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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/8201-h.zip b/8201-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c7923bc --- /dev/null +++ b/8201-h.zip diff --git a/8201-h/8201-h.htm b/8201-h/8201-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..038bbfa --- /dev/null +++ b/8201-h/8201-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,18689 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> + <head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> +<title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mary Marston, by George Macdonald. +</title> +<style type="text/css"> + p {margin-top:.2em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.2em;text-indent:2%;} + +.c {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} + +.cb {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;font-weight:bold;} + +.nind {text-indent:0%;} + + h1,h2 {text-align:center;clear:both;} + + h3 {margin-top:15%;text-align:center;clear:both;} + + hr.full {width:100%;margin:5% auto 5% auto;border:4px double gray;} + + table {margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;border:none;text-align:left;} + + body{margin-left:2%;margin-right:2%;background:#fdfdfd;color:black;font-family:"Times New Roman", serif;font-size:medium;} + +a:link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + + link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + +a:visited {background-color:#ffffff;color:purple;text-decoration:none;} + +a:hover {background-color:#ffffff;color:#FF0000;text-decoration:underline;} + +.poem {margin-left:25%;white-space:nowrap;text-indent:0%;} + +</style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mary Marston, by George MacDonald + +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: Mary Marston + +Author: George MacDonald + +Posting Date: May 25, 2011 [EBook #8201] +Release Date: June, 2005 +First Posted: July 1, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY MARSTON *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks, Juliet +Sutherland and the DP Team. HTML version by Chuck Greif. + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<h1>MARY MARSTON</h1> + +<p class="cb">A NOVEL.<br /> +<br /> +BY</p> + +<h2>GEORGE MACDONALD</h2> + +<p class="cb">AUTHOR OF "ANNALS OF A QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD," "ROBERT FALCONER," ETC., +ETC.</p> + +<h3><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td><td>—THE SHOP</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td>—CUSTOMERS</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td>—THE ARBOR AT THORNWICK</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td>—GODFREY WARDOUR</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td>—GODFREY AND LETTY</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td>—TOM HELMER</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td>—DURNMELLING</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td>—THE OAK</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td>—CONFUSION</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td><td>—THE HEATH AND THE HUT</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></td><td>—WILLIAM MARSTON</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></td><td>—MARY'S DREAM</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></td><td>—THE HUMAN SACRIFICE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></td><td>—UNGENEROUS BENEVOLENCE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></td><td>—THE MOONLIGHT</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></td><td>—THE MORNING</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII.</a></td><td>—THE RESULT</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a></td><td>—MARY AND GODFREY</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX.</a></td><td>—MARY IN THE SHOP</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX.</a></td><td>—THE WEDDING-DRESS</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI.</a></td><td>—MR. REDMAIN</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII.</a></td><td>—MRS. REDMAIN</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII.</a></td><td>—THE MENIAL</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV.</a></td><td>—MRS. REDMAIN'S DRAWING-ROOM</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV.</a></td><td>—MARY'S RECEPTION</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI.</a></td><td>—HER POSITION</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII.</a></td><td>—MR. AND MRS. HELMER</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></td><td>—MARY AND LETTY</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX.</a></td><td>—THE EVENING STAR</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">XXX.</a></td><td>—A SCOLDING</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">XXXI.</a></td><td>—SEPIA</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">XXXII.</a></td><td>—HONOR</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">XXXIII.</a></td><td>—TUB INVITATION</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">XXXIV.</a></td><td>—A STRAY SOUND</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">XXXV.</a></td><td>—THE MUSICIAN</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">XXXVI.</a></td><td>—A CHANGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">XXXVII.</a></td><td>—LYDGATE STREET</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">XXXVIII.</a></td><td>—GODFREY AND LETTY</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">XXXIX.</a></td><td>—RELIEF</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XL">XL.</a></td><td>—GODFREY AND SEPIA</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">XLI.</a></td><td>—THE HELPER</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">XLII.</a></td><td>—THE LEPER</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">XLIII.</a></td><td>—MARY AND MR. REDMAIN</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">XLIV.</a></td><td>—JOSEPH JASPER</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">XLV.</a></td><td>—THE SAPPHIRE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">XLVI.</a></td><td>—REPARATION</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">XLVII.</a></td><td>—ANOTHER CHANGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII">XLVIII.</a></td><td>—DISSOLUTION</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX">XLIX.</a></td><td>—THORNWICK</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_L">L.</a></td><td>—WILLIAM AND MARY MARSTON</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_LI">LI.</a></td><td>—A HARD TASK</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_LII">LII.</a></td><td>—A SUMMONS</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_LIII">LIII.</a></td><td>—A FRIEND IN NEED</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_LIV">LIV.</a></td><td>—THE NEXT NIGHT</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_LV">LV.</a></td><td>—DISAPPEARANCE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_LVI">LVI.</a></td><td>—A CATASTROPHE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_LVII">LVII.</a></td><td>—THE END OF THE BEGINNING</td></tr> +</table> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I<br /><br /> +THE SHOP</h3> + +<p>It was an evening early in May. The sun was low, and the street was +mottled with the shadows of its paving-stones—smooth enough, but far +from evenly set. The sky was clear, except for a few clouds in the +west, hardly visible in the dazzle of the huge light, which lay among +them like a liquid that had broken its vessel, and was pouring over the +fragments. The street was almost empty, and the air was chill. The +spring was busy, and the summer was at hand; but the wind was blowing +from the north.</p> + +<p>The street was not a common one; there was interest, that is feature, +in the shadowy front of almost each of its old houses. Not a few of +them wore, indeed, something like a human expression, the look of +having both known and suffered. From many a porch, and many a latticed +oriel, a long shadow stretched eastward, like a death flag streaming in +a wind unfelt of the body—or a fluttering leaf, ready to yield, and +flit away, and add one more to the mound of blackness gathering on the +horizon's edge. It was the main street of an old country town, dwindled +by the rise of larger and more prosperous places, but holding and +exercising a charm none of them would ever gain.</p> + +<p>Some of the oldest of its houses, most of them with more than one +projecting story, stood about the middle of the street. The central and +oldest of these was a draper's shop. The windows of the ground-floor +encroached a little on the pavement, to which they descended very +close, for the floor of the shop was lower than the street. But, +although they had glass on three oriel sides, they were little used for +the advertising of the stores within. A few ribbons and gay +handkerchiefs, mostly of cotton, for the eyes of the country people on +market-days, formed the chief part of their humble show. The door was +wide and very low, the upper half of it of glass—old, and +bottle-colored; and its threshold was a deep step down into the shop. +As a place for purchases it might not to some eyes look promising, but +both the ladies and the housekeepers of Testbridge knew that rarely +could they do better in London itself than at the shop of Turnbull and +Marston, whether variety, quality, or price, was the point in +consideration. And, whatever the first impression concerning it, the +moment the eyes of a stranger began to grow accustomed to its gloom, +the evident size and plenitude of the shop might well suggest a large +hope. It was low, indeed, and the walls could therefore accommodate few +shelves; but the ceiling was therefore so near as to be itself +available for stowage by means of well-contrived slides and shelves +attached to the great beams crossing it in several directions. During +the shop-day, many an article, light as lace, and heavy as broadcloth, +was taken from overhead to lay upon the counter. The shop had a special +reputation for all kinds of linen goods, from cambric handkerchiefs to +towels, and from table-napkins to sheets; but almost everything was to +be found in it, from Manchester moleskins for the navy's trousers, to +Genoa velvet for the dowager's gown, and from Horrocks's prints to +Lyons silks. It had been enlarged at the back, by building beyond the +original plan, and that part of it was a little higher, and a little +better lighted than the front; but the whole place was still dark +enough to have awaked the envy of any swindling London shopkeeper. Its +owners, however, had so long enjoyed the confidence of the +neighborhood, that faith readily took the place of sight with their +customers—so far at least as quality was concerned; and seldom, except +in a question of color or shade, was an article carried to the door to +be confronted with the day. It had been just such a shop, untouched of +even legendary change, as far back as the memory of the sexton reached; +and he, because of his age and his occupation, was the chief authority +in the local history of the place.</p> + +<p>As, on this evening, there were few people in the street, so were there +few in the shop, and it was on the point of being closed: they were not +particular there to a good many minutes either way. Behind the counter, +on the left hand, stood a youth of about twenty, young George Turnbull, +the son of the principal partner, occupied in leisurely folding and +putting aside a number of things he had been showing to a farmer's +wife, who was just gone. He was an ordinary-looking lad, with little +more than business in his high forehead, fresh-colored, good-humored, +self-satisfied cheeks, and keen hazel eyes. These last kept wandering +from his not very pressing occupation to the other side of the shop, +where stood, behind the opposing counter, a young woman, in attendance +upon the wants of a well-dressed youth in front of it, who had just +made choice of a pair of driving-gloves. His air and carriage were +conventionally those of a gentleman—a gentleman, however, more than +ordinarily desirous of pleasing a young woman behind a counter. She +answered him with politeness, and even friendliness, nor seemed aware +of anything unusual in his attentions.</p> + +<p>"They're splendid gloves," he said, making talk; "but don't you think +it a great price for a pair of gloves, Miss Marston?"</p> + +<p>"It is a good deal of money," she answered, in a sweet, quiet voice, +whose very tone suggested simplicity and straightforwardness; "but they +will last you a long time. Just look at the work, Mr. Helmer. You see +how they are made? It is much more difficult to stitch them like that, +one edge over the other, than to sew the two edges together, as they do +with ladies' gloves. But I'll just ask my father whether he marked them +himself."</p> + +<p>"He did mark those, I know," said young Turnbull, who had been +listening to all that went on, "for I heard my father say they ought to +be sixpence more."</p> + +<p>"Ah, then!" she returned, assentingly, and laid the gloves on the box +before her, the question settled.</p> + +<p>Helmer took them, and began to put them on.</p> + +<p>"They certainly are the only glove where there is much handling of +reins," he said.</p> + +<p>"That is what Mr. Wardour says of them," rejoined Miss Marston.</p> + +<p>"By the by," said Helmer, lowering his voice, "when did you see anybody +from Thornwick?"</p> + +<p>"Their old man was in the town yesterday with the dog-cart."</p> + +<p>"Nobody with him?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Letty. She came in for just two minutes or so."</p> + +<p>"How was she looking?"</p> + +<p>"Very well," answered Miss Marston, with what to Helmer seemed +indifference.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he said, with a look of knowingness, "you girls don't see each +other with the same eyes as we. I grant Letty is not very tall, and I +grant she has not much of a complexion; but where did you ever see such +eyes?"</p> + +<p>"You must excuse me, Mr. Helmer," returned Mary, with a smile, "if I +don't choose to discuss Letty's merits with you; she is my friend."</p> + +<p>"Where would be the harm?" rejoined Helmer, looking puzzled. "I am not +likely to say anything against her. You know perfectly well I admire +her beyond any woman in the world. I don't care who knows it."</p> + +<p>"Your mother?" suggested Mary, in the tone of one who makes a venture.</p> + +<p>"Ah, come now, Miss Marston! Don't you turn my mother loose upon me. I +shall be of age in a few months, and then my mother may—think as she +pleases. I know, of course, with her notions, she would never consent +to my making love to Letty—"</p> + +<p>"I should think not!" exclaimed Mary. "Who ever thought of such an +absurdity? Not you, surely, Mr. Helmer? What would your mother say to +hear you? I mention her in earnest now."</p> + +<p>"Let mothers mind their own business!" retorted the youth angrily. "I +shall mind mine. My mother ought to know that by this time."</p> + +<p>Mary said no more. She knew Mrs. Helmer was not a mother to deserve her +boy's confidence, any more than to gain it; for she treated him as if +she had made him, and was not satisfied with her work.</p> + +<p>"When are you going to see Letty, Miss Marston?" resumed Helmer, after +a brief pause of angry feeling.</p> + +<p>"Next Sunday evening probably."</p> + +<p>"Take me with you."</p> + +<p>"Take you with me! What are you dreaming of, Mr. Helmer?"</p> + +<p>"I would give my bay mare for a good talk with Letty Lovel," he +returned.</p> + +<p>Mary made no reply.</p> + +<p>"You won't?" he said petulantly, after a vain pause of expectation.</p> + +<p>"Won't what?" rejoined Miss Marston, as if she could not believe him in +earnest.</p> + +<p>"Take me with you on Sunday?"</p> + +<p>"No," she answered quietly, but with sober decision.</p> + +<p>"Where would be the harm?" pleaded the youth, in a tone mingled of +expostulation, entreaty, and mortification.</p> + +<p>"One is not bound to do everything there would be no harm in doing," +answered Miss Marston. "Besides, Mr. Helmer, I don't choose to go out +walking with you of a Sunday evening."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"For one thing, your mother would not like it. You know she would not."</p> + +<p>"Never mind my mother. She's nothing to you. She can't bite you.—Ask +the dentist. Come, come! that's all nonsense. I shall be at the stile +beyond the turnpike-gate all the afternoon—waiting till you come."</p> + +<p>"The moment I see you—anywhere upon the road—that moment I shall turn +back.—Do you think," she added with half-amused indignation, "I would +put up with having all the gossips of Testbridge talk of my going out +on a Sunday evening with a boy like you?"</p> + +<p>Tom Helmer's face flushed. He caught up the gloves, threw the price of +them on the counter, and walked from the shop, without even a good +night.</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" cried George Turnbull, vaulting over the counter, and taking +the place Helmer had just left opposite Mary; "what did you say to the +fellow to send him off like that? If you do hate the business, you +needn't scare the customers, Mary."</p> + +<p>"I don't hate the business, you know quite well, George. And if I did +scare a customer," she added, laughing, as she dropped the money in the +till, "it was not before he had done buying."</p> + +<p>"That may be; but we must look to to-morrow as well as to-day. When is +Mr. Helmer likely to come near us again, after such a wipe as you must +have given him to make him go off like that?"</p> + +<p>"Just to-morrow, George, I fancy," answered Mary. "He won't be able to +bear the thought of having left a bad impression on me, and so he'll +come again to remove it. After all, there's something about him I can't +help liking. I said nothing that ought to have put him out of temper +like that, though; I only called him a boy."</p> + +<p>"Let me tell you, Mary, you could not have called him a worse name."</p> + +<p>"Why, what else is he?"</p> + +<p>"A more offensive word a man could not hear from the lips of a woman," +said George loftily.</p> + +<p>"A man, I dare say! But Mr. Helmer can't be nineteen yet."</p> + +<p>"How can you say so, when he told you himself he would be of age in a +few months? The fellow is older than I am. You'll be calling me a boy +next."</p> + +<p>"What else are you? You at least are not one-and-twenty."</p> + +<p>"And how old do you call yourself, pray, miss?"</p> + +<p>"Three-and-twenty last birthday."</p> + +<p>"A mighty difference indeed!"</p> + +<p>"Not much—only all the difference, it seems, between sense and +absurdity, George."</p> + +<p>"That may be all very true of a fine gentleman, like Helmer, that does +nothing from morning to night but run away from his mother; but you +don't think it applies to me, Mary, I hope!"</p> + +<p>"That's as you behave yourself, George. If you do not make it apply, it +won't apply of itself. But if young women had not more sense than most +of the young men I see in the shop—on both sides of the counter, +George—things would soon be at a fine pass. Nothing better in your +head than in a peacock's!—only that a peacock <i>has</i> the fine feathers +he's so proud of."</p> + +<p>"If it were Mr. Wardour now, Mary, that was spreading his tail for you +to see, you would not complain of that peacock!"</p> + +<p>A vivid rose blossomed instantly in Mary's cheek. Mr. Wardour was not +even an acquaintance of hers. He was cousin and friend to Letty Lovel, +indeed, but she had never spoken to him, except in the shop.</p> + +<p>"It would not be quite out of place if you were to learn a little +respect for your superiors, George," she returned. "Mr. Wardour is not +to be thought of in the same moment with the young men that were in my +mind. Mr. Wardour is not a young man; and he is a gentleman."</p> + +<p>She took the glove-box, and turning placed it on a shelf behind her.</p> + +<p>"Just so!" remarked George, bitterly. "Any man you don't choose to +count a gentleman, you look down upon! What have you got to do with +gentlemen, I should like to know?"</p> + +<p>"To admire one when I see him," answered Mary. "Why shouldn't I? It is +very seldom, and it does me good."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes!" rejoined George, contemptuously. "You <i>call</i> yourself a +lady, but—"</p> + +<p>"I do nothing of the kind," interrupted Mary, sharply. "I should <i>like</i> +to be a lady; and inside of me, please God, I <i>will</i> be a lady; but I +leave it to other people to call me this or that. It matters little +what any one is <i>called</i> ."</p> + +<p>"All right," returned George, a little cowed; "I don't mean to +contradict you. Only just tell me why a well-to-do tradesman shouldn't +be a gentleman as well as a small yeoman like Wardour."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you say—as well as a squire, or an earl, or a duke?" said +Mary.</p> + +<p>"There you are, chaffing me again! It's hard enough to have every fool +of a lawyer's clerk, or a doctor's boy, looking down upon a fellow, and +calling him a counter-jumper; but, upon my soul, it's too bad when a +girl in the same shop hasn't a civil word for him, because he isn't +what she counts a gentleman! Isn't my father a gentleman? Answer me +that, Mary."</p> + +<p>It was one of George's few good things that he had a great opinion of +his father, though the grounds of it were hardly such as to enable Mary +to answer his appeal in a way he would have counted satisfactory. She +thought of her own father, and was silent.</p> + +<p>"Everything depends on what a man is in himself, George," she answered. +"Mr. Wardour would be a gentleman all the same if he were a shopkeeper +or a blacksmith."</p> + +<p>"And shouldn't I be as good a gentleman as Mr. Wardour, if I had been +born with an old tumble-down house on my back, and a few acres of land +I could do with as I liked? Come, answer me that."</p> + +<p>"If it be the house and the land that makes the difference, you would, +of course," answered Mary.</p> + +<p>Her tone implied, even to George's rough perceptions, that there was a +good deal more of a difference between them than therein lay. But +common people, whether lords or shopkeepers, are slow to understand +that possession, whether in the shape of birth, or lands, or money, or +intellect, is a small affair in the difference between men.</p> + +<p>"I know you don't think me fit to hold a candle to him," he said. "But +I happen to know, for all he rides such a good horse, he's not above +doing the work of a wretched menial, for he polishes his own +stirrup-irons."</p> + +<p>"I'm very glad to hear it," rejoined Mary. "He must be more of a +gentleman yet than I thought him."</p> + +<p>"Then why should you count him a better gentleman than me?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid for one thing, you would go with your stirrup-irons rusty, +rather than clean them yourself, George. But I will tell you one thing +Mr. Wardour would not do if he were a shopkeeper: he would not, like +you, talk one way to the rich, and another way to the poor—all +submission and politeness to the one, and familiarity, even to +rudeness, with the other! If you go on like that, you'll never come +within sight of being a gentleman, George—not if you live to the age +of Methuselah."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Miss Mary! It's a fine thing to have a lady in the shop! +Shouldn't I just like my father to hear you! I'm blowed if I know how a +fellow is to get on with you! Certain sure I am that it ain't <i>my</i> +fault if we're not friends."</p> + +<p>Mary made no reply. She could not help understanding what George meant, +and she flushed, with honest anger, from brow to chin. But, while her +dark-blue eyes flamed with indignation, her anger was not such as to +render her face less pleasant to look upon. There are as many kinds of +anger as there are of the sunsets with which they ought to end: Mary's +anger had no hate in it.</p> + +<p>I must now hope my readers sufficiently interested in my narrative to +care that I should tell them something of what she was like. Plainly as +I see her, I can not do more for them than that. I can not give a +portrait of her; I can but cast her shadow on my page. It was a dainty +half-length, neither tall nor short, in a plain, well-fitting dress of +black silk, with linen collar and cuffs, that rose above the counter, +standing, in spite of displeasure, calm and motionless. Her hair was +dark, and dressed in the simplest manner, without even a reminder of +the hideous occipital structure then in favor—especially with shop +women, who in general choose for imitation and exorbitant development +whatever is ugliest and least lady-like in the fashion of the hour. It +had a natural wave in it, which broke the too straight lines it would +otherwise have made across a forehead of sweet and composing +proportions. Her features were regular—her nose straight—perhaps a +little thin; the curve of her upper lip carefully drawn, as if with +design to express a certain firmness of modesty; and her chin well +shaped, perhaps a little too sharply defined for her years, and rather +large. Everything about her suggested the repose of order satisfied, of +unconstrained obedience to the laws of harmonious relation. The only +fault honest criticism could have suggested, merely suggested, was the +presence of just a possible <i>nuance</i> of primness. Her boots, at this +moment unseen of any, fitted her feet, as her feet fitted her body. Her +hands were especially good. There are not many ladies, interested in +their own graces, who would not have envied her such seals to her +natural patent of ladyhood. Her speech and manners corresponded with +her person and dress; they were direct and simple, in tone and +inflection, those of one at peace with herself. Neatness was more +notable in her than grace, but grace was not absent; good breeding was +more evident than delicacy, yet delicacy was there; and unity was plain +throughout.</p> + +<p>George went back to his own side of the shop, jumped the counter, put +the cover on the box he had left open with a bang, and shoved it into +its place as if it had been the backboard of a cart, shouting as he did +so to a boy invisible, to make haste and put up the shutters. Mary left +the shop by a door on the inside of the counter, for she and her father +lived in the house; and, as soon as the shop was closed, George went +home to the villa his father had built in the suburbs.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.<br /><br /> +CUSTOMERS.</h3> + +<p>The next day was Saturday, a busy one at the shop. From the neighboring +villages and farms came customers not a few; and ladies, from the +country-seats around, began to arrive as the hours went on. The whole +strength of the establishment was early called out. Busiest in serving +was the senior partner, Mr. Turnbull. He was a stout, florid man, with +a bald crown, a heavy watch-chain of the best gold festooned across the +wide space between waistcoat-button-hole and pocket, and a large +hemispheroidal carbuncle on a huge fat finger, which yet was his little +one. He was close-shaved, double-chinned, and had cultivated an +ordinary smile to such an extraordinary degree that, to use the common +hyperbole, it reached from ear to ear. By nature he was good-tempered +and genial; but, having devoted every mental as well as physical +endowment to the making of money, what few drops of spiritual water +were in him had to go with the rest to the turning of the mill-wheel +that ground the universe into coin. In his own eyes he was a strong +churchman, but the only sign of it visible to others was the strength +of his contempt for dissenters—which, however, excepting his partner +and Mary, he showed only to church-people; a dissenter's money being, +as he often remarked, when once in his till, as good as the best +churchman's.</p> + +<p>To the receptive eye he was a sight not soon to be forgotten, as he +bent over a piece of goods outspread before a customer, one hand +resting on the stuff, the other on the yard-measure, his chest as +nearly touching the counter as the protesting adjacent parts would +permit, his broad smooth face turned up at right angles, and his mouth, +eloquent even to solemnity on the merits of the article, now hiding, +now disclosing a gulf of white teeth. No sooner was anything admitted +into stock, than he bent his soul to the selling of it, doing +everything that could be done, saying everything he could think of +saying, short of plain lying as to its quality: that he was not guilty +of. To buy well was a care to him, to sell well was a greater, but to +make money, and that as speedily as possible, was his greatest care, +and his whole ambition.</p> + +<p>John Turnbull in his gig, as he drove along the road to the town, and +through the street approached his shop-door, showed to the chance +observer a man who knew himself of importance, a man who might have a +soul somewhere inside that broad waistcoat; as he drew up, threw the +reins to his stable-boy, and descended upon the pavement—as he stepped +down into the shop even, he looked a being in whom son or daughter or +friend might feel some honest pride; but, the moment he was behind the +counter and in front of a customer, he changed to a creature whose +appearance and carriage were painfully contemptible to any beholder who +loved his kind; he had lost the upright bearing of a man, and cringed +like an ape. But I fear it was thus he had gained a portion at least of +his favor with the country-folk, many of whom much preferred his +ministrations to those of his partner. A glance, indeed, from the one +to the other, was enough to reveal which must be the better +salesman—and to some eyes which the better man.</p> + +<p>In the narrow walk of his commerce—behind the counter, I mean—Mr. +Marston stood up tall and straight, lank and lean, seldom bending more +than his long neck in the direction of the counter, but doing +everything needful upon it notwithstanding, from the unusual length of +his arms and his bony hands. His forehead was high and narrow, his face +pale and thin, his hair long and thin, his nose aquiline and thin, his +eyes large, his mouth and chin small. He seldom spoke a syllable more +than was needful, but his words breathed calm respect to every +customer. His conversation with one was commonly all but over as he +laid something for approval or rejection on the counter: he had already +taken every pains to learn the precise nature of the necessity or +desire; and what he then offered he submitted without comment; if the +thing was not judged satisfactory, he removed it and brought another. +Many did not like this mode of service; they would be helped to buy; +unequal to the task of making up their minds, they welcomed any aid +toward it; and therefore preferred Mr. Turnbull, who gave them every +imaginable and unimaginable assistance, groveling before them like a +man whose many gods came to him one after the other to be worshiped; +while Mr. Marston, the moment the thing he presented was on the +counter, shot straight up like a poplar in a sudden calm, his visage +bearing witness that his thought was already far away—in heavenly +places with his wife, or hovering like a perplexed bee over some +difficult passage in the New Testament; Mary could have told which, for +she knew the meaning of every shadow that passed or lingered on his +countenance.</p> + +<p>His partner and his like-minded son despised him, as a matter of +course; his unbusiness-like habits, as they counted them, were the +constantly recurring theme of their scorn; and some of these would +doubtless have brought him the disapprobation of many a business man of +a moral development beyond that of Turnbull; but Mary saw nothing in +them which did not stamp her father the superior of all other men she +knew.</p> + +<p>To mention one thing, which may serve as typical of the man: he not +unfrequently sold things under the price marked by his partner. Against +this breach of fealty to the firm Turnbull never ceased to level his +biggest guns of indignation and remonstrance, though always without +effect. He even lowered himself in his own eyes so far as to quote +Scripture like a canting dissenter, and remind his partner of what came +to a house divided against itself. He did not see that the best thing +for some houses must be to come to pieces. "Well, but, Mr. Turnbull, I +thought it was marked too high," was the other's invariable answer. +"William, you are a fool," his partner would rejoin for the hundredth +time. "Will you never understand that, if we get a little more than the +customary profit upon one thing, we get less upon another? You must +make the thing even, or come to the workhouse." Thereto, for the +hundredth time also, William Marston would reply: "That might hold, I +daresay, Mr. Turnbull—I am not sure—if every customer always bought +an article of each of the two sorts together; but I can't make it +straight with my conscience that one customer should pay too much +because I let another pay too little. Besides, I am not at all sure +that the general scale of profit is not set too high. I fear you and I +will have to part, Mr. Turnbull." But nothing was further from +Turnbull's desire than that he and Marston should part; he could not +keep the business going without his money, not to mention that he never +doubted Marston would straightway open another shop, and, even if he +did not undersell him, take from him all his dissenting customers; for +the junior partner was deacon of a small Baptist church in the town—a +fact which, although like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes of +John Turnbull in his villa, was invaluable in the eyes of John Turnbull +behind his counter.</p> + +<p>Whether William Marston was right or wrong in his ideas about the rite +of baptism—probably he was both—he was certainly right in his +relation to that which alone makes it of any value—that, namely, which +it signifies; buried with his Master, he had died to selfishness, +greed, and trust in the secondary; died to evil, and risen to good—a +new creature. He was just as much a Christian in his shop as in the +chapel, in his bedroom as at the prayer-meeting.</p> + +<p>But the world was not now much temptation to him, and, to tell the +truth, he was getting a good deal tired of the shop. He had to remind +himself, oftener and oftener, that in the mean time it was the work +given him to do, and to take more and more frequently the strengthening +cordial of a glance across the shop at his daughter. Such a glance +passed through the dusky place like summer lightning through a heavy +atmosphere, and came to Mary like a glad prophecy; for it told of a +world within and beyond the world, a region of love and faith, where +struggled no antagonistic desires, no counteracting aims, but unity was +the visible garment of truth.</p> + +<p>The question may well suggest itself to my reader—How could such a man +be so unequally yoked with such another as Turnbull?—To this I reply +that Marston's greatness had yet a certain repressive power upon the +man who despised him, so that he never uttered his worst thoughts or +revealed his worst basenesses in his presence. Marston never thought of +him as my reader must soon think—flattered himself, indeed, that poor +John was gradually improving, coming to see things more and more as he +would have him look on them. Add to this, that they had been in the +business together almost from boyhood, and much will be explained.</p> + +<p>An open carriage, with a pair of showy but ill-matched horses, looking +unfit for country work on the one hand, as for Hyde Park on the other, +drew up at the door; and a visible wave of interest ran from end to end +of the shop, swaying as well those outside as those inside the counter, +for the carriage was well known in Testbridge. It was that of Lady +Margaret Mortimer; she did not herself like the <i>Margaret</i> , and signed +only her second name <i>Alice</i> at full length, whence her <i>friends</i> +generally called her to each other Lady Malice. She did not leave the +carriage, but continued to recline motionless in it, at an angle of +forty-five degrees, wrapped in furs, for the day was cloudy and cold, +her pale handsome face looking inexpressibly more indifferent in its +regard of earth and sky and the goings of men, than that of a corpse +whose gaze is only on the inside of the coffin-lid. But the two ladies +who were with her got down. One of them was her daughter, Hesper by +name, who, from the dull, cloudy atmosphere that filled the doorway, +entered the shop like a gleam of sunshine, dusky-golden, followed by a +glowing shadow, in the person of her cousin, Miss Yolland.</p> + +<p>Turnbull hurried to meet them, bowing profoundly, and looking very much +like Issachar between the chairs he carried. But they turned aside to +where Mary stood, and in a few minutes the counter was covered with +various stuffs for some of the smaller articles of ladies' attire.</p> + +<p>The customers were hard to please, for they wanted the best things at +the price of inferior ones, and Mary noted that the desires of the +cousin were farther reaching and more expensive than those of Miss +Mortimer. But, though in this way hard to please, they were not +therefore unpleasant to deal with; and from the moment she looked the +latter in the face, whom she had not seen since she was a girl, Mary +could hardly take her eyes off her. All at once it struck her how well +the unusual, fantastic name her mother had given her suited her; and, +as she gazed, the feeling grew.</p> + +<p>Large, and grandly made, Hesper stood "straight, and steady, and tall," +dusky-fair, and colorless, with the carriage of a young matron. Her +brown hair seemed ever scathed and crinkled afresh by the ethereal +flame that here and there peeped from amid the unwilling volute rolled +back from her creamy forehead in a rebellious coronet. Her eyes were +large and hazel; her nose cast gently upward, answering the carriage of +her head; her mouth decidedly large, but so exquisite in drawing and +finish that the loss of a centimetre of its length would to a lover +have been as the loss of a kingdom; her chin a trifle large, and +grandly lined; for a woman's, her throat was massive, and her arms and +hands were powerful. Her expression was frank, almost brave, her eyes +looking full at the person she addressed. As she gazed, a kind of love +she had never felt before kept swelling in Mary's heart.</p> + +<p>Her companion impressed her very differently.</p> + +<p>Some men, and most women, counted Miss Yolland <i>strangely</i> ugly. But +there were men who exceedingly admired her. Not very slight for her +stature, and above the middle height, she looked small beside Hesper. +Her skin was very dark, with a considerable touch of sallowness; her +eyes, which were large and beautifully shaped, were as black as eyes +could be, with light in the midst of their blackness, and more than a +touch of hardness in the midst of their liquidity; her eyelashes were +singularly long and black, and she seemed conscious of them every time +they rose. She did not <i>use</i> her eyes habitually, but, when she did, +the thrust was sudden and straight. I heard a man once say that a look +from her was like a volley of small-arms. Like Hesper's, her mouth was +large and good, with fine teeth; her chin projected a little too much; +her hands were finer than Hesper's, but bony. Her name was Septimia; +Lady Margaret called her Sepia, and the contraction seemed to so many +suitable that it was ere long generally adopted. She was in mourning, +with a little crape. To the first glance she seemed as unlike Hesper as +she could well be; but, as she stood gently regarding the two, Mary, +gradually, and to her astonishment, became indubitably aware of a +singular likeness between them. Sepia, being a few years older, and in +less flourishing condition, had her features sharper and finer, and by +nature her complexion was darker by shades innumerable; but, if the one +was the evening, the other was the night: Sepia was a diminished and +overshadowed Hesper. Their manner, too, was similar, but Sepia's was +the haughtier, and she had an occasional look of defiance, of which +there appeared nothing in Hesper. When first she came to Durnmelling, +Lady Malice had once alluded to the dependence of her position—but +only once: there came a flash into rather than out of Sepia's eyes that +made any repetition of the insult impossible and Lady Malice wish that +she had left her a wanderer on the face of Europe.</p> + +<p>Sepia was the daughter of a clergyman, an uncle of Lady Malice, whose +sons had all gone to the bad, and whose daughters had all vanished from +society. Shortly before the time at which my narrative begins, one of +the latter, however, namely Sepia, the youngest, had reappeared, a +fragment of the family wreck, floating over the gulf of its +destruction. Nobody knew with any certainty where she had been in the +interim: nobody at Durnmelling knew anything but what she chose to +tell, and that was not much. She said she had been a governess in +Austrian Poland and Russia. Lady Margaret had become reconciled to her +presence, and Hesper attached to her.</p> + +<p>Of the men who, as I have said, admired her, some felt a peculiar +enchantment in what they called her ugliness; others declared her +devilish handsome; and some shrank from her as if with an undefined +dread of perilous entanglement, if she should but catch them looking +her in the face. Among some of them she was known as Lucifer, in +antithesis to Hesper: they meant the Lucifer of darkness, not the +light-bringer of the morning.</p> + +<p>The ladies, on their part, especially Hesper, were much pleased with +Mary. The simplicity of her address and manner, the pains she took to +find the exact thing she wanted, and the modest decision with which she +answered any reference to her, made Hesper even like her. The most +artificially educated of women is yet human, and capable of even more +than liking a fellow-creature as such. When their purchases were ended, +she took her leave with a kind smile, which went on glowing in Mary's +heart long after she had vanished.</p> + +<p>"Home, John," said Lady Margaret, the moment the two ladies were +seated. "I hope you have got <i>all</i> you wanted. We shall be late for +luncheon, I fear. I would not for worlds keep Mr. Redmain waiting.—A +little faster, John, please."</p> + +<p>Hesper's face darkened. Sepia eyed her fixedly, from under the mingling +of ascended lashes and descended brows. The coachman pretended to obey, +but the horses knew very well when he did and when he did not mean them +to go, and took not a step to the minute more: John had regard to the +splendid-looking black horse on the near side, which was weak in the +wind, as well as on one fired pastern, and cared little for the anxiety +of his mistress. To him, horses were the final peak of creation—or if +not the horses, the coachman, whose they are—masters and mistresses +the merest parasitical adjuncts. He got them home in good time for +luncheon, notwithstanding—more to Lady Margaret's than Hesper's +satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Mr. Redmain was a bachelor of fifty, to whom Lady Margaret was +endeavoring to make the family agreeable, in the hope he might take +Hesper off their hands. I need not say he was rich. He was a common +man, with good cold manners, which he offered you like a handle. He was +selfish, capable of picking up a lady's handkerchief, but hardly a +wife's. He was attentive to Hesper; but she scarcely concealed such a +repugnance to him as some feel at sight of strange fishes—being at the +same time afraid of him, which was not surprising, as she could hardly +fail to perceive the fate intended for her.</p> + +<p>"Ain't Miss Mortimer a stunner?" said George Turnbull to Mary, when the +tide of customers had finally ebbed from the shop.</p> + +<p>"I don't exactly know what you mean, George," answered Mary.</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course, I know it ain't fair to ask any girl to admire +another," said George. "But there's no offense to you, Mary. One young +lady can't carry <i>every</i> merit on her back. She'd be too lovely to +live, you know. Miss Mortimer ain't got your waist, nor she ain't got +your 'ands, nor your 'air; and you ain't got her size, nor the sort of +hair she 'as with her."</p> + +<p>He looked up from the piece of leno he was smoothing out, and saw he +was alone in the shop.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.<br /><br /> +THE ARBOR AT THORNWICK.</h3> + +<p>The next day was Sunday at last, a day dear to all who do anything like +their duty in the week, whether they go to church or not. For Mary, she +went to the Baptist chapel; it was her custom, rendered holy by the +companionship of her father. But this day it was with more than +ordinary restlessness and lack of interest that she stood, knelt, and +sat, through the routine of observance; for old Mr. Duppa was certainly +duller than usual: how could it be otherwise, when he had been +preparing to spend a mortal hour in descanting on the reasons which +necessitated the separation of all true Baptists from all +brother-believers? The narrow, high-souled little man—for a soul as +well as a forehead can be both high and narrow—was dull that morning +because he spoke out of his narrowness, and not out of his height; and +Mary was better justified in feeling bored than even when George +Turnbull plagued her with his vulgar attentions. When she got out at +last, sedate as she was, she could hardly help skipping along the +street by her father's side. Far better than chapel was their nice +little cold dinner together, in their only sitting-room, redolent of +the multifarious goods piled around it on all the rest of the floor. +Greater yet was the following pleasure—of making her father lie down +on the sofa, and reading him to sleep, after which she would doze a +little herself, and dream a little, in the great chair that had been +her grandmother's. Then they had their tea, and then her father always +went to see the minister before chapel in the evening.</p> + +<p>When he was gone, Mary would put on her pretty straw bonnet, and set +out to visit Letty Lovel at Thornwick. Some of the church-members +thought this habit of taking a walk, instead of going again to the +chapel, very worldly, and did not scruple to let her know their +opinion; but, so long as her father was satisfied with her, Mary did +not care a straw for the world besides. She was too much occupied with +obedience to trouble her head about opinion, either her own or other +people's. Not until a question comes puzzling and troubling us so as to +paralyze the energy of our obedience is there any necessity for its +solution, or any probability of finding a real one. A thousand foolish +<i>doctrines</i> may lie unquestioned in the mind, and never interfere with +the growth or bliss of him who lives in active subordination of his +life to the law of life: obedience will in time exorcise them, like +many another worse devil.</p> + +<p>It had drizzled all the morning from the clouds as well as from the +pulpit, but, just as Mary stepped out of the kitchen-door, the sun +stepped out of the last rain-cloud. She walked quickly from the town, +eager for the fields and the trees, but in some dread of finding Tom +Helmer at the stile; for he was such a fool, she said to herself, that +there was no knowing what he might do, for all she had said; but he had +thought better of it, and she was soon crossing meadows and cornfields +in peace, by a path which, with many a winding, and many an up and +down, was the nearest way to Thornwick.</p> + +<p>The saints of old did well to pray God to lift on them the light of his +countenance: has the Christian of the new time learned of his Master +that the clouds and the sunshine come and go of themselves? If the +sunshine fills the hearts of old men and babes and birds with gladness +and praise, and God never meant it, then are they all idolaters, and +have but a careless Father. Sweet earthy odors rose about Mary from the +wet ground; the rain-drops glittered on the grass and corn-blades and +hedgerows; a soft damp wind breathed rather than blew about the gaps +and gates; with an upward springing, like that of a fountain momently +gathering strength, the larks kept shooting aloft, there, like +music-rockets, to explode in showers of glowing and sparkling song; +while, all the time and over all, the sun as he went down kept shining +in the might of his peace; and the heart of Mary praised her Father in +heaven.</p> + +<p>Where the narrow path ran westward for a little way, so that she could +see nothing for the sun in her eyes, in the middle of a plowed field +she would have run right against a gentleman, had he been as blind as +she; but, his back being to the sun, he saw her perfectly, and stepped +out of her way into the midst of a patch of stiff soil, where the rain +was yet lying between the furrows. She saw him then, and as, lifting +his hat, he stopped again upon the path, she recognized Mr. Wardour.</p> + +<p>"Oh, your nice boots!" she cried, in the childlike distress of a simple +soul discovering itself the cause of catastrophe, for his boots were +smeared all over with yellow clay.</p> + +<p>"It only serves me right," returned Mr. Wardour, with a laugh of +amusement. "I oughtn't to have put on such thin ones at the first smile +of summer."</p> + +<p>Again he lifted his hat, and walked on.</p> + +<p>Mary also pursued her path, genuinely though gently pained that one +should have stepped up to the ankles in mud on her account. As I have +already said, except in the shop she had never before spoken to Mr. +Wardour, and, although he had so simply responded to her exclamation, +he did not even know who she was.</p> + +<p>The friendship which now drew Mary to Thornwick, Godfrey Wardour's +place, was not one of long date. She and Letty Lovel had, it is true, +known each other for years, but only quite of late had their +acquaintance ripened into something better; and it was not without +protestation on the part of Mrs. Wardour, Godfrey's mother, that she +had seen the growth of an intimacy between the two young women. The +society of a shopwoman, she often remarked, was far from suitable for +one who, as the daughter of a professional man, might lay claim to the +position of a gentlewoman. For Letty was the orphan daughter of a +country surgeon, a cousin of Mrs. Wardour, for whom she had had a great +liking while yet they were boy and girl together. At the same time, +however much she would have her consider herself the superior of Mary +Marston, she by no means treated her as her own equal, and Letty could +not help being afraid of her aunt, as she called her.</p> + +<p>The well-meaning woman was in fact possessed by two devils—the one the +stiff-necked devil of pride, the other the condescending devil of +benevolence. She was kind, but she must have credit for it; and Letty, +although the child of a loved cousin, must not presume upon that, or +forget that the wife and mother of long-descended proprietors of +certain acres of land was greatly the superior of any man who lived by +the exercise of the best-educated and most helpful profession. She +counted herself a devout Christian, but her ideas of rank, at +least—therefore certainly not a few others—were absolutely opposed to +the Master's teaching: they who did least for others were her +aristocracy.</p> + +<p>Now, Letty was a simple, true-hearted girl, rather slow, who honestly +tried to understand her aunt's position with regard to her friend. +"Shop-girls," her aunt had said, "are not fitting company for you, +Letty."</p> + +<p>"I do not know any other shop-girls, aunt," Letty replied, with hidden +trembling; "but, if they are not nice, then they are not like Mary. +She's downright good; indeed she is, aunt!—a great deal, ever so much, +better than I am."</p> + +<p>"That may well be," answered Mrs. Wardour, "but it does not make a lady +of her."</p> + +<p>"I am sure," returned Letty, bewildered, "on Sundays you could not tell +the difference between her and any other young lady."</p> + +<p>"Any other well-dressed young woman, my dear, you should say. I believe +shop-girls do call their companions young ladies, but that can not +justify the application of the word. I am scarcely bound to speak of my +cook as a lady because letters come addressed to her as Miss Tozer. If +the word 'lady' should sink at last to common use, as in Italy every +woman is Donna, we must find some other word to ex-press what <i>used</i> to +be meant by it."</p> + +<p>"Is Mrs. Cropper a lady, aunt?" asked Letty, after a pause, in which +her brains, which were not half so muddled as she thought them, had +been busy feeling after firm ground in the morass of social distinction +thus opened under her.</p> + +<p>"She is received as such," replied Mrs. Wardour, but with doubled +stiffness, through which ran a tone of injury.</p> + +<p>"Would you receive her, aunt, if she called upon you?"</p> + +<p>"She has horses and servants, and everything a woman of the world can +desire; but I should feel I was bowing the knee to Mammon were I to ask +her to my house. Yet such is the respect paid to money in these +degenerate days that many a one will court the society of a person like +that, who would think me or your cousin Godfrey unworthy of notice, +because we have no longer a tithe of the property the family once +possessed."</p> + +<p>The lady forgot there is a Rimmon as well as a Mammon.</p> + +<p>"God knows," she went on, "how that woman's husband made his money! But +that is a small matter nowadays, except to old-fashioned people like +myself. Not <i>how</i> but <i>how much</i> , is all the question now," she +concluded, flattering herself she had made a good point.</p> + +<p>"Don't think me rude, please, aunt: I am really wishing to +understand—but, if Mrs. Cropper is not a lady, how can Mary Marston +not be one? She is as different from Mrs. Croppor as one woman can be +from another."</p> + +<p>"Because she has not the position in society," replied Mrs. Wardour, +enveloping her nothing in flimsy reiteration and self-contradiction.</p> + +<p>"And Mrs. Cropper has the position?" ventured Letty, with a little +palpitation from fear of offending.</p> + +<p>"Apparently so," answered Mrs. Wardour. But her inquiring pupil did not +feel much enlightened. Letty had not the logic necessary to the +thinking of the thing out; or to the discovery that, like most social +difficulties, hers was merely one of the upper strata of a question +whose foundation lies far too deep for what is called Society to +perceive its very existence. And hence it is no wonder that Society, +abetted by the Church, should go on from generation to generation +talking murderous platitudes about it.</p> + +<p>But, although such was her reasoning beforehand, heart had so far +overcome habit and prejudice with Mrs. Wardour, that, convinced on the +first interview of the high tone and good influence of Mary, she had +gradually come to put herself in the way of seeing her as often as she +came, ostensibly to herself that she might prevent any deterioration of +intercourse; and although she always, on these occasions, played the +grand lady, with a stateliness that seemed to say, "Because of your +individual worth, I condescend, and make an exception, but you must not +imagine I receive your class at Thornwick," she had almost entirely +ceased making remarks upon the said class in Letty's hearing.</p> + +<p>On her part, Letty had by this time grown so intimate with Mary as to +open with her the question upon which her aunt had given her so little +satisfaction; and this same Sunday afternoon, as they sat in the arbor +at the end of the long yew hedge in the old garden, it had come up +again between them; for, set thinking by Letty's bewilderment, Mary had +gone on thinking, and had at length laid hold of the matter, at least +by the end that belonged to <i>her</i> .</p> + +<p>"I can not consent, Letty," she said, "to trouble my mind about it as +you do. I can not afford it. Society is neither my master nor my +servant, neither my father nor my sister; and so long as she does not +bar my way to the kingdom of heaven, which is the only society worth +getting into, I feel no right to complain of how she treats me. I have +no claim on her; I do not acknowledge her laws—hardly her existence, +and she has no authority over me. Why should she, how could she, +constituted as she is, receive such as me? The moment she did so, she +would cease to be what she is; and, if all be true that one hears of +her, she does me a kindness in excluding me. What can it matter to me, +Letty, whether they call me a lady or not, so long as Jesus says +<i>Daughter</i> to me? It reminds me of what I heard my father say once to +Mr. Turnbull, when he had been protesting that none but church people +ought to be buried in the churchyards. 'I don't care a straw about it, +Mr. Turnbull,' he said. 'The Master was buried in a garden.'—'Ah, but +you see things are different now,' said Mr. Turnbull.—'I don't hang by +things, but by my Master. It is enough for the disciple that he should +be as his Master,' said my father.—'Besides, you don't think it of any +real consequence yourself, or you would never want to keep your +brothers and sisters out of such nice quiet places!'—Mr. Turnbull gave +his kind of grunt, and said no more."</p> + +<p>After passing Mary, Mr. Wardour did not go very far before he began to +slacken his pace; a moment or two more and he suddenly wheeled round, +and began to walk back toward Thornwick. Two things had combined to +produce this change of purpose—the first, the state of his boots, +which, beginning to dry in the sun and wind as he walked, grew more and +more hideous at the end of his new gray trousers; the other, the +occurring suspicion that the girl must be Letty's new shopkeeping +friend, Miss Marston, on her way to visit her. What a sweet, simple +young woman she was! he thought; and straightway began to argue with +himself that, as his boots were in such evil plight, it would be more +pleasant to spend the evening with Letty and her friend, than to hold +on his way to his own friend's, and spend the evening smoking and +lounging about the stable, or hearing his sister play polkas and +mazurkas all the still Sunday twilight.</p> + +<p>Mary had, of course, upon her arrival, narrated her small adventure, +and the conversation had again turned upon Godfrey just as he was +nearing the house.</p> + +<p>"How handsome your cousin is!" said Mary, with the simplicity natural +to her.</p> + +<p>"Do you think so?" returned Letty.</p> + +<p>"Don't <i>you</i> think so?" rejoined Mary.</p> + +<p>"I have never thought about it," answered Letty.</p> + +<p>"He looks so manly, and has such a straightforward way with him!" said +Mary.</p> + +<p>"What one sees every day, she may feel in a sort of take-for-granted +way, without thinking about it," said Letty. "But, to tell the truth, I +should feel it as impertinent of me to criticise Cousin Godfrey's +person as to pass an opinion on one of the books he reads. I can not +express the reverence I have for Cousin Godfrey."</p> + +<p>"I don't wonder," replied Mary. "There is that about him one could +trust."</p> + +<p>"There is that about him," returned Letty, "makes me afraid of him—I +can not tell why. And yet, though everybody, even his mother, is as +anxious to please him as if he were an emperor, he is the easiest +person to please in the whole house. Not that he tells you he is +pleased; he only smiles; but that is quite enough."</p> + +<p>"But I suppose he talks to you sometimes?" said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes—now. He used not; but I think he does now more than to +anybody else. It was a long time before he began, though. Now he is +always giving me something to read. I wish he wouldn't; it frightens me +dreadfully. He always questions me, to know whether I understand what I +read."</p> + +<p>Letty ended with a little cry. Through the one narrow gap in the yew +hedge, near to the arbor, Godfrey had entered the walk, and was coming +toward them.</p> + +<p>He was a well-made man, thirty years of age, rather tall, sun-tanned, +and bearded, with wavy brown hair, and gentle approach. His features +were not regular, but that is of little consequence where there is +unity. His face indicated faculty and feeling, and there was much good +nature, shadowed with memorial suffering, in the eyes which shone so +blue out of the brown.</p> + +<p>Mary rose respectfully as he drew near.</p> + +<p>"What treason were you talking, Letty, that you were so startled at +sight of me?" he said, with a smile. "You were complaining of me as a +hard master, were you not?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, Cousin Godfrey!" answered Letty energetically, not without +tremor, and coloring as she spoke. "I was only saying I could not help +being frightened when you asked me questions about what I had been +reading. I am so stupid, you know!"</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, Letty," returned her cousin, "I know nothing of the sort. +Allow me to say you are very far from stupid. Nobody can understand +everything at first sight. But you have not introduced me to your +friend."</p> + +<p>Letty bashfully murmured the names of the two.</p> + +<p>"I guessed as much," said Wardour. "Pray sit down, Miss Marston. For +the sake of your dresses, I will go and change my boots. May I come and +join you after?"</p> + +<p>"Please do, Cousin Godfrey; and bring something to read to us," said +Letty, who wanted her friend to admire her cousin. "It's Sunday, you +know."</p> + +<p>"Why you should be afraid of him, I can't think," said Mary, when his +retreating steps had ceased to sound on the gravel. "He is delightful!"</p> + +<p>"I don't like to look stupid," said Letty.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't mind how stupid I looked so long as I was learning," +returned Mary. "I wonder you never told me about him!"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't talk about Cousin Godfrey," said Letty; and a pause +followed.</p> + +<p>"How good of him to come to us again!" said Mary. "What will he read to +us?"</p> + +<p>"Most likely something out of a book you never heard of before, and +can't remember the name of when you have heard it—at least that's the +way with me. I wonder if he will talk to you, Mary? I should like to +hear how Cousin Godfrey talks to girls."</p> + +<p>"Why, you know how he talks to you," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I am only Cousin Letty! He can talk anyhow to me."</p> + +<p>"By your own account he talks to you in the best possible way."</p> + +<p>"Yes; I dare say; but—"</p> + +<p>"But what?"</p> + +<p>"I can't help wishing sometimes he would talk a little nonsense. It +would be such a relief. I am sure I should understand better if he +would. I shouldn't be so frightened at him then."</p> + +<p>"The way I generally hear gentlemen talk to girls makes me +ashamed—makes me feel as if I must ask, 'Is it that you are a fool, or +that you take that girl for one?' They never talk so to me."</p> + +<p>Letty sat pulling a jonquil to pieces. She looked up. Her eyes were +full of thought, but she paused a long time before she spoke, and, when +she did, it was only to say:</p> + +<p>"I fear, Mary, I should take any man for a fool who took me for +anything else."</p> + +<p>Letty was a rather small and rather freckled girl, with the daintiest +of rounded figures, a good forehead, and fine clear brown eyes. Her +mouth was not pretty, except when she smiled—and she did not smile +often. When she did, it was not unfrequently with the tears in her +eyes, and then she looked lovely. In her manner there was an +indescribably taking charm, of which it is not easy to give an +impression; but I think it sprang from a constitutional humility, +partly ruined into a painful and haunting sense of inferiority, for +which she imagined herself to blame. Hence there dwelt in her eyes an +appeal which few hearts could resist. When they met another's, they +seemed to say: "I am nobody; but you need not kill me; I am not +pretending to be anybody. I will try to do what you want, but I am not +clever. Only I am sorry for it. Be gentle with me." To Godfrey, at +least, her eyes spoke thus.</p> + +<p>In ten minutes or so he reappeared, far at the other end of the +yew-walk, approaching slowly, with a book, in which he seemed +thoughtfully searching as he came. When they saw him the girls +instinctively moved farther from each other, making large room for him +between them, and when he came up he silently took the place thus +silently assigned him.</p> + +<p>"I am going to try your brains now, Letty," he said, and tapped the +book with a finger.</p> + +<p>"Oh, please don't!" pleaded Letty, as if he had been threatening her +with a small amputation, or the loss of a front tooth.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he persisted; "and not your brains only, Letty, but your heart, +and all that is in you."</p> + +<p>At this even Mary could not help feeling a little frightened; and she +was glad there was no occasion for her to speak.</p> + +<p>With just a word of introduction, Godfrey read Carlyle's translation of +that finest of Jean Paul's dreams in which he sets forth the condition +of a godless universe all at once awakened to the knowledge of the +causelessness of its own existence. Slowly, with due inflection and +emphasis—slowly, but without pause for thought or explanation—he read +to the end, ceased suddenly, and lifted his eyes.</p> + +<p>"There, Letty," he said, "what do you think of that? There's a bit of +Sunday reading for you!"</p> + +<p>Letty was looking altogether perplexed, and not a little frightened.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand a word of it," she answered, gulping back her +tears. He glanced at Mary. She was white as death, her lips quivered, +and from her eyes shot a keen light that seemed to lacerate their blue.</p> + +<p>"It is terrible!" she said. "I never read anything like that."</p> + +<p>"There <i>is</i> nothing like it," he answered.</p> + +<p>"But the author is a Unitarian, is he not?" remarked Mary—for she +heard plenty of theology, if not much Christianity, in her chapel.</p> + +<p>Godfrey looked at her, then at the book for a moment.</p> + +<p>"That may merely seem, from the necessity of the supposition," he +answered; and read again:</p> + +<p>"'Now sank from aloft a noble, high Form, with a look of uneffaceable +sorrow, down to the Altar, and all the Dead cried out, "Christ! is +there no God?" He answered, "There is none!" The whole Shadow of each +then shuddered, not the breast alone; and one after the other all, in +this shuddering, shook into pieces.'—"You see," he went on, "that if +there be no God, Christ can only be the first of men."</p> + +<p>"I understand," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Do you really then, Mary?" said Letty, looking at her with wondering +admiration.</p> + +<p>"I only meant," answered Mary—"but," she went on, interrupting +herself, "I do think I understand it a little. If Mr. Wardour would be +kind enough to read it through again!"</p> + +<p>"With much pleasure," answered Godfrey, casting on her a glance of +pleased surprise.</p> + +<p>The second reading affected Mary more than the first—because, of +course, she took in more. And this time a glimmer of meaning broke on +the slower mind of Letty: as her cousin read the passage, "Oh, then +came, fearful for the heart, the dead Children who had been awakened in +the Churchyard, into the temple, and cast themselves before the high +Form on the Altar, and said, 'Jesus, have we no Father?' And he +answered, with streaming tears: 'We are all orphans, I and you; we are +without Father!'"—at this point Letty gave her little cry, then bit +her lip, as if she had said something wrong.</p> + +<p>All the time a great bee kept buzzing in and out of the arbor, and Mary +vaguely wondered how it could be so careless.</p> + +<p>"I can't be dead stupid after all, Cousin Godfrey," said Letty, with +broken voice, when once more he ceased, and, as she spoke, she pressed +her hand on her heart, "for something kept going through and through +me; but I can not say yet I understand it.—If you will lend me the +book," she continued, "I will read it over again before I go to bed."</p> + +<p>He shut the volume, handed it to her, and began to talk about something +else.</p> + +<p>Mary rose to go.