bad teacher. He is just like the rest; +but wait and see if he does not politely turn you back to very nearly +the beginning." + +"I have had good teachers before," said Rose, crumpling up her nose and +her forehead tightly, and swelling a little with wounded self-respect as +well as wounded vanity. "It is queer, to say the least, if all my +teachers were in a conspiracy to push me on to what I was not fit for, +and to give me work altogether beyond my powers." + +"You asked my opinion," said Hester Jennings, with inflexible calmness, +"and I am not surprised that you do not like it when you have got +it--few people do. The truth is not generally palatable. Not that I go +in for infallibility of judgment. Wait and see what Mr. St. Foy +does--not says--to-morrow." + +"But why were the others--one of them an exhibitor at the Academy and +the Grosvenor--so much mistaken?" inquired Rose, with natural +indignation. + +"How can I tell? But I hope you do not imagine that exhibitors are +necessarily geniuses, or not as other men, or that they must be able to +do a little bit of tolerable teaching when it pays them to condescend to +it? Mr. St. Foy never exhibits--very likely for the good reason that his +pictures are not accepted; but it does not follow on that account that +he cannot paint a fairly good picture--better even than some which are +hung on the line--and teach very tolerably to boot." + +This was a new, bewildering doctrine, and a thoroughly disheartening +state of matters, to which Rose, extinguished as she was on her own +merits, did not make any reply. + +"What I think, if you care to hear further what I think," said Hester, +with a dry smile, "is that in not taking time and in being wild to paint +a complete picture--something which everybody could recognize as a +picture, and your friends admire--as if such a thing can be done to any +good purpose for years and years--you have fallen into the disastrous +habit of forgetting, or of only half remembering, what you learnt +before, as you went on learning more. At least, that is the only way in +which I can account for the wretchedness of some of your drawing, and +the badness of your perspective, when you have got so far as to have a +feeling for a scale of colour and the tone of a picture." + +"Well, I suppose I can learn it all over again," said Rose, with a +mixture of spirit and doggedness, forcing herself not to betray further +resentment, and to swallow a little girlish weakness at the +uncompromising treatment she was receiving. What would May and Dora say? +But she durst not trust herself to think of them. + +"Of course," answered Hester, opening widely a pair of singularly clear +keen eyes. "Do you think I should have taken the trouble to say as much +if I had thought otherwise?" + +It was the one dubious compliment which Rose extracted, without meaning +it, from the fault-finder. + +Hester's openly expressed desire was to be an artist out and out, to +live like an artist, not to be troubled with the hindrances and petty +restrictions of an ordinary woman's life, which she was tempted to +despise, to which, if she yielded at all in her mother's house, it was +with scarcely concealed reluctance and aversion. Very likely she had +only the most one-sided conception of the life she would have chosen. +Certainly her notions of Bohemianism were about as ingenuous as "little +May's" might have been; to go where art called her, to do what art +demanded of her, to be art's humble, diligent, faithful servant all her +days, without being held back and fettered on every hand by set meals, +obtrusive servants, changes of dress, the obligation to pay and receive +visits. The dream of her life was to get to Paris and have lessons in +one of the French studios, where she was led to believe women have as +good a chance of being well taught as men possess. She would prefer to +live with some young women students like herself _en fille_--a +modified--much modified version of _en garcon_. They would hire an +_etage_ in some cheap, convenient quarter, get the wife or daughter of +the _conciergerie_ to prepare breakfast and supper for them, dine at one +of Duval's restaurants work all day, and sleep the sleep of the +labouring woman at night. She said she knew quite well how such artists +were considered in Paris, that they were regarded as _vauriennes_, to +whom there was no occasion to pay the respect and consideration which +were reserved for the potent _mesdames_ and the _jeunes filles ingenues_ +of society. But what had she to do with society? She belonged to the +great republic of art, and had infinitely more to occupy her than to +listen for what society would say. As to not being able to take care of +herself and behave so that the slightest indignity to her would never be +ventured upon, the bare mention of such a possibility was received by +Hester with a wrath which bordered on fierceness, and for the most part +silenced her opponents effectually. Any displeasure which Annie Millar +had displayed on a similar supposition was mild by comparison. + +Hester was not an only child. Mrs. Jennings had sons, all in the army or +navy, the mother was proud to say; but none of them in those days of +competitive examinations and expensive living was high enough up in the +service to be able to help his mother. On the contrary, grown men, with +men's callings, as they were, they found themselves under the necessity +of taking help from her. There were also other daughters besides Hester +married to men in professions as unexceptionable as those of their +brothers-in-law, but neither were they in circumstances which could make +them feel justified in granting the smallest subsidy to Mrs. Jennings. +Only Hester toiled for her mother at every moment which she could take +from her studies and her natural rest. Yet the two women, who had dwelt +under the same roof since Hester's babyhood, who were united by the +strongest and most sacred tie, were without one taste in common, were +irreconcilably different in every mode of thought and impulse of +feeling, were only alike in each being well-intentioned and desirous of +fulfilling her intuitions and justifying her beliefs. Being wise, the +pair agreed to differ. But oh! the pity of it where aims, ideals and +standards, hopes and fears, were all equally wide apart. + +Mrs. Jennings did not interfere with Hester's freedom farther than she +could help. Hester had her own engagements, her own circle of friends. + +It may not surprise those who are acquainted with the various versions +of Hester Jennings to be met with in this generation, that she was a +red-hot radical in contrast to her mother's conservatism--well-nigh a +_communiste_, to whom woman's rights and wrongs meant a burning question +of the day, which, next to her love of art, came very near to her heart. +She was almost powerless to assist her sister women, so overworked was +she on her own account, but whenever she could snatch a moment half a +dozen clubs and societies claimed her for their own. She had really a +wide personal knowledge of the working-women of London, employed and +unemployed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +MR. ST. FOY'S AND THE MISSES STONE'S. + + +There was a second and large portion of Rose's life which belonged to +her art classes, and to the classes in which she was one of the teachers +and not one of the taught. In the art classes Hester Jennings's +influence still dominated over Rose. In spite of Mr. St. Foy's +professional qualifications, for which Hester had vouched, he had not so +potent a personality as that possessed by one of his favourite pupils. +He was tall, thin, gentleman-like, and delicate-looking, with a habit of +languidly winking his eyes every second or two, as if they were weary of +the trying sights of this world. He was kind to Rose in his courteous +way, but she would not have been certain either of his ability to judge +her work or of his honest opinion of it, if it had not been for what +Hester told her. + +There were fifty pupils among whom she and Hester ranked. These occupied +the desks, worked at the easels, copied from copies, from the round +or--height of promotion--from well-known models attached to the +institution. There was the old market woman who obligingly sat alike for +wicked old hags and doting grandmothers. There was the athletic young +porter, off duty, who was a brigand or a pilot as occasion served. + +The pupils were of various styles, idle and chattering, picturesque and +sentimental, industrious, commonplace, but the most of them were +variations on that last accepted version of the lady artist--the +individual girl who aims at being independent and natural to the verge +of harmless lawlessness and Philistinism--strange reaction from +aestheticism. There were many Hester Jennings's though none so pronounced +as Hester. + +The Misses Stone's select boarding-school carried Rose twice a week into +another region, where the wind did not blow so freely and the air was a +trifle stifling. Sometimes she wondered if the Misses Stone knew the +tone of a large proportion of the young lady artists at Mr. St. Foy's +classes--not that Rose herself could see anything absolutely wrong in +it--whether they would care to have an assistant drawing-mistress from +those half-emancipated, more than half insubordinate ranks. However, +Rose's appointment was not in any great danger of being cancelled. She +had involuntarily become doubly careful in her dress and demeanour +lately, and she discovered that the Misses Stone were old and intimate +friends of Mrs. Jennings, whom they pitied sincerely for having so +troublesome a daughter. + +At first Rose did not dislike the office of teacher, which brought her +in a little income before she was out of her teens. The whole place +reminded her pleasantly of Miss Burridge's school which she had quitted +but recently, only instead of having a metropolitan superiority in +enlightenment and progress, strange to say, the Misses Stone's +establishment, as if drawing within itself and shrinking back from the +constantly moving, restlessly advancing world around, was really +older-fashioned, less in the van of public opinion than the school at +Redcross. The Misses Stone, their teachers and pupils, were well-bred, +and what might have been called in past days "prettily behaved," though +the behaviour was a little formal. Women and girls were elegantly +accomplished, in place of being solidly informed or scientifically +crammed, in accordance with the fashion of the nineteenth century. Above +all, they declined with a gentle unconquerable doggedness to be turned +from the even tenor of their ways. Italian was still largely taught in +the school, while only a fraction of the pupils learnt German. Latin had +no standing ground save in the derivation of words, Greek was unknown. +The word mathematics was not mentioned. The voice of the drill-sergeant +was not heard, but the dancing-master with his kit attended twice a +week, like Rose, all the year round. The harp was played by the pupils +instead of the violin. Withal there was much careful learning and +repeating of Sunday Collects and the Church Catechism. + +The school found ample support. What it attempted to do was in the main +well done. Undoubtedly there was an attraction, half-graceful, +half-quaint, in all connected with it, from the gentle manners of the +elderly Misses Stone, who were only bitter against what was bold, +impertinent, and eccentric, to the most dainty of their small pupils. +Strictly conservative people felt that their daughters were safe in such +an atmosphere, and patronized it accordingly. Undoubtedly they learnt a +good deal which was worth learning. + +Rose began by receiving nothing save the most considerate kindness and +approval in that house. It was a libel on its forms and ceremonies to +imagine that they contained anything tyrannical and harsh in their +essence. The very law of their being was amiability, combined with mild +steadfastness in withstanding the subversive attitude of the time. The +most highly-born, richly-endowed girl within the precincts--and the +school was rather aristocratic--would no more have ventured on being +rude to Miss Rose Millar, the junior drawing-mistress, than the girl +would have presumed to stamp her foot at one of the Misses Stone. If +Rose had dropped her pencil in the course of her work, the highly-born +pupil, by force of example, if for no other reason, would immediately +have risen and picked it up, though she might not have made the speech +about a Titian being worthy to be served by a Caesar. In fact Rose was in +danger of being killed with kindness. Soon she was conscious of +something choking, crushing, dwarfing in this artificial system. This +was made more conspicuous to her by the choice of art subjects for the +girls' study. There was no end of flower and fruit pieces. There were +the stereotyped noble ruins, and cottages, either embowered in roses or +half-buried in snow. There were the Dutch and Venetian boats which had +never sailed on familiar waters. Stags abounded, and Rose ceased to ask +why so many of them stood at bay. The sleeping baby, which might have +been a dead baby or a stone baby, was there; so was the long-nosed, +wooden-legged collie, watching the shepherd's plaid. With what a lively +hatred Rose grew to hate that collie! + +Rose felt herself "cribbed, cabined, and confined" when she came from +the comparative open air and robust life of Mr. St. Foy's classes. Yet +even these were not the world of art. She got nervous in the fear of +unworthily committing solecisms against the silken softness and steely +rigidity of the Misses Stone's shrine. She thought if she caught up and +reproduced any of Hester's vagabond notes--the Misses Stone were +necessarily slightly acquainted with Hester, of whom, however, they +never spoke--it would be like throwing a bombshell among these quiet, +unalterable proprieties. She came to have a morbid, feverish craving to +do it, or to see some other person do it. For instance, if young Lady +Maud Devereux would but bid Rose tie her shoe, or even if she would +contradict Miss Stone, or Miss Lucilla, or Miss Charlotte, without +prefacing the contradiction by "I beg your pardon!" + +At last these two days a week of giving lessons at the Misses Stone's, +from being merely the agreeable lucrative variety in her life which they +had promised to be, became gray days of penance to Rose Millar, when she +felt she was under a spell, and did her duty badly. She ceased to refer +to them in her letters home. + +Rose arrived one morning at the Misses Stone's in a peculiarly excitable +and yet depressed frame of mind. She had not been to Mr. St. Foy's +classes that day; but Hester Jennings had known, the afternoon before, a +piece of unwelcome news which she thought fit to communicate to Rose in +the course of their morning walk, that ran so far in the same +direction. A group of peasants, with which Rose Millar had been taking a +great deal of pains, had been summarily condemned and dismissed by the +master. Rose waxed hot and restive under the sentence, and began to +dispute it vehemently, Hester defending it with equal vehemence, in what +she considered justice to Mr. St. Foy, on the ground of a lack of +dignity and repose in the central peasant. Hester was at that moment +tearing along a thoroughfare, and showing so little dignity and repose +not only in her gait, but in her "loud," ill-assorted garments, that, as +frequently happened, to Rose's vexation, several people among the +passers-by turned and looked after them. Hester to talk of a want of +dignity and repose! It was like Satan reproving sin. + +At the same time, while it is hard to admit the justness of a criticism +unaffected by the inconsistency of the person who utters it and of the +circumstances under which it is uttered, Rose was perfectly well aware +that Hester Jennings was as excellent a judge of dignity and repose, +apart from her personal proceedings, as any artist could be. + +Rose did not retaliate, save in self-defence. Hester was her senior in +art-knowledge still more than in years. She was not her sister to be +treated without ceremony, and pretty deep down in Rose's girlish heart +there was a respectful tolerance, an approach to tender reverence, for +the turbulent-minded, chaotic, gifted creature beside her. Still Rose's +equanimity was considerably disturbed. + +The unruffled serenity of the Misses Stone's domain, far from restoring +Rose's composure, seemed to smite her by contrast with an intolerable +sense of personal reproach, and to goad her into rebellion. Rose was +conscious of her variable spirits--the heritage of her years--getting +more and more uncertain, and of being wrought up to a perilously +high-strung pitch. She felt as if she were panting for liberty to +breathe, to express her discordant mood in some unconventional manner. + +As it happened, the principal drawing-mistress, a highly decorous, +self-controlled young woman, ten years Rose's senior, was absent, and +her assistant was alone at her post, with the whole class in and on her +hands. Rose had already taken off her hat and gloves, and she tried to +compose her ruffled feelings before she began her round of the +drawing-boards, as Mr. St. Foy inspected his easels. The analogy with +its disproportion struck her, and moved her to silent, unsteady +laughter, which she could not restrain, so that it broke out into a +ringing peal at the first enormity in drawing which she came across. + +Nobody laughed like that at the Misses Stone's --certainly no +low-voiced, quietly conducted teacher. Rose was further aggrieved and +tormented by the astonished heads privily raised, and the wondering eyes +covertly looking at her. She laughed no more. She went on examining, +commending, correcting, till she was tired out. Surely the morning hours +were endless that day. She was exhausted, not merely by the "smart walk" +from Welby Square, which, taken at Hester Jennings's pace, was always +tiring, as Rose knew to her cost, but also by the turmoil of spirit she +had been in. All the toils, disappointments, and drudgery of the life +which lay before her seemed suddenly to press upon her and overwhelm +her, and before she knew what she was doing she was sobbing behind her +handkerchief. She had one grain of sense left, she turned her back; but +her heaving shoulders and the muffled sound of a "good cry" were not +hidden from the electrified class. + +Nobody cried like that at the Misses Stone's, unless it might be to +somebody's pillow in the darkness of the night. For any teacher to cry +in her class was unheard of. Rose conquered herself in less time than it +has taken to recount her weakness, and resumed the lesson with moist +eyes, a reddened nose, and her whole girlish body tingling and smarting +with girlish mortification. All the rest of the morning she seemed to +hear two startling statements repeated alternately and without pause. + +"Miss Rose Millar laughed loudly in the middle of her teaching;" and oh! +shame of shames, for the womanly dignity of the last year of Rose's +teens--"Miss Rose Millar cried before the whole class." + +Rose had once joined in a girls' play, full of girlish cleverness and +girlish points and hits. No less a personage than Queen Elizabeth was +introduced into it. In the course of the plot great stress was laid on +the fact that the Queen had laughed at Lord Essex's expense, behind his +back. This was done in order to pique the proud, spoilt young courtier +to resent the laughter, and, in homely parlance, to give Her Majesty +more to laugh at. The phrase "_and the Queen laughed_," had been +emphatically repeated again and again in Lord Essex's hearing, with much +malicious meaning and effect. + +That mocking quotation was resounding in Rose's ears with a +characteristic variation. It was no longer "_and the Queen laughed_," it +was "and Miss Rose Millar laughed," then alas! alas! as a fit pendant, +"and Miss Rose Millar cried." + +What a big baby she had shown herself, without the decent reticence of a +gentlewoman's good breeding, or the proper pride of a girl who +respected herself. How these school-girls must despise her! What was she +to do? Wait for the girls to whisper and chatter as all girls will, +however trained? Or go at once to the Miss Stone with whom she had most +to do, tell her the solecism of which she, Rose, had been guilty in the +best behaved of schools, and abide by Miss Stone's decision, though it +should be that she and her sisters would in future dispense with the +services of Miss Rose Millar as assistant drawing-mistress. + +Rose had the courage and honesty to adopt the latter course, and she +tried to think that the fresh affront it brought her, was part of the +penalty which she was bound to pay for her disgraceful childishness. + +Miss Lucilla Stone listened with a little personal discomfiture, for she +was, like Mrs. Jennings, so thoroughly mistress of herself and the +situation, that any _gaucherie_ or boisterous indiscretion was positive +pain to her. Besides, the bad example to the girls for whom Miss Lucilla +and her sisters were responsible, made a matter which people who did not +understand might wrongly consider a trifle, really a serious affair. "No +doubt," acquiesced Miss Lucilla, "something had put you out, as you tell +me," in low-voiced rebuke, which yet sunk Rose in the dust, deeper than +she had been, when she was making her impulsive confession. "You were +tired with your walk, of course, but, my dear Miss Rose Millar, it is +necessary to learn to practise self-control, especially in the presence +of young people. They are so quick to notice and to encroach on their +elders and those placed in authority over them, when the necessary +distance of perfect self-control on the one side--if possible on both +sides--is not preserved between them. Perhaps," added Miss Lucilla +meditatively, and beginning to brighten a little, for she hated to give +the lecture well-nigh as much as Rose hated to receive it, "if you had +swallowed just a teaspoonful of _sel-volatile_ or something of that +kind, when you came in, the little scene would have been avoided. I +shall speak to my sister Charlotte, who has the key of our medicine +chest, and get her to administer a tiny dose to you every drawing day; +you will step into the study the first thing, and it will be ready for +you." + +"Oh, no, thank you, Miss Lucilla," exclaimed Rose hastily, "I never took +_sel-volatile_ in my life. Father says not one of us is hysterical, or +is likely to faint on an emergency, not even Dora or May. He is quite +proud of Annie--my sister Annie--for her nerve, and she needs it all, +since she is in training for a nurse." + +Miss Lucilla shook her head dubiously, whether at the modern +institution of lady nurses, or at the superiority in nerve of any family +to which Miss Rose Millar belonged. + +"You may not have been hysterical before," said Miss Lucilla with mild +obstinacy; "but that is no reason why you should not be so now. If you +dislike _sel-volatile_, you ought to try red lavender drops. I know they +have gone out of fashion, but my dear mother still used them and found +much benefit from them till she was seventy-seven years of age." + +Rose longed to say that there was a great gulf between seventy-seven and +nineteen and two months. She was stopped by the quiet determination and +self-satisfaction visible in Miss Lucilla's face and manner, as she rose +and graciously but summarily dismissed the trespasser on her valuable +time. + +"Yes, I hope this will meet the case. You have been overdoing +yourself--that explains itself to everybody. Dear Mrs. Jennings must +forbid you tea and coffee and limit you to cocoa in the meantime; +indeed, my sisters and I take that precaution before any mischief +appears. Don't forget Miss Stone's study the first thing on drawing +mornings. I trust a little sedative and stimulant in one will prepare +you nicely for the drawing lessons." + +To Rose's disgust she was compelled to make wry faces and choke over so +many doses of _sel-volatile_ and red lavender to the end of the term. +She made secret unfulfilled threats to write to her father and get him +to say that he would not permit her constitution to be tampered with, he +would himself order her what she required, if she needed to be quieted +like an incipient mad woman or a weak emotional fool. + +Rose was not sure that Annie ought not to have come to her help. The +younger sister did not see what advantage there was to the family in the +elder sister's being a nurse if she was not to interfere on occasions of +this kind. But Annie had the bad taste to take the story as a good joke +against Rose; and as for Hester Jennings, it was an instance of "_the +Queen laughed_" with a vengeance. However, Hester stepped in so far. She +would not let the soothing regimen, on which Rose was put, go the length +of depriving her of her tea and coffee in Welby Square. + +Within the next few weeks Hester did Rose a still better turn. She +(Hester) came to her friend with an order for decorative designs in +scroll-work, which had reached the elder girl from a decorator of some +repute. + +"I think you could do it, Rose," said Hester. "It would not take much +time, and if your work satisfied the great tradesman who has given such +an impetus to this kind of art, it might be a perfect windfall to art +students wishing to keep themselves. You need not despise it in the +light of house-painting. If you read your Ruskin, you will find him as +good as calling Titian and Veronese house-painters, though to be sure +frescoes are rather an extension of scroll-work." + +"Indeed, I should never dream of despising it. I should be only too +thankful for any kind of copying or pattern-drawing, or designing for +Christmas-cards--like poor Fanny Russell--if it were the beginning of +the least little bit of an order," said Rose meekly, with a stifled sigh +given to her and May's old magnificent ideas of commissions. "But why +don't you keep the work for yourself, Hester?" the young girl inquired. +"You could do it so well and so easily, and it would be no pain to you; +it would be a pleasure, for it is graceful and true work so far as it +goes--not like these cruel illustrations." + +But Hester waived aside the undertaking. "You have been more accustomed +to this kind of thing than I have. No, I mean to stick to my +illustrations, cruel or kind. There is a new man in the publisher's +office who is giving me more of my own way, and I feel it would not be +fair to leave him in the lurch. Who knows that we may not, between us, +lead the way to a revolution in the style of the cheapest original +English wood-cut. Besides, I do not want any more diversions from my +main business. I am already on four different committees for women's +trade unions, the female franchise, and all the rest of it. I must crib +a little more time for my hand and foot. Don't you know?--Drawing my own +hand and foot from their reflection in a looking-glass till I can put +them in any position, and foreshorten them to my mind." + +Rose competed for the scroll-work order, and did it so well that she got +the order, and along with it a note of commendation, a tolerably large +extension of the commission, and the first instalment of a liberal +payment for the kind of work. Her elation knew no bounds-- + +"Oh! Hester, I should never, never even have heard of this delightful +job but for you. What can I ever do for you?" + +"Don't hug me," said Hester, retreating in veritable terror, for she had +a peculiar genuine aversion to caresses, still more than to thanks. +"Don't knock off my hat, for I cannot spare another minute to put it +straight again." + +The next thing Hester heard was a half-impetuous, half-shamefaced +admission from Rose that she had resigned her post as assistant +drawing-mistress at the Misses Stone's school. + +Hester looked grave on the instant. "What did you do that for?" she +demanded gruffly. "Did you mention it to your sister? Have you told them +at home?" + +"No," Rose was forced to own--at least not till the deed was done. She +had acted on her own responsibility. "But indeed, Hester, it is the best +plan," she argued volubly. "Annie and all of them will say so when they +know how I mean to cultivate this scroll-work, which is paying me twice +as well already. I put it to you if I could do two things at once, and +if it would be wise to sacrifice the more profitable for the less +remunerative. Why it would be quite shortsighted and cowardly." + +"Humph," said Hester, without the smallest disguise, "much experience +you have had of it! Do you know, Rose Millar, these decorators' fads are +constantly changing? Perhaps in three months they will all be for +mosaic, or tiles, or peacocks' feathers again. If I had thought you were +such a rash idiotic little goose, I should never have breathed a word to +you of this man and his scroll-work." + +"Oh! but, Hester," pled Rose, determined not to be offended, "I was only +relieving the poor Misses Stone of a painful necessity. I am sure they +have never put any dependence on me since the day I broke down--I grant +you idiotically. I cannot stand the repression--suppression--whatever +you like to call it. Now that there is a way out of it, I have felt +like a wild beast in the school--the girls are so very tame--so much +tamer than we were at Miss Burridge's--where I was not a black +sheep--May will tell you if you care to ask her," protested Rose with +wounded feeling. "But I am so tired of the rosy and snowy cottages and +the ruins, and of that long-nosed collie. Sometimes I feel as if I would +give the world for him to wag his tail one day, just to give me an +excuse for crying out and flinging my india-rubber at him. I wish May +saw him; it might stop her ecstasies over her new acquisition--the brute +at home. I feel that this other brute, and the rest of the Misses +Stone's copies and models, are injuring my drawing--I know they are +making it cramped; while the scrolls help my freedom of touch like +Hogarth's line of beauty or Giotto's O. And it is such humbug, and so +horrid to have to swallow these doses of _sel-volatile_--a great healthy +girl like me!" + +"Humph!" said Hester again, "I hope you may not repent what you have +done--if so, you need not blame me." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE OLD TOWN, WITH ITS AIR STAGNANT YET TROUBLED. IS MAY TO BECOME A +SCHOLAR OR A SHOP-GIRL? + + +The spring found Redcross still staggering under the failure of Carey's +Bank. Hardly a week passed yet without some painful result of the +disaster coming to light. These results had ceased to startle, there had +been so many of them; but they still held plenty of interest for the +fellow-sufferers, and Dora and May's letters were full of the details. + +Bell Hewett had left Miss Burridge's; she had got a situation, or +rather, she had been appointed to a junior form in the Girls' Day School +at Deweshurst, going in the morning and returning in the afternoon by +train. It was a good thing for Bell on the whole. She was more +independent, had a recognized position as a public school-mistress, +which she would not have had as a private governess; and if she +continued to study, and passed various examinations, she might rise to +higher and higher forms until she blossomed into a head-mistress--fancy +Bell a head-mistress! She had quite a handsome salary, more than poor +Ned's according to the chroniclers, Dora and May. That was the bright +side of it. Unluckily for Bell, as most people thought, there was +another. The daily journeys, together with the school-work, constituted +a heavy task for a girl. Bell, toiling up from the railway station on a +rainy day, with her umbrella ready to turn inside out, and her +waterproof flying open, because her left hand, cramped and numb, was +laden with a great bundle of exercises to correct at home, presented a +dejected figure, tired out and three-fourths beaten. So the Miss Dyers +thought as they rolled past her in their carriage, and debated whether +they should not stop to pick her up and save her walking the rest of the +road. But she was such a fright, positively bedraggled with mud enough +to soil the cushions, and she could speak of nothing now save the +Deweshurst Girls' Day School and her duties there. It was too tiresome +to be borne with. Poor Bell was not clever, she was one-idea'd and slow +at work like Ned, and she had also his conscientiousness. Probably +promotion was not for her; she must drudge on as best she might. Her +great encouragement at this time, next to her father's and sister's +approbation and sympathy, was, as she told Dora, the prospect of +spending her Easter holidays with Ned at his station-house. What did she +care for its being only a station-house? after the fagging school-work +it would be great fun to put Ned's small house in order, and play at +housekeeping with him for a fortnight. She was bent on making him +comfortable, and cheering him as well as herself. If the weather would +but be fine they might have glorious rambles on the Yorkshire moors when +no trains were due. + +Colonel Russell was sailing once more for India, to lay his bones there +without fail, the little Doctor prophesied sadly. In the meantime he had +got, and been glad to get, a subordinate post in his old field. At the +last moment, after he had established Mrs. Russell and her children in a +cheerful house in Bath, he made up his mind to take his grown-up +daughter out with him. But she was not to stay in his bungalow, for he +was going to a small out-of-the-way station where there would be no +accommodation or society in the barrack circle for a solitary young +lady. Fanny was to be left with a cousin of her father's, in the Bombay +Presidency. The lady had offered to take charge of her, and have her for +a long visit. + +Did Annie and Rose know what that meant? Could they form an indignant, +affronted guess? "Father said," Dora quoted, "that if Colonel Russell, +an honourable gentleman and gallant officer, had not lived in the old +days and had his feelings blunted to the situation, he would never have +consented to such an arrangement for his daughter. But he had seen his +sisters come out to India for the well-understood purpose of getting +married to any eligible man in want of a wife, so why should not Fanny +do the same thing, when his pecuniary losses rendered it particularly +desirable and the opportunity offered itself? It was not in Colonel +Russell's eyes an unworthy resource. Of course Fanny was going out to be +married and creditably disposed of within a given time, else her father +would not have felt justified in paying her outfit and passage-money. +Certainly he had no intention of paying her passage-money home as a +single woman." + +What would the Millars have done in Fanny's case? For was it not +dreadful--particularly when all the young people interested in the +subject remembered quite well that there had been "something" between +Cyril Carey and Fanny Russell for more than a year back? Annie had +always wondered what Fanny could see in a silly, trifling fop like +Cyril. Rose had not been without a corresponding sense of wonder as to +what Cyril could find in Fanny, who, in spite of her grand Norman +peasant's carriage and profile, was dawdling and discontented with +things in general, and though she pretended to a little knowledge of +art, did not in the least understand what she was talking about. +However, Annie's and Rose's opinions were of very little consequence +when the matter concerned--not them--but Cyril and Fanny. There had been +"something" between them which had changed the whole world to them last +summer. They would never entirely outlive and forget it--not though +Fanny went to far Cathay and married, not one, but half a dozen of +Nabobs. For she was going to obey her father, and give herself to the +first eligible bidder for her hand. No doubt she would do it with set +lips, blanched face, and great black eyes looking not only twice as +large as their natural size, but hollow and worn in the young face, +because of the dark rings round them. These were produced by the +sleepless nights which she pretended were occasioned by the hurry of her +preparations, and of her having to say good-bye to all her old friends. +But she would do it all the same. + +Dora had only once caught Fanny Russell alone, and ventured on a timid, +heart-felt expostulation. + +"Must you go to India, Fanny? We shall all miss you so much, and it is +not as if you were to be with your father, but just to stay with a +distant relative whom you have never seen; it does appear such a +sacrifice." + +"And what should I do if I stayed behind papa, Dora?" asked Fanny, +turning upon her with those great burning eyes and parched lips. "The +house here is to be given up and the furniture sold immediately--of +course you know that. It will take all that he can spare after +discharging his share of the bank debts to keep Mrs. Russell and the +children. I am a useless sort of person--a blank in the world. I could +not nurse like Annie, or paint like Rose. I could not even be a +school-mistress like Bell Hewett. Supposing I were qualified I should +break down in a month. I was born in India, and spent the first five +years of my life there, so that I am idle and languid, without stamina +or moral courage; I am like the poor Bengalees, whom I can just +remember. There is nobody who will undertake to keep me in England," +ended Fanny, with a short, hard laugh. + +And Dora, thinking of Cyril Carey--still one of the unemployed, with his +old supercilious airs lost in the gait that was getting slouching, in +keeping with the clothes becoming shabbier and shabbier, and the +downcast, moody looks--could not find words with which to contradict +her. + +Indeed, when Dora was betrayed into giving her mother a hint of that +"something," unsuspected by the seniors of the circle, which had been +between Cyril Carey and Fanny Russell, and rendered Fanny's destination +still more heartless and hateful, Mrs. Millar took an entirely +different view of the circumstances from that taken by her daughters, +and was both indignant and intolerant. "What presumption in Cyril +Carey!" broke out the gentle mother of marriageable daughters, full of +righteous wrath. "To dream of making up to a girl and perhaps engaging +her simple affections, with the danger of breaking her heart and +spoiling her prospects, when he had just failed to pass at college, and +had not so much as a calling--not to say an income, with which to keep a +wife! I shall think worse of him than I did before, after hearing this." + +"But you forget, mother," remonstrated Dora, "that the bank was in +existence then. His father might have been able to do something for +Cyril." + +"He was not going to live on the bank's capital and credit. There was +too much of that going on already with poor James Carey's encroaching, +dishonest relations and their friends. And I beg to tell you, Dora, that +a man who cannot help himself, but has to wait for his father to do +something for him, is a very poor match for any girl. Fanny Russell is +well rid of him. I have no doubt she will think so before she is many +years older--that is, if this is not all a piece of foolish nonsense +such as girls are apt to take into their heads about their companions. +If there was anything in it, and she had not been going away, her +father ought to have been warned, and Cyril Carey spoken to in the way +he deserved--selfish scapegrace! As it is, the bare suspicion is enough +to reconcile one to Fanny Russell's going out to India, though that +custom for girls has fallen into disrepute, and I never had any liking +for it. Still I hope that Fanny will soon make an excellent marriage, +and will learn to laugh at Cyril Carey and his unwarrantable +presumption, together with any girlish folly of which she may have been +guilty." + +Mrs. Millar spoke in another fashion to the little Doctor. She had +happened to be at the railway station on the raw, chill morning when +Fanny Russell, in her smart new gray travelling suit--part of her +outfit--was put into a railway carriage by her father and left there +alone, while he went to look after the luggage and find a +smoking-carriage for himself. + +Fanny sat like a statue. She did not even raise her veil when she was +bidding farewell to Lucy Hewett and Dora, who were seeing her off--not +to take a last look at Redcross, where she had spent her youth. + +Mrs. Millar understood it better when she stumbled against Cyril Carey +half hidden by a lamp-post, watching the vanishing train. She might have +taken the opportunity to rebuke him for his unprincipled recklessness; +instead of doing so--after one glance at the young fellow's haggard +face--the ordinary words of greeting died away on the kind woman's lips. +She turned aside in another direction, making as if she had not seen +him, without breathing a word of the encounter until she had her +husband's ear all to herself in the privacy of the dining-room. + +"O Jonathan!" she said, "I am so glad, so thankful that you did not +interfere and use any influence, any pressure on Dora about Tom +Robinson. I think it would have broken my heart to see any daughter of +mine going off as Fanny Russell went to-day, leaving the look I declare +I beheld on that poor lad's face. I should not wonder though she has +given him the last push on the road to destruction." + +"Oh, come now; it is not so bad as that," protested Dr. Millar, and then +he was guilty of a most audacious paraphrase of a piece of schoolboy +slang, for which he had some excuse in the habits of his wife--"Keep +your cap on, Maria. In the first place, I see no analogy between the +cases. Dora had not a private love affair--at least I was never told of +it." + +"Father, what are you thinking of? A private love affair in this house! +It was very different with poor Fanny Russell, who had only her silly, +selfish young stepmother between her and her father. I dare say she +would never have looked at an empty coxcomb like Cyril Carey if she had +been happy at home." + +"And did I not hear you say," asked the gentleman, who had before now +been made the recipient of the disastrous complication of the story, +"that the girl was well quit of the jackanapes, for she could not have a +worse bargain made for her than she had nearly blundered into on her own +account?" + +"Yes, I did say so," the lady admitted, when thus brought to book; "and +I'd say it again, if I had not seen that miserable, desperate expression +on his face, and he so young, and such a light-hearted, foolish dandy +only the other day. I may be sorry for him, I suppose, though I have no +son of my own. And I am grieved for poor James Carey, who is breaking up +so fast, and for poor, poor Mrs. Carey." + +It was a positive relief when Dr. Millar came in one day and announced +that he had a piece of good news for the family, by far the best where +the Careys were concerned that he had heard for many a day. Cyril had +got an appointment at last; he had been offered the command of the +mounted police at Deweshurst. + +"A policeman. Oh! what a downfall," cried Mrs. Millar and Dora. But when +the Doctor reminded them that there were policemen and policemen, +insisted on the fact that the practice of placing gentlemen at the head +of the constabulary was gaining ground, and asked them what they had +been in the habit of calling Colonel Shaw and Sir Edmund Henderson when +they were the chiefs of the London police, his womankind gave in. + +Mrs. Carey did not say there would be another mouth less for her to +feed, but she remarked, with the same sardonic calmness, that Cyril's +clothes would be provided for him, which would be one good thing. Cyril +himself was only too glad to get away. He would have something to do, +however unpalatable in itself, instead of digging in the garden, and +going through the form of helping Robinson, his clerks, and cashier, +with their books. He would have a good horse under him once more, if he +were only to ride it to police drill. + +Dora could not be sure whether he experienced a throb of thankfulness at +the thought that this had not happened till Fanny Russell was gone. +Where was constancy to draw the line? A man was not less a man because +he was also a mounted policeman. He might even be grandiloquently +styled, by those who were particular about the names of things, the +soldier of peace. Still Dora had an irresistible conception of the +pained disdain, the latent superciliousness, which would have sprung +into full force in Fanny's dark eyes, if she had ever seen the once +magnificent Cyril in the most careful modification of a _bobby's_ +braided tunic and helmet. + +Bell Hewett would not look so, if she, in her school-mistress character, +met Cyril at Deweshurst. Bell, like Dora, would feel her heart soften +and warm to Cyril in his misfortunes. She would think of Ned, and hurry +up to Ned's old playfellow and chum, to tell him the last news from +Yorkshire, and ask what message from him she should send to Ned in her +next letter. Dora was tempted to go on and wonder whether Cyril's heart +would not be touched in turn by the cordial recognition of his Rector's +daughter, who had, on the whole, kept her position better than he, with +his advantages, had kept his, whose frank greeting had become a kind of +credential of gentle birth and breeding afforded to him in full sight of +the natives of Deweshurst. If he felt all that, he must recognize how +womanly and sweet Bell was, though she was not pretty and not one bit +clever, and be full of gratitude to her. And gratitude combined with +considerable isolation on the one hand, and on the other the constantly +present possibility of agreeable encounters with a loyal old friend, +might lead to anything--to a good deal more than Dora cared to say even +to herself, feeling frightened at the length to which she had gone on +the spur of the moment in this most recklessly unworldly match-making. +Yet was it reckless, when Bell would be such a good poor man's wife, and +when marriage with a woman like Bell might make another man of Cyril +Carey? + +However, the Careys' adversity, with its reaction on their old +associates, approached a climax shortly after Cyril left. His father +grew so much more helpless an invalid that it was found absolutely +necessary to have a resident nurse for him. Then Mrs. Carey, though she +continued the nurse-in-chief, stated clearly and dispassionately that +she was now sufficiently disengaged to look after her house and give her +single servant what assistance she required. Therefore, as it was high +time that Phyllis should be doing something for herself, Mrs. Carey +proposed to put her at once into "Robinson's," under Miss Franklin, if +Mr. Robinson would receive Phyllis for an apprentice. + +It was in vain that Phyllis cried and implored her mother to take back +her resolution, and that all her friends apprised of the proposed step +remonstrated; Dr. Millar even called expressly to enter his protest. + +Mrs. Carey would hear of no objections. Phyllis must do something for +herself, and she was not clever or qualified in any way to be a +governess. Mrs. Carey had every confidence in "Robinson's" as an +excellent shop, conducted on the best principles. She had a great +respect for both Mr. Robinson and Miss Franklin--she would never find a +more desirable place for Phyllis. As to cutting her off from all her +connections and the circumstances of her birth and education, that had +been done already pretty effectually. The sooner everybody found his or +her level the better for the world in general. If Mrs. Carey was not +much mistaken, more girls than Phyllis would have to learn that lesson +before these hard times were over. No, it was not Phyllis who was to be +cut off from her connections--from those who ought to be nearest and +dearest to her. It was poor Ella who was separated from the rest of the +family, and condemned to gilded exile. Mrs. Carey was doing her best to +keep Phyllis, not only for her mother and her poor father, but for her +brothers, who must all start in life in a humble way, by putting the +girl into "Robinson's," since Mr. Robinson had reluctantly consented to +have her. + +Dr. Millar retired from the field beaten. + +The unheard-of destination of her friend Phyllis played the most +extraordinary pranks with May Millar's mind. The fact was, there were +two Mays dwelling side by side in one goodly young tabernacle of flesh. +There was the May with the exceptional scholarly proclivities. She had +a life of her own into which none of the family except her father +possessed so much as the tools to penetrate. She cherished dreams of +Greece and Rome, with the mighty music of the undying voices of their +sages and poets, and the rich treasures of learning, among which a poor +little English girl, far far down in the centuries, could only walk with +reverend foot and bated breath. + +And there was the other May, hanging about her mother, running to bring +her father's slippers, sitting on his knee to this day, taking +possession of Dora, ordering her about like a young tyrant, adoring +Tray--the most guileless, helpless, petted simpleton of a child-woman +that ever existed. The second May was at the present date the more +prominent and prevailing of the two, so much so that all the +sharp-tongued, practical-minded ladies in Redcross made a unanimous +remark. Dr. and Mrs. Millar's youngest daughter was the most +disgracefully spoilt, badly brought-up, childish creature for her years +whom the critics knew. It was a poor preparation in view of her having +to work to maintain herself. They could not tell what was to become of +her. + +At first May lamented, day and night, over the fate of Phyllis Carey, to +have to stand behind counters, sort drawers full of ribands, tape, and +reels of cotton, and wait on her townswomen! May could think of no +fitting parallel unless the pathetic one of that miserable young +princess apprenticed to the button-maker, dying with her cheek on an +open Bible, at the text, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy +laden, and I will give you rest." + +Then, as Phyllis accommodated herself to the new yoke, and found it not +so galling as she had expected it to be, her friend May altered her tone +with sympathetic quickness, and reflected Phyllis's change of mood +almost before the mood was established. Phyllis was in mental +constitution like her father, single-hearted and submissive--not bright +any more than Bell Hewett was bright, but contented and trustful as long +as she was suffered to be so. She had been enduring harder and harder +lines at home. She found existence actually brightening instead of +darkening round her when she was transferred to "Robinson's." For +everybody, knowing all about her and her father and mother, with their +altered circumstances, began, at least, by treating her with kindly +respect and forbearance, in spite of Mrs. Carey's austere request that +she should be dealt with exactly like the other shop-girls. + +Shop-work, in which Phyllis was to be gradually trained, felt +comparatively easy to a girl who had been taken from school and +launched into the coarsest drudgery of house-work under an +inexperienced, flurried, over-burdened maid-of-all-work. Mrs. Carey was +sufficiently just to exact no more home-work from Phyllis, and to +arrange that she should have her time to herself, like other shop-girls, +after "Robinson's" was closed, while the master of "Robinson's" was +inflexible in setting his face against late hours, except for the elder +hands on one evening in the week. Everybody was good to Phyllis, who, in +truth, just because she was enough of a little lady to be free from +arrogance and assumption, while she was willing to do her best to oblige +her neighbours, provoked no harsh treatment. Above all Tom Robinson for +one person could not be too considerate to her. + +Miss Franklin looked on Phyllis Carey as a godsend, a harbinger of other +better-class girls going into trade. The woman not only took the girl +under her wing, she fell back instinctively and inevitably on Phyllis +for companionship, with a selection flattering in a woman to a girl. + +Then a complete revolution was wrought in May's opinions and wishes. +Nothing would serve her but that she too must go as a shop-girl to +"Robinson's," and share the fortunes of her friend. + +May did not yet confide her purpose to her father and mother, but she +poured it in daily and nightly outbursts into the startled ears of +Dora, to whom the hallucination sounded like a mocking retribution on +the young Millars' old scornful estimate of shopkeepers and shops. May +stuck to her point with a tenacity which, touching as it did a tender, +trembling chord in Dora's heart, threatened also to subvert her +judgment, that was at once sounder and more matured than May's. + +The vibrating chord lay in the knowledge that May too was destined to +quit Redcross at no distant day, with the aching reluctance of Dora to +give her up, and to find herself in the position that domineering, +selfish girls sometimes covet--that of being the only girl at home, +having none to share with her in the rights and privileges of the +daughter of the house. + +A sort of feverish anxiety, which was in itself ominous, had taken hold +of Dr. Millar to see all he had projected accomplished in so far as it +was still possible. That is, he would fain set in motion, at least, the +wheels which would carry out his purpose. Perhaps he had reason to +distrust his health and life; perhaps it was simply that he was not +insensible to the fact, that money had a trick of running through his +fingers and those of Mrs. Millar like water, though they did their best +to catch it up and arrest it in its rapid course. Mrs. Millar's little +private income was still in part free, and not engulfed in the needs of +the household at Redcross, as it might not long continue. Rose had only +sixty pounds of it, and Annie fifteen for pocket-money till she should +have passed her probation and be in a position to receive her nurse's +salary, which would be as soon as she had completed her first year in +the hospital. There were seventy-five pounds remaining, which might +serve to keep May at Thirlwall Hall in St. Ambrose's with the chance of +her gaining a scholarship and partly maintaining herself for the rest of +her stay in college. "Little May's" maintaining herself in any degree +was a notion half to laugh at, half to cry over, while it took +possession of Dr. Millar's imagination just as serving in "Robinson's" +along with Phyllis Carey had hold of May's. + +Another year (who knew?) it might not be in the Millars' power to afford +May the opportunity of growing up a scholar, on which her father had set +his heart. That consciousness, and the sense of the value which her +husband put on May's abilities and their culture, brought round Mrs. +Millar. She began to contemplate with something like composure what she +would otherwise have strongly objected to, the sending forth of her +youngest darling--the child who so clung to her and to home--into an +indifferent or hostile world. + +Truth to tell, it was May herself who was the great obstacle. She was +not cast in the heroic mould of Annie and Rose. It was like tearing up +her heart-strings to drag her away from her father and mother, Dora, +Tray, the Old Doctor's House, Redcross itself. She had enough perception +of what was due to everybody concerned--herself included--and just +sufficient self-control not to disgrace herself and vex her father by +openly opposing and actively fighting against his plans for her welfare. +But she threw all the discouraging weight of a passive resistance and +dumb protest into the scale. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +TOM ROBINSON TAKEN INTO COUNSEL. + + +At last May, in the innocence of her heart, took a rash step. She heard +her father say it was good, showery, fishing weather, and she was aware +Tom Robinson often fished in the Dewes; what was to hinder her from +making a detour by the river on her way home from school, and if she saw +Tom near the old bridge--the pools below were specially patronized by +fishers--she might go up to him and ask him frankly if he had an opening +for her services, along with those of Phyllis Carey, in his shop? If he +had, would he do her the great favour to speak to her father and mother, +and ask them not to send her away to be a scholar at St. Ambrose, but to +let her stay and be a shop-woman in Redcross? + +Tom Robinson, at the first word of her appeal, put up his fishing-rod, +slung his basket, in which there were only a couple of fish, on his +back, shouldered her books, and turned and walked back with her, as if +it was he who was seeking her company and not she his. How else was he +to make the little girl who might have been his pet sister see that +there was any harm in the irregular course she had pursued? How, +otherwise, was she to understand that she was big enough--nearly a head +taller than her sister Dora--and old enough with her seventeen years, +though she was still the child of the family, to render it indecorous +for her to come, out of her own head, without the knowledge of anybody, +to have a private interview with him on the banks of the Dewes? + +"'Robinson's' is highly honoured," he told her, in a tone partly +bantering, partly serious, and wholly friendly, "and I too should, and +do, thank you for the trust in me which your proposal implies, but I am +afraid it would not do, Miss May." + +May's fair young face fell. + +"Oh! I am so sorry," she said simply; "but, please, may I know why you +have Phyllis and will not have me?" + +"The case is altogether different. Mrs. Carey made up her mind that Miss +Phyllis should go into a shop--mine or another's. Phyllis was not happy +at home; she is not a clever, studious girl, though she is your friend +and is very nice--of course all young ladies are nice. There is no +comparison between you and her." + +"But why shouldn't clever people go and work in shops?" persisted May, +in her half-childish way--"not that I mean I am clever; that would be +too conceited. But I am sure it would be a great deal better for shops +if they had the very cleverest people to work in them." + +"It depends on the kind of cleverness," he told her. "With regard to one +sort you are right, of course; with respect to another it would not +answer, and it would be horrible waste." + +She opened her brown eyes wide. "Why do you waste your abilities and +college education?" she asked him naively--"not that everybody calls it +a waste; some people say 'Robinson's' is the high-class shop it is, +because its masters have not only been respectable people, they have +always been educated men and gentlemen." + +"I ought to say for myself and my predecessors that I am much obliged to +'some people' for acknowledging that," he remarked coolly. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Robinson," said May humbly. "I know I have been +very rude--I am constantly saying stupid things." + +"Not at all; and though you did, never mind--say them to me if you +like," he gave her _carte blanche_ to comfort her. "But look here, Miss +May, I don't wish you to make mistakes. Indeed it is my duty, since I am +a great deal older than you--old enough to be, well, your uncle I +should say--to prevent it if I can." + +"I don't see how you could be my uncle," said May bluntly, "when you are +not more than five or six years older than Annie--I have heard her say +so--you are more like my brother." + +The instant she mentioned the relationship to which he had aspired in +vain, she felt the blood tingling to her finger-tips, and she could see +him redden under the shade of his soft felt hat. + +May groaned inwardly. "Oh! I am a blundering goose; I wonder anybody can +be so infatuated as to think me clever." + +"I have not said what I wished to say," he resumed, for somehow, in +spite of her forgetfulness and lack of tact, he could talk well enough +to May. "I must set you right. I have not a grain of the scholar in me +such as you have, neither do I believe that those who went before me +had; we could never have been more than fair students. We did not go out +of our way to get learning. We did what our associates and +contemporaries did, that was all. I fancy I may take the small credit to +us of saying that we had no objection to learn what the ancients +thought, saw, and did, after we had been lugged through the Latin +grammar and caned into familiarity with Greek verbs. We were like other +men who had the same advantages. I honestly believe if we had anything +special and individual about us it was a turn for trade. That is the +only manner in which I can account for our sticking to the shop, unless +we were mere money-grubbers. But all that signifies very little; what +does signify is that you are not quite like other girls. What, May, do +you pretend that you do not prize the roll of a sonorous passage, or the +trip of an exquisite phrase in Latin or Greek? That it does not tickle +your ears, cling to your memory, and haunt you as a theme in music +haunts a composer? Do you not care to go any deeper in Plato or in the +dramatists? Is it a fact that you can bear to have heard the last of +Antigone, and Alcestis, and Electra?" + +May hung her head like one accused of gross unfaithfulness, with some +show of reason. + +"No, I cannot say that, Mr. Robinson," she owned, "I shall think and +dream of them all my life. They are so grand and persecuted and sad. But +there--if I do not turn my back on them and my books, I must go to St. +Ambrose's, there is no choice," ended May disconsolately. + +"But why not go to St. Ambrose's?" + +"Oh! you do not know, Mr. Robinson," protested May with fresh energy. +"In the first place you are a man and cannot understand. In the second, +I suppose it is because I am so silly and childish and cowardly," she +went on incoherently. "Annie always said it was cowardly; she and Rose +went away quite bravely and cheerfully, keeping up their own and +everybody's spirits to the last. But Dora and I could not do it, yet I +do not know that anybody ever thought of calling our Dora cowardly +exactly, or silly, and childish. She was not a bit cowardly with the +horrid big dog and dear little Tray, you remember?--she would not let me +interfere, but she would have stoned the dog herself." + +"Which would have been very foolish of her," said Tom Robinson with +decision. "I should say she was timid, not cowardly--there is a broad +distinction between the two conditions." + +"It is just that we cannot leave home for any length of time, Dora and +I," said May piteously. + +"So you and your sister Dora cannot leave home--that is the objection, +is it?" he repeated, slowly pulling his red moustache. "What do you call +home? The Old Doctor's House or Redcross?" + +"Both," cried May quickly; "where father and mother and the rest of us +are, of course." + +"But the rest of you are gone, and what if your father and mother were +to go too?" + +"They won't, they never will," insisted May--"not until they come to +die. You were not meaning that? Oh! you could not be so cruel, so +barbarous," cried May, passionately, "when death is such a long way off, +I trust. I know that God is good whether we live or die, and that we +shall meet again in a better world. But we are not parted yet, and it is +not wrong to pray that we may be a long time together here on this very +earth, which we know so well, where we have been so happy. Why, father +and mother are not more than middle-aged--mother is not, and if father +is older, he is as strong and hale as anybody. Think how he was able to +give up his carriage and attend his patients on foot last autumn without +feeling it," urged the girl defiantly, in her passion of love and roused +dread, which she would not admit. + +"Certainly," he strove to reassure her, feeling himself a savage for +frightening her by his inadvertence, "I never saw anybody wear so well +as Dr. Millar. He might be sixty or fifty--he may live to be a +hundred--I hope with all my heart he will; and I shall not be astonished +if I live to see it. As for Mrs. Millar, it is an insult to call her +middle-aged. It is something quite out of keeping to come across her +with such a tall daughter as you are." + +"Yes, I am the tallest of the four," exclaimed May complacently, +diverted from the main topic, as he had intended her to be. "And I have +not done growing yet; my last summer's frock had to be let down half an +inch." + +"Is it possible? What are we all coming to? You will soon have to stoop +to take my arm--if you ever condescend to take my arm." + +"No," she denied encouragingly, "I am not so far above your shoulder +now," measuring the distance with a critical eye. "I shall not grow so +much as that comes to. You are bigger than father, and you would not +call him a little man; you are hardly even short." + +"Thanks, you are too kind," said Tom Robinson, with the utmost gravity. +"But I say, Miss May, if I were you, I don't think I should do anything +to vex and thwart Dr. Millar, though he is so strong and active--long +may he continue so. You know how disappointed he would be if you were to +close your books." + +"I am afraid he would," said May reluctantly. "I had almost forgotten +all about it for the last minute or two. But don't you think if you +spoke to him as I came to ask if you would," she continued unblushingly +and coaxingly, "if you were to try and show him--it would be so kind of +you--how comfortable and happy I should be with Phyllis Carey in your +shop--doing my best--indeed, I should try hard to please you and Miss +Franklin, all day--and getting home every evening--he might change his +mind?" + +"No, he would not," said Tom with conviction; "and what is more, he +ought not. He would never cease to regret his shattered hopes for +you--which, remember, you would have shattered--and your spoilt life." + +"But your life is not spoilt?" she said wistfully, unable to resign her +last hope. + +"How can you tell?" he said, with a slight sharpness in his accent. Then +he added quickly, "No, for I am a born shopkeeper in another sense than +because I am one of a nation of shopkeepers." + +He gave himself a reassuring shake, and resumed briskly--"I crave leave +to say, Miss May, that I actually enjoy making up accounts, turning over +samples, and giving orders. Sometimes I hit on a good idea which the +commercial world acknowledges, and then I am as proud as if I had +unearthed an ancient manuscript, or found the philosopher's stone. I +pulled a fellow through a difficulty the other day, and it felt like +taking part in an exciting fight. I have speculated occasionally when I +was fishing--paying myself a huge compliment, no doubt--whether old +Izaak Walton felt like me about trade." + +"Was he in trade?" inquired May, with some surprise. "I know he wrote +_The Complete Angler_, and was a friend of Dr. Donne's and George +Herbert's, and is very much thought of to this day." + +"Deservedly," said Tom Robinson emphatically. "Yes, I am proud to say, +he was a hosier to begin with, and a linen-draper to end +with--well-to-do in both lines. They say his first wife, whom he married +while he was still in business, was a niece of the Archbishop of +Canterbury of the day, and his second wife, whom he married after he had +retired to live on his earnings, was a half-sister of good Bishop Ken's; +but I do not pretend to vouch for the truth of these statements. Now, +about your father. I cannot do what you ask--I cannot in conscience. +Will you ever forgive me, 'little May'--that is what your father and +mother and your sisters call you sometimes to this day, ain't it? and it +is what I should have called you if I had been--your uncle say? Shall we +be no longer friends?" he demanded ruefully. + +"Of course we shall," said May, with a suspicion of petulance. "You are +not bound to do what I bid you--I never thought that; and you are father +and mother's friend--how could I help being your friend?" + +"Don't try to help it," he charged her. + +Tom Robinson went farther than not feeling bound to do what May begged +of him, he was constrained to remonstrate in another quarter to prevent +trouble and disappointment to all concerned. He screwed up his courage, +and everybody knows he was a modest man, and called at the Old Doctor's +House for the express purpose. He had called seldom during the past +year--just often enough to keep up the form of visiting--to show that he +was not the surly boor, without self-respect or consideration for the +Millars, which he would have been if he had dropped all intercourse with +the family because one of them had refused to marry him. But though he +had begged for Dora's friendship when he could not have her love, and +had meant what he said, the wound was too recent for him to act as if +nothing had happened. In addition to the pain and self-consciousness, +there was a traditional atmosphere of agitation and alarm, a kind of +conventional awkwardness, together with an anxious countenance, and +protection sedulously afforded by the initiated and interested +spectators to Tom and Dora, which, like many other instances of +countenance and protection, went far towards doing the mischief they +were intended to prevent. + +Tom saw through the punctilious feints and solemn stratagems clearly; +Dora did the same as plainly. Indeed the two would have been idiots if +they could have escaped from the discomfiting perception of the care +which was taken of them and their feelings, and the fact that every eye +was upon them. + +The sole result was to render the couple more wretchedly uncomfortable +than if they had been set aside and sentenced to the company of each +other and of no one else for a bad five minutes every day of their +lives. + +Another unhappy consequence of their being thus elaborately spared and +shielded was, that when by some unfortunate chance the tactics failed, +the couple felt as flurried and guilty as if they had contrived the +fruitless accident to serve their own nefarious ends. + +Tom Robinson called on the Millars between four and five the day after +May had made her raid upon him, expecting to find what was left of the +family gathering together for afternoon tea. He had the ulterior design +of drawing May's father and mother apart, and letting them judge for +themselves the advisability of her going up at once to St. Ambrose's, +before her whole heart and mind were disastrously set against her +natural and honourable destiny. He was distinctly put out by finding +Dora alone. As for Dora, she told a faltering tale of her father's +having been called away to a poor patient who was a pensioner of her +mother's, and of Mrs. Millar's having walked over to Stokeleigh with +him to see what she could do for old Hannah Lightfoot; while May was +spending the afternoon with the Hewetts at the Rectory. + +He hesitated whether to go or stay under the circumstances, but he hated +to beat an ignominious retreat, as if _he_ thought that _she_ thought he +could not be beside her for a quarter of an hour without making an ass +of himself again and pestering her. Why should he not accept the cup of +tea which she faintly offered from the hands that visibly trembled with +nervousness? When he came to consider it, why should he not transact his +business with Dora? She was as deeply interested as anybody, unless the +culprit herself; she probably knew better what May was foolishly +planning than either their father or mother did, and would convey to +them the necessary information. + +As for Dora, she was thinking in a restless fever, "I hope--I hope he +does not see how much I mind being alone with him. It is just because I +am not used to it. How I wish somebody would come in,--not mother, +perhaps, for she would start and look put out herself, and sit down +without so much as getting rid of her sunshade; and, oh dear, not May, +for she would stare, and I do not know what on earth she would +think--some wild absurdity, I dare say; anyhow, she would look exactly +what she thought." + +"Look here, Miss Dora," he said abruptly; "you don't think your sister +May ought to renounce the object of her education hitherto, and your +father's views for her, in order to do like Miss Phyllis Carey? You are +aware that May has become enamoured of Phyllis Carey's example, and is +bent on following in her footsteps; but it won't do, and I have told her +so. I trust nobody suspects me of encouraging young ladies to become +shop-women," he added, with a slightly foolish laugh, "as old actors +used to be accused of decoying young men of rank and fashion into going +on the stage, and recruiting sergeants of beguiling country bumpkins +into taking the king's shilling." + +"Has May spoken to you about it?" cried Dora, startled out of her +engrossing private reflections. "What a child she is! I am sorry she has +troubled you; she ought not to have done that. I hope you will excuse +her." + +"Don't speak of it," he said a little stiffly, as he put down his cup +and signified he would have no more tea. + +"And you said no," remarked Dora, with an involuntary fall of her voice +reflecting the sinking of her heart. "Of course you could not do +otherwise. It was a foolish notion. I am afraid Phyllis Carey is enough +of a nuisance to Miss Franklin--and other people. It is hard that you +should be bothered by these girls. Only I suspect poor 'little May' will +be most dreadfully, unreasonably disappointed;" and there was an attempt +to smile and a quiver of the soft lips which she could not hide. + +"I am not bothered, and I hate to disappoint your sister,--I trust you +understand that," he said quickly and earnestly. "But it would be +sacrificing her and overturning your father's arrangements for +her--disappointing what I am sure are among his dearest wishes." + +She did not ask, like May, why he did not count himself sacrificed. She +only said shyly and wistfully, "I knew it was out of the question, but +if it had not been so, or if there had been any other way, it would have +been such a boon to poor May not to be torn from home." At the harrowing +picture thus conjured up her voice fairly shook, and the tears started +into her dovelike eyes. + +"Home," he said impatiently, "is not everything; at least, not the home +from which every boy must go, as a matter of course. 