</p> + +<p>"You will take tea with us, I hope, Miss Marston," said Godfrey.</p> + +<p>But Mary would not. What she had heard was working in her mind with a +powerful fermentation, and she longed to be alone. In the fields, as +she walked, she would come to an understanding with herself.</p> + +<p>She knew almost nothing of the higher literature, and felt like a +dreamer who, in the midst of a well-known and ordinary landscape, comes +without warning upon the mighty cone of a mountain, or the breaking +waters of a boundless ocean.</p> + +<p>"If one could but get hold of such things, what a glorious life it +would be!" she thought. She had looked into a world beyond the present, +and already in the present all things were new. The sun set as she had +never seen him set before; it was only in gray and gold, with scarce a +touch of purple and rose; the wind visited her cheek like a living +thing, and loved her; the skylarks had more than reason in their +jubilation. For the first time she heard the full chord of intellectual +and emotional delight. What a place her chamber would be, if she could +there read such things! How easy would it be then to bear the troubles +of the hour, the vulgar humor of Mr. Turnbull, and the tiresome +attentions of George! Would Mr. Wardour lend her the book? Had he other +books as good? Were there many books to make one's heart go as that one +did? She would save every penny to buy such books, if indeed such +treasures were within her reach! Under the enchantment of her first +literary joy, she walked home like one intoxicated with opium—a being +possessed for the time with the awful imagination of a grander soul, +and reveling in the presence of her loftier kin.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br /><br /> +GODFREY WARDOUR.</h3> + +<p>The property of which Thornwick once formed a part was then large and +important; but it had, by not very slow degrees, generation following +generation of unthrift, dwindled and shrunk and shriveled, until at +last it threatened to disappear from the family altogether, like a +spark upon burnt paper. Then came one into possession who had some +element of salvation in him; Godfrey's father not only held the poor +remnant together, but, unable to add to it, improved it so greatly that +at length, in the midst of the large properties around, it resembled +the diamond that hearts a disk of inferior stones. Doubtless, could he +have used his wife's money, he would have spent it on land; but it was +under trustees for herself and her children, and indeed would not have +gone far in the purchase of English soil.</p> + +<p>Considerably advanced in years before he thought of marrying, he died +while Godfrey, whom he intended bringing up to a profession, was yet a +child; and his widow, carrying out his intention, had educated the boy +with a view to the law. Godfrey, however, had positively declined +entering on the studies special to a career he detested; nor was it +difficult to reconcile his mother to the enforced change of idea, when +she found that his sole desire was to settle down with her, and manage +the two hundred acres his father had left him. He took his place in the +county, therefore, as a yeoman-farmer—none the less a gentleman by +descent, character, and education. But while in genuine culture and +refinement the superior of all the landed proprietors in the +neighborhood, and knowing it, he was the superior of most of them in +this also, that he counted it no derogation from the dignity he valued +to put his hands upon occasion to any piece of work required about the +place.</p> + +<p>His nature was too large, however, and its needs therefore too many, to +allow of his spending his energies on the property; and he did not +brood over such things as, so soon as they become cares, become +despicable. How much time is wasted in what is called thought, but is +merely care—an anxious idling over the fancied probabilities of +result! Of this fault, I say, Godfrey was not guilty—more, however, I +must confess, from healthful drawings in other directions, than from +philosophy or wisdom: he was <i>a reader</i> —not in the sense of a man who +derives intensest pleasure from the absorption of intellectual +pabulum—one not necessarily so superior as some imagine to the +<i>gourmet</i> , or even the <i>gourmand</i> : in his reading Godfrey nourished +certain of the higher tendencies of his nature—read with a constant +reference to his own views of life, and the confirmation, change, or +enlargement of his theories of the same; but neither did he read with +the highest aim of all—the enlargement of reverence, obedience, and +faith; for he had never turned his face full in the direction of +infinite growth—the primal end of a man's being, who is that he may +return to the Father, gathering his truth as he goes. Yet by the simple +instincts of a soul undebased by self-indulgence or low pursuits, he +was drawn ever toward things lofty and good; and life went calmly on, +bearing Godfrey Wardour toward middle age, unruffled either by anxiety +or ambition.</p> + +<p>To the forecasting affection of a mother, the hour when she must yield +the first place both in her son's regards and in the house-affairs +could not but have often presented itself, in doubt and pain—perhaps +dread. Only as year after year passed and Godfrey revealed no tendency +toward marriage, her anxiety changed sides, and she began to fear lest +with Godfrey the ancient family should come to an end. As yet, however, +finding no response to covert suggestion, she had not ventured to speak +openly to him on the subject. All the time, I must add, she had never +thought of Letty either as thwarting or furthering her desires, for in +truth she felt toward her as one on whom Godfrey could never condescend +to look, save with the kindness suitable for one immeasurably below +him. As to what might pass in Letty's mind, Mrs. Wardour had neither +curiosity nor care: else she might possibly have been more considerate +than to fall into the habit of talking to her in such swelling words of +maternal pride that, even if she had not admired him of herself, Letty +could hardly escape coming to regard her cousin Godfrey as the very +first of men.</p> + +<p>It added force to the veneration of both mother and cousin—for it was +nothing less than veneration in either—that there was about Godfrey an +air of the inexplicable, or at least the unknown, and therefore +mysterious. This the elder woman, not without many a pang at her +exclusion from his confidence, attributed, and correctly, to some +passage in his life at the university; to the younger it appeared only +as greatness self-veiled from the ordinary world: to such as she, could +be vouchsafed only an occasional peep into the gulf of his knowledge, +the grandeur of his intellect, and the imperturbability of his courage.</p> + +<p>The passage in Godfrey's life to which I have referred as vaguely +suspected by his mother, I need not present in more than merest +outline: it belongs to my history only as a component part of the soil +whence it springs, and as in some measure necessary to the +understanding of Godfrey's character. In the last year of his college +life he had formed an attachment, the precise nature of which I do not +know. What I do know is, that the bonds of it were rudely broken, and +of the story nothing remained but disappointment and pain, doubt and +distrust. Godfrey had most likely cherished an overweening notion of +the relative value of the love he gave; but being his, I am certain it +was genuine—by that, I mean a love with no small element of the +everlasting in it. The woman who can cast such a love from her is not +likely to meet with such another. But with this one I have nothing to +do.</p> + +<p>It had been well if he had been left with only a wounded heart, but in +that heart lay wounded pride. He hid it carefully, and the keener in +consequence grew the sensitiveness, almost feminine, which no stranger +could have suspected beneath the manner he wore. Under that bronzed +countenance, with its firm-set mouth and powerful jaw—below that clear +blue eye, and that upright easy carriage, lay a faithful heart haunted +by a sense of wrong: he who is not perfect in forgiveness must be +haunted thus; he only is free whose love for the human is so strong +that he can pardon the individual sin; he alone can pray the prayer, +"Forgive us our trespasses," out of a full heart. Forgiveness is the +only cure of wrong. And hand in hand with Sense-of-injury walks ever +the weak sister-demon Self-pity, so dear, so sweet to many—both of +them the children of Philautos, not of Agape. But there was no hate, no +revenge, in Godfrey, and, I repeat, his weakness he kept concealed. It +must have been in his eyes, but eyes are hard to read. For the rest, +his was a strong poetic nature—a nature which half unconsciously +turned ever toward the best, away from the mean judgments of common +men, and with positive loathing from the ways of worldly women. Never +was peace endangered between his mother and him, except when she +chanced to make use of some evil maxim which she thought experience had +taught her, and the look her son cast upon her stung her to the heart, +making her for a moment feel as if she had sinned what the theologians +call the unpardonable sin. When he rose and walked from the room +without a word, she would feel as if abandoned to her wickedness, and +be miserable until she saw him again. Something like a spring-cleaning +would begin and go on in her for some time after, and her eyes would +every now and then steal toward her judge with a glance of awe and +fearful apology. But, however correct Godfrey might be in his judgment +of the worldly, that judgment was less inspired by the harmonies of the +universe than by the discords that had jarred his being and the +poisonous shocks he had received in the encounter of the noble with the +ignoble. There was yet in him a profound need of redemption into the +love of the truth for the truth's sake. He had the fault of thinking +too well of himself—which who has not who thinks of himself at all, +apart from his relation to the holy force of life, within yet beyond +him? It was the almost unconscious, assuredly the undetected, +self-approbation of the ordinarily righteous man, the defect of whose +righteousness makes him regard himself as upright, but the virtue of +whose uprightness will at length disclose to his astonished view how +immeasurably short of rectitude he comes. At the age of thirty, Godfrey +Wardour had not yet become so displeased with himself as to turn +self-roused energy upon betterment; and until then all growth must be +of doubtful result. The point on which the swift-revolving top of his +thinking and feeling turned was as yet his present conscious self, as a +thing that was and would be, not as a thing that had to become. +Naturally the pivot had worn a socket, and such socket is sure to be a +sore. His friends notwithstanding gave him credit for great +imperturbability; but in such willfully undemonstrative men the evil +burrows the more insidiously that it is masked by a constrained +exterior.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.<br /><br /> +GODFREY AND LETTY.</h3> + +<p>Godfrey, being an Englishman, and with land of his own, could not fail +to be fond of horses. For his own use he kept two—an indulgence +disproportioned to his establishment; for, although precise in his +tastes as to equine toilet, he did not feel justified in the keeping of +a groom for their use only. Hence it came that, now and then, strap and +steel, as well as hide and hoof, would get partially neglected; and his +habits in the use of his horses being fitful—sometimes, it would be +midnight even, when he scoured from his home, seeking the comfort of +desert as well as solitary places—it is not surprising if at times, +going to the stable to saddle one, he should find its gear not in the +spick-and-span condition alone to his mind. It might then well happen +there was no one near to help him, and there be nothing for it but to +put his own hands to the work: he was too just to rouse one who might +be nowise to blame, or send a maid to fetch him from field or barn, +where he might be more importantly engaged.</p> + +<p>One night, meaning to start for a long ride early in the morning, he +had gone to the stable to see how things were; and, soon after, it +happened that Letty, attending to some duty before going to bed, caught +sight of him cleaning his stirrups: from that moment she took upon +herself the silent and unsuspected supervision of the harness-room, +where, when she found any part of the riding-equipments neglected, she +would draw a pair of housemaid's gloves on her pretty hands, and polish +away like a horse-boy.</p> + +<p>Godfrey had begun to remark how long it was since he had found anything +unfit, and to wonder at the improvement somewhere in the establishment, +when, going hastily one morning, some months before the date of my +narrative, into the harness-room to get a saddle, he came upon Letty, +who had imagined him afield with the men: she was energetic upon a +stirrup with a chain-polisher. He started back in amazement, but she +only looked up and smiled.</p> + +<p>"I shall have done in a moment, Cousin Godfrey," she said, and polished +away harder than before.</p> + +<p>"But, Letty! I can't allow you to do things like that. What on earth +put it in your head? Work like that is only for horny hands."</p> + +<p>"Your hands ain't horny, Cousin Godfrey. They may be a little harder +than mine—they wouldn't be much good if they weren't—but they're no +fitter by nature to clean stirrups. Is it for me to sit with mine in my +lap, and yours at this? I know better."</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't I clean my own harness, Letty, if I like?" said Godfrey, +who could not help feeling pleased as well as annoyed; in this one +moment Letty had come miles nearer him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, surely! if you like, Cousin Godfrey," she answered; "but do you +like?"</p> + +<p>"Better than to see you doing it."</p> + +<p>"But not better than I like to do it; that I am sure of. It is hands +that write poetry that are not fit for work like this."</p> + +<p>"How do you know I write poetry?" asked Godfrey, displeased, for she +touched here a sensitive spot.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't be angry with me!" she said, letting the stirrup fall on the +floor, and clasping her great wash-leather gloves together; "I couldn't +help seeing it was poetry, for it lay on the table when I went to do +your room."</p> + +<p>"Do my room, Letty! Does my mother—?"</p> + +<p>"She doesn't want to make a fine lady of me, and I shouldn't like it if +she did. I have no head, but I have pretty good hands. Of course, +Cousin Godfrey, I didn't read a word of the poetry. I daredn't do that, +however much I might have wished."</p> + +<p>A childlike simplicity looked out of the clear eyes and sounded in the +swift words of the maiden; and, had Godfrey's heart been as hard as the +stirrup she had dropped, it could not but be touched by her devotion. +He was at the same time not a little puzzled how to carry himself. +Letty had picked up the stirrup, and was again hard at work with it; to +take it from her, and turn her out of the saddle-room, would scarcely +be a proper way of thanking her, scarcely an adequate mode of revealing +his estimate of the condescension of her ladyhood. For, although Letty +did make beds and chose to clean harness, Godfrey was gentleman enough +not to think her less of a lady—for the moment at least—because of +such doings: I will not say he had got so far on in the great doctrine +concerning the washing of hands as to be able to think her <i>more</i> of a +lady for thus cleaning his stirrups. But he did see that to set the +fire-engine of indignant respect for womankind playing on the +individual woman was not the part of the man to whose service she was +humbling herself. He laid his hand on her bent head, and said:</p> + +<p>"I ought to be a knight of the old times, Letty, to have a lady serve +me so."</p> + +<p>"You're just as good, Cousin Godfrey," she rejoined, rubbing away.</p> + +<p>He turned from her, and left her at her work.</p> + +<p>He had taken no real notice of the girl before—had felt next to no +interest in her. Neither did he feel much now, save as owing her +something beyond mere acknowledgment. But was there anything now he +could do for her—anything in her he could help? He did not know. What +she really was, he could not tell. She was a fresh, bright girl—that +he seemed to have just discovered; and, as she sat polishing the +stirrup, her hair shaken about her shoulders, she looked engaging; but +whether she was one he could do anything for that was worth doing, was +hardly the less a question for those discoveries.</p> + +<p>"There must be <i>something</i> in the girl!" he said to himself—then +suddenly reflected that he had never seen a book in her hand, except +her prayer-book; how <i>was</i> he to do anything for a girl like that? For +Godfrey knew no way of doing people good without the intervention of +books. How could he get near one that had no taste for the quintessence +of humanity? How was he to offer her the only help he had, when she +desired no such help? "But," he continued, reflecting further, "she may +have thirsted, may even now be athirst, without knowing that books are +the bottles of the water of life!" Perhaps, if he could make her drink +once, she would drink again. The difficulty was, to find out what sort +of spiritual drink would be most to her taste, and would most entice +her to more. There must be some seeds lying cold and hard in her +uncultured garden; what water would soonest make them grow? Not all the +waters of Damascus will turn mere sand sifted of eternal winds into +fruitful soil; but Letty's soul could not be such. And then literature +has seed to sow as well as water for the seed sown. Letty's foolish +words about the hands that wrote poetry showed a shadow of respect for +poetry—except, indeed, the girl had been but making game of him, which +he was far from ready to believe, and for which, he said to himself, +her face was at the time much too earnest, and her hands much too busy; +he must find out whether she had any instincts, any predilections, in +the matter of poetry!</p> + +<p>Thus pondering, he forgot all about his projected ride, and, going up +to the study he had contrived for himself in the rambling roof of the +ancient house, began looking along the backs of his books, in search of +some suggestion of how to approach Letty; his glance fell on a +beautifully bound volume of verse—a selection of English lyrics, made +with tolerable judgment—which he had bought to give, but the very +color of which, every time his eye flitting along the book-shelves +caught it, threw a faint sickness over his heart, preluding the memory +of old pain and loss:</p> + +<p>"It may as well serve some one," he said, and, taking it down, carried +it with him to the saddle-room.</p> + +<p>Letty was not there, and the perfect order of the place somehow made +him feel she had been gone some time. He went in search of her; she +might be in the dairy.</p> + +<p>That was the very picture of an old-fashioned English +dairy—green-shadowy, dark, dank, and cool—floored with great +irregular slabs, mostly of green serpentine, polished into smooth +hollows by the feet of generations of mistresses and dairy-maids. Its +only light came through a small window shaded with shrubs and ivy, +which stood open, and let in the scents of bud and blossom, weaving a +net of sweetness in the gloom, through which, like a silver thread, +shot the twittering song of a bird, which had inherited the gathered +carelessness and bliss of a long ancestry in God's aviary.</p> + +<p>Godfrey came softly to the door, which he found standing ajar, and +peeped in. There stood Letty, warm and bright in the middle of the +dusky coolness. She had changed her dress since he saw her, and now, in +a pink-rosebud print, with the sleeves tucked above her elbows, was +skimming the cream in a great red-brown earthen pan. He pushed the door +a little, and, at its screech along the uneven floor, Letty's head +turned quickly on her lithe neck, and she saw Godfrey's brown face and +kind blue eyes where she had never seen them before. In his hand glowed +the book: some of the stronger light from behind him fell on it, and it +caught her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Letty," he said, "I have just come upon this book in my library: would +you care to have it?"</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to keep for my own, Cousin Godfrey?" cried Letty, in +sweet, childish fashion, letting the skimmer dive like a coot to the +bottom of the milk-pool, and hastily wiping her hands in her apron. Her +face had flushed rosy with pleasure, and grew rosier and brighter still +as she took the rich morocco-bound thing from Godfrey's hand into her +own. Daintily she peeped within the boards, and the gilding of the +leaves responded in light to her smile.</p> + +<p>"Poetry!" she cried, in a tone of delight. "Is it really for me, Cousin +Godfrey? Do you think I shall be able to understand it?"</p> + +<p>"You can soon settle that question for yourself," answered Godfrey, +with a pleased smile—for he augured well from this reception of his +gift—and turned to leave the dairy.</p> + +<p>"But, Cousin Godfrey—please!" she called after him, "you don't give me +time to thank you."</p> + +<p>"That will do when you are certain you care for it," he returned.</p> + +<p>"I care for it very <i>much</i> !" she replied.</p> + +<p>"How can you say that, when you don't know yet whether you will +understand it or not?" he rejoined, and closed the door.</p> + +<p>Letty stood motionless, the book in her hand illuminating the dusk with +gold, and warming its coolness with its crimson boards and silken +linings. One poem after another she read, nor knew how the time passed, +until the voice of her aunt in her ears warned her to finish her +skimming, and carry the jug to the pantry. But already Letty had taken +a little cream off the book also, and already, between the time she +entered and the time she left the dairy, had taken besides a fresh +start in spiritual growth.</p> + +<p>The next day Godfrey took an opportunity of asking her whether she had +found in the book anything she liked. To his disappointment she +mentioned one of the few commonplace things the collection contained—a +last-century production, dull and respectable, which, surely, but for +the glamour of some pleasant association, the editor would never have +included. Happily, however, he bethought himself in time not to tell +her the thing was worthless: such a word, instead of chipping the shell +in which the girl's faculty lay dormant, would have smashed the whole +egg into a miserable albuminous mass. And he was well rewarded; for, +the same day, in the evening, he heard her singing gayly over her work, +and listening discovered that she was singing verse after verse of one +of the best ballads in the whole book. She had chosen with the fancy of +pleasing Godfrey; she sang to please herself. After this discovery he +set himself in earnest to the task of developing her intellectual life, +and, daily almost, grew more interested in the endeavor. His main +object was to make her think; and for the high purpose, chiefly but not +exclusively, he employed verse.</p> + +<p>The main obstacle to success he soon discovered to be Letty's exceeding +distrust of herself. I would not be mistaken to mean that she had too +little confidence in herself; of that no one can have too little. +Self-distrust will only retard, while self-confidence will betray. The +man ignorant in these things will answer me, "But you must have one or +the other." "You must have neither," I reply. "You must follow the +truth, and, in that pursuit, the less one thinks about himself, the +pursuer, the better. Let him so hunger and thirst after the truth that +the dim vision of it occupies all his being, and leaves no time to +think of his hunger and his thirst. Self-forgetfulness in the reaching +out after that which is essential to us is the healthiest of mental +conditions. One has to look to his way, to his deeds, to his +conduct—not to himself. In such losing of the false, or merely +reflected, we find the true self. There is no harm in being stupid, so +long as a man does not think himself clever; no good in being clever, +if a man thinks himself so, for that is a short way to the worst +stupidity. If you think yourself clever, set yourself to do something; +then you will have a chance of humiliation."</p> + +<p>With good faculties, and fine instincts, Letty was always thinking she +must be wrong, just because it was she was in it—a lovely fault, no +doubt, but a fault greatly impeditive to progress, and tormenting to a +teacher. She got on very fairly in spite of it, however; and her +devotion to Godfrey, as she felt herself growing in his sight, +increased almost to a passion. Do not misunderstand me, my reader. If I +say anything grows to a passion, I mean, of course, the passion of that +thing, not of something else. Here I no more mean that her devotion +became what in novels is commonly called love, than, if I said ambition +or avarice had grown to a passion, I should mean those vices had +changed to love. Godfrey Wardour was at least ten years older than +Letty; besides him, she had not a single male relative in this +world—neither had she mother or sister on whom to let out her heart; +while of Mrs. Wardour, who was more severe on her than on any one else, +she was not a little afraid: from these causes it came that Cousin +Godfrey grew and grew in Letty's imagination, until he was to her +everything great and good—her idea of him naturally growing as she +grew herself under his influences. To her he was the heart of wisdom, +the head of knowledge, the arm of strength.</p> + +<p>But her worship was quiet, as the worship of maiden, in whatever kind, +ought to be. She knew nothing of what is called love except as a word, +and from sympathy with the persons in the tales she read. Any remotest +suggestion of its existence in her relation to Godfrey she would have +resented as the most offensive impertinence—an accusation of +impossible irreverence.</p> + +<p>By degrees Godfrey came to understand, but then only in a measure, with +what a self-refusing, impressionable nature he was dealing; and, as he +saw, he became more generous toward her, more gentle and delicate in +his ministration. Of necessity he grew more and more interested in her, +especially after he had made the discovery that the moment she laid +hold of a truth—the moment, that is, when it was no longer another's +idea but her own perception—it began to sprout in her in all +directions of practice. By nature she was not intellectually quick; +but, because such was her character, the ratio of her progress was of +necessity an increasing one.</p> + +<p>If Godfrey had seen in his new relation to Letty a possibility of the +revival of feelings he had supposed for ever extinguished, such a +possibility would have borne to him purely the aspect of danger; at the +mere idea of again falling in love he would have sickened with dismay; +and whether or not he had any dread of such a catastrophe, certain it +is that he behaved to her more as a pedagogue than a cousinly tutor, +insisting on a precision in all she did that might have gone far to +rouse resentment and recoil in the mind of a less childlike woman. Just +as surely, notwithstanding all that, however, did the sweet girl grow +into his heart: it <i>could</i> not be otherwise. The idea of her was making +a nest for itself in his soul—what kind of a nest for long he did not +know, and for long did not think to inquire. Living thus, like an elder +brother with a much younger sister, he was more than satisfied, +refusing, it may be, to regard the probability of intruding change. But +how far any man and woman may have been made capable of loving without +falling in love, can be answered only after question has yielded to +history. In the mean time, Mrs. Wardour, who would have been indignant +at the notion of any equal bond between her idolized son and her +patronized cousin, neither saw, nor heard, nor suspected anything to +rouse uneasiness.</p> + +<p>Things were thus in the old house, when the growing affection of Letty +for Mary Marston took form one day in the request that she would make +Thornwick the goal of her Sunday walk. She repented, it is true, the +moment she had said the words, from dread of her aunt; but they had +been said, and were accepted. Mary went, and the aunt difficulty had +been got over. The friendship of Godfrey also had now run into that of +the girls, and Mary's visits were continued with pleasure to all, and +certainly with no little profit to herself; for, where the higher +nature can not communicate the greater benefit, it will reap it. Her +Sunday visit became to Mary the one foraging expedition of the +week—that which going to church ought to be, and so seldom can be.</p> + +<p>The beginning and main-stay of her spiritual life was, as we have seen, +her father, in whom she believed absolutely. From books and sermons she +had got little good; for in neither kind had the best come nigh her. +She did very nearly her best to obey, but without much perceiving the +splendor of the thing required, or much feeling its might upon her own +eternal nature. She was as yet, in relation to the gospel, much as the +Jews were in relation to their law; they had not yet learned the gospel +of their law, and she was yet only serving the law of the gospel. But +she was making progress, in simple and pure virtue of her obedience. +Show me the person ready to step from any, let it be the narrowest, +sect of Christian Pharisees into a freer and holier air, and I shall +look to find in that person the one of that sect who, in the midst of +its darkness and selfish worldliness, mistaken for holiness, has been +living a life more obedient than the rest.</p> + +<p>And now was sent Godfrey to her aid, a teacher himself far behind his +pupil, inasmuch as he was more occupied with what he was, than what he +had to become: the weakest may be sent to give the strongest saving +help; even the foolish may mediate between the wise and the wiser; and +Godfrey presented Mary to men greater than himself, whom in a short +time she would understand even better than he. Book after book he lent +her—now and then gave her one of the best—introducing her, with no +special intention, to much in the way of religion that was good in the +way of literature as well. Only where he delighted mainly in the +literature, she delighted more in the religion. Some of my readers will +be able to imagine what it must have been to a capable, clear-thinking, +warm-hearted, loving soul like Mary, hitherto in absolute ignorance of +any better religious poetry than the chapel hymn-book afforded her, to +make acquaintance with George Herbert, with Henry Vaughan, with Giles +Fletcher, with Richard Crashaw, with old Mason, not to mention Milton, +and afterward our own Father Newman and Father Faber.</p> + +<p>But it was by no means chiefly upon such that Godfrey led the talk on +the Sunday afternoons. A lover of all truly imaginative literature, his +knowledge of it was large, nor confined to that of his own country, +although that alone was at present available for either of his pupils. +His seclusion from what is called the world had brought him into larger +and closer contact with what is really the world. The breakers upon +reef and shore may be the ocean to some, but he who would know the +ocean indeed must leave them afar, sinking into silence, and sail into +wider and lonelier spaces. Through Godfrey, Mary came to know of a land +never promised, yet open—a land of whose nature even she had never +dreamed—a land of the spirit, flowing with milk and honey—a land of +which the fashionable world knows little more than the dwellers in the +back slums, although it imagines it lying, with the kingdoms of the +earth, at its feet.</p> + +<p>As regards her feeling toward her new friend, this opener of unseen +doors, the greatness of her obligation to him wrought against +presumption and any possible folly. Besides, Mary was one who possessed +power over her own spirit—rare gift, given to none but those who do +something toward the taking of it. She was able in no small measure to +order her own thoughts. Without any theory of self-rule, she yet ruled +her Self. She was not one to slip about in the saddle, or let go the +reins for a kick and a plunge or two. There was the thing that should +be, and the thing that should not be; the thing that was reasonable, +and the thing that was absurd. Add to all this, that she believed she +saw in Mr. Wardour's behavior to his cousin, in the careful gentleness +evident through all the severity of the schoolmaster, the presence of a +deeper feeling, that might one day blossom to the bliss of her +friend—and we need not wonder if Mary's heart remained calm in the +very floods of its gratitude; while the truth she gathered by aid of +the intercourse, enlarging her strength, enlarged likewise the +composure that comes of strength. She did not even trouble herself much +to show Godfrey her gratitude. We may spoil gratitude as we offer it, +by insisting on its recognition. To receive honestly is the best thanks +for a good thing.</p> + +<p>Nor was Godfrey without payment for what he did: the revival of ancient +benefits, a new spring-time of old flowers, and the fresh quickening of +one's own soul, are the spiritual wages of every spiritual service. In +giving, a man receives more than he gives, and the <i>more</i> is in +proportion to the worth of the thing given.</p> + +<p>Mary did not encourage Letty to call at the shop, because the rudeness +of the Turnbulls was certain to break out on her departure, as it did +one day that Godfrey, dismounting at the door, and entering the shop in +quest of something for his mother, naturally shook hands with Mary over +the counter. No remark was made so long as her father was in the shop, +for, with all their professed contempt of him and his ways, the +Turnbulls stood curiously in awe of him: no one could tell what he +might or might not do, seeing they did not in the least understand him; +and there were reasons for avoiding offense.</p> + +<p>But the moment he retired, which he always did earlier than the rest, +the small-arms of the enemy began to go off, causing Mary a burning +cheek and indignant heart. Yet the great desire of Mr. Turnbull was a +match between George and Mary, for that would, whatever might happen, +secure the Marston money to the business. Their evil report Mary did +not carry to her father. She scorned to trouble his lofty nature with +her small annoyances; neither could they long keep down the wellspring +of her own peace, which, deeper than anger could reach, soon began to +rise again fresh in her spirit, fed from that water of life which +underlies all care. In a few moments it had cooled her cheek, stilled +her heart, and washed the wounds of offense.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br /><br /> +TOM HELMER.</h3> + +<p>When Tom Helmer's father died, his mother, who had never been able to +manage him, sent him to school to get rid of him, lamented his absence +till he returned, then writhed and fretted under his presence until +again he went. Never thereafter did those two, mother and son, meet, +whether from a separation of months or of hours, without at once +tumbling into an obstinate difference. When the youth was at home, +their sparring, to call it by a mild name, went on from morning to +night, and sometimes almost from night to morning. Primarily, of +course, the fault lay with the mother; and things would have gone far +worse, had not the youth, along with the self-will of his mother, +inherited his father's good nature. At school he was a great favorite, +and mostly had his own way, both with boys and masters, for, although a +fool, he was a pleasant fool, clever, fond of popularity, and +complaisant with everybody—except always his mother, the merest word +from whom would at once rouse all the rebel in his blood. In person he +was tall and loosely knit, with large joints and extremities. His face +was handsome and vivacious, expressing far more than was in him to +express, and giving ground for expectation such as he had never met. He +was by no means an ill-intentioned fellow, preferred doing well and +acting fairly, and neither at school nor at college had got into any +serious scrape. But he had never found it imperative to reach out after +his own ideal of duty. He had never been worthy the name of student, or +cared much for anything beyond the amusements the universities provide +so liberally, except dabbling in literature. Perhaps his only vice was +self-satisfaction—which few will admit to be a vice; remonstrance +never reached him; to himself he was ever in the right, judging himself +only by his sentiments and vague intents, never by his actions; that +these had little correspondence never struck him; it had never even +struck him that they ought to correspond. In his own eyes he did well +enough, and a good deal better. Gifted not only with fluency of speech, +that crowning glory and ruin of a fool, but with plausibility of tone +and demeanor, a confidence that imposed both on himself and on others, +and a certain dropsical impressionableness of surface which made him +seem and believe himself sympathetic, nobody could well help liking +him, and it took some time to make one accept the disappointment he +caused.</p> + +<p>He was now in his twenty-first year, at home, pretending that nothing +should make him go back to Oxford, and enjoying more than ever the +sport of plaguing his mother. A soul-doctor might have prescribed for +him a course of small-pox, to be followed by intermittent fever, with +nobody to wait upon him but Mrs. Gamp: after that, his mother might +have had a possible chance with him, and he with his mother. But, +unhappily, he had the best of health—supreme blessing in the eyes of +the fool whom it enables to be a worse fool still; and was altogether +the true son of his mother, who consoled herself for her absolute +failure in his moral education with the reflection that she had reared +him sound in wind and limb. Plaguing his mother, amusing himself as +best he could, riding about the country on a good mare, of which he was +proud, he was living in utter idleness, affording occasion for much +wonder that he had never yet disgraced himself. He talked to everybody +who would talk to him, and made acquaintance with anybody on the spur +of the moment's whim. He would sit on a log with a gypsy, and bamboozle +him with lies made for the purpose, then thrash him for not believing +them. He called here and called there, made himself specially agreeable +everywhere, went to every ball and evening party to which he could get +admittance in the neighborhood, and flirted with any girl who would let +him. He meant no harm, neither had done much, and was imagined by most +incapable of doing any. The strange thing to some was that he staid on +in the country, and did not go to London and run up bills for his +mother to pay; but the mare accounted for a good deal; and the fact +that almost immediately on his late return he had seen Letty and fallen +in love with her at first sight, accounted for a good deal more. Not +since then, however, had he yet been able to meet her so as only to +speak to her; for Thornwick was one of the few houses of the middle +class in the neighborhood where he was not encouraged to show himself. +He was constantly, therefore, on the watch for a chance of seeing her, +and every Sunday went to church in that same hope and no other. But +Letty knew nothing of the favor in which she stood with him; for, +although Tom had, as we have heard, confessed to her friend Mary +Marston his admiration of her, Mary had far too much good sense to make +herself his ally in the matter.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br /><br /> +DURNMELLING.</h3> + +<p>In the autumn, Mr. Mortimer of Durnmelling resolved to give a +harvest-home to his tenants, and under the protection of the occasion +to invite also a good many of his neighbors and of the townsfolk of +Testbridge, whom he could not well ask to dinner: there happened to be +a political expediency for something of the sort: America is not the +only country in which ambition opens the door to mean doings on the +part of such as count themselves gentlemen. Not a few on whom Lady +Margaret had never called, and whom she would never in any way +acknowledge again, were invited; nor did the knowledge of what it meant +cause many of them to decline the questionable honor—which fact +carried in it the best justification of which the meanness and insult +were capable. Mrs. Wardour accepted for herself and Letty; but in their +case Lady Margaret did call, and in person give the invitation. Godfrey +positively refused to accompany them. He would not be patronized, he +said; "—and by an inferior," he added to himself.</p> + +<p>Mr. Mortimer was the illiterate son of a literary father who had reaped +both money and fame. The son spent the former, on the strength of the +latter married an earl's daughter, and thereupon began to embody in his +own behavior his ideas of how a nobleman ought to carry himself; +whence, from being only a small, he became an objectionable man, and +failed of being amusing by making himself offensive. He had never +manifested the least approach to neighborliness with Godfrey, although +their houses were almost within a stone's throw of each other. Had +Wardour been an ordinary farmer, of whose presuming on the acquaintance +there could have been no danger, Mortimer would doubtless have behaved +differently; but as Wardour had some pretensions—namely, old family, a +small, though indeed <i>very</i> small, property of his own, a university +education, good horses, and the habits and manners of a gentleman—the +men scarcely even saluted when they met. The Mortimer ladies, indeed, +had more than once remarked—but it was in solemn silence, each to +herself only—how well the man sat, and how easily he handled the +hunter he always rode; but not once until now had so much as a greeting +passed between them and Mrs. Wardour. It was not therefore wonderful +that Godfrey should not choose to accept their invitation. Finding, +however, that his mother was distressed at having to go to the +gathering without him, and far more exercised in her mind than was +needful as to what would be thought of his absence, and what excuse it +would be becoming to make, he resolved to go to London a day or two +before the event, and pay a long-promised visit to a clerical friend.</p> + +<p>The relative situation of the houses—I mean the stone-and-lime +houses—of Durnmelling and Thornwick, was curious; and that they had at +one time formed part of the same property might have suggested itself +to any beholder. Durnmelling was built by an ancestor of Godfrey's, +who, forsaking the old nest for the new, had allowed Thornwick to sink +into a mere farmhouse, in which condition it had afterward become the +sole shelter of the withered fortunes of the Wardours. In the hands of +Godfrey's father, by a continuity of judicious cares, and a succession +of partial resurrections, it had been restored to something like its +original modest dignity. Durnmelling, too, had in part sunk into ruin, +and had been but partially recovered from it; still, it swelled +important beside its antecedent Thornwick. Nothing but a deep ha-ha +separated the two houses, of which the older and smaller occupied the +higher ground. Between it and the ha-ha was nothing but grass—in front +of the house fine enough and well enough kept to be called lawn, had +not Godfrey's pride refused the word. On the lower, the Durnmelling +side of the fence, were trees, shrubbery, and out-houses—the chimney +of one of which, the laundry, gave great offense to Mrs. Wardour, when, +as she said, wind and wash came together. But, although they stood so +near, there was no lawful means of communication between the houses +except the road; and the mile that implied was seldom indeed passed by +any of the unneighborly neighbors.</p> + +<p>The father of Lady Margaret would at one time have purchased Thornwick +at twice its value; but the present owner could not have bought it at +half its worth. He had of late been losing money heavily—whence, in +part, arose that anxiety of Lady Margaret's not to keep Mr. Redmain +fretting for his lunch.</p> + +<p>The house of Durnmelling, new compared with that of Thornwick, was yet, +as I have indicated, old enough to have passed also through +vicissitudes, and a large portion of the original structure had for +many years been nothing better than a ruin. Only a portion of one side +of its huge square was occupied by the family, and the rest of that +side was not habitable. Lady Margaret, of an ancient stock, had +gathered from it only pride, not reverence; therefore, while she valued +the old, she neglected it; and what money she and her husband at one +time spent upon the house, was devoted to addition and ornamentation, +nowise to preservation or restoration. They had enlarged both +dining-room and drawing-rooms to twice their former size, when half the +expense, with a few trees from a certain outlying oak-plantation of +their own, would have given them a room fit for a regal assembly. For, +constituting a portion of the same front in which they lived, lay +roofless, open to every wind that blew, its paved floor now and then in +winter covered with snow—an ancient hall, whose massy south wall was +pierced by three lovely windows, narrow and lofty, with simple, +gracious tracery in their pointed heads. This hall connected the +habitable portion of the house with another part, less ruinous than +itself, but containing only a few rooms in occasional use for household +purposes, or, upon necessity, for quite inferior lodgment. It was a +glorious ruin, of nearly a hundred feet in length, and about half that +in width, the walls entire, and broad enough to walk round upon in +safety. Their top was accessible from a tower, which formed part of the +less ruinous portion, and contained the stair and some small rooms.</p> + +<p>Once, the hall was fair with portraits and armor and arms, with fire +and lights, and state and merriment; now the sculptured chimney lay +open to the weather, and the sweeping winds had made its smooth +hearthstone clean as if fire had never been there. Its floor was +covered with large flags, a little broken: these, in prospect of the +coming entertainment, a few workmen were leveling, patching, replacing. +For the tables were to be set here, and here there was to be dancing +after the meal.</p> + +<p>It was Miss Yolland's idea, and to her was committed the responsibility +of its preparation and adornment for the occasion, in which Hesper gave +her active assistance. With colored blankets, with carpets, with a few +pieces of old tapestry, and a quantity of old curtains, mostly of +chintz, excellent in hues and design, all cunningly arranged for as +much of harmony as could be had, they contrived to clothe the walls to +the height of six or eight feet, and so gave the weather-beaten +skeleton an air of hospitable preparation and respectful reception.</p> + +<p>The day and the hour arrived. It was a hot autumnal afternoon. Borne in +all sorts of vehicles, from a carriage and pair to a taxed cart, the +guests kept coming. As they came, they mostly scattered about the +place. Some loitered on the lawn by the flower-beds and the fountain; +some visited the stables and the home-farm, with its cow-houses and +dairy and piggeries; some the neglected greenhouses, and some the +equally neglected old-fashioned alleys, with their clipped yews and +their moss-grown statues. No one belonging to the house was anywhere +visible to receive them, until the great bell at length summoned them +to the plentiful meal spread in the ruined hall. "The hospitality of +some people has no roof to it," Godfrey said, when he heard of the +preparations. "Ten people will give you a dinner, for one who will +offer you a bed and a breakfast:"</p> + +<p>Then at last their host made his appearance, and took the head of the +table: the ladies, he said, were to have the honor of joining the +company afterward. They were at the time—but this he did not +say—giving another stratum of society a less ponderous, but yet +tolerably substantial, refreshment in the dining-room.</p> + +<p>By the time the eating and drinking were nearly over, the shades of +evening had gathered; but even then some few of the farmers, capable +only of drinking, grumbled at having their potations interrupted for +the dancers. These were presently joined by the company from the house, +and the great hall was crowded.</p> + +<p>Much to her chagrin, Mrs. Wardour had a severe headache, occasioned by +her working half the night at her dress, and was compelled to remain at +home. But she allowed Letty to go without her, which she would not have +done had she not been so anxious to have news of what she could not +lift her head to see: she sent her with an old servant—herself one of +the invited guests—to gather and report. The dancing had begun before +they reached the hall.</p> + +<p>Tom Helmer had arrived among the first, and had joined the tenants in +their feast, faring well, and making friends, such as he knew how to +make, with everybody in his vicinity. When the tables were removed, and +the rest of the company began to come in, he went about searching +anxiously for Letty's sweet face, but it did not appear; and, when she +did arrive, she stole in without his seeing her, and stood mingled with +the crowd about the door.</p> + +<p>It was a pleasant sight that met her eyes. The wide space was gayly +illuminated with colored lamps, disposed on every shelf, and in every +crevice of the walls, some of them gleaming like glow-worms out of mere +holes; while candles in sconces, and lamps on the window-sills and +wherever they could stand, gave a light the more pleasing that it was +not brilliant. Overhead, the night-sky was spangled with clear pulsing +stars, afloat in a limpid blue, vast even to awfulness in the eyes of +such—were any such there?—as say to themselves that to those worlds +also were they born. Outside, it was dark, save where the light +streamed from the great windows far into the night. The moon was not +yet up; she would rise in good time to see the scattering guests to +their homes.</p> + +<p>Tom's heart had been sinking, for he could see Letty nowhere. Now at +last, he had been saying to himself all the day, had come his chance! +and his chance seemed but to mock him. More than any girl he had ever +seen, had Letty moved him—perhaps because she was more unlike his +mother. He knew nothing, it is true, or next to nothing, of her nature; +but that was of little consequence to one who knew nothing, and never +troubled himself to know anything, of his own. Was he doomed never to +come near his idol?—Ah, there she was! Yes; it was she—all but lost +in a humble group near the door! His foolish heart—not foolish in +that—gave a great bound, as if it would leap to her where she stood. +She was dressed in white muslin, from which her white throat rose warm +and soft. Her head was bent forward, and a gentle dissolved smile was +over all her face, as with loveliest eyes she watched eagerly the +motions of the dance, and her ears drank in the music of the yeomanry +band. He seized the first opportunity of getting nearer to her. He had +scarcely spoken to her before, but that did not trouble Tom. Even in a +more ceremonious assembly, that would never have abashed him; and here +there was little form, and much freedom. He had, besides, confidence in +his own carriage and manners—which, indeed, were those of a +gentleman—and knew himself not likely to repel by his approach.</p> + +<p>Mr. Mortimer had opened the dancing by leading out the wife of his +principal tenant, a handsome matron, whose behavior and expression were +such as to give a safe, home-like feeling to the shy and doubtful of +the company. But Tom knew better than injure his chance by +precipitation: he would wait until the dancing was more general, and +the impulse to movement stronger, and then offer himself. He stood +therefore near Letty for some little time, talking to everybody, and +making himself agreeable, as was his wont, all round; then at last, as +if he had just caught sight of her, walked up to her where she stood +flushed and eager, and asked her to favor him with her hand in the next +dance.</p> + +<p>By this time Letty had got familiar with his presence, had recalled her +former meeting with him, had heard his name spoken by not a few who +evidently liked him, and was quite pleased when he asked her to dance +with him.</p> + +<p>In the dance, nothing but commonplaces passed between them; but Tom had +a certain pleasant way of his own in saying the commonest, emptiest +things—an off-hand, glancing, skimming, swallow-like way of brushing +and leaving a thing, as if he "could an' if he would," which made it +seem for the moment as if he had said something: were his companion +capable of discovering the illusion, there was no time; Tom was +instantly away, carrying him or her with him to something else. But +there was better than this—there was poetry, more than one element of +it, in Tom. In the presence of a girl that pleased him, there would +rise in him a poetic atmosphere, full of a rainbow kind of glamour, +which, first possessing himself, passed out from him and called up a +similar atmosphere, a similar glamour, about many of the girls he +talked to. This he could no more help than the grass can help smelling +sweet after the rain.</p> + +<p>Tom was a finely projected, well-built, unfinished, barely furnished +house, with its great central room empty, where the devil, coming and +going at his pleasure, had not yet begun to make any great racket. +There might be endless embryonic evil in him, but Letty was aware of no +repellent atmosphere about him, and did not shrink from his advances. +He pleased her, and why should she not be pleased with him? Was it a +fault to be easily pleased? The truer and sweeter any human self, the +readier is it to be pleased with another self—save, indeed, something +in it grate on the moral sense: that jars through the whole harmonious +hypostasy. To Tom, therefore, Letty responded with smiles and pleasant +words, even grateful to such a fine youth for taking notice of her +small self.</p> + +<p>The sun had set in a bank of cloud, which, as if he had been a lump of +leaven to it, immediately began to swell and rise, and now hung dark +and thick over the still, warm night. Even the farmers were unobservant +of the change: their crops were all in, they had eaten and drunk +heartily, and were merry, looking on or sharing in the multiform +movement, their eyes filled with light and color.</p> + +<p>Suddenly came a torrent-sound in the air, heard of few and heeded by +none, and straight into the hall rushed upon the gay company a deluge +of rain, mingled with large, half-melted hail-stones. In a moment or +two scarce a light was left burning, except those in the holes and +recesses of the walls. The merrymakers scattered like flies—into the +house, into the tower, into the sheds and stables in the court behind, +under the trees in front—anywhere out of the hall, where shelter was +none from the perpendicular, abandoned down-pour.</p> + +<p>At that moment, Letty was dancing with Tom, and her hand happened to be +in his. He clasped it tight, and, as quickly as the crowd and the +confusion of shelter-seeking would permit, led her to the door of the +tower already mentioned. But many had run in the same direction, and +already its lower story and stair were crowded with refugees—the elder +bemoaning the sudden change, and folding tight around them what poor +wraps they were fortunate enough to have retained; the younger merrier +than ever, notwithstanding the cold gusts that now poked their +spirit-arms higher and thither through the openings of the half-ruinous +building: to them even the destruction of their finery was but added +cause of laughter. But a few minutes before, its freshness had been a +keen pleasure to them, brightening their consciousness with a rare +feeling of perfection; now crushed and rumpled, soiled and wet and +torn, it was still fuel to the fire of gayety. But Tom did not stay +among them. He knew the place well; having a turn for scrambling, he +had been all over it many a time. On through the crowd, he led Letty up +the stair to the first floor. Even here were a few couples talking and +laughing in the dark. With a warning, by no means unnecessary, to mind +where they stepped, for the floors were bad, he passed on to the next +stair.</p> + +<p>"Let us stop here, Mr. Helmer," said Letty. "There is plenty of room +here."</p> + +<p>"I want to show you something," answered Tom. "You need not be +frightened. I know every nook of the place."</p> + +<p>"I am not frightened," said Letty, and made no further objection.</p> + +<p>At the top of that stair they entered a straight passage, in the middle +of which was a faint glimmer of light from an oval aperture in the side +of it. Thither Tom led Letty, and told her to look through. She did so.</p> + +<p>Beneath lay the great gulf, wide and deep, of the hall they had just +left. This was the little window, high in its gable, through which, in +far-away times, the lord or lady of the mansion could oversee at will +whatever went on below.</p> + +<p>The rain had ceased as suddenly as it came on, and already lights were +moving about in the darkness of the abyss—one, and another, and +another, was searching for something lost in the hurry of the +scattering. It was a waste and dismal show. Neither of them had read +Dante; but Letty may have thought of the hall of Belshazzar, the night +after the hand-haunted revel, when the Medes had had their will; for +she had but lately read the story. A strange fear came upon her, and +she drew back with a shudder.</p> + +<p>"Are you cold?" said Tom. "Of course you must be, with nothing but that +thin muslin! Shall I run down and get you a shawl?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no! do not leave me, please. It's not that," answered Letty. "I +don't mind the wind a bit; it's rather pleasant. It's only that the +look of the place makes me miserable, I think. It looks as if no one +had danced there for a hundred years."</p> + +<p>"Neither any one has, I suppose, till to-night," said Tom. "What a fine +place it would be if only it had a roof to it! I can't think how any +one can live beside it and leave it like that!"</p> + +<p>But Tom lived a good deal closer to a worse ruin, and never spent a +thought on it.</p> + +<p>Letty shivered again.</p> + +<p>"I'm quite ashamed of myself," she said, trying to speak cheerfully. "I +can't think why I should feel like this—just as if something dreadful +were watching me! I'll go home, Mr. Helmer.".</p> + +<p>"It will be much the safest thing to do: I fear you have indeed caught +cold," replied Tom, rejoiced at the chance of accompanying her. "I +shall be delighted to see you safe."</p> + +<p>"There is not the least occasion for that, thank you," answered Letty. +"I have an old servant of my aunt's with me—somewhere about the place. +The storm is quite over now: I will go and find her."</p> + +<p>Tom made no objection, but helped her down the dark stair, hoping, +however, the servant might not be found.</p> + +<p>As they went, Letty seemed to herself to be walking in some old dream +of change and desertion. The tower was empty as a monument, not a trace +of the crowd left, which a few minutes before had thronged it. The wind +had risen in earnest now, and was rushing about, like a cold wild +ghost, through every cranny of the desolate place. Had Letty, when she +reached the bottom of the stairs, found herself on the rocks of the +seashore, with the waves dashing up against them, she would only have +said to herself, "I knew I was in a dream!" But the wind having blown +away the hail-cloud, the stars were again shining down into the hall. +One or two forlorn-looking searchers were still there; the rest had +scattered like the gnats. A few were already at home; some were +harnessing their horses to go, nor would wait for the man in the moon +to light his lantern; some were already trudging on foot through the +dark. Hesper and Miss Yolland were talking to two or three friends in +the drawing-room; Lady Margaret was in her boudoir, and Mr. Mortimer +smoking a cigar in his study.</p> + +<p>Nowhere could Letty find Susan. She was in the farmer's kitchen behind. +Tom suspected as much, but was far from hinting the possibility. Letty +found her cloak, which she had left in the hall, soaked with rain, and +thought it prudent to go home at once, nor prosecute her search for +Susan further. She accepted, therefore, Tom's renewed offer of his +company.</p> + +<p>They were just leaving the hall, when a thought came to Letty: the moon +suddenly appearing above the horizon had put it in her head.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she cried, "I know quite a short way home!" and, without waiting +any response from her companion, she turned, and led him in an opposite +direction, round, namely, by the back of the court, into a field. There +she made for a huge oak, which gloomed in the moonlight by the sunk +fence parting the grounds. In the slow strength of its growth, by the +rounding of its bole, and the spreading of its roots, it had so rent +and crumbled the wall as to make through it a little ravine, leading to +the top of the ha-ha. When they reached it, before even Tom saw it, +Letty turned from him, and was up in a moment. At the top she turned to +bid him good night, but there he was, close behind her, insisting on +seeing her safe to the house.</p> + +<p>"Is this the way you always come?" asked Tom.</p> + +<p>"I never was on Durnmelling land before," answered Letty.</p> + +<p>"How did you find the short-cut, then?" he asked. "It certainly does +not look as if it were much used."</p> + +<p>"Of course not," replied Letty. "There is no communication between +Durnmelling and Thornwick now. It was all ours once, though, Cousin +Godfrey says. Did you notice how the great oak sends its biggest arm +over our field?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, I often sit there under it, when I want to learn my lesson, and +can't rest in the house; and that's how I know of the crack in the +ha-ha."</p> + +<p>She said it in absolute innocence, but Tom laid it up in his mind.</p> + +<p>"Are you at lessons still?" he said. "Have you a governess?"</p> + +<p>"No," she answered, in a tone of amusement. "But Cousin Godfrey teaches +me many things."</p> + +<p>This made Tom thoughtful; and little more had been said, when they +reached the gate of the yard behind the house, and she would not let +him go a step farther.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br /><br /> +THE OAK.</h3> + +<p>In the morning, as she narrated the events of the evening, she told her +aunt of the acquaintance she had made, and that he had seen her home. +This information did not please the old lady, as, indeed, without +knowing any reason, Letty had expected. Mrs. Wardour knew all about +Tom's mother, or thought she did, and knew little good; she knew also +that, although her son was a general favorite, her own son had a very +poor opinion of him. On these grounds, and without a thought of +injustice to Letty, she sharply rebuked the poor girl for allowing such +a fellow to pay her any attention, and declared that, if ever she +permitted him so much as to speak to her again, she would do something +which she left in a cloud of vaguest suggestion.</p> + +<p>Letty made no reply. She was hurt. Nor was it any wonder if she judged +this judgment of Tom by the injustice of the judge to herself. It was +of no consequence to her, she said to herself, whether she spoke to him +again or not; but had any one the right to compel another to behave +rudely? Only what did it matter, since there was so little chance of +her ever seeing him again! All day she felt weary and disappointed, +and, after the merrymaking of the night before, the household work was +irksome. But she would soon have got over both weariness and tedium had +her aunt been kind. It is true, she did not again refer to Tom, taking +it for granted that he was done with; but all day she kept driving +Letty from one thing to another, nor was once satisfied with anything +she did, called her even an ungrateful girl, and, before evening, had +rendered her more tired, mortified, and dispirited, than she had ever +been in her life.</p> + +<p>But the tormentor was no demon; she was only doing what all of us have +often done, and ought to be heartily ashamed of: she was only emptying +her fountain of bitter water. Oppressed with the dregs of her headache, +wretched because of her son's absence, who had not been a night from +home for years, annoyed that she had spent time and money in +preparation for nothing, she had allowed the said cistern to fill to +overflowing, and upon Letty it overflowed like a small deluge. Like +some of the rest of us, she never reflected how balefully her evil mood +might operate; and that all things work for good in the end, will not +cover those by whom come the offenses. Another night's rest, it is +true, sent the evil mood to sleep again for a time, but did not +exorcise it; for there are demons that go not out without prayer, and a +bad temper is one of them—a demon as contemptible, mean-spirited, and +unjust, as any in the peerage of hell—much petted, nevertheless, and +excused, by us poor lunatics who are possessed by him. Mrs. Wardour was +a lady, as the ladies of this world go, but a poor lady for the kingdom +of heaven: I should wonder much if she ranked as more than a very +common woman there.</p> + +<p>The next day all was quiet; and a visit paid Mrs. Wardour by a favorite +sister whom she had not seen for months, set Letty at such liberty as +she seldom had. In the afternoon she took the book Godfrey had given +her, in which he had set her one of Milton's smaller poems to study, +and sought the shadow of the Durnmelling oak.</p> + +<p>It was a lovely autumn day, the sun glorious as ever in the memory of +Abraham, or the author of Job, or the builder of the scaled pyramid at +Sakkara. But there was a keenness in the air notwithstanding, which +made Letty feel a little sad without knowing why, as she seated herself +to the task Cousin Godfrey had set her. She, as well as his mother, +heartily wished he were home. She was afraid of him, it is true; but in +how different a way from that in which she was afraid of his mother! +His absence did not make her feel free, and to escape from his mother +was sometimes the whole desire of her day.</p> + +<p>She was trying hard, not altogether successfully, to fix her attention +on her task, when a yellow leaf dropped on the very line she was poring +over. Thinking how soon the trees would be bare once more, she brushed +the leaf away, and resumed her lesson.</p> + +<p class="c">"To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light,"</p> + +<p class="nind">she had just read once more, when down fell a second tree-leaf on the +book-leaf. Again she brushed it away, and read to the end of the sonnet:</p> + +<p>"Hast gained thy entrance, virgin wise and pure."</p> + +<p>What Letty's thoughts about the sonnet were, I can not tell: how fix +thought indefinite in words defined? But her angel might well have +thought what a weary road she had to walk before she gained that +entrance. But for all of us the road <i>has</i> to be walked, every step, +and the uttermost farthing paid. The gate will open wide to welcome us, +but it will not come to meet us. Neither is it any use to turn aside; +it only makes the road longer and harder.</p> + +<p>Down on the same spot fell the third leaf. Letty looked up. There was a +man in the tree over her head. She started to her feet. At the same +moment, he dropped on the ground beside her, lifting his hat as coolly +as if he had met her on the road. Her heart seemed to stand still with +fright. She stood silent, with white lips parted.</p> + +<p>"I hope I haven't frightened you," said Tom. "Do forgive me," he added, +becoming more aware of the perturbation he had caused her. "You were so +kind to me the other night, I could not help wanting to see you again. +I had no idea the sight of me would terrify you so."</p> + +<p>"You gave me such a start!" gasped Letty, with her hand pressed on her +heart.