'Torn from home' in +order to go to school! Surely the first part of the sentence is tall +language." + +"It is neither too tall nor too strong where May is concerned," said +Dora, rousing herself to plead May's cause. "She has not been away from +home and from father--especially from mother, and one or other of the +rest of us, for longer than a week since she was born." + +"Then the sooner she begins the better for her," he said brutally, as it +sounded to himself, to the loving, shrinking girl he was addressing. + +"She has always been the little one, the pet," urged Dora; "she will not +know what to do without some of us to take care of her and be good to +her." + +"But she must go away some day," he continued his remonstrance. "How old +is your sister?" + +"She was seventeen last Christmas," Dora answered shamefacedly. + +"Why, many a woman is married before she is May's age," he protested. +"Many a woman has left her native country, gone among strangers, and had +to maintain her independence and dignity unaided, by the time she was +seventeen. Queen Charlotte was not more than sixteen when she landed in +England and married George the Third." + +Dora could not help laughing, as he meant her to do. "May and Queen +Charlotte! they are as far removed as fire and water. But," she answered +meekly, "I know the Princess Royal was no older when she went to Berlin; +and poor Marie Antoinette was a great deal younger, as May would have +reminded me if she had been here, in the old days when she travelled +from Vienna to Paris. But there--it is all so different. They were +princesses from whom a great deal is expected, and the Princess Royal +was the eldest instead of the youngest of the Queen's children." + +"Does seniority make so great a difference?" he said, with an inflection +of his voice which she noticed, though he hastened to make her forget it +by speaking again gravely the next minute. "Should May not learn to +stand alone? Would it not be dwarfing and cramping her, all her life +probably, to give way to her now. Can it ever be too early to acquire +self-reliance, and is it not one of the most necessary lessons for a +responsible human being to learn? Besides, '_ce n'est que le premier pas +qui coute_.' It is only the first wrench which will hurt her. She will +find plenty of fresh interests and congenial occupations at St. +Ambrose's. In a week, a fortnight, she will not miss you too much." + +Dora shook her head incredulously. It was little he knew of May, with +her fond family attachments, and her helplessness when left to herself +in common things. + +"Follow my advice, Miss Dora," he said, rising to take his leave, "don't +aid and abet Miss May in seeking to shirk her obligations. +Unquestionably the one nearest to her at present is that she should go +to St. Ambrose's. Don't prevent her from beginning to think and act for +herself--not like a charming child, but in the light of her dawning +womanhood." + +He gave a swift glance round him as he spoke, and a recollection which +had been in the background of both their thoughts during the whole of +the interview, flashed into the foreground. It was of that day a year +ago, a breezy spring day like this, when, as it seemed, there were the +same jonquils in the jar on the chimney-piece, and the same +cherry-blossom seen through the window against the blue sky, and he had +asked her with his heart on his lips, and the happiness of his life at +stake, to be his wife, and she had told him, with agitation and distress +almost equal to his, that he could never be anything to her. He caught +her half-averted eyes, and felt the whole scene was present with her as +with him once more, and the consciousness brought back all his old +shyness and reserve, and hurried his leave-taking. The slightest touch +to her hand, and he had bowed himself out and was gone. + +"How silly he must think me," Dora reflected, walking up and down the +empty room in perturbation, "both about poor 'little May,' and about +remembering the last time we were alone together. I dare say he is +right about May, though men never do understand what girls feel. If she +should fall ill, and break her heart, and die of home-sickness--such +things have happened before now--I wonder what he would say then about +her learning to stand alone? Very likely he would assert that St. +Ambrose's is not St. Petersburg, or even Shetland or the Scilly Isles. +It is not far away, and if she were not well or happy, she could come +back in half a day, as the other girls could come down from London. But +then he would despise her, for as quiet and good-natured as he is, and +though people have said that he himself had no proper pride in +consenting to have a shop. And I don't think May could bear contempt +from anybody whom she had ever looked on as a friend. Men are hard--the +best of them are, and they don't understand. He is kind--I am sure he +means it all in kindness; but he is not yielding; he is as masterful as +when he dragged the dogs to the edge of the bank and let them drop into +the Dewes for their good. He will never be turned from what he thinks +right. I wish he had not guessed what I could not help remembering--he +was quick enough in doing that; and I could not tell him that I did not +imagine for a moment--I was not so foolish--that he was under the same +delusion he suffered from twelve months ago. If he had been oftener +here in the interval, and we had met and been together naturally as we +used to be, sometimes, I should have forgotten all about it, and so +would he, no doubt. But how could I help thinking of it when there has +always been such a point made of mother or some one else being present +when he called? I am certain it is quite unnecessary and a great +mistake. He will not speak to me again as he spoke that day. There is no +danger of his running away with me," Dora told herself with an unsteady +laugh. "I hope he is not under the impression that I did not think and +act for myself when I was forced to do it. Because, although they all +knew about it, and of course Annie and the others teased me about +'Robinson's,' and the colour of his hair, and his size, father and +mother told me to decide for myself, and I did not hesitate for a +moment. I could no more have borne to leave them all of my own free will +than May could. Surely it was proof positive I did not like him in that +way," Dora represented to herself with the greatest emphasis. + +Tom Robinson was marching home with his hands in his pockets and his hat +drawn over his eyes. "How hard she must think me--little short of a +pragmatical, supercilious brute--not to do my best to keep 'little May' +at home, where the child wants to be. I asked her to let me call myself +her friend, and this is the first specimen of my friendship! she will +take precious good care not to ask for another. She will be horribly +dull left by herself without one girl companion, only the old people. +These sisters were so happy together--I liked to see them, perhaps all +the more because I had neither brothers nor sisters of my own--I thought +it was an assurance of what they might be in other relations of life. I +suppose she will tackle that little spitfire of a dog which I inflicted +on them. May will lay her parting injunctions on Dora to plague herself +perpetually with the monster, and these will be like dying words to +Dora, she will sooner die herself than intermit a single harassing +attention. And it will be impossible for her to avoid many deprivations. +There are more partings to be faced in the future. Millar is an old man, +even if he could hope to pay up the bank's calls and make some provision +for his widow and daughters. It was a pity poor Dora could not care for +me, when there need have been no partings where we two were concerned, +save that material separation of death which is quoted in the marriage +service. She would not have believed, nor I either, that it could touch +the spiritual side of the question and the love which is worth having, +that is God-like and belongs to immortality. I might have done what I +could if Dora had married me, so far as the other girls would have let +me, to serve as a buffer between the family and the adversity which I am +afraid not all their high spirit and gallant fight will hold entirely at +bay. It was not to be, and there is an end on't. I wonder where I found +the heart, and the cheek too for that matter, to bully Dora about May, +though, Heaven knows, I spoke no more than the truth. Well, she has her +revenge, and I am punished for it. It cut me up at the time to hurt her, +and the recollection of having contradicted and pained so sweet and +gentle a creature is very much as if I had dealt a lamb a blow or wrung +a pigeon's neck--on principle." + +Half an hour afterwards Mrs. Millar bustled into her drawing-room with +an expression of mingled annoyance and excited expectation on her still +comely face. + +"My dear Dora, I am so sorry; he gave his name to Jane, and she has told +me who has been calling in my absence. I wish I had not left you by +yourself. But who was to guess that Tom Robinson would call this +afternoon? It must have been exceedingly disagreeable for you." + +"I don't know," said Dora, vaguely and desperately; "we must meet +sometimes when there is nobody by, if we continue to live in the same +town. I wish you would not mind it for me, mother, and keep on trying to +avoid such accidents, for I really think it makes them worse when they +do happen." + +"Very well, my dear, you know your own feelings best," said Mrs. Millar, +a little puzzled. In her day it was reckoned no more than what was due +to maidenly delicacy and social propriety to preserve a respectful +distance between a rejected man and his rejector. As if the gentleman +might, as Dora had said, carry off the lady by force, or shoot her or +himself with the pistol hidden in his breast! + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +ROSE'S FOLLY AND ANNIE'S WISDOM. + + +Annie Millar not only warmed to her work in St. Ebbe's, she recovered +her full glow of health and spirits. She not only liked her nursing, she +enjoyed her holiday hours intensely with the peculiarly keen enjoyment +of busy women doing excellent service in the world. If any one wishes to +know what such enjoyment is like let him have recourse to a great +authority. "_In the few hours of holiday that--only now and then--they +(a nursing sisterhood) allow themselves, they show none of the weariness +that sometimes follows the industry of toiling after self-amusement. +Reaction, after great strain on the powers of self-sacrifice and +endurance that they have to exert, may be thought to account in some +part for the happy result; but, whatever the cause, their society has in +it all that can best and most surely attract--grace, freshness, and +natural charm._"[1] + +[Footnote 1: Kinglake in his _History of the Crimean +War_, vol. vi. p. 436.] + +Rose felt as if she had never sufficiently appreciated Annie before. She +was very proud of her sister now when she came to Welby Square, and +everybody, whether in Mrs. Jennings's set or in Hester's, was struck +with Annie's beauty and brightness. + +Even Hester Jennings saw nothing to find fault with on the ornamental +side of a girl who had gone in so heartily for the serious business of +life, nine-tenths of whose hours were occupied with grave tasks, to +which Hester owned honestly that she with all her public spirit was not +equal. + +Annie's face was not only the most unclouded, her laugh the merriest of +all the faces and laughs which appeared and were heard in Welby Square. +She became almost as much of a peacemaker, a smoother-down of rough +interludes, an allayer of irritating ebullitions, as Dora was wont to be +at home. + +"Annie is so much improved," Rose wrote to May, "I never saw her looking +prettier. She is just splendid when she comes out of St. Ebbe's for an +afternoon and evening. Everybody is delighted to see her, and wants to +have her for his or her particular friend. She and I have such jolly +walks and talks; she hardly ever calls me back or puts me down now." + +After pronouncing this high encomium it was rather a shock to Rose not +only to incur Annie's righteous displeasure, but to discover that on +occasions Annie could be as severe and relentless in her sentences as +ever. + +Rose, like most middle-class girls not fairly out of their teens, and +committed to their own discretion in the huge motley world of London, +had been solemnly charged to behave with the greatest wariness. She was +to treat every man or woman she encountered well-nigh as a dangerous +enemy in disguise till her suspicions were proved to be misplaced, and +the stranger shown to Rose's satisfaction and that of her seniors and +guardians to be a harmless friend. + +To do Rose justice, she remembered for the most part what had been told +her, and was careful not to expose herself to the slightest chance of +misapprehension--not to say rudeness, such as would have frightened her +mother and incensed her father. Rose would not be tempted by the +fearless independence of Hester Jennings and her cronies. They +maintained, in theory at least, that though there might be dens of vice +and dark places of cruelty in the great city, for those whose feet trod +the downward path, yet its crowded thoroughfares, to those who honestly +went about their own business, or to the messengers of divine charity +and mercy, were as safe, and safer, than any quiet country road. +Womanhood in the strength and confidence of its purity and fearlessness +might traverse them alone at any hour of the day or night. + +But Rose submitted to the ordinary if antiquated code, which implies the +timidity and defencelessness of young women whenever and wherever +assailed. She had not gone far enough in her emancipation to reckon as +part of it, immunity from apprehension of every kind, including the +strife of evil tongues. + +However, one day in the beginning of May, Rose went to Covent Garden in +pursuit of a pot of tulips, which she suddenly felt she must have, +without delay, as an accessory in one of her sketches. She was coming +home laden with her spoil by way of Burnet's, where there was an equal +necessity for her to procure, on the instant, a yard or two of gauzy +stuff of a certain uncertain hue, when a thunder-storm unexpectedly +broke over the haunt of artists. Torrents of rain followed, enough to +wash away whole pyramids of flowers and piles of art-materials. If the +downpour did nothing else it cleared the crowded street, with the +celerity of magic only seen in such circumstances, and left Rose +cowering in a doorway, alone as it seemed to her, but for a cab-driver +who took refuge in his cab, drawn up before one of the opposite houses. +The rain looked as if it meant to continue, while, laden as Rose was, +she could not have held up an umbrella even if she had found one ready +to her hand. + +Her slender funds did not set her up in cabs, as she had told herself on +many a weary trudge in fog and drizzle between Mr. Foy's class-rooms and +Welby Square. Besides she would like to see Hester Jennings's face when +she (Rose Millar) proposed to indulge in such a luxury. But there would +be more lost than gained if she stood shivering in that doorway till her +best spring frock was ruined, waiting for an omnibus which was sure to +arrive with every available inch of space occupied. She would catch a +chill or an influenza with no kind father near to save her a doctor's +bill, and cure her simply for the pleasure of doing it. She would brave +Hester's eagle eye, supposing it could scan Rose's misdeeds from some +coigne of vantage commanding this end of the street. She signalled to +the cab-driver opposite, who put his head out of the cab window and +signalled back that he had a fare besides himself at present ensconced +in one of the inhospitable-looking houses. + +Should she bid the thunder, lightning, and rain do their worst, and set +out to walk home in defiance of them? While she still paused irresolute, +peeping out disconsolately at the inky sky from which the downpour fell, +a young man in the conscious superiority of a waterproof and an ample +umbrella, walked leisurely along the sloppy, deserted pavement. He +looked at her, seemed arrested by something which struck him in her +appearance, hesitated a little undecidedly, stopped short, and addressed +her, colouring up to his frank, honest blue eyes as he did so. + +"I am afraid you have been caught in this tremendous shower. Can I do +nothing to help you--call a cab, for instance?" + +"Oh! thank you very much," she said gratefully, forgetting all about the +cunning enemy in disguise for whom she was to be always looking out. +Indeed she had felt so lonely a minute before that she was rather +disposed to welcome a comrade in misfortune. "The cabman in the cab +opposite tells me he is engaged, and I do not remember any cab-stand +near this." + +"There is one round the corner, which I passed a minute ago, but it was +vacant; all the world is wanting cabs in such weather. However, I can +shelter you a little, if you will allow me," and he held the umbrella in +front of her. + +"No, please; I am keeping you here in the wet, and you are exposing +yourself to the rain," protested Rose, remorsefully. "I was just +thinking of walking on, sooner than stand any longer getting gradually +soaked," she confided to him with pleasant inconsiderateness. + +"Then will you take the use of my umbrella?" he asked promptly; "and +perhaps you will let me carry your parcels for you," he suggested in the +humblest manner possible, eyeing covetously her flower-pot, and the +paper wisp from "Burnet's." + +"Oh dear, no," said Rose, pulling herself together when it was too late, +and with an adorable frankness, which was another mistake so far as an +unauthorized acquaintance's being nipped in the bud went. "I should be +taking you out of your way; you must want your own umbrella, and I can +manage perfectly well. I am accustomed to go about by myself"--the last +piece of information given with a proud inflection of the voice which +told its own tale. + +"In storm and shine?" he took it upon him to question her, with the +slightest rallying tone, and a twinkle in his blue eyes, but still with +the greatest respect in his attitude and manner--"not in storm, surely. +I shall not be going out of my way. I am only taking a stroll--that is, +I generally do take a stroll in some direction on my way back to my +lodgings. You may not think the weather nice for strolling, but I don't +mind it. I am as strong as a horse, and I certainly don't want an +umbrella. I have this waterproof affair, which, like the umbrella, is +rather a nuisance than otherwise." + +She could see at a glance that he was a broad-shouldered young fellow, +over six feet, and that his kindly, deferential face, seen through the +steaming atmosphere, was as ruddy as youth and a vigorous constitution +could make it. He was evidently speaking the truth, and she could not +resist the temptation of the friendly aid arriving thus opportunely, and +so obligingly pressed upon her. + +"Only for a little way," she bargained cheerfully. "The rain may stop in +a minute, though I must say it does not look like it, or we may come on +a return cab; anyhow, it cannot be long till an omnibus overtakes us." + +She would have demurred at his ridding her of her flowers and parcel, +which he disposed of easily under his arm and in his disengaged hand, as +if he were well accustomed to being cumbered with such small +impediments, had not a comical idea crossed her mind. He might think +that she did not trust his honesty, and was beset by a fear that he +would rush down a side street and disappear with her goods before she +could cry, "Stop, thief!" and arouse the scanty passers-by. + +Then Rose felt impelled to explain why she walked about London burdened +with flower-pots and rolls of gauze. "I have just been to Covent +Garden," she said. "I wished to get this pot of tulips--parrot +tulips--yellow and scarlet, you know, to harmonize with a Chinese screen +in a little picture I am painting. Then I had to go into 'Burnet's,' +for 'Liberty's' is too far away, for some blue stuff of the right shade +which I could drape into a frock for the little girl who is my model." + +"Are you fond of painting?" he caught her up, being to the full as +willing to speak as she was. "So is my sister, and she also goes to +'Liberty's' for queer rags and tags. I suppose they are part of the +amateur's stock-in-trade." + +"I am going to be a professional artist," said Rose again, with that +proud little inflection of the voice. But all the effect which her +communication had upon him was that he took it as an invitation, or at +least as a warrant, for responsive confidences on his own part. + +"I am a doctor," he announced. "I have been entitled to write myself one +for the last two months. I have just passed my final exams, and got my +degree--stiffish work for a fellow who does not take to sapping as +easily as to the air he breathes." + +"My father is a doctor," said Rose, brightly, with her tongue fairly +loosened. "I forget whether he says examinations were easier or more +difficult when he was young. He is Dr. Millar of Redcross." + +"Millar!" exclaimed the tall young man so excitedly, that he stopped +short for an instant, in the middle of the dismally lashing rain, and +looked at her with a gleam of delight in his blue eyes. "I thought so, +I saw it at the first glance. You have a sister among the lady +probationers at St. Ebbe's." + +"Yes--Annie," cried Rose, with equal ecstasy in the acquiescence; and +she, too, stood still for a second in the rain. "Do you know St. Ebbe's? +Have you seen Annie?" + +"I should think I do, I should think I have," he answered her fervently. +"St. Ebbe's is my hospital. I have been 'walking it' for a year past. I +was there to-day, and Miss Millar is well known all over the place. She +is a great favourite with the matron, Mrs. Hull, and the house surgeon, +and especially with the operating surgeon. He is always asking to have +Miss Millar in his cases since that boy had his leg cut off." + +"I know, I know," chimed in Rose, "the little boy who begged you to wait +till he had said his prayers, and when he could not do it for himself, +Annie was able to do it for him. Now he is hopping about on his crutches +quite actively and happily; and she has got him an engagement, to clean +the knives and boots at Mrs. Jennings, the boarding-house in Welby +Square where I stay. Isn't it too funny and nice that you should happen +to have to do with St. Ebbe's and Annie?" + +"It has been a great pleasure to me--well, these are not the right +words," said the young fellow with sudden gravity and a shade of +agitation in his manner. "I count it the greatest piece of good fortune +which ever befell me that I took St. Ebbe's for my hospital. But I ought +not to presume on my acquaintance with Miss Millar," he began again +immediately, with an infusion of cautious reserve and something like +vexation creeping into his tone; "it is purely professional. We are far +too busy people at St. Ebbe's to know each other as private persons. +Very likely if you ask her, she will deny all knowledge of me as an +individual; she may not even be able to recall the fact of my existence +apart from a circle of big uncouth medical students in the train of the +doctors--all alike to her. At the same time I have drunk tea in her +company both in the matron's room and in Dr. Moss's, and I have often +sat near her in the services at the hospital chapel," he ended a little +defiantly. + +The speech, save for its ring of half-boyish mortification, was +suspicious, as if he were providing a loophole for escape in case Annie +refused to indorse his assertion of mutual acquaintance. But Rose, in +spite of her spirit and quickness, was hardly more given to suspicion +than her sister May showed herself, and saw nothing dubious in his +remark. She was carried away with the agreeable surprise of having +stumbled on somebody connected with St. Ebbe's who knew all about Annie. +She chatted on in the frankest, friendliest way, plying him with +girlish questions, and supplying free comments on his answers; and he +was an auditor who was nothing loth to be so treated, and to be +furnished with stores of information on points which had aroused his +ardent curiosity. She forgot all about taking him out of his way, and +when they reached Welby Square she crowned her unbounded faith in him by +inviting him into the house. On his acceptance of her invitation, after +a moment's hesitation, she presented him to Mrs. Jennings as a friend of +Annie's from St. Ebbe's. + +The young man had the grace to feel his ears tingle while Mrs. Jennings, +looking a little astonished, took him on Rose's word, bowed her welcome, +begged him to sit down with her usual gracious, languid good-breeding, +and said she was glad to see any friend of Miss Annie Millar's. + +He did his best, with a flushed face, to remedy his and Rose's rashness. +He put down his card, with Harry Ironside, M.D., engraved on it, at Mrs. +Jennings's elbow. He set himself with a strenuous and sincere effort to +talk to her, and so to conduct himself as to do credit to Rose's +voucher. + +Mrs. Jennings was easily propitiated on receiving the attention which +was due to her. She thought the young man's manners perfectly good; they +had well-bred ease, and at the same time the modesty which ought to +accompany youth, though his introduction to her had been somewhat +informal. + +Irregularity and singularity were among the fashions of the day. She +would have been glad if her daughter Hester, in carrying out these +fashions, had brought forward no rougher, or commoner-looking, or more +eccentric satellites and proteges--secretaries of those horrid women's +unions and clubs--than this friend of Rose and Annie Millar's. + +Mrs. Jennings never forgot a name and its social connection. "Ironside?" +she repeated tentatively, but with an air of agreeable expectation. "I +am familiar with the name. One of my sons, Captain Lawrence Jennings, +when his regiment was at Manchester, knew and received much kindness +from a family named Ironside." + +"It must have been the family of one of my uncles," said Dr. Harry +Ironside, eagerly. "My Uncle John, and my Uncle Charles too, for that +matter, stay in Manchester. Both are married men with families. My Uncle +John was mayor a few years ago." + +"The same," cried Mrs. Jennings with bland satisfaction. "Lawrie's +Ironsides were the family of the mayor, I remember perfectly when you +mention it;" and she added the mental note, "They were among the richest +cotton-brokers in the place--well-nigh millionaires." + +"Were you all named from Cromwell's Ironsides?" inquired Rose, lightly, +inclined to laugh and colour at the absurd recollection that, though she +had seemed to know all about him from the moment he spoke of St. Ebbe's +and Annie, she had been ignorant of his very name till he put down his +card. If he had not done so, she would have had to describe him to Annie +as the big, fair-haired young doctor with the Roman nose, or by some +other nonsensical item, such as the signet-ring on his left hand, or the +trick of putting his hand to his chin. + +"I am sure I cannot tell"--he met her question with an answering +laugh--"except that, so far as I know, we have had more to do with +cotton than with cannon-balls. My father was a Manchester man, like my +uncles. I have struck out a new line in handling--not to say a sword, +but a lancet." + +"Ah!" said Mrs. Jennings with mild superiority, "all my sons are in the +services--I have given them to their Queen and country. Two of my +sons-in-law are also in the army, and I often say of the third--a +clergyman in a sadly heathen part of the Black Country--that, engaged as +he is in the Church militant, he is as much a fighter as the rest of +them." Having thus in the mildest, most ladylike manner, established her +social supremacy, Mrs. Jennings was doubly gracious to the visitor. +They made such progress in their acquaintance by means of the Manchester +Ironsides and other members of her very large circle of friends, with +regard to whom the two discovered the names at least of several were +also known to Harry Ironside, that the lady made another marked +concession. When he said he was in rooms in London, and had his only +sister with him, she signified with a kind and graceful bend of the +lace-enfolded shoulders and the bewigged head within the wonderful +edifice of a cap, that she meant to have the pleasure of calling on Miss +Ironside. + +Rose could hardly believe her ears; and she did not wonder, though she +was glad that he had the sense and good feeling to thank Mrs. Jennings +with warmth, since Rose knew what a testimony it was to the genuine +liking which the mistress of the house had taken to her chance guest. +For Mrs. Jennings went very little out, and was exceedingly particular +in adding to her visiting-list, as became the head of a select +boarding-house, and the mother of so many officers and gentlemen, not to +say gentlewomen. + +But matters did not end even there. He managed to convey the impression +that his sister and he were rather lonely in their rooms, while he +alluded to the facts that he and she were orphans, and with the +exception of each other had neither brother nor sister. They had looked +forward to being together, and making a home as soon as Kate left +school, and he had taken furnished lodgings at Campden Hill till he +settled down somewhere. But somehow the lodgings were not very +home-like. He should prize highly the friendship of Mrs. Jennings for +his sister. At this point the slightest gleam of a business interest +awoke in Mrs. Jennings's steel gray eyes, though she only told him +softly that she had known it all--the loneliness of one or two members +of a family in London, the comfortlessness of even the best of furnished +apartments. It was such considerations, in a great measure, which had +induced her to utilize her large house, much too large for herself and +the only daughter left at home with her, to receive a few old friends as +suitable boarders into her family. She had hoped to form a cheerful and +refined little society round her, and so to be of a little use to her +fellow-creatures. She might say she had succeeded in her humble mission, +she finished with artless benevolence. He met her half-way with +breathless alacrity. Had he and Kate but known in time Mrs. Jennings's +generous idea, what a boon it would have been if she had let them avail +themselves of it! Even yet if there ever occurred any change, any +opening--but he was afraid, he added in disconsolate tones, there never +would--the fortunate people would know too well when they were +happy--it would be doing him and Kate the greatest favour, the utmost +kindness to let them know. This was exactly the complimentary, +beseeching, deprecatory mode in which Mrs. Jennings liked business to be +conducted; whereas, if Hester had been present, she would have said in +the clumsiest, coarsest manner, "Mamma, there are some rooms vacant, +which any respectable person who cares to pay the rent may have." + +But that was not Mrs. Jennings's plan. She said in her blandest +voice--"Well, Dr. Ironside, we must see what we can do for you and your +sister; I cannot bear to think of your feeling forlorn after what your +cousins did for my son Lawrence. We must stretch a point with regard to +accommodating you--that is, if you are not, both of you, dreadfully +particular. No, you are not at all difficult to put up, you and your +sister, you say? I am happy to hear it. It is such a good thing for +young people to be easily pleased. I am not sure that something could +not be contrived in the course of a week or two. I think I heard my old +servant speak of rooms which were to have been kept for cousins of my +friend Mr. Lyle, two charming ladies who were to have come up from the +country for the season. But their dear old aunt died unexpectedly, and +of course they are not inclined for any gaiety at present. I leave the +details of arranging the sets of rooms and letting them to my Susan. I +never interfere with her; she knows far better than I what is wanted, +and she is a sensible, practical person to deal with. If you care to +speak to Susan, I shall ring for her to see you in the dining-room, and +she will tell you at once what she can do for you," Mrs. Jennings +finished sweetly. + +He did care; indeed he was so intent on benefiting by what Mrs. +Jennings, in her ladylike way, made so great an obligation conferred by +her on her fellow-creatures, that he caught at the hope held out to him. +He had an interview with the potent Susan, and came back radiant to tell +that the housekeeper had been nearly as kind to him as her mistress had +shown herself. He and Susan had settled everything. He was free to give +up the rooms which he and his sister were occupying the following week. + +"What, without consulting Miss Ironside?" protested Mrs. Jennings in +pretty alarm. + +"Oh! Kate will like any arrangement I make," he cried confidently; and +Rose came to the conclusion either that "Kate" was the simple +school-girl he represented her, or that Dr. Harry Ironside was an +autocrat in his domestic relations. + +He insisted on furnishing references, because business was business, +even in the light of the dawning friendship which he trusted Mrs. +Jennings was going to extend to him and Kate, and they would come as +soon as she would let them. + +Oh! he must arrange it all with Susan. Mrs. Jennings put up her still +dainty hands, and waived him off playfully. She dared not interfere with +Susan. All she would say was that she was delighted to look forward to +such an agreeable addition to her pleasant little circle. She was fond +of having young people about her, and was always ready to do what she +could (which was no more than the truth) to make them happy. + +Rose was driven to the conclusion that Dr. Harry Ironside must have +found furnished lodgings such a pandemonium, that he was induced to +believe a select boarding-house must be a paradise by comparison. It was +comical how it had all come about. It did seem as if Rose's +heedlessness, if she had been heedless in drifting without an +introduction into an acquaintance with one of Annie's doctors, was +likely to bear good fruits to Mrs. Jennings, among other people. Hester +had been looking worried lately, and had not scrupled to give as the +reason of her pre-occupation--family affairs not prosperous. The whole +of the house was not let. Old Mr. and Mrs. Foljambe had actually been +unreasonable enough to try to exchange the best rooms, which they had +chosen for themselves in the winter for shabbier, cheaper quarters +during the summer, when the husband and wife might be occasionally +absent paying visits. Old Susan, in her black cap and gold-rimmed +spectacles, was especially triumphant in seeing the scheme balked, and +confided her mingled exultation and indignation to Rose, who had helped +to balk the schemers. The confidential family servant even forgot some +of her polite mannerliness in her excitement. "Now, Miss Millar, them +Foljambes has done for themselves; serve them right for seeking to get a +catch from a friend like Missus, as is that kind to her boarders, which +you can testify, Miss; they might be her own flesh and blood. Bless you! +she'll never make a rap by keeping boarders. She never grudges them +anythink, and would sooner deny herself than that they should go without +their fancies. But there, now, that fine young gentleman you brought," +went on Susan with the slightest respectful significance, "I'm sure +we're greatly indebted to you, Miss--speaks as if he meant to stay on +here with his sister for the present. He has taken our largest rooms off +our hands, so that we may be easy on that head, and I for one won't be +sorry if Mr. and Mrs. Foljambe ain't able to shift back into them at +their will and pleasure. The young gent, as is a gent, had no +hargle-bargling about terms. He was satisfied to pay what we asked, +because he knew that though it was not a common boarding-house, and +though it was no more than right that he and his sister should pay for +the privilege of being under the roof of a real lady like Missus, we +were not the sort to ask more than our due." + +The moment Rose got quit of Susan, she said to herself complacently, "It +is very nice to have done such a service to Mrs. Jennings and Hester and +everybody, instead of having got into a scrape and being scolded, as I +almost feared at one moment. If only Miss Kate Ironside is not too much +of a dumb belle and a mere school-girl," reflected Rose, with the +supercilious consciousness of maturity in a girl who had been more than +a year away from all teaching except what she had herself practised, and +what she received as a grown-up woman at Mr. St. Foy's. "I wonder if Dr. +Harry Ironside will have spoken of our encounter, and what came of it, +to Annie before I can tell her. I should like to see her face when she +learns that I know somebody who goes to St. Ebbe's," ended Rose, with +persistent audacity. + +Annie's face was a study when she heard of it. Rose had been guilty of a +little wilful self-deception, still she received a shock. + +The first time the sisters were able to meet and have a walk together, +after Rose's encounter with Dr. Ironside, Rose broached the great piece +of news, and witnessed the effect it produced. The girls had managed to +reach the Marble Arch into Hyde Park, beyond which they found a seat for +a few minutes. It was not too early in the season for them to take +possession of it, and they were still sufficiently strangers in London +to suppose that seats were placed for the accommodation of the weary of +all ranks and both sexes, and not merely for the benefit of nurse-maids +and their charges, or of able-bodied tramps. The sisters prepared to +talk over their own concerns and Redcross with the _empressement_ of +girls, to forget all about the moving crowd around them, and the +grinding of that great mill of London in the traffic that is never for +an instant still. + +"Oh! Annie, have you seen him lately?" began Rose--"Dr. Harry Ironside, +I mean. Has he told you that he and his sister are coming to board at +Mrs. Jennings's?" + +"Seen him! Dr. Harry Ironside! What do you know about Dr. Harry +Ironside? What are you saying, Rose?" cried Annie, sitting bolt upright, +opening wide her dark eyes, and fixing them in the most amazed, +displeased, discomfiting gaze on Rose. The rate at which the two had +been walking and talking, the suspicion of east wind, the premature heat +of the May sun, had converted the soft red in Annie's cheeks to a +brilliant scarlet. + +"What I am saying," answered Rose, nodding gaily, and trying hard not to +flinch under the trying reception of her precious piece of information, +"is that, by the funniest chance, I made the acquaintance of a friend of +yours at St. Ebbe's. And the laughable coincidence of our meeting and +happening to speak to each other, and then of my finding out that he +knew all about you, is going to be a very good thing for poor dear Mrs. +Jennings," Rose hastened to add, taking the first word in self-defence. +"He is coming with his sister to board in Welby Square." + +"He is not a friend of mine," said Annie, severely. "Is it possible that +you are such a simpleton as to believe that all the doctors, medical +students, and nurses--the whole staff of St. Ebbe's, in fact, are +intimately acquainted with each other, are acquainted at all, for the +most part, unless as doctors and nurses? Please, Rose, tell me at once +what nonsense this is--what foolish thing you have been about." + +When Annie said "please" to her sisters the situation was alarming. + +On the other hand, Rose had not come up to London to be an artist, who +was already getting orders for scroll-work and executing them +successfully, to be put down by a sister not above four years her +senior. + +"What are you making such a fuss about, Annie?" protested Rose, "I am +telling you as fast as you will let me. I came out this morning for the +express purpose, and I thought--I was almost sure--you would be amused +and interested, instead of 'getting into a wax'"--using one of Hester +Jennings's slang words, which set Annie's fine little teeth on edge. "It +is you who ought to explain and apologize to me," proceeded Rose, +boldly; "I am surely at liberty to make the acquaintance of anybody you +know without your looking annoyed, and accusing me of being foolish and +nonsensical. It is very unjust and ungrateful of you besides, for he +spoke very highly of you," Rose finished innocently. + +"He spoke highly of me to my own sister!" repeated Annie, her lips +curling with unutterable disdain, and her cheeks in a wilder flame than +ever. "He had nothing to do speaking of me at all. And how did he come +to speak to you? I insist upon your telling me, Rose. I am older than +you, and we are alone in London. I am answerable for you to father and +mother." + +"Well, I always thought I was answerable for myself," said Rose, +indignantly. "But I don't want to conceal anything from you; it is +insulting me to suppose so," and Rose showed herself highly resentful +in her turn. "As to how I met and spoke with Dr. Harry Ironside, I was +just coming to that," she was going on deliberately, when she was +stopped by Annie's irritable protest-- + +"I wish you would not bring forward that man's name and dwell upon it in +the way you are doing." + +"Why, Annie, what ails you?" cried Rose in her bewilderment at Annie's +unreasonableness and excitement, forgetting any verdict that might be +passed on her own neglect of the code of conduct imposed upon her. + +"Well, if you only knew how I have been tried--and molested--and laughed +at," Annie began wrathfully, saying the last words as if to be laughed +at was equivalent to being burnt alive. Then she stopped short and +turned again upon Rose. "What have you been doing? tell me this instant, +Rose." + +"I don't think you ought to speak to me in this manner," said Rose, +rebelliously, holding her head high in the air, and forgetting in her +soreness of spirit either to crumple her nose or wrinkle her forehead; +"and I am not at all ashamed of myself. I have done nothing wrong; +indeed, I believe I have conferred a real benefit on Mrs. Jennings, +though she is apt to put it the other way, and indirectly on Hester. I +_am_ fond of Mrs. Jennings and Hester--_they_ always treat me, even +Hester does, like a rational creature. Oh! you need not fret and +fume--I am not trying to avoid telling you, though you have no right, no +sister has, to demand an account of my proceedings. Father and mother +may have, but they would never brandish their rights in my face or +refuse to trust me. I was coming home from Covent Garden on Saturday +afternoon, carrying a little pot of tulips for my picture, if you must +know, and I had also got a small parcel from 'Burnet's.' I was caught in +the thunder-storm. I was standing in a doorway not knowing what to do +when a gentleman passed--Dr. Harry Ironside, if I am to be allowed to +say his name, though I did not know it then. He was good-natured and +polite, like any other gentleman. He saw how I was encumbered, and he +must have felt the pelting rain. He stopped and asked if he could do +anything for me--call a cab or anything, and he wished to give me the +use of his umbrella till we reached a cab-stand or till an omnibus came +up. I thought I had better tell him why I was carrying things, for he +might have thought me just a shop-girl, so I merely said I required them +for a painting, and that I was learning to be an artist. He seemed to +think he ought to tell me in return what he was, and he said he was a +doctor. Then I said father was a doctor too, Dr. Millar of Redcross. He +cried out at that something about a likeness which he had seen, and he +asked had I a sister a nurse in St. Ebbe's, and oh! Annie, he looked so +pleased, and he did say you were such a favourite with the matron and +the doctors." + +"Stop!" cried Annie, peremptorily, with an evident storm raging in her +gentle breast, to which she was too proud and self-restrained to give +free expression, "you are a greater baby than May is. You are not fit to +be left to yourself--a girl who would speak to any man she might meet in +the streets of London, and tell him all about herself and her family." + +The accusation was too outrageous to be received with anything save +indignant silence. + +"And then, I suppose, the next thing was you took him to Mrs. Jennings +and arranged between you that he and his sister should board there." + +"I did not," Rose was goaded to speak. "When he had walked so far with +me in the rain I could not do less than invite him into the house. Then +I believe he gave his name, and Mrs. Jennings, who has a great deal of +knowledge of the world and a great deal of discrimination," put in poor +Rose with much emphasis, "seemed to like him immensely. She found that +one of her sons knew relations of his in Manchester, and they had other +friends in common. He spoke of his sister, who is with him, and of their +not liking living in lodgings, and who glad he would be if there ever +happened to be a vacancy in Mrs. Jennings's establishment which she +would permit them to fill. She referred him to Susan to see if there +were rooms which the Ironsides could have. It all came about quite +naturally, and was settled in less time than I have taken to tell it, +and I had nothing whatever to do with it. I should not dream of taking +it upon me to interfere with Mrs. Jennings's or anybody else's domestic +affairs." + +"I do not know," said Annie, gloomily, "after the mess you have got +yourself and other people into. But there is one thing I can tell you +for your satisfaction, I shall not put my foot within Mrs. Jennings's +door so long as he--as Dr. Ironside and his sister are staying there. +You may keep your friends to yourself and do without your sister. You +can take them instead of me; perhaps you will not miss me or care for +the loss of an occasional hour or two of my society." + +"Oh! Annie, how can you say so?" Rose was reduced to expostulation and +pleading. "What has come over you? You must not stay away; it would be +so unkind to me, so rude to everybody, and such a marked slight. We are +all so happy when you come to Welby Square, and I am sure the change is +good for you too. How can you be so cross?" + +"No," said Annie with unbending decision, "it shall not be said of me +that I went and struck up a friendship, apart from our intercourse in +the wards, with any doctor at St. Ebbe's--one of the medical students, +the other day! I am not going to make his sister's acquaintance and get +up an intimacy with her, because you have chosen to introduce them to +Mrs. Jennings. A fine story to be circulated, and tittered over, about a +girl; a fine example to the working nurses, who are always seeking to +evade the rules, to become on familiar terms with their patients and to +gossip and philander with them, when they ought to have a great deal +more to do. I call it disgusting trifling, and it was not for that I +came up to London to be trained as a nurse." + +Annie kept her word to Rose's and other people's deep chagrin. She made +no further ferment about what had happened. She did not write home and +complain of Rose's thoughtlessness, or take a single step to prevent +Mrs. Jennings securing a profitable pair of boarders--as a matter of +fact, she dropped the subject, perhaps she felt a little ashamed of the +animus she had shown. But for nearly three months, if Rose wished to see +her sister, the only plan was for her to go to St. Ebbe's, or to make an +appointment with Annie at the Academy or the British Museum, or to eat +their lunch together at some convenient restaurant. + +In whatever manner Annie disposed of her few spare moments, not one of +them was now spent in Welby Square--just at the time, too, when the +boarding-house was particularly social and cheerful (for the new-comers +found special favour with the old, and promoted much good fellowship). +At least Dr. Harry Ironside did. He was a young fellow born to be +popular whether he would or not; handsome, with pleasant manners, +kind-hearted, possessed of a respectable competence independent of his +profession, to which he brought considerable abilities and great +singleness of purpose. Everybody "took" to him, from crusty Mr. Foljambe +to jaunty Mr. Lyle; from Miss Perkins, whose ear-trumpet he improved +upon, to old Susan, into whose gold-rimmed spectacles he put new glasses +which made her see like a girl again. The one drawback to his success in +everything he aimed at was, that he was always tremendously in earnest, +so that his very earnestness overweighted him, rendering him incapable +of measuring obstacles, and marshalling his forces, as a more +indifferent man might have done. + +His sister Kate, apart from such importance as might be implied in her +finding herself presently in the enjoyment of a very pretty little +income for a young lady, was a simple, good-natured school-girl, in the +echoing and imitative stage of school-girl life. She looked up to her +brother in everything, and was disposed to regard whatever was by his +decree as infallibly best. + +Yes, Annie kept her word after the fashion of most of us, till she saw +good reason to break it. She announced herself changeless till she +changed, which, to do her justice, was when the interests of others, +still more than her own, cried out against her maintaining her +resolution. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +MAY HAS TO FIGHT HER OWN BATTLE. + + +All May's frantic efforts at resistance were useless; her destiny was +too strong for her. She had to go away from her mother and father, Dora, +and Tray, and face life all by herself as one of the girl-graduates at +Thirlwall Hall, St. Ambrose's. Dr. Millar had learnt that she would just +be in reasonable time for one of the earlier examinations at the close +of the term. Having passed it without difficulty, she might compete for +one of the Thirlwall scholarships. If she got that--as he allowed +himself to think she had a fair chance of doing--it would greatly +increase her status, as well as aid in defraying the expenses of her +residence at St. Ambrose's. The little Doctor was feverishly anxious to +compass both ends for his pet and scholar. In her own interest no notice +must be taken of her heart-broken looks, though it wrung a manly heart, +in addition to the tender hearts of Mrs. Millar and Dora, to witness +May's desperate unwillingness to depart. + +It will be better to throw a veil over the anguish of that leave-taking, +including the final closeting with Tray and the torrents of tears shed +on his irresponsive hairy coat. We shall draw up the curtain on a new +scene--St. Ambrose's, in its classic glory and stately beauty, and +Thirlwall Hall, in its youthful strong-mindedness. + +Poor May felt horribly forlorn when her father left her behind, and she +realized that she was for the first time in her life compelled to play +her part without the support of kith or kin. Nobody was in the least +unkind to her, any more than the conservative Miss Stones had been to +Rose, unless in calling "little May" "Miss Millar," a promotion which +somehow cut her to the heart. + +The lady principal, Miss Lascelles, was an excellent intellectual woman, +of mingled aristocratic and _spirituelle_ antecedents. In another +country and nation she might have been a distinguished _dame de salon_. +As it was, she was sufficiently harassed and overworked in her double +office of decorous, authoritative chaperon and qualified guide, +philosopher, and friend to the girls under her charge. These might be +vestal virgins or nymphs of Minerva, but they were also girls, so long +as the world lasted--the most of them half curious, half friendly where +May was concerned. This was true even of the wonderful young American +who came and stayed with no other object in view than to say she had +kept her terms at St. Ambrose's, according to what was the sum total of +the ambition of many a young man at the great University. She _would_ +call the Atlantic "the herring pond," and speak of "fixing" her hair; +still she was a girl like the rest of them. Miss Lascelles, with all the +other ladies in residence at Thirlwall Hall, the American included, +could not help wondering what the friends and guardians of a budding +beauty and helpless baby like Miss Millar intended by sending her to +live among a set of self-reliant, amply-occupied young women, who, as a +rule, knew exactly what they wanted to do and did it. + +The whole place and system overwhelmed May. The hoary dignity of the old +colleges, receptacles of the concentrated learning of ages, the crowds +of capped and gowned tutors and professors, potent representatives of +the learning of the present, even the shoals of young men who were able +to care for none of these things, and to carry their responsibilities +lightly, all to be encountered in the course of a morning walk, struck +May with a sense of inadjustable disproportion, and of intolerable +presumption on her part in pretending to be a scholar. She was still one +of a household largely composed of women, as she had been at home, but +here the household was planted where it was an innovation, in the midst +of a colony of men, which constantly threatened to sweep over it and +submerge it. + +The grown-up, independent, yet disciplined routine of Thirlwall Hall, +founded as closely as possible on the venerable routine of the men's +colleges, was widely, crushingly different from life in the Old Doctor's +House at Redcross. Morning chapel, the steady business of individual +reading, the attendance on the selected courses of lectures, with the +new experience of being spoken to, and expected to take notes like men; +the walks and talks, which even with the interruptions of tennis and +boating were apt to be academically shoppy; the very afternoon tea after +evening chapel had an impressively scholastic flavour utterly foreign to +the desultory proceedings of an ordinary family circle. So had the +further reading by one's self, for one's self, to get up a particular +branch of study; the "swell dinner," as May persisted in calling it in +her own mind, though it was simple and social enough--beyond certain +indispensable forms and ceremonies--to the initiated; the withdrawal +once more to the dreary retirement of her own room, since a new girl had +neither the requisite familiarity nor the heart to go and tap at her +neighbours' doors, where no substitute for "sporting the oak" had as +yet been found, and drop in for a little purely human chatter. + +May was so "hard hit," as people say--not with love, but with +home-sickness--that she did not believe she could live to the end of the +summer term. She felt as if she must die of strangeness, fright, and +pining; and that was hard, for they would be very sorry at home, and so +would Annie and Rose in London, though both of them had been able to go +and stay away quite cheerfully like the girls at Thirlwall Hall. Perhaps +May and Dora were not like other girls. There was something wanting or +something in excess about them. Perhaps they were not fit to go through +the world, as she had once heard somebody say of her--May. Perhaps they +were meant to die young--like their Aunt Dolly--and not destined to live +long and struggle helplessly with adverse circumstances. In that case, +Dora was the happy one to be left to spend her short life at home, +though, save for father and mother, she too was all alone, and poor dear +Dora would feel that, and was, perhaps, crying in another empty room as +May was crying in hers at this very moment; but at least, Dora would +pass her last days with father and mother in the old familiar places. + +This isolated doom for herself and Dora fascinated May's imagination. +She could not get it out of her head. She dreamt about it, and sat up +in her bed crying and shivering in the silence and solitude of night, +where even by day all was silent and solitary. She began to think +that she would never see Redcross or her mother again. With the +morbid sentimentality of early youth, and its lively capacity for +self-torture, in which to be sure there is that underlying luxury of +woe, she commenced to rehearse the loving farewells she would take on +paper, and the harrowing last messages she would send to every member +of her family. + +Occasionally May's hallucination took the form of conjuring up a series +of disasters which should suddenly descend on her absent friends. If she +did not die herself, one or all of those she loved might die while she +was separated from them. Her father might fall down in a fit; her mother +might be seized with small-pox or typhoid fever; and what more likely +than that Dora should catch the infection waiting on her mother? + +This distempered frame of mind was hardly calculated for the rapid +reception and assimilation of these particles, terminations, and cases +of philological nicety in which May began to recognize that she was +inaccurate and deficient. + +If Tray could but have come to her, and laid his shining black nose in +her lap, barked in her face, and invited her to take a turn in the +grounds of Thirlwall Hall, he would have ceased to be the doleful, +shadowy phantom of a Tray she was constantly seeing now, along with +other phantoms. A game of romps with her four-footed friend would have +done something to dissipate the mental sickness which was prostrating +May's powers. But Thirlwall Hall was moulded on the men's colleges, and +there were no dogs for the girl any more than for the boy graduates. + +Miss Lascelles was at once conscientious and kind, with considerable +natural sagacity; but she led a busy, rather over-burdened life, and had +little time to spare. Naturally she was tempted, in spite of the logical +faculty which made her a capital principal of Thirlwall Hall, to leap at +conclusions like many of her weaker-minded sisters. She had taken it for +granted that Miss Millar was simply a spoilt child, without more ability +and information than had just served her to surmount the preliminary +test of admission to Thirlwall Hall, where, nevertheless, she had no +business to be. Her time would be completely wasted; she would only be +wretched, and serve to make other people uncomfortable. However, as she +had stood the preliminary test, and was at Thirlwall Hall for the rest +of the term, the most humane thing to do was to set some other girl who +was not particularly engaged on her own account, who could be safely +trusted with such a charge, who had plenty of acquaintances at St. +Ambrose's to render the charge lighter, to make friends with the poor +girl, take her about, cheer and entertain her, as far as possible, till +the end of her stay. + +Miss Lascelles, in default of better, fixed on Miss Vanhansen, the +American young lady, as a friend for May. Miss Vanhansen had plenty of +time on her hands, plenty of confidence, plenty of money. She had +taken even exclusive St. Ambrose's by storm, for Athens itself would +have found it difficult to resist her racy indifference, her shrewd +mother-wit, her superb frocks, and her sublime heaps of dollars. At +the same time she was perfectly good-natured and quite trustworthy in +her own free and easy way. She had scandalized Miss Lascelles in the +earlier days of their acquaintance by her energetic determination to +have "a good time of it." She had made the lady principal's hair stand +on end by calmly suggesting nice rides and rows and luncheons at +village inns, _tete-a-tete_ with the "mooniest" young fellows who +could be laid hold of and crammed with stories about America and the +doings of American girls. + +But practically Miss Vanhansen had the good sense to do at Rome as the +Romans did; she confined her independence to those sallies of the +tongue, which were not without a rousing charm in a place grown partly +languid, partly esoteric, by dint of a superabundance of culture and of +college statutes elaborate, involved and irreversible as the laws of the +Medes and the Persians. + +Keturah Vanhansen rather liked the task imposed upon her. It appealed +at once to her kindliness of nature and her love of creating a +sensation; she would rouse this drooping young beauty who showed such +a sinful disregard of her complexion and eyes. Miss Vanhansen was +herself as sallow as a nabob, her small eyes, by an unkind perversity +on the part of her fairy god-mother, were of a fishy paleness, yet she +managed to her great satisfaction, by dint of dress and carriage, to +be a striking-looking and all but a handsome girl, so that she had no +overpowering reason to be jealous of her better-endowed neighbours. +She would astonish Miss Millar's weak nerves, and give her "a wrinkle +or two," before she had done with her. + +At first May shrank back a good deal from the advances of the conquering +princess from the Far West; but here the English girl's humility and +good feeling stood her in better stead than her judgment. May was +grateful to Miss Vanhansen, and went so far as to be flattered by her +attentions even when they gave the recipient no pleasure. That frame of +mind could not last at seventeen. May, the most unsophisticated and +easily pleased of human beings, was won from her sad dreams of Redcross. +She was deeply obliged, she was faintly amused. At last she was fairly +launched on such a mild course of St. Ambrose gaieties as two girls in +a college could with grace pursue. This included tennis parties, rowing +parties, water-lily and fritillary hunts, "strawberries," concerts +instead of lectures in the afternoons as well as in the evenings, +afternoon teas--not _tete-a-tete_, not confined to a party of three, +but under what even Miss Lascelles would have considered sufficient +surveillance in the rooms of liberal heads of houses, hospitable young +dons, social, idle undergraduates. These had no more business on their +hands than could be summed up in cricket-matches or boat-races, and in +meeting Miss Vanhansen and listening to her queer unconventional +remarks. + +At all these gatherings, May Millar in the budding beauty of seventeen +and the simplicity of her youthful dress, with her modesty and +_naivete_, was made very welcome. Soon she began to feel herself ashamed +of the extent to which she was enjoying herself, as she was swept along +by the stream. + +She was able to write home now long letters full of girlish enthusiasm +over the kindness of Miss Vanhansen, and the beauties and delights of +St. Ambrose's. Dora, though greatly relieved in her ungrudging devotion +to May, to find that Tom Robinson's words were fulfilled, was still a +little puzzled to understand how May could find time for so many gay +doings, and her studies into the bargain. But Dr. and Mrs. Millar could +only be happy in the happiness of their child, and hug themselves on +having thought more of her welfare than of her feelings at the moment of +parting. It was right she should see all the charming sights which were +to be seen, and enter a little into the special attractions of the great +University town--_that_ would not prevent her from settling down and +doing her proper work presently. You might trust the lady principal and +a studious young creature like May, who liked to be busy with her books +far before any other occupation, with a great deal more license than +that came to. + +Then a new turn was given to the dissipation in which May was dipping. +The longing in which she had indulged, ever since she had first heard of +its possible fulfilment, was granted--a Greek play was to be acted by +the young women who stood for the "Grecians" of the year at Thirlwall +Hall, and May was there to see. From the moment the play was decided +upon to the hour of the first rehearsal, May spoke, thought, and dreamed +of nothing save "Alcestis." + +Miss Vanhansen gave her up in disgust. "The ungrateful, soft-spoken +wretch!" cried the forsaken fair one; "the hypocritical young blue-grass +Penelope Blue! she has been bluer than the blue clouds all the time she +has been imposing on me as a pining, bread-and-butter, home-sick miss +among us Titanesses and daughters of the gods. Here I am ready to +collapse with trotting her about among the few girls in St. Ambrose's +who are sensible enough not to know the Empire of the East from the +Empire of the West, and would not care which was which if they did know, +and the still wiser young men who spend the long summer days lying on +their backs in their own canoes, reading Mark Twain. Oh! she is a +brazen-faced impostor. 