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid of it," answered Tom; "but what could I do? I was +certain, if you saw me coming, you would run away."</p> + +<p>"Why should you think that?" asked Letty, a faint color rising in her +cheek.</p> + +<p>"Because," answered Tom, "I was sure they would be telling you all +manner of things against me. But there is no harm in me—really, Miss +Lovel—nothing, that is, worth mentioning."</p> + +<p>"I am sure there isn't," said Letty; and then there was a pause.</p> + +<p>"What book are you reading, may I ask?" said Tom.</p> + +<p>Letty had now remembered her aunt's injunctions and threats; but, +partly from a kind of paralysis caused by his coolness, partly from its +being impossible to her nature to be curt with any one with whom she +was not angry, partly from mere lack of presence of mind, not knowing +what to do, yet feeling she ought to run to the house, what should she +do but drop down again on the very spot whence she had been scared! +Instantly Tom threw himself on the grass at her feet, and there lay, +looking up at her with eyes of humble admiration.</p> + +<p>Confused and troubled, she began to turn over the leaves of her book. +She supposed afterward she must have asked him why he stared at her so, +for the next thing she remembered was hearing him say:</p> + +<p>"I can't help it. You are so lovely!"</p> + +<p>"Please don't talk such nonsense to me," she rejoined. "I am not +lovely, and I know it. What is not true can not please anybody."</p> + +<p>She spoke a little angrily now.</p> + +<p>"I speak the truth," said Tom, quietly and earnestly. "Why should you +think I do not?"</p> + +<p>"Because nobody ever said so before."</p> + +<p>"Then it is quite time somebody should say so," returned Tom, changing +his tone. "It may be a painful fact, but even ladies ought to be told +the truth, and learn to bear it. To say you are not lovely would be a +downright lie."</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't talk to me about myself!" said Letty, feeling +confused and improper, but not altogether displeased that it was +possible for such a mistake to be made. "I don't want to hear about +myself. It makes me so uncomfortable! I am sure it isn't right: is it, +now, Mr. Helmer?"</p> + +<p>As she ended, the tears rose in her eyes, partly from unanalyzed +uneasiness at the position in which she found herself and the turn the +talk had taken, partly from the discomfort of conscious disobedience. +But still she did not move.</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry if I have vexed you," said Tom, seeing her evident +trouble. "I can't think how I've done it. I know I didn't mean to; and +I promise you not to say a word of the kind again—if I can help it. +But tell me, Letty," he went on again, changing in tone and look and +manner, and calling her by her name with such simplicity that she never +even noticed it, "do tell me what you are reading, and that will keep +me from <i>talking</i> about you—not from—the other thing, you know."</p> + +<p>"There!" said Letty, almost crossly, handing him her book, and pointing +to the sonnet, as she rose to go.</p> + +<p>Tom took the book, and sprang to his feet. He had never read the poem, +for Milton had not been one of his masters. He stood devouring it. He +was doing his best to lay hold of it quickly, for there Letty stood, +with her hand held out to take the book again, ready upon its +restoration to go at once. Silent and motionless, to all appearance +unhasting, he read and reread. Letty was restless, and growing quite +impatient; but still Tom read, a smile slow-spreading from his eyes +over his face; he was taking possession of the poem, he would have +said. But the shades and kinds and degrees of possession are +innumerable; and not until we downright love a thing, can we <i>know</i> we +understand it, or rightly call it our own; Tom only admired this one; +it was all he was capable of in regard to such at present. Had the whim +for acquainting himself with it seized him in his own study, he would +have satisfied it with a far more superficial interview; but the +presence of the girl, with those eyes fixed on him as he read—his +mind's eye saw them—was for the moment an enlargement of his being, +whose phase to himself was a consciousness of ignorance.</p> + +<p>"It is a beautiful poem," he said at last, quite honestly; and, raising +his eyes, he looked straight in hers. There is hardly a limit to the +knowledge and sympathy a man may have in respect of the finest things, +and yet be a fool. Sympathy is not harmony. A man may be a poet even, +and speak with the tongue of an angel, and yet be a very bad fool.</p> + +<p>"I am sure it must be a beautiful poem," said Letty; "but I have hardly +got a hold of it yet." And she stretched her hand a little farther, as +if to proceed with its appropriation.</p> + +<p>But Tom was not yet prepared to part with the book. He proceeded +instead, in fluent speech and not inappropriate language, to set forth, +not the power of the poem—that he both took and left as a matter of +course—but the beauty of those phrases, and the turns of those +expressions, which particularly pleased him—nor failing to remark +that, according to the strict laws of English verse, there was in it +one bad rhyme.</p> + +<p>That point Letty begged him to explain, thus leading Tom to an +exposition of the laws of rhyme, in which, as far as English was +concerned, he happened to be something of an expert, partly from an +early habit of scribbling in ladies' albums. About these surface +affairs, Godfrey, understanding them better and valuing them more than +Tom, had yet taught Letty nothing, judging it premature to teach +polishing before carving; and hence this little display of knowledge on +the part of Tom impressed Letty more than was adequate—so much, +indeed, that she began to regard him as a sage, and a compeer of her +cousin Godfrey. Question followed question, and answer followed answer, +Letty feeling all the time she <i>must</i> go, yet standing and standing, +like one in a dream, who thinks he can not, and certainly does not +break its spell—for in the act only is the ability and the deed born. +Besides, was she to go away and leave her beautiful book in his hand? +What would Godfrey think if she did? Again and again she stretched out +her own to take it, but, although he saw the motion, he held on to the +book as to his best anchor, hurriedly turned its leaves by fits and +searching for something more to his mind than anything of Milton's. +Suddenly his face brightened.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he said—and remained a moment silent, reading. "I don't wonder," +he resumed, "at your admiration of Milton. He's very grand, of course, +and very musical, too; but one can't be listening to an organ always. +Not that I prefer merry music; that must be inferior, for the tone of +all the beauty in the world is sad." Much Tom Helmer knew of beauty or +sadness either! but ignorance is no reason with a fool for holding his +tongue. "But there is the violin, now!—that can be as sad as any +organ, without being so ponderous. Hear this, now! This is the violin +after the organ—played as only a master can!"</p> + +<p>With this preamble, he read a song of Shelley's, and read it well, for +he had a good ear for rhythm and cadence, and prided himself on his +reading of poetry.</p> + +<p>Now the path to Letty's heart through her intellect was neither open +nor well trodden; but the song in question was a winged one, and flew +straight thither; there was something in the tone of it that suited the +pitch of her spirit-chamber. And, if Letty's heart was not easily +found, it was the readier to confess itself when found. Her eyes filled +with tears, and through those tears Tom looked large and injured. "He +must be a poet himself to read poetry like that!" she said to herself, +and felt thoroughly assured that her aunt had wronged him greatly. +"Some people scorn poetry like sin," she said again. "I used myself to +think it was only for children, until Cousin Godfrey taught me +differently."</p> + +<p>As thus her thoughts went on interweaving themselves with the music, +all at once the song came to an end. Tom closed the book, handed it to +her, said, "Good morning, Miss Lovel," and ran down the rent in the +ha-ha; and, before Letty could come to herself, she heard the soft +thunder of hoofs on the grass. She ran to the edge, and, looking over, +saw Tom on his bay mare, at full gallop across the field. She watched +him as he neared the hedge and ditch that bounded it, saw him go flying +over, and lost sight of him behind a hazel-copse. Slowly, then, she +turned, and slowly she went back to the house and up to her room, +vaguely aware that a wind had begun to blow in her atmosphere, although +only the sound of it had yet reached her.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br /><br /> +CONFUSION.</h3> + +<p>Then first, and from that moment, Letty's troubles began. Up to this +point neither she herself nor another could array troublous accusation +or uneasy thought against her; and now she began to feel like a very +target, which exists but to receive the piercing of arrows. At first +sight, and if we do not look a long way ahead of what people stupidly +regard as the end when it is only an horizon, it seems hard that so +much we call evil, and so much that is evil, should result from that +unavoidable, blameless, foreordained, preconstituted, and essential +attraction which is the law of nature, that is the will of God, between +man and woman. Even if Letty had fallen in love with Tom at first +sight, who dares have the assurance to blame her? who will dare to say +that Tom was blameworthy in seeking the society and friendship, even +the love, of a woman whom in all sincerity he admired, or for using his +wits to get into her presence, and detain her a little in his company? +Reasons there are, infinitely deeper than any philosopher has yet +fathomed, or is likely to fathom, why a youth such as he—foolish, +indeed, but not foolish in this—and a sweet and blameless girl such as +Letty, should exchange regards of admiration and wonder. That which +thus moves them, and goes on to draw them closer and closer, comes with +them from the very source of their being, and is as reverend as it is +lovely, rooted in all the gentle potencies and sweet glories of +creation, and not unworthily watered with all the tears of agony and +ecstasy shed by lovers since the creation of the world. What it is, I +can not tell; I only know it is <i>not</i> that which the young fool calls +it, still less that which the old sinner thinks it. As to Letty's +disobedience of her aunt's extravagant orders concerning Tom, I must +leave that to the judgment of the just, reminding them that she was +taken by surprise, and that, besides, it was next to impossible to obey +them. But Letty found herself very uncomfortable, because there now was +that to be known of her, the knowledge of which would highly displease +her aunt—for which very reason, if for no other, ought she not to tell +her all? On the other hand, when she recalled how unkindly, how +unjustly her aunt had spoken, when she confessed her new acquaintance, +it became to her a question whether in very deed she <i>must</i> tell her +all that had passed that afternoon. There was no smallest hope of any +recognition of the act, surely more hard than incumbent, but severity +and unreason; <i>must</i> she let the thing out of her hands, and yield +herself a helpless prey—and that for good to none? Concerning Mrs. +Wardour, she reasoned justly: she who is even once unjust can not +complain if the like is expected of her again.</p> + +<p>But, supposing it remained Letty's duty to acquaint her aunt with what +had taken place, and not forgetting that, as one of the old people, I +have to render account of the young that come after me, and must be +careful over their lovely dignities and fair duties, I yet make haste +to assert that the old people, who make it hard for the young people to +do right, may be twice as much to blame as those whom they arraign for +a concealment whose very heart is the dread of their known selfishness, +fierceness, and injustice. If children have to obey their parents or +guardians, those parents and guardians are over them in the name of +God, and they must look to it: if in the name of God they act the +devil, that will not prove a light thing for their answer. The causing +of the little ones to offend hangs a fearful woe about the neck of the +causer. It were a hard, as well as a needless task, seeing there is One +who judges, to set forth how far the child is to blame as toward the +parent, where the parent first of all is utterly wrong, yea out of true +relation, toward the child. Not, therefore, is the child free; +obligation remains—modified, it may be, but how difficult, alas, to +fulfill! And, whether Letty and such as act like her are <i>excusable</i> or +not in keeping attentions paid them a secret, this sorrow for the good +ones of them certainly remains, that, next to a crime, a secret is the +heaviest as well as the most awkward of burdens to carry. It has to be +carried always, and all about. From morning to night it hurts in +tenderest parts, and from night to morning hurts everywhere. At any +expense, let there be openness. Take courage, my child, and speak out. +Dare to speak, I say, and that will give you strength to resist, should +disobedience become a duty. Letty's first false step was here: she said +to herself <i>I can not</i> , and did not. She lacked courage—a want in her +case not much to be wondered at, but much to be deplored, for courage +of the true sort is just as needful to the character of a woman as of a +man. Had she spoken, she might have heard true things of Tom, +sufficient so to alter her opinion of him as, at this early stage of +their intercourse, to alter the <i>set</i> of her feelings, which now was +straight for him. It may be such an exercise of courage would have +rendered the troubles that were now to follow unnecessary to her +development. For lack of it, she went about from that time with the +haunting consciousness that she was one who might be found out; that +she was guilty of what would go a good way to justify the hard words +she had so resented. Already the secret had begun to work conscious +woe. She contrived, however, to quiet herself a little with the idea, +rather than the resolve, that, as soon as Godfrey came home, she would +tell him all, confessing, too, that she had not the courage to tell his +mother. She was sure, she said to herself, he would forgive her, would +set her at peace with herself, and be unfair neither to Mr. Helmer nor +to her. In the mean time she would take care—and this was a real +resolve, not a mere act contemplated in the future—not to go where she +might meet him again. Nor was the resolve the less genuine that, with +the very making of it, rose the memory of that delightful hour more +enticing than ever. How beautifully, and with what feeling, he read the +lovely song! With what appreciation had he not expounded Milton's +beautiful poem! Not yet was she capable of bethinking herself that it +was but on this phrase and on that he had dwelt, on this and on that +line and rhythm, enforcing their loveliness of sound and shape; while +the poem, the really important thing, the drift of the whole—it was +her own heart and conscience that revealed that to her, not the +exposition of one who at best could understand it only with his brain. +She kept to her resolve, nevertheless; and, although Tom, leaving his +horse now here now there, to avoid attracting attention, almost every +day visited the oak, he looked in vain for the light of her approach. +Disappointment increased his longing: what would he not have given to +see once more one of those exquisite smiles break out in its perfect +blossom! He kept going and going—haunted the oak, sure of some blessed +chance at last. It was the first time in his life he had followed one +idea for a whole fortnight.</p> + +<p>At length Godfrey came. But, although all the time he was away Letty +had retained and contemplated with tolerable calmness the idea of +making her confession to him, the moment she saw him she felt such +confession impossible. It was a sad discovery to her. Hitherto Godfrey, +and especially of late, had been the chief source of the peace and +interest of her life, that portion of her life, namely, to which all +the rest of it looked as its sky, its overhanging betterness—and now +she felt before him like a culprit: she had done what he might be +displeased with. Nay, would that were all! for she felt like a +hypocrite: she had done that which she could not confess. Again and +again, while Godfrey was away, she had flattered herself that the help +the objectionable Tom had given her with her task would at once +recommend him to Godfrey's favorable regard; but now that she looked in +Godfrey's face, she was aware—she did not know why, but she was aware +it would not be so. Besides, she plainly saw that the same fact would, +almost of necessity, lead him to imagine there had been much more +between them than was the case; and she argued with herself, that, now +there was nothing, now that everything was over, it would be a pity if, +because of what she could not help, and what would never be again, +there should arise anything, however small, of a misunderstanding +between her cousin Godfrey and her.</p> + +<p>The moment Godfrey saw her, he knew that something was the matter; but +there had been that going on in him which put him on a false track for +the explanation. Scarcely had he, on his departure for London, turned +his back on Thornwick, ere he found he was leaving one whom yet he +could not leave behind him. Every hour of his absence he found his +thoughts with the sweet face and ministering hands of his humble pupil. +Therewith, however, it was nowise revealed to him that he was in love +with her. He thought of her only as his younger sister, loving, +clinging, obedient. So dear was she to him, he thought, that he would +rejoice to secure her happiness at any cost to himself. <i>Any</i> cost? he +asked—and reflected. Yes, he answered himself—even the cost of giving +her to a better man. The thing was sure to come, he thought—nor +thought without a keen pang, scarcely eased by the dignity of the +self-denial that would yield her with a smile. But such a crisis was +far away, and there was no necessity for now contemplating it. Indeed, +there was no <i>certainty</i> it would ever arrive; it was only a +possibility. The child was not beautiful, although to him she was +lovely, and, being also penniless, was therefore not likely to attract +attention; while, if her being unfolded under the genial influences he +was doing his best to make powerful upon her, if she grew aware that by +them her life was enlarging and being tenfold enriched, it was possible +she might not be ready to fall in love, and leave Thornwick. He must be +careful, however, he said to himself, quite plainly now, that his +behavior should lead her into no error. He was not afraid she might +fall in love with him; he was not so full of himself as that; but he +recoiled from the idea, as from a humiliation, that she might imagine +him in love with her. It was not merely that he had loved once for all, +and, once deceived and forsaken, would love no more; but it was not for +him, a man of thirty years, to bow beneath the yoke of a girl of +eighteen—a child in everything except outward growth. Not for a moment +would he be imagined by her a courtier for her favor.</p> + +<p>Thus, even in the heart of one so far above ordinary men as Godfrey, +and that in respect of the sweetest of child-maidens, pride had its +evil place; and no good ever comes of pride, for it is the meanest of +mean things, and no one but he who is full of it thinks it grand. For +its sake this wise man was firmly resolved on caution; and so, when at +last they met, it was no more with that <i>abandon</i> of simple pleasure +with which he had been wont to receive her when she came knocking at +the door of his study, bearing clear question or formless perplexity; +and his restraint would of itself have been enough to make Letty, whose +heart was now beating in a very thicket of nerves, at once feel it +impossible to carry out her intent—impossible to confess to him any +more than to his mother; while Godfrey, on his part, perceiving her +manifest shyness and unwonted embarrassment, attributed them altogether +to his own wisely guarded behavior, and, seeing therein no sign of loss +of influence, continued his caution. Thus the pride, which is of man, +mingled with the love, which is of God, and polluted it. From that hour +he began to lord it over the girl; and this change in his behavior +immediately reacted on himself, in the obscure perception that there +might be danger to her in continued freedom of intercourse: he must, +therefore, he concluded, order the way for both; he must take care of +her as well as of himself. But was it consistent with this resolve that +he should, for a whole month, spend every leisure moment in working at +a present for her—a written marvel of neatness and legibility?</p> + +<p>Again, by this meeting askance, as it were, another disintegrating +force was called into operation: the moment Letty knew she could not +tell Godfrey, and that therefore a wall had arisen between him and her, +that moment woke in her the desire, as she had never felt it before, to +see Tom Helmer. She could no longer bear to be shut up in herself; she +must see somebody, get near to somebody, talk to somebody; her secret +would choke her otherwise, would swell and break her heart; and who was +there to think of but Tom—and Mary Marston?</p> + +<p>She had never once gone to the oak again, but she had not altogether +avoided a certain little cobwebbed gable-window in the garret, from +which it was visible; neither had she withheld her hands from cleaning +a pane in that window, that through it she might see the oak; and +there, more than once or twice, now thickening the huge limb, now +spotting the grass beneath it, she had descried a dark object, which +could be nothing else than Tom Helmer on the watch for herself. He must +surely be her friend, she reasoned, or how would he care, day after +day, to climb a tree to look if she were coming—she who was the +veriest nobody in all other eyes but his? It was so good of Tom! She +<i>would</i> call him Tom; everybody else called him Tom, and why shouldn't +she—to herself, when nobody was near? As to Mary Marston, she treated +her like a child! When she told her that she had met Tom at +Durnmelling, and how kind he had been, she looked as grave as if it had +been wicked to be civil to him; and told her in return how he and his +mother were always quarreling: that must be his mother's fault, she was +sure-it could not be Tom's; any one might see that at a glance! His +mother must be something like her aunt! But, after that, how could she +tell Mary any more? It would not be fair to Tom, for, like the rest, +she would certainly begin to abuse him. What harm could come of it? +and, if harm did, how could she help it! If they had been kind to her, +she would have told them everything, but they all frightened her so, +she could not speak. It was not her fault if Tom was the only friend +she had! She <i>would</i> ask his advice; he was sure to advise her just the +right thing. He had read that sonnet about the wise virgin with such +feeling and such force, he <i>must</i> know what a girl ought to do, and how +she ought to behave to those who were unkind and would not trust her.</p> + +<p>Poor Letty! she had no stay, no root in herself yet. Well do I know not +one human being ought, even were it possible, to be enough for himself; +each of us needs God and every human soul he has made, before he has +enough; but we ought each to be able, in the hope of what is one day to +come, to endure for a time, not having enough. Letty was unblamable +that she desired the comfort of humanity around her soul, but I am not +sure that she was quite unblamable in not being fit to walk a few steps +alone, or even to sit still and expect. With all his learning, Godfrey +had not taught her what William Marston had taught Mary; and now her +heart was like a child left alone in a great room. She had not yet +learned that we must each bear his own burden, and so become able to +bear each the burden of the other. Poor friends we are, if we are +capable only of leaning, and able never to support.</p> + +<p>But the moment Letty's heart had thus cried out against Mary, came a +shock, and something else cried out against herself, telling her that +she was not fair to her friend, and that Mary, and no other, was the +proper person to advise with in this emergency of her affairs. She had +no right to turn from her because she was a little afraid of her. +Perhaps Letty was on the point of discovering that to be unable to bear +disapproval was an unworthy weakness. But in her case it came nowise of +the pride which blame stirs to resentment, but altogether of the +self-depreciation which disapproval rouses to yet greater dispiriting. +Praise was to her a precious thing, in part because it made her feel as +if she could go on; blame, a misery, in part because it made her feel +as if all was of no use, she never could do anything right. She had not +yet learned that the right is the right, come of praise or blame what +may. The right will produce more right and be its own reward—in the +end a reward altogether infinite, for God will meet it with what is +deeper than all right, namely, perfect love. But the more Letty +thought, the more she was sure she must tell Mary; and, disapprove as +she might, Mary was a very different object of alarm from either her +aunt or her cousin Godfrey.</p> + +<p>The first afternoon, therefore, on which she thought her aunt could +spare her, she begged leave to go and see Mary. Mrs. Wardour yielded +it, but not very graciously. She had, indeed, granted that Miss Marston +was not like other shop-girls, but she did not favor the growth of the +intimacy, and liked Letty's going to her less than Mary's coming to +Thornwick.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.<br /><br /> +THE HEATH AND THE HUT.</h3> + +<p>Letty seldom went into the shop, except to buy, for she knew Mr. +Turnbull would not like it, and Mary did not encourage it; but now her +misery made her bold. Mary saw the trouble in her eyes, and without a +moment's hesitation drew her inside the counter, and thence into the +house, where she led the way to her own room, up stairs and through +passages which were indeed lanes through masses of merchandise, like +those cut through deep-drifted snow. It was shop all over the house, +till they came to the door of Mary's chamber, which, opening from such +surroundings, had upon Letty much the effect of a chapel—and rightly, +for it was a room not unused to having its door shut. It was small, and +plainly but daintily furnished, with no foolish excess of the small +refinements on which girls so often set value, spending large time on +what it would be waste to buy: only they have to kill the weary captive +they know not how to redeem, for he troubles them with his moans.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, Letty dear, and tell me what is the matter," said Mary, +placing her friend in a chintz-covered straw chair, and seating herself +beside her.</p> + +<p>Letty burst into tears, and sat sobbing.</p> + +<p>"Come, dear, tell me all about it," insisted Mary. "If you don't make +haste, they will be calling me."</p> + +<p>Letty could not speak.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll tell you what," said Mary; "you must stop with me to-night, +that we may have time to talk it over. You sit here and amuse yourself +as well as you can till the shop is shut, and then we shall have such a +talk! I will send your tea up here. Beenie will be good to you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but, indeed, I can't!" sobbed Letty; "my aunt would never forgive +me."</p> + +<p>"You silly child! I never meant to keep you without sending to your +aunt to let her know."</p> + +<p>"She won't let me stop," persisted Letty.</p> + +<p>"We will try her," said Mary, confidently; and, without more ado, left +Letty, and, going to her desk in the shop, wrote a note to Mrs. +Wardour. This she gave to Beenie to send by special messenger to +Thornwick; after which, she told her, she must take up a nice tea to +Miss Lovel in her bedroom. Mary then resumed her place in the shop, +under the frowns and side-glances of Turnbull, and the smile of her +father, pleased at her reappearance from even such a short absence.</p> + +<p>But the return, in an hour or so, of the boy-messenger, whom Beenie had +taken care not to pay beforehand, destroyed the hope of a pleasant +evening; for he brought a note from Mrs. Wardour, absolutely refusing +to allow Letty to spend the night from home: she must return +immediately, so as to get in before dark.</p> + +<p>The rare anger flushed Letty's cheek and flashed from her eyes as she +read; for, in addition to the prime annoyance, her aunt's note was +addressed to her and not to Mary, to whom it did not even allude. Mary +only smiled inwardly at this, but Letty felt deeply hurt, and her +displeasure with her aunt added yet a shade to the dimness of her +judgment. She rose at once.</p> + +<p>"Will you not tell me first what is troubling you, Letty?" said Mary.</p> + +<p>"No, dear, not now," replied Letty, caring a good deal less about the +right ordering of her way than when she entered the house. Why should +she care, she said to herself—but it was her anger speaking in +her—how she behaved, when she was treated so abominably?</p> + +<p>"Then I will come and see you on Sunday," said Mary; "and then we shall +manage to have our talk."</p> + +<p>They kissed and parted—Letty unaware that she had given her friend a +less warm kiss than usual. There can hardly be a plainer proof of the +lowness of our nature, until we have laid hold of the higher nature +that belongs to us by birthright, than this, that even a just anger +tends to make us unjust and unkind: Letty was angry with every person +and thing at Thornwick, and unkind to her best friend, for whose sake +in part she was angry. With glowing cheeks, tear-filled eyes, and +indignant heart she set out on her walk home.</p> + +<p>It was a still evening, with a great cloud rising in the southwest; +from which, as the sun drew near the horizon, a thin veil stretched +over the sky between, and a few drops came scattering. This was in +harmony with Letty's mood. Her soul was clouded, and her heaven was +only a place for the rain to fall from. Annoyance, doubt, her new sense +of constraint, and a wide-reaching, undefined feeling of homelessness, +all wrought together to make her mind a chaos out of which misshapen +things might rise, instead of an ordered world in which gracious and +reasonable shapes appear. For as the place such will be the thoughts +that spring there; when all in us is peace divine, then, and not till +then, shall we think the absolutely reasonable. Alas, that by our +thoughtlessness or unkindness we should so often be the cause of +monster-births, and those even in the minds of the loved! that we +should be, if but for a moment, the demons that deform a fair world +that loves us! Such was Mrs. Wardour, with her worldly wisdom, that day +to Letty.</p> + +<p>About half-way to Thornwick, the path crossed a little heathy common; +and just as Letty left the hedge-guarded field-side, and through a gate +stepped, as it were, afresh out of doors on the open common, the wind +came with a burst, and brought the rain in earnest. It was not yet very +heavy, but heavy enough, with the wind at its back, and she with no +defense but her parasol, to wet her thoroughly before she could reach +any shelter, the nearest being a solitary, decrepit old hawthorn-tree, +about half-way across the common. She bent her head to the blast, and +walked on. She had no desire for shelter. She would like to get wet to +the skin, take a violent cold, go into a consumption, and die in a +fortnight. The wind whistled about her bonnet, dashed the rain-drops +clanging on the drum-tight silk of her parasol, and made of her skirts +fetters and chains. She could hardly get along, and was just going to +take down her parasol, when suddenly, where was neither house nor hedge +nor tree, came a lull. For from behind, over head and parasol, had come +an umbrella, and now came a voice and an audible sigh of pleasure.</p> + +<p>"I little thought when I left home this afternoon," said the voice, +"that I should have such a happiness before night!"</p> + +<p>At the sound of the voice Letty gave a cry, which ran through all the +shapes of alarm, of surprise, of delight; and it was not much of a cry +either.</p> + +<p>"O Tom!" she said, and clasped the arm that held the umbrella. How her +foolish heart bounded! Here was help when she had sought none, and +where least she had hoped for any! Her aunt would have her run from +under the umbrella at once, no doubt, but she would do as she pleased +this time. Here was Tom getting as wet as a spaniel for her sake, and +counting it a happiness! Oh, to have a friend like that—all to +herself! She would not reject such a friend for all the aunts in +creation. Besides, it was her aunt's own fault; if she had let her stay +with Mary, she would not have met Tom. It was not her doing; she would +take what was sent her, and enjoy it! But, at the sound of her own +voice calling him Tom, the blood rushed to her cheeks, and she felt +their glow in the heart of the chill-beating rain.</p> + +<p>"What a night for you to be out in, Letty," responded Tom, taking +instant advantage of the right she had given him. "How lucky it was I +chose the right place to watch in at last! I was sure, if only I +persevered long enough, I should be rewarded."</p> + +<p>"Have you been waiting for me long?" asked Letty, with foolish +acceptance.</p> + +<p>"A fortnight and a day," answered Tom, with a laugh. "But I would wait +a long year for such another chance as this." And he pressed to his +side the hand upon his arm. "Fate is indeed kind to-night."</p> + +<p>"Hardly in the weather," said Letty, fast recovering her spirits.</p> + +<p>"Not?" said Tom, with seeming pretense of indignation. "Let any one but +yourself dare to say a word against the weather of this night, and he +will have me to reckon with. It's the sweetest weather I ever walked +in. I will write a glorious song in praise of showery gusts and bare +commons."</p> + +<p>"Do," said Letty, careful not to say Tom this time, but unwilling to +revert to Mr. Helmer, "and mind you bring in the umbrella."</p> + +<p>"That I will! See if I don't!" answered Tom.</p> + +<p>"And make it real poetry too?" asked Letty, looking archly round the +stick of the umbrella.</p> + +<p>"Thou shalt thyself be the lovely critic, fair maiden!" answered Tom.</p> + +<p>And thus they were already on the footing of somewhere about a two +years' acquaintance—thanks to the smart of ill-usage in Letty's bosom, +the gayety in Tom's, the sudden wild weather, the quiet heath, the +gathering shades, and the umbrella! The wind blew cold, the air was +dank and chill, the west was a low gleam of wet yellow, and the rain +shot stinging in their faces; but Letty cared quite as little for it +all as Tom did, for her heart, growing warm with the comfort of the +friendly presence, felt like a banished soul that has found a world; +and a joy as of endless deliverance pervaded her being. And neither to +her nor to Tom must we deny our sympathy in the pleasure which, walking +over a bog, they drew from the flowers that mantled awful deeps; they +will not sink until they stop, and begin to build their house upon it. +Within that umbrella, hovered, and glided with them, an atmosphere of +bliss and peace and rose-odors. In the midst of storm and coming +darkness, it closed warm and genial around the pair. Tom meditated no +guile, and Letty had no deceit in her. Yet was Tom no true man, or +sweet Letty much of a woman. Neither of them was yet <i>of the truth.</i> </p> + +<p>At the other side of the heath, almost upon the path, stood a deserted +hut; door and window were gone, but the roof remained: just as they +neared it, the wind fell, and the rain began to come down in earnest.</p> + +<p>"Let us go in here for a moment," said Tom, "and get our breath for a +new fight."</p> + +<p>Letty said nothing, but Tom felt she was reluctant.</p> + +<p>"Not a soul will pass to-night," he said. "We mustn't get wet to the +skin."</p> + +<p>Letty felt, or fancied, refusal would be more unmaidenly than consent, +and allowed Tom to lead her in. And there, within those dismal walls, +the twilight sinking into a cheerless night of rain, encouraged by the +very dreariness and obscurity of the place, she told Tom the trouble of +mind their interview at the oak was causing her, saying that now it +would be worse than ever, for it was altogether impossible to confess +that she had met him yet again that evening.</p> + +<p>So now, indeed, Letty's foot was in the snare: she had a secret with +Tom. Every time she saw him, liberty had withdrawn a pace. There was no +room for confession now. If a secret held be a burden, a secret shared +is a fetter. But Tom's heart rejoiced within him.</p> + +<p>"Let me see!—How old are you, Letty?" he asked gayly.</p> + +<p>"Eighteen past," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Then you are fit to judge for yourself. You ain't a child, and they +are not your father and mother. What right have they to know everything +you do? I wouldn't let any such nonsense trouble me."</p> + +<p>"But they give me everything, you know—food, and clothes, and all."</p> + +<p>"Ah, just so!" returned Tom. "And what do you do for them?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"Why! what are you about all day?"</p> + +<p>Letty gave him a brief sketch of her day.</p> + +<p>"And you call that nothing?" exclaimed Tom. "Ain't that enough to pay +for your food and your clothes? Does it want your private affairs to +make up the difference? Or have you to pay for your food and clothes +with your very thoughts?—What pocket-money do they give you?"</p> + +<p>"Pocket-money?" returned Letty, as if she did not quite know what he +meant.</p> + +<p>"Money to do what you like with," explained Tom.</p> + +<p>Letty thought for a moment.</p> + +<p>"Cousin Godfrey gave me a sovereign last Christmas," she answered. "I +have got ten shillings of it yet."</p> + +<p>Tom burst into a merry laugh.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you dear creature!" he cried. "What a sweet slave you make! The +lowest servant on the farm gets wages, and you get none: yet you think +yourself bound to tell them everything, because they give you food and +clothes, and a sovereign last Christmas!"</p> + +<p>Here a gentle displeasure arose in the heart of the girl, hitherto so +contented and grateful. She did not care about money, but she resented +the claim her conscience made for them upon her confidence. She did not +reflect that such claim had never been made by them; nor that the fact +that she felt the claim, proved that she had been treated, in some +measure at least, like a daughter of the house.</p> + +<p>"Why," continued Tom, "it is mere, downright, rank slavery! You are +walking to the sound of your own chains. Of course, you are not to do +anything wrong, but you are not bound not to do anything they may +happen not to like."</p> + +<p>In this style he went on, believing he spoke the truth, and was +teaching her to show a proper spirit. His heart, as well as Godfrey's, +was uplifted, to think he had this lovely creature to direct and +superintend: through her sweet confidence, he had to set her free from +unjust oppression taking advantage of her simplicity. But in very truth +he was giving her just the instruction that goes to make a slave—the +slave in heart, who serves without devotion, and serves unworthily. Yet +in this, and much more such poverty-stricken, swine-husk argument, +Letty seemed to hear a gospel of liberty, and scarcely needed the +following injunctions of Tom, to make a firm resolve not to utter a +word concerning him. To do so would be treacherous to him, and would be +to forfeit the liberty he had taught her! Thus, from the neglect of a +real duty, she became the slave of a false one.</p> + +<p>"If you do," Tom had said, "I shall never see you again: they will set +every one about the place to watch you, like so many cats after one +poor little white mousey, and on the least suspicion, one way or +another, you will be gobbled up, as sure as fate, before you can get to +me to take care of you."</p> + +<p>Letty looked up at him gratefully.</p> + +<p>"But what could you do for me if I did?" she asked. "If my aunt were to +turn me out of the house, your mother would not take me in!"</p> + +<p>Letty was not herself now; she was herself and Tom—by no means a +healthful combination.</p> + +<p>"My mother won't be mistress long," answered Tom. "She will have to do +as I bid her when I am one-and-twenty, and that will be in a few +months." Tom did not know the terms of his father's will. "In the mean +time we must keep quiet, you know. I don't want a row—we have plenty +of row as it is. You may be sure <i>I</i> shall tell no one how I spent the +happiest hour of my life. How little circumstance has to do with +bliss!" he added, with a philosophical sigh. "Here we are in a wretched +hut, roared and rained upon by an equinoctial tempest, and I am in +paradise!"</p> + +<p>"I must go home," said Letty, recalled to a sense of her situation, yet +set trembling with pleasure, by his words. "See, it is getting quite +dark!"</p> + +<p>"Don't be afraid, my white bird," said Tom. "I will see you home. But +surely you are as well here as there anyhow! Who knows when we shall +meet again? Don't be alarmed; I'm not going to ask you to meet me +anywhere; I know your sweet innocence would make you fancy it wrong, +and then you would be unhappy. But that is no reason why I should not +fall in with you when I have the chance. It is very hard that two +people who understand each other can not be friends without other +people shoving in their ugly beaks! Where is the harm to any one if we +choose to have a few minutes' talk together now and then?"</p> + +<p>"Where, indeed?" responded Letty shyly.</p> + +<p>A tall shadow—no shadow either, but the very person of Godfrey +Wardour—passed the opening in the wall of the hut where once had been +a window, and the gloom it cast into the dusk within was awful and +ominous. The moment he saw it, Tom threw himself flat on the clay floor +of the hut. Godfrey stopped at the doorless entrance, and stood on the +threshold, bending his head to clear the lintel as he looked in. +Letty's heart seemed to vanish from her body. A strange feeling shook +her, as if some mysterious transformation were about to pass upon her +whole frame, and she were about to be changed into some one of the +lower animals. The question, where was the harm, late so triumphantly +put, seemed to have no heart in it now. For a moment that had to Letty +the air of an aeon, Godfrey stood peering.</p> + +<p>Not a little to his displeasure, he had heard from his mother of her +refusal to grant Letty's request, and had set out in the hope of +meeting and helping her home, for by that time it had begun to rain, +and looked stormy.</p> + +<p>In the darkness he saw something white, and, as he gazed, it grew to +Letty's face. The strange, scared, ghastly expression of it bewildered +him.</p> + +<p>Letty became aware that Godfrey did not recognize her at first, and the +hope sprung up in her heart that he might not see Tom at all; but she +could not utter a word, and stood returning Godfrey's gaze like one +fascinated with terror. Presently her heart began again to bear witness +in violent piston-strokes.</p> + +<p>"Is it really you, my child?" said Godfrey, in an uncertain voice—for, +if it was indeed she, why did she not speak, and why did she look so +scared at the sight of him?</p> + +<p>"O Cousin Godfrey!" gasped Letty, then first finding a little voice, +"you gave me such a start!"</p> + +<p>"Why should you be so startled at seeing me, Letty?" he returned. "Am I +such a monster of the darkness, then?"</p> + +<p>"You came all at once," replied Letty, gathering courage from the +playfulness of his tone, "and blocked up the door with your shoulders, +so that not a ray of light fell on your face; and how was I to know it +was you, Cousin Godfrey?"</p> + +<p>From a paleness grayer than death, her face was now red as fire; it was +the burning of the lie inside her. She felt all a lie now: there was +the good that Tom had brought her! But the gloom was friendly. With a +resolution new to herself, she went up to Godfrey and said:</p> + +<p>"If you are going to the town, let me walk with you, Cousin Godfrey. It +is getting so dark."</p> + +<p>She felt as if an evil necessity—a thing in which man must not +believe—were driving her. But the poor child was not half so deceitful +inside as the words seemed to her issuing from her lips. It was such a +relief to be assured Godfrey had not seen Tom, that she felt as if she +could forego the sight of Tom for evermore. Her better feelings rushed +back, her old confidence and reverence; and, in the altogether +nebulo-chaotic condition of her mind, she felt as if, in his turn, +Godfrey had just appeared for her deliverance.</p> + +<p>"I am not going to the town, Letty," he answered. "I came to meet you, +and we will go home together. It is no use waiting for the rain to +stop, and about as little to put up an umbrella, I have brought your +waterproof, and we must just take it as it comes."</p> + +<p>The wind was up again, and the next moment Letty, on Godfrey's arm, was +struggling with the same storm she had so lately encountered leaning on +Tom's, while Tom was only too glad to be left alone on the floor of the +dismal hut, whence he did not venture to rise for some time, lest any +the most improbable thing should happen, to bring Mr. Wardour back. He +was as mortally afraid of being discovered as any young thief in a +farmer's orchard.</p> + +<p>He had a dreary walk back to the public house where he had stabled his +horse; but he trudged it cheerfully, brooding with delight on Letty's +beauty, and her lovely confidence in Tom Helmer—a personage whom he +had begun to feel nobody trusted as he deserved.</p> + +<p>"Poor child!" he said to himself—he as well as Godfrey patronized +her—"what a doleful walk home she will have with that stuck-up old +bachelor fellow!"</p> + +<p>Nor, indeed, was it a very comfortable walk home she had, although +Godfrey talked all the way, as well as a head-wind, full of rain, would +permit. A few weeks ago she would have thought the walk and the talk +and everything delightful. But after Tom's airy converse on the same +level with herself, Godfrey's sounded indeed wise—very wise—but dull, +so dull! It is true the suspicion, hardly awake enough to be troublous, +lay somewhere in her, that in Godfrey's talk there was a value of which +in Tom's there was nothing; but then it was not wisdom Letty was in +want of, she thought, but somebody to be kind to her—as kind as she +should like; somebody, though she did not say this even to herself, to +pet her a little, and humor her, and not require too much of her. +Physically, Letty was not in the least lazy, but she did not enjoy +being forced to think much. She could think, and to no very poor +purpose either, but as yet she had no hunger for the possible results +of thought, and how then could she care to think? Seated on the edge of +her bed, weary and wet and self-accused, she recalled, and pondered, +and, after her faculty, compared the two scarce comparable men, until +the voice of her aunt, calling to her to make haste and come to tea, +made her start up, and in haste remove her drenched garments. The old +lady imagined from her delay she was out of temper because she had sent +for her home; but, when she appeared, she was so ready, so attentive, +and so quick to help, that, a little repentant, she said to herself, +"Really the girl is very good-natured!" as if then first she discovered +the fact. But Thornwick could never more to Letty feel like a home! Not +at peace with herself, she could not be in rhythmic relation with her +surroundings.</p> + +<p>The next day, the old manner of life began again; but, alas! it was +only the old manner, it was not the old life; that was gone for ever, +like an old sunset, or an old song, and could not be recalled from the +dead. We may have better, but we can not have the same. God only can +have the same. God grant our new may inwrap our old! Letty labored more +than ever to lay hold of the lessons, to his mind so genial, in hers +bringing forth more labor than fruit, which Godfrey set before her, but +success seemed further from her than ever. She was now all the time +aware of a weight, an oppression, which seemed to belong to the task, +but was in reality her self-dissatisfaction. She was like a poor Hebrew +set to make brick without straw, but the Egyptian that had brought her +into bondage was the feebleness of her own will. Now and then would +come a break—a glow of beauty, a gleam of truth; for a moment she +would forget herself; for a moment a shining pool would flash on the +clouded sea of her life; presently her heart would send up a fresh +mist, the light would fade and vanish, and the sea lie dusky and sad. +Not seldom reproaching herself with having given Tom cause to think +unjustly of her guardians, she would try harder than ever to please her +aunt; and the small personal services she had been in the way of +rendering to Godfrey were now ministered with the care of a devotee. +Not once should he miss a button from a shirt or find a sock +insufficiently darned! But even this conscience of service did not make +her happy. Duty itself could not, where faith was wanting, where the +heart was not at one with those to whom the hands were servants. She +would cry herself to sleep, and rise early to be sad. She resolved at +last, and seemed to gain strength and some peace from the resolve, to +do all in her power to avoid Tom; and certainly not once did she try to +meet him. Not with him, she could resist him.</p> + +<p>Thus it went on. Her aunt saw that something was amiss, and watched +her, without attempt at concealment, which added greatly to Letty's +discomfort. But the only thing her keenness discovered was, that the +girl was forwardly eager to please Godfrey, and the conviction began to +grow that she was indulging the impudent presumption of being in love +with her peerless cousin. Then maternal indignation misled her into the +folly of dropping hints that should put Godfrey on his guard: men were +so easily taken in by designing girls! She did not say much; but she +said a good deal too much for her own ends, when she caused her fancy +to present itself to the mind of Godfrey.</p> + +<p>He had not failed, no one could have failed, to observe the dejection +that had for some time ruled every feature and expression of the girl's +countenance. Again and again he had asked himself whether she might not +be fancying him displeased with her; for he knew well that, becoming +more and more aware of what he counted his danger, he had kept of late +stricter guard than ever over his behavior; but, watching her now with +the misleading light of his mother's lantern, nor quite unwilling, I am +bound to confess, that the thing might be as she implied, he became by +degrees convinced that she was right.</p> + +<p>So far as this, perhaps, the man was pardonable—with a mother to cause +him to err. But, for what followed, punishment was inevitable. He had a +true and strong affection for the girl, but it was an affection as from +conscious high to low; an affection, that is, not unmixed with +patronage—a bad thing—far worse than it can seem to the heart that +indulges it. He still recoiled, therefore, from the idea of such a +leveling of himself as he counted it would be to show her anything like +the love of a lover. All pride is more or less mean, but one pride may +be grander than another, and Godfrey was not herein proud in any grand +way. Good fellow as he was, he thought much too much of himself; and, +unconsciously comparing it with Letty's, altogether overvalued his +worth. Stranger than any bedfellow misery ever acquainted a man withal, +are the heart-fellows he carries about with him. Noble as in many ways +Wardour was, and kind as, to Letty, he thought he always was, he was +not generous toward her; he was not Prince Arthur, "the Knight of +Magnificence." Something may perhaps be allowed on the score of the +early experience because of which he had resolved—pridefully, it is +true—never again to come under the power of a woman; it was unworthy +of any man, he said, to place his peace in a hand which could +thenceforth wring his whole being with agony. But, had he now brought +himself as severely to task as he ought, he would have discovered that +he was making no objection to the little girl's loving him, only he +would not love her in the same way in return; and where was the honor +in that? Doubtless, had he thus examined himself, he would have thought +he meant to take care that the child's love for him should not go too +far—should not endanger her peace; and that, if the thing should give +her trouble, it should be his business to comfort her in it; but +descend he would not—would not <i>yet</i> —from his pedestal, to meet the +silly thing on the level ground of humanity, and the relation of the +man and the woman! Something like this, I say, he would have found in +his heart, horrid as it reads. That heart's action was not even, was +not healthy.</p> + +<p>When in London he had ransacked Holywell Street for dainty editions of +so many of his favorite authors as would make quite a little library +for Letty; and on his return, had commissioned a cabinet-maker in +Testbridge to put together a small set of book-shelves, after his own +design, measured and fitted to receive them exactly; these shelves, now +ready, he fastened to her wall one afternoon when she was out of the +way, and filled them with the books. He never doubted that, the moment +she saw them, she would rush to find him; and, when he had done, +retreated, therefore, to his study, there to sit in readiness to +receive her and her gratitude with gentle kindness; when he would +express the hope that she would make real friends of the spirits whose +quintessence he had thus stored to her hand; and would introduce her to +what Milton says in his "Areopagitica" concerning good books. There, +for her sake, then, he sat, in mental state, expectant; but sat in +vain. When they met at tea, then, in the presence of his mother, with +embarrassment and broken utterance, she did thank him.</p> + +<p>"O Cousin Godfrey!" she said, and ceased; then, "It is so much more +than I deserve, I dare hardly thank you." After another pause, with a +shake of her pretty head, as if she would toss aside her hair, or the +tears out of her eyes, "I don't know—I seem to have no right to thank +you; I ought not to have such a splendid present. Indeed, I don't +deserve it. You would not give it me if you knew how naughty I am."</p> + +<p>These broken sentences were by both mother and son altogether +misinterpreted. The mother, now hearing for the first time of Godfrey's +present, was filled with jealousy, and began to revolve thoughts of +dire disquietude: was the hussy actually beginning to gain her point, +and steal from her the heart of her son? Was it in the girl's blood to +wrong her? The father of her had wronged her: she would take care his +daughter should not! She had taken a viper to her bosom! Who was <i>she</i> , +to wriggle herself into an old family and property? Had <i>she</i> been born +to such things? She would teach her who she was! When dependents began +to presume, it was time they had a lesson.</p> + +<p>Letty could not bear the sight of the books and their shelves; the very +beauty of the bindings was a reproach to her. From the misery of this +fresh burden, this new stirring of her sense of hypocrisy, she began to +wish herself anywhere out of the house, and away from Thornwick. It was +torture to her to think how she had deceived Cousin Godfrey at the hut; +and throughout the night, across the darkness, she felt, though she +could not see, the books gazing at her, like an embodied conscience, +from the wall of her chamber. Twenty times that night she started from +her sleep, saying, "I will go where they shall never see me"; then rose +with the dawn, and set herself to the hardest work she could find.</p> + +<p>The next day was Sunday, and they all went to church. Letty felt that +Tom was there, too, but she never raised her eyes to glance at him.</p> + +<p>He had been looking out in vain for a sight of her—now from the +oak-tree, now from his bay mare's back, as he haunted the roads about +Thornwick, now from the window of the little public-house where the +path across the fields joined the main road to Testbridge: but not once +had he caught a glimpse of her.</p> + +<p>He had seated himself where he could not fail to see her if she were in +the Thornwick pew. How ill she looked! His heart swelled with +indignation.</p> + +<p>"They are cruel to her," he said; "that is plain. Poor girl, they will +kill her! She is a pearl in the oyster-maw of Thornwick. This will +never do; I <i>must</i> see her somehow!"</p> + +<p>If at this crisis Letty had but had a real friend to strengthen and +advise her, much suffering might have been spared her, for never was +there a more teachable girl. She was, indeed, only too ready to be +advised, too ready to accept for true whatever friendship offered +itself. None but the friend who will strengthen us to stand, is worthy +of the name. Such a friend Mary would have been, but Letty did not yet +know what she needed. The unrest of her conscience made her shrink from +one who was sure to side with that conscience, and help it to trouble +her. It was sympathy Letty longed for, not strength, and therefore she +was afraid of Mary. She came to see her, as she had promised, the +Sunday after that disastrous visit; but the weather was still uncertain +and gusty, and she found both her and Godfrey in the parlor; nor did +Letty give her a chance of speaking to her alone. The poor girl had now +far more on her mind that needed help than then when she went in search +of it, but she would seek it no more from her! For, the more she +thought, the surer she felt that Mary would insist on her making a +disclosure of the whole foolish business to Mrs. Wardour, and would +admit neither her own fear nor her aunt's harshness as reason +sufficient to the contrary. "More than that," thought Letty, "I can't +be sure she wouldn't go, in spite of me, and tell her all about it! and +what would become of me then? I should be worse off a hundred times +than if I had told her myself."</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI<br /><br /> +WILLIAM MARSTON.</h3> + +<p>The clouds were gathering over Mary, too—deep and dark, but of +altogether another kind from those that enveloped Letty: no troubles +are for one moment to be compared with those that come of the +wrongness, even if it be not wickedness, that is our own. Some clouds +rise from stagnant bogs and fens; others from the wide, clean, large +ocean. But either kind, thank God, will serve the angels to come down +by. In the old stories of celestial visitants the clouds do much; and +it is oftenest of all down the misty slope of griefs and pains and +fears, that the most powerful joy slides into the hearts of men and +women and children. Beautiful are the feet of the men of science on the +dust-heaps of the world, but the patient heart will yield a myriad +times greater thanks for the clouds that give foothold to the shining +angels.</p> + +<p>Few people were interested in William Marston. Of those who saw him in +the shop, most turned from him to his jolly partner. But a few there +were who, some by instinct, some from experience, did look for him +behind the counter, and were disappointed if he were absent: most of +them had a repugnance to the over-complaisant Turnbull. Yet Marston was +the one whom the wise world of Testbridge called the hypocrite, and +Turnbull was the plain-spoken, agreeable, honest man of the world, +pretending to be no better either than himself or than other people. +The few friends, however, that Marston bad, loved him as not many are +loved: they knew him, not as he seemed to the careless eye, but as he +was. Never did man do less either to conceal or to manifest himself. He +was all taken up with what he loved, and that was neither himself nor +his business. These friends knew that, when the far-away look was on +him, when his face was paler, and he seemed unaware of person or thing +about him, he was not indifferent to their presence, or careless of +their existence; it was only that his thoughts were out, like heavenly +bees, foraging; a word of direct address brought him back in a moment, +and his soul would return to them with a smile. He stood as one on the +keystone of a bridge, and held communion now with these, now with +those: on this side the river and on that, both companies were his own.</p> + +<p>He was not a man of much education, in the vulgar use of the word; but +he was a good way on in that education, for the sake of which, and for +no other without it, we are here in our consciousness—the education +which, once begun, will, soon or slow, lead knowledge captive, and +teaches nothing that has to be unlearned again, because every flower of +it scatters the seed of one better than itself. The main secret of his +progress, the secret of all wisdom, was, that with him action was the +beginning and end of thought. He was not one of that cloud of false +witnesses, who, calling themselves Christians, take no trouble for the +end for which Christ was born, namely, their salvation from +unrighteousness—a class that may be divided into the insipid and the +offensive, both regardless of obedience, the former indifferent to, the +latter contentious for doctrine.</p> + +<p>It may well seem strange that such a man should have gone into business +with such another as John Turnbull; but the latter had been growing +more and more common, while Marston had been growing more and more +refined. Still from the first it was an unequal yoking of believer with +unbeliever—just as certainly, although not with quite such wretched +results, as would have been the marriage of Mary Marston and George +Turnbull. And it had been a great trial: punishment had not been +spared—with best results in patience and purification; for so are our +false steps turned back to good by the evil to which they lead us. +Turnbull was ready to take every safe advantage to be gained from his +partner's comparative carelessness about money. He drew a larger +proportion of the profits than belonged to his share in the capital, +justifying himself on the ground that he had a much larger family, did +more of the business, and had to keep up the standing of the firm. He +made him pay more than was reasonable for the small part of the house +yielded from storage to the accommodation of him, his daughter, and +their servant, notwithstanding that, if they had not lived there, some +one must have been paid to do so. Far more than this, careless of his +partner's rights, and insensible to his interests, he had for some time +been risking the whole affair by private speculations. After all, +Marston was the safer man of business, even from the worldly point of +view. Alone, it is true, he would hardly have made money, but he would +have got through, and would have left his daughter the means of getting +through also; for he would have left her in possession of her own peace +and the confidence of her friends, which will always prove enough for +those who confess themselves to be strangers and pilgrims on the +earth—those who regard it as a grand staircase they have to climb, not +a plain on which to build their houses and plant their vineyards.</p> + +<p>As to the peculiar doctrines of the sect to which he had joined +himself, right or wrong in themselves, Marston, after having complied +with what seemed to him the letter of the law concerning baptism, gave +himself no further trouble. He had for a long time known—for, by the +power of the life in him, he had gathered from the Scriptures the +finest of the wheat, where so many of every sect, great church and +little church, gather only the husks and chaff—that the only baptism +of any avail is the washing of the fresh birth, and the making new by +that breath of God, which, breathed into man's nostrils, first made of +him a living soul. When a man <i>knows</i> this, potentially he knows all +things. But, <i>just therefore</i> , he did not stand high with his sect any +more than with his customers, though—a fact which Marston himself +never suspected—the influence of his position had made them choose him +for a deacon. One evening George had had leave to go home early, +because of a party at <i>the villa</i> , as the Turnbulls always called their +house; and, the boy having also for some cause got leave of absence, +Mr. Marston was left to shut the shop himself, Mary, who was in some +respects the stronger of the two, assisting him. When he had put up the +last shutter, he dropped his arms with a weary sigh. Mary, who had been +fastening the bolts inside, met him in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"You look worn out, father," she said. "Come and lie down, and I will +read to you."</p> + +<p>"I will, my dear," he answered. "I don't feel quite myself to-night. +The seasons tell upon me now. I suppose the stuff of my tabernacle is +wearing thin."</p> + +<p>Mary cast an anxious look at him, for, though never a strong man, he +seldom complained. But she said nothing, and, hoping a good cup of tea +would restore him, led the way through the dark shop to the door +communicating with the house. Often as she had passed through it thus, +the picture of it as she saw it that night was the only one almost that +returned to her afterward: a few vague streaks of light, from the +cracks of the shutters, fed the rich, warm gloom of the place; one of +them fell upon a piece of orange-colored cotton stuff, which blazed in +the dark.</p> + +<p>Arrived at their little sitting-room at the top of the stair, she +hastened to shake up the pillows and make the sofa comfortable for him. +He lay down, and she covered him with a rug; then ran to her room for a +book, and read to him while Beenie was getting the tea. She chose a +poem with which Mr. Wardour had made her acquainted almost the last +tune she was at Thornwick—that was several weeks ago now, for plainly +Letty was not so glad to see her as she used to be—it was Milton's +little ode "On Time," written for inscription on a clock—one of the +grandest of small poems. Her father knew next to nothing of literature; +having pondered his New Testament, however, for thirty years, he was +capable of understanding Milton's best—to the childlike mind the best +is always simplest and easiest-not unfrequently the <i>only</i> kind it can +lay hold of. When she ended, he made her read it again, and then again; +not until she had read it six times did he seem content. And every time +she read it, Mary found herself understanding it better. It was +gradually growing very precious.</p> + +<p>Her father had made no remark; but, when she lifted her eyes from the +sixth reading, she saw that his face shone, and, as the last words left +her lips, he took up the line like a refrain, and repeated it after her:</p> + +<p>"'Triumphing over death, and chance, and thee, O Time!'</p> + +<p>"That will do now, Mary, I thank you," he said. "I have got a good hold +of it, I think, and shall be able to comfort myself with it when I wake +in the night. The man must have been very like the apostle Paul."</p> + +<p>He said no more. The tea was brought, and he drank a cup of it, but +could not eat; and, as he could not, neither could Mary.</p> + +<p>"I want a long sleep," he said; and the words went to his child's +heart—she dared not question herself why. When the tea-things were +removed, he called her.</p> + +<p>"Mary," he said, "come here. I want to speak to you."</p> + +<p>She kneeled beside him,</p> + +<p>"Mary," he said again, taking her little hand in his two long, bony +ones, "I love you, my child, to that degree I can not say; and I want +you, I do want you, to be a Christian."