'Molasses!' and 'Great Scott!' are not enough to +say to her. I should like to try her with the final polite remarks of +the last chief of the Dogs' Noses." + +But contemporaneously with May's being thus dropped by her first friend, +she was peremptorily claimed and appropriated by the actresses. They had +not failed to notice her interest in their enterprise, and some of the +cleverest of them had already mastered an astonishing problem. + +They had been guilty of nicknaming Miss Millar "Baby," because she had +been so lachrymose and shiftless when she came to Thirlwall Hall, and +had never looked up till she was handed over to Miss Vanhansen, who had +given her "airings" and "outings" all very well for a baby, and much to +Baby's taste as it seemed, but not exactly severe study. Yet in spite of +it all, and in spite of the halting inaccuracy of the training in a +private ladies'-school, May Millar knew more by sheer instinct, as it +sounded, of Alcestis, and felt more with her and for her, than the best +of those who professed to be her interpreters. + +It was therefore not with wisely repairing the breaches in her Latin and +Greek, and laying these foundations afresh, as Rose was doing with her +art under Mr. St. Foy in London, that May was engrossed. It was with +becoming a bond-slave to those ambitious players. She lent herself to +the minutest details of their attempt, coached herself in them day and +night, till she could coach everybody in turn, and figured behind backs +as universal prompter, dresser, stage-manager--the girl who had been so +lifeless and incapable of looking after herself when she first came +among them that they had styled her the baby of the establishment! + +Miss Lascelles, who was deeply interested in the play, both in her +highly-finished scholarship, and for the credit of Thirlwall Hall, +was electrified when she discovered the efficient coadjutor whom +the performers had found. "I am afraid there has been a mistake +made, and time lost," she said to herself ruefully. "How could I be +so shortsighted, when there is the making of the finest scholar in +the Hall in Miss Millar, who threatened to hang so heavily on my hands +that I was fain to send her to play with our generous 'Barbarian.' +What discrimination, what taste and feeling with regard to the +selection and fit declamation of these passages which we were doubtful +whether to retain or reject, or what to do with them! With what pretty +girlish shyness and timidity she made the suggestions! Nothing but her +passionate love of the subject, and her jealousy for its honour, as it +were, with her intense craving to have it fitly expressed, would have +induced her to come forward. I should like to hear what Professor +Hennessy," naming a great name among classical authorities, "thinks +of this young girl's interpretation of several parts of the play when +he comes to hear them. I should like to introduce Miss Millar to him +if she were not so frightened, and if she had taken the place which +she ought to have held to begin with. It is too late to rectify the +mistake and set her to work this term, and she had much better not go +in for the Markham scholarship which her father spoke of--that would +be worse than useless. But we'll turn over a new leaf next term. After +all, she is very young; and I suppose it is of no great consequence +that she has wasted her first half. Her family are professional +people, and these are generally well off." (Miss Lascelles was the +portionless daughter of the impecunious younger son of a poor +nobleman.) + +When the play was performed nearly all the classical scholars of St. +Ambrose's--and what was a man doing at St. Ambrose's if he were not a +classical scholar, unless, to be sure, he happened to be a philosopher +of the first water, or a profound expounder of Anglo-Saxon, or a +strangely and wonderfully informed pundit?--came with their wives +and daughters, and graciously applauded the daring deed. + +As for Keturah Vanhansen, she wore her _riviere_ of diamonds, dripping, +dancing, flashing like water that was perpetually flowing, and yet, by +some enchantment, arrested in its flow in glorious suspension. Set in +the middle of the enchanted water was such a breast-knot of rare, +exquisite, uncannily grotesque orchids as no queen or princess had ever +been seen to wear in St. Ambrose's. Indeed, it might have suited the +Queen of Sheba. + +Miss Vanhansen announced that she wore her war-paint to do honour to the +Thirlwall Hall play, and to May Millar, whom she had forgiven, for +rancour never yet dwelt in the Yankee breast. "Alcestis" was a little +long, and "real right down funny," as her Aunt Sally would have said, +though it was a tragedy, and she, Keturah Vanhansen, did not understand +a word of it, notwithstanding this was her last year at Thirlwall Hall. +One good joke was the man who was in cats' skins, and carried a kitchen +poker for a club, and was half a head shorter than she was, and she was +not big; they should see her Aunt Abe if they wanted to know what a big +woman was like. Another joke was the sacks for the ladies' frocks, with +holes for the head and feet, and holes for the arms, so nice and simple, +and so graceful; Worth ought to get a hint of the costume. Only it was +not very distinctive, when one regarded the corresponding sacks for the +gentlemen. There was really nothing to mark out the ladies except the +large towels which they wore hanging down their backs, while the +gentlemen had Inverness capes over their sacks, fastened on the +shoulders with Highland brooches. How came the Greeks, in the time of +Euripides, to know about Inverness capes and Highland brooches? She, +Keturah Vanhansen, had been so startled by what she feared might be a +frightful anachronism that all her false hair had fallen off, and she +had been left like one of her Aunt Abe's moulting fowls. + +The truth was that, in the matter of hair, nature had favoured Miss +Vanhansen with a peculiarly fine and luxuriant crop, so that she had no +need to apply to art for its help. + +But as for May, she saw nothing and heard nothing of the discrepancies +which might mar the ancient story to far less ostentatiously +matter-of-fact and mocking critics than the would-be barbarian from +beyond the herring-pond. The piteous tragedy was enacted in all its +terror and pathos to May. She forgot even to sigh for one of the +original great open-air amphitheatres, with the cloudless blue sky of +Greece overhead, which had been the fit setting to those old-world +plays; while she appreciated, without being conscious of the +appreciation, every scenic item--the double stage, the attendant chorus, +the classic dress, that had awakened Miss Vanhansen's ridicule, from the +sandal on the foot to the toque on the head--all which could lend +verisimilitude to the spectacle. For the benefit of happy May, Alcestis +lived again in modern St. Ambrose's. Once more she suffered and died +willingly in the room of Admetus; once more the miserable husband's +half-heroic, half-savage ally, Harakles, fought Death for his pale prey, +and brought back the sacrificed wife from Hades, to restore her--a +figure veiled and motionless, yet instinct with glad life, every vein +throbbing with love and thankfulness--to the arms of her husband, more +joyful, and at the same time, in the middle of his joy, more full of +yearning sorrow and self-abasement than ever was happy bridegroom. + +On the day after the play, Miss Lascelles casually mentioned to May that +even if she went in for the coming examination, she, Miss Lascelles, +thought May had better not try for the Markham scholarship. + +"But I must, Miss Lascelles," protested May, starting up as if she +were awakening from a dream, and opening great eyes of distress and +apprehension--feelings which were only at that moment called into +life. "My father would be so vexed and disappointed if I did not." + +"If you will take my advice, my dear, you will wait till next year; +there will be another scholarship falling in then. Very many of the +Thirlwall Hall girls do much better the second year than they have done +the first," Miss Lascelles continued to warn her girl-graduate, with the +delicate consideration and tact which qualified the lady principal for +her office. "It is bad policy to enter hastily into a competition with +failure staring you in the face. It will only serve to dishearten you, +and to mislead people with regard to what I am now certain--I can +honestly congratulate you on my conviction--are your really exceptional +gifts. You will do Thirlwall Hall credit, and we shall all be proud of +you, if you will have patience. You are very young; you can afford to +wait. It is a common occurrence for clever, studious girls, and lads +too, to come up to St. Ambrose's from the country, from private schools +or home-teaching, who are not sufficiently exact in their scholarship, +and do nothing beyond remedying the defect in their first or even their +second year. You don't grudge giving what is but a fraction of your +life, after all, to thorough as opposed to superficial learning, do you, +dear? Remember, the one is worthy and the other worthless--a mere +pretentious waste." + +"I cannot help it," said May, with a little gasp of despair. "To wait is +just what I cannot afford to do. I am almost certain that my coming up +next year depends on what I can do this term. We have grown quite poor. +Father has lost a great deal of money lately. Even if he were content +to send me back here, I do not think it would be right in me to come, +unless I could do something to lessen the expense. My sister Annie is +in London learning to be a nurse, and my sister Rose is coming out as +an artist." + +"I thought they were doing it from choice. Why did you not apply +yourself before, Miss Millar? You knew what you could do, better than +any of us here could possibly guess your talents and attainments. +From your general behaviour until the play was started, I for one, I +confess, fell into the grave error of supposing that you could do +little or nothing, or that any progress you had made was entirely +forced work." Miss Lascelles spoke sharply, for she was considerably +discomfited, and full of unavailing regret for her share in the +misadventure. + +May could not tell her that she had been too miserable about coming +away from home, and leaving her mother and father, Dora and Tray, to +apply herself to learning; neither would there have been much use in +her applying if she had been destined to fade away presently as she +had imagined, and to die, bereft, among the lexicons, commentaries, +and lecture-notes of Thirlwall Hall. She preferred to say with meek +contriteness that she knew she had been very idle, but she would do +her best to atone for her idleness by working every lawful moment of +every hour of the few weeks which were left to her, if Miss Lascelles +would but allow her to go in for the examination, preparatory to +trying for the scholarship. + +Miss Lascelles could not prevent her, she told May a little dryly, for +the students of Thirlwall Hall, though some of them were no more than +seventeen--May's age--were all regarded and treated as grown-up young +women capable of judging and acting for themselves. What Miss Lascelles +was bound to do was to see that Miss Millar did not run into the +opposite extreme, and bring on a brain fever by over-study. "And you +know, my dear," finished the kind, experienced woman, who was easily +softened, who had always the greatest difficulty to keep from being +sympathetic, "that would be a great deal worse than merely being turned +back in your examinations, though Dr. Millar is not rich, and there may +be obstacles--I sincerely trust they will not be insurmountable--to your +coming back in the autumn, to work with a will and at the same time with +moderation." + +Poor May did not work herself into a brain fever, but she did in +other respects exactly as Miss Lascelles--a woman who understood +the position--had clearly foreseen. May succeeded in fretting, and +worrying, and getting herself into a state of nervous agitation. +Her brain, or that part of it which had to do with grammatical +declensions, derivations, rules, and principles, became a complete +muddle, so that in place of taking in new information, it seemed to +be rapidly letting go the old which it had once held securely. + +Before the eventful day of May's examination, she had lost the last +shred of hope, and so had all who had heard her or formed a correct +estimate of the contents of her papers, of her crossing the rubicon. Of +her own accord she sorrowfully refrained from making any move to enter +the lists for the scholarship. + +It is the fashion at St. Ambrose's not to issue the result of the +examinations for a considerable number of weeks, during which the +unhappy candidates hang on the tenterhooks of expectation. A looker-on +is inclined to consider this a refinement of cruelty till he or she has +taken into consideration that the motive of the protracted suspense is +to suit the convenience and lessen the arduous labours of the toil-worn +professors and tutors who serve as examiners. + +But in May Millar's case her failure was such a foregone conclusion, was +so remedial by reason of her youth, and so qualified by the share she +had taken in the Greek play, that a point was stretched for her, and she +was privately put out of pain at once. Latterly May had not entertained +the slightest expectation of any other sentence, yet the blow fell so +heavily upon her that it was well it was the end of the term. + +To do Thirlwall Hall no more than justice, everybody was sorry for +their youngest, gentlest, prettiest, most inspired, and withal most +inoffensive and obliging student. Miss Lascelles took May into her +private sitting-room and recklessly lavished the few moments the lady +principal had in which to rest and recruit from the fatigue of +receiving company, and playing a becoming part in the academical +gaieties with which the summer term at St. Ambrose's closes, in order +to speak encouraging words to the poor crestfallen child. Miss +Vanhansen implored May to cross the herring-pond at her expense, and +have a good time among the Barbarian's relations in Ol' Virginny and +Kentuck. The girl who had played Alcestis wanted to inaugurate a +reading-party in which May should be coached all round every day. +Failing this, the same adventurous spirit would get up a series of +Greek plays in London drawing-rooms, with Miss Millar's assistance; +and so far as she herself was concerned, she would never be contented +till Miss Millar played Admetus to her Alcestis. A large deputation of +blue-stockinged maidens from Thirlwall Hall escorted May to the +railway station, and more than one was relieved to find that she was +going first to join her sisters in London instead of carrying the +mortification of her failure straight to her country-town home. + +It might be the deferring of an ordeal, and yet it was with a white +face, as abashed and well-nigh as scared as if she had committed a +crime, that May awaited Annie in the drawing-room to which the +probationers' friends were free at St. Ebbe's. The consciousness had +come too late of having wasted the little money her father had to spare +on sentimental self-indulgence and the gratification of her own feelings +instead of employing it as it was meant to be employed, in controlling +herself and doing her duty, so as to acquire fitting arms for the battle +of life. + +It was this horrible comprehension which made her wistful eyes grow +distended and fixed in their sense of guilt and disgrace. She might have +committed a forgery, and be come to tell Annie what she had done. May +was essentially one-idea'd at this period of her life, and she had dwelt +on the fact of her failure and exaggerated its importance, like the most +egotistical of human beings, till it filled her imagination and blotted +out every other consideration. + +Annie, in the full career of a busy professional morning, snatched a +moment between two important engagements to see her sister. + +May looked with imploring, fascinated eyes at Annie in her nurse's gown +and cap. The younger girl had some faint inkling of Annie's earlier +experience in the life of an hospital; yet there she was as fresh and +fair and bright as ever--a thousand times cooler and happier-looking +than her visitor. + +"Here you are, May," Annie was saying in glad greeting, as she held her +sister by the two shoulders, after she had kissed her; "and I declare +you have grown since you went to St. Ambrose's. Oh, you incorrigible +girl, when you were so much the tallest of us before you went there." + +May could only make one answer with parched lips, faltering tongue, and +eyes dry under their heavy cloud of grief, "Annie, I have failed in my +examination!" + +Annie started in surprise, while her face fell for a second. "What a +pity!" she could not help exclaiming. "Father will be----" She broke off +in the middle of the sentence. "Don't fret about it," she added, quickly +taking another look into May's face; "that will do no good, and it is +not very much after all. I cannot stay another minute now, May," she +went on to tell the bewildered girl in the most matter-of-fact tone, so +that May was in danger of feeling half-offended at finding her +tribulation taken so cavalierly--"just like Annie!" + +"You must wait for me," Annie was saying further. "There is a poor +fellow--a patient of mine--who is to have his arm amputated this +morning, and I must be with him when it is done." + +"Oh dear!" cried May, completely taken aback, "that is dreadful. Will he +die, Annie? Will he die?" forgetting all her own high-strung woes, the +product of an advanced stage of civilization, in heart-felt, human +sympathy with the most primitive of all trials--bodily suffering and +loss. + +"Not if we can help it, please God," said Annie emphatically. Then an +inspiration came to her as she gazed on the girl's white quivering face. +"You have been working too hard, 'little May'; you shake your head like +a tragedy queen. Then you've been worrying too much, which is a great +deal worse. I shall take you in hand, but I can't stay to talk about it. +Just you think how little my poor fellow would mind not passing an +examination, in comparison with the loss of an arm--fortunately it is +the left one. He is a printer who got his arm crushed under one of the +great rollers, and he has a wife and five little children dependent on +their bread-winner." + +Annie was gone, leaving May suddenly transported out of herself, and +plunged into the trials of her neighbours, the awfully near, common +life-and-death trials, of which she had known so little. Her own seemed +to sink into insignificance beside them. St. Ambrose's and its +intellectual lists and wordy contests, even its lofty abstruse +thoughts--excellent things in their way, without which the unlettered +world would become rude, sordid and narrow--faded into the background. +She forgot everything but the poor man passing through a mortal crisis, +with Annie able to succour him in his need, and his wife and children +waiting to hear whether the end were life or death. + +May held her breath, and watched, prayed, and waited in her turn, with +no thought left for the news she had brought to town, and was to carry +to Redcross. What did it signify if only the poor man lived when May +herself was well and strong, and all her dear friends were in health, +and likely to be spared to her. + +When Annie came in again with a cheerful face, and said, "He has stood +it wonderfully; there is every prospect of his making a speedy +recovery," May's face too cleared till for the moment it was almost +radiant. She acquiesced, with responsive animation, in Annie's +arrangement that since she, Annie, had got leave of absence for the +rest of the day she would put on her walking-dress, and she and May +too would go and pick up Rose at Mr. St. Foy's class-rooms; and what +was to hinder all the three from having an expedition together in the +fine summer weather to Hampton Court, or Kew, or the Crystal Palace, +thus celebrating May's visit to town, and making the most of Annie's +holiday? It would be like dear old times of primrose hunting, blue-bell +gathering, maying, and nutting down at Redcross before the cares and +troubles of the world had taken hold of the girls. Annie had already +sent on May's luggage to Welby Square, to which May would return with +Rose. Annie excluded herself carefully from this part of the programme, +with a kind of unapproachable haughtiness which had three strains of +stubbornness and one strain of fiery youthful anger in its composition, +while it was a complete enigma to May. But all she cared to know was +that she was going with her own two sisters for an entire afternoon's +delightful excursion. In the morning she had felt that she could never +have the heart to be happy again. Even yet she would not be quite happy; +she would be very much affronted when she was telling Annie and Rose the +particulars of her, May's, silliness and selfishness; how she had given +herself up to moping, and then how she had played herself--first with +the St. Ambrose gaieties, and later with the Greek play, instead of +setting about her work methodically and diligently. Annie would, +perhaps, tell her a few home-truths, and Rose would crumple up her +nose, shake her head, and look superhumanly wise--Rose who in the +old days had been more thoughtless than May. + +Still she deserved it all a thousand times over, and it would be a +relief to have disburdened herself of the sorry tale. + +Her own sisters would defend her from every other assailant. They would +feel for her, seek to reassure her, even make much of her, as they were +doing by taking her away with them this afternoon. May was very sensible +that a burden was lifted off her back. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +DORA IS THE NEXT MESSENGER WITH BAD TIDINGS. + + +There is a curious feeling abroad in the world, that no two things +happen alike on two days, or in two weeks, or months, running. If there +has been a railway accident on Monday, there will certainly not be +another of the same kind at the same place on Tuesday. Apart from the +fresh precautions sure to be taken, it is not at all likely, in the +chapter of accidents, that a facsimile will occur where the original has +preceded it so recently. On a similar principle, if a man has been +killed or badly injured by a fall from a horse, it goes against public +opinion that his son or his brother should also be thus injured. If the +singular repetition does take place, people will speak of it with bated +breath, as of a fate or doom hanging over the family, and therefore +bound to repeat itself again and again on the old lines. All this is in +spite of the fact that there is such a word as "coincidence" in the +language, and that there is hardly one of us who cannot remember +several startling coincidences in the course of his or her history. + +Annie Millar had an experience of the kind at this time. It was on the +20th of June that May arrived unannounced at St. Ebbe's to recount her +lost battle. On the 21st Dora appeared, in a like unlooked-for manner, +to divulge her sorrowful news. + +Annie was much more troubled by the spectacle of Dora standing alone in +the middle of the hospital drawing-room, pale and agitated, than she had +been by the discovery of May in that very condition the day before. +Annie's own colour died away while she ran forward and caught Dora's +hand. "What is it, Dora? Has anything happened to father or mother?--yet +if there had, you would not have left them and come up to town by +yourself. Why are you here? Tell me quickly, for it is killing me to +keep me in suspense." + +"Don't be alarmed," entreated Dora's soft voice. "Father sent me up for +the express purpose that you might not be alarmed when you heard. I must +have managed badly to frighten you. I assure you nothing has happened, +at least nothing very particular, only,--well, father is very rheumatic, +and the warm weather has done him no good. He has not been out of the +house for a month, though we did not mention it in our letters, always +hoping that by the next time we wrote he would be better. But he has not +left his room till he contrived to go in the cab yesterday. Oh! Annie, +he has sold his business to Dr. Capes. He--father--said it was no use to +protract the struggle, it was only doing more mischief; he would never +be able, at his age, to go about again so as to act fairly by his +patients. He has given up everything to the bank's creditors, and will +pass through the bankruptcy court. He bade me tell you that he could see +no other way, and he was afraid Rose or you might read his name in the +_Gazette_ without being prepared for it." + +"Father ill, old, and a bankrupt!" Annie's cry was bitter. "It is hard +after his long life of honourable industry. I can never forgive Mr. +Carey." + +"Hush! hush! Annie, you must not say that. Nothing would grieve father +more. Nobody has suffered like the Careys. Besides, father always says +that he alone was to blame for buying the bank shares. He did it of his +own free-will, just that he might grow richer in the idlest manner +possible for him to do so. Dr. Capes has taken our house, the Old +Doctor's House too, and father and mother went into apartments--those +over Robarts the book-seller's--yesterday, till they could look about +them." Dora was crying quietly all the time she was speaking, and at the +same time she was breaking off to say with pathetic resigned trust like +her mother's, "But only think, Annie dear, how much worse it might have +been! What a great deal we have to be thankful for. Look at poor Mr. +Carey sitting paralyzed, and quite childish; and do you know the sad +news arrived last night that poor poor Colonel Russell is dead? He had a +sun-stroke, and died within twelve hours; he has not been three months +at his new post. Dear father has all his senses, and he says himself he +may live for years and years." + +"I hope so," said Annie fervently; but it is doubtful whether she fully +appreciated the blessings of her lot at that moment. She busied herself +for a few minutes with Dora, her nurse's instinct as well as her +affection telling her that Dora must be seen to first. Annie took off +Dora's hat and jacket, seated her in the easiest chair, would hear +nothing more till she--Annie--had learnt when Dora had breakfasted, and +then rung for a basin of soup and made her swallow it. "Now, Dora," she +said, sitting down by her sister, "tell me all there is to tell. What +have father and mother to live upon? We must think and act for them +now." + +Dora explained as well as she was able, since, like her mother, she had +no great head for business. In addition to the sum given for the +good-will of Dr. Millar's practice, and for his house and furniture, +which was to be paid over to the liquidators of the bank's debts, (in +return for which the debtor would get a discharge from farther +obligations,) a small percentage was to be allowed to him from his +successor's fees. + +"I am afraid it will be very small," Dora made the despondent remark, +"because, though all his former patients are fond of father, they got to +see he was breaking up, and did not like to send for him during the +night, or at odd hours. Mother and I did what we could, going round for +him and inquiring after his patients; but, as he said, such a make-shift +could not last. We were always hearing of more families calling in Dr. +Capes or Mr. Newton. Father declared he could not blame them; he would +have done the same in their place, and that every dog must have his +day." + +"That was like father," said Annie, looking up with a fleeting sparkle +in her eyes. + +"Then we thought," went on Dora, "father and mother might have part of +mother's money, since you have always said you did not need it, while +Rose is getting paid for her work, and there is hardly any doubt" +(brightening up,) "but that 'little May' will take the scholarship. +She was working so hard to pass her examination when she wrote last, +that she was quite out of spirits about her chances, which father says +is always the way with the best men when they are going in for an +examination that they are safe to win. He supposes it will be still +more so with women. He tells mother that he will not mind taking help +from her, where her money is concerned, when he can no longer stir from +his chair--not to say to earn a fee, but to save his life. He has taken +so much more help from her in other ways during all their married life, +that this in addition will not count." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE UNEMPLOYED--A FAMILIAR FACE. + + +A lodging was found near the Hospital for Dora, who was to stay in town +and look out for a situation; and for the next week, a week of hot +summer weather, Annie, relieved from her hospital work, because it was +her first holiday time, went to and fro, spending as little as possible +on omnibus fares, with Dora and May in her train, in search of +employment for them. People were beginning to leave town, and the time +did not seem propitious. When was it ever propitious for such a pursuit +where women are concerned? Even under Annie's able guidance, with the +spirit which she could summon to her aid in all difficulties, the +intentional and unintentional rebuffs which the two girl candidates, +particularly Dora, got from agents and principals in connection with +ladies in want of useful companions and nursery-governesses were +innumerable. The swarms of needy, greedy applicants for similar +situations whom the Millars were perpetually encountering in their +rounds, were enough to cause the stoutest heart to quail, and to sink +the most sanguine nature into the depths of despondency. + +Dora Millar was not constitutionally sanguine, and she grew more and +more nervous and dispirited as the fruitless efforts went on. Her little +figure drooped, her eyes had a dejected expression, her lips quivered +pathetically without any provocation. Annie was compelled to use strong +language. "The idiots!" she exclaimed, _apropos_ of the last persons who +had found Dora too young or too old, not strong enough looking, or not +lively enough looking ("not as if she could stand a large amount of +bullying and worrying," Annie read between the lines). "What a chance +they are letting slip through their fingers of getting the most +unexacting, contented creature in the world to minister to their +tiresome wants. They will never see her like again; serve them right for +their blindness." + +One particularly glaring, airless afternoon, the three sisters were +toiling back to Dora's lodging, with the London pavement like heated +iron under the feet of the crowds that trod it, and the cloudless sky, +in which the sun blazed a ball of fire, like glowing brass over their +heads. Then as the Millars turned a corner and looked longingly at the +trees in a square with their leaves already yellowing and shrivelling, +May uttered a little shriek of delight and darted forward to greet a +familiar figure and face in the stream of strangers. What did it signify +that the figure was insignificant by comparison, and the face with +nothing distinguished in its pallor, under its red beard and +moustache?