</p> + +<p>"So do I, father dear," answered Mary simply, the tears rushing into +her eyes at the thought that perhaps she was not one; "I want me to be +a Christian."</p> + +<p>"Yes, my love," he went on; "but it is not that I do not think you a +Christian; it is that I want you to be a downright real Christian, not +one that is but trying to feel as a Christian ought to feel. I have +lost so much precious time in that way!"</p> + +<p>"Tell me—tell me," cried Mary, clasping her other hand over his. "What +would you have me do?"</p> + +<p>"I will tell you. I am just trying how," he responded. "A Christian is +just one that does what the Lord Jesus tells him. Neither more nor less +than that makes a Christian. It is not even understanding the Lord +Jesus that makes one a Christian. That makes one dear to the Father; +but it is being a Christian, that is, doing what he tells us, that +makes us understand him. Peter says the Holy Spirit is given to them +that obey him: what else is that but just actually, really, doing what +he says—just as if I was to tell you to go and fetch me my Bible, and +you would get up and go? Did you ever do anything, my child, just +because Jesus told you to do it?"</p> + +<p>Mary did not answer immediately. She thought awhile. Then she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Yes, father," she said, "I think so. Two nights ago, George was very +rude to me—I don't mean anything bad, but you know he is very rough."</p> + +<p>"I know it, my child. And you must not think I don't care because I +think it better not to interfere. I am with you all the time."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, father; I know it. Well, when I was going to bed, I was +angry with him still, so it was no wonder I found I could not say my +prayers. Then I remembered how Jesus said we must forgive or we should +not be forgiven. So I forgave him with all my heart, and kindly, too, +and then I found I could pray."</p> + +<p>The father stretched out his arms and drew her to his bosom, murmuring, +"My child! my Christ's child!" After a little he began to talk again.</p> + +<p>"It is a miserable thing to hear those who desire to believe themselves +Christians, talking and talking about this question and that, the +discussion of which is all for strife and nowise for unity—not a +thought among them of the one command of Christ, to love one another. I +fear some are hardly content with not hating those who differ from +them."</p> + +<p>"I am sure, father, I try—and I think I do love everybody that loves +him," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Well, that is much—not enough though, my child. We must be like +Jesus, and you know that it was while we were yet sinners that Christ +died for us; therefore we must love all men, whether they are +Christians or not."</p> + +<p>"Tell me, then, what you want me to do, father dear. I will do whatever +you tell me."</p> + +<p>"I want you to be just like that to the Lord Christ, Mary. I want you +to look out for his will, and find it, and do it. I want you not only +to do it, though that is the main thing, when you think of it, but to +look for it, that you may do it. I need not say to you that this is not +a thing to be <i>talked</i> about much, for you don't do that. You may think +me very silent, my love; but I do not talk always when I am inclined, +for the fear I might let my feeling out that way, instead of doing +something he wants of me with it. And how repulsive and full of offense +those generally are who talk most! Our strength ought to go into +conduct, not into talk—least of all, into talk about what they call +the doctrines of the gospel. The man who does what God tells him, sits +at his Father's feet, and looks up in his Father's face; and men had +better leave him alone, for he can not greatly mistake his Father, and +certainly will not displease him. Look for the lovely will, my child, +that you may be its servant, its priest, its sister, its queen, its +slave—as Paul calls himself. How that man did glory in his Master!"</p> + +<p>"I will try, father," returned Mary, with a burst of tears. "I do want +to be good. I do want to be one of his slaves, if I may."</p> + +<p>"<i>May!</i> my child? You are bound to be. You have no choice but choose +it. It is what we are made for—freedom, the divine nature, God's life, +a grand, pure, open-eyed existence! It is what Christ died for. You +must not talk about <i>may;</i> it is all <i>must.</i> "</p> + +<p>Mary had never heard her father talk like this, and, notwithstanding +the endless interest of his words, it frightened her. An instinctive +uneasiness crept up and laid hold of her. The unsealing hand of Death +was opening the mouth of a dumb prophet.</p> + +<p>A pause followed, and he spoke again.</p> + +<p>"I will tell you one thing now that Jesus says: he is unchangeable; +what he says once he says always; and I mention it now, because it may +not be long before you are specially called to mind it. It is this: +<i>'Let not your heart be troubled.'</i> "</p> + +<p>"But he said that on one particular occasion, and to his disciples—did +he not?" said Mary, willing, in her dread, to give the conversation a +turn.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Mary!" said her father, with a smile, "<i>will</i> you let the +questioning spirit deafen you to the teaching one? Ask yourself, the +first time you are alone, what the disciples were not to be troubled +about, and why they were not to be troubled about it.—I am tired, and +should like to go to bed."</p> + +<p>He rose, and stood for a moment in front of the fire, winding his old +double-cased silver watch. Mary took from her side the little gold one +he had given her, and, as was her custom, handed it to him to wind for +her. The next moment he had dropped it on the fender.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my child!" he cried, and, stooping, gathered up a dying thing, +whose watchfulness was all over. The glass was broken; the case was +open; it lay in his hand a mangled creature. Mary heard the rush of its +departing life, as the wheels went whirring, and the hands circled +rapidly.</p> + +<p>They stopped motionless. She looked up in her father's face with a +smile. He was looking concerned.</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry, Mary," he said; "but, if it is past repair, I will +get you another.—You don't seem to mind it much!" he added, and smiled +himself.</p> + +<p>"Why should I, father dear?" she replied. "When one's father breaks +one's watch, what is there to say but 'I am very glad it was you did +it'? I shall like the little thing the better for it."</p> + +<p>He kissed her on the forehead.</p> + +<p>"My child, say that to your Father in heaven, when he breaks something +for you. He will do it from love, not from blundering. I don't often +preach to you, my child—do I? but somehow it comes to me to-night."</p> + +<p>"I will remember, father," said Mary; and she did remember.</p> + +<p>She went with him to his bedroom, and saw that everything was right for +him. When she went again, before going to her own, he felt more +comfortable, he said, and expected to have a good night. Relieved, she +left him; but her heart would be heavy. A shapeless sadness seemed +pressing it down; it was being got ready for what it had to bear.</p> + +<p>When she went to his room in the middle of the night, she found him +slumbering peacefully, and went back to her own and slept better. When +she went again in the morning, he lay white, motionless, and without a +breath.</p> + +<p>It was not in Mary's nature to give sudden vent to her feelings. For a +time she was stunned. As if her life had rushed to overtake her +departing parent, and beg a last embrace, she stood gazing motionless. +The sorrow was too huge for entrance. The thing could not be! Not until +she stooped and kissed the pale face, did the stone in her bosom break, +and yield a torrent of grief. But, although she had left her father in +that very spot the night before, already she not only knew but felt +that was not he which lay where she had left him. He was gone, and she +was alone. She tried to pray, but her heart seemed to lie dead in her +bosom, and no prayer would rise from it. It was the time of all times +when, if ever, prayer must be the one reasonable thing—and pray she +could not. In her dull stupor she did not hear Beenie's knock. The old +woman entered, and found her on her knees, with her forehead on one of +the dead hands, while the white face of her master lay looking up to +heaven, as if praying for the living not yet privileged to die. Then +first was the peace of death broken. Beenie gave a loud cry, and turned +and ran, as if to warn the neighbors that Death was loose in the town. +Thereupon, as if Death were a wild beast yet lurking in it, the house +was filled with noise and tumult; the sanctuary of the dead was invaded +by unhallowed presence; and the poor girl, hearing behind her voices +she did not love, raised herself from her knees, and, without lifting +her eyes, crept from the room and away to her own.</p> + +<p>"Follow her, George," said his father, in a loud, eager whisper. +"You've got to comfort her now. That's your business, George. There's +your chance!"</p> + +<p>The last words he called from the bottom of the stair, as George sped +up after her. "Mary! Mary, dear," he called as he ran.</p> + +<p>But Mary had the instinct—it was hardly more—to quicken her pace, and +lock the door of her room the moment she entered. As she turned from +it, her eye fell upon her watch—where it lay, silent and disfigured, +on her dressing-table; and, with the sight, the last words of her +father came back to her. She fell again on her knees with a fresh burst +of weeping, and, while the foolish youth was knocking unheard at her +door, cried, with a strange mixture of agony and comfort, "O my Father +in heaven, give me back William Marston!" Never in his life had she +thought of her father by his name; but death, while it made him dearer +than ever, set him away from her so, that she began to see him in his +larger individuality, as a man before the God of men, a son before the +Father of many sons: Death turns a man's sons and daughters into his +brothers and sisters. And while she kneeled, and, with exhausted heart, +let her brain go on working of itself, as it seemed, came a dreamy +vision of the Saviour with his disciples about him, reasoning with them +that they should not give way to grief. "Let not your heart be +troubled," he seemed to be saying, "although I die, and go out of your +sight. It is all well. Take my word for it."</p> + +<p>She rose, wiped her eyes, looked up, said, "I will try, Lord," and, +going down, called Beenie, and sent her to ask Mr. Turnbull to speak +with her. She knew her father's ideas, and must do her endeavor to have +the funeral as simple as possible. It was a relief to have something, +anything, to do in his name.</p> + +<p>Mr. Turnbull came, and the coarse man was kind. It went not a little +against the grain with him to order what he called a pauper's funeral +for the junior partner in the firm; but, more desirous than ever to +conciliate Mary, he promised all that she wished.</p> + +<p>"Marston was but a poor-spirited fellow," he said to his wife when he +told her; "the thing is a disgrace to the shop, but it's fit enough for +him.—It will be so much money saved," he added in self-consolation, +while his wife turned up her nose, as she always did at any mention of +the shop.</p> + +<p>Mary returned to her father's room, now silent again with the air of +that which is not. She took from the table the old silver watch. It +went on measuring the time by a scale now useless to its owner. She +placed it lovingly in her bosom, and sat down by the bedside. Already, +through love, sorrow, and obedience, she began to find herself drawing +nearer to him than she had ever been before; already she was able to +recall his last words, and strengthen her resolve to keep them. And, +sitting thus, holding vague companionship with the merely mortal, the +presence of that which was not her father, which was like him only to +remind her that it was not he, and which must so soon cease to resemble +him, there sprang, as in the very footprint of Death, yet another +flower of rarest comfort—a strong feeling, namely, of the briefness of +time, and the certainty of the messenger's return to fetch herself. Her +soul did not sink into peace, but a strange peace awoke in her spirit. +She heard the spring of the great clock that measures the years rushing +rapidly down with a feverous whir, and saw the hands that measure the +weeks and months careering around its face; while Death, like one of +the white-robed angels in the tomb of the Lord, sat watching, with +patient smile, for the hour when he should be wanted to go for her. +Thus mingled her broken watch, her father's death, and Jean Paul's +dream; and the fancy might well comfort her.</p> + +<p>I will not linger much more over the crumbling time. It is good for +those who are in it, specially good for those who come out of it +chastened and resolved; but I doubt if any prolonged contemplation of +death is desirable for those whose business it now is to live, and +whose fate it is ere long to die. It is a closing of God's hand upon us +to squeeze some of the bad blood out of us, and, when it relaxes, we +must live the more diligently—not to get ready for death, but to get +more life. I will relate only one thing yet, belonging to this twilight +time.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br /><br /> +MARY'S DREAM.</h3> + +<p>That night, and every night until the dust was laid to the dust, Mary +slept well; and through the days she had great composure; but, when the +funeral was over, came a collapse and a change. The moment it became +necessary to look on the world as unchanged, and resume former +relations with it, then, first, a fuller sense of her lonely desolation +declared itself. When she said good night to Beenie, and went to her +chamber, over that where the loved parent and friend would fall asleep +no more, she felt as if she went walking along to her tomb.</p> + +<p>That night was the first herald of the coming winter, and blew a cold +blast from his horn. All day the wind had been out. Wildly in the +churchyard it had pulled at the long grass, as if it would tear it from +its roots in the graves; it had struck vague sounds, as from a hollow +world, out of the great bell overhead in the huge tower; and it had +beat loud and fierce against the corner-buttresses which went +stretching up out of the earth, like arms to hold steady and fast the +lighthouse of the dead above the sea which held them drowned below; +despairingly had the gray clouds drifted over the sky; and, like white +clouds pinioned below, and shadows that could not escape, the surplice +of the ministering priest and the garments of the mourners had flapped +and fluttered as in captive terror; the only still things were the +coffin and the church—and the soul which had risen above the region of +storms in the might of Him who abolished death. At the time Mary had +noted nothing of these things; now she saw them all, as for the first +time, in minute detail, while slowly she went up the stair and through +the narrowed ways, and heard the same wind that raved alike about the +new grave and the old house, into which latter, for all the bales +banked against the walls, it found many a chink of entrance. The smell +of the linen, of the blue cloth, and of the brown paper—things no +longer to be handled by those tender, faithful hands—was dismal and +strange, and haunted her like things that intruded, things which she +had done with, and which yet would not go away. Everything had gone +dead, as it seemed, had exhaled the soul of it, and retained but the +odor of its mortality. If for a moment a thing looked the same as +before, she wondered vaguely, unconsciously, how it could be. The +passages through the merchandise, left only wide enough for one, seemed +like those she had read of in Egyptian tombs and pyramids: a +sarcophagus ought to be waiting in her chamber. When she opened the +door of it, the bright fire, which Beenie undesired had kindled there, +startled her: the room looked unnatural, <i>uncanny</i> , because it was +cheerful. She stood for a moment on the hearth, and in sad, dreamy mood +listened to the howling swoops of the wind, making the house quiver and +shake. Now and then would come a greater gust, and rattle the window as +if in fierce anger at its exclusion, then go shrieking and wailing +through the dark heaven. Mechanically she took her New Testament, and, +seating herself in a low chair by the fire, tried to read; but she +could not fix her thoughts, or get the meaning of a sentence: when she +had read it, there it lay, looking at her just the same, like an +unanswered riddle.</p> + +<p>The region of the senses is the unbelieving part of the human soul; and +out of that now began to rise fumes of doubt and question into Mary's +heart and brain. Death was a fact. The loss, the evanishment, the +ceasing, were incontrovertible—the only incontrovertible things: she +was sure of them: could she be sure of anything else? How could she? +She had not seen Christ rise; she had never looked upon one of the +dead; never heard a voice from the other bank; had received no certain +testimony. These were not her thoughts; she was too weary to think; +they were but the thoughts that steamed up in her, and went floating +about before her; she looked on them calmly, coldly, as they came, and +passed, or remained—saw them with indifference—there they were, and +she could not help it—weariedly, believing none of them, unable to +cope with and dispel them, hardly affected by their presence, save with +a sense of dreariness and loneliness and wretched company. At last she +fell asleep, and in a moment was dreaming diligently. This was her +dream, as nearly as she could recall it, when she came to herself after +waking from it with a cry.</p> + +<p>She was one of a large company at a house where she had never been +before—a beautiful house with a large garden behind. It was a summer +night, and the guests were wandering in and out at will, and through +house and garden, amid lovely things of all colors and odors. The moon +was shining, and the roses were in pale bloom. But she knew nobody, and +wandered alone in the garden, oppressed with something she did not +understand. Every now and then she came on a little group, or met a +party of the guests, as she walked, but none spoke to her, or seemed to +see her, and she spoke to none.</p> + +<p>She found herself at length in an avenue of dark trees, the end of +which was far off. Thither she went walking, the only living thing, +crossing strange shadows from the moon. At the end of it she was in a +place of tombs. Terror and a dismay indescribable seized her; she +turned and fled back to the company of her kind. But for a long time +she sought the house in vain; she could not reach it; the avenue seemed +interminable to her feet returning. At last she was again upon the +lawn, but neither man nor woman was there; and in the house only a +light here and there was burning. Every guest was gone. She entered, +and the servants, soft-footed and silent, were busy carrying away the +vessels of hospitality, and restoring order, as if already they +prepared for another company on the morrow. No one heeded her. She was +out of place, and much unwelcome. She hastened to the door of entrance, +for every moment there was a misery. She reached the hall. A strange, +shadowy porter opened to her, and she stepped out into a wide street.</p> + +<p>That, too, was silent. No carriage rolled along the center, no +footfarer walked on the side. Not a light shone from window or door, +save what they gave back of the yellow light of the moon. She was +lost—lost utterly, with an eternal loss. She knew nothing of the +place, had nowhere to go, nowhere she wanted to go, had not a thought +to tell her what question to ask, if she met a living soul. But living +soul there could be none to meet. She had nor home, nor direction, nor +desire; she knew of nothing that she had lost, nor of anything she +wished to gain; she had nothing left but the sense that she was empty, +that she needed some goal, and had none. She sat down upon a stone +between the wide street and the wide pavement, and saw the moon shining +gray upon the stone houses. It was all deadness.</p> + +<p>Presently, from somewhere in the moonlight, appeared, walking up to +her, where she sat in eternal listlessness, the one only brother she +had ever had. She had lost him years and years before, and now she saw +him; he was there, and she knew him. But not a throb went through her +heart. He came to her side, and she gave him no greeting. "Why should I +heed him?" she said to herself. "He is dead. I am only in a dream. This +is not he; it is but his pitiful phantom that comes wandering hither—a +ghost without a heart, made out of the moonlight. It is nothing. I am +nothing. I am lost. Everything is an empty dream of loss. I know it, +and there is no waking. If there were, surely the sight of him would +give me some shimmer of delight. The old time was but a thicker dream, +and this is truer because more shadowy." And, the form still standing +by her, she felt it was ages away; she was divided from it by a gulf of +very nothingness. Her only life was, that she was lost. Her whole +consciousness was merest, all but abstract, loss.</p> + +<p>Then came the form of her mother, and bent over that of her brother +from behind. "Another ghost of a ghost! another shadow of a phantom!" +she said to herself. "She is nothing to me. If I speak to her, she is +not there. Shall I pour out my soul into the ear of a mist, a fume from +my own brain? Oh, cold creatures, ye are not what ye seem, and I will +none of you!"</p> + +<p>With that, came her father, and stood beside the others, gazing upon +her with still, cold eyes, expressing only a pale quiet. She bowed her +face on her hands, and would not regard him. Even if he were alive, her +heart was past being moved. It was settled into stone. The universe was +sunk in one of the dreams that haunt the sleep of death; and, if these +were ghosts at all, they were ghosts walking in their sleep.</p> + +<p>But the dead, one of them seized one of her hands, and another the +other. They raised her to her feet, and led her along, and her brother +walked before. Thus was she borne away captive of her dead, neither +willing nor unwilling, of life and death equally careless. Through the +moonlight they led her from the city, and over fields, and through +valleys, and across rivers and seas—a long journey; nor did she grow +weary, for there was not life enough in her to be made weary. The dead +never spoke to her, and she never spoke to them. Sometimes it seemed as +if they spoke to each other, but, if it were so, it concerned some +shadowy matter, no more to her than the talk of grasshoppers in the +field, or of beetles that weave their much-involved dances on the face +of the pool. Their voices were even too thin and remote to rouse her to +listen.</p> + +<p>They came at length to a great mountain, and, as they were going up the +mountain, light began to grow, as if the sun were beginning to rise. +But she cared as little for the sun that was to light the day as for +the moon that had lighted the night, and closed her eyes, that she +might cover her soul with her eyelids.</p> + +<p>Of a sudden a great splendor burst upon her, and through her eyelids +she was struck blind—blind with light and not with darkness, for all +was radiance about her. She was like a fish in a sea of light. But she +neither loved the light nor mourned the shadow.</p> + +<p>Then were her ears invaded with a confused murmur, as of the mingling +of all sweet sounds of the earth—of wind and water, of bird and voice, +of string and metal—all afar and indistinct. Next arose about her a +whispering, as of winged insects, talking with human voices; but she +listened to nothing, and heard nothing of what was said: it was all a +tiresome dream, out of which whether she waked or died it mattered not.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she was taken between two hands, and lifted, and seated upon +knees like a child, and she felt that some one was looking at her. Then +came a voice, one that she never heard before, yet with which she was +as familiar as with the sound of the blowing wind. And the voice said, +"Poor child! something has closed the valve between her heart and +mine." With that came a pang of intense pain. But it was her own cry of +speechless delight that woke her from her dream.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br /><br /> +THE HUMAN SACRIFICE.</h3> + +<p>The same wind that rushed about the funeral of William Marston in the +old churchyard of Testbridge, howled in the roofless hall and ruined +tower of Durnmelling, and dashed against the plate-glass windows of the +dining-room, where the three ladies sat at lunch. Immediately it was +over, Lady Malice rose, saying:</p> + +<p>"Hesper, I want a word with you. Come to my room."</p> + +<p>Hesper obeyed, with calmness, but without a doubt that evil awaited her +there. To that room she had never been summoned for anything she could +call good. And indeed she knew well enough what evil it was that to-day +played the Minotaur. When they reached the boudoir, rightly so called, +for it was more in use for <i>sulking</i> than for anything else, Lady +Margaret, with back as straight as the door she had just closed, led +the way to the fire, and, seating herself, motioned Hesper to a chair. +Hesper again obeyed, looking as unconcerned as if she cared for nothing +in this world or in any other. Would we were all as strong to suppress +hate and fear and anxiety as some ladies are to suppress all show of +them! Such a woman looks to me like an automaton, in which a human +soul, somewhere concealed, tries to play a good game of life, and makes +a sad mess of it.</p> + +<p>"Well, Hesper, what do you think?" said her mother, with a dull attempt +at gayety, which could nowise impose upon the experience of her +daughter.</p> + +<p>"I think nothing, mamma," drawled Hesper.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Redmain has come to the point at last, my dear child."</p> + +<p>"What point, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"He had a private interview with your father this morning."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!"</p> + +<p>"Foolish girl! you think to tease me by pretending indifference!"</p> + +<p>"How can a fact be pretended, mamma? Why should I care what passes in +the study? I was never welcome there. But, if you wish, I will pretend. +What important matter was settled in the study this morning?"</p> + +<p>"Hesper, you provoke me with your affectation!"</p> + +<p>Hesper's eyes began to flash. Otherwise she was still—silent—not a +feature moved. The eyes are more untamable than the tongue. When the +wild beast can not get out at the door, nothing can keep him from the +windows. The eyes flash when the will is yet lord even of the lines of +the mouth. Not a nerve of Hesper's quivered. Though a mere child in the +knowledge that concerned her own being, even the knowledge of what is +commonly called the heart, she was yet a mistress of the art of +self-defense, socially applied, and she would not now put herself at +the disadvantage of taking anything for granted, or accept the clearest +hint for a plain statement. She not merely continued silent, but looked +so utterly void of interest, or desire to speak, that her mother, +recognizing her own child, and quailing before the evil spirit she had +herself sent on to the generations to come, yielded and spoke out.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Redmain has proposed for your hand, Hesper," she said, in a tone +as indifferent in her turn as if she were mentioning the appointment of +a new clergyman to the family living.</p> + +<p>For one moment, and one only, the repose of Hesper's faultless upper +lip gave way; one writhing movement of scorn passed along its curves, +and left them for a moment straightened out—to return presently to a +grander bend than before. In a tone that emulated, and more than +equaled, the indifference of her mother's, she answered:</p> + +<p>"And papa?"</p> + +<p>"Has referred him to you, of course," replied Lady Margaret.</p> + +<p>"Meaning it?"</p> + +<p>"What else? Why not? Is he not a <i>bon parli?</i> "</p> + +<p>"Then papa did not mean it?"</p> + +<p>"I do not understand you," elaborated the mother, with a mingled yawn, +which she was far from attempting to suppress, seeing she simulated it.</p> + +<p>"If Mr. Redmain is such a good match in papa's eyes," explained Hesper, +"why does papa refer him to me?"</p> + +<p>"That you may accept him, of course."</p> + +<p>"How much has the man promised to pay for me?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Hesper!</i> "</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, mamma. I thought you approved of calling things by +their right names!"</p> + +<p>"No girl can do better than follow her mother's example," said Lady +Margaret, with vague sequence. "If <i>you</i> do, Hesper, you will accept +Mr. Redmain."</p> + +<p>Hesper fixed her eyes on her mother, but hers were too cold and clear +to quail before them, let them flash and burn as they pleased.</p> + +<p>"As you did papa?" said Hesper.</p> + +<p>"As I did Mr. Mortimer."</p> + +<p>"That explains a good deal, mamma."</p> + +<p>"We are <i>your</i> parents, anyhow, Hesper."</p> + +<p>"I suppose so. I don't know which to be sorrier for—you or me. Tell +me, mamma: would <i>you</i> marry Mr. Redmain?"</p> + +<p>"That is a foolish question, and ought not to be put. It is one which, +as a married woman, I could not consider without impropriety. Knowing +the duty of a daughter, I did not put the question to <i>you</i> . You are +yourself the offspring of duty."</p> + +<p>"If you were in my place, mamma," reattempted Hesper, but her mother +did not allow her to proceed.</p> + +<p>"In any place, in every place, I should do my duty," she said.</p> + +<p>It was not only born in Lady Malice's blood, but from earliest years, +had been impressed on her brain, that her first duty was to her family, +and mainly consisted in getting well out of its way—in going peaceably +through the fire to Moloch, that the rest might have good places in the +Temple of Mammon. In her turn, she had trained her children to the +bewildering conviction that it was duty to do a certain wrong, if it +should be required. That wrong thing was now required of Hesper—a +thing she scorned, hated, shuddered at; she must follow the rest; her +turn to be sacrificed was come; she must henceforth be a living lie. +She could recompense herself as the daughters who have sinned by +yielding generally do when they are mothers, with the sin of +compelling, and thus make the trespass round and full. There is in no +language yet the word invented to fit the vileness of such mothers; +but, as time flows and speech grows, it may be found, and, when it is +found, it will have action retrospective. It is a frightful thing when +ignorance of evil, so much to be desired where it can contribute to +safety, is employed to smooth the way to the unholiest doom, in which +love itself must ruthlessly perish, and those, who on the plea of +virtue were kept ignorant, be perfected in the image of the mothers who +gave them over to destruction. Some, doubtless, of the innocents thus +immolated pass even through hideous fires of marital foulness to come +out the purer and the sweeter; but whither must the stone about the +neck of those that cause the little ones to offend sink those mothers? +What company shall in the end be too low, too foul for them? Like to +like it must always be.</p> + +<p>Hesper was not so ignorant as some girls; she had for some time had one +at her side capable of casting not a little light of the kind that is +darkness.</p> + +<p>"<i>Duty</i> , mamma!" she cried, her eyes flaming, and her cheek flushed +with the shame of the thing that was but as yet the merest object in +her thought; "can a woman be born for such things? How <i>could</i> +I—mamma, how could any woman, with an atom of self-respect, consent to +occupy the same—<i>room</i> with Mr. Redmain?"</p> + +<p>"Hesper! I am shocked. <i>Where</i> did you learn to speak, not to say +<i>think</i> , of such things? Have I taken such pains—good God! you strike +me dumb! Have I watched my child like a very—angel, as anxious to keep +her mind pure as her body fair, and is <i>this</i> the result?" Upon what +Lady Margaret founded her claim to a result more satisfactory to her +maternal designs, it were hard to say. For one thing, she had known +nothing of what went on in her nursery, positively nothing of the real +character of the women to whom she gave the charge of it; +and—although, I dare say, for worldly women, Hesper's schoolmistresses +were quite respectable—what did her mother, what could she know of the +governesses or of the flock of sheep—all presumably, but how certainly +<i>all</i> white?—into which she had sent her?</p> + +<p>"Is <i>this</i> the result?" said Lady Margaret.</p> + +<p>"Was it your object, then, to keep me innocent, only that I might have +the necessary lessons in wickedness first from my husband?" said +Hesper, with a rudeness for which, if an apology be necessary, I leave +my reader to find it.</p> + +<p>"Hesper, you are vulgar!" said Lady Margaret, with cold indignation, +and an expression of unfeigned disgust. She was, indeed, genuinely +shocked. That a young lady of Hesper's birth and position should talk +like this, actually objecting to a man as her husband because she +recoiled from his wickedness, of which she was not to be supposed to +know, or to be capable of understanding, anything, was a thing unheard +of in her world-a thing unmaidenly in the extreme! What innocent girl +would or could or dared allude to such matters? She had no right to +know an atom about them!</p> + +<p>"You are a married woman, mamma," returned Hesper, "and therefore must +know a great many things I neither know nor wish to know. For anything +I know, you may be ever so much a better woman than I, for having +learned not to mind things that are a horror to me. But there was a +time when you shrunk from them as I do now. I appeal to you as a woman: +for God's sake, save me from marrying that wretch!"</p> + +<p>She spoke in a tone inconsistently calm.</p> + +<p>"Girl! is it possible you dare to call the man, whom your father and I +have chosen for your husband, a wretch!"</p> + +<p>"Is he not a wretch, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"If he were, how should I know it? What has any lady got to do with a +man's secrets?"</p> + +<p>"Not if he wants to marry her daughter?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not. If he should not be altogether what he ought to be—and +which of us is?—then you will have the honor of reclaiming him. But +men settle down when they marry."</p> + +<p>"And what comes of their wives?"</p> + +<p>"What comes of women. You have your mother before you, Hesper."</p> + +<p>"O mother!" cried Hesper, now at length losing the horrible affectation +of calm which she had been taught to regard as <i>de rigueur</i> , "is it +possible that you, so beautiful, so dignified, would send me on to meet +things you dare not tell me—knowing they would turn me sick or mad? +How dares a man like that even desire in his heart to touch an innocent +girl?"</p> + +<p>"Because he is tired of the other sort," said Lady Malice, half +unconsciously, to herself. What she said to her daughter was ten times +worse: the one was merely a fact concerning Redmain; the other revealed +a horrible truth concerning herself. "He will settle three thousand a +year on you, Hesper," she said with a sigh; "and you will find yourself +mistress."</p> + +<p>"I don't doubt it," answered Hesper, in bitter scorn. "Such a man is +incapable of making any woman a wife."</p> + +<p>Hesper meant an awful spiritual fact, of which, with all her ignorance +of human nature, she had yet got a glimpse in her tortured reflections +of late; but her mother's familiarity with evil misinterpreted her +innocence, and caused herself utter dismay. What right had a girl to +think at all for herself in such matters? Those were things that must +be done, not thought of!</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"These things must not be thought</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">After these ways; so, they will drive us mad."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Yes, these things are hard to think about—harder yet to write about! +The very persons who would send the white soul into arms whose mere +touch is a dishonor will be the first to cry out with indignation +against that writer as shameless who but utters the truth concerning +the things they mean and do; they fear lest their innocent daughters, +into whose hands his books might chance, by ill luck, to fall, should +learn that it is <i>their</i> business to keep themselves pure.—Ah, sweet +mothers! do not be afraid. You have brought them up so carefully, that +they suspect you no more than they do the well-bred gentlemen you would +have them marry. And have they not your blood in them? That will go +far. Never heed the foolish puritan. Your mothers succeeded with you: +you will succeed with your daughters.</p> + +<p>But it is a shame to speak of those things that are done of you in +secret, and I will forbear. Thank God, the day will come—it may be +thousands of years away—when there shall be no such things for a man +to think of, any more than for a girl to shudder at! There is a +purification in progress, and the kingdom of heaven <i>will</i> come, thanks +to the Man who was holy, harmless, undefined, and separate from +sinners. You have heard a little, probably only a little, about him at +church sometimes. But, when that day comes, what part will you have had +in causing evil to cease from the earth?</p> + +<p>There had been a time in the mother's life when she herself regarded +her approaching marriage, with a man she did not love, as a horror to +which her natural maidenliness—a thing she could not help—had to be +compelled and subjected: of the true maidenliness—that before which +the angels make obeisance, and the lion cowers—she never had had any; +for that must be gained by the pure will yielding itself to the power +of the highest. Hence she had not merely got used to the horror, but in +a measure satisfied with it; never suspecting, because never caring +enough, that she had at the same time, and that not very gradually, +been assimilating to the horror; had lost much of what purity she had +once had, and become herself unclean, body and mind, in the contact +with uncleanness. One thing she did know, and that swallowed up all the +rest—that her husband's affairs were so involved as to threaten +absolute poverty; and what woman of the world would not count damnation +better than that?—while Mr. Redmain was rolling in money. Had she +known everything bad of her daughter's suitor, short of legal crime, +for her this would have covered it all.</p> + +<p>In Hesper's useless explosion the mother did not fail to recognize the +presence of Sepia, without whose knowledge of the bad side of the +world, Hesper, she believed, could not have been awake to so much. But +she was afraid of Sepia. Besides, the thing was so far done; and she +did not think she would work to thwart the marriage. On that point she +would speak to her.</p> + +<p>But it was a doubtful service that Sepia had rendered her cousin—to +rouse her indignation and not her strength; to wake horror without +hinting at remedy; to give knowledge of impending doom, without poorest +suggestion of hope, or vaguest shadow of possible escape. It is one +thing to see things as they are; to be consumed with indignation at the +wrong; to shiver with aversion to the abominable; and quite another to +rouse the will to confront the devil, and resist him until he flee. For +this the whole education of Hesper had tended to unfit her. What she +had been taught—and that in a world rendered possible only by the +self-denial of a God—was to drift with the stream, denying herself +only that divine strength of honest love, which would soonest help her +to breast it.</p> + +<p>For the earth, it is a blessed thing that those who arrogate to +themselves the holy name of society, and to whom so large a portion of +the foolish world willingly yields it, are in reality so few and so +ephemeral. Mere human froth are they, worked up by the churning of the +world-sea—rainbow-tinted froth, lovely thinned water, weaker than the +unstable itself out of which it is blown. Great as their ordinance +seems, it is evanescent as arbitrary: the arbitrary is but the slavish +puffed up—and is gone with the hour. The life of the people is below; +it ferments, and the scum is for ever being skimmed off, and cast—God +knows where. All is scum where will is not. They leave behind them +influences indeed, but few that keep their vitality in shapes of art or +literature. There they go—little sparrows of the human world, +chattering eagerly, darting on every crumb and seed of supposed +advantage! while from behind the great dustman's cart, the huge +tiger-cat of an eternal law is creeping upon them. Is it a spirit of +insult that leads me to such a comparison? Where human beings do not, +will not <i>will</i> , let them be ladies gracious as the graces, the +comparison is to the disadvantage of the sparrows. Not time, but +experience will show that, although indeed a simile, this is no +hyperbole.</p> + +<p>"I will leave your father to deal with you, Hesper," said her mother, +and rose.</p> + +<p>Up to this point, Mortimer children had often resisted their mother; +beyond this point, never more than once.</p> + +<p>"No, please, mamma!" returned Hesper, in a tone of expostulation. "I +have spoken my mind, but that is no treason. As my father has referred +Mr. Redmain to me, I would rather deal with him."</p> + +<p>Lady Malice was herself afraid of her husband. There is many a woman, +otherwise courageous enough, who will rather endure the worst and most +degrading, than encounter articulate insult. The mere lack of +conscience gives the scoundrel advantage incalculable over the honest +man; the lack of refinement gives a similar advantage to the cad over +the gentleman; the combination of the two lacks elevates the husband +and father into an autocrat. Hesper was not one her world would have +counted weak; she had physical courage enough; she rode well, and +without fear; she sat calm in the dentist's chair; she would have +fought with knife and pistol against violence to the death; and yet, +rather than encounter the brutality of an evil-begotten race +concentrated in her father, she would yield herself to a defilement +eternally more defiling than that she would both kill and die to escape.</p> + +<p>"Give me a few hours first, mamma," she begged. "Don't let him come to +me just yet. For all your hardness, you feel a little for me—don't +you?"</p> + +<p>"Duty is always hard, my child," said Lady Margaret. She entirely +believed it, and looked on herself as a martyr, a pattern of +self-devotion and womanly virtue. But, had she been certain of escaping +discovery, she would have slipped the koh-i-noor into her belt-pouch, +notwithstanding. Never once in her life had she done or abstained from +doing a thing <i>because</i> that thing was right or was wrong. Such a +person, be she as old and as hard as the hills, is mere putty in the +fingers of Beelzebub.</p> + +<p>Hesper rose and went to her own room. There, for a long hour, she +sat—with the skin of her fair face drawn tight over muscles rigid as +marble—sat without moving, almost without thinking—in a mere hell of +disgusted anticipation. She neither stormed nor wept; her life went +smoldering on; she nerved herself to a brave endurance, instead of a +far braver resistance.</p> + +<p>I fancy Hesper would have been a little shocked if one had called her +an atheist. She went to church most Sundays—when in the country; for, +in the opinion of Lady Margaret, it was not decorous <i>there</i> to omit +the ceremony: where you have influence you ought to set a good +example—of hypocrisy, namely! But, if any one had suggested to Hesper +a certain old-fashioned use of her chamber-door, she would have +inwardly laughed at the absurdity. But, then, you see, her chamber was +no closet, but a large and stately room; and, besides, how, alas! +<i>could</i> the child of Roger and Lady M. Alice Mortimer know that in the +silence was hearing—that in the vacancy was a power waiting to be +sought? Hesper was not much alone, and here was a chance it was a pity +she should lose; but, when she came to herself with a sigh, it was not +to pray, and, when she rose, it was to ring the bell.</p> + +<p>A good many minutes passed before it was answered. She paced the +room—swiftly; she could sit, but she could not walk slowly. With her +hands to her head, she went sweeping up and down. Her maid's knock +arrested her before her toilet-table, with her back to the door. In a +voice of perfect composure, she desired the woman to ask Miss Yolland +to come to her.</p> + +<p>Entering with a slight stoop from the waist, Sepia, with a long, rapid, +yet altogether graceful step, bore down upon Hesper like a fast-sailing +cutter over broad waves, relaxing her speed as she approached her.</p> + +<p>"Here I am, Hesper!" she said.</p> + +<p>"Sepia," said Hesper, "I am sold."</p> + +<p>Miss Yolland gave a little laugh, showing about the half of her +splendid teeth—a laugh to which Hesper was accustomed, but the meaning +of which she did not understand—nor would, without learning a good +deal that were better left unlearned. "To Mr. Redmain, of course!" she +said.</p> + +<p>Hesper nodded.</p> + +<p>"When are you going to be—"—she was about to say "cut up" but there +was a something occasionally visible in Hesper that now and then +checked one of her less graceful coarsenesses. "When is the purchase to +be completed?" she asked, instead.</p> + +<p>"Good Heavens, Sepia! don't be so heartless!" cried Hesper. "Things are +not quite so bad as that! I am not yet in the hell of knowing that. The +day is not fixed for the great red dragon to make a meal of me."</p> + +<p>"I see you were not asleep in church, as I thought, all the time of the +sermon, last Sunday," said Sepia.</p> + +<p>"I did my best, but I could not sleep: every time little Mowbray +mentioned the beast, I thought of Mr. Redmain; and it made me too +miserable to sleep."</p> + +<p>"Poor Hesper!—Well! let us hope that, like the beast in the +fairy-tale, he will turn out a man after all."</p> + +<p>"My heart will break," cried Hesper, throwing herself into a chair. +"Pity me, Sepia; <i>you</i> love me a little."</p> + +<p>A slight shadow darkened yet more Sepia's shadowy brow.</p> + +<p>"Hesper," she said, gravely, "you never told me there was anything of +that sort! Who is it?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Redmain, of course!—I don't know what you mean, Sepia."</p> + +<p>"You said your heart was breaking: who is it for?" asked Sepia, almost +imperiously, and raising her voice a little.</p> + +<p>"Sepia!" cried Hesper, in bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"Why should your heart be breaking, except you loved somebody?"</p> + +<p>"Because I hate <i>him</i> ," answered Hesper.</p> + +<p>"Pooh! is that all?" returned Miss Yolland. "If there were anybody you +wanted—then I grant!"</p> + +<p>"Sepia!" said Hesper, almost entreatingly, "I can not bear to be teased +to-day. Do be open with me. You always puzzle me so! I don't understand +you a bit better than the first day you came to us. I have got used to +you—that is all. Tell me—are you my friend, or are you in league with +mamma? I have my doubts. I can't help it, Sepia."</p> + +<p>She looked in her face pitifully. Miss Yolland looked at her calmly, as +if waiting for her to finish.</p> + +<p>"I thought you would—not help me," Hesper went on, "—that no one can +except God—he could strike me dead; but I did think you would feel for +me a little. I hate Mr. Redmain, and I loathe myself. If <i>you</i> laugh at +me, I shall take poison."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't do that," returned Miss Yolland, quite gravely, and as if +she had already contemplated the alternative; "—that is, not so long +as there was a turn of the game left."</p> + +<p>"The game!" echoed Hesper. "—Playing for love with the devil!—I wish +the game were yours, as you call it!"</p> + +<p>"Mine I'd make it, if I had it to play," returned Sepia. "I wish I were +the other player instead of you, but the man hates me. Some men +do.—Come," she went on, "I will be open with you, Hesper; you don't +hang for thoughts in England. I will tell you what I would do with a +man I hated—that is, if I was compelled to marry him; it would hardly +be fair otherwise, and I have a weakness for fair play.—I would give +him absolute fair play."</p> + +<p>The last three words she spoke with a strange expression of mingled +scorn and jest, then paused, and seemed to have said all she meant to +say.</p> + +<p>"Go on," sighed Hesper; "you amuse me." Her tone expressed anything but +amusement. "What would a woman of your experience do in my place?"</p> + +<p>Sepia fixed a momentary look on Hesper; the words seemed to have stung +her. She knew well enough that, if Lady Malice came to know anything of +her real history, she would have bare time to pack up her small +belongings. She wanted Hesper married, that she might go with her into +the world again; at the same time, she feared her marriage with Mr. +Redmain would hardly favor her wishes. But she could not with prudence +do anything expressly to prevent it; while she might even please Mr. +Redmain a little, if she were supposed to have used influence on his +side. That, however, must not seem to Hesper. Sepia did not yet know in +fact upon what ground she had to build.</p> + +<p>For some time she had been trying to get nearer to Hesper, but—much +like Hesper's experience with her—had found herself strangely baffled, +she could not tell how—the barrier being simply the half innocence, +half ignorance, of Hesper. When minds are not the same, words do not +convey between them.</p> + +<p>She gave a ringing laugh, throwing back her head, and showing all her +fine teeth.</p> + +<p>"You want to know what I would do with a man I hated, as you <i>say</i> you +hate Mr. Redmain?—I would send for him at once—not wait for him to +come to me—and entreat him, <i>as he loved me</i> , to deliver me from the +dire necessity of obeying my father. If he were a gentleman, as I hope +he may be, he would manage to get me out of it somehow, and wouldn't +compromise me a hair's breadth. But, that is, <i>if I were you</i> . If I +were <i>myself</i> in your circumstances, and hated him as you do, that +would not serve my turn. I would ask him all the same to set me free, +but I would behave myself so that he could not do it. While I begged +him, I mean, I should make him feel that he could not—should make him +absolutely determined to marry me, at any price to him, and at whatever +cost to me. He should say to himself that I did not mean what I +said—as, indeed, for the sake of my revenge, I should not. For that I +would give anything—supposing always, don't you know? that I hated him +as you do Mr. Redmain. He should declare to me it was impossible; that +he would die rather than give up the most precious desire of his +life—and all that rot, you know. I would tell him I hated him—only so +that he should not believe me. I would say to him, 'Release me, Mr. +Redmain, or I will make you repent it. I have given you fair warning. I +have told you I hated you.' He should persist, should marry me, and +then I <i>would</i> ."</p> + +<p>"Would what?"</p> + +<p>"Do as I said."</p> + +<p>"But what?"</p> + +<p>"Make him repent it."</p> + +<p>With the words, Miss Yolland broke into a second fit of laughter, and, +turning from Hesper, went, with a kind of loitering, strolling pace +toward the door, glancing round more than once, each time with a fresh +bubble rather than ripple in her laughter. Whether it was all +nonsensical merriment, or whether the author of laughter without fun, +Beelzebub himself, was at the moment stirring in her, Hesper could not +have told; as it was, she sat staring after her, unable even to think. +Just as she reached the door, however, she turned quickly, and, with +the smile of a hearty, innocent child, or something very like it, ran +back to Hesper, threw her arms round her, and said:</p> + +<p>"There, now! I've done for you what I could: I have made you forget the +odious man for a moment. I was curious to know whether I could not make +a bride forget her bridegroom. The other thing is too easy."</p> + +<p>"What other thing?"</p> + +<p>"To make a bridegroom forget his bride, of course, you silly +child!—But there I am, off again! when really it is time to be +serious, and come to the only important point in the matter.—In what +shade of purity do you think of ascending the funeral pyre?—In +absolute white?—or rose-tinged?—or cream-colored!—or +gold-suspect?—Eh, happy bride?"</p> + +<p>As she ceased, she turned her head away, pulled out her handkerchief, +and whimpered a little.</p> + +<p>"Sepia!" said Hesper, annoyed, "you are a worse goose than I thought +you! What have <i>you</i> got to cry about? <i>You</i> have not got to marry him!"</p> + +<p>"No; I wish I had!" returned Sepia, wiping her eyes. "Then I shouldn't +lose you. I should take care of that."</p> + +<p>"And am I likely to gain such a friend in Mr. Redmain as to afford the +loss of the only <i>other</i> friend I have?" said Hesper, calmly.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Hesper! a sad experience has taught me differently, The moment you +are married to the man—as married you will be—you all are—bluster as +you may—that moment you will begin to change into a wife—a +domesticated animal, that is—a tame tabby. Unwilling a woman must be +to confess herself only the better half of a low-bred brute, with a +high varnish—or not, as the case may be; and there is nothing left her +to do but set herself to find out the wretch's virtues, or, as he +hasn't got any, to invent for him the least unlikely ones. She wants +for her own sake to believe in him, don't you know? Then she begins to +repent having said hard words of the poor gentleman. The next thing, of +course, will be, that you begin to hate the person, to whom you said +them, and to persuade yourself she drew them out of you; and so you +break off all communication with the obnoxious person; who being, in +the present instance, that black-faced sheep, Sepia Yolland, she is +very sorry beforehand, and hates Mr. Redmain with all her heart; first, +because Hesper Mortimer hates him, and next, but twice as much, because +she is going to love him. It is a great pity <i>you</i> should have him, +Hesper. I wish you would hand him over to me. <i>I</i> shouldn't mind what +he was. I should soon tame him."</p> + +<p>"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Hesper, with righteous +indignation. "<i>You would not mind what he was!</i> "</p> + +<p>Sepia laughed—this time her curious half-laugh.</p> + +<p>"If I did, I wouldn't marry him, Hesper," she said. "Which is +worse—not to mind, and marry him; or to mind, and marry him all the +same? Eh, Cousin Hesper Mortimer?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>can't</i> make you out, Sepia!" said Hesper. "I believe I never shall."</p> + +<p>"Very likely. Give it up?"</p> + +<p>"Quite."</p> + +<p>"The best thing you could do. I can't always make myself out. But, +then, I always give it up directly, and so it does me no harm. But it's +ten times worse to worry your poor little heart to rags about such a +man as that; he's not worth a thought from a grand creature like you. +Where's the use, besides? Would you stand staring at your medicine a +whole day before the time for taking it comes? I wouldn't have my right +leg cut off because that is the side my dog walks on, and dogs go mad! +Slip, cup, and lip—don't you know? The man may be underground long +before the wedding-day: he's anything but sound, they tell me. But it +would be far better soon after it, of course. Think only—a young +widow, rich, and not a straw the worse!"</p> + +<p>"Sepia, I can't for the life of me tell whether you are a Job's +comforter or the devil's advocate."</p> + +<p>"Not the latter, my child; for I want to see you emerge a saint from +the miseries of matrimony. But, whatever you do, Hesper, don't break +your heart, for you will find it hard to mend. I broke mine once, and +have been mad ever since."</p> + +<p>"What is the use of saying that to me, when you know I have to marry +the man?"</p> + +<p>"I never said you were not to marry him; I said you were not to break +your heart. Marriage is nothing so long as you do not make a heart +affair of it; that hurts; and, as you are not in love, there is no +occasion for it at all."</p> + +<p>"Marriage is nothing, Sepia! Is it nothing to be tied to a man—to +<i>any</i> man—for all your life?"</p> + +<p>"That's as you take it. Nobody makes so much of it nowadays as they +used. The clergy themselves, who are at the bottom of all the business, +don't fuss about every trifle in the prayer-book. They sign the +articles, and have done with it—meaning, of course, to break them, if +they stand in their way."</p> + +<p>Hesper rose in anger.</p> + +<p>"How dare you—" she began.</p> + +<p>"Good gracious!" cried Sepia, "you don't imagine I meant anything so +wicked! How could you let such a thing come into your head? I declare +you are quite dangerous to talk to!"</p> + +<p>"It's such a horrible business," said Hesper, "it seems to make one +capable of anything wicked, only to think about it. I would rather not +say another word on the subject."</p> + +<p>A shudder ran through her, as if at the sight of some hideously +offensive object.</p> + +<p>"That would be the best thing," said Sepia, "if it meant not think more +about it. Everything is better for not being thought about. I would do +anything to comfort you, dear. I would marry him for you, if that would +do; but I fear it would scarcely meet the views of Herr Papa. If I +could please the beast as well—and I think I should in time—I would +willingly hand him the purchase-money. But, of course, he would scorn +to touch it, except as the proceeds of the <i>bona-fide</i> sale of his own +flesh and blood."</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br /><br /> +UNGENEROUS BENEVOLENCE.</h3> + +<p>As the time went on, and Letty saw nothing more of Tom, she began to +revive a little, and feel as if she were growing safe again. The tide +of temptation was ebbing away; there would be no more deceit; never +again would she place herself in circumstances whence might arise any +necessity for concealment. She began, much too soon, alas! to feel as +if she were newborn; nothing worthy of being called a new birth can +take place anywhere but in the will, and poor Letty's will was not yet +old enough to give birth to anything; it scarcely, indeed, existed. The +past was rapidly receding, that was all, and had begun to look dead, +and as if it wanted only to be buried out of her sight. For what is +done is done, in small faults as well as in murders; and, as nothing +can recall it, or make it not be, where can be the good in thinking +about it?—a reasoning worse than dangerous, before one has left off +being capable of the same thing over again. Still, in the mere absence +of renewed offense, it is well that some shadow of peace should return; +else how should men remember the face of innocence? or how should they +live long enough to learn to repent? But for such breaks, would not +some grow worse at full gallop?</p> + +<p>That the idea of Tom's friendship was very pleasant to her, who can +blame her? He had never said he loved her; he had only said she was +lovely: was she therefore bound to persuade herself he meant nothing at +all? Was it not as much as could be required of her, that, in her +modesty, she took him for no more than a true, kind friend, who would +gladly be of service to her? Ah! if Tom had but been that! If he was +not, he did not know it, which is something to say both for and against +him. It could not be other than pleasant to Letty to have one, in her +eyes so superior, who would talk to her as an equal. It was not that +ever she resented being taught; but she did get tired of lessons only, +beautiful as they were. A kiss from Mrs. Wardour, or a little teasing +from Cousin Godfrey, would have done far more than all his intellectual +labor upon her to lift her feet above such snares as she was now +walking amid. She needed some play—a thing far more important to life +than a great deal of what is called business and acquirement. Many a +matter, over which grown people look important, long-faced, and +consequential, is folly, compared with the merest child's frolic, in +relation to the true affairs of existence.</p> + +<p>All the time, Letty had not in the least neglected her houseduties; +and, again, her readings with her cousin Godfrey, since Tom's apparent +recession, had begun to revive in interest. He grew kinder and kinder +to her, more and more fatherly.</p> + +<p>But the mother, once disquieted, had lost no time in taking measures. +In every direction, secretly, through friends, she was inquiring after +some situation suitable for Letty: she owed it to herself, she said, to +find for the girl the right thing, before sending her from the house. +In the true spirit of benevolent tyranny, she said not a word to Letty +of her design. She had the chronic distemper of concealment, where +Letty had but a feverish attack. Much false surmise might have been +corrected, and much evil avoided, had she put it in Letty's power to +show how gladly she would leave Thornwick. In the mean time the old +lady kept her lynx-eye upon the young people.</p> + +<p>But Godfrey, having caught a certain expression in the said eye, came +to the resolution that thenceforth their schoolroom should be the +common sitting-room. This would aid him in carrying out his resolve of +a cautious and staid demeanor toward his pupil. To preserve his +freedom, he must keep himself thoroughly in hand. Experience had taught +him that, were he once to give way and show his affection, there would +from that moment be an end of teaching and learning. And yet so much +was he drawn to the girl, that, at this very time, he gave her the +manuscript of his own verses to which I have referred—a volume +exquisitely written, and containing, certainly, the outcome of the best +that was in him: he did not tell her that he had copied them all with +such care and neatness, and had the book so lovelily bound, expressly +and only for her eyes..</p> + +<p>News of something that seemed likely to suit her ideas for Letty at +length came to Mrs. Wardour's ears, whereupon she thought it time to +prepare the girl for the impending change. One day, therefore, as she +herself sat knitting one sock for Godfrey, and Letty darning another, +she opened the matter.</p> + +<p>"I am getting old, Letty," she said, "and you can't be here always. You +are a thoughtless creature, but I suppose you have the sense to see +that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, aunt," answered Letty.</p> + +<p>"It is high time you should be thinking," Mrs. Wardour went on, "how +you are to earn your bread. If you left it till I was gone, you would +find it very awkward, for you would have to leave Thornwick at once, +and I don't know who would take you while you were looking out. I must +see you comfortably settled before I go."</p> + +<p>"Yes, aunt."</p> + +<p>"There are not many things you could do."</p> + +<p>"No, aunt; very few. But I should make a better housemaid than most—I +do believe that."</p> + +<p>"I am glad to find you willing to work; but we shall be able, I trust, +to do a little better for you than that. A situation as housemaid would +reflect little credit on my pains for you—would hardly correspond to +the education you have had."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wardour referred to the fact that Letty was for about a year a +day—boarder at a ladies' school in Testbridge, where no immortal soul, +save that of a genius, which can provide its own sauce, could have +taken the least interest in the chaff and chopped straw that composed +the provender.</p> + +<p>"It is true," her aunt went on, "you might have made a good deal more +of it, if you had cared to do your best; but, such as you are, I trust +we shall find you a very tolerable situation as governess."</p> + +<p>At the word, Letty's heart ran half-way up her throat. A more dreadful +proposal she could not have imagined. She felt, and was, utterly +insufficient for—indeed, incapable of such an office. She felt she +knew nothing: how was she to teach anything? Her heart seemed to grow +gray within her. By nature, from lack of variety of experience, yet +more from daily repression of her natural joyousness, she was +exceptionally apprehensive where anything was required of her. What she +understood, she encountered willingly and bravely; but, the simplest +thing that seemed to involve any element of obscurity, she dreaded like +a dragon in his den.</p> + +<p>"You don't seem to relish the proposal, Letty," said Mrs. Wardour. "I +hope you had not taken it in your head that I meant to leave you +independent. What I have done for you, I have done purely for your +father's sake. I was under no obligation to take the least trouble +about you. But I have more regard to your welfare than I fear you give +me credit for."</p> + +<p>"O aunt! it's only that I'm not fit for being a governess. I shouldn't +a bit mind being dairymaid or housemaid. I would go to such a place +to-morrow, if you liked."</p> + +<p>"Letty, your tastes may be vulgar, but you owe it to your family to +look at least like a lady."</p> + +<p>"But I am not scholar enough for a governess, aunt."</p> + +<p>"That is not my fault. I sent you to a good school. Now, I will find +you a good situation, and you must contrive to keep it."</p> + +<p>"O aunt! let me stay here—just as I am. Call me your dairymaid or your +housemaid. It is all one—I do the work now."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to reflect on me that I have required menial offices of +you? I have been to you in the place of a mother; and it is for me, not +for you, to make choice of your path in life."</p> + +<p>"Do you want me to go at once?" asked Letty, her heart sinking again, +and her voice trembling with a pathos her aunt quite misunderstood.</p> + +<p>"As soon as I have secured for you a desirable situation—not before," +answered Mrs. Wardour, in a tone generously protective.</p> + +<p>Her affection for the girl had never been deep; and, the moment she +fancied she and her son were drawing toward each other, she became to +her the thawed adder: she wished the adder well, but was she bound to +harbor it after it had begun to bite? There are who never learn to see +anything except in its relation to themselves, nor that relation except +as fancied by themselves; and, this being a withering habit of mind, +they keep growing drier, and older, and smaller, and deader, the longer +they live—thinking less of other people, and more of themselves and +their past experience, all the time as they go on withering.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Wardour was in some dread of what her son would say when he +came to know what she had been doing; for, when we are not at ease with +ourselves, when conscience keeps moving as if about to speak, then we +dread the disapproval of the lowliest, and Godfrey was the only one +before whom his mother felt any kind of awe. Toward him, therefore, she +kept silence for the present. If she had spoken then, things might have +gone very differently: it might have brought Godfrey to the point of +righteous resolve or of passionate utterance. He could not well have +opposed his mother's design without going further and declaring that, +if Letty would, she should remain where she was, the mistress of the +house. If not the feeling of what was due to her, the dread of the +house without her might well have brought him to this.</p> + +<p>Letty, for her part, believed her cousin Godfrey regarded her with +pity, and showed her kindness from a generous sense of duty; she was a +poor, dull creature for whom her cousin must do what he could: one word +of genuine love from him, one word even of such love as was in him, +would have caused her nature to shoot heavenward and spread out +earthward with a rapidity that would have astonished him; she would +thereby have come into her spiritual property at once, and heaven would +have opened to her—a little way at least—probably to close again for +a time. Now she felt crushed. The idea of undertaking that for which +she knew herself so ill fitted was not merely odious but frightful to +her. She was ready enough to work, but it must be real, not sham work. +She must see and consult Mary! This was quite another affair from Tom! +She would take the first opportunity. In the mean time there was +nothing to be done or said; and with a heavy heart she held her +peace—only longed for her own room, that she might have a cry. To her +comfort the clock struck ten, and all that now lay between her and that +refuge was the usual round of the house with Mrs. Wardour, to see all +safe for the night. That done, they parted, and Letty went slowly and +sadly up the stair. It was a dark prospect before her. At best, she had +to leave the only home she remembered, and go among strangers.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br /><br /> +THE MOONLIGHT.</h3> + +<p>It was a still, frosty night, with a full moon. When she reached her +chamber, Letty walked mechanically to the window, and there stood, with +the candle in her hand, looking carelessly out, nor taking any pleasure +in the great night. The window looked on an open, grassy yard, where +were a few large ricks of wheat, shining yellow in the cold, far-off +moon. Between the moon and the earth hung a faint mist, which the thin +clouds of her breath seemed to mingle with and augment. There lay her +life—out of doors—dank and dull; all the summer faded from it—all +its atmosphere a growing fog! She would never see Tom again! It was six +weeks since she saw him last! He must have ceased to think of her by +this time! And, if he did think of her again, she would be far off, +nobody knew where.</p> + +<p>Something struck the window with a slight, sharp clang. It was winter, +and there were no moths or other insects flying, What could it be? She +put her face close to the pane, and looked out. There was a man in the +shadow of one of the ricks! He had his hat off, and was beckoning to +her. It could be nobody but Tom! The thought sent to her heart a pang +of mingled pleasure and pain. Clearly he wanted to speak to her! How +gladly she would! but then would come again all the trouble of +conscious deceit: how was she to bear that all over again! Still, if +she was going to be turned out of the house so soon, what would it +matter? If her aunt was going to compel her to be her own mistress, +where was the harm if she began it a few days sooner? What did it +matter anyhow what she did? But she dared not speak to him! Mrs. +Wardour's ears were as sharp as her eyes. The very sound of her own +voice in the moonlight would terrify her. She opened the lattice +softly, and gently shaking her head—she dared not shake it +vigorously—was on the point of closing it again, when, making frantic +signs of entreaty, the man stepped into the moonlight, and it was +plainly Tom. It was too dreadful! He might be seen any moment! She +shook her head again, in a way she meant, and he understood, to mean +she dared not. He fell on his knees and laid his hands together like +one praying. Her heart interpreted the gesture as indicating that he +was in trouble, and that, therefore, he begged her to go to him. With +sudden resolve she nodded acquiescence, and left the window.</p> + +<p>Her room was in a little wing, projecting from the back of the house, +over the kitchen. The servants' rooms were in another part, but Letty +forgot a tiny window in one of them, which looked also upon the ricks. +There was a back stair to the kitchen, and in the kitchen a door to the +farm-yard. She stole down the stair, and opened the door with absolute +noiselessness. In a moment more she had stolen on tiptoe round the +corner, and was creeping like a ghost among the ricks. Not even a +rustle betrayed her as she came up to Tom from behind. He still knelt +where she had left him, looking up to her window, which gleamed like a +dead eye in the moonlight. She stood for a moment, afraid to move, lest +she should startle him, and he should call out, for the slightest noise +about the place would bring Godfrey down. The next moment, however, +Tom, aware of her presence, sprang to his feet, and, turning, bounded +to her, and took her in his arms. Still possessed by the one terror of +making a noise, she did not object even by a contrary motion, and, when +he took her hand to lead her away out of sight of the house, she +yielded at once.</p> + +<p>When they were safe in the field behind the hedge—</p> + +<p>"Why did you make me come down, Tom?" she whispered, half choked with +fear, looking up in his face, which was radiant in the moonshine.</p> + +<p>"Because I could not bear it one day longer," he answered. "All this +time I have been breaking my heart to get a word with you, and never +seeing you except at church, and there you would never even look at me. +It is cruel of you, Letty. I know you could manage it, if you liked, +well enough. Why should you try me so?"</p> + +<p>"Do speak a little lower, Tom: sound goes so far at night!—I didn't +know you would want to see me like that," she answered, looking up in +his face with a pleased smile.</p> + +<p>"Didn't know!" repeated Tom. "I want nothing else, think of nothing +else, dream of nothing else. Oh, the delight of having you here all +alone to myself at last! You darling Letty!"</p> + +<p>"But I must go directly, Tom. I have no business to be out of the house +at this time of the night. If you hadn't made me think you were in some +trouble, I daredn't have come."</p> + +<p>"And ain't I in trouble enough—trouble that nothing but your coming +could get me out of? To love your very shadow, and not be able to get a +peep even of that, except in church, where all the time of the service +I'm raging inside like a wild beast in a cage—ain't that trouble +enough to make you come to me?"</p> + +<p>Letty's heart leaped up. He loved her, then! Love, real love, was what +it meant! It was paradise! Anything might come that would! She would be +afraid of nothing any more. They might say or do to her what they +pleased—she did not care a straw, if he loved her—really loved her! +And he did! he did! She was going to have him all to her own self, and +nobody was to have any right to meddle with her more!</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you loved me, Tom!" she said, simply, with a little gasp.</p> + +<p>"And I don't know yet whether you love me," returned Tom.</p> + +<p>"Of course, if you love <i>me</i> ," answered Letty, as if everybody must +give back love for love.</p> + +<p>Tom took her again in his arms, and Letty was in greater bliss than she +had ever dreamed possible. From being a nobody in the world, she might +now queen it to the top of her modest bent; from being looked down on +by everybody, she had the whole earth under her feet; from being +utterly friendless, she had the heart of Tom Helmer for her own! Yet +even then, eluding the barriers of Tom's arms, shot to her heart, sharp +as an arrow, the thought that she was forsaking Cousin Godfrey. She did +not attempt to explain it to herself; she was in too great confusion, +even if she had been capable of the necessary analysis. It came, +probably, of what her aunt had told her concerning her cousin's opinion +of Tom. Often and often since, she had said to herself that, of course, +Cousin Godfrey was mistaken and quite wrong in not liking Tom; she was +sure he would like him if he knew him as she did!—and yet to act +against his opinion, and that never uttered to herself, cost her this +sharp pang, and not a few that followed! To soften it for the moment, +however, came the vaguely, sadly reproachful feeling, that, seeing they +were about to send her out into the world to earn her bread, they had +no more any right to make such demands upon her loyalty to them as +should exclude the closest and only satisfying friend she had—one who +would not turn her away, but wanted to have her for ever. That Godfrey +knew nothing of his mother's design, she did not once suspect.</p> + +<p>"Now, Tom, you have seen me, and spoken to me, and I must go," said +Letty.</p> + +<p>"O Letty!" cried Tom, reproachfully, "now when we understand each +other? Would you leave me in the very moment of my supremest bliss? +That would be mockery, Letty! That is the way my dreams serve me +always. But, surely, you are no dream! Perhaps I <i>am</i> dreaming, and +shall wake to find myself alone! I never was so happy in my life, and +you want to leave me all alone in the midnight, with the moon to +comfort me! Do as you like, Letty!—I won't leave the place till the +morning. I will go back to the rick-yard, and lie under your window all +night."</p> + +<p>The idea of Tom, out on the cold ground, while she was warm in bed, was +too much for Letty's childish heart. Had she known Tom better, she +would not have been afraid: she would have known that he would indeed +do as he had said—so far; that he would lie down under her window, and +there remain, even to the very moment when he began to feel miserable, +and a moment longer, but not more than two; that then he would get up, +and, with a last look, start home for bed.</p> + +<p>"I will stop a little while, Tom," she offered, "if you will promise to +go home as soon as I leave you."</p> + +<p>Tom promised.</p> + +<p>They went wandering along the farm-lanes, and Tom made love to her, as +the phrase is—in his case, alas! a phrase only too correct. I do not +say, or wish understood, that he did not love her—with such love as +lay in the immediate power of his development; but, being a sort of a +poet, such as a man may be who loves the form of beauty, but not the +indwelling power of it, that is, the truth, he <i>made</i> love to +her—fashioned forms of love, and offered them to her; and she accepted +them, and found the words of them very dear and very lovely. For +neither had she got far enough, with all Godfrey's endeavors for her +development, to love aright the ring of the true gold, and therefore +was not able to distinguish the dull sound of the gilt brass Tom +offered her. Poor fellow! it was all he had. But compassion itself can +hardly urge that as a reason for accepting it for genuine. What rubbish +most girls will take for poetry, and with it heap up impassably their +door to the garden of delights! what French polish they will take for +refinement! what merest French gallantry for love! what French +sentiment for passion! what commonest passion they will take for +devotion!—passion that has little to do with their beauty even, still +less with the individuality of it, and nothing at all with their +loveliness!</p> + +<p>In justice to Tom, I must add, however, that he also took not a little +rubbish for poetry, much sentiment for pathos, and all passion for +love. He was no intentional deceiver; he was so self-deceived, that, +being himself a deception, he could be nothing but a deceiver—at once +the most complete and the most pardonable, and perhaps the most +dangerous of deceivers.</p> + +<p>With all his fine talk of love, to which he now gave full flow, it was +characteristic of him that, although he saw Letty without hat or cloak, +just because he was himself warmly clad, he never thought of her being +cold, until the arm he had thrown round her waist felt her shiver. +Thereupon he was kind, and would have insisted that she should go in +and get a shawl, had she not positively refused to go in and come out +again. Then he would have had her put on his coat, that she might be +able to stay a little longer; but she prevailed on him to let her go. +He brought her to the nearest point not within sight of any of the +windows, and, there leaving her, set out at a rapid pace for the inn +where he had put up his mare.</p> + +<p>When Tom was gone, and the bare night, a diffused conscience, all about +her, Letty, with a strange fear at her heart, like one in a churchyard, +with the ghost-hour at hand, and feeling like "a guilty thing +surprised," although she had done nothing wrong in its mere self, stole +back to the door of the kitchen, longing for the shelter of her own +room, as never exile for his fatherland.</p> + +<p>She had left the door an inch ajar, that she might run the less risk of +making a noise in opening it; but ere she reached it, the moon shining +full upon it, she saw plainly, and her heart turned sick when she saw, +that it was closed. Between cold and terror she shuddered from head to +foot, and stood staring.</p> + +<p>Recovering a little, she said to herself some draught must have blown +it to. If so, there was much danger that the noise had been heard; but, +in any case, there was no time to lose. She glided swiftly to it. She +lifted the latch softly—but, horror of horrors! in vain. The door was +locked. She was shut out. She must lie or confess! And what lie would +serve? Poor Letty! And yet, for all her dismay, her terror, her despair +that night, in her innocence, she never once thought of the worst +danger in which she stood!</p> + +<p>The least perilous, where no safe way was left, would now have been to +let the simple truth appear; Letty ought immediately to have knocked at +the door, and, should that have proved unavailing, to have broken her +aunt's window even, to gain hearing and admittance. But that was just +the kind of action of which, truthful as was her nature, poor Letty, +both by constitution and training, was incapable; human opposition, +superior anger, condemnation, she dared not encounter. She sank, more +than half fainting, upon the door-step.</p> + +<p>The moment she came to herself, apprehension changed into active dread, +rushed into uncontrollable terror. She sprang to her feet, and, the +worst thing she could do, fled like the wind after Tom—now, indeed, +she imagined, her only refuge! She knew where he had put up his horse, +and knew he could hardly take any other way than the foot-path to +Testbridge. He could not be more than a few yards ahead of her, she +thought. Presently she heard him whistling, she was sure, as he walked +leisurely along, but she could not see him. The way was mostly between +hedges until it reached the common: there she would catch sight of him, +for, notwithstanding the gauzy mist, the moon gave plenty of light. On +she went swiftly, still fancying at intervals she heard in front of her +his whistle, and even his step on the hard, frozen path. In her eager +anxiety to overtake him, she felt neither the chilling air nor the fear +of the night and the loneliness. Dismay was behind her, and hope before +her. On and on she ran. But when, with now failing breath, she reached +the common, and saw it lie so bare and wide in the moonlight, with the +little hut standing on its edge, like a ghastly lodge to nowhere, with +gaping black holes for door and window, then, indeed, the horror of her +deserted condition and the terrors of the night began to crush their +way into her soul. What might not be lurking in that ruin, ready to +wake at the lightest rustle, and, at sight of a fleeing girl, start out +in pursuit, and catch her by the hair that now streamed behind her! And +there was the hawthorn, so old and grotesquely contorted, always +bringing to her mind a frightful German print at the head of a poem +called "The Haunted Heath," in one of her cousin Godfrey's books! It +was like an old miser, decrepit with age, pursued and unable to run! +Miserable as was her real condition, it was rendered yet more pitiable +by these terrors of the imagination. The distant howl of a dog which +the moon would not let sleep, the muffled low of a cow from a shippen, +and a certain strange sound, coming again and again, which she could +not account for, all turned to things unnatural, therefore frightful. +Faintly, once or twice, she tried to persuade herself that it was only +a horrible dream, from which she would wake in safety; but it would not +do; it was, alas! all too real—hard, killing fact! Anyhow, dream or +fact, there was no turning; on to the end she must go. More frightful +than all possible dangers, most frightful thing of all, was the old +house she had left, standing silent in the mist, holding her room +inside it empty, the candle burning away in the face of the moon! +Across the common she glided like a swift wraith, and again into the +shadow of the hedges.</p> + +<p>There seems to be a hope as well as a courage born of despair: +immortal, yet inconstant children of a death-doomed sire, both were now +departing. If Tom had come this way, she must, she thought, have +overtaken him long before now! But, perhaps, she had fainted outright, +and lain longer than she knew at the kitchen-door; and when she started +to follow him, Tom was already at home! Alas, alas! she was lost +utterly!</p> + +<p>The footpath came to an end, and she was on the high-road. There was +the inn where Tom generally put up! It was silent as the grave. The +clang of a horseshoe striking a stone came through the frosty air from +far along the road. Her heart sank into the depths of the infinite sea +that encircles the soul, and, for the second time that night, Death +passing by gave her an alms of comfort, and she lay insensible on the +border of the same highway along which Tom, on his bay mare, went +singing home.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br /><br /> +THE MORNING.</h3> + +<p>At Thornwick, Tom had been descried in the yard, by the spying organs +of one of the servants—a woman not very young, and not altogether +innocent of nightly interviews. Through the small window of her closet +she had seen, and having seen she watched—not without hope she might +be herself the object of the male presence, which she recognized as +that of Tom Helmer, whom almost everybody knew. In a few minutes, +however, Letty appeared behind him, and therewith a throb of evil joy +shot through her bosom: what a chance! what a good joke! what a thing +for her to find out Miss Letty; to surprise her naughty secret! to have +her in her power! She would have no choice but tell her everything—and +then what privileges would be hers! and what larks they two would have +together, helping each other! She had not a thought of betraying her: +there would be no fun in that! not the less would she encourage a +little the fear that she might, for it would be as a charm in her bosom +to work her will withal!—To make sure of Letty and her secret, partly +also in pure delight of mischief, and enjoyment of the power to tease, +she stole down stairs, and locked the kitchen door—the bolt of which, +for reasons of her own, she kept well oiled; then sat down in an old +rocking-chair, and waited—I can not say watched, for she fell fast +asleep. Letty lifted the latch almost too softly for her to have heard +had she been awake; but on the door-step Letty, had she been capable of +listening, might have heard her snoring.</p> + +<p>When the young woman awoke in the cold gray of the morning, and came to +herself, compunction seized her. Opening the door softly, she went out +and searched everywhere; then, having discovered no trace of Letty, +left the door unlocked, and went to bed, hoping she might yet find her +way into the house before Mrs. Wardour was down.</p> + +<p>When that lady awoke at the usual hour, and heard no sound of stir, she +put on her dressing-gown, and went, in the anger of a housekeeper, to +Letty's room: there, to her amazement and horror, she saw the bed had +lain all the night expectant. She hurried thence to the room occupied +by the girl who was the cause of the mischief. Roused suddenly by the +voice of her mistress, she got up half awake, and sleepy-headed; and, +assailed by a torrent of questions, answered so, in her confusion, as +to give the initiative to others: before she was well awake, she had +told all she had seen from the window, but nothing of what she had +herself done. Mrs. Wardour hurried to the kitchen, found the door on +the latch, believed everything and much more, went straight to her +son's room, and, in a calm rage, woke him up, and poured into his +unwilling ears a torrent of mingled fact and fiction, wherein floated +side by side with Letty's name every bad adjective she could bring the +lips of propriety to utter. Before he quite came to himself the news +had well-nigh driven him mad. There stood his mother, dashing her cold +hailstorm of contemptuous wrath on the girl he loved, whom he had gone +to bed believing the sweetest creature in creation, and loving himself +more than she dared show! He had been dreaming of her with the utmost +tenderness, when his mother woke him with the news that she had gone in +the night with Tom Helmer, the poorest creature in the neighborhood.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, mother," he cried, "go away, and let me get up!"</p> + +<p>"What can you do, Godfrey? What is there to be done? Let the jade go to +her ruin!" cried Mrs. Wardour, alarmed in the midst of her wrath. "You +<i>can</i> do nothing now. As she has made her bed, so she must lie."</p> + +<p>Her words were torture to him. He sprang from his bed, and proceeded to +pull on his clothes. Terrified at the wildness of his looks, his mother +fled from the room, but only to watch at the door.</p> + +<p>Scarcely could Godfrey dress himself for agitation; brain and heart +seemed to mingle in chaotic confusion. Anger strove with unbelief, and +indignation at his mother with the sense of bitter wrong from Letty. It +was all incredible and shameful, yet not the less utterly miserable. +The girl whose Idea lay in the innermost chamber of his heart like the +sleeping beauty in her palace! while he loved and ministered to her +outward dream-shape which flitted before the eyes of his sense, in the +hope that at last the Idea would awake, and come forth and inform +it!—he dared not follow the thought! it was madness and suicide! He +had been silently worshiping an angel with wings not yet matured to the +spreading of themselves to the winds of truth; those wings were a +little maimed, and he had been tending them with precious balms, and +odors, and ointments: all at once she had turned into a bat, a +skin-winged creature that flies by night, and had disappeared in the +darkness! Of all possible mockeries, for <i>her</i> to steal out at night to +the embraces of a fool! a wretched, weak-headed, idle fellow, whom +every clown called by his Christian name! an ass that did nothing but +ride the country on a horse too good for him, and quarrel with his +mother from Sunday to Saturday! For such a man she had left him, +Godfrey Wardour! a man who would have lifted her to the height of her +nature! whereas the fool Helmer would sink her to the depth of his own +merest nothingness! The thing was inconceivable! yet it was! He knew +it; they were all the same! Never woman worthy of true man! The poorest +show would take them captive, would draw them from reason!</p> + +<p>He knew <i>now</i> that he loved the girl. Gnashing his teeth with fellest +rage, he caught from the wall his heaviest hunting-whip, rushed +heedless past his mother where she waited on the landing, and out of +the house.</p> + +<p>In common with many, he thought worse of Tom Helmer than he yet +deserved. He was a characterless fool, a trifler, a poetic babbler, a +good-for-nothing good sort of fellow; that was the worst that as yet +was true of him; and better things might with equal truth have been +said of him, had there been any one that loved him enough to know them.</p> + +<p>Godfrey ran to the stable, and to the stall of his fastest horse. As he +threw the saddle over his back, he almost wept in the midst of his +passion at the sight of the bright stirrups. His hands trembled so that +he failed repeatedly in passing the straps through the buckles of the +girths. But the moment he felt the horse under him, he was stronger, +set his head straight for the village of Warrender, where Tom's mother +lived, and went away over everything. His crow-flight led him across +the back of the house of Durnmelling. Hesper, who had not slept well, +and found the early morning even a worse time to live in than the +evening, saw him from her window, going straight as an arrow. The sight +arrested her. She called Sepia, who for a few nights had slept in her +room, to the window.</p> + +<p>"There, now!" she said, "there is a man who looks a man! Good Heavens! +how recklessly he rides! I don't believe Mr. Redmain could keep on a +horse's back if he tried!" Sepia looked, half asleep. Her eyes grew +wider. Her sleepiness vanished.</p> + +<p>"Something is wrong with the proud yeoman!" she said. "He is either mad +or in love, probably both! We shall hear more of this morning's ride, +Hesper, as I hope to die a maid!—That's a man I should like to know +now," she added, carelessly. "There is some go in him! I have a +weakness for the kind of man that <i>could</i> shake the life out of me if I +offended him."</p> + +<p>"Are you so anxious, then, to make a good, submissive wife?" said +Hesper.</p> + +<p>"I should take the very first opportunity of offending him—mortally, +as they call it. It would be worth one's while with a man like that."</p> + +<p>"Why? How? For what good?"</p> + +<p>"Just to see him look. There is nothing on earth so scrumptious as +having a grand burst of passion all to yourself." She drew in her +breath like one in pain. "My God!" she said, "to see it come and go! +the white and the red! the tugging at the hair! the tears and the +oaths, and the cries and the curses! To know that you have the man's +heart-strings stretched on your violin, and that with one dash of your +bow, one tiniest twist of a peg, you can make him shriek!"</p> + +<p>"Sepia!" said Hesper, "I think Darwin must be right, and some of us at +least are come from—"</p> + +<p>"Tiger-cats? or perhaps the Tasmanian devil?" suggested Sepia, with one +of her scornful half-laughs.</p> + +<p>But the same instant she turned white as death, and sat softly down on +the nearest chair.</p> + +<p>"Good Heavens, Sepia! what is the matter? I did not mean it," said +Hesper, remorsefully, thinking she had wounded her, and that she had +broken down in the attempt to conceal the pain.</p> + +<p>"It's not that, Hesper, dear. Nothing you could say would hurt me," +replied Sepia, drawing breath sharply. "It's a pain that comes +sometimes—a sort of picture drawn in pains—something I saw once."</p> + +<p>"A picture?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! well!—picture, or what you will!—Where's the difference, once +it's gone and done with? Yet it will get the better of me now and then +for a moment! Some day, when you are married, and a little more used to +men and their ways, I will tell you. My little cousin is much too +innocent now."</p> + +<p>"But you have not been married, Sepia! What should you know about +disgraceful things?"</p> + +<p>"I will tell you when you are married, and not until then, Hesper. +There's a bribe to make you a good child, and do as you must—that is, +as your father and mother and Mr. Redmain would have you!"</p> + +<p>While they talked, Godfrey, now seen, now vanishing, had become a speck +in the distance. Crossing a wide field, he was now no longer to be +distinguished from the grazing cattle, and so was lost to the eyes of +the ladies.</p> + +<p>By this time he had collected his thoughts a little, and it had grown +plain to him that the last and only thing left for him to do for Letty +was to compel Tom to marry her at once. "My mother will then have half +her own way!" he said to himself bitterly. But, instead of reproaching +himself that he had not drawn the poor girl's heart to his own, and +saved her by letting her know that he loved her, he tried to +congratulate himself on the pride and self-important delay which had +preserved him from yielding his love to one who counted herself of so +little value. He did not reflect that, if the value a woman places upon +herself be the true estimate of her worth, the world is tolerably +provided with utterly inestimable treasures of womankind; yet is it the +meek who shall inherit it; and they who make least of themselves are +those who shall be led up to the dais at last.</p> + +<p>"But the wretch shall marry her at once!" he swore. "Her character is +nothing now but a withered flower in the hands of that woman. Even were +she capable of holding her tongue, by this time a score must have seen +them together."</p> + +<p>Godfrey hardly knew what he was to gain by riding to Warrender, for how +could he expect to find Tom there? and what could any one do with the +mother? Only, where else could he go first to learn anything about him? +Some hint he might there get, suggesting in what direction to seek +them. And he must be doing something, however useless: inaction at such +a moment would be hell itself!</p> + +<p>Arrived at the house—a well-appointed cottage, with out-houses larger +than itself—he gave his horse to a boy to lead up and down, while he +went through the gate and rang the bell in a porch covered with ivy. +The old woman who opened the door said Master Tom was not up yet, but +she would take his message. Returning presently, she asked him to walk +in. He declined the hospitality, and remained in front of the house.</p> + +<p>Tom was no coward, in the ordinary sense of the word: there was in him +a good deal of what goes to the making of a gentleman; but he confessed +to being "in a bit of a funk" when he heard who was below: there was +but one thing it could mean, he thought—that Letty had been found out, +and here was her cousin come to make a row. But what did it matter, so +long as Letty was true to him? The world should know that Wardour nor +Platt—his mother's maiden name!—nor any power on earth should keep +from him the woman of his choice! As soon as he was of age, he would +marry her, in spite of them all. But he could not help being a little +afraid of Godfrey Wardour, for he admired him.</p> + +<p>For Godfrey, he would have rather liked Tom Helmer, had he ever seen +down into the best of him; but Tom's carelessness had so often +misrepresented him, that Godfrey had too huge a contempt for him. And +now the miserable creature had not merely grown dangerous, but had of a +sudden done him the greatest possible hurt! It was all Godfrey could do +to keep his contempt and hate within what he would have called the +bounds of reason, as he waited for "the miserable mongrel." He kept +walking up and down the little lawn, which a high shrubbery protected +from the road, making a futile attempt, as often as he thought of the +policy of it, to look unconcerned, and the next moment striking fierce, +objectless blows with his whip. Catching sight of him from a window on +the stair, Tom was so little reassured by his demeanor, that, crossing +the hall, he chose from the stand a thick oak stick—poor odds against +a hunting-whip in the hands of one like Godfrey, with the steel of ten +years of manhood in him.</p> + +<p>Tom's long legs came doubling carelessly down the two steps from the +door, as, with a gracious wave of the hand, and swinging his cudgel as +if he were just going out for a stroll, he coolly greeted his visitor. +But the other, instead of returning the salutation, stepped quickly up +to him.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Helmer, where is Miss Lovel?" he said, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>Tom turned pale, for a pang of undefined fear shot through him, and his +voice betrayed genuine anxiety as he answered:</p> + +<p>"I do not know. What has happened?"</p> + +<p>Wardour's fingers gripped convulsively his whip-handle, and the word +<i>liar</i> had almost escaped his lips; but, through the darkness of the +tempest raging in him, he yes read truth in Tom's scared face and +trembling words.</p> + +<p>"You were with her last night," he said, grinding it out between his +teeth.</p> + +<p>"I was," answered Tom, looking more scared still.</p> + +<p>"Where is she now?" demanded Godfrey again.</p> + +<p>"I hope to God you know," answered Tom, "for I don't."</p> + +<p>"Where did you leave her?" asked Wardour, in the tone of an avenger +rather than a judge.</p> + +<p>Tom, without a moment's hesitation, described the place with +precision—a spot not more than a hundred yards from the house.</p> + +<p>"What right had you to come sneaking about the place?" hissed Godfrey, +a vain attempt to master an involuntary movement of the muscles of his +face at once clinching and showing his teeth. At the same moment he +raised his whip unconsciously.</p> + +<p>Tom instinctively stepped back, and raised his stick in attitude of +defense. Godfrey burst into a scornful laugh.</p> + +<p>"You fool!" he said; "you need not be afraid; I can see you are +speaking the truth. You dare not tell me a lie!"</p> + +<p>"It is enough," returned Tom with dignity, "that I do not tell lies. I +am not afraid of you, Mr. Wardour. What I dare or dare not do, is +neither for you nor me to say. You are the older and stronger and every +way better man, but that gives you no right to bully me."</p> + +<p>This answer brought Godfrey to a better sense of what became himself, +if not of what Helmer could claim of him. Using positive violence over +himself, he spoke next in a tone calm even to iciness.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Helmer," he said, "I will gladly address you as a gentleman, if +you will show me how it can be the part of a gentleman to go prowling +about his neighbor's property after nightfall."</p> + +<p>"Love acknowledges no law but itself, Mr. Wardour," answered Tom, +inspired by the dignity of his honest affection for Letty. "Miss Lovel +is not your property. I love her, and she loves me. I would do my best +to see her, if Thornwick were the castle of Giant Blunderbore."</p> + +<p>"Why not walk up to the house, like a man, in the daylight, and say you +wanted to see her?"</p> + +<p>"Should I have been welcome, Mr. Wardour?" said Tom, significantly. +"You know very well what my reception would have been; and I know +better than throw difficulties in my own path. To do as you say would +have been to make it next to impossible to see her."</p> + +<p>"Well, we must find her now anyhow; and you must marry her off-hand."</p> + +<p>"Must!" echoed Tom, his eyes flashing, at once with anger at the word +and with pleasure at the proposal. "Must?" he repeated, "when there is +nothing in the world I desire or care for but to marry her? Tell me +what it all means, Mr. Wardour; for, by Heaven! I am utterly in the +dark."</p> + +<p>"It means just this—and I don't know but I am making a fool of myself +to tell you—that the girl was seen in your company late last night, +and has been neither seen nor heard of since."</p> + +<p>"My God!" cried Tom, now first laying hold of the fact; and with the +word he turned and started for the stable. His run, however, broke +down, and with a look of scared bewilderment he came back to Godfrey.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Wardour," he said, "what am I to do? Please advise me. If we raise +a hue and cry, it will set people saying all manner of things, pleasant +neither for you nor for us."</p> + +<p>"That is your business, Mr. Helmer," answered Godfrey, bitterly. "It is +you who have brought this shame on her."</p> + +<p>"You are a cold-hearted man," said Tom. "But there is no shame in the +matter. I will soon make that clear—if only I knew where to go after +her. The thing is to me utterly mysterious: there are neither robbers +nor wild beasts about Thornwick. What <i>can</i> have happened to her?"</p> + +<p>He turned his back on Godfrey for a moment, then, suddenly wheeling, +broke out:</p> + +<p>"I will tell you what it is; I see it all now; she found out that she +had been seen, and was too terrified to go into the house again!—Mr. +Wardour," he continued, with a new look in his eyes, "I have more +reason to be suspicious of you and your mother than you have to suspect +me. Your treatment of Letty has not been of the kindest."</p> + +<p>So Letty had been accusing him of unkindness! Ready as he now was to +hear anything to her disadvantage, it was yet a fresh stab to the heart +of him. Was this the girl for whom, in all honesty and affection, he +had sought to do so much! How could she say he was unkind to her?—and +say it to a fellow like this? It was humiliating, indeed! But he would +not defend himself. Not to Tom, not to his mother, not to any living +soul, would he utter a word even resembling blame of the girl! He, at +least, would carry himself generously! Everything, though she had +plunged his heart in a pitcher of gall, should be done for her sake! +She should go to her lover, and leave blame behind her with him! His +sole care should be that the wind-bag should not collapse and slip out +of it, that he should actually marry her; and, as soon as he had handed +him over to her in safety, he would have done with her and with all +women for ever, except his mother! Not once more would he speak to one +of them in tone of friendship!</p> + +<p>He looked at Tom full in the eyes, and made him no answer.</p> + +<p>"If I don't find Letty this very morning," said Tom, "I shall apply for +a warrant to search your house: my uncle Rendall will give me one."</p> + +<p>Godfrey smiled a smile of scorn, turned from him as a wise man turns +from a fool, and went out of the gate.</p> + +<p>He had just taken his horse from the boy and sent him off, when he saw +a young woman coming hurriedly across the road, from the direction of +Testbridge. Plainly she was on business of pressing import. She came +nearer, and he saw it was Mary Marston. The moment she recognized +Godfrey, she began to run to him; but, when she came near enough to +take notice of his mien, as he stood with his foot in the stirrup, with +no word of greeting or look of reception, and inquiry only in every +feature, her haste suddenly dropped, her flushed face turned pale, and +she stood still, panting. Not a word could she utter, and was but just +able to force a faint smile, with intent to reassure him.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br /><br /> +THE RESULT.</h3> + +<p>Letty would never perhaps have come to herself in the cold of this +world, under the shifting tent of the winter night, but for an outcast +mongrel dog, which, wandering masterless and hungry, but not selfish, +along the road, came upon her where she lay seemingly lifeless, and, +recognizing with pity his neighbor in misfortune, began at once to give +her—it was all he had that was separable—what help and healing might +lie in a warm, honest tongue. Diligently he set himself to lick her +face and hands.</p> + +<p>By slow degrees her misery returned, and she sat up. Rejoiced at his +success, the dog kept dodging about her, catching a lick here and a +lick there, wherever he saw a spot of bare within his reach. By slow +degrees, next, the knowledge of herself joined on to the knowledge of +her misery, and she knew who it was that was miserable. She threw her +arms round the dog, laid her head on his, and wept. This relieved her a +little: weeping is good, even to such as Alberigo in an ice-pot of +hell. But she was cold to the very marrow, almost too cold to feel it; +and, when she rose, could scarcely put one foot before the other.</p> + +<p>Not once, for all her misery, did she imagine a return to Thornwick. +Without a thought of whither, she moved on, unaware even that it was in +the direction of the town. The dog, delighted to believe that he had +raised up to himself a mistress, followed humbly at her heel: but +always when she stopped, as she did every few paces, ran round in front +of her, and looked up in her face, as much as to say, "Here I am, +mistress! shall I lick again?" If a dog could create, he would make +masters and mistresses. Gladly would she then have fondled him, but +feared the venture; for, it seemed, were she to stoop, she must fall +flat on the road, and never rise more.</p> + +<p>Slowly the two went on, with motion scarce enough to keep the blood +moving in their veins. Had she not been, for all her late depression, +in fine health and strength, Letty could hardly have escaped death from +the cold of that night. For many months after, some portion of every +night she passed in dreaming over again this dreariest wandering; and +in her after life people would be puzzled to think why Mrs. Helmer +looked so angry when any one spoke as if the animals died outright. +But, although she never forgot this part of the terrible night, she +never dreamed of any rescue from it; memory could not join it on to the +next part, for again she lost consciousness, and could recall nothing +between feeling the dog once more licking her face and finding herself +in bed.</p> + +<p>When Beenie opened her kitchen-door in the morning to let in the fresh +air, she found seated on the step, and leaning against the wall, what +she took first for a young woman asleep, and then for the dead body of +one; for, when she gave her a little shake, she fell sideways off the +door-step. Beenie's heart smote her; for during the last hours of her +morning's sleep she had been disturbed by the howling of a dog, +apparently in their own yard, but had paid no further attention to it +than that of repeated mental objurgation: there stood the offender, +looking up at her pitifully—ugly, disreputable, of breed unknown, one +of the <i>canaille!</i> When the girl fell down, he darted at her, licked +her cold face for a moment, then stretching out a long, gaunt neck, +uttered from the depth of his hidebound frame the most melancholy +appeal, not to Beenie, at whom he would not even look again, but to the +open door. But, when Beenie, in whom, as in most of us, curiosity had +the start of service, stooped, and, peering more closely into the face +of the girl, recognized, though uncertainly, a known face, she too +uttered a kind of howl, and straightway raising Letty's head drew her +into the house. It is the mark of an imperfect humanity, that personal +knowledge should spur the sides of hospitable intent: what difference +does our knowing or not knowing make to the fact of human need? The +good Samaritan would never have been mentioned by the mouth of the +True, had he been even an old acquaintance of the "certain man." But it +is thus we learn; and, from loving this one and that, we come to love +all at last, and then is our humanity complete.</p> + +<p>Letty moved not one frozen muscle, and Beenie, growing terrified, flew +up the stair to her mistress. Mary sprang from her bed and hurried +down. There, on the kitchen-floor, in front of the yet fireless grate, +lay the body of Letty Lovel. A hideous dog was sitting on his haunches +at her head. The moment she entered, again the animal stretched out a +long, bony neck, and sent forth a howl that rang penetrative through +the house. It sounded in Mary's ears like the cry of the whole animal +creation over the absence of their Maker. They raised her and carried +her to Mary's room. There they laid her in the still warm bed, and +proceeded to use all possible means for the restoration of heat and the +renewal of circulation.</p> + +<p>Here I am sorry to have to mention that Beenie, returning, +unsuccessful, from their first efforts, to the kitchen, to get hot +water, and finding the dog sitting there motionless, with his face +turned toward the door by which they had carried Letty out, peevish +with disappointment and dread, drove him from the kitchen, and from the +court, into the street where that same day he was seen wildly running +with a pan at his tail, and the next was found lying dead in a bit of +waste ground among stones and shards. God rest all such!</p> + +<p>But, as far as Letty was concerned, happily Beenie was not an old woman +for nothing. With a woman's sympathy, Mary hesitated to run for the +doctor: who could tell what might be involved in so strange an event? +If they could but bring her to, first, and learn something to guide +them! She pushed delay to the very verge of danger. But, soon after, +thanks to Beenie's persistence, indications of success appeared, and +Letty began to breathe. It was then resolved between the nurses that, +for the present, they would keep the affair to themselves, a conclusion +affording much satisfaction to Beenie, in the consciousness that +therein she had the better of the Turnbulls, against whom she cherished +an ever-renewed indignation.</p> + +<p>But, when Mary set herself at length to find out from Letty what had +happened, without which she could not tell what to do next, she found +her mind so far gone that she understood nothing said to her, or, at +least, could return no rational response, although occasionally an +individual word would seem to influence the current of her ideas. She +kept murmuring almost inarticulately; but, to Mary's uneasiness, every +now and then plainly uttered the name <i>Tom</i> . What was she to make of +it? In terror lest she should betray her, she must yet do something. +Matters could not have gone wrong so far that nothing could be done to +set them at least a little straight! If only she knew what! A single +false step might do no end of mischief! She must see Tom Helmer: +without betraying Letty, she might get from him some enlightenment. She +knew his open nature, had a better opinion of him than many had, and +was a little nearer the right of him. The doctor must be called; but +she would, if possible, see Tom first.</p> + +<p>It was not more than half an hour's walk to Warrender, and she set out +in haste. She must get back before George Turnbull came to open the +shop.</p> + +<p>When she got near enough to see Mr. Wardour's face, she read in it at +once that he was there from the same cause as herself; but there was no +good omen to be drawn from its expression: she read there not only keen +anxiety and bitter disappointment, but lowering anger; nor was that +absent which she felt to be distrust of herself. The sole +acknowledgment he made of her approach was to withdraw his foot from +the stirrup and stand waiting.</p> + +<p>"You know something," he said, looking cold and hard in her face.</p> + +<p>"About what?" returned Mary, recovering herself; she was careful, for +Letty's sake, to feel her way.</p> + +<p>"I hope to goodness," returned Godfrey, almost fiercely, yet with a +dash of rude indifference, "<i>you</i> are not concerned in +this—business!"—he was about to use a bad adjective, but suppressed +it.</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> concerned in it," said Mary, with perfect quietness.</p> + +<p>"You knew what was going on?" cried Wardour. "You knew that fellow +there came prowling about Thornwick like a fox about a hen-roost? By +Heaven! if I had but suspected it—"</p> + +<p>"No, Mr. Wardour," interrupted Mary, already catching a glimpse of +light, "I knew nothing of that."</p> + +<p>"Then what do you mean by saying you are concerned in the matter?"</p> + +<p>Mary thought he was behaving so unlike himself that a shock might be of +service.</p> + +<p>"Only this," she answered, "—that Letty is now lying in my room, +whether dead or alive I am in doubt. She must have spent the night in +the open air—and that without cloak or bonnet."</p> + +<p>"Good God!" cried Godfrey. "And you could leave her like that!"</p> + +<p>"She is attended to," replied Mary, with dignity. "There are worse +evils to be warded than death, else I should not be here; there are +hard judgments and evil tongues.—Will you come and see her, Mr. +Wardour?"</p> + +<p>"No," answered Godfrey, gruffly.</p> + +<p>"Shall I send a note to Mrs. Wardour, then?"</p> + +<p>"I will tell her myself."</p> + +<p>"What would you have me do about her?"</p> + +<p>"I have no concern in the matter, but I suppose you had better send for +a doctor. Talk to that fellow there," he added, pointing with his whip +toward the cottage, and again putting his foot in the stirrup. "Tell +him he has brought her to disgrace—"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it," interrupted Mary, her face flushing with +indignant shame. But Godfrey went on without heeding her:</p> + +<p>"And get him to marry her off-hand, if you can—for, by God! he <i>shall</i> +marry her, or I will kill him."</p> + +<p>He spoke looking round at her over his shoulder, a scowl on his face, +his foot in the stirrup, one hand twisted in the mane of his horse, and +the other with the whip stretched out as if threatening the universe. +Mary stood white but calm, and made no answer. He swung himself into +the saddle, and rode away. She turned to the gate.</p> + +<p>From behind the shrubbery, Tom had heard all that passed between them, +and, meeting her as she entered, led the way to a side-walk, unseen +from the house.</p> + +<p>"O Miss Marston! what is to be done?" he said. "This is a terrible +business! But I am so glad you have got her, poor girl! I heard all you +said to that brute, Wardour. Thank you, thank you a thousand times, for +taking her part. Indeed, you spoke but the truth for her. Let me tell +you all I know."</p> + +<p>He had not much to tell, however, beyond what Mary knew already.</p> + +<p>"She keeps calling out for you, Mr. Helmer," she said, when he had +ended.</p> + +<p>"I will go with you. Come, come," he answered.</p> + +<p>"You will leave a message for your mother?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind my mother. She's good at finding out for herself."</p> + +<p>"She ought to be told," said Mary; "but I can't stop to argue it with +you. Certainly your first duty is to Letty now. Oh, if people only +wouldn't hide things!"</p> + +<p>"Come along," cried Tom, hurrying before her; "I will soon set +everything right."</p> + +<p>"How shall we manage with the doctor?" said Mary, as they went. "We can +not do without him, for I am sure she is in danger."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" said Tom. "She will be all right when she sees me. But we +will take the doctor on our way, and prepare him."</p> + +<p>When they came to the doctor's house, Mary walked on, and Tom told the +doctor he had met Miss Marston on her way to him, and had come instead: +she wanted to let him know that Miss Lovel had come to her quite +unexpected that morning; that she was delirious, and had apparently +wandered from home under an attack of brain-fever, or something of the +sort.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br /><br /> +MARY AND GODFREY.</h3> + +<p>Everything went very tolerably, so far as concerned the world of talk, +in the matter of Letty's misfortunes. Rumors, it is true—and more than +one of them strange enough—did for a time go floating about the +country; but none of them came to the ears of Tom or of Mary, and Letty +was safe from hearing anything; and the engagement between her and Tom +soon became generally known.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Helmer was very angry, and did all she could to make Tom break it +off—it was so much below him! But in nothing could the folly of the +woman have been more apparent than in her fancying, with the experience +of her life before her, that any opposition of hers could be effectual +otherwise than to the confirmation of her son's will. So short-sighted +was she as to originate most of the reports to Letty's disadvantage; +but Tom's behavior, on the other hand, was strong to put them down; for +the man is seldom found so faithful where such reports are facts.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wardour took care to say nothing unkind of Letty. She was of her +own family; and, besides, not only was Tom a better match than she +could have expected for her, but she was more than satisfied to have +Godfrey's dangerous toy thus drawn away beyond his reach. As soon as +ever the doctor gave his permission, she went to see her; but, +although, dismayed at sight of her suffering face, she did not utter +one unkind word, her visit was so plainly injurious in its effects, +that it was long before Mary would consent to a repetition of it.</p> + +<p>Letty's recovery was very slow. The spring was close at hand before the +bloom began to reappear—and then it was but fitfully—in Letty's +cheek. Neither her gayety nor her usual excess of timorousness +returned. A certain sad seriousness had taken the place of both, and +she seemed to look out from deeper eyes. I can not think that Letty had +begun to perceive that there actually is a Nature shaping us to its own +ends; but I think she had begun to feel that Mary lived in the +conscious presence of such a power. To Tom she behaved very sweetly, +but more like a tender sister than a lover, and Mary began to doubt +whether her heart was altogether Tom's. From mention of approaching +marriage, she turned with a nervous, uneasy haste. Had the insight +which the enforced calmness of suffering sometimes brings opened her +eyes to anything in Tom? The doubt filled Mary with anxiety. She +thought and thought, until—delicate matter as it was to meddle with, +and small encouragement as Godfrey Wardour had given her to expect +sympathy—she yet made up her mind to speak to him on the subject—and +the rather that she was troubled at the unworthiness of his behavior to +Letty: gladly would she have him treat her with the generosity +essential to the idea she had formed of him.</p> + +<p>She went, therefore, one Sunday evening, to Thornwick, and requested to +see Mr. Wardour.</p> + +<p>It was plainly an unwilling interview he granted her, but she was not +thereby deterred from opening her mind to him.</p> + +<p>"I fear, Mr. Wardour," she said, "—I come altogether without +authority—but I fear Letty has been rather hurried in her engagement +with Mr. Helmer. I think she dreads being married—at least so soon."</p> + +<p>"You would have her break it off?" said Godfrey, with cold restraint.</p> + +<p>"No; certainly not," replied Mary; "that would be unjust to Mr. Helmer. +But the thing was so hastened, indeed, hurried, by that unhappy +accident, that she had scarcely time to know her own mind."</p> + +<p>"Miss Marston," answered Godfrey, severely, "it is her own fault—all +and entirely her own fault."</p> + +<p>"But, surely," said Mary, "it will not do for us to insist upon desert. +That is not how we are treated ourselves."</p> + +<p>"Is it not?" returned Godfrey, angrily. "My experience is different. I +am sure my faults have come back upon me pretty sharply.—She <i>must</i> +marry the fellow, or her character is gone."</p> + +<p>"I am unwilling to grant that, Mr. Wardour. It was wrong in her to have +anything to say to Mr. Helmer without your knowledge, and a foolish +thing to meet him as she did; but Letty is a good girl, and you know +country ways are old-fashioned, and in itself there is nothing wicked +in having a talk with a young man after dark."</p> + +<p>"You speak, I dare say, as such things arc regarded in—certain strata +of society," returned Godfrey, coldly; "but such views do not hold in +that to which either of them belongs."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me a pity they should not, then," said Mary. "I know +nothing of such matters, but, surely, young people should have +opportunities of understanding each other. Anyhow, marriage is a heavy +penalty to pay for such an indiscretion. A girl might like a young man +well enough to enjoy a talk with him now and then, and yet find it hard +to marry him."</p> + +<p>"Did you come here to dispute social customs with me, Miss Marston?" +said Godfrey. "I am not prepared, nor, indeed, sufficiently interested, +to discuss them with you."</p> + +<p>"I will come to the point at once," answered Mary; who, although +speaking so collectedly, was much frightened at her own boldness: +Godfrey seemed from his knowledge so far above her, and she owed him so +much.—"Would it not be possible for Letty to return here? Then the +thing might take its natural course, and Tom and she know each other +better before they did what was irrevocable. They are little better +than children now."</p> + +<p>"The thing is absolutely impossible," said Godfrey, and haughtily rose +from his chair like one in authority ending an interview. "But," he +added, "you have been put to great expense for the foolish girl, and, +when she leaves you, I desire you will let me know—"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mr. Wardour!" said Mary, who had risen also. "As you have +now given a turn to the conversation which is not in the least +interesting to me, I wish you a good evening."</p> + +<p>With the words, she left the room. He had made her angry at last. She +trembled so that, the instant she was out of sight of the house, she +had to sit down for dread of falling.</p> + +<p>Godfrey remained in the room where she left him, full of indignation. +Ever since that frightful waking, he had brooded over the injury—the +insult, he counted it—which Letty had heaped upon him. A great +tenderness toward her, to himself unknown, and of his own will +unbegotten, remained in his spirit. When he passed the door of her +room, returning from that terrible ride, he locked it, and put the key +in his pocket, and from that day no one entered the chamber. But, had +he loved Letty as purely as he had loved her selfishly, he would have +listened to Mary pleading in her behalf, and would have thought first +about her well-being, not about her character in the eyes of the world. +He would have seen also that, while the breath of the world's opinion +is a mockery in counterpoise with a life of broken interest and the +society of an unworthy husband, the mere fact of his mother's receiving +her again at Thornwick would of itself be enough to reestablish her +position in the face of all gainsayers. But in Godfrey Wardour love and +pride went hand in hand. Not for a moment would he will to love a girl +capable of being interested, if nothing more, in Tom Helmer. It must be +allowed, however, that it would have been a terrible torture to see +Letty about the place, to pass her on the stair, to come upon her in +the garden, to sit with her in the room, and know all the time that it +was the test of Tom's worth and her constancy. Even were she to give up +Tom, satisfied that she did not love him, she could be nothing more to +him, even in the relation in which he had allowed her to think she +stood to him. She had behaved too deceitfully, too heartlessly, too +ungratefully, too <i>vulgarly</i> for that! Yet was his heart torn every +time the vision of the gentle girl rose before "that inward eye," +which, for long, could no more be to him "the bliss of solitude"; when +he saw those hazel depths looking half anxious, half sorrowful in his +face, as, with sadly comic sense of her stupidity, she listened while +he explained or read something he loved. But no; nothing else would do +than act the mere honest guardian, compelling them to marry, no matter +how slight or transient the shadow the man had cast over her reputation!</p> + +<p>Mary returned with a sense of utter failure.</p> + +<p>But before long she came to the conclusion that all was right between +Tom and Letty, and that the cause of her anxiety had lain merely in +Letty's loss of animal spirits.</p> + +<p>Now and then Mary tried to turn Tom's attention a little toward the +duty of religion: Tom received the attempt with gentle amusement and a +little <i>badinage</i> . It was all very well for girls! Indeed, he had made +the observation that girls who had no religion were "strong-minded," +and that he could not endure! Like most men, he was so well satisfied +with himself, that he saw no occasion to take trouble to be anything +better than he was. Never suspecting what a noble creature he was meant +to be, he never saw what a poor creature he was. In his own eyes he was +a man any girl might be proud to marry. He had not yet, however, sunk +to the depth of those who, having caught a glimpse of nobility, confess +wretchedness, excuse it, and decline to allow that the noble they see +they are bound to be; or, worse still, perhaps, admit the obligation, +but move no inch to fulfill it. It seems to me that such must one day +make acquaintance with <i>essential</i> misery—a thing of which they have +no conception.</p> + +<p>Day after day Tom passed through Turnbull and Marston's shop to see +Letty. Tom cared for nobody, else he would have gone in by the +kitchen-door, which was the only other entrance to the house; but I do +not know whether it is a pity or not that he did not hear the remarks +which rose like the dust of his passage behind him. In the same little +sitting-room, where for so many years Mary had listened to the slow, +tender wisdom of her father, a clever young man was now making love to +an ignorant girl, whom he did not half understand or half appreciate, +all the time he feeling himself the greater and wiser and more valuable +of the two. He was unaware, however, that he did feel so, for he had +never yet become conscious of any <i>fact</i> concerning himself.</p> + +<p>The whole Turnbull family, from the beginnings of things +self-constituted judges of the two Marstons, were not the less critical +of the daughter, that the father had been taken from her. There was +grumbling in the shop every time she ran up to see Letty, every one +regarding her and speaking of her as a servant neglecting her duty. Yet +all knew well enough that she was co-proprietor of business and stock, +and the elder Turnbull knew besides that, if the lawyer to whose care +William Marston had committed his daughter were at that moment to go +into the affairs of the partnership, he would find that Mary had a much +larger amount of money actually in the business than he.</p> + +<p>Of all matters connected with the business, except those of her own +department, Mary was ignorant. Her father had never neglected his duty, +but he had so far neglected what the world calls a man's interests as +to leave his affairs much too exclusively in the hands of his partner; +he had been too much interested in life itself to look sharply after +anything less than life. He acknowledged no <i>worldly</i> interests at all: +either God cared for his interests or he himself did not. Whether he +might not have been more attentive to the state of his affairs without +danger of deeper loss, I do not care to examine or determine; the +result of his life in the world was a grand success. Now, Mary's +feeling and judgment in regard to <i>things</i> being identical with her +father's, Turnbull, instructed by his greed, both natural and acquired, +argued thus—unconsciously almost, but not the less argued—that what +Mary valued so little, and he valued so much, must, by necessary +deduction, be more his than hers—and <i>logically</i> ought to be +<i>legally</i> . So servants begin to steal, arguing that such and such +things are only lying about, and nobody cares for them.</p> + +<p>But Turnbull, knowing that, notwithstanding the reason on his side, it +was not safe to act on such a conclusion, had for some time felt no +little anxiety to secure himself from investigation and possible +disaster by the marriage of Mary to his son George.</p> + +<p>Tom Helmer had now to learn that, by his father's will, made doubtless +under the influence of his mother, he was to have but a small annuity +so long as she lived. Upon this he determined nevertheless to marry, +confident in his literary faculty, which, he never doubted, would soon +raise it to a very sufficient income. Nor did Mary attempt to dissuade +him; for what could be better for a disposition like his than care for +the things of this life, occasioned by the needs of others dependent +upon him! Besides, there seemed to be nothing else now possible for +Letty. So, in the early summer, they were married, no relative present +except Mrs. Wardour, Mrs. Helmer and Godfrey having both declined their +invitation; and no friend, except Mary for bridesmaid, and Mr. Pycroft, +a school and college friend of Tom's, who was now making a bohemian +livelihood in London by writing for the weekly press, as he called +certain journals of no high standing, for groom's man. After the +ceremony, and a breakfast provided by Mary, the young couple took the +train for London.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br /><br /> +MARY IN THE SHOP.</h3> + +<p>More than a year had now passed from the opening of my narrative. It +was full summer again at Testbridge, and things, to the careless eye, +were unchanged, and, to the careless mind, would never change, +although, in fact, nothing was the same, and nothing could continue as +it now was. For were not the earth and the sun a little colder? Had not +the moon crumbled a little? And had not the eternal warmth, unperceived +save of a few, drawn a little nearer—the clock that measures the +eternal day ticked one tick more to the hour when the Son of Man will +come? But the greed and the fawning did go on unchanged, save it were +for the worse, in the shop of Turnbull and Marston, seasoned only with +the heavenly salt of Mary's good ministration.</p> + +<p>She was very lonely. Letty was gone; and the link between Mr. Wardour +and her not only broken, but a gulf of separation in its place. Not the +less remained the good he had given her. No good is ever lost. The +heavenly porter was departed, but had left the door wide. She had seen +him but once since Letty's marriage, and then his salutation was like +that of a dead man in a dream; for in his sore heart he still imagined +her the confidante of Letty's deception.</p> + +<p>But the shadow of her father's absence swallowed all the other shadows. +The air of warmth and peace and conscious safety which had hitherto +surrounded her was gone, and in its place cold, exposure, and +annoyance. Between them her father and she had originated a mutually +protective atmosphere of love; when that failed, the atmosphere of +earthly relation rushed in and enveloped her. The moment of her +father's departure, malign influences, inimical to the very springs of +her life, concentrated themselves upon her: it was the design of John +Turnbull that she should not be comfortable so long as she did not +irrevocably cast in her lot with his family; and, the rest in the shop +being mostly creatures of his own choice, by a sort of implicit +understanding they proceeded to make her uncomfortable. So long as they +confined themselves to silence, neglect, and general exclusion, Mary +heeded little their behavior, for no intercourse with them, beyond that +of external good offices, could be better than indifferent to her; but, +when they advanced to positive interference, her position became indeed +hard to endure. They would, for instance, keep watch on her serving, +and, as soon as the customer was gone, would find open fault with this +or that she had said or done. But even this was comparatively +endurable: when they advanced to the insolence of doing the same in the +presence of the customer, she found it more than she could bear with +even a show of equanimity. She did her best, however; and for some time +things went on without any symptom of approaching crisis. But it was +impossible this should continue; for, had she been capable of endless +endurance, her persecutors would only have gone on to worse. But Mary +was naturally quick-tempered, and the chief trouble they caused her was +the control of her temper; for, although she had early come to +recognize the imperative duty of this branch of self-government, she +was not yet perfect in it. Not every one who can serve unboundedly can +endure patiently; and the more gentle some natures, the more they +resent the rudeness which springs from an opposite nature; absolutely +courteous, they flame at discourtesy, and thus lack of the perfection +to which patience would and must raise them. When Turnbull, in the +narrow space behind the counter, would push his way past her without +other pretense of apology than something like a sneer, she did feel for +a moment as if evil were about to have the victory over her; and when +Mrs. Turnbull came in, which happily was but seldom, she felt as if +from some sepulchre in her mind a very demon sprang to meet her. For +she behaved to her worst of all. She would heave herself in with the +air and look of a vulgar duchess; for, from the height of her small +consciousness, she looked down upon the shop, and never entered it save +as a customer. The daughter of a small country attorney, who, +notwithstanding his unneglected opportunities, had not been too +successful to accept as a husband for his daughter such a tradesman as +John Turnbull, she arrogated position from her idea of her father's +position; and, while bitterly cherishing the feeling that she had +married beneath her, obstinately excluded the fact that therein she had +descended to her husband's level, regarding herself much in the light +of a princess whose disguise takes nothing from her rank. She was like +those ladies who, having set their seal to the death of their first +husbands by marrying again, yet cling to the title they gave them, and +continue to call themselves by their name.