--"a little foxy-headed fellow," any sharp-tongued bystander +might have called him. It was a well-known face where all the others +were drearily unknown, a Redcross face in London, the face of a man who +might have shown himself an enemy, yet had proved a friend in need; and +though there had been presented to the girls the bearing of a Jupiter +and the lineaments of an Adonis, they could not have hailed him with +greater gladness. If anybody hung back in the general acclamation it was +Dora, for Annie did not say a word to rebuke May; she was too anxious to +hear the last news of her father. + +More than one man among the passers-by, glancing at Tom Robinson +surrounded by a group of pretty girls, the two prettiest evidently +making much of him and hanging on his words, called him in their minds +"lucky dog," and speculated on the nature of the attraction. + +"'_Prope'ty, prope'ty, prope'ty_,'" no doubt. It was disgraceful to see +how mercenary even quite young women were getting. + +Tom received the ovation, at which, by the bye, he was a little taken +aback and puzzled, quietly and in a matter-of-fact way, as he received +most things. He had had the pleasure of seeing Dr. and Mrs. Millar +lately; indeed, he had availed himself of the privileges of an old +friend to call on them at once in their new quarters, he told Annie, and +he had found them, by their own account, fairly well and comfortable, +though the Doctor was still dead lame. + +Tom did not tell either Annie, or any one else interested in the +information, that he had spent the last few days pushing the circulation +of a subscription list, which he had headed with the promise of a +handsome sum. It was to provide a testimonial not altogether inadequate +to mark the esteem in which the townspeople held their old Doctor for +his many virtues, and their sympathy with him in his misfortunes. A +liberal offering on the town's part might do something to relieve the +adversity which had befallen a fellow-townsman. The talk a little time +ago had been of presenting Dr. Millar with a new brougham and horse, +which, as they would have had to be maintained at the charge of a man +who had just put down his old brougham as beyond his diminished income, +was rather an illogical method of serving him. However, his complete +breakdown, with the sale of his practice, had at once knocked that idea +on the head, and had given its motive a much wider application. If the +little Doctor were to submit to accept help, it must be commensurate +with the dignity of Redcross and the county, and with his own +professional status and merit. + +Tom Robinson looked at the girls as two of them looked at him. "It is +tiring weather," he suggested hesitatingly; "is it wise of you to walk +out in the heat?" + +"Oh! Mr. Robinson," cried May effusively, "we are so tired--just dead +beat--though Annie there does not like me to talk slang--but it is so +expressive, don't you think so? It is not to-day only, but yesterday and +the day before, we have been hunting for situations, and have not found +them yet. Do you know, Dora and I are going to take situations +immediately if we can get them?" + +His face changed, and he knit his brow involuntarily. + +"What a magpie it is!" said Annie, impatiently. "But, of course, you +have heard all about the turn father's affairs have taken since this bad +rheumatic attack, which he does not believe he can shake off. It need +not be any secret that my sisters are looking out for situations." + +He did not answer; he was prevented by the painful consciousness that +Dora appeared ready to sink into the ground. + +"Won't you avail yourself of my arm, Miss Dora? Won't you let me see you +home?" he proposed hurriedly. + +She could not refuse; indeed, she was only too thankful for the offered +support, though she murmured a protest against troubling him and taking +him out of his way. And she could not altogether conceal how put out as +well as weary she was, so that the little hand, which just touched his +coat-sleeve, fluttered on its resting-place like a newly-caught bird. + +He hailed a cab, and wished to put them all into it. + +"I dare say it would be better," said Annie, glancing at Dora's white +face, with the new trick of quivering which the lips had acquired. As +the cab was driving up, she gave Tom Robinson their address--"17, Little +St. Ebbe's Street," with the amount of the fare, looking at him almost +fiercely while she took the money from her purse. "Will you be good +enough to direct the man and pay him for us?" she said, and he dared not +dispute her will. + +But when he yielded, she seemed to think his friendliness and power of +comprehension deserved something better than they had got. "Will you +come with us?" Annie invited him; and when she softened, it was always +in such a bright frank way that it was hard to resist her. "We'll be +very pleased to give you a cup of tea at Dora's lodging--at least we can +do that for you, and it may be acceptable on such an oppressive +afternoon." + +He, a guest at a lodging of Dora Millar's: it sounded odd enough! + +"Do come, Mr. Robinson," his friend May was imploring, while Dora, +sensible that something was due from her as the ostensible mistress of +the lodging, echoed shyly, without raising her eyes to his face, "Yes, +come, please." + +Did she remember the last time she gave him tea in the drawing-room of +the Old Doctor's House, where they were not likely to meet again? How +awkward they found the _tete-a-tete_. How they shrank from their hands +touching, while he reproached her for aiding and abetting May in trying +to shirk going to St. Ambrose's; and she had borne his reproaches and +admitted the reasonableness of his arguments, with all the meek candour +of Dora, while still making a last stand for May. + +He went with the girls as if he were in a dream; but he was not left to +dream in Dora's very plain lodging, where Annie and not the mistress of +the lodging poured out tea, and May insisted on helping him to bread +and butter. He saw Rose, too, who had been awaiting the return of her +sisters. It sent another pang to his brotherly heart to discover that +Rose also was subdued and well-nigh careworn. She still wrinkled her +forehead and crumpled up her nose, but it was no longer in the old saucy +way; it was under her share of the heavy burden of trouble which had +fallen on these dauntless girls and might end by crushing them. + +May was not to be kept from the immense solace of making a clean breast +to her former ally of her stupid dawdling and trifling, and the +retribution which had at once befallen her. "Did father tell you, Mr. +Robinson, that I have failed in my examination?" she began plaintively. +"Yes, I have, and it was all my own fault. I was too silly; I would not +pull myself together and work hard from the first. Now it will never be +in my power to go back to St. Ambrose's. I'll not be able to atone for +my folly by showing that everybody was not wrong when it was believed +that I might be a fair scholar, win a scholarship, and rise to be +classical mistress in a girls' school." At the announcement of the +disastrous failure, by her own deed, of all the ambitious plans for her, +May threatened to break down, springing up and turning away, her +shoulders heaving in a paroxysm of mortification and grief. + +Tom Robinson used to say, afterwards, that he never witnessed a +prettier sight than the manner in which the three other girls rallied +round their poor "little May," from Annie downwards. They took off her +hat, pulled off her gloves, smoothed her ruffled hair, patted her +tear-stained cheeks, seated her in an arm-chair, brought her tea, and +made her drink it, bidding her not be too disheartened. They pledged +themselves--even Dora pledged herself stoutly--that, if it rested with +them, and they were young and strong, they would find work of one kind +or another--May should go back to St. Ambrose's some day and vindicate +her scholarliness. Father and mother and all of them would be proud of +her. + +It rendered the man doubly indignant from that day when he heard +scoffers say that there could be no true friendship between women, and +that the relation of sisters existed simply for the growth of rivalry +and jealousy. + +May was still shaking her head disconsolately, and reminding him, "Ah, +Mr. Robinson, it would have been better if you had let me stay at home +and go into your shop, like Phyllis Carey. I might have done some good +there, though you may not believe it, and only feel glad that you got +rid of me." + +Then he took her in hand, and administered his consolation. "Nonsense, +Miss May," he said, with sufficient peremptoriness for a man who had +been rather accustomed to efface himself in these girls' presence, "you +were not to be suffered to hide your light under a bushel. I wonder to +hear you--I thought you had more pluck and perseverance. How many times +do you think the young fellows at St. Ambrose's are turned back and have +to try again? If I passed in my first exam, it was by the merest fluke, +as three-fourths of the men will tell you they pass. As for my degree, +I had the common sense and modesty to put off taking it to the last +moment, and to stay up two different vacations, 'sapping' like a +Scotchman, before I ventured to undergo the test. You don't mean to say +you are too proud to do at Rome as the Romans do, that your genius will +brook no rejection, and declines to grapple with an obstacle? I'll tell +you what your father proposes for you, and let me say that I believe it +would do him a world of good--now that he has been forced to give up his +patients, and is confined to his chair. He has not lost heart and faith +in your powers--of course not. He is thinking quite eagerly of brushing +up his classics in his enforced leisure, and himself becoming your coach +for the next six months. I need not say that any small assistance I can +offer is heartily at your service also." + +"Oh!" said May, with wistful brown eyes and a long-drawn sigh, "you are +a great deal too good to me, all of you. I don't deserve it. It would +only be too much happiness for me to have father and you to coach +me--but I know we could not afford it." + +"Wait and see," said Tom succinctly. + +"If I got that situation," said Dora timidly, "I might do something to +help May: I mean the one where the lady said she would take me into +consideration, but we thought it would not do, because I should have to +go out to Jamaica. On second thoughts, I am not sure that I'd mind so +very much going. The lady seemed to consider I might be able to do what +she required, and I should only be away for a year or two, since the +family are coming back then. The salary was very good." + +Dora go out to Jamaica to help May, or any one else! Not though he had +to fling cheques in at the windows, and squeeze Bank of England notes +through the keyholes, to prevent it. + +"Hester Jennings says she would not be very much surprised if she heard +of a buyer for my tulip picture; but I don't know," said Rose +doubtfully, glancing at the picture, which was on an adjoining table. + +"May I look at it?" asked Tom Robinson, jumping up with alacrity, +probably to make a diversion in the conversation from the obnoxious +topic of Dora's problematical voyage to Jamaica. He had seen Rose's work +at Redcross, and he could give it as his honest opinion that she had +made a great advance in her art, though he did not profess to be a +judge. He said, however, that he had a friend, an old St. Ambrose crony, +who was an artist. They had happened to be together in Rome at a later +date, had been a good deal thrown on each other's company there, and had +continued to keep up a friendly intercourse. He requested permission for +his friend to call and look at the little picture. He might be of use to +Rose in disposing of it; he was always ready to help a fellow-artist. +Tom supposed the Millars had heard his friend's name, it was pretty well +known; indeed they might have seen him, for Pemberton and Lady Mary, his +wife, had spent a few days with Tom at Redcross, and had been in church +on the Sunday during their visit, the summer before last. + +In spite of the obligations of good breeding, the Millars looked at each +other in open-mouthed astonishment. Certainly they had heard of +Pemberton the distinguished landscape painter, and they had been told +that he had married into the peerage, as Aunt Penny had married into the +county. The girls also remembered perfectly the quiet-looking young +couple who had been noticed walking about with Tom Robinson the July +before last. People had wondered languidly who the strangers could +be--whether they were cousins far removed on Tom's father's side of the +house, since they did not quite answer to the style of his mother's +yeomen kindred. But it was an effort to the provincial mind to identify +the unobtrusive-looking pair with the Pembertons, to realize that Mr. +Pemberton and his Lady Mary had actually come and stayed the better part +of a week with Tom Robinson. They could hardly have been ignorant of +"Robinson's," whose master was only received into the upper-class houses +of the town on a species of sufferance. + +The peerage must have unique rules by which to frame its standards. +There was the Hon. Victoria, Mrs. Carey's niece by marriage, who, when +Carey's Bank was in full bloom, would hardly be seen in the streets of +Redcross, and scarcely deigned to acknowledge her own aunt-in-law. As to +the familiarity of staying a night in the Bank House, she would never +have dreamt of it. In this respect she did little credit to the teaching +of her old governess, Miss Franklin, who had shown herself a philosopher +in her own person. Perhaps, when it came to stooping at all, the peerage +felt it might as soon, and with a still more gracious and graceful +effect, bend low as bend slightly. Perhaps in the peerage, as in every +other class, there are all sorts and conditions of mind and heart. + +A little clue might have been supplied to account for the eccentricity +of the Pembertons, and to lessen the shock of their conduct to the +Millars, if the latter had been made acquainted with one circumstance. +About the time of the stay of the artist and his wife in Rome, where he +had been only too glad to run up against a favourite old college chum, +when the three had been making a long excursion in company beyond the +Campagna, Pemberton had been suddenly attacked in a remote little town +with a violent illness. + +His poor young wife would have been utterly frightened and forlorn had +it not been for the moral courage and untiring good offices of the third +person in the company--Tom Robinson. + +Tom did not appear conscious of the sensation he had created by the +mention of his friend. He arranged when Mr. Pemberton should come and +view Rose's picture to suit Rose's convenience, and not that of the +famous and courted artist. Then he explained in all sincerity, before he +took his leave, that he, Tom Robinson, was very sorry he could not have +the pleasure of bringing Pemberton and introducing him personally, +because a business engagement called the master of "Robinson's" back to +Redcross early next morning. + +The party he left were quite silent and still for a moment after he had +gone, till what she had heard of Mr. Pemberton went to Rose's head to +such a degree that she rose, whirled round on tiptoe, and caused her +spread-out frock to perform the feat which children call "making a +cheese." + +"Won't it be delicious to know Mr. Pemberton and get his advice--perhaps +one day presume to ask him how he does his hay-fields and orchards? What +will Hester Jennings say! I say, we'll have Hester to meet him; she will +come for such a painter though the whole peerage would not get her to +budge an inch. I wish we could tone her down a little bit, but he must +just swallow her whole. She is good and clever enough to be permitted +that rugged line of her own. Oh! but isn't Tom Robinson a trump? I +_will_ be slangy, Annie--as May says, it is so expressive." + +"Yes, yes," chimed in May enthusiastically, in reference to the man and +not to the slang. "I have known it ever since he came up like a +lion--why do you laugh, Rose?--and rescued Tray--don't you remember, +Dora?--from that horrid brute of a collie. Tray bit him--Mr. Robinson, I +mean--not knowing that he was his best friend, and he only laughed. He +was so kind about my wishing to go into his shop, like Phyllis Carey, +though he would not take me. I think it must be a privilege, as Miss +Franklin tells Phyllis, to serve him. She says all the nice people in +the shop have the greatest regard for him." + +"I am so sorry and ashamed that I ever drew caricatures of him," said +Rose, in pensive penitence. "I think, whenever I am able, I must paint +his portrait, as I see him now, to make up for it." + +"And ask him to have it hung above the oak staircase in the shop," +suggested Annie, a little satirically. But she added immediately, +"Though it broke no bones to dwell on his lack of height and his foxy +complexion, I am rather sorry now that I did it, because I have ceased +to think that these objectionable details deserved to be made of any +consequence. On the contrary, I own to the infatuation of beginning to +see that there is something fine in them. I suppose I shall be calling +Tom Robinson's hair golden, or tawny, or chestnut soon, and his inches +the proper height for a man. It is true," broke off Annie, with sudden, +unaccountable perversity, "I do hate great lumbering flaxen-haired +giants." She blushed furiously after she had indulged in the last +digression, and hastened to resume the main thread of the conversation. +"As for Tom Robinson's having little to say, I declare that my present +impression is that he says quite enough, and very much to the purpose +too. It was so nice and like a gentleman of him not to propose +immediately to buy Rose's picture when she talked rashly of her anxiety +that it should find a purchaser." + +"I don't think Cyril Carey, with all his airs, would have shown so much +delicacy in the old days," said Rose. + +"Or that Ned Hewett, though Ned has such a kind heart, would have been +able to avoid blundering into some such offer," remarked May. + +There was one person who remained absolutely silent while the others +sang Tom Robinson's praises, and it might be her silence which called +her sisters' attention to her. + +"I wonder what you would have, Dora?" said Rose, with several shades of +superciliousness in her voice and in her lifted-up nose. + +"I cannot understand how you could be such a cruel, hard-hearted girl," +May actually reproached her devoted slave. + +"There is such a thing as being too particular," Annie had the coolness +to say. "I am sure I do not go in for indiscriminate marriages or for +falling in love," she added with lofty decision. "It has always been a +mystery to me what poor Fanny Russell could see to care for, or to do +anything save laugh at, in Cyril Carey. I hope the elderly 'competition +wallah,' or commissioner, or whatever he is, whom she is going to marry, +has more sense as well as more money. For her marriage was arranged, +though the news had not reached England, mother writes, before the +tidings of Colonel Russell's death came. But when a man who can act as +Tom Robinson has acted crosses a woman's path and pays her the +compliment of asking her to be his wife, I do think she should be +careful what she answers." + +Dora stared as if she were losing her senses. Were they laughing at her +still? Could they be in earnest? If so, how was it possible for them to +be so flagrantly inconsistent and unjust? She could only utter a single +exclamation. But as the worm will turn, the exclamation was emphatic and +indignant enough. "Well!" she cried, in utter amazement and incipient +rebellion. "Well!" and she returned the challenging gaze of the circle +with a counter-challenge, before which all eyes except Annie's fell. + +Annie had the audacity to look Dora in the face and echo the "Well!" +nay, to say further, "You never heard of anything so disgraceful as for +us to turn upon you and find fault with you for refusing Tom Robinson, +when all the time it was we who laughed at him, and scouted his shop, +keeping you up to the point of dismissing him without delay? Quite true, +Dora, dear; but then it was you, and not _us_, whom he was proposing to +marry! and a girl old enough to receive such a proposal should have the +wit to judge for herself--should she not? She ought to cultivate the +penetration to look beneath the surface in so important a matter, and +then fewer lamentable mistakes would be made. However, nobody could +expect you to put force on your inclinations, and he does not bear you +malice." + +Annie did not regard her share in the matter so cheerfully and lightly +when she was in the privacy of a ward of St. Ebbe's, where she had +begged to sit up with an unconscious patient, just to keep her hand in +and compose her feelings. + +"What mischievous little wretches we were," she reflected, as she +deftly changed the wet cloth on the sick woman's hot forehead. "How +happy he might have made Dora, and how happy she might have made him! +She is so single-minded and tender-hearted, that she could hardly have +failed to see his merits, if we had given him the chance, let her +alone, and left the pair to themselves. Then, if the worst were to +come to the worst," and Annie frowned with anxiety and grief, as well +as with wholesome humiliation, "if poor father and mother cannot get +along, and none of us girls can help them effectually, his house might +have been their home, where he would never have let them feel other +than honoured guests. He would have been a son to them. But the +mischief is done, and there is no help for it. If Dora and he were an +ordinary couple, it might be mended; but now she will not look at him +when we none of us have a penny, because she refused him when we were +in comfortable circumstances; and he will not renew his suit with the +thought in his mind that it would look and feel to her as if any +favour he has magnanimously conferred on us, were a mere bribe to +compel her to listen to him. So, Annie Millar, this is a pretty kettle +of fish, of which you have been chief cook! There is the greater +reason for you to make up your mind from this moment to devote +yourself wholly to your family, and let nothing--_nothing_," she +protested with suspicious vehemence, "come between you and them." + +"What is it, you poor soul?" the young nurse responded quickly to a +movement of the helpless ailing creature beside her. "Do you know there +is somebody here? Will it ease you to have your head raised on my arm, +do you think? You cannot hear or answer, but we'll try that, and then it +is just possible you may drop asleep." And for the rest of the watch +Annie was absorbed in care for her patient. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +REDCROSS AGAIN. + + +Tom Robinson's subscription list attained the respectable sum-total of +two thousand pounds. Many of the subscribers were not only patients of +Dr. Millar, but creditors of the bank whose claims he had striven with +sturdy honesty to satisfy, till the task proved too hard for his years. + +The little Doctor received the token of how greatly his courage and +staunchness in the fulfilment of his obligations had been respected, +with half pained, half pleased gratitude, and this was very much the +attitude of mind of his daughter Annie. The rest of his womankind, from +Mrs. Millar to May, only felt a glad surprise, and a soft, proud +thankfulness. + +The relief from present difficulties was great, but of course the gift +did not obviate the necessity for the girls seeking work and wages. Even +May, when she ventured to hope that she might stay at home for a month +or two and be coached by her father and Tom Robinson in anticipation of +a more successful campaign at St. Ambrose's, was eagerly speculating +whether she might not become a coach in her turn. She was fain to earn a +little money by helping the very youngest of the Grammar School boys to +prepare their Latin grammar in the evenings, supposing she could get +them to sit still, and give over wishing her to play with them. + +Mr. Pemberton had not only himself called on the Miss Millar who was the +artist, he had brought Lady Mary with him, and both husband and wife had +turned out the refined, thoroughly unassuming, kindly disposed couple +they had looked. They spoke warmly of Tom Robinson as their very good +friend, and went so far as to express enthusiasm for his beautiful old +shop. Mr. Pemberton did better than merely say a few words of languid, +indiscriminating praise of Rose's picture, and then bow himself out. He +examined the picture closely, and looked at her thoughtfully and +attentively out of the dark gray eyes, the only good feature in his +face. The next moment, to Hester Jennings's great edification, he +addressed Rose seriously as a member of the Guild of St. Luke--not an +amateur, "one of ourselves, so that you must not mind what I say to you, +Miss Millar." He first displayed a generous capacity for discovering +something good, whether it were to be found in the work of a tyro or of +a veteran. Next he took the trouble of pointing out the faults, and +urging their remedy, telling her the picture was worth the pains of +making it as true as possible, until Rose hung her head in blended pride +and humility. + +What was more, he offered to enter into negotiations with a +picture-dealer on her behalf, and brought them to a triumphant +conclusion, making Rose happy with so fair a price as materially to +lighten the millstone of her resigned office at the Misses Stone's +hanging round her neck. + +It was settled that May should go home and profit by the coaching which +awaited her at Redcross, taking the chance of finding some little boys +whose Latin grammar would be the better of her supervision. + +Next Mr. Pemberton wrote that Lady Mary had been so charmed with the +neighbourhood of Redcross, and had spoken so highly of it to one of her +cousins, who had a great liking for English landscape, and was just +refurnishing his town house, that he wished to commission a set of +water-colour sketches of such and such spots for his morning-room. It +was Mr. Pemberton's opinion that Miss Rose Millar could execute the +commission to Sir John Neville's satisfaction, if she cared to accept of +it. + +"It is to help me," said Rose humbly, "for there are hundreds of good +artists who would take the work and be thankful, and do it far better, +though I will do my very best. Tom Robinson is at the bottom of it +directly or indirectly, but he is like an old friend. I don't know a man +to whom I would sooner be obliged." + +In the third instance, a totally unforeseen application was made to +Annie. A fever, in certain respects unfamiliar in its type, broke out at +Stokeleigh, one of several suburban villages on the outskirts of +Redcross. Some authorities called the fever Russian, and declared it had +been imported--they did not pretend to say how--from that remote empire. +Others insisted it was a slow fever, of English growth, with curious +complications. It appeared doubtful whether it were infectious; but +there was one thing which was unmistakable, that, whatever kind of +malaria brooding in the summer air was at the root of the complaint, +that malaria showed a disposition to spread extensively. It passed from +Stokeleigh to the adjoining village of Woodleigh, whence it took a bend +in the direction of the town, and proceeded to squat, as malarias can +squat, and settle indefinitely on all the low-lying districts of +Redcross. Neither did the epidemic improve in character with the change +of locality. For, whereas on the higher, less encumbered ground the +fever had been rarely fatal, the mortality increased with the transfer +of the disease to the crowded, damp purlieus of the older part of the +town, built more or less on the Dewes, and liable to be invaded by the +river in flood. + +A combined meeting of the Town Council and Vestry, with the Mayor, who +happened to be a public-spirited man, and the Rector heading it, +determined on taking prompt action to stop the mischief. The town had +lately built a Corn Exchange in one of the highest, best-ventilated +situations in Redcross. It was to be committed to the care of a town's +officer and his wife, who were to have the adjoining rooms rent-free for +a domicile, together with certain perquisites, in return for sweeping, +scrubbing, and looking after the hall. But the place was just finished, +and had not yet been occupied in the manner intended. It was proposed to +convert it, in the absence of other accommodation, into a temporary ward +for the sufferers from fever. The doctors consulted, pledged themselves +that there was every probability of the unwelcome visitor being thus +stamped out, while the chances of recovery for the patients would be +multiplied. It was also agreed to bring a trained nurse from some +nursing institution, to mould the raw nursing materials which Redcross +supplied on the emergency. Dr. Millar's successor had a bright idea that +it might be a graceful act on his part to mention the old Doctor's +daughter, who had gone in for nursing as a profession. She had already +served nearly a year in a great London hospital, and was no doubt +competent to undertake the duties required. It would be a compliment to +her and her father to try and get her for the occasion, and there would +be a certain _eclat_ in her coming to the help of her native town in its +need. Dr. Capes was right as to the popularity of his motion. It was +received with unanimous approval. Annie, the matron, and the directors +of St. Ebbe's, were immediately applied to in proper form. Annie burned +to go, if such a step were admissible at the present stage of her +career. The favour she had won on all sides aided in the fulfilment of +her wishes. She was promoted from the ranks of the probationers to those +of the nurses while yet her year wanted a fraction of its complete +round, and was officially sent down to represent the nurses of St. +Ebbe's at Redcross. + +"Of course, Dora, you cannot be left behind to go on by yourself hunting +for a situation with three-fourths of the great world out of town. I am +afraid you would make a poor job of it at the best, Dora dear, and at +the worst it is not to be thought of; it would be a waste of +nerve-tissue and muscle, as well as of pounds, shillings, and pence. You +will come too; we'll be all together, or nearly together, again, for a +holiday, after all." + +Dora, who had been waiting patiently for Annie's decision, was nothing +loth. + +"Rose's expenses and mine are more than paid," calculated the practical +Annie, "so that we shall be no drag on father and mother. I don't know +if Robarts's accommodation will extend beyond the additional bedroom for +Rose and May, but that can be easily managed. Oh! I have it, Dora, you +will stay with me at the hospital--the Corn Exchange I mean--and save me +from having a housekeeper for the short time one will be wanted. I'll +take care that no infection, if there be infection, will come near you. +Oh, 'won't it be jolly,' as Rose says, for you and me to keep house by +ourselves at dear old Redcross, of all places in the world?" + +It was arranged so, with only a little demur from Mrs. Millar, +over-ruled by her husband. + +There was another person, without right or power to enter his veto +against the existing order of things, who nevertheless decidedly +demurred at them. Tom Robinson showed that though he might be a humane +man there were bounds to his humanity. "It is all very well for Annie +Millar to come down and nurse the fever patients, it is in the way of +her business, she does as much every day, she is well acquainted with +all the precautions to take. But Dora is not a nurse, she never thinks +of herself, she will forget to take the precautions if she has ever +heard of them. She has not strong nerves, and she is used up with this +preposterous stumping of London in July in search of a situation. What +in the name of common sense and natural affection do they mean by +lugging Dora into the risk!" he grumbled and worried. "Oh! yes, of +course she would follow Annie or any of the rest of them fast enough if +she had the opportunity, though she were to die at the end of it; but +she ought never to have had the opportunity, it was preposterous to let +her. The whole thing is monstrous. I never heard of such rashness. What +can Dr. and Mrs. Millar be thinking of?" + +It felt queer, to say the least of it, as well as "jolly," to be at +Redcross and not at the Old Doctor's House, over which a bride of +yesterday was presiding, for Dr. Capes's marriage had taken place +simultaneously with his purchase of Dr. Millar's practice. + +Annie used to look over from the opposite side of the street, as she was +walking along, at the alterations which were being made in the garden, +and the new arrangement of the window curtains, and try to criticize +them impartially. Then she had to call and see Dr. Capes, and wait in +the familiar consulting-room till he insisted on taking her to the +drawing-room, in order to introduce her to his wife, who had come a +stranger to Redcross. Annie felt as if she were a disembodied spirit, or +a dreamer in a dream from which she could not awake, while she gazed on +the changed yet well-known aspect of everything around her. But she had +to think of Dr. and Mrs. Capes, in whose house she was, and talk civilly +to them of their improvements(!). She had to emulate the submission of +Dora, who had seen the transfer coming and taken part in it. She had to +copy the mercurial spirits of Rose and May. They were so pleased to be +with their father and mother again, and to take possession of Phyllis +Carey's every free moment, that they declared the Robarts's apartments +were the very nicest the girls had ever seen. They, the apartments, were +delightfully cosy (which meant stuffy in July). They were more cheerful +(noisier) than the Old Doctor's House. It was great fun for the pair to +stow themselves and their belongings within such narrow compass. + +A serious vexation to Annie at the commencement of her enterprise was +the arrival of Dr. Harry Ironside to diagnose and make what he could of +the fever. + +"What is he doing here? His coming at all is most impertinent," cried +Annie indignantly, sitting down on one of the still empty beds in the +barrack-like hall, and as it were daring Rose and May, who had brought +the news, and Dora who was listening to them, to contradict her. + +"He is come in the pursuit of knowledge," said Rose, with full command +of her countenance. "He does not understand Russian fever, or whatever +it is, and he thinks he had better make its acquaintance as a wind up to +taking his degree. He is still a doctor at large; he has not fixed on +where he is to go and what he is to do next, so his sister Kate writes +to me." + +"Then he and his sister Kate had better make up their minds to go away +together, somewhere else, and not trouble other people," cried Annie +quite illogically. + +"Why, Annie, father thinks it is very praiseworthy of Dr. Ironside to +seek to get all the information he can before settling down as a +doctor," remonstrated May in the guilelessness of her heart. "He has +just been calling on father, who is delighted with him--so is mother; +and, for _my_ part," finished the speaker with unconscious emphasis, as +if her opinion were of the utmost consequence, "I have thought him very +nice since the first time I met him at Mrs. Jennings's. He is so big and +handsome, without being stuck up, or a swell, like what Cyril Carey used +to be--just frank and pleasant as a man should be. I cannot comprehend +why you have such a dislike to him." + +"Upon my word!" exclaimed Annie, with a gasp. "But I don't care," she +added vehemently; "he shall not come and carry on his investigations +here. Dr. Capes and I, with father to appeal to, and Mr. Newton to call +in and consult, if necessary, are more than sufficient for all the +patients we are likely to get. I tell you, if he forces his way into my +hospital I'll have nothing more to do with it; I'll throw it all up and +go back to St. Ebbe's at once." + +"But it is not your hospital, Annie," said Rose with provoking +matter-of-factness. "It is the town's, or if it is under the control of +any private person, it is under Dr. Capes's orders. For the sake of his +professional character, medical etiquette, and all that kind of thing, +he will not refuse to allow a fellow-doctor to study the fever cases +under his care. Dr. Harry was going to stay at the 'Crown,' but he met +Tom Robinson, who said he should be his guest, and carried him off to +his house." + +"Just like Tom Robinson!" declared Annie with amazing asperity. + +"Come along, May." Rose hurried away her sister and satellite, and then +let loose her glee. "It is too funny, May; too preposterously funny. It +is ever so much better than Dora and Tom Robinson. He was so easily +rebuffed, and she was so reluctant to rebuff him. But here is Annie +like one of the furies, and Harry Ironside is silly enough to mind her, +so that he can hardly open his mouth before her, and looks as if he had +lost his wits. Before Annie! What is our Annie, I should like to know, +that she should daunt a clever, high-spirited young fellow such as he +is? What strange glamour has she thrown over him? But he has plenty of +mettle and determination for all that, and she will no more manage by +her tirades to stop him from coming after her and laying siege to her +ladyship, than she can keep the sun from shining or the rain from +falling. For that matter, I believe the poor fellow cannot help himself; +it is the case of the moth and the candle." + +"But what is it all about?" demanded May, in an utter confusion of +ideas. "She speaks as if she hated him, and I thought he had come to +Redcross to trace the course of the Russian fever." + +"To trace the course of his own fortunes. I beg your pardon, my dear, +but you might have known enough of human nature to guess that there was +a private personal motive at the bottom of his philanthropy." + +"Then it is the worse for him and a great pity," said May, with the +sweet seriousness into which one phase of her childishness was passing. +"I wonder you can laugh, Rose. I am always affronted when I remember +how we laughed at Tom Robinson and poor Dora, making game of what was no +joke to them. And Dora was not half so much opposed to Tom as Annie is +to this unfortunate, nice, pleasant young doctor. I could find it in my +heart to be very sorry for him." + +"Oh! you are a simpleton apart from Latin and Greek. Don't you see that +Annie's wrath is neither more nor less than fright? She is frightened +out of her senses at him, because she wants to keep her independence and +share our fortunes. As I do not remember to have seen her in such a +scare before, I should say that she is paying him a high compliment." + +"I think it is rather a queer compliment," objected May in much +perplexity. + + "'Though you should choose to dissemble your love, + Why need you kick me down-stairs?" + +quoted Rose. "Oh! but the poet did not know the world, or pretended not +to know it. I assure you there are many wise men who would much rather +be kicked in this way than be civilly spoken to. Kate