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Turnbull never bought a dress at the shop. No one should say of +her, it was easy for a snail to live in a castle! She took pains to let +her precious public know that she went to London to make her purchases. +If she did not mention also that she made them at the warehouses where +her husband was a customer, procuring them at the same price he would +have paid, it was because she saw no occasion. It was indeed only for +some small occasional necessity she ever crossed the threshold of the +place whence came all the money she had to spend. When she did, she +entered it with such airs as she imagined to represent the +consciousness of the scion of a county family: there is one show of +breeding vulgarity seldom assumes—simplicity. No sign of recognition +would pass between her husband and herself: by one stern refusal to +acknowledge his advances, she had from the first taught him that in the +shop they were strangers: he saw the rock of ridicule ahead, and +required no second lesson: when she was present, he never knew it. +George had learned the lesson before he went into the business, and +Mary had never required it. The others behaved to her as to any +customer known to stand upon her dignity, but she made them no return +in politeness; and the way she would order Mary, now there was no +father to offend, would have been amusing enough but for the irritation +its extreme rudeness caused her. She did, however, manage sometimes to +be at once both a little angry and much amused. Small idea had Mrs. +Turnbull of the diversion which on such occasions she afforded the +customers present.</p> + +<p>One day, a short time before her marriage, delayed by the illness of +Mr. Redmain, Miss Mortimer happened to be in the shop, and was being +served by Mary, when Mrs. Turnbull entered. Careless of the customer, +she walked straight up to her as if she saw none, and in a tone that +would be dignified, and was haughty, desired her to bring her a reel of +marking-cotton. Now it had been a principle with Mary's father, and she +had thoroughly learned it, that whatever would be counted a rudeness by +<i>any</i> customer, must be shown to <i>none</i> . "If all are equal in the sight +of God," he would say, "how dare I leave a poor woman to serve a rich? +Would I leave one countess to serve another? My business is to sell in +the name of Christ. To respect persons in the shop would be just the +same as to do it in the chapel, and would be to deny him."</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, ma'am," said Mary, "I am waiting on Miss Mortimer," and +went on with what she was about. Mrs. Turnbull flounced away, a little +abashed, not by Mary, but by finding who the customer was, and carried +her commands across the shop. After a moment or two, however, +imagining, in the blindness of her surging anger, that Miss Mortimer +was gone, whereas she had only moved a little farther on to look at +something, she walked up to Mary in a fury.</p> + +<p>"Miss Marston," she said, her voice half choked with rage, "I am at a +loss to understand what you mean by your impertinence."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry you should think me impertinent," answered Mary. "You saw +yourself I was engaged with a customer, and could not attend to you."</p> + +<p>"Your tone was insufferable, miss!" cried the grand lady; but what more +she would have said I can not tell, for just then Miss Mortimer resumed +her place in front of Mary. She had no idea of her position in the +shop, neither suspected who her assailant was, and, fearing the woman's +accusation might do her an injury, felt compelled to interfere.</p> + +<p>"Miss Marston," she said—she had just heard Mrs. Turnbull use her +name—"if you should be called to account by your employer, will you, +please, refer to me? You were perfectly civil both to me and to this—" +she hesitated a perceptible moment, but ended with the word "<i>lady</i> ," +peculiarly toned.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, ma'am," said Mary, with a smile, "but it is of no +consequence."</p> + +<p>This answer would have almost driven the woman out of her +reason—already, between annoyance with herself and anger with Mary, +her hue was purple: something she called her constitution required a +nightly glass of brandy-and-water—but she was so dumfounded by Miss +Mortimer's defense of Mary, which she looked upon as an assault on +herself, so painfully aware that all hands were arrested and all eyes +fixed on herself, and so mortified with the conviction that her husband +was enjoying her discomfiture, that, with what haughtiness she could +extemporize from consuming offense, she made a sudden vertical +gyration, and walked from the vile place.</p> + +<p>Now, George never lost a chance of recommending himself to Mary by +siding with her—but only after the battle. He came up to her now with +a mean, unpleasant look, intended to represent sympathy, and, +approaching his face to hers, said, confidentially:</p> + +<p>"What made my mother speak to you like that, Mary?"</p> + +<p>"You must ask herself," she answered.</p> + +<p>"There you are, as usual, Mary!" he protested; "you will never let a +fellow take your part!"</p> + +<p>"If you wanted to take my part, you should have done so when there +would have been some good in it."</p> + +<p>"How could I, before Miss Mortimer, you know!"</p> + +<p>"Then why do it now?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you see—it's hard to bear hearing you ill used! What did you +say to Miss Mortimer that angered my mother?"</p> + +<p>His father heard him, and, taking the cue, called out in the rudest +fashion:</p> + +<p>"If you think, Mary, you're going to take liberties with customers +because you've got no one over you, the sooner you find you're mistaken +the better."</p> + +<p>Mary made him no answer.</p> + +<p>On her way to "the villa," Mrs. Turnbull, spurred by spite, had got +hold of the same idea as George, only that she invented where he had +but imagined it; and when her husband came home in the evening fell out +upon him for allowing Mary to be impertinent to his customers, in whom +for the first time she condescended to show an interest:</p> + +<p>"There she was, talking away to that Miss Mortimer as if she was Beenie +in the kitchen! County people won't stand being treated as if one was +just as good as another, I can tell you! She'll be the ruin of the +business, with her fine-lady-airs! Who's she, I should like to know?"</p> + +<p>"I shall speak to her," said the husband. "But," he went on, "I fear +you will no longer approve of marrying her to George, if you think +she's an injury to the business!"</p> + +<p>"You know, as well as I do, that is the readiest way to get her out of +it. Make her marry George, and she will fall into my hands. If I don't +make her repent her impudence then, you may call me the fool you think +me."</p> + +<p>Mary knew well enough what they wanted of her; but of the real cause at +the root of their desire she had no suspicion. Recoiling altogether +from Mr. Turnbull's theories of business, which were in flat +repudiation of the laws of Him who alone understands either man or his +business, she yet had not a doubt of his honesty as the trades and +professions count honesty. Her father had left the money affairs of the +firm to Mr. Turnbull, and she did the same. It was for no other reason +than that her position had become almost intolerable, that she now +began to wonder if she was bound to this mode of life, and whether it +might not be possible to forsake it.</p> + +<p>Greed is the soul's thieving; where there is greed, there can not be +honesty. John Turnbull, it is true, was not only proud of his +reputation for honesty, but prided himself on being an honest man; yet +not the less was he dishonest—and that with a dishonesty such as few +of those called thieves have attained to.</p> + +<p>Like most of his kind, he had been neither so vulgar nor so dishonest +from the first. In the prime of youth he had had what the people about +him called high notions, and counted quixotic fancies. But it was not +their mockery of his tall talk that turned him aside; opposition +invariably confirmed Turnbull. He had never set his face in the right +direction. The seducing influence lay in himself. It was not the truth +he had loved; it was the show of fine sentiment he had enjoyed. The +distinction of holding loftier opinions than his neighbors was the +ground of his advocacy of them. Something of the beauty of the truth he +must have seen—who does not?—else he could not have been thus moved +at all; but he had never denied himself even a whim for the carrying +out of one of his ideas; he had never set himself to be better; and the +whole mountain-chain, therefore, of his notions sank and sank, until at +length their loftiest peak was the maxim, <i>Honesty is the best +policy</i> —a maxim which, true enough in fact, will no more make a man +honest than the economic aphorism, <i>The supply equals the demand</i> , will +teach him the niceties of social duty. Whoever makes policy the ground +of his honesty will discover more and more exceptions to the rule. The +career, therefore, of Turnbull of the high notions had been a gradual +descent to the level of his present dishonesty and vulgarity; nothing +is so vulgarizing as dishonesty. I do not care to follow the history of +any man downward. Let him who desires to look on such a panorama, +faithfully and thoroughly depicted, read Auerbach's "Diethelm von +Buchenberg."</p> + +<p>Things went a little more quietly in the shop after this for a while: +Turnbull probably was afraid of precipitating matters, and driving Mary +to seek counsel—from which much injury might arise to his condition +and prospects. As if to make amends for past rudeness, he even took +some pains to be polite, putting on something of the manners with which +he favored his "best customers," of all mankind in his eyes the most to +be honored. This, of course, rendered him odious in the eyes of Mary, +and ripened the desire to free herself from circumstances which from +garments seemed to have grown cerements. She was, however, too much her +father's daughter to do anything in haste.</p> + +<p>She might have been less willing to abandon them, had she had any +friends like-minded with herself, but, while they were all kindly +disposed to her, none of the religious associates of her father, who +knew, or might have known her well, approved of her. They spoke of her +generally with a shake of the head, and an unquestioned feeling that +God was not pleased with her. There are few of the so-called religious +who seem able to trust either God or their neighbor in matters that +concern those two and no other. Nor had she had opportunity of making +acquaintance with any who believed and lived like her father, in other +of the Christian communities of the town. But she had her Bible, and, +when that troubled her, as it did not a little sometimes, she had the +Eternal Wisdom to cry to for such wisdom as she could receive; and one +of the things she learned was, that nowhere in the Bible was she called +on to believe in the Bible, but in the living God, in whom is no +darkness, and who alone can give light to understand his own intent. +All her troubles she carried to him.</p> + +<p>It was not always the solitude of her room that Mary sought to get out +of the wind of the world. Her love of nature had been growing stronger, +notably, from her father's death. If the world is God's, every true man +ought to feel at home in it. Something is wrong if the calm of the +summer night does not sink into the heart, for the peace of God is +there embodied. Sometime is wrong in the man to whom the sunrise is not +a divine glory for therein are embodied the truth, the simplicity, the +might of the Maker. When all is true in us, we shall feel the visible +presence of the Watchful and Loving; for the thing that he works is its +sign and symbol, its clothing fact. In the gentle conference of earth +and sky, in the witnessing colors of the west, in the wind that so +gently visited her cheek, in the great burst of a new morning, Mary saw +the sordid affairs of Mammon, to whose worship the shop seemed to +become more and more of a temple, sink to the bottom of things, as the +mud, which, during the day, the feet of the drinking cattle have +stirred, sinks in the silent night to the bottom of the clear pool; and +she saw that the sordid is all in the soul, and not in the shop. The +service of Christ is help. The service of Mammon is greed.</p> + +<p>Letty was no good correspondent: after one letter in which she declared +herself perfectly happy, and another in which she said almost nothing, +her communication ceased. Mrs. Wardour had been in the shop again and +again, but on each occasion had sought the service of another; and +once, indeed, when Mary alone was disengaged, had waited until another +was at liberty. While Letty was in her house, she had been civil, but, +as soon as she was gone, seemed to show that she held her concerned in +the scandal that had befallen Thornwick. Once, as I have said, she met +Godfrey. It was in the fields. He was walking hurriedly, as usual, but +with his head bent, and a gloomy gaze fixed upon nothing visible. He +started when he saw her, took his hat off, and, with his eyes seeming +to look far away beyond her, passed without a word. Yet had she been to +him a true pupil; for, although neither of them knew it, Mary had +learned more from Godfrey than Godfrey was capable of teaching. She had +turned thought and feeling into life, into reality, into creation. They +speak of the <i>creations</i> of the human intellect, of the human +imagination! there is nothing man can do comes half so near the making +of the Maker as the ordering of his way—except one thing: the highest +creation of which man is capable, is to will the will of the Father. +That <i>has</i> in it an element of the purely creative, and then is man +likest God. But simply to do what we ought, is an altogether higher, +diviner, more potent, more creative thing, than to write the grandest +poem, paint the most beautiful picture, carve the mightiest statue, +build the most worshiping temple, dream out the most enchanting +commotion of melody and harmony. If Godfrey could have seen the soul of +the maiden into whose face his discourtesy called the hot blood, he +would have beheld there simply what God made the earth for; as it was, +he saw a shop-girl, to whom in happier circumstances he had shown +kindness, in whom he was now no longer interested. But the sight of his +troubled face called up all the mother in her; a rush of tenderness, +born of gratitude, flooded her heart. He was sad, and she could do +nothing to comfort him! He had been royally good to her, and no return +was in her power. She could not even let him know how she had profited +by his gifts! She could come near him with no ministration! The bond +between them was an eternal one, yet were they separated by a gulf of +unrelation. Not a mountain-range, but a stayless nothingness parted +them. She built many a castle, with walls of gratitude and floors of +service to entertain Godfrey Wardour; but they stood on no foundation +of imagined possibility.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.<br /><br /> +THE WEDDING-DRESS.</h3> + +<p>For all her troubles, however, Mary had her pleasures, even in the +shop. It was a delight to receive the friendly greetings of such as had +known and honored her father. She had the pleasure, as real as it was +simple, of pure service, reaping the fruit of the earth in the joy of +the work that was given her to do; there is no true work that does not +carry its reward though there are few that do not drop it and lose it. +She gathered also the pleasure of seeing and talking with people whose +manners and speech were of finer grain and tone than those about her. +When Hesper Mortimer entered the shop, she brought with her delight; +her carriage was like the gait of an ode; her motions were rhythm; and +her speech was music. Her smile was light, and her whole presence an +enchantment to Mary. The reading aloud which Wardour had led her to +practice had taught her much, not only in respect of the delicacies of +speech and utterance, but in the deeper matters of motion, relation, +and harmony. Hesper's clear-cut but not too sharply defined consonants; +her soft but full-bodied vowels; above all, her slow cadences that +hovered on the verge of song, as her walk on the verge of a slow aerial +dance; the carriage of her head, the movements of her lips, her arms, +her hands; the self-possession that seemed the very embodiment of +law—these formed together a whole of inexpressible delight, +inextricably for Mary associated with music and verse: she would hasten +to serve her as if she had been an angel come to do a little earthly +shopping, and return with the next heavenward tide. Hesper, in response +all but unconscious, would be waited on by no other than Mary; and +always between them passed some sweet, gentle nothings, which afforded +Hesper more pleasure than she could have accounted for.</p> + +<p>Her wedding-day was now for the third time fixed, when one morning she +entered the shop to make some purchases. Not happy in the prospect +before her, she was yet inclined to make the best of it so far as +clothes were concerned—the more so, perhaps, that she had seldom yet +been dressed to her satisfaction: she was now brooding over a certain +idea for her wedding-dress, which she had altogether failed in the +attempt to convey to her London <i>couturiere</i> ; and it had come into her +head to try whether Mary might not grasp her idea, and help her to make +it intelligible. Mary listened and thought, questioned, and desired +explanations—at length, begged she would allow her to ponder the thing +a little: she could hardly at once venture to say anything. Hesper +laughed, and said she was taking a small matter too +seriously—concluding from Mary's hesitation that she had but perplexed +her, and that she could be of no use to her in the difficulty.</p> + +<p>"A small matter? Your wedding-dress!" exclaimed Mary, in a tone of +expostulation.</p> + +<p>Hesper did not laugh again, but gave a little sigh instead, which +struck sadly on Mary's sympathetic heart. She cast a quick look in her +face. Hesper caught the look, and understood it. For one passing moment +she felt as if, amid the poor pleasure of adorning herself for a hated +marriage, she had found a precious thing of which she had once or twice +dreamed, never thought as a possible existence—a friend, namely, to +love her: the next, she saw the absurdity of imagining a friend in a +shop-girl.</p> + +<p>"But I must make up my mind so soon!" she answered. "Madame Crepine +gave me her idea, in answer to mine, but nothing like it, two days ago; +and, as I have not written again, I fear she may be taking her own way +with the thing. I am certain to hate it."</p> + +<p>"I will talk to you about it as early as you please to-morrow, if that +will do," returned Mary.</p> + +<p>She knew nothing about dressmaking beyond what came of a true taste, +and the experience gained in cutting out and making her own garments, +which she had never yet found a dressmaker to do to her mind; and, +indeed, Hesper had been led to ask her advice mainly from observing how +neat the design of her dresses was, and how faithfully they fitted her. +Dress is a sort of freemasonry between girls.</p> + +<p>"But I can not have the horses to-morrow," said Hesper.</p> + +<p>"I might," pondered Mary aloud, after a moment's silence, "walk out to +Durnmelling this evening after the shop is shut. By that time I shall +have been able to think; I find it impossible, with you before me."</p> + +<p>Hesper acknowledged the compliment with a very pleasant smile. If it be +true, as I may not doubt, that women, in dressing, have the fear of +women and not of men before their eyes, then a compliment from some +women must be more acceptable to some than a compliment from any man +but the specially favored.</p> + +<p>"Thank you a thousand times," she drawled, sweetly. "Then I shall +expect you. Ask for my maid. She will take you to my room. Good-by for +the present."</p> + +<p>As soon as she was gone, Mary, her mind's eye full of her figure, her +look, her style, her motion, gave herself to the important question of +the dress conceived by Hesper; and during her dinner-hour contrived to +cut out and fit to her own person the pattern of a garment such as she +supposed intended in the not very lucid description she had given her. +When she was free, she set out with it for Durnmelling.</p> + +<p>It was rather a long walk, the earlier part of it full of sad reminders +of the pleasure with which, greater than ever accompanied her to +church, she went to pay her Sunday visit at Thornwick; but the latter +part, although the places were so near, almost new to her: she had +never been within the gate of Durnmelling, and felt curious to see the +house of which she had so often heard.</p> + +<p>The butler opened the door to her—an elderly man, of conscious dignity +rather than pride, who received the "young person" graciously, and, +leaving her in the entrance-hall, went to find "Miss Mortimer's maid," +he said, though there was but one lady's-maid in the establishment.</p> + +<p>The few moments she had to wait far more than repaid her for the +trouble she had taken: through a side-door she looked into the great +roofless hall, the one grand thing about the house. Its majesty laid +hold upon her, and the shopkeeper's daughter felt the power of the +ancient dignity and ineffaceable beauty far more than any of the family +to which it had for centuries belonged.</p> + +<p>She was standing lost in delight, when a rude voice called to her from +half-way up a stair:</p> + +<p>"You're to come this way, miss."</p> + +<p>With a start, she turned and went. It was a large room to which she was +led. There was no one in it, and she walked to an open window, which +had a wide outlook across the fields. A little to the right, over some +trees, were the chimneys of Thornwick. She almost started to see +them—so near, and yet so far—like the memory of a sweet, sad story.</p> + +<p>"Do you like my prospect?" asked the voice of Hesper behind her. "It is +flat."</p> + +<p>"I like it much, Miss Mortimer," answered Mary, turning quickly with a +bright face. "Flatness has its own beauty. I sometimes feel as if room +was all I wanted; and of that there is so much there! You see over the +tree-tops, too, and that is good—sometimes—don't you think?"</p> + +<p>Miss Mortimer gave no other reply than a gentle stare, which expressed +no curiosity, although she had a vague feeling that Mary's words meant +something. Most girls of her class would hardly have got so far.</p> + +<p>The summer was backward, but the day had been fine and warm, and the +evening was dewy and soft, and full of evasive odor. The window looked +westward, and the setting sun threw long shadows toward the house. A +gentle wind was moving in the tree-tops. The spirit of the evening had +laid hold of Mary. The peace of faithfulness filled the air. The day's +business vanished, molten in the rest of the coming night. Even +Hesper's wedding-dress was gone from her thoughts. She was in her own +world, and ready, for very, quietness of spirit, to go to sleep. But +she had not forgotten the delight of Hesper's presence; it was only +that all relation between them was gone except such as was purely human.</p> + +<p>"This reminds me so of some beautiful verses of Henry Vaughan!" she +said, half dreamily.</p> + +<p>"What do they say?" drawled Hesper.</p> + +<p>Mary repeated as follows:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'The frosts are past, the storms are gone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And backward life at last comes on.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And here in dust and dirt, O here,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Lilies of His love appear!'"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"Whose did you say the lines were?" asked Hesper, with merest automatic +response.</p> + +<p>"Henry Vaughan's," answered Mary, with a little spiritual shiver as of +one who had dropped a pearl in the miry way.</p> + +<p>"I never heard of him," rejoined Hesper, with entire indifference.</p> + +<p>For anything she knew, he might be an occasional writer in "The +Belgrave Magazine," or "The Fireside Herald." Ignorance is one of the +many things of which a lady of position is never ashamed; wherein she +is, it may be, more right than most of my readers will be inclined to +allow; for ignorance is not the thing to be ashamed of, but neglect of +knowledge. That a young person in Mary's position should know a certain +thing, was, on the other hand, a reason why a lady in Hesper's position +should not know it! Was it possible a shop-girl should know anything +that Hesper ought to know and did not? It was foolish of Mary, perhaps, +but she had vaguely felt that a beautiful lady like Miss Mortimer, and +with such a name as Hesper, must know all the lovely things she knew, +and many more besides.</p> + +<p>"He lived in the time of the Charleses," she said, with a tremble in +her voice, for she was ashamed to show her knowledge against the +other's ignorance.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" drawled Hesper, with a confused feeling that people who kept +shops read stupid old books that lay about, because they could not +subscribe to a circulating library.—"Are you fond of poetry?" she +added; for the slight, shadowy shyness, into which her venture had +thrown Mary, drew her heart a little, though she hardly knew it, and +inclined her to say something.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Mary, who felt like a child questioned by a stranger in +the road; "—when it is good," she added, hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by good?" asked Hesper—out of her knowledge, Mary +thought, but it was not even out of her ignorance, only out of her +indifference. People must say something, lest life should stop.</p> + +<p>"That is a question difficult to answer," replied Mary. "I have often +asked it of myself, but never got any plain answer."</p> + +<p>"I do not see why you should find any difficulty in it," returned +Hesper, with a shadow of interest. "You know what you mean when you say +to yourself you like this, or you do not like that."</p> + +<p>"How clever she is, too!" thought Mary; but she answered: "I don't +think I ever say anything to myself about the poetry I read—not at the +time, I mean. If I like it, it drowns me; and, if I don't like it, it +is as the Dead Sea to me, in which you know you can't sink, if you try +ever so."</p> + +<p>Hesper saw nothing in the words, and began to fear that Mary was so +stupid as to imagine herself clever; whereupon the fancy she had taken +to her began to sink like water in sand. The two were still on their +feet, near the window—Mary, in her bonnet, with her back to it, and +Hesper, in evening attire, with her face to the sunset, so that the one +was like a darkling worshiper, the other like the radiant goddess. But +the truth was, that Hesper was a mere earthly woman, and Mary a +heavenly messenger to her. Neither of them knew it, but so it was; for +the angels are essentially humble, and Hesper would have condescended +to any angel out of her own class.</p> + +<p>"I think I know good poetry by what it does to me," resumed Mary, +thoughtfully, just as Hesper was about to pass to the business of the +hour.</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" rejoined Hesper, not less puzzled than before, if the word +should be used where there was no effort to understand. Poetry had +never done anything to her, and Mary's words conveyed no shadow of an +idea.</p> + +<p>The tone of her <i>indeed</i> checked Mary. She hesitated a moment, but went +on.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes," she said, "it makes me feel as if my heart were too big +for my body; sometimes as if all the grand things in heaven and earth +were trying to get into me at once; sometimes as if I had discovered +something nobody else knew; sometimes as if—no, not <i>as if</i> , for then +I <i>must</i> go and pray to God. But I am trying to tell you what I don't +know how to tell. I am not talking nonsense, I hope, only ashamed of +myself that I can't talk sense.—I will show you what I have been doing +about your dress."</p> + +<p>Far more to Hesper's surprise and admiration than any of her +half-foiled attempts at the utterance of her thoughts, Mary, taking +from her pocket the shape she had prepared, put it on herself, and, +slowly revolving before Hesper, revealed what in her eyes was a +masterpiece.</p> + +<p>"But how clever of you!" she cried.—Her own fingers had not been quite +innocent of the labor of the needle, for money had long been scarce at +Durnmelling, and in the paper shape she recognized the hand of an +artist.—"Why," she continued, "you are nothing less than an +accomplished dressmaker!"</p> + +<p>"That I dare not think myself," returned Mary, "seeing I never had a +lesson."</p> + +<p>"I wish you would make my wedding-dress," said Hesper.</p> + +<p>"I could not venture, even if I had the time," answered Mary. "The +moment I began to cut into the stuff, I should be terrified, and lose +my self-possession. I never made a dress for anybody but myself."</p> + +<p>"You are a little witch!" said Hesper; while Mary, who had roughly +prepared a larger shape, proceeded to fit it to her person.</p> + +<p>She was busy pinning and unpinning, shifting and pinning again, when +suddenly Hesper said:</p> + +<p>"I suppose you know I am going to marry money?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! don't say that. It's too dreadful!" cried Mary, stopping her work, +and looking up in Hesper's face.</p> + +<p>"What! you supposed I was going to marry a man like Mr. Redmain for +love?" rejoined Hesper, with a hard laugh.</p> + +<p>"I can not bear to think of it!" said Mary. "But you do not really mean +it! You are only—making fun of me! Do say you are."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I am not. I wish I could say I was! It is very horrid, I know, +but where's the good of mincing matters? If I did not call the thing by +its name, the thing would be just the same. You know, people in our +world have to do as they must; they can't pick and choose like you +happy creatures. I dare say, now, you are engaged to a young man you +love with all your heart, one you would rather marry than any other in +the whole universe."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, no!" returned Mary, with a smile most plainly fancy-free. "I +am not engaged, nor in the least likely to be."</p> + +<p>"And not in love either?" said Hesper—with such coolness that Mary +looked up in her face to know if she had really said so.</p> + +<p>"No," she replied.</p> + +<p>"No more am I," echoed Hesper; "that is the one good thing in the +business: I sha'n't break my heart, as some girls do. At least, so they +say—I don't believe it: how could a girl be so indecent? It is bad +enough to marry a man: that one can't avoid; but to die of a broken +heart is to be a traitor to your sex. As if women couldn't live without +men!"</p> + +<p>Mary smiled and was silent. She had read a good deal, and thought she +understood such things better than Miss Mortimer. But she caught +herself smiling, and she felt as if she had sinned. For that a young +woman should speak of love and marriage as Miss Mortimer did, was too +horrible to be understood—and she had smiled! She would have been less +shocked with Hesper, however, had she known that she forced an +indifference she could not feel—her last poor rampart of sand against +the sea of horror rising around her. But from her heart she pitied her, +almost as one of the lost.</p> + +<p>"Don't fix your eyes like that," said Hesper, angrily, "or I shall cry. +Look the other way, and listen.—I am marrying money, I tell you—and +for money; therefore, I ought to get the good of it. Mr. Mortimer will +be father enough to see to that! So I shall be able to do what I +please. I have fallen in love with you; and why shouldn't I have you +for my—"</p> + +<p>She paused, hesitating: what was it she was about to propose to the +little lady standing before her? She had been going to say <i>maid</i> : what +was it that checked her? The feeling was to herself shapeless and +nameless; but, however some of my readers may smile at the notion of a +girl who served behind a counter being a lady, and however ready Hesper +Mortimer would have been to join them, it was yet a vague sense of the +fact that was now embarrassing her, for she was not half lady enough to +deal with it. In very truth, Mary Marston was already immeasurably more +of a lady than Hesper Mortimer was ever likely to be in this world. +What was the stateliness and pride of the one compared to the fact that +the other would have died in the workhouse or the street rather than +let a man she did not love embrace her—yes, if all her ancestors in +hell had required the sacrifice! To be a martyr to a lie is but false +ladyhood. She only is a lady who witnesses to the truth, come of it +what may.</p> + +<p>"—For my—my companion, or something of the sort," concluded Hesper; +"and then I should be sure of being always dressed to my mind."</p> + +<p>"That <i>would</i> be nice!" responded Mary, thinking only of the kindness +in the speech.</p> + +<p>"Would you really like it?" asked Hesper, in her turn pleased.</p> + +<p>"I should like it very much," replied Mary, not imagining the proposal +had in it a shadow of seriousness. "I wish it were possible."</p> + +<p>"Why not, then? Why shouldn't it be possible? I don't suppose you would +mind using your needle a little?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least," answered Mary, amused. "Only what would they do in +the shop without me?"</p> + +<p>"They could get somebody else, couldn't they?"</p> + +<p>"Hardly, to take my place. My father was Mr. Turnbull's partner."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Hesper, not much instructed. "I thought you had only to give +warning."</p> + +<p>There the matter dropped, and Mary thought no more about it.</p> + +<p>"You will let me keep this pattern?" said Hesper.</p> + +<p>"It was made for you," answered Mary.</p> + +<p>While Hesper was lazily thinking whether that meant she was to pay for +it, Mary made her a pretty obeisance, and bade her good night. Hesper +returned her adieu kindly, but neither shook hands with her nor rang +the bell to have her shown out Mary found her own way, however, and +presently was breathing the fresh air of the twilight fields on her way +home to her piano and her books.</p> + +<p>For some time after she was gone, Hesper was entirely occupied with the +excogitation of certain harmonies of the toilet that must minister +effect to the dress she had now so plainly before her mind's eye; but +by and by the dress began to melt away, and like a dissolving view +disappeared, leaving in its place the form of "that singular +shop-girl." There was nothing striking about her; she made no such +sharp impression on the mind as compelled one to think of her again; +yet always, when one had been long enough in her company to feel the +charm of her individuality, the very quiet of any quiet moment was +enough to bring back the sweetness of Mary's twilight presence. For +this girl, who spent her days behind a counter, was one of the +spiritual forces at work for the conservation and recovery of the +universe.</p> + +<p>Not only had Hesper Mortimer never had a friend worthy of the name, but +no idea of pure friendship had as yet been generated in her. Sepia was +the nearest to her intimacy: how far friendship could have place +between two such I need not inquire; but in her fits of misery Hesper +had no other to go to. Those fits, alas! grew less and less frequent; +for Hesper was on the downward incline; but, when the next came, after +this interview, she found herself haunted, at a little distance, as it +were, by a strange sense of dumb, invisible tending. It did not once +come close to her; it did not once offer her the smallest positive +consolation; the thing was only this, that the essence of Mary's being +was so purely ministration, that her form could not recur to any memory +without bringing with it a dreamy sense of help. Most powerful of all +powers in its holy insinuation is <i>being</i> . <i>To be</i> is more powerful +than even <i>to do</i> . Action <i>may</i> be hypocrisy, but being is the thing +itself, and is the parent of action. Had anything that Mary said +recurred to Hesper, she would have thought of it only as the poor +sentimentality of a low education.</p> + +<p>But Hesper did not think of Mary's position as low; that would have +been to measure it; and it did not once suggest itself as having any +relation to any life in which she was interested. She saw no difference +of level between Mary and the lawyer who came about her marriage +settlements: they were together beyond her social horizon. In like +manner, moral differences—and that in her own class—were almost +equally beyond recognition. If by neglect of its wings, an eagle should +sink to a dodo, it would then recognize only the laws of dodo life. For +the dodos of humanity, did not one believe in a consuming fire and an +outer darkness, what would be left us but an ever-renewed <i>alas</i> ! It is +truth and not imperturbability that a man's nature requires of him; it +is help, not the leaving of cards at doors, that will be recognized as +the test; it is love, and no amount of flattery that will prosper; +differences wide as that between a gentleman and a cad will contract to +a hair's breadth in that day; the customs of the trade and the picking +of pockets will go together, with the greater excuse for the greater +need and the less knowledge; liars the most gentleman-like and the most +rowdy will go as liars; the first shall be last, and the last first.</p> + +<p>Hesper's day drew on. She had many things to think about—things very +different from any that concerned Mary Marston. She was married; found +life in London somewhat absorbing; and forgot Mary.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.<br /><br /> +MR. REDMAIN.</h3> + +<p>A life of comparatively innocent gayety could not be attractive to Mr. +Redmain, but at first he accompanied his wife everywhere. No one knew +better than he that not an atom of love had mingled with her motives in +marrying him; but for a time he seemed bent on showing her that she +needed not have been so averse to him. Whether this was indeed his +design or not, I imagine he enjoyed the admiration she roused: for why +should not a man take pride in the possession of a fine woman as well +as in that of a fine horse? To be sure, Mrs. Redmain was not quite in +the same way, nor quite so much his, as his horses were, and might one +day be a good deal less his than she was now; but in the mean time she +was, I fancy, a pleasant break in the gathering monotony of his +existence. As he got more accustomed to the sight of her in a crowd, +however, and at the same time to her not very interesting company in +private, when she took not the smallest pains to please him, he +gradually lapsed into his former ways, and soon came to spend his +evenings in company that made him forget his wife. He had loved her in +a sort of a way, better left undefined, and had also, almost from the +first, hated her a little; for, following her cousin's advice, she had +appealed to him to save her, and, when he evaded her prayer, had +addressed him in certain terms too appropriate to be agreeable, and too +forcible to be forgotten. His hatred, however, if that be not much too +strong a name, was neither virulent nor hot, for it had no inverted +love to feed and embitter it. It was more a thing of his head than his +heart, revealing itself mainly in short, acrid speeches, meant to be +clever, and indubitably disagreeable. Nor did Hesper prove an unworthy +antagonist in their encounters of polite Billingsgate: what she lacked +in experience she made up in breeding. The common remark, generally +false, about no love being lost, was in their case true enough, for +there never had been any between them to lose. The withered rose-leaves +have their sweetness yet, but what of the rotted peony? It was +generally when Redmain had been longer than usual without seeing his +wife that he said the worst things to her, as if spite had grown in +absence; but that he should then be capable of saying such things as he +did say, could be understood only by those who knew the man and his +history.</p> + +<p>Ferdinand Goldberg Redmain—parents with mean surroundings often give +grand names to their children—was the son of an intellectually gifted +laborer, who, rising first to be boss of a gang, began to take portions +of contracts, and arrived at last, through one lucky venture after +another, at having his estimate accepted and the contract given him for +a rather large affair. The result was that, through his minute +knowledge of details, his faculty for getting work out of his laborers, +a toughness of heart and will that enabled him to screw wages to the +lowest mark, and the judicious employment of inferior material, the +contract paid him much too well for any good to come out of it. From +that time, what he called his life was a continuous course of what he +called success, and he died one of the richest dirt-beetles of the age, +bequeathing great wealth to his son, and leaving a reputation for +substantial worth behind him; hardly leaving it, I fancy, for surely he +found it waiting him where he went. He had been guilty of a thousand +meannesses, oppressions, rapacities, and some quiet rogueries, but none +of them worse than those of many a man whose ultimate failure has been +the sole cause of his excommunication by the society which all the time +knew well enough what he was. Often had he been held up by would-be +teachers as a pattern to aspiring youth of what might be achieved by +unwavering attention to <i>the main chance</i> , combined with unassailable +honesty: from his experience they would once more prove to a gaping +world the truth of the maxim, the highest intelligible to a base soul, +that "honesty is the best policy." With his money he left to his son +the seeds of a varied meanness, which bore weeds enough, but curiously, +neither avarice nor, within the bounds of a modest prudence, any +unwillingness to part with money—a fact which will probably appear the +stranger when I have told the following anecdote concerning a brother +of the father, of whom few indeed mentioned in my narrative ever heard.</p> + +<p>This man was a joiner, or working cabinet-maker, or something of the +sort. Having one day been set by his master to repair for an old lady +an escritoire which had been in her possession for a long time, he came +to her house in the evening with a five-pound note of a country bank, +which he had found in a secret drawer of the same, handing it to her +with the remark that he had always found honesty the best policy. She +gave him half a sovereign, and he took his leave well satisfied. <i>He +had been first to make inquiry, and had learned that the bank stopped +payment many years ago.</i> I can not help wondering, curious in the +statistics of honesty, how many of my readers will be more amused than +disgusted with the story. It is a great thing to come of decent people, +and Ferdinand Goldberg Redmain must not be judged like one who, of +honorable parentage, whether noble or peasant, takes himself across to +the shady side of the road. Much had been against Redmain. I do not +know of what sort his mother was, but from certain embryonic virtues in +him, which could hardly have been his father's, I should think she must +have been better than her husband. She died, however, while he was a +mere child; and his father married, some said did not <i>marry</i> again. +The boy was sent to a certain public school, which at that time, +whatever it may or may not be now, was simply a hot-bed of the lowest +vices, and in devil-matters Redmain was an apt pupil. There is fresh +help for the world every time a youth starts clean upon manhood's race; +his very being is a hope of cleansing: this one started as foul as +youth could well be, and had not yet begun to repent. His character was +well known to his associates, for he was no hypocrite, and Hosper's +father knew it perfectly, and was therefore worse than he. Had Redmain +had a daughter, he would never have given her to a man like himself. +But, then, Mortimer was so poor, and Redmain was so <i>very</i> rich! Alas +for the man who degrades his poverty by worshiping wealth! there is no +abyss in hell too deep for him to find its bottom.</p> + +<p>Mr. Redmain had no profession, and knew nothing of business beyond what +was necessary for understanding whether his factor or steward, or +whatever he called him, was doing well with his money—to that he gave +heed. Also, wiser than many, he took some little care not to spend at +full speed what life he had. With this view he laid down and observed +certain rules in the ordering of his pleasures, which enabled him to +keep ahead of the vice-constable for some time longer than would +otherwise have been the case. But he is one who can never finally be +outrun, and now, as Mr. Redmain was approaching the end of middle age, +he heard plainly enough the approach of the wool-footed avenger behind +him. Horrible was the inevitable to him, as horrible as to any; but it +had not yet looked frightful enough to arrest his downward rush. In his +better conditions—physical, I mean—whether he had any better moral +conditions, I can not tell—he would laugh and say, "<i>Gather the roses +while you may</i> "—heaven and earth! what roses!—but, in his worse, he +maledicted everything, and was horribly afraid of hell. When in +tolerable health, he laughed at the notion of such an out-of-the-way +place, repudiating its very existence, and, calling in all the +arguments urged by good men against the idea of an eternity of aimless +suffering, used them against the idea of any punishment after death. +Himself a bad man, he reasoned that God was too good to punish sin; +himself a proud man, he reasoned that God was too high to take heed of +him. He forgot the best argument he could have adduced—namely, that +the punishment he had had in this life had done him no good; from which +he might have been glad to argue that none would, and therefore none +would be tried. But I suppose his mother believed there was a hell, for +at such times, when from weariness he was less of an evil beast than +usual, the old-fashioned horror would inevitably raise its dinosaurian +head afresh above the slime of his consciousness; and then even his +wife, could she have seen how the soul of the man shuddered and +recoiled, would have let his brutality pass unheeded, though it was +then at its worst, his temper at such times being altogether furious. +There was no grace in him when he was ill, nor at any time, beyond a +certain cold grace of manner, which he kept for ceremony, or where he +wanted to please.</p> + +<p>Happily, Mr. Redmain had one intellectual passion, which, poor thing as +it was, and in its motive, most of its aspects, and almost all its +tendencies, evil exceedingly, yet did something to delay that +corruption of his being which, at the same time, it powerfully aided to +complete: it was for the understanding and analysis of human evil—not +in the abstract, but alive and operative. For the appeasement of this +passion, he must render intelligible to himself, and that on his own +exclusive theory of human vileness, the aims and workings of every +fresh specimen of what he called human nature that seemed bad enough, +or was peculiar enough to interest him. In this region of darkness he +ranged like a discoverer—prowled rather, like an unclean beast of +prey—ever and always on the outlook for the false and foul; +acknowledging, it is true, that he was no better himself, but +arrogating on that ground a correctness of judgment beyond the reach of +such as, desiring to be better, were unwilling to believe in the utter +badness of anything human. Like a lover, he would watch for the +appearance of the vile motive, the self-interest, that "must be," <i>he +knew</i> , at the heart of this or that deed or proceeding of apparent +benevolence or generosity. Often, alas! the thing was provable; and, +where he did not find, he was quick to invent; and, where he failed in +finding or inventing, he not the less believed the bad motive was +there, and followed the slightest seeming trail of the cunning demon +only the more eagerly. What a smile was his when he heard, which truly +he was not in the way to hear often, the praise of some good deed, or +an ascription of high end to some endeavor of one of the vile race to +which he belonged! Do those who abuse their kind actually believe they +are of it? Do they hold themselves exceptions? Do they never reflect +that it must be because such is their own nature, whether their +accusation be true or false, that they know how to attribute such +motives to their fellows? Or is it that, actually and immediately +rejoicing in iniquity, they delight in believing it universal?</p> + +<p>Quiet as a panther, Redmain was, I say, always in pursuit, if not of +something sensual for himself, then of something evil in another. He +would sit at his club, silent and watching, day after day, night after +night, waiting for the chance that should cast light on some idea of +detection, on some doubt, bewilderment, or conjecture. He would ask the +farthest-off questions: who could tell what might send him into the +track of discovery? He would give to the talk the strangest turns, +laying trap after trap to ensnare the most miserable of facts, elevated +into a desirable secret only by his hope to learn through it something +equally valueless beyond it. Especially he delighted in discovering, or +flattering himself he had discovered, the hollow full of dead men's +bones under the flowery lawn of seeming goodness. Nor as yet had he, so +far as he knew, or at least was prepared to allow, ever failed. And +this he called the study of human nature, and quoted Pope. Truly, next +to God, the proper study of mankind is man; but how shall a man that +knows only the evil in himself, nor sees it hateful, read the +thousandfold-compounded heart of his neighbor? To rake over the +contents of an ash-pit, is not to study geology. There were motives in +Redmain's own being, which he was not merely incapable of +understanding, but incapable of seeing, incapable of suspecting.</p> + +<p>The game had for him all the pleasure of keenest speculation; nor that +alone, for, in the supposed discovery of the evil of another, he felt +himself vaguely righteous.</p> + +<p>One more point in his character I may not in fairness omit: he had +naturally a strong sense of justice; and, if he exercised it but little +in some of the relations of his life, he was none the less keenly alive +to his own claims on its score; for chiefly he cried out for fair play +on behalf of those who were wicked in similar fashion to himself. But, +in truth, no one dealt so hardly with Redmain as his own conscience at +such times when suffering and fear had awaked it.</p> + +<p>So much for a portrait-sketch of the man to whom Mortimer had sold his +daughter—such was the man whom Hesper, entirely aware that none could +compel her to marry against her will, had, partly from fear of her +father, partly from moral laziness, partly from reverence for the +Moloch of society, whose priestess was her mother, vowed to love, +honor, and obey! In justice to her, it must be remembered, however, +that she did not and could not know of him what her father knew.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.<br /><br /> +MRS. REDMAIN.</h3> + +<p>In the autumn the Redmains went to Durnmelling: why they did so, I +should find it hard to say. If, when a child, Hesper loved either of +her parents, the experiences of later years had so heaped that filial +affection with the fallen leaves of dead hopes and vanished dreams, +that there was now nothing in her heart recognizable to herself as love +to father or mother. She always behaved to them, of course, with +perfect propriety; never refused any small request; never showed +resentment when blamed—never felt any, for she did not care enough to +be angry or sorry that father or mother should disapprove.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, Lady Margaret saw great improvement in her daughter. +To the maternal eye, jealous for perfection, Hesper's carriage was at +length satisfactory. It was cold, and the same to her mother as to +every one else, but the mother did not find it too cold. It was +haughty, even repellent, but by no means in the mother's eyes +repulsive. Her voice came from her in well-balanced sentences, sounding +as if they had been secretly constructed for extempore use, like the +points of a parliamentary orator. "Marriage has done everything for +her!" said Lady Malice to herself with a dignified chuckle, and +dismissed the last shadowy remnant of maternal regret for her part in +the transaction of her marriage.</p> + +<p>She never saw herself in the wrong, and never gave herself the least +trouble to be in the right. She was in good health, ate, and liked to +eat; drank her glass of champagne, and would have drunk a second, but +for her complexion, and that it sometimes made her feel ill, which was +the only thing, after marrying Mr. Redmain, she ever felt degrading. Of +her own worth she had never had a doubt, and she had none yet: how was +she to generate one, courted wherever she went, both for her own beauty +and her husband's wealth?</p> + +<p>To her father she was as stiff and proud as if she had been a maiden +aunt, bent on destroying what expectations from her he might be +cherishing. Who will blame her? He had done her all the ill he could, +and by his own deed she was beyond his reach. Nor can I see that the +debt she owed him for being her father was of the heaviest.</p> + +<p>Her husband was again out of health—certain attacks to which he was +subject were now coming more frequently. I do not imagine his wife +offered many prayers for his restoration. Indeed, she never prayed for +the thing she desired; and, while he and she occupied separate rooms, +the one solitary thing she now regarded as a privilege, how <i>could</i> she +pray for his recovery?</p> + +<p>Greatly contrary to Mr. Redmain's unexpressed desire, Miss Yolland had +been installed as Hesper's cousin-companion. After the marriage, she +ventured to unfold a little, as she had promised, but what there was +yet of womanhood in Hesper had shrunk from further acquaintance with +the dimly shadowed mysteries of Sepia's story; and Sepia, than whom +none more sensitive to change of atmosphere, had instantly closed +again; and now not unfrequently looked and spoke like one feeling her +way. The only life-principle she had, so far as I know, was to get from +the moment the greatest possible enjoyment that would leave the way +clear for more to follow. She had not been in his house a week before +Mr. Redmain hated her. He was something given to hating people who came +near him, and she came much too near. She was by no means so different +in character as to be repulsive to him; neither was she so much alike +as to be tiresome; their designs could not well clash, for she was a +woman and he was a man; if she had not been his wife's friend, they +might, perhaps, have got on together better than well; but the two were +such as must either be hand in glove or hate each other. There had not, +however, been the least approach to rupture between them. Mr. Redmain, +indeed, took no trouble to avoid such a catastrophe, but Sepia was far +too wise to allow even the dawn of such a risk. When he was ill, he +was, if possible, more rude to her than to every one else, but she did +not seem to mind it a straw. Perhaps she knew something of the ways of +such <i>gentlemen</i> as lose their manners the moment they are ailing, and +seem to consider a headache or an attack of indigestion excuse +sufficient for behaving like the cad they scorn. It was not long, +however, before he began to take in her a very real interest, though +not of a sort it would have made her comfortable with him to know.</p> + +<p>Every time Mr. Redmain had an attack, the baldness on the top of his +head widened, and the skin of his face tightened on his small, neat +features; his long arms looked longer; his formerly flat back rounded +yet a little; and his temper grew yet more curiously spiteful. Long +after he had begun to recover, he was by no means an agreeable +companion. Nevertheless, as if at last, though late in the day, she +must begin to teach her daughter the duty of a married woman, from the +moment he arrived, taken ill on the way, Lady Malice, regardless of the +brusqueness with which he treated her from the first, devoted herself +to him with an attention she had never shown her husband. She was the +only one who manifested any appearance of affection for him, and the +only one of the family for whom, in return, he came to show the least +consideration. Rough he was, even to her, but never, except when in +absolute pain, rude as to everybody in the house besides. At times, one +might have almost thought he stood in some little awe of her. Every +night, after his man was gone, she would visit him to see that he was +left comfortable, would tuck him up as his mother might have done, and +satisfy herself that the night-light was shaded from his eyes. With her +own hands she always arranged his breakfast on the tray, nor never +omitted taking him a basin of soup before he got up; and, whatever he +may have concluded concerning her motives, he gave no sign of imagining +them other than generous. Perhaps the part in him which had never had +the opportunity of behaving ill to his mother, and so had not choked up +its channels with wrong, remained, in middle age and illness, capable +of receiving kindness.</p> + +<p>Hesper saw the relation between them, but without the least pleasure or +the least curiosity. She seemed to care for nothing—except the keeping +of her back straight. What could it be, inside that lovely form, that +gave itself pleasure to be, were a difficult question indeed. The bear +as he lies in his winter nest, sucking his paw, has no doubt his +rudimentary theories of life, and those will coincide with a desire for +its continuance; but whether what either the lady or the bear counts +the good of life, be really that which makes either desire its +continuance, is another question. Mere life without suffering seems +enough for most people, but I do not think it could go on so for ever. +I can not help fancying that, but for death, utter dreariness would at +length master the healthiest in whom the true life has not begun to +shine. But so satisfying is the mere earthly existence to some at +present, that this remark must sound to them bare insanity.</p> + +<p>Partly out of compliment to Mr. Redmain, the Mortimers had scarcely a +visitor; for he would not come out of his room when he knew there was a +stranger in the house. Fond of company of a certain kind when he was +well, he could not endure an unknown face when he was ill. He told Lady +Malice that at such times a stranger always looked a devil to him. +Hence the time was dull for everybody—dullest, perhaps, for Sepia, +who, as well as Redmain, had a few things that required forgetting. It +was no wonder, then, that Hesper, after a fort-night of it, should +think once more of the young woman in the draper's shop of Testbridge. +One morning, in consequence, she ordered her brougham, and drove to the +town.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.<br /><br /> +THE MENIAL.</h3> + +<p>Things had been going nowise really better with Mary, though there was +now more lull and less storm around her. The position was becoming less +and less endurable to her, and she had as yet no glimmer of a way out +of it. Breath of genial air never blew in the shop, except when this +and that customer entered it. But how dear the dull old chapel had +grown! Not that she heard anything more to her mind, or that she paid +any more attention to what was said; but the memory of her father +filled the place, and when the Bible was read, or some favorite hymn +sung, he seemed to her actually present. And might not love, she +thought, even love to her, be strong enough to bring him from the +gracious freedom of the new life, back to the house of bondage, to +share it for an hour with his daughter?</p> + +<p>When Hesper entered, she was disappointed to see Mary so much changed. +But when, at sight of her, the pale face brightened, and a faint, rosy +flush overspread it from brow to chin, Mary was herself again as Hesper +had known her; and the radiance of her own presence, reflected from +Mary, cast a reflex of sunshine into the February of Hesper's heart: +had Mary known how long it was since such a smile had lighted the face +she so much admired, hers would have flushed with a profounder +pleasure. Hesper was human after all, though her humanity was only +molluscous as yet, and it is not in the power of humanity in any stage +of development to hold itself indifferent to the pleasure of being +loved. Also, poor as is the feeling comparatively, it is yet a reflex +of love itself—the shine of the sun in a rain-pool.</p> + +<p>She walked up to Mary, holding out her hand.</p> + +<p>"O ma'am, I am so glad to see you!" exclaimed Mary, forgetting her +manners in her love.</p> + +<p>"I, too, am glad," drawled Hesper, genuinely, though with +condescension. "I hope you are well. I can not say you look so."</p> + +<p>"I am pretty well, thank you, ma'am," answered Mary, flushing afresh: +not much anxiety was anywhere expressed about her health now, except by +Beenie, who mourned over the loss of her plumpness, and told her if she +did not eat she would soon follow her poor father.</p> + +<p>"Come and have a drive with me," said Hesper, moved by a sudden +impulse: through some hidden motion of sympathy, she felt, as she +looked at her, that the place was stuffy. "It will do you good," she +went on. "You are too much indoors.—And the ceiling is low," she +added, looking up.</p> + +<p>"It is very kind of you," replied Mary, "but—I don't think I could +quite manage it to-day."</p> + +<p>She looked round as she spoke. There were not many customers; but for +conscience sake she was trying hard to give as little ground for +offense as possible.</p> + +<p>"Why not?—If I were to ask Mr.—"</p> + +<p>"If you really wish it, ma'am, I will venture to go for half an hour. +There is no occasion to speak to Mr. Turnbull. Besides, it is almost +dinner-time."</p> + +<p>"Do, then. I am sure you will eat a better dinner for having had a +little fresh air first. It is a lovely morning. We will drive to the +Roman camp on the top of Clover-down."</p> + +<p>"I shall be ready in two minutes," said Mary, and ran from the shop.</p> + +<p>As she passed along the outside of his counter coming back, she stopped +and told Mr. Turnbull where she was going. Instead of answering her, he +turned himself toward Mrs. Redmain, and went through a series of bows +and smiles recognizant of favor, which she did not choose to see. She +turned and walked from the shop, got into the brougham, and made room +for Mary at her side.</p> + +<p>But, although the drive was a lovely one, and the view from either +window delightful, and to Mary it was like getting out of a tomb to +leave the shop in the middle of the day, she saw little of the sweet +country on any side, so much occupied was she with Hesper. Ere they +stopped again at the shop-door, the two young women were nearer being +friends than Hesper had ever been with any one. The sleepy heart in her +was not yet dead, but capable still of the pleasure of showing sweet +condescension and gentle patronage to one who admired her, and was +herself agreeable. To herself she justified her kindness to Mary with +the remark that <i>the young woman deserved encouragement</i> —whatever that +might mean—<i>because she was so anxious to improve herself!</i> —a duty +Hesper could recognize in another.</p> + +<p>As they went, Mary told her something of her miserable relations with +the Turnbulls; and, as they returned, Hesper actually—this time with +perfect seriousness—proposed that she should give up business, and +live with her.</p> + +<p>Nor was this the ridiculous thing it may at first sight appear to not a +few of my readers. It arose from what was almost the first movement in +the direction of genuine friendship Hesper had ever felt. She had been +familiar in her time with a good many, but familiarity is not +friendship, and may or may not exist along with it. Some, who would +scorn the idea of a <i>friendship</i> with such as Mary, will be familiar +enough with maids as selfish as themselves, and part from +them—no—part <i>with</i> them, the next day, or the next hour, with never +a twinge of regret. Of this, Hesper was as capable as any; but +friendship is its own justification, and she felt no horror at the new +motion of her heart. At the same time she did not recognize it as +friendship, and, had she suspected Mary of regarding their possible +relation in that light, she would have dismissed her pride, perhaps +contempt. Nevertheless the sorely whelmed divine thing in her had +uttered a feeble sigh of incipient longing after the real; Mary had +begun to draw out the love in her; while her conventional judgment +justified the proposed extraordinary proceeding with the argument of +the endless advantages to result from having in the house, devoted to +her wishes, a young woman with an absolute genius for dressmaking; one +capable not only of originating in that foremost of arts, but, no +doubt, with a little experience, of carrying out also with her own +hands the ideas of her mistress. No more would she have to send for the +dressmaker on every smallest necessity! No more must she postpone +confidence in her appearance, that was, in herself, until Sepia, +dressed, should be at leisure to look her over! Never yet had she found +herself the best dressed in a room: now there would be hope!</p> + +<p>Nothing, however, was clear in her mind as to the position she would +have Mary occupy. She had a vague feeling that one like her ought not +to be expected to undertake things befitting such women as her maid +Folter; for between Mary and Folter there was, she saw, less room for +comparison than between Folter and a naked Hottentot. She was +incapable, at the same time, of seeing that, in the eyes of certain +courtiers of a high kingdom, not much known to the world of fashion, +but not the less judges of the beautiful, there was a far greater +difference between Mary and herself than between herself and her maid, +or between her maid and the Hottentot. For, while the said beholders +could hardly have been astonished at Hesper's marrying Mr. Redmain, +there would, had Mary done such a thing, have been dismay and a hanging +of the head before the face of her Father in heaven.</p> + +<p>"Come and live with me, Miss Marston," said Hesper; but it was with a +laugh, and that light touch of the tongue which suggests but a flying +fancy spoken but for the sake of the preposterous; while Mary, not +forgetting she had heard the same thing once before, heard it with a +smile, and had no rejoinder ready; whereupon Hesper, who was, in +reality, feeling her way, ventured a little more seriousness.</p> + +<p>"I should never ask you to do anything you would not like," she said.</p> + +<p>"I don't think you could," answered Mary. "There are more things I +should like to do for you than you would think to ask.—In fact," she +added, looking round with a loving smile, "I don't know what I +shouldn't like to do for you."</p> + +<p>"My meaning was, that, as a thing of course, I should never ask you to +do anything menial," explained Hesper, venturing a little further +still, and now speaking in a tone perfectly matter-of-fact.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you intend by <i>menial</i> ," returned Mary.</p> + +<p>Hesper thought it not unnatural she should not be familiar with the +word, and proceeded to explain it as well as she could. That seeming +ignorance may be the consequence of more knowledge, she had yet to +learn.</p> + +<p>"<i>Menial</i> , don't you know?" she said, "is what you give servants to do."</p> + +<p>But therewith she remembered that Mary's help in certain things wherein +her maid's incapacity was harrowing, was one of the hopes she mainly +cherished in making her proposal: that definition of <i>menial</i> would +hardly do.</p> + +<p>"I mean—I mean," she resumed, with a little embarrassment, a rare +thing with her, "—things like—like—cleaning one's shoes, don't you +know?—or brushing your hair."</p> + +<p>Mary burst out laughing.</p> + +<p>"Let me come to you to-morrow morning," she said, "and I will brush +your hair that you will want me to come again the next day. You +beautiful creature! whose hands would not be honored to handle such +stuff as that?"</p> + +<p>As she spoke, she took in her fingers a little stray drift from the +masses of golden twilight that crowned one of the loveliest temples in +which the Holy Ghost had not yet come to dwell.</p> + +<p>"If cleaning your shoes be menial, brushing your hair must be royal," +she added.</p> + +<p>Hesper's heart was touched; and if at the same time her <i>self</i> was +flattered, the flattery was mingled with its best antidote—love.</p> + +<p>"Do you really mean," she said, "you would not mind doing such things +for me?—Of course I should not be exacting."</p> + +<p>She laughed again, afraid of showing herself too much in earnest before +she was sure of Mary.</p> + +<p>"You would not ask me to do anything <i>menial</i> ?" said Mary, archly.</p> + +<p>"I dare not promise," said Hesper, in tone responsive. "How could I +help it, if I saw you longing to do what I was longing to have you do?" +she added, growing more and more natural.</p> + +<p>"I would no more mind cleaning your boots than my own," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"But I should not like to clean my own boots," rejoined Hesper.</p> + +<p>"No more should I, except it had to be done. Even then I would much +rather not," returned Mary, "for cleaning my own would not interest me. +To clean yours would. Still I would rather not, for the time might be +put to better use—except always it were necessary, and then, of +course, it couldn't. But as to anything degrading in it, I scorn the +idea. I heard my father once say that, to look down on those who have +to do such things may be to despise them for just the one honorable +thing about them.—Shall I tell you what I understand by the word +<i>menial</i> ? You know it has come to have a disagreeable taste about it, +though at first it only meant, as you say, something that fell to the +duty of attendants."</p> + +<p>"Do tell me," answered Hesper, with careless permission.</p> + +<p>"I did not find it out myself," said Mary. "My father taught me. He was +a wise as well as a good man, Mrs. Redmain."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Hesper, with the ordinary indifference of fashionable people +to what an inferior may imagine worth telling them.</p> + +<p>"He said," persisted Mary, notwithstanding, "that it is menial to +undertake anything you think beneath you for the sake of money; and +still more menial, having undertaken it, not to do it as well as +possible."</p> + +<p>"That would make out a good deal more of the menial in the world than +is commonly supposed," laughed Hesper. "I wonder who would do anything +for you if you didn't pay them—one way or another!"</p> + +<p>"I've taken my father's shoes out of Beenie's hands many a time," said +Mary, "and finished them myself, just for the pleasure of making them +shine for <i>him</i> ."</p> + +<p>"Re-a-ally!" drawled Hesper, and set out for the conclusion that after +all it was no such great compliment the young woman had paid her in +wanting to brush her hair. Evidently she had a taste for low +things!—was naturally menial!—would do as much for her own father as +for a lady like her! But the light in Mary's eyes checked her.</p> + +<p>"Any service done without love, whatever it be," resumed Mary, "is +slavery—neither more nor less. It can not be anything else. So, you +see, most slaves are made slaves by themselves; and that is what makes +me doubtful whether I ought to go on serving in the shop; for, as far +as the Turnbulls are concerned, I have no pleasure in it; I am only +helping them to make money, not doing them any good."</p> + +<p>"Why do you not give it up at once then?" asked Hesper.</p> + +<p>"Because I like serving the customers. They were my father's customers; +and I have learned so much from having to wait on them!"</p> + +<p>"Well, now," said Hesper, with a rush for the goal, "if you will come +to me, I will make you comfortable; and you shall do just as much or as +little as you please."</p> + +<p>"What will your maid think?" suggested Mary. "If I am to do what I +please, she will soon find me trespassing on her domain."</p> + +<p>"I never trouble myself about what my servants think," said Hesper.</p> + +<p>"But it might hurt her, you know—to be paid to do a thing and then not +allowed to do it."</p> + +<p>"She may take herself away, then. I had not thought of parting with +her, but I should not be at all sorry if she went. She would be no loss +to me."</p> + +<p>"Why should you keep her, then?"</p> + +<p>"Because one is just as good—and as bad as another. She knows my ways, +and I prefer not having to break in a new one. It is a bore to have to +say how you like everything done."</p> + +<p>"But you are speaking now as if you meant it," said Mary, waking up to +the fact that Hesper's tone was of business, and she no longer seemed +half playing with the proposal. "<i>Do</i> you mean you want me to come and +live with you?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I do," answered Hesper, emphatically. "You shall have a room +close to my bedroom, and there you shall do as you like all day long; +and, when I want you, I dare say you will come."</p> + +<p>"Fast enough," said Mary, cheerily, as if all was settled. In contrast +with her present surroundings, the prospect was more than attractive. +"—But would you let me have my piano?" she asked, with sudden +apprehension.</p> + +<p>"You shall have my grand piano always when I am out, which will be +every night in the season, I dare say. That will give you plenty of +practice; and you will be able to have the best of lessons. And think +of the concerts and oratorios you will go to!"</p> + +<p>As she spoke, the carriage drew up at the door of the shop, and Mary +took her leave. Hesper accepted her acknowledgments in the proper style +of a benefactress, and returned her good-by kindly. But not yet did she +shake hands with her.</p> + +<p>Some of my readers may wonder that Mary should for a moment dream of +giving up what they would call her independence; for was she not on her +own ground in the shop of which she was a proprietor? and was the +change proposed, by whatever name it might be called, anything other +than <i>service</i> ? But they are outside it, and Mary was in it, and knew +how little such an independence was worth the name. Almost everything +about the shop had altered in its aspect to her. The very air she +breathed in it seemed slavish. Nor was the change in her. The whole +thing was growing more and more sordid, for now—save for her part—the +one spirit ruled it entirely.</p> + +<p>The work had therefore more or less grown a drudgery to her. The spirit +of gain was in full blast, and whoever did not trim his sails to it was +in danger of finding it rough weather. No longer could she, without +offense, and consequent disturbance of spirit, arrange her attendance +as she pleased, or have the same time for reading as before. She could +encounter black looks, but she could not well live with them; and how +was she to continue the servant of such ends as were now exclusively +acknowledged in the place? The proposal of Mrs. Redmain stood in +advantageous contrast to this treadmill-work. In her house she would be +called only to the ministrations of love, and would have plenty of time +for books and music, with a thousand means of growth unapproachable in +Testbridge. All the slavery lay in the shop, all the freedom in the +personal service. But she strove hard to suppress anxiety, for she saw +that, of all poverty-stricken contradictions, a Christian with little +faith is the worst.</p> + +<p>The chief attraction to her, however, was simply Hesper herself. She +had fallen in love with her—I hardly know how otherwise to describe +the current with which her being set toward her. Few hearts are capable +of loving as she loved. It was not merely that she saw in Hesper a +grand creature, and lovely to look upon, or that one so much her +superior in position showed such a liking for herself; she saw in her +one she could help, one at least who sorely needed help, for she seemed +to know nothing of what made life worth having—one who had done, and +must yet be capable of doing, things degrading to the humanity of +womanhood. Without the hope of helping in the highest sense, Mary could +not have taken up her abode in such a house as Mrs. Redmain's. No +outward service of any kind, even to the sick, was to her service +enough to <i>choose</i> ; were it laid upon her, she would hasten to it; for +necessity is the push, gentle or strong, as the man is more or less +obedient, by which God sends him into the path he would have him take. +But to help to the birth of a beautiful Psyche, enveloped all in the +gummy cerecloths of its chrysalis, not yet aware, even, that it must +get out of them, and spread great wings to the sunny wind of God—that +was a thing for which the holiest of saints might well take a servant's +place—the thing for which the Lord of life had done it before him. To +help out such a lovely sister—how Hesper would have drawn herself up +at the word! it is mine, not Mary's—as she would be when no longer +holden of death, but her real self, the self God meant her to be when +he began making her, would indeed be a thing worth having lived for! +Between the ordinarily benevolent woman and Mary Marston, there was +about as great a difference as between the fashionable church-goer and +Catherine of Siena. She would be Hesper's servant that she might gain +Hesper. I would not have her therefore wondered at as a marvel of +humility. She was simply a young woman who believed that the man called +Jesus Christ is a real person, such as those represent him who profess +to have known him; and she therefore believed the man himself—believed +that, when he said a thing, he entirely meant it, knowing it to be +true; believed, therefore, that she had no choice but do as he told +her. That man was the servant of all; therefore, to regard any honest +service as degrading would be, she saw, to deny Christ, to call the +life of creation's hero a disgrace. Nor was he the first servant; he +did not of himself choose his life; the Father gave it him to +live—sent him to be a servant, because he, the Father, is the first +and greatest servant of all. He gives it to one to serve as the rich +can, to another as the poor must. The only disgrace, whether of the +counting-house, the shop, or the family, is to think the service +degrading. If it be such, why not sit down and starve rather than do +it? No man has a right to disgrace himself. Starve, I say; the world +will lose nothing in you, for you are its disgrace, who count service +degrading. You are much too grand people for what your Maker requires +of you, and does himself, and yet you do it after a fashion, because +you like to eat and go warm. You would take rank in the kingdom of +hell, not the kingdom of heaven. But obedient love, learned by the +meanest Abigail, will make of her an angel of ministration, such a one +as he who came to Peter in the prison, at whose touch the fetters fell +from the limbs of the apostle.</p> + +<p>"What forced, overdriven, Utopian stuff! A kingdom always coming, and +never come! I hold by what <i>is.</i> This solid, plowable earth will serve +my turn. My business is what I can find in the oyster."</p> + +<p>I hear you, friend. Your answer will come whence you do not look for +it. For some, their only answer will be the coming of that which they +deny; and the <i>Presence</i> will be a very different thing to those who +desire it and those who do not. In the mean time, if we are not yet +able to serve like God from pure love, let us do it because it is his +way; so shall we come to do it from pure love also.</p> + +<p>The very next morning, as she called it—that is, at four o'clock in +the afternoon—Hesper again entered the shop, and, to the surprise and +annoyance of the master of it, was taken by Mary through the counter +and into the house. "What a false impression," thought the great man, +"will it give of the way <i>we</i> live, to see the Marstons' shabby parlor +in a warehouse!" But he would have been more astonished and more +annoyed still, had the deafening masses of soft goods that filled the +house permitted him to hear through them what passed between the two. +Before they came down, Mary had accepted a position in Mrs. Redmain's +house, if that may be called a position which was so undefined; and +Hesper had promised that she would not mention the matter. For Mary +judged Mr. Turnbull would be too glad to get rid of her to mind how +brief the notice she gave him, and she would rather not undergo the +remarks that were sure to be made in contempt of her scheme. She +counted it only fair, however, to let him know that she intended giving +up her place behind the counter, hinting that, as she meant to leave +when it suited her without further warning, it would be well to look +out at once for one to take her place.</p> + +<p>As to her money in the business, she scarcely thought of it, and said +nothing about it, believing it as safe as in the bank. It was in the +power of a dishonest man who prided himself on his honesty—the worst +kind of rogue in the creation; but she had not yet learned to think of +him as a dishonest man—only as a greedy one—and the money had been +there ever since she had heard of money. Mr. Turnbull was so astonished +by her communication that, not seeing at once how the change was likely +to affect him, he held his peace—with the cunning pretense that his +silence arose from anger. His first feeling was of pleasure, but the +man of business must take care how he shows himself pleased. On +reflection, he continued pleased; for, as they did not seem likely to +succeed in securing Mary in the way they had wished, the next best +thing certainly would be to get rid of her. Perhaps, indeed, it was the +very best thing; for it would be easy to get George a wife more +suitable to the position of his family than a little canting dissenter, +and her money would be in their hands all the same; while, once clear +of her haunting cat-eyes, ready to pounce upon whatever her soft-headed +father had taught her was wicked, he could do twice the business. But, +while he continued pleased, he continued careful not to show his +satisfaction, for she would then go smelling about for the cause! +During three whole days, therefore, he never spoke to her. On the +fourth, he spoke as if nothing had ever been amiss between them, and +showed some interest in her further intentions. But Mary, in the +straightforward manner peculiar to herself, told him she preferred not +speaking of them at present; whereupon the cunning man concluded that +she wanted a place in another shop, and was on the outlook—prepared to +leave the moment one should turn up.</p> + +<p>She asked him one day whether he had yet found a person to take her +place.</p> + +<p>"Time enough for that," he answered. "You're not gone yet."</p> + +<p>"As you please, Mr. Turnbull," said Mary. "It was merely that I should +be sorry to leave you without sufficient help in the shop."</p> + +<p>"And <i>I</i> should be sorry," rejoined Turnbull, "that Miss Marston should +fancy herself indispensable to the business she turned her back upon."</p> + +<p>From that moment, the restraint he had for the last week or two laid +upon himself thus broken through, he never spoke to her except with +such rudeness that she no longer ventured to address him even on +shop-business; and all the people in the place, George included, +following the example so plainly set them, she felt, when, at last, in +the month of November, a letter from Hesper heralded the hour of her +deliverance, that to take any formal leave would be but to expose +herself to indignity. She therefore merely told Turnbull, one evening +as he left the shop, that she would not be there in the morning, and +was gone from Testbridge before it was opened the next day.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.<br /><br /> +MRS. REDMAIN'S DRAWING-ROOM.</h3> + +<p>A few years ago, a London drawing-room was seldom beautiful; but size +is always something, and, if Mrs. Redmain's had not harmony, it had +gilding—a regular upholsterer's drawing-room it was, on which about as +much taste had been expended as on the fattening of a prize-pig. +Happily there is as little need as temptation to give any description +of it, with its sheets of glass and steel, its lace curtains, +crude-colored walls and floor and couches, and glittering chandeliers +of a thousand prisms. Everybody knows the kind of room—a huddle of the +chimera ambition wallowing in the chaos of the commonplace—no +miniature world of harmonious abiding. The only interesting thing in it +was, that on all sides were doors, which must lead out of it, and might +lead to a better place.</p> + +<p>It was about eleven o'clock of a November morning—more like one in +March. There might be a thick fog before the evening, but now the sun +was shining like a brilliant lump of ice—so inimical to heat, +apparently, that a servant had just dropped the venetian blind of one +of the windows to shut his basilisk-gaze from the sickening fire, which +was now rapidly recovering. Betwixt the cold sun and the hard earth, a +dust-befogged wind, plainly borrowed from March, was sweeping the +street.</p> + +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Redmain had returned to town thus early because their +country-place was in Cornwall, and there Mr. Redmain was too far from +his physician. He was now considerably better, however, and had begun +to go about again, for the weather did not yet affect him much. He was +now in his study, as it was called, where he generally had his +breakfast alone. Mrs. Redmain always had hers in bed, as often with a +new novel as she could, of which her maid cut the leaves, and skimmed +the cream. But now she was descending the stair, straight as a Greek +goddess, and about as cold as the marble she is made of—mentally +rigid, morally imperturbable, and vacant of countenance to a degree +hardly equaled by the most ordinary of goddesses. She entered the +drawing-room with a slow, careless, yet stately step, which belonged to +her, I can not say by nature, for it was not natural, but by ancestry. +She walked to the chimney, seated herself in a low, soft, shiny chair +almost on the hearth-rug, and gazed listlessly into the fire. In a +minute she rose and rang the bell.</p> + +<p>"Send my maid, and shut the door," she said.</p> + +<p>The woman came.</p> + +<p>"Has Miss Yolland left her room yet?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"No, ma'am."</p> + +<p>"Let her know I am in the drawing-room."</p> + +<p>This said, she resumed her fire-gazing.</p> + +<p>There was not much to see in the fire, for the fire is but a reflector, +and there was not much behind the eyes that looked into it for that +fire to reflect. Hesper was no dreamer—the more was the pity, for +dreams are often the stuff out of which actions are made. Had she been +a truer woman, she might have been a dreamer, but where was the space +for dreaming in a life like hers, without heaven, therefore without +horizon, with so much room for desiring, and so little room for hope? +The buz that greeted her entrance of a drawing-room, was the chief joy +she knew; to inhabit her well-dressed body in the presence of other +well-dressed bodies, her highest notion of existence. And even upon +these hung ever as an abating fog the consciousness of having a +husband. I can not say she was tired of marriage, for she had loathed +her marriage from the first, and had not found it at all better than +her expectation: she had been too ignorant to forebode half its horrors.</p> + +<p>Education she had had but little that was worth the name, for she had +never been set growing; and now, although well endowed by nature, she +was gradually becoming stupid. People who have plenty of money, and +neither hope nor aspiration, must become stupid, except indeed they +hate, and then for a time the devil in them will make them a sort of +clever.</p> + +<p>Miss Yolland came undulating. No kiss, no greeting whatever passed +between the ladies. Sepia began at once to rearrange a few hot-house +flowers on the mantel-piece, looking herself much like some dark flower +painted in an old missal.</p> + +<p>"This day twelve months!" said Hesper.</p> + +<p>"I know," returned Sepia.</p> + +<p>"If one could die without pain, and there was nothing to come after!" +said Hesper. "What a tiresome dream it is!"</p> + +<p>"Dream, or nightmare, or what you will, you had better get all you can +out of it before you break it," said Sepia.</p> + +<p>"You seem to think it worth keeping!" yawned Hesper.</p> + +<p>Sepia smiled, with her face to the glass, in which she saw the face of +her cousin with her eyes on the fire; but she made no answer. Hesper +went on.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" she said, "your story is not mine. You are free; I am a slave. +You are alive; I am in my coffin."</p> + +<p>"That's marriage," said Sepia, dryly.</p> + +<p>"It would not matter much," continued Hesper, "if you could have your +coffin to yourself; but when you have to share it—ugh!"</p> + +<p>"If I were you, then," said Sepia, "I would not lie still; I would get +up and bite—I mean, be a vampire."</p> + +<p>Hesper did not answer. Sepia turned from the mirror, looked at her, and +burst into a laugh—at least, the sound she made had all the elements +of a laugh—except the merriment.</p> + +<p>"Now really, Hesper, you ought to be ashamed of yourself," she cried. +"You to put on the pelican and the sparrow, with all the world before +you, and all the men in it at your feet!"</p> + +<p>"A pack of fools!" remarked Hesper, with a calmness which in itself was +scorn. "I don't deny it—but amusing fools—you must allow that!"</p> + +<p>"They don't amuse me."</p> + +<p>"That's your fault: you won't be amused. The more foolish they are, the +more amusing I find them."</p> + +<p>"I am sick of it all. Nothing amuses me. How can it, when there is +nothing behind it? You can't live on amusement. It is the froth on +water an inch deep, and then the mud!"</p> + +<p>"I declare, misery makes a poetess of you! But as to the mud, I don't +mind a little mud. It is only dirt, and has its part in the inevitable +peck, I hope."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> don't mind mud so long as you can keep out of it. But when one is +over head and ears in it, I should like to know what life is worth," +said Hesper, heedless that the mud was of her own making. "I declare, +Sepia," she went on, drawling the declaration, "if I were to be asked +whether I would go on or not—"</p> + +<p>"You would ask a little time to make up your mind, Hesper, I fancy," +suggested Sepia, for Hesper had paused. As she did not reply, Sepia +resumed.</p> + +<p>"Which is your favorite poison, Hesper?" she said.</p> + +<p>"When I choose, it will be to use," replied Hesper.</p> + +<p>"Rhyming, at last!" said Sepia.</p> + +<p>But Hesper would not laugh, and her perfect calmness checked the +laughter which would have been Sepia's natural response: she was +careful not to go too far.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, Hesper," she said, with seriousness, "what is the matter +with you?"</p> + +<p>"Tolerably well," answered Hesper.</p> + +<p>"You do not—let me tell you. You are nothing but a baby yet. You have +no heart."</p> + +<p>"If you mean that I have never been in love, you are right. But you +talk foolishly; for you know that love is no more within my reach than +if I were the corpse I feel."</p> + +<p>Sepia pressed her lips together, and nodded knowingly; then, after a +moment's pause, said:</p> + +<p>"When your hour is come, you will understand. Every woman's hour comes, +one time or another—whether she will or not."</p> + +<p>"Sepia, if you think that, because I hate my husband, I would allow +another man to make love to me, you do not know me yet."</p> + +<p>"I know you very well; you do not know yourself, Hesper; you do not +know the heart of a woman—because your own has never come awake yet."</p> + +<p>"God forbid it ever should, then—so long as—as the man I hate is +alive!"</p> + +<p>Sepia laughed.</p> + +<p>"A good prayer," she said; "for who can tell what you might do to him!"</p> + +<p>"Sepia, I sometimes think you are a devil."</p> + +<p>"And I sometimes think you are a saint."</p> + +<p>"What do you take me for the other times?"</p> + +<p>"A hypocrite. What do <i>you</i> take <i>me</i> for the other times?"</p> + +<p>"No hypocrite," answered Hesper.</p> + +<p>With a light, mocking laugh, Sepia turned away, and left the room.</p> + +<p>Hesper did not move. If stillness indicates thought, then Hesper was +thinking; and surely of late she had suffered what might have waked +something like thought in what would then have been something like a +mind: all the machinery of thought was there—sorely clogged, and +rusty; but for a woman to hate her husband is hardly enough to make a +thinking creature of her. True as it was, there was no little +affectation in her saying what she did about the worthlessness of her +life. She was plump and fresh; her eye was clear, her hand firm and +cool; suffering would have to go a good deal deeper before it touched +in her the issues of life, or the love of it. What set her talking so, +was in great part the <i>ennui</i> of endeavor after enjoyment, and the +reaction from success in the pursuit. Her low moods were, however, far +more frequent than, even with such fatigue and reaction to explain +them, belonged to her years, her health, or her temperament.</p> + +<p>The fire grew hot. Hesper thought of her complexion, and pushed her +chair back. Then she rose, and, having taken a hand-screen from the +chimney-piece, was fanning herself with it, when the door opened, and a +servant asked if she were at home to Mr. Helmer. She hesitated a +moment: what an unearthly hour for a caller!</p> + +<p>"Show him up," she answered: anything was better than her own company.</p> + +<p>Tom Helmer entered—much the same—a little paler and thinner. He made +his approach with a certain loose grace natural to him, and seated +himself on the chair, at some distance from her own, to which Mrs. +Redmain motioned him.</p> + +<p>Tom seldom failed of pleasing. He was well dressed, and not too much; +and, to the natural confidence of his shallow character, added the +assurance born of a certain small degree of success in his profession, +which he took for the pledge of approaching supremacy. He carried +himself better than he used, and his legs therefore did not look so +long. His hair continued to curl soft and silky about his head, for he +protested against the fashionable convict-style. His hat was new, and +he bore it in front of him like a ready apology.</p> + +<p>It was to no presentableness of person, however, any more than to +previous acquaintance, that Tom now owed his admittance. True, he had +been to Durnmelling not unfrequently, but that was in the other world +of the country, and even there Hesper had taken no interest in the +self-satisfied though not ill-bred youth who went galloping about the +country, showing off to rustic girls. It was merely, as I have said, +that she could no longer endure a <i>tete-a-tete</i> with one she knew so +little as herself, and whose acquaintance she was so little desirous of +cultivating.</p> + +<p>Tom had been to a small party at the house a few evenings before, +brought thither by the well-known leader of a certain literary clique, +who, in return for homage, not seldom, took younger aspirants under a +wing destined never to be itself more than half-fledged. It was, +notwithstanding, broad enough already so to cover Tom with its shadow +that under it he was able to creep into several houses of a sort of +distinction, and among them into Mrs. Redmain's.</p> + +<p>Nothing of less potency than the presumption attendant on +self-satisfaction could have emboldened him to call thus early, and +that in the hope not merely of finding Mrs. Redmain at home, but of +finding her alone; and, with the not unusual reward of unworthy daring, +he had succeeded. He was ambitious of making himself acceptable to +ladies of social influence, and of being known to stand well with such. +In the case of Mrs. Redmain he was the more anxious, because she had +not received him on any footing of former acquaintance.</p> + +<p>At the gathering to which I have referred, a certain song was sung by a +lady, not without previous manoeuvre on the part of Tom, with which +Mrs. Redmain had languidly expressed herself pleased; that song he had +now brought her—for, concerning words and music both, he might have +said with Touchstone, "An ill-favored thing, but mine own." He did not +quote Touchstone because he believed both words and music +superexcellent, the former being in truth not quite bad, and the latter +nearly as good. Appreciation was the very hunger of Tom's small life, +and here was a chance!</p> + +<p>"I ought to apologize," he said, airily, "and I will, if you will allow +me."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Redmain said nothing, only waited with her eyes. They were calm, +reposeful eyes, not fixed, scarcely lying upon Tom. It was chilling, +but he was not easily chilled when self was in the question—as it +generally was with Tom. He felt, however, that he must talk or be lost.</p> + +<p>"I have taken the liberty," he said, "of bringing you the song I had +the pleasure—a greater pleasure than you will readily imagine—of +hearing you admire the other evening."</p> + +<p>"I forget," said Hesper.</p> + +<p>"I would not have ventured," continued Tom, "had it not happened that +both air and words were my own."</p> + +<p>"Ah!—indeed!—I did not know you were a poet, Mr.—"</p> + +<p>She had forgotten his name.</p> + +<p>"That or nothing," answered Tom, boldly.</p> + +<p>"And a musician, too?"</p> + +<p>"At your service, Mrs. Redmain."</p> + +<p>"I don't happen to want a poet at present—or a musician either," she +said, with just enough of a smile to turn the rudeness into what Tom +accepted as a flattering familiarity.</p> + +<p>"Nor am I in want of a place," he replied, with spirit; "a bird can +sing on any branch. Will you allow me to sing this song on yours? Mrs. +Downport scarcely gave the expression I could have desired.—May I read +the voices before I sing them?"</p> + +<p>Without either intimacy or encouragement, Tom was capable of offering +to read his own verses! Such fools self-partisanship makes of us.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Redmain was, for her, not a little amused with the young man; he +was not just like every other that came to the house.</p> + +<p>"I should li-i-ike," she said.</p> + +<p>Tom laid himself back a little in his chair, with the sheet of music in +his hand, closed his eyes, and repeated as follows—he knew all his own +verses by heart:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Lovely lady, sweet disdain!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Prithee keep thy Love at home;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bind him with a tressed chain;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Do not let the mischief roam.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"In the jewel-cave, thine eye,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the tangles of thy hair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It is well the imp should lie—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There his home, his heaven is there.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"But for pity's sake, forbid</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Beauty's wasp at me to fly;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sure the child should not be chid,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And his mother standing by.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"For if once the villain came</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To my house, too well I know</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He would set it all aflame—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To the winds its ashes blow.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Prithee keep thy Love at home;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Net him up or he will start;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And if once the mischief roam,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Straight he'll wing him to my heart."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>What there might be in verse like this to touch with faintest emotion, +let him say who cultivates art for art's sake. Doubtless there is that +in rhythm and rhyme and cadence which will touch the pericardium when +the heart itself is not to be reached by divinest harmony; but, whether +such women as Hesper feel this touch or only admire a song as they +admire the church-prayers and Shakespeare, or whether, imagining in it +some <i>tour de force</i> of which they are themselves incapable, they +therefore look upon it as a mighty thing, I am at a loss to determine. +All I know is that a gleam as from some far-off mirror of admiration +did certainly, to Tom's great satisfaction, appear on Hesper's +countenance. As, however, she said nothing, he, to waive aside a +threatening awkwardness, lightly subjoined:</p> + +<p>"Queen Anne is all the rage now, you see."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Redmain knew that Queen-Anne houses were in fashion, and was even +able to recognize one by its flush window-frames, while she had felt +something odd, which might be old-fashioned, in the song; between the +two, she was led to the conclusion that the fashion of Queen Anne's +time had been revived in the making of verses also.</p> + +<p>"Can you, then, make a song to any pattern you please?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I fancy so," answered Tom, indifferently, as if it were nothing to him +to do whatever he chose to attempt. And in fact he could imitate almost +anything—and well, too—the easier that he had nothing of his own +pressing for utterance; for he had yet made no response to the first +demand made on every man, the only demand for originality made on any +man—that he should order his own way aright.</p> + +<p>"How clever you must be!" drawled Hesper; and, notwithstanding the +tone, the words were pleasant in the ears of goose Tom. He rose, opened +the piano, and, with not a little cheap facility, began to accompany a +sweet tenor voice in the song he had just read.</p> + +<p>The door opened, and Mr. Redmain came in. He gave a glance at Tom as he +sang, and went up to his wife where she still sat, with her face to the +fire, and her back to the piano.</p> + +<p>"New singing-master, eh?" he said.</p> + +<p>"No," answered his wife.</p> + +<p>"Who the deuce is he?"</p> + +<p>"I forget his name," replied Hesper, in the tone of one bored by +question. "He used to come to Durnmelling."</p> + +<p>"That is no reason why he should not have a name to him."</p> + +<p>Hesper did not reply. Tom went on playing. The moment he struck the +last chord, she called to him in a clear, soft, cold voice:</p> + +<p>"Will you tell Mr. Redmain your name? I happen to have forgotten it."</p> + +<p>Tom picked up his hat, rose, came forward, and, mentioning his name, +held out his hand.</p> + +<p>"I don't know you," said Mr. Redmain, touching his palm with two +fingers that felt like small fishes.</p> + +<p>"It is of no consequence," said his wife; "Mr. Aylmer is an old +acquaintance of our family."</p> + +<p>"Only you don't quite remember his name!"</p> + +<p>"It is not my <i>friends'</i> names only I have an unhappy trick of +forgetting. I often forget yours, Mr. Redmain!"</p> + +<p>"My <i>good</i> name, you must mean."</p> + +<p>"I never heard that."</p> + +<p>Neither had raised the voice, or spoken with the least apparent anger.</p> + +<p>Mr. Redmain gave a grin instead of a retort. He appreciated her +sharpness too much to get one ready in time. Turning away, he left the +room with a quiet, steady step, taking his grin with him: it had drawn +the clear, scanty skin yet tighter on his face, and remained fixed; so +that he vanished with something of the look of a hairless tiger.</p> + +<p>The moment he disappeared, Tom's gaze, which had been fascinated, +sought Hesper. Her lips were shaping the word <i>brute!</i> —Tom heard it +with his eyes; her eyes were flashing, and her face was flushed. But +the same instant, in a voice perfectly calm—</p> + +<p>"Is there anything else you would like to sing, Mr. Helmer?" she said. +"Or—" Here she ceased, with the slightest possible choking—it was +only of anger—in the throat.</p> + +<p>Tom's was a sympathetic nature, especially where a pretty woman was in +question. He forgot entirely that she had given quite as good, or as +bad, as she received, and was hastening to say something foolish, +imagining he had looked upon the sorrows of a lovely and unhappy wife +and was almost in her confidence, when Sepia entered the room, with a +dark glow that flashed into dusky radiance at sight of the handsome +Tom. She had noted him on the night of the party, and remembered having +seen him at the merrymaking in the old hall of Durnmelling, but he had +not been introduced to her. A minute more, and they were sitting +together in a bay-window, blazing away at each other like two +corvettes, though their cartridges were often blank enough, while +Hesper, never heeding them, kept her place by the chimney, her gaze +transferred from the fire to the novel she had sent for from her +bedroom.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.<br /><br /> +MARY'S RECEPTION.</h3> + +<p>In the afternoon of the same day, now dreary enough, with the +dreariness naturally belonging to the dreariest month of the year, Mary +arrived in the city preferred to all cities by those who live in it, +but the most uninviting, I should imagine, to a stranger, of all cities +on the face of the earth. Cold seemed to have taken to itself a visible +form in the thin, gray fog that filled the huge station from the +platform to the glass roof. The latter had vanished, indistinguishable +from sky invisible, and from the brooding darkness, in which the lamps +innumerable served only to make spots of thinness. It was a mist, not a +November fog, properly so called; but every breath breathed by every +porter, as he ran along by the side of the slowly halting train, was +adding to its mass, which seemed to Mary to grow in bulk and density as +she gazed. Her quiet, simple, decided manner at once secured her +attention, and she was among the first who had their boxes on cabs and +were driving away.</p> + +<p>But the drive seemed interminable, and she had grown anxious and again +calmed herself many times, before it came to an end. The house at which +the cab drew up was large, and looked as dreary as large, but scarcely +drearier than any other house in London on that same night of November. +The cabman rang the bell, but it was not until they had waited a time +altogether unreasonable that the door at length opened, and a lofty, +well-built footman in livery appeared framed in it.</p> + +<p>Mary got out, and, going up the steps, said she hoped the driver had +brought her to the right house: it was Mrs. Redmain's she wanted.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Redmain is not at home, miss," answered the man. "I didn't hear +as how she was expecting of any one," he added, with a glance at the +boxes, formlessly visible on the cab, through the now thicker darkness.</p> + +<p>"She is expecting me, I know," returned Mary; "but of course she would +not stay at home to receive me," she remarked, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" returned the man, in a peculiar tone, and adding, "I'll see," +went away, leaving her on the top of the steps, with the cabman behind +her, at the bottom of them, waiting orders to get her boxes down.</p> + +<p>"It don't appear as you was overwelcome, miss!" he remarked: with his +comrades on the stand he passed for a wit; "—leastways, it don't seem +as your sheets was quite done hairing."</p> + +<p>"It's all right," said Mary, cheerfully.</p> + +<p>She was not ready to imagine her dignity in danger, therefore did not +provoke assault upon it by anxiety for its safety.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to hear it, miss," the man rejoined.</p> + +<p>"Why?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"'Cause I should ha' liked to ha' taken <i>you</i> farther."</p> + +<p>"But why?" said Mary, the second time, not understanding him, and not +unwilling to cover the awkwardness of that slow minute of waiting.</p> + +<p>"Because it gives a poor man with a whole family o' prowocations +some'at of a chance, to 'ave a affable young lady like you, miss, +behind him in his cab, once a year, or thereabouts. It's not by no +means as I'd have you go farther and fare worse, which it's a sayin' as +I've heerd said, miss. So, if you're sure o' the place, I may as well +be a-gettin' down of <i>your</i> boxes."</p> + +<p>So saying, he got on the cab, and proceeded to unfasten the chain that +secured the luggage.</p> + +<p>"Wait a bit, cabbie. Don't you be in sech a 'urry as if you was a +'ansom, now," cried the footman, reappearing at the farther end of the +hall. "I should be sorry if there was a mistake, and you wasn't man +enough to put your boxes up again without assistance." Then, turning to +Mary, "Mrs. Perkin says, miss—that's the housekeeper, miss," he went +on, "—that, if as you're the young woman from the country—and I'm +sure I beg your pardon if I make a mistake—it ain't my fault, +miss—Mrs. Perkin says she did hear Mrs. Redmain make mention of one, +but she didn't have any instructions concerning her.—But, as there you +are," he continued more familiarly, gathering courage from Mary's +nodded assent, "you can put your boxes in the hall, and sit down, she +says, till Mrs. R. comes 'ome."</p> + +<p>"Do you think she will be long?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"Well, that's what no fellow can't say, seein' its a new play as she's +gone to. They call it Doomsday, an' there's no tellin' when parties is +likely to come 'ome from that," said the man, with a grin of +satisfaction at his own wit.</p> + +<p>Was London such a happy place that everybody in it was given to joking, +thought Mary.</p> + +<p>"'Ere, mister! gi' me a 'and wi' this 'ere luggage," cried the cabman, +finding the box he was getting down too much for him. "Yah wouldn't see +me break my back, an' my poor 'orse standin' there a lookin' on—would +ye now?"</p> + +<p>"Why don't you bring a man with you?" objected the footman, as he +descended the steps notwithstanding, to give the required assistance. +"I ain't paid as a crane.—By Juppiter! what a weight the new party's +boxes is!"</p> + +<p>"Only that one," said Mary, apologetically. "It is full of books. The +other is not half so heavy."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it ain't the weight, miss!" returned the footman, who had not +intended she should hear the remark. "I believe Mr. Cabman and myself +will prove equal to the occasion."</p> + +<p>With that the book-box came down a great bump on the pavement, and +presently both were in the hall, the one on the top of the other. Mary +paid the cabman, who asked not a penny more than his fare; he departed +with thanks; the facetious footman closed the door, told her to take a +seat, and went away full of laughter, to report that the young person +had brought a large library with her to enliven the dullness of her new +situation.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Perkin smiled crookedly, and, in a tone of pleasant reproof, +desired her laughter-compressing inferior not to forget his manners.</p> + +<p>"Please, ma'am, am I to leave the young woman sittin' up there all by +herself in the cold?" he asked, straightening himself up. "She do look +a rayther superior sort of young person," he added, "and the 'all-stove +is dead out."</p> + +<p>"For the present, Castle," replied Mrs. Perkin.</p> + +<p>She judged it wise to let the young woman have a lesson at once in +subjection and inferiority.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Perkin was a rather tall, rather thin, quite straight, and very +dark-complexioned woman. She always threw her head back on one side and +her chin out on the other when she spoke, and had about her a great +deal of the authoritative, which she mingled with such consideration +toward her subordinates as to secure their obedience to her, while she +cultivated antagonism to her mistress. She had had a better education +than most persons of her class, but was morally not an atom their +superior in consequence. She never went into a new place but with the +feeling that she was of more importance by far than her untried +mistress, and the worthier person of the two. She entered her service, +therefore, as one whose work it was to take care of herself against a +woman whose mistress she ought to have been, had Providence but started +her with her natural rights. At the same time, she would have been +<i>almost</i> as much offended by a hint that she was not a Christian, as +she would have been by a doubt whether she was a lady. For, indeed, she +was both, if a great opinion of herself constituted the latter, and a +great opinion of going to church constituted the former.</p> + +<p>She had not been taken into Hesper's confidence with regard to Mary, +had discovered that "a young person" was expected, but had learned +nothing of what her position in the house was to be. She welcomed, +therefore, this opportunity both of teaching Mrs. Redmain—she never +called her her <i>mistress</i> , while severely she insisted on the other +servants' speaking of her so—the propriety of taking counsel with her +housekeeper and of letting the young person know in time that Mrs. +Perkin was in reality her mistress.</p> + +<p>The relation of the upper servants of the house to their employers was +more like that of the managers of an hotel to their guests. The butler, +the lady's-maid, and Mr. Redmain's body-servant, who had been with him +before his marriage, and was supposed to be deep in his master's +confidence, ate with the housekeeper in her room, waited upon by the +livery and maid-servants, except the second cook: the first cook only +came to superintend the cooking of the dinner, and went away after. To +all these Mrs. Perkin was careful to be just; and, if she was precise +even to severity with them, she was herself obedient to the system she +had established—the main feature of which was punctuality. She not +only regarded punctuality as the foremost of virtues, but, in righteous +moral sequence, made it the first of her duties; and the benefit +everybody reaped. For nothing oils the household wheels so well as this +same punctuality. In a family, love, if it be strong, genuine, and +patent, will make up for anything; but, where there is no family and no +love, the loss of punctuality will soon turn a house into the mere +pouch of a social <i>inferno</i> . Here the master and mistress came and +went, regardless of each other, and of all household polity; but their +meals were ready for them to the minute, when they chose to be there to +eat them; the carriage came round like one of the puppets on the +Strasburg clock; the house was quiet as a hospital; the bells were +answered—all except the door-bell outside of calling hours—with +swiftness; you could not soil your fingers anywhere—not even if the +sweep had been that same morning; the manners of the servants—<i>when +serving</i> —were unexceptionable; but the house was scarcely more of a +home than one of the huge hotels characteristic of the age.</p> + +<p>In the hall of it sat Mary for the space of an hour, not exactly +learning the lesson Mrs. Perkin had intended to teach her, but learning +more than one thing Mrs. Perkin was not yet capable of learning. I can +not say she was comfortable, for she was both cold and hungry; but she +was far from miserable. She had no small gift of patience, and had +taught herself to look upon the less troubles of life as on a bad +dream. There are children, though not yet many, capable, through faith +in their parents, of learning not a little by their experience, and +Mary was one of such; from the first she received her father's lessons +like one whose business it was to learn them, and had thereby come to +learn where he had himself learned. Hence she was not one to say <i>our +Father in heaven</i> , and act as if there were no such Father, or as if he +cared but little for his children. She was even foolish enough to +believe that that Father both knew and cared that she was hungry and +cold and wearily uncomfortable; and thence she was weak enough to take +the hunger and cold and discomfort as mere passing trifles, which could +not last a moment longer than they ought. From her sore-tried endeavors +after patience, had grown the power of active waiting—and a genuinely +waiting child is one of the loveliest sights the earth has to show.</p> + +<p>This was not the reception she had pictured to herself, as the train +came rushing from Testbridge to London; she had not, indeed, imagined a +warm one, but she had not expected to be forgotten—for so she +interpreted her abandonment in the hall, which seemed to grow colder +every minute. She saw no means of reminding the household of her +neglected presence, and indeed would rather have remained where she was +till the morning than encounter the growing familiarity of the man who +had admitted her. She did think once—if Mrs. Redmain were to hear of +her reception, how she would resent it! and would have found it +difficult to believe how far people like her are from troubling +themselves about the behavior of their servants to other people; for +they have no idea of an obligation to rule their own house, neither +seem to have a notion of being accountable for what goes on in it.</p> + +<p>She had grown very weary, and began to long for a floor on which she +might stretch herself; there was not a sound in the house but the +ticking of a clock somewhere; and she was now wondering whether +everybody had gone to bed, when she heard a step approaching, and +presently Castle, who was the only man at home, stood up before her, +and, with the ease of perfect self-satisfaction, and as if there was +nothing in the neglect of her but the custom of the house to cool +people well in the hall before admitting them to its penetralia, said, +"Step this way—miss"; the last word added after a pause of pretended +hesitation, for the man had taken his cue from the housekeeper.</p> + +<p>Mary rose, and followed him to the basement story, into a comfortable +room, where sat Mrs. Perkin, embroidering large sunflowers on a piece +of coarse stuff. She was <i>artistic</i> , and despised the whole style of +the house.</p> + +<p>"You may sit down," she said, and pointed to a chair near the door.</p> + +<p>Mary, not a little amused, for all her discomfort, did as she was +permitted, and awaited what should come next.</p> + +<p>"What part of the country are you from?" asked Mrs. Perkin, with her +usual diagonal upward toss of the chin, but without lifting her eyes +from her work.</p> + +<p>"From Testbridge," answered Mary.</p> + +<p>"The servants in this house are in the habit of saying <i>ma'am</i> to their +superiors: it is required of them," remarked Mrs. Perkin. But, although +her tone was one of rebuke, she said the words lightly, tossed the last +of them off, indeed, almost playfully, as if the lesson was meant for +one who could hardly have been expected to know better. "And what place +did you apply for in the house?" she went on to ask.</p> + +<p>"I can hardly say, ma'am," answered Mary, avoiding both inflection and +emphasis, and by her compliance satisfying Mrs. Perkin that she had +been right in requiring the <i>kotou</i> . "It is not usual for young persons +to be engaged without knowing for what purpose."</p> + +<p>"I suppose not, ma'am."</p> + +<p>"What wages were you to have?" next inquired Mrs. Perkin, gradually +assuming a more decided drawl as she became more assured of her +position with the stranger. She would gladly get some light on the +affair. "You need not object to mentioning them," she went on, for she +imagined Mary hesitated, whereas she was only a little troubled to keep +from laughing; "I always pay the wages myself."</p> + +<p>"There was nothing said about wages, ma'am," answered Mary.</p> + +<p>"Indeed! Neither work nor wages specified? Excuse me if I say it seems +rather peculiar.—We must be content to wait a little, then—until we +learn what Mrs. Redmain expected of you, <i>and whether or not you are +capable of it</i> . We can go no further now."</p> + +<p>"Certainly not, ma'am," assented Mary.</p> + +<p>"Can you use your needle?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am."</p> + +<p>"Have you done any embroidery?"</p> + +<p>"I understand it a little, but I am not particularly fond of it."</p> + +<p>"You mistake: I did not ask you whether you were fond of it," said Mrs. +Perkin; "I asked you if you had ever done any"; and she smiled +severely, but ludicrously, for a diagonal smile is apt to have a comic +effect. "Here!—take off your gloves," she continued, "and let me see +you do one of these loose-worked sunflowers. They are the fashion now, +though. I dare say, you will not be able to see the beauty of them."</p> + +<p>"Please, ma'am," returned Mary, "if you will excuse me, I would rather +go to my room. I have had a long journey, and am very tired."</p> + +<p>"There is no room yours.—I have had no character with you.—Nothing +can be done til Mrs. Redman comes home, and she and I have had a little +talk about you. But you can go to the housemaid's—the second +housemaid's room, I mean—and make yourself tidy. There is a spare bed +in it, I believe, which you can have for the night; only mind you don't +keep the girl awake talking to her, or she will be late in the morning, +and that I never put up with. I think you will do. You seem willing to +learn, and that is half the battle."</p> + +<p>Therewith Mrs. Perkin, believing she had laid in awe the foundation of +a rightful authority over the young person, gave her a nod of +dismissal, which she intended to be friendly.</p> + +<p>"Please, ma'am," said Mary, "could I have one of my boxes taken up +stairs?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not. I can not have two movings of them; I must take care of +my men. And your boxes, I understand, are heavy, quite absurdly so. It +would <i>look</i> better in a young person not to have so much to carry +about with her."</p> + +<p>"I have but two boxes, ma'am," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Full of <i>books</i> , I am told."</p> + +<p>"One of them only."</p> + +<p>"You must do your best without them to-night. When I have made up my +mind what is to be done with you, I shall let you have the one with +your clothes; the other shall be put away in the box-room. I give my +people what books I think fit. For light reading, the 'Fireside Herald' +is quite enough for the room.—There—good night!"</p> + +<p>Mary courtesied, and left her. At the door she glanced this way and +that to find some indication to guide her steps. A door was open at the +end of a passage, and from the odor that met her, it seemed likely to +be that of the kitchen. She approached, and peeped in.</p> + +<p>"Who is that?" cried a voice irate.</p> + +<p>It was the voice of the second cook, who was there supreme except when +the <i>chef</i> was present. Mary stepped in, and the woman advanced to meet +her.</p> + +<p>"May I ask to what I am indebted for the honner of this unexpected +visit?" said the second cook, whose head its overcharge of +self-importance jerked hither and thither upon her neck, as she seized +the opportunity of turning to her own use a sentence she had just read +in the "Fireside Herald" which had taken her fancy—spoken by Lady +Blanche Rivington Delaware to a detested lover disinclined to be +dismissed.</p> + +<p>"Would you please tell me where to find the second house-maid," said +Mary. "Mrs. Perkin has sent me to her room."</p> + +<p>"Why don't Mrs. Perkin show you the way, then?" returned the woman. +"There ain't nobody else in the house as I knows on fit to send to the +top o' them stairs with you. A nice way Jemim' 'ill be in when <i>she</i> +comes 'ome, to find a stranger in her room!"</p> + +<p>The same instant, however, the woman bethought herself that, if what +she had said in her haste were reported, it would be as much as her +place was worth; and at once thereupon she assumed a more complaisant +tone. Casting a look at her saucepans, as if to warn them concerning +their behavior in her absence, she turned again to Mary, saying:</p> + +<p>"I believe I better show you the way myself. It's easier to take you +than find a girl to do it. Them hussies is never where they oughto be! +<i>You</i> follow <i>me</i> ."</p> + +<p>She led the way along two passages, and up a back staircase of +stone—up and up, till Mary, unused to such heights, began to be aware +of knees. Plainly at last in the regions of the roof, she thought her +hill Difficulty surmounted, but the cook turned a sharp corner, and +Mary following found herself once more at the foot of a stair—very +narrow and steep, leading up to one of those old-fashioned roof-turrets +which had begun to appear in the new houses of that part of London.</p> + +<p>"Are you taking me to the clouds, cook?" she said, willing to be +cheerful, and to acknowledge her obligation for laborious guidance.</p> + +<p>"Not yet a bit, I hope," answered the cook; "we'll get there soon +enough, anyhow—excep' you belong to them peculiars as wants to be +saints afore their time. If that's your sort, don't you come here; for +a wickeder 'ouse, or an 'ouse as you got to work harder in o' Sundays, +no one won't easily find in this here west end."</p> + +<p>With these words she panted up the last few steps, immediately at the +top of which was the room sought. It was a very small one, scarcely +more than holding the two beds. Having lighted the gas, the cook left +her; and Mary, noting that one of the beds was not made up, was glad to +throw herself upon it. Covering herself with her cloak, her +traveling-rug, and the woolen counterpane, she was soon fast asleep.</p> + +<p>She was roused by a cry, half of terror, half of surprise. There stood +the second housemaid, who, having been told nothing of her room-fellow, +stared and gasped.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to have startled you," said Mary, who had half risen, +leaning on her elbow. "They ought to have told you there was a stranger +in your room."</p> + +<p>The girl was not long from the country, and, in the midst of the worst +vulgarity in the world, namely, among the servants of the selfish, her +manners had not yet ceased to be simple. For a moment, however, she +seemed capable only of panting, and pressing her hand on her heart.</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry," said Mary, again; "but you see I won't hurt you! I +don't look dangerous, do I?"</p> + +<p>"No, miss," answered the girl, with an hysterical laugh. "I been to the +play, and there was a man in it was a thief, you know, miss!" And with +that she burst out crying.</p> + +<p>It was some time before Mary got her quieted, but, when she did, the +girl was quite reasonable. She deplored that the bed was not made up, +and would willingly have yielded hers; she was sorry she had not a +clean night-gown to offer her—"not that it would be fit for the likes +of <i>you</i> , miss!"—and showed herself full of friendly ministration. +Mary being now without her traveling-cloak, Jemima judged from her +dress she must be some grand visitor's maid, vastly her superior in the +social scale: if she had taken her for an inferior, she would +doubtless, like most, have had some airs handy.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.<br /><br /> +HER POSITION.</h3> + +<p>Mary seemed to have but just got to sleep again, when she was startled +awake by the violent ringing of a bell, almost at her ear.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you needn't trouble yet a long while, miss!" said the girl, who +was already dressing. "I've got ever so many fires to light, ere +there'll be a thought of you!"</p> + +<p>Mary lay down again, and once more fell fast asleep.</p> + +<p>She was waked the third time by the girl telling her that breakfast was +ready; whereupon she rose, and made herself as tidy as she could, while +Jemima <i>cleaned herself up a bit,</i> and was not a little improved in the +process.</p> + +<p>"I thought," she said, "as Mrs. Perkin would 'a' as't you to your first +meal with her; but she told me, when I as't what were to be done with +you, as how you must go to the room, and eat your breakfast with the +rest of us."</p> + +<p>"As Mrs. Perkin pleases," said Mary.</p> + +<p>She had before this come to understand the word of her Master, that not +what enters into a man defiles him, but only what comes out of him; +hence, that no man's dignity is affected by what another does to him, +but only by what he does, or would like to do, himself.</p> + +<p>She did, however, feel a little shy on entering "the room," where all +the livery and most of the women servants were already seated at +breakfast. Two of the men, with a word to each other, made room for her +between them, and laughed; but she took no notice, and seated herself +at the bottom of the table with her companion. Everything was as clean +and tidy as heart could wish, and Mary was glad enough to make a good +meal.</p> + +<p>For a few minutes there was loud talking—from a general impulse to +show off before the stranger; then fell a silence, as if some feeling +of doubt had got among them. The least affected by it was the footman +who had opened the door to her: he had witnessed her reception by Mrs. +Perkin. Addressing her boldly, he expressed a hope that she was not too +much fatigued by her journey. Mary thanked him in her own natural, +straightforward way, and the consequence was, that, when he spoke to +her next, he spoke like a gentleman—in the tone natural to him, that +is, and in the language of the parlor, without any mock-politeness. +And, although the way they talked among themselves made Mary feel as if +she were in a strange country, with strange modes, not of living +merely, but of feeling and of regarding, she received not the smallest +annoyance during the rest of the meal—which did not last long: Mrs. +Perkin took care of that.</p> + +<p>For an hour or more, after the rest had scattered to their respective +duties, she was left alone. Then Mrs. Perkin sent for her.</p> + +<p>When she entered her room, she found her occupied with the cook, and +was allowed to stand unnoticed.</p> + +<p>"When shall I be able to see Mrs. Redmain, ma'am?" she asked, when the +cook at length turned to go.</p> + +<p>"Wait," rejoined Mrs. Perkin, with a quiet dignity, well copied, "until +you are addressed, young woman."—Then first casting a glance at her, +and perhaps perceiving on her countenance a glimmer of the amusement +Mary felt, she began to gather a more correct suspicion of the sort of +being she might possibly be, and hastily added, "Pray, take a seat."</p> + +<p>The idea of making a blunder was unendurable to Mrs. Perkin, and she +was most unwilling to believe she had done so; but, even if she had, to +show that she knew it would only be to render it the more difficult to +recover her pride of place. An involuntary twinkle about the corners of +Mary's mouth made her hasten to answer her question.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry," she said, "that I can give you no prospect of an +interview with Mrs. Redmain before three o'clock. She will very likely +not be out of her room before one.—I suppose you saw her at +Durnmelling?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am," answered Mary, "—and at Testbridge."</p> + +<p>It kept growing on the housekeeper that she had made a mistake—though +to what extent she sought in vain to determine.</p> + +<p>"You will find it rather wearisome waiting," she said next; "—would +you not like to help me with my work?"</p> + +<p>Already she had the sunflowers under her creative hands.</p> + +<p>"I should be very glad—if I can do it well enough to please you, +ma'am," answered Mary. "But," she added, "would you kindly see that +Mrs. Redmain is told, as soon as she wakes, that I am here?"</p> + +<p>"Oblige me by ringing the bell," said Mrs. Perkin.—"Send Mrs. Folter +here."'</p> + +<p>A rather cross-looking, red-faced, thin woman appeared, whom she +requested to let her mistress know, as soon as was proper, that there +was a young person in the house who said she had come from Testbridge +by appointment to see her.</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am," said Folter, with a supercilious yet familiar nod to +Mary; "I'll take care she knows."</p> + +<p>Mary passed what would have been a dreary morning to one dependent on +her company. It was quite three o'clock when she was at length summoned +to Mrs. Redmain's boudoir. Folter, who was her guide thither, lingered, +in the soft closing of the door, long enough to learn that her mistress +received the young person with a kiss—almost as much to Mary's +surprise as Folter's annoyance, which annoyance partly to relieve, +partly to pass on to Mrs. Perkin, whose reception of Mary she had +learned, Folter hastened to report the fact, and succeeded thereby in +occasioning no small uneasiness in the bosom of the housekeeper, who +was almost as much afraid of her mistress as the other servants were of +herself. Some time she spent in expectant trepidation, but gradually, +as nothing came of it, calmed her fears, and concluded that her +behavior to Mary had been quite correct, seeing the girl had made it no +ground of complaint.</p> + +<p>But, although Hesper, being at the moment in tolerable spirits, in +reaction from her depression of the day before, received Mary with a +kiss, she did not ask her a question about her journey, or as to how +she had spent the night. She was there, and looking all right, and that +was enough. On the other hand, she did proceed to have her at once +properly settled.</p> + +<p>The little room appointed her looked upon a small court or yard, and +was dark, but otherwise very comfortable. As soon as she was left to +herself, she opened her boxes, put her things away in drawers and +wardrobe, arranged her books within easy reach of the low chair Hesper +had sent for from the drawing-room for her, and sat down to read a +little, brood a little, and build a few castles in the air, more lovely +than evanescent: no other house is so like its builder as this sort of +castle.</p> + +<p>About eight o'clock, Folter summoned her to go to Mrs. Redmain. By this +time she was tired: she was accustomed to tea in the afternoon, and +since her dinner with the housekeeper she had had nothing.</p> + +<p>She found Mrs. Redmain dressed for the evening. As soon as Mary +entered, she dismissed Folter.</p> + +<p>"I am going out to dinner," she said. "Are you quite comfortable?"</p> + +<p>"I am rather cold, and should like some tea," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"My poor girl! have you had no tea?" said Hesper, with some concern, +and more annoyance. "You are looking quite pale, I see! When did you +have anything to eat?"</p> + +<p>"I had a good dinner at one o'clock," replied Mary, with a rather weary +smile.</p> + +<p>"This is dreadful!" said Hesper. "What can the servants be about!"</p> + +<p>"And, please, may I have a little fire?" begged Mary.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," replied Hesper, knitting her brows with a look of slight +anguish. "Is it possible you have been sitting all day without one? Why +did you not ring the bell?" She took one of her hands. "You are +frozen!" she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" answered Mary; "I am far from that. You see nobody knows yet +what to do with me.