Ironside thought +fit to confide to me how much interested she was in a suit which, if it +ever succeeded, would make us all brothers and sisters. She was so good +as to add that while she was aware Harry always knew best, and she had +entire faith in his choice, still she was not entirely of his mind--I +don't believe Annie has ever spoken to her, lest speech with the sister +should be taken for encouragement to the brother. It is only natural +perhaps that, as Kate ventured to admit, on the whole she would have +preferred _me_." + +"And what did you say to that?" asked the deeply-interested May. + +"No, thanks, though I was much obliged, or something like it. I added +with some dignity, I flatter myself, though really such dignity is +thrown away on Kate, that for the present I was wedded to my art, like +Queen Elizabeth to her kingdom, and to my sister Maisie. Besides, +nothing could, would, or should ever induce me to meddle with my sister +Annie's property, since, according to Kate's own account, it was for +love of Annie, and not of me, that Harry Ironside took up his residence +under Mrs. Jennings's roof." + +But Annie had to give way to some extent. She was compelled to grant an +interview to the aggressor. Dr. Ironside arrived on a special errand to +the hospital, and he took up the position that Miss Millar was entitled +to be consulted. Tom Robinson had been attacked with every symptom of +the fever. He and Tom had agreed, in view of the public character of +"Robinson's," and with the idea that the step might do good, by serving +as an example, that the patient should come to the hospital and be laid +up there, where Dr. Harry Ironside was ready to devote himself to the +case. + +"I believe Tom Robinson has taken the fever on purpose," said Annie to +the shocked Dora. "But he shall not have much of my attendance; he may +stick to his Dr. Ironside. Dr. Capes tells me he has induced a married +woman, with a family, who has a brother and a nephew lodging with her, +both of them down with fever, to send them here, so that I shall have +them to look after. Now that there is a beginning made," Annie smoothed +her ruffled plumes, and waxed cheerful, "if the hot weather does not +change, and the disease is not checked, we are likely to have plenty of +patients on our hands, with the opportunity of showing what service we +can render them and the town." + +Just as Annie predicted, the rows of beds began to fill, and she had no +lack of occupation; but she changed her tale with regard to Tom Robinson +when his case, among many which yielded readily to treatment, and proved +triumphantly the gain to be got from a better locality and fresher air, +was first grave, then dangerous, and at last verged on hopeless. Now she +turned to the worst case on her list, and made it her chief care. She +became totally unmindful of the fact that she was thus brought into +constant contact with Harry Ironside, that it was he and she who were +together fighting death, inch by inch, with desperate endeavour, for the +prize which the last enemy threatened to snatch from their hands. +Indeed, so entirely did Annie, like the excellent nurse and kind-hearted +woman she was, lose sight of her own concerns in the interest of her +patient, that she was heard to contradict herself, and record her +sincere thankfulness for the strong support of Harry Ironside's presence +in the light of the valuable aid he could afford at such a time. + +"He was thought very clever at St. Ebbe's. He took his degree with high +honours. He was held in much esteem by all the older doctors," she +explained to all who cared to hear. "He is in possession of all the +latest light on his profession. Now, I have heard father say, and what I +have seen confirms it, that though Dr. Capes is most painstaking, and +has had a good deal of experience as a general practitioner, he has no +great natural ability, and he was not in circumstances to pursue his +studies longer than was absolutely necessary to enable him to pass as a +medical man. After all I take back my word. I am very glad for poor Tom +Robinson's sake that Dr. Harry Ironside is here. No doubt we could have +summoned a great specialist from London, but he would only have stayed a +short time, and men like him have generally many critical cases on +their minds. Now Dr. Harry Ironside is on the spot, and he can watch +every turn of the disease which he came to master, and devote his whole +attention to this example. I consider Tom Robinson is exceedingly +fortunate in getting the chance of such scientific treatment." + +But in spite of the good fortune and the devotion spent on him; it +looked as if Tom were going to slip through the hands so bent on +detaining him, and to die as quietly as he had lived. + +When Redcross realized how even the balance was, and how heavily he was +swimming for his life, the whole town woke up to his good qualities as a +citizen, to what a useful life his comparatively short one had been, to +how many benefits he had conferred without the slightest assumption of +patronage or superiority of any kind. + +It is unnecessary to say that "Robinson's" was figuratively in the +deepest mourning, only rousing itself from its despair to proclaim his +merits and those of his father before him, as masters. Men gravely +pointed out the old servants he had pensioned; those in middle age +whom he had kept on when their best days were past; the boys he had +already taken in, fitted out, and launched on the world by judicious, +unostentatious backing. Women tearfully reminded the listener how +carefully he had provided for their comfort and well-being throughout +his establishment, from the ample time allowed for their meals and the +seats to which they could retire when not actually serving, to the +early closing hours, which afforded them and the men who were their +associates, some leisure for out-of-doors exercise and indoors +recreation. As for mental and spiritual improvement, he was always +ready to subscribe liberally to libraries, choral unions, friendly +societies, Christian associations, missionary boxes--every conceivable +means of rational pleasure, culture, and true human elevation of which +his people would avail themselves. + +Mrs. Carey called at the Corn Exchange and offered her unprofessional +services as a nurse, if further aid were wanted. + +Mr. Pemberton, acquainted with the fact of Tom Robinson's illness +through communicating with Rose Millar on her commission, wrote that he +could hardly keep Lady Mary from descending on Redcross to see after +their friend, and if it would be the least good she would come down. It +would be but a poor return for the aid Robinson had lent her when her +husband lay desperately sick and she had nobody to appeal to, save the +fat and fatuous _padrone_ of a miserable little Italian inn. + +May, who was at last prevented from coming to her sisters, presented +herself when they went to their father's, her eyes swollen with weeping +for her "coach." + +Every time Annie left the transformed hall of the Exchange and repaired +to the rooms which she and Dora occupied, she found a white face on the +watch for her, and pale lips which could hardly form the syllables, "How +is he now? Oh! Annie, must he die?" At least Dora was on the spot to +hear each hour's report, as if she had been his nearest relative, and +without asking herself the reason why, that was a little bit of comfort +to her. In the same manner Tom Robinson derived a dim satisfaction from +the fact that he was lying there under the same roof with Dora Millar, +as he would have been supposing she had listened to his suit eighteen +months ago, and he had fallen ill in the early days of their marriage. +He was afraid it was pure selfishness which made him cease to resent her +presence in close proximity to the fever ward, as he had resented it +when he did not imagine he might be one of its patients. Sometimes he +had a dim fancy that he heard her soft voice through the closed doors, +and that it soothed him, though he might be only dreaming, or it was +possible that there were tones in Annie's clear voice which under +certain emotions of pity and tenderness answered to those of her sister. + +Often Annie just shook her head sorrowfully as she warned Dora off till +the nurse's dress could be changed. Occasionally she cried out +petulantly, "If he would only be impatient, and fret and grumble like +other people; if he would not take things so quietly; if he would resist +and struggle, I believe he might fight the battle and win it yet. I +think he will get over the crisis, but what of that if there is no +rallying? He is letting life go because he will not grasp it hard, I +suppose for the reason that he has no strong ties to bind him to it. He +has either such a poor opinion of his deserts, or such a trust in +Providence, that he considers whatever is is best, and does not exert +himself to alter the course of events so far as it is in his power. It +is beautiful in theory, but it does not always answer in practice. I am +not certain whether it does not proceed, after all, from constitutional +indolence, or the want of ambition, of which I used to accuse him, or +whether he is really too good to live. Anyhow, skill and nursing are +wasted upon him." + +Dr. Hewett came to see Tom Robinson, and took the seat which Harry +Ironside vacated for him, leaving the old friends together. + +"Hallo, Rector! It is strange for me to meet you here," said Tom's +feeble voice, while the ghost of his old shy smile passed over his +haggard face. + +"It is equally strange for me to meet you, Robinson," said the Rector, +with an inconvenient lump in his throat. + +"What a deal of trouble I'm giving," said Tom regretfully. + +"Tut, man, nobody grudges the trouble, if you will but pick up and get +well again," said the clergyman, almost roughly. + +"I can see that Ironside thinks badly of me," said Tom in his quiet way, +"and as far as feelings go, it seems to me I have reason to think badly +of myself." + +"We are all in good hands, Tom," said Dr. Hewett, seeing again the boy +who used to play in the Rectory garden with Ned, and speaking to him in +the old fashion. + +"I know that," answered Tom. "I have known it all along, which has been +a blessing to me," he added, a little as if he were speaking of a third +person. Then he roused himself further. "I want to tell you where my +will is. I don't like to hurt a woman's feelings by speaking of it to my +kind, indefatigable nurse. Besides, the Millars will benefit by it." + +"The old man," sighed the Rector, "always thinking of others before +yourself." + +"'I know that my Redeemer liveth,'" was Tom's testimony; "speak to me of +Him, Rector, while I am able to hear," said the sick man, in the tone of +one whose ears were growing dull to earthly sounds. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +MISS FRANKLIN'S MISTAKE. + + +Tom Robinson went still deeper into the shadow of the valley, possibly +as far as man ever went and returned. He grew as weak and helpless as an +infant, until at last he lost consciousness, and lay prostrate and +still, with closed eyes and sealed ears--nothing alive in him save the +subtle principle which is compared to a vapour and a breath which no man +can see or handle, yet whose presence or absence makes all the +difference between an animated body still linked to both worlds and a +mass of soulless clay hastening to corruption. All that skill and +devotion could do--and Tom Robinson had them both--was to keep on +without despairing, maintaining warmth against the growing chillness, +and administering stimulants and nourishment by spoonfuls and drops. + +On the night which it was feared would be Tom Robinson's last, Miss +Franklin would no longer be denied her place among the watchers. She +had been kept away in obedience to poor Tom's express orders, that in +the attempt to minimize the fever no communication should be kept up on +his account between the Corn Exchange where he lay and either his house +or "Robinson's," notwithstanding the proofs that the disease did not +spread by contagion or infection. + +Miss Franklin did not desire to dispossess Annie of the post which, in +spite of every remonstrance, she was holding latterly almost night and +day. Miss Franklin had no faculty for nursing, and small experience to +guide her. She was rather a nervous woman in her impulsiveness, and +after one look at what was like the mask of Tom Robinson, utterly +incapable of recognizing her or communicating with her, she was so much +overcome that she was fain to retire to another room and submit to be +gently ministered to by Dora. + +Miss Franklin was only too thankful to be suffered to stay there in the +background. It did not strike her as odd that nobody in the house except +the other patients should go to sleep that night when her cousin was +hovering between life and death--nearer death than life. Neither had the +outspoken, kind-hearted gentlewoman any particular application of her +speech in her mind when she said sorrowfully--"Dear! dear! how grieved +he would be if he knew how worn out you were, Miss Dora. He thought +that his coming to the hospital would not only serve as a precedent, it +would be the simplest, safest, least troublesome plan where he himself +was concerned, though if he would have let me, I should have been only +too glad to have turned my back on 'Robinson's' for a time, and done +what I could for him. There is enough difference in our ages, and I have +known him all his life, in addition to our being connections if not near +relations, so that nobody need have found fault. Not that I pretend for +a moment that I could have done what your sister is doing--that is +something quite wonderful in every respect" (and here Miss Franklin did +draw up her bountiful figure, and fix the rather small eyes, sunk a +little in her full cheeks, pointedly on Dora). "I dare say he liked to +have her about him to the last, so long as he was sensible of her +presence. Men are extraordinary creatures--that I should say that now, +oh! my poor dear cousin Tom." + +After she had recovered from her outburst of grief, and was sipping the +tea which Dora had made for her, she turned again to her companion. "You +look like a ghost yourself, Miss Dora. Will you not lie down in your +bedroom and trust me? I shall sit here and bring you word the moment I +hear that a change has come;" and at the ill-omened phrase poor Miss +Franklin's well-bred, distinct enunciation got all blurred and +faltering. In fact she shrank a good deal from the ordeal she was +magnanimously proposing for herself. As it happened she had never +undergone anything like it before, though she had reached middle age. It +was not easy for her to contemplate sitting there all alone through the +dreary small hours, knowing that Tom Robinson's spirit--the spirit of +the best friend she had ever known--was passing away without word or +sign in the adjoining room. It was a relief to her when Dora Millar, +looking as if she had been sitting up in turn with every patient in the +ward, as pale as a moonbeam and as weak as water, yet shook her head +decisively against any suggestion of her retiring to rest. + +There was a strong contrast between the couple who were to wait together +for death or the morning. Miss Franklin herself might be on the eve of +dying--but so long as she lived and went through the mundane process of +dressing, she must dress exceedingly well. She was a good, kind woman +all the same, and this night she bore a sore heart under her carefully +contrived and nicely put on garments. + +Poor young Dora, on the contrary, looked all limp and forlorn. The +gingham morning-gown she had not changed was huddled on her, and +crumpled about her. Her neglected hair was pushed back from her little +white face. Annie in her nurse's spotless apron and cap looked a +hundred times trimmer, and was altogether a more cheerful object. It was +as if the whole world had come to an end for Dora, and she had ceased to +notice trifles. Almost the first words Miss Franklin had said to her +when the visitor began to recover from the shock she had undergone, +were-- + +"Excuse me, Miss Dora, the lace at your throat is coming undone--let me +put it right for you; and an end of your hair has fallen down. I may +fasten it up, may I not?" + +A delicate, exhausted girl was no great support for a woman under the +circumstances, still she was better than nobody. She was company in +one form, like the domestic cat, when no more available associate is +to be found. Besides, in the middle of their dissimilarity, Miss +Franklin had a natural liking for Dora Millar, and had always excepted +her from the grudge which the elder woman was inclined to feel against +one member of the Millar family. "A nice, well-meaning, gentle girl," +Miss Franklin mentally classed Dora. "The most quiet and ladylike of +them all." She was a great improvement, in Miss Franklin's estimation, +on that too bright and restless Annie, whom everybody cried up as a +beauty. She had found, Miss Franklin was creditably informed, a fine +vent for her dictatorial imperious temper as a nurse. Yet she, Miss +Franklin, ought not to find fault with Annie Millar at this time, when +Dr. Capes had said her treatment of the fever patients, with dear Tom +among them, was admirable; though, by one of the mysterious decrees of +Providence, she might not be permitted to succeed in his case. And she +was now ministering to his last wants as she, Barbara Franklin, +arrived at mature age, with all the will, had neither the skill nor +the courage to minister, much as she owed him, so long as he had other +service. She was a captious, vindictive wretch to pick holes in Miss +Millar's armour, when she was striving so hard to atone to him for any +injury she had ever done him by delivering him from the jaws of death, +or at least smoothing his path to the grave. + +The seasons had gone on till the late summer was merging into the early +autumn. It was the beginning of August, when the days are already not so +long as they have been; but, to make up for it, the lengthening nights +are balmier than they ever were, and the soft dusk remains full of +summer scents and sounds. + +It was on such a night that you might imagine a young man, dying long +before his time, and yet after he has reached full manhood, and touched +the crown of bodily and mental vigour, without ever feeling the tide on +its turn. + +The night was so warm that the windows of the room in which Dora and +Miss Franklin sat were wide open. There was a lamp lit within, but it +did not render the darkness without so great as to hide the outlines of +trees in the nearest garden, and even the dim shape of a bed of late +flowering, tall white lilies. Their heavy fragrance was on the air; and +if ever there is a fragrance which is solemn and tender like the love of +the dying and the memory of the dead, it is the all-pervading scent of +lilies. + +Annie Millar could never have been so good a listener as Dora was when +Miss Franklin, constitutionally loquacious, relieved her distress, and +got rid of the dragging hours, by indulging in a long and affectionate +oration on Tom Robinson, the man who, not so many yards from them, was +lying as indifferent to praise and blame as when he first entered this +wonderful world, with all its joys and sorrows, from which he was ready +to depart. + +"You know, he is not really my cousin," the womanly confidence began; +"the tie between us hardly counts--it is only that Mr. Robinson's +first wife was my mother's sister. But I always called Mr. Charles +Robinson and his second wife uncle and aunt. I might well do it, for +they were a good uncle and aunt to me. I should have known few +pleasures when I was growing up, and long afterwards, if it had not +been for them. The Robinsons used to go away trips every summer to +Devonshire and Derbyshire, the Yorkshire moors, the Cumberland lakes, +Scotland, the Black Forest, Switzerland, and they always took me to +see the world, and spend my summer holidays with them. How generous +and kind they were in their friendliness! Tom was usually of the +party--first as a child, then as a growing boy; but child or boy, such +a nice manly little fellow, so much thought of, yet not at all spoilt. +He was fond of reading, yet full of quiet fun, and in either light +never in anybody's way. He was so considerate of his mother and me, +and so helpful to us. The cows he has driven away! the horses going at +large he has kept off! the bulls he has held at bay! I confess I am +not brave in proportion to my size. I am very timid in such matters, +and, strange to say, Aunt Robinson, though a country-woman born and +bred, was as great a coward as I where farm animals were in question; +but we always knew ourselves safe when Tom was at hand, and he never +laughed at us more than we could stand." + +"I can understand," said Dora faintly. "He once helped us--May and +me--when a strange dog attacked Tray; and now Tray is running about with +May full of life and health, while his champion is----" She could not +say the words. + +Miss Franklin looked at her approvingly, even went so far as to stroke +one of the cold trembling hands lying nerveless in Dora's lap. "You will +allow me to say that you are a dear, tender-hearted girl, Miss Dora. You +could have appreciated my cousin Tom. What a tower of strength he was to +me when I felt I was getting middle-aged, and my system of teaching was +becoming old-fashioned. I had been in so many homes belonging to other +people, with never a home of my own, for upwards of thirty years, since +my poor father and mother both died before I was twenty. I do not say +that I was not for the most part well enough treated, because I hope I +did my best, and I believe I generally gave satisfaction. I had my happy +hours like other people. But it was all getting so stale, flat, and +unprofitable--I suppose because I was growing weary of it all, and +longing for a change. You see I had not quite come to the age when we +cease to want changes, and are resigned just to go on as we are to the +end. In reality I could see no end, except the poorest of poor lodgings +and the most pinching straits, with the very little money I had saved. +(My dear, even finishing governesses can save so little now-a-days.) Or +perhaps there was the chance of my being taken into some charitable +institution. You will admit it was not a cheerful prospect." + +"No, it was not," said Dora, in dreary abstraction. + +"As I said," resumed Miss Franklin, "I had been in so many schoolrooms; +I had seen so many pupils grow up, go out into the world, and settle in +life, leaving me behind, so that when they came back on visits to their +old homes, they were prepared to pity and patronize me. I could not +continue cudgelling my poor brains until I had not an original thought +in my head, and all to keep up such acquirements as I had, and preserve +a place among younger, better equipped girls, certain to outstrip me +eventually." + +"I suppose so," acquiesced Dora mechanically. + +"Then poor dear Tom came to see me, and I told him what I was +thinking. He got me to pay a visit to Redcross, and made a new opening +for me. I may say without self-conceit that I was always considered to +have a good taste in dress. I know it was a question which had never +failed to interest me, to which I could not help giving a great deal +of attention--making a study of it, as it were. Tom insisted that I +could be of the greatest use to him, and was worth a liberal salary, +which I was not likely to lose. And there was a comfortable refined +nest, which I could line for myself, awaiting me in the pleasant rooms +he had looked out for me." + +"I know, Miss Franklin," said Dora, with a faint smile; "you told +Phyllis Carey, and she told May, who repeated it to me. But I thought +it might be a relief to you to speak of it again." + +"Yes," cried the eager woman; "and it has all answered so well--the +duties not too heavy, and really agreeable to me; the young women and +men, under Tom's influence, no doubt, perfectly nice and respectful; and +within the last six months, dear little Phyllis like a daughter or niece +to me. I thought always I should be able to do something in return for +him one day, yet with all the will in the world I have been able to do +nothing until it has come to this;" and poor Miss Franklin sobbed +bitterly under the burden of her unrequited obligations, and beneath the +dove's neck cluster of feathers in her bonnet. + +It was for Dora in her turn to seek to soothe and compose her companion. +"I am sure you have been of the greatest service to him, and that he has +enjoyed the near neighbourhood of an old friend--his mother's friend. +Oh! think what a comfort it will be to you to have that to look back +upon," finished Dora, in a voice trembling as much as Miss Franklin's. + +Miss Franklin sat up, instinctively put her bonnet straight, wiped her +eyes with her embroidered handkerchief, and gazed pensively into the +empty air. + +"God's ways are not as our ways," she said; "and certainly we are told +that we are not to look for our reward in this world. Still one would +have expected--one would have liked that it had not been so hard all +through for Tom--not merely to have been denied the desire of his heart, +but to have had to endure in his last moments to be set aside, to lie +still and look on at what is going to happen." + +Dora sat mystified; but she had not the spirit left to seek an +explanation. + +Miss Franklin was not aware that an explanation was needed. "I know," +she added, "how kind and attentive your sister has been to Tom, and I +understand nothing can exceed the interest Dr. Ironside has taken in my +cousin, while he has made the most unremitting efforts to save him; +still you will grant that so long as my poor Tom was conscious, it must +have been very, very trying for him to see the terms these two were on. +I don't listen much to gossip"--the speaker declared, in a parenthesis, +with a little air of dignity and reserve even at that moment--"but it is +the talk of the town that he has followed her down from London, and that +they are to be married as soon as the epidemic is past. Nobody can say +anything against it. They are well matched. They will be a fine-looking +couple," she struggled to acknowledge with becoming politeness and +impartiality. + +"This is the first time I have heard of it, I can say with truth," said +Dora wearily, without so much as a smile at the characteristic report. +She thought the mention of it most unsuitable at such a season. The very +word marriage smote her. "And even if it were so, what could it have +signified to Mr. Tom Robinson?" she was about to add naively, when a +light flashed upon her. She had often wondered how much Miss Franklin, +"Robinson's," the whole town, knew of what had taken place eighteen +months ago. She saw now that however little the lady might care for +gossip, a distorted version of the truth in which she was interested had +reached her. Either there had been a very natural mistake on the part of +some of the local newsmongers, or Miss Franklin herself had fallen into +the error. The belle of the Millar family and not Dora had been believed +to be the object of Tom Robinson's pursuit. The blunder had been +perpetuated in Miss Franklin's case by the good feeling and good +breeding which would keep her from discussing Tom Robinson's affairs +with her neighbours more than she could help, and would prevent her +attempting such a cross-examination of the man himself as might have +elicited the truth. + +"Oh! I know now what you mean," cried Dora, on the impulse of the +moment, "and you were altogether wrong. He has been spared such misery +--nobody could have been so barbarous as to inflict it on him, if it had +been as you suppose." + +Miss Franklin was sensitive and imaginative on dress, but she was not +imaginative or even very observant with regard to anything else. She +understood Dora's protest to refer to an actual engagement between Dr. +Harry Ironside and Miss Millar. + +"Well, well," she said a little dryly, "people do exaggerate. Matters +may not have gone quite so far, and I can only trust that he, Tom, has +not been sensible of what is in the air, though I have always understood +love, while it is said to be blind in one sense, is very sharp-sighted +in another. I believe every one else sees where the land lies. I saw it +myself so far as the gentleman was concerned--he could not keep his eyes +off her, though I was not five minutes in their company, and I was full +of my poor cousin Tom. I am sure I hope they may be happy," gulping down +the hope. "Tom would have wished it, quite apart from her having done +her duty by him, at the cost of some pain to herself, no doubt; while +Dr. Ironside has been more than kind, which nobody had any call to +expect. He must be a very fine young man, likely to win what he fancies. +Every woman is entitled to her choice, and most people would applaud +your sister's choice. The thing that puzzles me--you will forgive me for +mentioning it just this once, for where is the good of discussion +now?--is that as, I have been told, she did not meet Dr. Ironside till +she went to her London hospital, how, when she had got no opportunity of +contrasting the two men, when she had not even seen one of them, she +could yet be so set against Tom's proposal, knowing him to be the man he +is--was, alas! I should say. Why was she so very hard to poor Tom?" + +"Oh, don't say that," besought Dora, in much agitation. "Don't bring +that forward at this moment." + +But Miss Franklin, in the strength of her family affections, felt that +she owed it to the manes of Tom Robinson to express to the disdainful +damsel's sister a candid opinion that he had been summarily and severely +dealt with. "I was not in his confidence, but I could tell that +something was going to happen, and that he was very much cut up when it +all came to nothing." + +"Oh, don't say that," repeated Dora, clasping her hands over her eyes, +and weeping behind them. "What good can it do except to inflict needless +torture?" + +"I don't mean to reproach _you_," said Miss Franklin, a little +bewildered, but still very hot and sore. "You had nothing to do with it, +and I am sure you could not have been so heartless. Forgive me for the +reflection on your sister, who is so much thought of, whom everybody is +praising, with reason, for what she has done in nursing the sick and +poor. But young girls ought to be more careful. I don't mean to say that +she trifled with my cousin Tom--I have no right to say that--simply that +she never gave him a thought. Tom was surely deserving of a thought," +cried Miss Franklin indignantly. "Dr. Ironside may be all very well--I +have nothing to say against him--quite the reverse. Tom is not to be +compared to him in personal appearance, and the one is a professional +man, while the other thought fit to continue a linen-draper like his +good father before him; but that is by no means to infer that Miss +Millar has chosen the better husband of the two. Girls are so +foolish--they play with fire, and never look or take it into account +where and whom it may burn. Tom Robinson deserved more respectful +treatment in Redcross. He has never been like himself since. I used to +hear him whistling and humming tunes to himself as he worked in the +office--there is no more of that, or of his hearty interest in +everything." + +"Miss Franklin, it is you who are pitiless to say this to me to-night," +panted Dora, rising against the inhumanity, and totally forgetting that +the speaker did not hold the clue which would have told her how her +words scourged her listener. + +"I am not blaming _you_, Miss Dora," said the accuser again, more +bitterly than she had yet spoken. For she was in her heart accusing Dora +Millar of affectation in pretending not to be able to hear a word +against her sister, and in declining to listen to the pardonable +utterance of a reproach directed against what Miss Franklin called in +her heart Annie Millar's arrogance and callousness. Tom Robinson's +cousin was provoked, not pacified. + +"I dare say Tom would never have had this wretched fever but for the +blow he got then," she was tempted to persist; "or if he had caught it, +he would have thrown it off without any harm done. I can bear witness to +his sound constitution to begin with. Everybody knows how disappointment +and mortification lower the system, and he was never over careful of +himself. I cannot quite understand why he took the cool rebuff he +received so much to heart; but he did so, and you see the consequence." + +"Spare me! spare me!" cried Dora passionately. "Don't say I have killed +him, or I shall die myself, perhaps it is the best thing I can do." + +Before Miss Franklin could do more than stare aghast, with a horrified +inkling of the real facts of the case, and the tremendous mess she had +got into, there was the sound of the soft opening of a door in the near +distance, and a step rapidly approaching. + +The two women who had been upbraiding each other were mute in an +instant, first held their breaths, then sprang up and clung to each +other, partners in sorrow, with teeth beginning to chatter, and eyes to +grow large and wild. What had they been doing in the name of a gentle +and manly soul, in the face of the awful news on its way, the majesty of +Death investing the house? + +It was only Annie, looking perfectly collected, nay, a trifle elated. +"He is the least shade better--we both think so; and the slightest +improvement means so much at this stage--the right crisis, I believe. He +has been really sleeping. He swallows with less difficulty. He has +roused himself ever so little, but he is fearfully faint and weak. We +cannot get him to take more stimulants than we have been giving him. I +am afraid there is no toilet-vinegar in the house. I came to see if +either of you had a smelling-bottle, which might revive him." + +All that Miss Franklin could do was to shake her head. She was so +thankful, yet she felt so guilty, so ashamed of herself. + +Dora fumbled nervously in her pocket and gave Annie something, which she +carried off in triumph. Miss Franklin sat down again and cried afresh +between trembling joy and lively vexation. "Oh, won't it be a mercy, for +which we can never praise our Maker too much, if dear Tom gets over his +illness after all?" she managed to say; but she could do no more--even +that lame speech was made awkwardly. To apologize for the heinous +offence she had committed would be a greater enormity than the offence +itself. + +But when Miss Franklin had time to think it over afterwards, she was +under the impression that Dora Millar had forgotten all about their +altercation. She sat there with hands clasped, lips parted, and brimming +eyes half raised to Heaven, as if in instinctive acknowledgment of a +thousand piteous prayers in the act of being answered by Him who counts +the stars and calls them by name, and heals the broken in heart. Miss +Franklin's account of Dora's look was that, for a moment, she was +positively frightened at the dear girl, Dora seemed so near another +world at that moment, and as likely as not to be holding communication +with it. Even Tom Robinson could not have been nearer when he was more +than half way across the border-land. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +A SHRED OF HOPE. + + +Tom Robinson's recovery continued a matter of fear and trembling for a +week longer before it became merely a process of time. But no sooner was +it clearly established to the initiated, and only likely to be +endangered by some unforeseen accident, than Annie Millar, in her +delight, lost sight of her former tactics, and called on Dr. Harry +Ironside to rejoice with her on their success. + +"We have been permitted to pull him through. Oh, isn't it glorious? I +know we ought, as we are miserable sinners, to go down on our knees and +give God the thanks, and I hope we do with all my heart; but I also want +to sing and dance--don't you, Dr. Ironside?" + +Nobody could imagine that Dr. Harry Ironside was indifferent to the +wonderful recovery, which was such a credit to his skill, of the man +whom he had nursed as if Tom Robinson had been his brother; but Dr. +Harry forgot all about his patient at that moment when he saw his +opportunity and seized it. + +He had never had a faint heart, young as he was, but he had been dealing +with an exceedingly coy and high-spirited mistress. However, even she +had not been able to defy the effect of the last month of incessant +intercourse, of being engrossed in common with one object of interest, +when both had hung, as it were, on a man's failing breath, and were +indissolubly linked while it lasted. In the light of its fitful rising +and falling, its feeble fluttering, the terrible moments when it +appeared to stop and die away, how small and vain was every other +consideration! But their joint work was done by God's help, as they had +hardly dared to hope for a time, and now it was Harry's innings. + +"I have something to say to you, Miss Millar. I have wished to say it +for a long time. You will not refuse to hear me?" + +They were alone together in the little side-room, empty but for its +hospital stores, where they had so often consulted, with and without Dr. +Capes, on the condition of the ward. There was no longer any fluster of +doubt and hesitation in his manner. He stood there in his young comely +manhood, prepared to put his fate to the test, claiming his right to do +so, and challenging her to deny his claim. + +In a moment Annie saw what Rose had seen some time ago, but had not +taken it upon her to put in so many words for Annie's benefit. It was +of this moment she had, by an unerring instinct, stood in mortal +terror, from the first dawn of her acquaintance with Harry Ironside, +to the afternoon when he had succeeded in getting an introduction to +her in the matron's room at St. Ebbe's, soon after the scene in the +operating theatre. Then he had bowed low, muttered a few words in +confused greeting, and looked at her with all his man's heart in his +eyes; and she had felt by a sure, swift intuition, that, as she valued +her dearly held personal freedom and her allegiance to her family, +there must be war to the knife between her and this self-willed young +man. She must, as discretion is the better part of valour, flee from +him, while refusing to own, even to herself, any more humiliating +reason for the flight than her duty, the honour of St. Ebbe's, and the +folly of Rose in playing into his hands. + +Now Annie was caught, and had to listen to him whether she would or not, +while she and not he quaked with fright and agitation. For he stood +before her, like a conqueror already, in the little room with its +shelves of phials, which they had all to themselves, where burly farmers +and iron-gray corn-factors would soon be thronging in the course of +transacting their every-day business. + +But presently she forgot all about herself in the interest of the tale +he had to tell, and told well in his newly-found courage and coolness, +in his personal modesty and professional enthusiasm. He had just taken +his degree as she knew. He and his sister Kate had inherited a +competence from their parents. He might look about him till he found a +lucrative and agreeable country practice in a choice neighbourhood, +where he could command good society and a little hunting, shooting, and +fishing in their seasons. Or he might be on the watch for a West End +London practice, which, while affording him all the interests and +amusements of town, ought to bring him speedily into notice, and raise +him, step by step, to the height of his profession. He had begun his +medical career by thinking of both these eventualities as desirable, +each in its kind, and had gone on cherishing a leaning to the first, +till--he must say it--her example and influence had inspired him with +greater ardour in the cause of science and of humanity. He had made +inquiries and had heard of a post--in fact he had got the refusing of +it--in connection with a new settlement, a fresh attempt to plant a +colony where the climate was favourable on one of the great African +rivers. His income at first would be small, and he must take his share +of the hardships and labours of those who aimed at being more than +gold-diggers or miners in the diamond-fields--that is, pioneers of +civilization. The prospect, so far as it referred to scientific +investigations, and to a large increase to accredited stores of +knowledge, was simply splendid. Farther, he was assured of the sympathy +and support of the leading men among the colonists, since they had +already, to their credit, sought his co-operation. Those of them who +were in the van--on the spot--had gone so far as to lay the foundation +of an hospital, in addition to a church, to deal alike with black men +and white, to labour for their spiritual and physical healing in common. +He had almost made up his mind to take the post, but he wished to ask +her opinion and advice first. + +She was tempted to say she was no authority, but her truthfulness +forbade the subterfuge. She could not meet his grave blue eyes and put +him off with an evasive answer. She spoke bravely and wisely. + +"I think it would be most right and honourable for you to go. With your +ability and training you might furnish invaluable aid to a young colony; +while it would be like another college course for you, with nature for +your teacher. Any young man of spirit and philanthropy, with love for +his calling, might well covet the chance. If the colony flourish, you +and your profession, and the hospital you speak of, will flourish with +it, and have as fine a future before you as you can desire. If the +scheme fail, you can but return to England; and you will not have lost +the time which a young man can well spare. For you will bring back all +you have gained from a far wider sphere of usefulness, and from a +fresher experience than you could ever hope to secure by staying at +home. But if what you really want," Annie corrected herself, with a +twinkle in her eyes and a curl of her lips, in the midst of her +earnestness, "is the shortest and safest road to growing well-to-do +within the briefest space of time, you had better adopt the latter +alternative. If I had been a man and a doctor, I should have tried the +former." + +"That is enough," he said with conviction. + +"But what will your sister say?" she hastened to inquire, in order to +turn the conversation from ominous personalities. + +"Oh! it will be a blow to poor little Kate," he owned regretfully, +"because she is too young to go out with me at once, and set about +keeping house for me as she has always proposed--a rough, primitive +style of housekeeping it will be out there for many a day. But she is +not without pluck, and she is as true as steel, though I say it. She +must learn some of your fearlessness and faith, and make the best of +things. She must go to one of our aunts in the meantime, and when +matters are smoother and easier, and the fate of the colony is decided, +perhaps she may join me. I do not believe that there is any danger to +speak of from the native tribes, only it will not be drawing-room work +for some time to come. You see it is not the same with a girl like Kate +as it would be with a woman like you," he had the boldness to insinuate. +"You would be a tower of strength in yourself from the beginning; you +might be the making of a newly-founded hospital." + +"Poor Kate!" said Annie, hastily apostrophizing the girl she had been +said to ignore, and speaking in accents of far deeper pity than she had +any idea of. + +"And what do you say?" he turned upon her. + +"I?" she cried in much confusion. "I have said my say." + +"No," he answered; "unless you mean to send me away to the ends of the +earth without a shred of hope. You cannot do that." + +"I think you are taking advantage of me," she protested, but quite +meekly and diffidently for Annie. "I have never been even civil to you +till Tom Robinson was in danger, and then I had to put all my private +feelings aside on his account. Before that I was more than rude." + +"And you are a little sorry now? Confess it, Annie, when I am going off +all alone, so far as old friends are concerned, to Central Africa, at +your bidding." + +"Not at my bidding," she declared hastily; "it is too bad of you to say +so." + +"And you are going to be far kinder in the end than in the beginning," +he persisted. "You are going to say, 'Harry Ironside, if you ever come +back, whether it is to stay or to go out again to your colony, you will +find me waiting for you as your earthly reward.'" + +"Of course you will come back," she exclaimed vehemently, thrown off her +guard; "but _you_ had much better wait and look out for some more +gracious person to welcome you." + +"I don't care for gracious persons," said the foolish fellow scornfully; +"that is, for persons who are always gracious whether they like or +dislike their company. But I say," he went on, in an eager boyish way, +which was not unbecoming or inharmonious where his young manhood was +concerned, only natural and pleasant, "I should care for the best and +brightest and bonniest woman in the world being gracious to me; I would +give much to make her like me, though I know I am far behind her in +cleverness and goodness." + +"Nonsense," cried Annie, quite testily. "I shall be used up in hospital +service by that time," she remonstrated, keeping to the far future. "A +faded woman with a sharp tongue would not be a great reward." + +"I ask nothing better than a woman whom I could love, and who might love +me." + +"But you deserve something better," she said, in a softer, lower tone. + +"Never mind what I deserve, if I get what I have wished, longed, and +prayed for since the first moment I saw you--think of that, Annie." + +"I can't," she said, almost piteously, while she suffered him to take +her hand. "I meant it all to be so different. I was so proud of my +independence; and I never, never will forfeit it, remember, Harry +Ironside, till all my sisters are started in the world, and father and +mother are made more comfortable. Oh! it would be doubly a shame in me +to fail them." + +"I am content to wait for my prize," he said, daring to kiss her lovely +cheek, and he was content--for the moment. + +"And you must not breathe a word of what has happened," she charged him. + +But here he grew restive. "I must, dearest. Why, it would be doubly +dishonourable not to speak at once to Dr. Millar, confined as he is to +his chair; you cannot fail to see that." + +"They will all laugh at me," sighed the subdued Annie, with comical +ruefulness. "Rose will laugh, and May. I believe even Dora and mother +will laugh." + +"Let them." He gave the permission with cheerful insensibility to the +ordeal, even though Annie's feelings were so much involved in it. "It +may be a warning to some of them." Then he was so callous as to add, +"Who cares though the whole world, including Tom Robinson, were to join +in the guffaw." + +"Oh!" she exclaimed, looking up with bright sweetness, "I think I could +bear it if I heard Tom's voice in the chorus. He used to have rather a +foolish, nervous laugh, for so sensible and brave a man. But I am sure I +should not think it foolish, or anything save delightful, if I heard it +again." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +SECOND THOUGHTS AND LAST WORDS. + + +Dr. and Mrs. Millar could make no objection to Dr. Harry Ironside as a +suitor for their daughter. It was all the other way. They were highly +satisfied with the young man's antecedents and credentials, and yet Dr. +Millar was a good deal taken aback. He had grown to look on nursing as a +career for Annie, and to take pride in her excellence in it, as he would +have done had she been his son and a young doctor. He could not help +feeling as if marriage interfered a little with his views for her. He +had to recall that Ironside was a very fine young fellow, with a +commendable spirit of inquiry in medical matters. He would do credit to +his profession, and Annie, especially if she went with him to a new +colony, might work in his company, and be his right hand. + +Mrs. Millar had too much good sense and womanly experience to approve of +long engagements, and she did not like the chance of Annie's going to +Africa--still she would fulfil what Mrs. Millar considered the highest +and happiest destiny for a woman, that of becoming the wife of a worthy +man. As to Africa, the little Doctor, a fixture in his chair, told her, +"My dear Maria, we shall simply be giving hostages to Providence, for +man was told to occupy the earth, and carry civilization and redemption +to its utmost bounds." + +To spare Annie's feelings, her relations kept her engagement and their +laughter well in the background, while Dr. Harry Ironside, having probed +the Russian fever to the bottom, and seen nearly the last of it, +returned in triumph to London, to make arrangements for his medical +mission. + +As for Annie, in her eagerness to escape from the rallying she had +provoked, she talked incessantly about going back to St. Ebbe's, where, +however, she was not yet due. A longer leave of absence had been granted +to her, in consideration of the fact that her holiday had been mainly +spent in hard work in the impromptu hospital at Redcross. She would not +have accepted the additional grant apart from the circumstance that +Harry Ironside was in London. Annie admitted to herself, in the secret +recesses of her heart, that now it had come to this, she would fain have +passed these last precious weeks near her young lover. But she would not +consent to give occasion to Rose, or any other person--not even to +Harry Ironside himself--to think or say that she, Annie Millar, was +already not able to live without him. Annie's wings might be clipped, +but she would be Annie proud and "plucky" to the last; and her lover, +instinctively knowing her to be true as steel, loved her the better +because of her regard for what she considered his credit as well as her +own. The pride was only skin deep; the pluck was part of the heroic +element in Annie. + +Rose had been delayed in her work. She had not found it in her heart to +walk about taking sketches when the good friend who had so much to do +with the commission was little likely to see its completion. But when +Tom Robinson could sit up, walk into the next room, and go back to his +own house, she felt at liberty to set about her delightful business, in +which her father took so keen an interest. She lost no time in starting +every fine day in pursuit of the selected views, to put them on canvas +while their autumnal hues were still but tinges of red, russet, and +gold. + +Rose was mostly waited on by May, who took much satisfaction in helping +to carry and set up the artist's apparatus, feeling, as she said, that +she was part of a painter when she did so. + +Dora had been with Rose, May, and Tray at a pretty reach of the Dewes. +The elder sister was returning alone, along the path between the elms +by the river, near the place where Tom Robinson had come to Tray's +rescue, when she met him face to face. He was taking what +"constitutional" he was able for, and enjoying the light breeze which +was rippling the river, just as it rippled the ripe corn and fanned the +hot brows of the men who were working the corn machine in the field +beyond. + +Dora had seen and spoken to him several times since his illness, but +there had been other people present, and now the old shy dread of a +_tete-a-tete_ again took possession of her. She would have contented +herself with a fluttered inquiry after his health, and a faltering +remark that she ought not to detain him. She would have hurried on, +as if the errand on which she was bound demanded the utmost speed, +supremely wretched while she did so, to notice how pale and worn he +still looked when she saw him in the broad sunshine. She would have +mourned over the circumstance that he wore no wrap, though there was +always some damp by the river, and speculated in despondency whether +it could be right for him, while he still looked so ill, to be walking +thus by himself? What would happen if faintness overtook him, and he +could not accomplish the distance between him and the town? + +Tom Robinson, delicate though he looked, quiet as he was, would not let +Dora have her way. He turned and walked back with her, which ought to +have set one of her fears at rest. And his appearance must have belied +him, for he was clearly in excellent spirits, with not the most distant +intention of being overcome by faintness. + +"This is very pleasant," he said, with a smile, and his smile was a +peculiarly agreeable one. + +Dora could not tell whether he meant the day, or the road, or her +company, or even her summer dress, which was fresher and better cared +for than when he had encountered the family group "place-hunting" in +London. Dora had owned more leisure lately, and, absurd as it might +sound, her heart had been singing with joy, so that she could not +resist making her dress in keeping with the gladness of her spirit. +Her little fingers had been cleverer than they had ever shown +themselves before in the manufacture of a frock and the trimming of a +hat which would not have disgraced the taste and execution of Miss +Franklin. Yet the materials were simple and inexpensive to the last +degree--a brown holland and a shady brown hat, and about the frock and +the hat some old Indian silk which in its mellowed gorgeousness of red +and maize colours softly reflected the hues of Rose's parrot tulips. + +Dora did not dare to ask her companion what he thought so pleasant. It +seemed right to take it for granted that it was the weather, so she +answered quickly, Yes, it was a fine day for the harvest, which she +believed was going to be a good one this year. + +"Our present encounter is more tranquil than our last, near this very +spot," he went on, still smiling. "Perhaps it is as well that there are +no disturbing elements of collies and terriers on the scene, for though +I am getting on famously, I am not sure that I am up to the mark of +dragging Tray and a giant assailant to the edge of the bank, and +pitching them head-foremost into the water." + +"I should think not," said Dora briefly. + +"How 'little May' screamed, and you stood, as white as a sheet, +valorously aiming your stone." + +"We were great cowards, both of us," admitted Dora, smiling too; "and I +am thankful to say Tray has been much better behaved since he was at the +veterinary surgeon's." + +"There was room for improvement," Tom Robinson said, with the gravity of +a judge. + +"I left him on in front, begging to May for a bit of chalk." + +"It is as well that it was not for a bit of beef," he said. Then he +suddenly changed the subject. "Do you know that I have something of +yours which has come into my hands that I have been wishing to give +back to you ever since I was a responsible being again?" + +As he spoke, he unfastened for the second time in their acquaintance the +tiny vinaigrette case from his watch-chain, and handed it to her. + +Dora flushed scarlet, and took it without a word. + +"I got it one night in the course of that fever, when I was at the +worst, and I know you will like to hear that I am sure it did me good. +The first thing that I recollect after a long blank, which lasted for +days, I believe, was feebly fingering and sniffing at the little box, +with a curious agreeable sense of old association. Then I was able to +look at it, and recognize it as my mother's vinaigrette. She had let me +play with it when I was a child; and when I was a boy, subject to +headache from staying too long in the hot sunshine in the cricket-field, +she used to lend me her vinaigrette for a cure. But I knew that I had +asked you to have it, and that you had done me the favour to accept it. +The fascinating puzzle was, how had it come back to me? At last I +questioned Barbara Franklin. She could not tell any more than myself at +first, and was equally puzzled, until she remembered your sister Annie's +running into the room on the night when you were listening for news of +my death, and asking for a smelling-bottle, and your fumbling for an +instant in your pocket, and giving her something. That made it perfectly +plain." + +Too plain, Dora reflected in horror, for what might not Miss Franklin +have suspected and communicated in addition to her cousin? + +"I was glad I had it in my pocket," said Dora, stammering. "I took it up +to London with me, and--and found it often refreshing in the middle of +the heat and fatigue. I am thankful to hear it was of use to you, who +have the best right to it." + +"No," he said emphatically, "though it was of the greatest use. My +cousin Barbara said also that you were very sorry for me. Dora, was that +so?" Tom himself blushed a little in asking the question, as if he had a +guilty consciousness of having taken rather a mean advantage of Dora +Millar, first by coming so near to death without actually dying, and +then by listening to what his kinswoman had to say of Miss Dora Millar's +state of mind at the crisis. + +On Dora's part there was no denying such a manifest truth; she could +only utter a tremulous "yes," and turn her head aside. + +"That was good of you, though I do not know that I am repaying the +goodness properly," he said, with another smile, very wistful this time. +"For I must add, that hearing of it tempted me to wonder once again +whether you could ever learn to think of me? If you cannot, just say no, +and I'll cease from this moment to tease you" (as if he had been doing +nothing else save besiege and pester her for the last year and a half!). + +Dora could not say "no" any more than she could say "yes" straight out, +though she was certain that to be kept any longer than was absolutely +necessary in a state of acute suspense was very bad for him in his +weakened health. By a great effort she brought herself to say in little +breaks and gasps, "I do not need to learn, Mr. Tom, because I have +thought of you for a long time now--long before you were so good and +generous to all of us--almost ever since you wished--you asked--what I +was so silly and so ungrateful as to refuse." + +He drew her hand through his arm and held it tightly; he could not trust +himself to say or do more. He was almost as shy as she was in the +revulsion of his great happiness. + +She struggled conscientiously to continue her confession. "I had thought +hardly at all of you before then. Girls are so full of themselves, and I +did not know that you wished me to think of you. I seem to see now that +if you had given me more time, and let me grow familiar with the idea, +even though we were 'donkeys,' as Annie and Rose say, and though we +were choke-full of youthful folly----" She stopped short without +finishing her sentence, or going farther into the nature of what she +seemed to see. + +"But I besought you to take time, Dora, love," he remonstrated. "You +forget, I urged you to let me wait for the chance of your answer's being +different." He could not help, even in the hour of the attainment of the +dearest wish of his heart, being just to his old modest, reasonable +self. + +"Yes," she said, with the prettiest, faintest, arch smile hovering about +the corners of her mouth. "But men ought to be wiser than to take simple +girls at their first word, which the girls can never, never unsay, +unless the men bid them. Now I'll tell you how malicious people will +view the present situation. They will say that I refused you point blank +when I thought we were well off, then got you to propose again, and +graciously accepted the proposal, when I knew we had not a penny in the +world. I own it looks very like it, and it is partly your fault; you +should not have let me go the first time. But I don't care what people +say, so long as there is not a word of truth in it." + +"Nor I," said Tom undauntedly. "They may also say that I was able to +make myself useful to your family, and like a very tradesman, traded on +the usefulness, buying a reluctant bride with it. But what do we care +when we love each other, and God has given us to each other? 'They +say,'--what do they say? Let them say." + +There was not the shadow of a cloud the size of a man's hand on Dr. and +Mrs. Millar's pleasure in their daughter Dora's marriage to Tom +Robinson. For instead of going with Annie to Africa, or starting on a +mission of her own to bring May's college fees from Jamaica, Dora +remained at Redcross to be Tom Robinson's dear wife and cherished +darling. Mrs. Millar had long seen, in her turn, that Dora could not do +better. The fine old shop, and the fantastic shade of poor Aunt Penny, +had both become of no account. The single thing which troubled Mrs. +Millar was that the instant Lady Mary Pemberton heard of the wedding in +prospect, she invited herself to come down to it. + +Dora's sisters, with the charming inconsistency of young women, were not +only acquiescent in her undignified fate--they were jubilant over it. + +It did not arrest, though it subdued the general congratulations, when +it was discovered that the event made Harry Ironside all at once both +envious and aggressive. He could not see why, if Dora Millar were +marrying a rich man, and he himself had a sufficient income not merely +to make a satisfactory settlement on his wife, but to do his part in +helping her relatives, who would also be his from the day he married +her, that his marriage should not take place as soon as Dora and Tom +Robinson's. In place of an indefinite engagement, with thousands of +miles of land and sea, and all the uncertainties of life into the +bargain, between him, Harry Ironside, and Annie Millar, would it not +be much better that he should carry away with him the brightest, +bravest woman who ever asked little from a new colony; who, in place +of asking, would give full measure and running over? For Annie was not +like poor dear little Kate--Annie would be a godsend, even though she +had to go the length of learning to fire a revolver as a defence +against lions and hostile natives. It would be nothing else than +savage pride in Dr. Millar, Harry continued to argue, to decline to +let Tom Robinson defray May's small expenses at St. Ambrose's, whether +she won a scholarship or not. He was a man with an ample fortune, as +well as the nicest fellow in the world, who was going to be not only +May's coach, but her brother-in-law. In like manner it would be +downright churlish and positively unkind to Dora if her parents +refused to occupy the pleasant small house with the large garden +belonging to Tom Robinson, and close to what would be their daughter's +house. It was conveniently vacant, and looked as if it had been made +for a couple of elderly gentle-folks, who were not rich, but were +comfortably provided for. In fact, it had been fitted up by the late +Mr. Charles Robinson for just such a pair, who had in the course of +nature left the house empty. + +With regard to Rose, she would have to submit to be more or less Harry +Ironside's charge till she painted and sold such 'stunning' pictures +that she could afford to look down on his paltry aid. What, not allow +him to assist his own sister-in-law, when he was so thankful to think +that she might be like a sister in the meantime for his poor little Kate +to fall back upon? Why, the girls could go on making a home together at +his good friend Mrs. Jennings's, till it was right for Kate, after she +was old enough to choose, to cast in her lot with him and Annie, +supposing the colony prospered. His heart was already in that strange, +far-away region, which, with all its mysteries and wonders--ay, and its +terrors--has such an attraction for the young and high-spirited, the +typical pilgrims to a later New England. + +And what did Annie think of this march stolen upon her, this attempt to +extort a yard where she had only granted an inch of favour? Perhaps she +was dazzled by what would have repelled many another woman, in the +primitive, precarious, exciting details of the life of a young colony. +Perhaps her heart and imagination were alike taken by storm when she +thought of the untenanted hospital wards and the patients calling for +her to go over and help them. Perhaps she was simply beginning so to +identify herself with Harry Ironside that what he did seemed her doing. +Anyhow Annie did not say no. + +The Miss Dyers remarked oracularly, when the double marriage was +announced in Redcross, that it was just what they had expected. The +observation was somewhat vague, like other oracles' speeches. The +general public of Redcross, including the Careys and Hewetts, were less +indefinite and more cordial in their expression of satisfaction at the +suitable settlement in life of the little Doctor's elder daughters. + +Miss Franklin could not be too thankful and pleased that, after all, she +had done no mischief to her cousin Tom by her blunder, and by what had +been her only too personal reproaches and revelations addressed to his +future wife on the night when he was believed to be lying dying. In +fact, if she, Barbara Franklin, had not been conscious of a huge +mistake, with all the deplorable consequences it might have carried in +its train, if she had not thus been kept shamefacedly humble and silent +as to her share in the business, she might have taken credit to herself, +with greater reason than Mrs. Jennings could boast, of having united a +supremely happy couple who were drifting apart. Even if Miss Franklin's +part in it had been played voluntarily and advisedly, she would never +have cause to regret that night's work. For Dora Robinson had no scruple +in being the fast friend and affectionate cousin of her husband's +forewoman. She had no more qualm than she would have felt if Miss +Franklin had never condescended to trade, but had remained within the +bounds of poor gentility by laboriously keeping up her halting classical +music and waning foreign languages, and by continuing a finishing +governess to the day of her death--or rather till she was superannuated, +and had to retire to a too literal garret. + +"Oh! Jonathan"--Mrs. Millar could not resist a long-drawn sob on the +great day of the double marriage--"it is all very well to say Annie has +got a good husband--a fine disinterested young man, certain to be +distinguished in his profession, you tell me. I believe that, and am +very thankful for it. How could I bear the parting otherwise? But to let +our eldest, our prettiest, and wittiest, with her warm heart and +untiring energy--'the flower of the flock,' as people used to call her +when the children were young--go out to Africa, it may be to meet +unheard-of trials, like your poor Aunt Penny, it may be never to see our +faces again----" Mrs. Millar could say no more. + +"Hush! hush! Maria; you must be reasonable--you must take the bad with +the good," enjoined the little Doctor from his arm-chair. "Why, you are +making as much commotion as you did when Annie said she would be a +nurse. Is an hospital ward at home so preferable to an hospital ward in +the dark continent, which is ceasing to be dark? Its sun is only too +blazingly bright, its river plains too teemingly fertile, its mountains +too grand even in the grander monotony of its deserts. There is gold in +its dust, and its rocks are glittering with diamonds. But, thank God, +that is not all. It is the great country for which Livingstone was +content to spend his life, where the Moffats made the wilderness blossom +like the rose, and Colenso won the wild heart of the Zulu to trust him +as a brother. You will have Dora and Tom next door to you, and Rose and +'little May' will be constantly coming and going. As for Annie and +Harry, how can you tell that their special gifts would not be wasted +here, as I have often thought hers would have been if she had continued +only a pretty, sprightly young lady, and not grown up into an hospital +nurse!" + +"Perhaps you are right, Jonathan," answered his wife meekly, coming +round, as she did now more than ever, to his side of the question. + +"Do you think Sir John Richardson's daughter, Bishop Selwyn's wife, +missed the highest calling she was capable of when, instead of +presiding over a pleasant country-house or a fine London drawing-room, +she consented with all her heart to be landed on an island in Melanesia, +and left among the native converts to help to prepare the Malay girls +for confirmation? Her husband was away in the meantime in his missionary +yacht on his noble enterprise, ready to take her off the island on his +return, and not fearing to trust her in the interval to their God whose +work she was doing," argued the old man, with a note of something like +exultation in his voice. "Annie and Harry are not going out to Africa, +as my Aunt Penny and poor Beauchamp of Waylands went to Australia in the +days of the earlier squatters, entirely for their own hand, and because +they cannot help themselves, since there is nothing left for them to do +here. Our children are going to render gallant service on which their +talents are well bestowed, of which we shall always be proud to hear. +They are, as I told you before, our hostages in the carrying out of the +great purpose of the Almighty Ruler of the universe, by which light is +to take the place of darkness, and good of evil, from the rivers even to +the ends of the earth." + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Houseful of Girls, by Sarah Tytler + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HOUSEFUL OF GIRLS *** + +***** This file should be named 20081.txt or 20081.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/0/8/20081/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jacqueline Jeremy and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +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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