—You hardly know yourself," she added, with a merry +look. "But, if you wouldn't mind telling Mrs. Perkin where you wish me +to have my meals, that would put it all right, I think."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Hesper, in a tone that for her was sharp. "Will you +ring the bell?"</p> + +<p>She sent for the housekeeper, who presently appeared—lank and tall, +with her head on one side like a lamp-post in distress, but calm and +prepared—a dumb fortress, with a live garrison.</p> + +<p>"I wish you, Mrs. Perkin, to arrange with Miss Marston about her meals."</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am," answered Mrs. Perkin, with sedatest utterance.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Perkin," said Mary, "I don't want to be troublesome; tell me what +will suit you best."</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Perkin did not even look at her; standing straight as a rush, +she kept her eyes on her mistress.</p> + +<p>"Do you desire, ma'am, that Miss Marston should have her meals in the +housekeeper's room?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"That must be as Miss Marston pleases," answered Hesper. "If she prefer +them in her own, you will see they are properly sent up."</p> + +<p>"Very well, ma'am!—Then I wait Miss Marston's orders," said Mrs. +Perkin, and turned to leave the room. But, when her mistress spoke +again, she turned again and stood. It was Mary, however, whom Hesper +addressed.</p> + +<p>"Mary," she said, apparently foreboding worse from the tone of the +housekeeper's obedience than from her occurred neglect, "when I am +alone, you shall take your meals with me; and when I have any one with +me, Mrs. Perkin will see that they are sent to your room. We will +settle it so."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Very well, ma'am," said Mrs. Perkin.</p> + +<p>"Send Miss Marston some tea directly," said Hesper.</p> + +<p>Scarcely was Mrs. Perkin gone when the brougham was announced. Mary +returned to her room, and in a little while tea, with thin bread and +butter in limited quantity, was brought her. But it was brought by +Jemima, whose face wore a cheerful smile over the tray she carried: +she, at least, did not grudge Mary her superior place in the household.</p> + +<p>"Do you think, Jemima," asked Mary, "you could manage to answer my bell +when I ring?"</p> + +<p>"I should only be too glad, miss; it would be nothing but a pleasure to +me; and I'd jump to it if I was in the way; but if I was up stairs, +which this house ain't a place to hear bells in, sure I am nobody would +let me know as you was a-ringin'; and if you was to think as how I was +giving of myself airs, like some people not far out of this square, I +should be both sorry and ashamed—an' that's more'n I'd say for my +place to Mrs. Perkin, miss."</p> + +<p>"You needn't be afraid of that, Jemima," returned Mary. "If you don't +answer when I ring, I shall know, as well as if you told me, that you +either don't hear or can't come at the moment. I sha'n't be exacting."</p> + +<p>"Don't you be afeared to ring, miss; I'll answer your bell as often as +I hear it."</p> + +<p>"Could you bring me a loaf? I have had nothing since Mrs. Perkin's +dinner; and this bread and butter is rather too delicately cut," said +Mary.</p> + +<p>"Laws, miss, you must be nigh clemmed!" said the girl; and, hastening +away, she soon returned with a loaf, and butter, and a pot of marmalade +sent by the cook, who was only too glad to open a safety-valve to her +pleasure at the discomfiture of Mrs. Perkin.</p> + +<p>"When would you like your breakfast, miss?" asked Jemima, as she +removed the tea-things.</p> + +<p>"Any time convenient," replied Mary.</p> + +<p>"It's much the same to me, miss, so it's not before there's bilin' +water. You'll have it in bed, miss?"</p> + +<p>"No, thank you. I never do."</p> + +<p>"You'd better, miss."</p> + +<p>"I could not think of it."</p> + +<p>"It makes no more trouble—less, miss, than if I had to get it when the +room-breakfast was on. I've got to get the things together anyhow; and +why shouldn't you have it as well as Mrs. Perkin, or that ill-tempered +cockatoo, Mrs. Folter? You're a lady, and that's more'n can be said for +either of them—justly, that is."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean," said Mary, surprised out of her discretion, "that the +housekeeper and the lady's-maid have breakfast in bed?"</p> + +<p>"It's every blessed mornin' as I've got to take it up to 'em, miss, +upon my word of honor, with a soft-biled egg, or a box o' sardines, +new-opened, or a slice o' breakfast bacon, streaky. An' I do <i>not</i> +think as it belongs proper to my place; only you see, miss, the +kitchen-maid has got to do it for the cook, an' if I don't, who is +there? It's not them would let the scullery-maid come near them in +their beds."</p> + +<p>"Does Mrs. Perkin know that the cook and the lady's-maid have it as +well as herself?"</p> + +<p>"Not she, miss; she'd soon make their coffee too 'ot! She's the only +lady down stairs—she is! No more don't Mrs. Folter know as the cook +has hers, only, if she did, it wouldn't make no differ, for she daren't +tell. And cook, to be sure, it ain't her breakfast, only a cup o' tea +an' a bit o' toast, to get her heart up first."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mary, "I certainly shall not add another to the breakfasts +in bed. But I must trouble you all the same to bring it me here. I will +make my bed, and do out the room myself, if you will come and finish it +off for me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, indeed, miss, you mustn't do that! Think what they'd say of +you down stairs! They'd despise you downright!"</p> + +<p>"I shall do it, Jemima. If they were servants of the right sort, I +should like to have their good opinion, and they would think all the +more of me for doing my share; as it is, I should count it a disgrace +to care a straw, what they thought. We must do our work, and not mind +what people say."</p> + +<p>"Yes, miss, that's what my mother used to say to my father, when he +wouldn't be reasonable. But I must go, miss, or I shall catch it for +gossiping with you—that's what <i>she'll</i> call it."</p> + +<p>When Jemima was gone, Mary fell a-thinking afresh. It was all very +well, she said to herself, to talk about doing her work, but here she +was with scarce a shadow of an idea what her work was! Had <i>any</i> work +been given her to do in this house? Had she presumed in +coming—anticipated the guidance of Providence, and was she therefore +now where she had no right to be? She could not tell; but, anyhow, here +she was, and no one could be anywhere without the fact involving its +own duty. Even if she had put herself there, and was to blame for being +there, that did not free her from the obligations of the position, and +she was willing to do whatever should <i>now</i> be given her to do. God was +not a hard master; if she had made a mistake, he would pardon her, and +either give her work here, where she found herself, or send her +elsewhere. I need not say that thinking was not all her care; for she +thought in the presence of Him who, because he is always setting our +wrong things right, is called God our Saviour.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.<br /><br /> +MR. AND MRS. HELMER</h3> + +<p>The next morning, Mary set out to find Letty, from whom, as I have +said, she had heard but twice since her marriage. Mary had written +again about a month ago, but had had no reply. The sad fact was, that, +ever since she left Testbridge, Letty, for a long time, without knowing +it, had been going down hill. There have been many whose earnestness +has vanished with the presence of those whose influence awoke it. +Letty's better self seemed to have remained behind with Mary; and not +even if he had been as good as she thought him, could Tom himself have +made up to her for the loss of such a friend.</p> + +<p>But Letty had not found marriage at all the grand thing she had +expected. With the faithfulness of a woman, however, she attributed her +disappointment to something inherent in marriage, nowise affecting the +man whom marriage had made her husband.</p> + +<p>That he might be near the center to which what little work he did +gravitated, Tom had taken a lodging in a noisy street, as unlike all +that Letty had been accustomed to as anything London, except in its +viler parts, could afford. Never a green thing was to be looked upon in +any direction. Not a sweet sound was to be heard.</p> + +<p>The sun, at this time of the year, was seldom to be seen in London +anywhere; and in Lydgate Street, even when there was no fog, it was but +askance, and for a brief portion of the day, that he shone upon that +side where stood their dusty windows. And then the noise!—a ceaseless +torrent of sounds, of stony sounds, of iron sounds, of grinding sounds, +of clashing sounds, of yells and cries—of all deafening and unpoetic +discords! Letty had not much poetry in her, and needed what could be +had from the outside so much the more. It is the people of a land +without springs that must have cisterns. It is the poetic people +without poetry that pant and pine for the country. When such get hold +of a poet, they expect him to talk poetry, or, at least, to talk about +poetry! I fancy poets do not read much poetry, and except to their +peers do not often care to talk about it. But to one like Letty, +however little she may understand or even be aware of the need, the +poetic is as necessary as rain in summer; while, to one so little +skilled in the finding of it, there was none visible, audible, or +perceptible about her—except, indeed, what, of poorest sort for her +uses, she might discover bottled in some circulating library: there was +one—blessed proximity!—within ten minutes' walk of her.</p> + +<p>Once a week or so, some weeks oftener, Tom would take her to the play, +and that was, indeed, a happiness—not because of the pleasure of the +play only or chiefly, though that was great, but in the main because +she had Tom beside her all the time, and mixed up Tom with the play, +and the play with Tom.</p> + +<p>Alas! Tom was not half so dependent upon her, neither derived half so +much pleasure from her company. Some of his evenings every week he +spent at houses where those who received him had not the faintest idea +whether he had a wife or not, and cared as little, for it would have +made no difference: they would not have invited her. Small, silly, +conceited Tom, regarding himself as a somebody, was more than content +to be asked to such people's houses. He thought he went as a lion, +whereas it was merely as a jackal: so great is the love of some for +wild beasts in general, that they even think something of jackals. He +was aware of no insult to himself in asking him whether as a lion or +any other wild beast, nor of any to his wife and himself together in +not asking her with him. While she sat in her dreary lodging, dingily +clad and lonely, Tom, dressed in the height of the fashion, would be +strolling about grand rooms, now exchanging a flying shot of +recognition, now pausing to pay a compliment to this lady on her +singing, to that on her verses, to a third, where he dared, on her +dress; for good-natured Tom was profuse of compliments, not without a +degree and kind of honesty in them; now singing one of his own songs to +the accompaniment of some gracious goddess, now accompanying the same +or some other gracious goddess as she sang—for Tom could do that well +enough for people without a conscience in their music; now in the +corner of a conservatory, now in a cozy little third room behind a back +drawing-room, talking nonsense with some lady foolish enough to be +amused with his folly. Tom meant no harm and did not do much—was only +a human butterfly, amusing himself with other creatures of a day, who +have no notion that death can not kill them, or they might perhaps be +more miserable than they are. They think, if they think at all, that it +is life, strong in them, that makes them forget death; whereas, in +truth, it is death, strong in them, that makes them forget life. Like a +hummingbird, all sparkle and flash, Tom flitted through the tropical +delights of such society as his "uncommon good luck" had gained him +admission to, forming many an evanescent friendship, and taking many a +graceful liberty for which his pleasant looks, confident manners, and +free carriage were his indemnity—for Tom seemed to have been born to +show what a nice sort of a person a fool, well put together, may +be—with his high-bred air, and his ready replies, for he had also a +little of that social element, once highly valued, now less +countenanced, and rare—I mean wit.</p> + +<p>He had, indeed, plenty of all sorts of brains; but no amount of talent +could reveal to him the reason or the meaning of the fact that wedded +life was less interesting than courtship; for the former, the reason +lay in himself, and of himself proper he knew, as I have said, next to +nothing; while the latter, the meaning of the fact, is profound as +eternity. He had no notion that, when he married, his life was thereby, +in a lofty and blessed sense, forfeit; that, to save his wife's life, +he must yield his own, she doing the same for him—for God himself can +save no other way. But the notion of any saving, or the need of it, was +far from Tom; nor had Letty, for her part, any thought of it either, +except from the tyranny of her aunt. Not the less, in truth, did they +both want saving—very much saving—before life could be to either of +them a good thing. It is only its inborn possibility of and divine +tendency toward blossoming that constitute life a good thing. Life's +blossom is its salvation, its redemption, the justification of its +existence—and is a thing far off with most of us. For Tom, his highest +notion of life was to be recognized by the world for that which he had +chosen as his idea of himself—to have the reviews allow him a poet, +not grudgingly, nor with abatement of any sort, but recognizing him as +the genius he must contrive to believe himself, or "perish in" his +"self-contempt." Then would he live and die in the blessed assurance +that his name would be for over on the lips and in the hearts of that +idol of fools they call <i>posterity</i> -divinity as vague as the old gray +Fate, and less noble, inasmuch as it is but the supposed concave whence +is to rebound the man's own opinion of himself.</p> + +<p>While jewelly Tom was idling away time which yet could hardly be called +precious, his little brown wife, as I have said, sat at home—such home +as a lodging can be for a wife whose husband finds his interest mainly +outside of it—inquired after by nobody, thought of by nobody, hardly +even taken up by her own poor, weary self; now trying in vain after +interest in the feeble trash she was reading; now getting into the +story for the last half of a chapter, to find herself, when the scene +changed at the next, as far out and away and lost as ever; now dropping +the book on her knee, to sit musing—if, indeed, such poor mental +vagaries as hers can be called even musing!—ignorant what was the +matter with her, hardly knowing that anything was the matter, and yet +pining morally, spiritually, and psychically; now wondering when Tom +would be home; now trying to congratulate herself on his being such a +favorite, and thinking what an honor it was to a poor country girl like +her to be the wife of a man so much courted by the best society—for +she never doubted that the people to whose houses Tom went desired his +company from admiration of his writings. She had not an idea that never +a soul of them or of their guests cared a straw about what he +wrote—except, indeed, here and there, a young lady in her first +season, who thought it a grand thing to know an author, as poor Letty +thought it a grand thing to be the wife of one. Hail to the coming time +when, those who write books outnumbering those who do not, a man will +be thought no more of because he can write than because he can sit a +horse or brew beer! In that happy time the true writer will be neither +an atom the more regarded nor disregarded; he will only be less +troubled with birthday books, requests for autographs, and such-like +irritating attentions. From that time, also, it may be, the number of +writers will begin to diminish; for then, it is to be hoped, men will +begin to see that it is better to do the inferior thing well than the +superior thing after a middling fashion. The man who would not rather +be a good shoemaker than a middling author would be no honor to the +shoemakers, and can hardly be any to the authors. I have the comfort +that in this all authors will agree with me, for which of us is now +able to see himself <i>middling</i> ? Honorable above all honor that +authorship can give is he who can.</p> + +<p>It was through some of his old college friends that Tom had thus easily +stepped into the literary profession. They were young men with money +and friends to back them, who, having taken to literature as soon as +they chipped the university shell, were already in the full swing of +periodical production, when Tom, to quote two rather contradictory +utterances of his mother, ruined his own prospects and made Letty's +fortune by marrying her. I can not say, however, that they had found +him remunerative employment. The best they had done for him was to +bring him into such a half sort of connection with a certain weekly +paper that now and then he got something printed in it, and now and +then, with the joke of acknowledging an obligation irremunerable, the +editor would hand him what he called an honorarium, but what in reality +was a five-pound note. When such an event occurred, Tom would feel his +bosom swell with the imagined dignity of supporting a family by +literary labor, and, forgetful of the sparseness of his mother's doles, +who delighted to make the young couple feel the bitterness of +dependence, would immediately, on the strength of it, invite his +friends to supper—not at the lodging where Letty sat lonely, but at +some tavern frequented by people of the craft. It was at such times, +and in the company of men certainly not better than himself, that Tom's +hopes were brightest, and his confidence greatest: therefore such +seasons were those of his highest bliss. Especially, when his sensitive +but poor imagination was stimulated from the nerve-side of the brain, +was Tom in his glory; and it was not the "few glasses of champagne," of +which he talked so airily, that had all the honor of crowning him king +of fate and poet of the world. Long after midnight, upon such and many +other occasions, would he and his companions sit laughing and jesting +and drinking, some saying witty things, and all of them foolish things +and worse; inventing stories apropos of the foibles of friends, and +relating anecdotes which grew more and more irreverent to God and women +as the night advanced, and the wine gained power, and the shame-faced +angels of their true selves, made in the image of God, withdrew into +the dark; until at last, between night and morning, Tom would reel +gracefully home, using all the power of his will—the best use to which +it ever was put—to subdue the drunkenness of which, even in its +embrace, he had the lingering honor to be ashamed, that he might face +his wife with the appearance of the gentleman he was anxious she should +continue to consider him.</p> + +<p>It was an unhappy thing for Tom that his mother, having persuaded her +dying husband, "for Tom's sake," to leave the money in her power, +should not now have carried her tyranny further, and refused him money +altogether. He would then have been compelled to work harder, and to +use what he made in procuring the necessaries of life. There might have +been some hope for him then. As it was, his profession was the mere +grasping after the honor of a workman without the doing of the work; +while the little he gained by it was, at the same time, more than +enough to foster the self-deception that he did something in the world. +With the money he gave her, which was never more than a part of what +his mother sent him, Letty had much ado to make both ends meet; and, +while he ran in debt to his tailor and bootmaker, she never had +anything new to wear. She did sometimes wish he would take her out with +him a little oftener of an evening; for sometimes she felt so lonely as +to be quite unable to amuse herself: her resources were not many in her +position, and fewer still in herself; but she always reflected that he +could not afford it, and it was long ere she began to have any doubt or +uneasiness about him—long before she began even to imagine it might be +well if he spent his evenings with her, or, at least, in other ways and +other company than he did. When first such a thought presented itself, +she banished it as a disgrace to herself and an insult to him. But it +was no wonder if she found marriage dull, poor child!—after such +expectations, too, from her Tom!</p> + +<p>What a pity it seems to our purblind eyes that so many girls should be +married before they are women! The woman comes at length, and finds she +is forestalled—that the prostrate and mutilated Dagon of a girl's +divinity is all that is left her to do the best with she can! But, +thank God, in the faithfully accepted and encountered responsibility, +the woman must at length become aware that she has under her feet an +ascending stair by which to climb to the woman of the divine ideal.</p> + +<p>There was at present, however, nothing to be called thought in the mind +of Letty. She had even lost much of what faculty of thinking had been +developed in her by the care of Cousin Godfrey. That had speedily +followed the decay of the aspiration kindled in her by Mary. Her whole +life now—as much of it, that is, as was awake—was Tom, and only Tom. +Her whole day was but the continuous and little varied hope of his +presence. Most of the time she had a book in her hands, but ever again +book and hands would sink into her lap, and she would sit staring +before her at nothing. She was not unhappy, she was only not happy. At +first it was a speechless delight to have as many novels as she +pleased, and she thought Tom the very prince of bounty in not merely +permitting her to read them, but bringing them to her, one after the +other, sometimes two at once, in spendthrift profusion. The first thing +that made her aware she was not quite happy was the discovery that +novels were losing their charm, that they were not sufficient to make +her day pass, that they were only dessert, and she had no dinner. When +it came to difficulty in going on with a new one long enough to get +interested in it, she sighed heavily, and began to think that perhaps +life was rather a dreary thing—at least considerably diluted with the +unsatisfactory. How many of my readers feel the same! How few of them +will recognize that the state of things would indeed be desperate were +it otherwise! How many would go on and on being only butterflies, but +for life's dismay! And who would choose to be a butterfly, even if life +and summer and the flowers were to last for ever!</p> + +<p>"I would," I fancy this and that reader saying.</p> + +<p>"Then," I answer, "the only argument you are equal to, is the fact that +life nor summer nor the flowers do last for ever."</p> + +<p>"I suppose I am made a butterfly," do you say? "seeing I prefer to be +one."</p> + +<p>"Ah! do you say so, indeed? Then you begin to excuse yourself, and what +does that mean? It means that you are no butterfly, for a +butterfly—no, nor an angel in heaven—could never begin excusing the +law of its existence. Butterfly-brother, the hail will be upon you."</p> + +<p>I may not then pity Letty that she had to discover that novels taken +alone serve one much as sweetmeats <i>ad libitum</i> do children, nor that +she had to prove that life has in it that spiritual quinine, precious +because bitter, whose part it is to wake the higher hunger.</p> + +<p>Tom talked of himself as on the staff of "The Firefly"—such was the +name of the newspaper whose editor sometimes paid him—a weekly of +great pretense, which took upon itself the mystery of things, as if it +were God's spy. It was popular in a way, chiefly in fashionable +circles. As regarded the opinions it promulgated, I never heard one, +who understood the particular question at any time handled, say it was +correct. Its writers were mostly young men, and their passion was to +say clever things. If a friend's book came in their way, it was treated +worse or better than that of a stranger, but with impartial disregard +for truth in either case; yet many were the authors who would go up +endless back stairs to secure from that paper a flattering criticism, +and then be as proud of it as if it had been the genuine and unsought +utterance of a true man's conviction; and many were the men, +immeasurably the superiors of the reviewers, and in a general way +acquainted with their character, who would accept as conclusive upon +the merits of a book the opinions they gave, nor ever question a mode +of quotation by which a book was made to show itself whatever the +reviewer chose to call it. A scandalous rumor of any kind, especially +from the region styled "high life," often false, and always incorrect, +was the delight both of the paper and of its readers; and the interest +it thus awoke, united to the fear it thus caused, was mainly what +procured for such as were known to be employed upon it the <i>entree</i> of +houses where, if they had had a private existence only, their faces +would never have been seen. But, to do Tom justice, he wrote nothing of +this sort: he was neither ill-natured nor experienced enough for that +department; what he did write was clever, shallow sketches of that same +society into whose charmed precincts he was but so lately a comer that +much was to him interesting which had long ceased to be observed by +eyes turned horny with the glare of the world's footlights; and, while +these sketches pleased the young people especially, even their jaded +elders enjoyed the sparkling reflex of what they called life, as seen +by an outsider; for they were thereby enabled to feel for a moment a +slight interest in themselves objectively, along with a galvanized +sense of existence as the producers of history. These sketches did more +for the paper than the editor was willing to know or acknowledge.</p> + +<p>But "The Firefly" produced also a little art on its own account—not +always very original, but, at least, not a sucking of life from the +labor of others, as is most of that parasitic thing miscalled +criticism. In this branch Tom had a share, in the shape of verse. A +ready faculty was his, but one seldom roused by immediate interest, and +never by insight. It was not things themselves, but the reflection of +things in the art of others, that moved him to produce. Coleridge, I +think, says of Dryden, that he took fire with the running of his own +wheels: so did Tom; but it was the running of the wheels of others that +set his wheels running. He was like some young preachers who spend a +part of the Saturday in reading this or that author, in order to <i>get +up</i> the mental condition favorable to preaching on the Sunday. He was +really fond of poetry; delighted in the study of its external elements +for the sake of his craft; possessed not only a good but cultivated ear +for verse, which is a rare thing out of the craft; had true pleasure in +a fine phrase, in a strong or brilliant word; last and chief, had a +special faculty for imitation; from which gifts, graces, and +acquirements, it came, that he could write almost in any style that +moved him—so far, at least, as to remind one who knew it, of that +style; and that every now and then appeared verses of his in "The +Firefly."</p> + +<p>As often as this took place, Letty was in the third heaven of delight. +For was not Tom's poetry unquestionably superior to anything else the +age could produce? was the poetry Cousin Godfrey made her read once to +be compared to Tom's? and was not Tom her own husband? Happy woman she!</p> + +<p>But, by the time at which my narrative has arrived, the first mist of a +coming fog had begun to gather faintly dim in her heart. When Tom would +come home happy, but talk perplexingly; when he would drop asleep in +the middle of a story she could make nothing of; when he would burst +out and go on laughing, and refuse to explain the motive—how was she +to avoid the conclusion forced upon her, that he had taken too much +strong drink? and, when she noted that this condition reappeared at +shorter and shorter intervals, might she not well begin to be +frightened, and to feel, what she dared not allow, that she was being +gradually left alone—that Tom had struck into a diverging path, and +they were slowing parting miles from each other?</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.<br /><br /> +MARY AND LETTY.</h3> + +<p>When her landlady announced a visitor, Letty, not having yet one friend +in London, could not think who it should be. When Mary entered, she +sprang to her feet and stood staring: what with being so much in the +house, and seeing so few people, the poor girl had, I think, grown a +little stupid. But, when the fact of Mary's presence cleared itself to +her, she rushed forward with a cry, fell into her arms, and burst out +weeping. Mary held her fast until she had a little come to herself, +then, pushing her gently away to the length of her arms, looked at her.</p> + +<p>She was not a sight to make one happy. She was no longer the plump, +fresh girl that used to go singing about; nor was she merely thin and +pale, she looked unhealthy. Things could not be going well with her. +Had her dress been only disordered, that might have been accidental, +but it looked neglected—was not merely dingy, but plainly shabby, and, +to Mary's country eyes, appeared on the wrong side of clean. Presently, +as those eyes got accustomed to the miserable light, they spied in the +skirt of her gown a perfunctory darn, revealing but too evidently that +to Letty there no longer seemed occasion for being particular. The +sadness of it all sunk to Mary's heart: Letty had not found marriage a +grand affair!</p> + +<p>But Mary had not come into the world to be sad or to help another to be +sad. Sorrowful we may often have to be, but to indulge in sorrow is +either not to know or to deny God our Saviour. True, her heart ached +for Letty; and the ache immediately laid itself as close to Letty's +ache as it could lie; but that was only the advance-guard of her army +of salvation, the light cavalry of sympathy: the next division was +help; and behind that lay patience, and strength, and hope, and faith, +and joy. This last, modern teachers, having failed to regard it as a +virtue, may well decline to regard as a duty; but he is a poor +Christian indeed in whom joy has not at least a growing share, and Mary +was not a poor Christian—at least, for the time she had been learning, +and as Christians go in the present aeon of their history. Her whole +nature drew itself together, confronting the destroyer, whatever he +might be, in possession of Letty. How to help she could not yet tell, +but sympathy was already at its work.</p> + +<p>"You are not looking your best, Letty," she said, clasping her again in +her arms.</p> + +<p>With a little choking, Letty assured her she was quite well, only +rather overcome with the pleasure of seeing her so unexpectedly.</p> + +<p>"How is Mr. Helmer?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"Quite well—and very busy," answered Letty—a little hurriedly, Mary +thought. "—But," she added, in a tone of disappointment, "you always +used to call him Tom!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" answered Mary, with a smile, "one must be careful how one takes +liberties with married people. A certain mysterious change seems to +pass over some of them; they are not the same somehow, and you have to +make your acquaintance with them all over again from the beginning."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't think such people's acquaintance worth making over again," +said Letty.</p> + +<p>"How can you tell what it may be worth?" said Mary, "—they are so +different from what they were? Their friendship may now be one that +won't change so easily."</p> + +<p>"Ah! don't be hard on me, Mary. I have never ceased to love you."</p> + +<p>"I am <i>so</i> glad!" answered Mary. "People don't generally take much to +me—at least, not to come <i>near</i> me. But you can <i>be</i> friends without +<i>having</i> friends," she added, with a sententiousness she had inherited.</p> + +<p>"I don't quite understand you," said Letty, sadly; "but, then, I never +could quite, you know. Tom finds me very stupid."</p> + +<p>These words strengthened Mary's suspicion, from the first a +probability, that all was not going well between the two; but she +shrunk from any approach to confidences with <i>one</i> of a married pair. +To have such, she felt instinctively, would be a breach of unity, +except, indeed, that were already, and irreparably, broken. To +encourage in any married friend the placing of a confidence that +excludes the other, is to encourage that friend's self-degradation. But +neither was this a fault to which Letty could have been tempted; she +loved her Tom too much for it: with all her feebleness, there was in +Letty not a little of childlike greatness, born of faith.</p> + +<p>But, although Mary would make Letty tell nothing, she was not the less +anxious to discover, that she might, if possible, help. She would +observe: side-lights often reveal more than direct illumination. It +might be for Letty, and not for Mrs. Redmain, she had been sent. He who +made time in time would show.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to be long in London, Mary?" asked Letty.</p> + +<p>"Oh, a long time!" answered Mary, with a loving glance.</p> + +<p>Letty's eyes fell, and she looked troubled.</p> + +<p>"I am so sorry, Mary," she said, "that I can not ask you to come here! +We have only these two rooms, and—and—you see—Mrs. Helmer is not +very liberal to Tom, and—because they—don't get on together very +well—as I suppose everybody knows—Tom won't—he won't consent +to—to—"</p> + +<p>"You little goose!" cried Mary; "you don't think I would come down on +you like a devouring dragon, without even letting you know, and finding +whether it would suit you!—I have got a situation in London."</p> + +<p>"A situation!" echoed Letty. "What can you mean, Mary? You haven't left +your own shop, and gone into somebody else's?"</p> + +<p>"No, not exactly that," replied Mary, laughing; "but I have no doubt +most people would think that by far the more prudent thing to have +done."</p> + +<p>"Then I don't," said Letty, with a little flash of her old enthusiasm. +"Whatever you do, Mary, I am sure will always be the best."</p> + +<p>"I am glad I have so much of your good opinion, Letty; but I am not +sure I shall have it still, when I have told you what I have done. +Indeed, I am not quite sure myself that I have done wisely; but, if I +have made a mistake, it is from having listened to love more than to +prudence."</p> + +<p>"What!" cried Letty; "you're married, Mary?"</p> + +<p>And here a strange thing, yet the commonest in the world, appeared; had +her own marriage proved to Letty the most blessed of fates, she could +not have shown more delight at the idea of Mary's. I think men find +women a little incomprehensible in this matter of their friends' +marriage: in their largerheartedness, I presume, women are able to hope +for their friends, even when they have lost all hope for themselves.</p> + +<p>"No," replied Mary, amused at having thus misled her. "It is neither so +bad nor so good as that. But I was far from comfortable in the shop +without my father, and kept thinking how to find a life, more suitable +for me. It was not plain to me that my lot was cast there any longer, +and one has no right to choose difficulty; for, even if difficulty be +the right thing for you, the difficulty you choose can't be the right +difficulty. Those that are given to choosing, my father said, are given +to regretting. Then it happened that I fell in love—not with a +gentleman—don't look like that, Letty—but with a lady; and, as the +lady took a small fancy to me at the same time, and wanted to have me +about her, here I am."</p> + +<p>"But, surely, that is not a situation fit for one like you, Mary!" +cried Letty, almost in consternation; for, notwithstanding her +opposition to her aunt's judgment in the individual case of her friend, +Letty's own judgments, where she had any, were mostly of this world. "I +suppose you are a kind of—of—companion to your lady-friend?"</p> + +<p>"Or a kind of lady's-maid, or a kind of dressmaker, or a kind of humble +friend—something like a dog, perhaps—only not to be quite so much +loved and petted; In truth, Letty, I do not know what I am, or what I +am going to be; but I shall find out before long, and where's the use +of knowing, any more than anything else before it's wanted?"</p> + +<p>"You take my breath away, Mary! The thing doesn't seem at all like you! +It's not consistent!—Mary Marston in a menial position! I can't get a +hold of it!"</p> + +<p>"You remind me," said Mary, laughing, "of what my father said to Mr. +Turnbull once. They were nearer quarreling then than ever I saw them. +You remember my father's way, Letty—how he would say a thing too +quietly even to smile with it? I can't tell you what a delight it is to +me to talk to anybody that knew him!—Mr. Turnbull imagined he did not +know what he was about, for the thoughts my father was thinking could +not have lived a moment in Mr. Turnbull. 'You see, John Turnbull,' my +father said, 'no man can look so inconsistent as one whose principles +are not understood; for hardly in anything will that man do as his +friend must have thought he would.'—I suppose you think, Letty," Mary +went on, with a merry air, "that, for the sake of consistency, I should +never do anything but sell behind a counter?"</p> + +<p>"In that case," said Letty, "I ought to have married a milkman, for a +dairy is the only thing I understand. I can't help Tom ever so +little!—But I suppose it wouldn't be possible for two to write poetry +together, even if they were husband and wife, and both of them clever!"</p> + +<p>"Something like it has been tried, I believe," answered Mary, "but not +with much success. I suppose, when a man sets himself to make anything, +he must have it all his own way, or he can't do it."</p> + +<p>"I suppose that's it. I know Tom is very angry with the editor when he +wants to alter anything he has written. I'm sure Tom's right, too. You +can't think how much better Tom's way always is!—He makes that quite +clear, even to poor, stupid me. But then, you know, Tom's a genius; +that's one thing there's <i>no</i> doubt of!—But you haven't told me yet +where you are."</p> + +<p>"You remember Miss Mortimer, of Durnmelling?"</p> + +<p>"Quite well, of course."</p> + +<p>"She is Mrs. Redmain now: I am with her."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean it! Why, Tom knows her very well! He has been several +times to parties at her house."</p> + +<p>"And not you, too?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, no!" answered Letty, laughing, superior at Mary's ignorance. +"It's not the fashion in London, at least for distinguished persons +like my Tom, to take their wives to parties."</p> + +<p>"Are there no ladies at those parties, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes!" replied Letty, smiling again at Mary's ignorance of the +world, "the grandest of ladies—duchesses and all. You don't know what +a favorite Tom is in the highest circles!"</p> + +<p>Now Mary could believe almost anything bearing on Tom's being a +favorite, for she herself liked him a great deal more than she approved +of him; but she could not see the sense of his going to parties without +his wife, neither could she see that the <i>height</i> of the circle in +which he was a favorite made any difference. She had old-fashioned +notions of a man and his wife being one flesh, and felt a breach of the +law where they were separated, whatever the custom—reason there could +be none. But Letty seemed much too satisfied to give her any light on +the matter. Did it seem to her so natural that she could not understand +Mary's difficulty? She could not help suspecting, however, that there +might be something in this recurrence of a separation absolute as +death—for was it not a passing of one into a region where the other +could not follow?—to account for the change in her.—The same moment, +as if Letty divined what was passing in Mary's thought, and were not +altogether content with the thing herself, but would gladly justify +what she could not explain, she added, in the tone of an unanswerable +argument:</p> + +<p>"Besides, Mary, how could I get a dress fit to wear at such parties? +You wouldn't have me go and look like a beggar! That would be to +disgrace Tom. Everybody in London judges everybody by the clothes she +wears. You should hear Tom's descriptions of the ladies' dresses when +he comes home!"</p> + +<p>Mary was on the verge of crying out indignantly, "Then, if he can't +take you, why doesn't he stop at home with you?" but she bethought +herself in time to hold her peace. She settled it with herself, +however, that Tom must have less heart or yet more muddled brains than +she had thought.</p> + +<p>"So, then," reverted Letty, as if willing to turn definitively from the +subject, "you are actually living with the beautiful Mrs. Redmain! What +a lucky girl you are! You will see no end of grand people! You will see +my Tom sometimes—when I can't!" she added, with a sigh that went to +Mary's heart.</p> + +<p>"Poor thing!" she said to herself, "it isn't anything much out of the +way she wants—only a little more of a foolish husband's company!"</p> + +<p>It was no wonder that Tom found Letty dull, for he had just as little +of his own in him as she, and thought he had a great store—which is +what sends a man most swiftly along the road to that final poverty in +which even that which he has shall be taken from him.</p> + +<p>Mary did not stay so long with Letty as both would have liked, for she +did not yet know enough of Hesper's ways. When she got home, she +learned that she had a headache, and had not yet made her appearance.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.<br /><br /> +THE EVENING STAR.</h3> + +<p>Notwithstanding her headache, however, Mrs. Redmain was going in the +evening to a small fancy-ball, meant for a sort of rehearsal to a great +one when the season should arrive. The part and costume she had chosen +were the suggestion of her own name: she would represent the Evening +Star, clothed in the early twilight; and neither was she unfit for the +part, nor was the dress she had designed altogether unsuitable either +to herself or to the part. But she had sufficient confidence neither in +herself nor her maid to forestall a desire for Mary's opinion. After +luncheon, therefore, she sent for Miss Marston to her bedroom.</p> + +<p>Mary found her half dressed, Folter in attendance, a great heap of pink +lying on the bed.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, Mary," said Hesper, pointing to a chair; "I want your +advice. But I must first explain. Where I am going this evening, nobody +is to be herself except me. I am not to be Mrs. Redmain, though, but +Hesper. You know what Hesper means?"</p> + +<p>Mary said she knew, and waited—a little anxious; for sideways in her +eyes glowed the pink of the chosen Hesperian clouds, and, if she should +not like it, what could be done at that late hour.</p> + +<p>"There is my dress," continued the Evening Star, with a glance of her +eyes, for Folter was busied with her hair; "I want to know your opinion +of it." Folter gave a toss of her head that seemed to say, "Have not +<i>I</i> spoken?" but what it really did mean, how should other mortal know? +for the main obstructions to understanding are profundity and +shallowness, and the latter is far the more perplexing of the two.</p> + +<p>"I should like to see it on first," said Mary: she was in doubt whether +the color—bright, to suggest the brightest of sunset-clouds—would +suit Hesper's complexion. Then, again, she had always associated the +name <i>Hesper</i> with a later, a solemnly lovely period of twilight, +having little in common with the color so voluminous in the background.</p> + +<p>Hesper had a good deal of appreciative faculty, and knew therefore when +she liked and when she did not like a thing; but she had very little +originative faculty—so little that, when anything was wrong, she could +do next to nothing to set it right. There was small originality in +taking a suggestion for her part from her name, and less in the idea, +following by concatenation, of adopting for her costume sunset colors +upon a flimsy material, which might more than hint at clouds. She had +herself, with the assistance of Sepia and Folter, made choice of the +particular pink; but, although it continued altogether delightful in +the eyes of her maid, it had, upon nearer and pro-longed acquaintance, +become doubtful in hers; and she now waited, with no little anxiety, +the judgment of Mary, who sat silently thinking.</p> + +<p>"Have you nothing to say?" she asked, at length, impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Please, ma'am," replied Mary, "I must think, if I am to be of any use. +I am doing my best, but you must let me be quiet."</p> + +<p>Half annoyed, half pleased, Hesper was silent, and Mary went on +thinking. All was still, save for the slight noises Folter made, as, +like a machine, she went on heartlessly brushing her mistress's hair, +which kept emitting little crackles, as of dissatisfaction with her +handling. Mary would now take a good gaze at the lovely creature, now +abstract herself from the visible, and try to call up the vision of her +as the real Hesper, not a Hesper dressed up—a process which had in it +hope for the lady, but not much for the dress upon the bed. At last +Folter had done her part.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you <i>must</i> see it on!" said Hesper, and she rose up.</p> + +<p>Folter jerked herself to the bed, took the dress, arranged it on her +arms, got up on a chair, dropped it over her mistress's head, got down, +and, having pulled it this way and that for a while, fastened it here, +undone it there, and fastened it again, several times, exclaimed, in a +tone whose confidence was meant to forestall the critical impertinence +she dreaded:</p> + +<p>"There, ma'am! If you don't look the loveliest woman in the room, I +shall never trust my eyes again."</p> + +<p>Mary held her peace, for the commonplace style of the dress but added +to her dissatisfaction with the color. It was all puffed and bubbled +and blown about, here and there and everywhere, so that the form of the +woman was lost in the frolic shapelessness of the cloud. The whole, if +whole it could be called, was a miserable attempt at combining fancy +and fashion, and, in result, an ugly nothing.</p> + +<p>"I see you don't like it!" said Hesper, with a mingling of displeasure +and dismay. "I wish you had come a few days sooner! It is much too late +to do anything now. I might just as well have gone without showing it +to you!—Here, Folter!"</p> + +<p>With a look almost of disgust, she began to pull off the dress, in +which, a few hours later, she would yet make the attempt to enchant an +assembly.</p> + +<p>"O ma'am!" cried Mary, "I wish you had told me yesterday. There would +have been time then.—And I don't know," she added, seeing disgust +change to mortification on Hesper's countenance, "but something might +be done yet."</p> + +<p>"Oh, indeed!" dropped from Folter's lips with an indescribable +expression.</p> + +<p>"What can be done?" said Hesper, angrily. "There can be no time for +anything."</p> + +<p>"If only we had the stuff!" said Mary. "That shade doesn't suit your +complexion. It ought to be much, much darker—in fact, a different +color altogether."</p> + +<p>Folter was furious, but restrained herself sufficiently to preserve +some calmness of tone, although her face turned almost blue with the +effort, as she said:</p> + +<p>"Miss Marston is not long from the country, ma'am, and don't know +what's suitable to a London drawing-room."</p> + +<p>Her mistress was too dejected to snub her impertinence.</p> + +<p>"What color were you thinking of, Miss Marston?" Hesper asked, with a +stiffness that would have been more in place had Mary volunteered the +opinion she had been asked to give. She was out of temper with Mary +from feeling certain she was right, and believing there was no remedy.</p> + +<p>"I could not describe it," answered Mary. "And, indeed, the color I +have in my mind may not be to be had. I have seen it somewhere, but, +whether in a stuff or only in nature, I can not at this moment be +certain."</p> + +<p>"Where's the good of talking like that—excuse me, ma'am—it's more +than I can bear—when the ball comes off in a few hours?" cried Folter, +ending with eyes of murder on Mary.</p> + +<p>"If you would allow me, ma'am," said Mary, "I should like much to try +whether I could not find something that would suit you and your idea +too. However well you might look in that, you would owe it no thanks. +The worst is, I know nothing of the London shops."</p> + +<p>"I should think not!" remarked Folter, with emphasis.</p> + +<p>"I would send you in the brougham, if I thought it was of any use," +said Hesper. "Folter could take you to the proper places."</p> + +<p>"Folter would be of no use to me," said Mary. "If your coachman knows +the best shops, that will be enough."</p> + +<p>"But there's no time to make up anything," objected Hesper, +despondingly, not the less with a glimmer of hope in her heart.</p> + +<p>"Not like that," answered Mary; "but there is much there as unnecessary +as it is ugly. If Folter is good at her needle—"</p> + +<p>"I won't take up a single stitch. It would be mere waste of labor," +cried Folter.</p> + +<p>"Then, please, ma'am," said Mary, "let Folter have that dress ready, +and, if I don't succeed, you have something to wear."</p> + +<p>"I hate it. I won't go if you don't find me another."</p> + +<p>"Some people may like it, though I don't," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Not a doubt of that!" said Folter.</p> + +<p>"Ring the bell," said her mistress.</p> + +<p>The woman obeyed, and the moment afterward repented she had not given +warning on the spot, instead. The brougham was ordered immediately, and +in a few minutes Mary was standing at a counter in a large shop, +looking at various stuffs, of which the young man waiting on her soon +perceived she knew the qualities and capabilities better than he.</p> + +<p>She had set her heart on carrying out Hesper's idea, but in better +fashion; and after great pains taken, and no little trouble given, left +the shop well satisfied with her success. And now for the greater +difficulty!</p> + +<p>She drove straight to Letty's lodging, and, there dismissing the +brougham, presented herself, with a great parcel in her arms, for the +second time that day, at the door of her room, as unexpected as the +first, and even more to the joy of her solitary friend.</p> + +<p>She knew that Letty was good at her needle. And Letty was, indeed, even +now, by fits, fond of using it; and on several occasions, when her +supply of novels had for a day run short, had asked a dressmaker who +lived above to let her help her for an hour or two: before Mary had +finished her story, she was untying the parcel, and preparing to +receive her instructions. Nor had they been at work many minutes, when +Letty bethought her of calling in the help of the said dressmaker; so +that presently there were three of them busy as bees—one with genius, +one with experience, and all with facility. The notions of the first +were quickly taken up by the other two, and, the design of the dress +being simplicity itself, Mary got all done she wanted in shorter time +than she had thought possible. The landlady sent for a cab, and Mary +was home with the improbability in more than time for Mrs. Redmain's +toilet. It was with some triumph, tempered with some trepidation, that +she carried it to her room.</p> + +<p>There Folter was in the act of persuading her mistress of the necessity +of beginning to dress: Miss Marston, she said, knew nothing of what she +had undertaken; and, even if she arrived in time, it would be with +something too ridiculous for any lady to appear in—when Mary entered, +and was received with a cry of delight from Hesper; in proportion to +whose increasing disgust for the pink robe, was her pleasure when she +caught sight of Mary's colors, as she undid the parcel: when she lifted +the dress on her arm for a first effect, she was enraptured with +it—aerial in texture, of the hue of a smoky rose, deep, and cloudy +with overlying folds, yet diaphanous, a darkness dilute with red.</p> + +<p>Silent as a torture-maiden, and as grim, Folter approached to try the +filmy thing, scornfully confident that the first sight of it on would +prove it unwearable. But Mary judged her scarcely in a mood to be +trusted with anything so ethereal; and begged therefore that, as the +dress had, of necessity, been in many places little more than run +together, and she knew its weak points, she might, for that evening, be +allowed the privilege of dressing Mrs. Redmain. Hesper gladly +consented; Folter left the room; Mary, now at her ease, took her place; +and presently, more to Hesper's pleasure than Mary's surprise, for she +had made and fixed in her mind the results of minute observation before +she went, it was found that the dress fitted quite sufficiently well, +and, having confined it round the waist with a cincture of thin pale +gold, she advanced to her chief anxiety—the head-dress.</p> + +<p>For this she had chosen such a doubtful green as the sky appears +through yellowish smoke—a sad, lovely color—the fair past clouded +with the present—youth not forgotten, but filmed with age. They were +all colors of the evening, as it strives to keep its hold of the +heavens, with the night pressing upon it from behind. In front, above +the lunar forehead, among the coronal masses, darkly fair, she fixed a +diamond star, and over it wound the smoky green like a turbaned vapor, +wind-ruffled, through which the diamonds gleamed faintly by fits. Not +once would she, while at her work, allow Hesper to look, and the +self-willed lady had been submissive in her hands as a child of the +chosen; but the moment she had succeeded—for her expectations were +more than realized—she led her to the cheval-glass. Hesper gazed for +an instant, then, turning, threw her arms about Mary, and kissed her.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you're a human creature at all!" she cried. "You are a +fairy godmother, come to look after your poor Cinderella, the sport of +stupid lady's-maids and dressmakers!"</p> + +<p>The door opened, and Folter entered.</p> + +<p>"If you please, ma'am, I wish to leave this day month," she said, +quietly.</p> + +<p>"Then," answered her mistress, with equal calmness, "oblige me by going +at once to Mrs. Perkin, and telling her that I desire her to pay you a +month's wages, and let you leave the house to-morrow morning.—You +won't mind helping me to dress till I get another maid—will you, +Mary?" she added; and Folter left the room, chagrined at her inability +to cause annoyance.</p> + +<p>"I do not see why you should have another maid so long as I am with +you, ma'am," said Mary. "It should not need many days' apprenticeship +to make one woman able to dress another."</p> + +<p>"Not when she is like you, Mary," said Hesper. "It is well the wretch +has done my hair for to-night, though! That will be the main +difficulty."</p> + +<p>"It will not be a great one," said Mary, "if you will allow me to undo +it when you come home."</p> + +<p>"I begin almost to believe in a special providence," said Hesper. "What +a blessed thing for me that you came to drive away that woman! She has +been getting worse and worse."</p> + +<p>"If I have driven her away," answered Mary, "I am bound to supply her +place."</p> + +<p>As they talked, she was giving her final touches of arrangement to the +head-dress—with which she found it least easy to satisfy herself. It +swept round from behind in a misty cloak, the two colors mingling with +and gently obscuring each other; while, between them, the palest memory +of light, in the golden cincture, helped to bring out the somber +richness, the delicate darkness of the whole.</p> + +<p>Searching now again Hesper's jewel-case, Mary found a fine bracelet of +the true, the Oriental topaz, the old chrysolite—of that clear yellow +of the sunset-sky that looks like the 'scaped spirit of miser-smothered +gold: this she clasped upon one arm; and when she had fastened a pair +of some ancient Mortimer's garnet buckles in her shoes, which she had +insisted should be black, and taken off all the rings that Hesper had +just put on, except a certain glorious sapphire, she led her again to +the mirror; and, if there Hesper was far more pleased with herself than +was reasonable or lovely, my reader needs not therefore fear a sermon +from the text, "Beauty is only skin-deep," for that text is out of the +devil's Bible. No Baal or Astarte is the maker of beauty, but the same +who made the seven stars and Orion, and His works are past finding out. +If only the woman herself and her worshipers knew how deep it is! But +the woman's share in her own beauty may be infinitely less than +skin-deep; and there is but one greater fool than the man who worships +that beauty—the woman who prides herself upon it, as if she were the +fashioner and not the thing fashioned.</p> + +<p>But poor Hesper had much excuse, though no justification. She had had +many of the disadvantages and scarce one of the benefits of poverty. +She had heard constantly from childhood the most worldly and greedy +talk, the commonest expression of abject dependence on the favors of +Mammon, and thus had from the first been in preparation for <i>marrying +money</i> . She had been taught no other way of doing her part to procure +the things of which the Father knows we have need. She had never earned +a dinner; had never done or thought of doing a day's work—of offering +the world anything for the sake of which the world might offer her a +shilling to do it again; she had never dreamed of being of any use, +even to herself; she had learned to long for money, but had never been +hungry, never been cold: she had sometimes felt shabby. Out of it all +she had brought but the knowledge that this matter of beauty, with +which, by some blessed chance, she was endowed, was worth much precious +money in the world's market—worth all the dresses she could ever +desire, worth jewels and horses and servants, adoration and +adulation—everything, in fact, the world calls fine, and the devil +offers to those who, unscared by his inherent ugliness, will fall down +and worship him.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.<br /><br /> +A SCOLDING.</h3> + +<p>The Evening Star found herself a success—that is, much followed by the +men and much complimented by the women. Her triumph, however, did not +culminate until the next appearance of "The Firefly," containing a song +"To the Evening Star," which <i>everybody</i> knew to stand for Mrs. +Redmain. The chaos of the uninitiated, indeed, exoteric and despicable, +remained in ignorance, nor dreamed that the verses meant anybody of +note; to them they seemed but the calf-sigh of some young writer so +deep in his first devotion that he jumbled up his lady-love, Hesper, +and Aphrodite, in the same poetic bundle—of which he left the +string-ends hanging a little loose, while, upon the whole, it remained +a not altogether unsightly bit of prentice-work. Tom had not been at +the party, but had gathered fire enough from what he heard of Hesper's +appearance there to write the verses. Here they are, as nearly as I can +recall them. They are in themselves not worth writing out for the +printers, but, in their surroundings, they serve to show Tom, and are +the last with which I shall trouble the readers of this narrative.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"TO THE EVENING STAR.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"From the buried sunlight springing,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Through flame-darkened, rosy loud,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Native sea-hues with thee bringing,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the sky thou reignest proud!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Who is like thee, lordly lady,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Star-choragus of the night!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Color worships, fainting fady,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Night grows darker with delight!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Dusky-radiant, far, and somber,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the coolness of thy state,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From my eyelids chasing slumber,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou dost smile upon my fate;</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Calmly shinest; not a whisper</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of my songs can reach thine ear;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What is it to thee, O Hesper,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That a heart should long or fear?"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Tom did not care to show Letty this poem—not that there was anything +more in his mind than an artistic admiration of Hesper, and a desire to +make himself agreeable in her eyes; but, when Letty, having read it, +betrayed no shadow of annoyance with its folly, he was a little +relieved. The fact was, the simple creature took it as a pardon to +herself.</p> + +<p>"I am glad you have forgiven me, Tom," she said.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" asked Tom.</p> + +<p>"For working for Mrs. Redmain with <i>your</i> hands," she said, and, +breaking into a little laugh, caught his cheeks between those same +hands, and reaching up gave him a kiss that made him ashamed of +himself—a little, that is, and for the moment, that is: Tom was used +to being this or that a little for the moment.</p> + +<p>For this same dress, which Tom had thus glorified in song, had been the +cause of bitter tears to Letty. He came home <i>too late</i> the day of +Mary's visit, but the next morning she told him all about both the +first and the second surprise she had had—not, however, with much +success in interesting the lordly youth.</p> + +<p>"And then," she went on, "what do you think we were doing all the +afternoon, Tom?"</p> + +<p>"How should I know?" said Tom, indifferently.</p> + +<p>"We were working hard at a dress—a dress for a fancy-ball!"</p> + +<p>"A fancy-ball, Letty? What do you mean? You going to a fancy-ball!"</p> + +<p>"Me!" cried Letty, with merry laugh; "no, not quite me. Who do you +think it was for?"</p> + +<p>"How should I know?" said Tom again, but not quite so indifferently; he +was prepared to be annoyed.</p> + +<p>"For Mrs. Redmain!" said Letty, triumphantly, clapping her hands with +delight at what she thought the fun of the thing, for was not Mrs. +Redmain Tom's friend?—then stooping a little—it was an unconscious, +pretty trick she had—and holding them out, palm pressed to palm, with +the fingers toward his face.</p> + +<p>"Letty," said Tom, frowning—and the frown deepened and deepened; for +had he not from the first, if in nothing else, taken trouble to +instruct her in what became the wife of Thomas Helmer, Esq.?—"Letty, +this won't do!"</p> + +<p>Letty was frightened, but tried to think he was only pretending to be +displeased.</p> + +<p>"Ah! don't frighten me, Tom," she said, with her merry hands now +changed to pleading ones, though their position and attitude remained +the same.</p> + +<p>But he caught them by the wrists in both of his, and held them tight.</p> + +<p>"Letty," he said once more, and with increased severity, "this won't +do. I tell you, it won't do."</p> + +<p>"What won't do, Tom?" she returned, growing white. "There's no harm +done."</p> + +<p>"Yes, there is," said Tom, with solemnity; "there <i>is</i> harm done, when +<i>my</i> wife goes and does like that. What would people say of <i>me,</i> if +they were to come to know—God forbid they should!—that your husband +was talking all the evening to ladies at whose dresses his wife had +been working all the afternoon!—You don't know what you are doing, +Letty. What do you suppose the ladies would think if they were to hear +of it?"</p> + +<p>Poor, foolish Tom, ignorant in his folly, did not know how little those +grand ladies would have cared if his wife had been a char-woman: the +eyes of such are not discerning of fine social distinctions in women +who are not of their set, neither are the family relations of the +bohemians they invite of the smallest consequence to them.</p> + +<p>"But, Tom," pleaded his wife, "such a grand lady as that! one you go +and read your poetry to! What harm can there be in your poor little +wife helping to make a dress for a lady like that?"</p> + +<p>"I tell you, Letty, I don't choose <i>my</i> wife to do such a thing for the +greatest lady in the land! Good Heavens! if it <i>were</i> to come to the +ears of the staff! It would be the ruin of me! I should never hold up +my head again!"</p> + +<p>By this time Letty's head was hanging low, like a flower half broken +from its stem, and two big tears were slowly rolling down her cheeks. +But there was a gleam of satisfaction in her heart notwithstanding. Tom +thought so much of his little wife that he would not have her work for +the greatest lady in the land! She did not see that it was not pride in +her, but pride in himself, that made him indignant at the idea. It was +not "my <i>wife,"</i> but "<i>my</i> wife" with Tom. She looked again up timidly +in his face, and said, her voice trembling, and her cheeks wet, for she +could not wipe away the tears, because Tom still held her hands as one +might those of a naughty child:</p> + +<p>"But, Tom! I don't exactly see how you can make so much of it, when you +don't think me—when you know I am not fit to go among such people."</p> + +<p>To this Tom had no reply at hand: he was not yet far enough down the +devil's turnpike to be able to tell his wife that he had spoken the +truth—that he did not think her fit for such company; that he would be +ashamed of her in it; that she had no style; that, instead of carrying +herself as if she knew herself somebody—as good as anybody there, +indeed, being the wife of Tom Helmer—she had the meek look of one who +knew herself nobody, and did not know her husband to be anybody. He did +not think how little he had done to give the unassuming creature that +quiet confidence which a woman ought to gather from the assurance of +her husband's satisfaction in her, and the consciousness of being, in +dress and everything else, pleasing in his eyes, therefore of occupying +the only place in the world she desires to have. But he did think that +Letty's next question might naturally be, "Why do you not take me with +you?" No doubt he could have answered, no one had ever asked her; but +then she might rejoin, had he ever put it in any one's way to ask her? +It might even occur to her to in-quire whether he had told Mrs. Redmain +that he had a wife! and he had heart enough left to imagine it might +mortally hurt her to find he lived a life so utterly apart from +hers—that she had so little of the relations though all the rights of +wifehood. It was no wonder, therefore, if he was more than willing to +change the subject. He let the poor, imprisoned hands drop so abruptly +that, in their abandonment, they fell straight from her shoulders to +her sides.</p> + +<p>"Well, well, child!" he said; "put on your bonnet, and we shall be in +time for the first piece at the Lyceum."</p> + +<p>Letty flew, and was ready in five minutes. She could dress the more +quickly that she was delayed by little doubt as to what she had better +wear: she had scarcely a choice. Tom, looking after his own comforts, +left her to look after her necessities; and she, having a conscience, +and not much spirit, went even shabbier than she yet needed.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.<br /><br /> +SEPIA.</h3> + +<p>As naturally as if she had been born to that very duty and no other, +Mary slid into the office of lady's-maid to Mrs. Redmain, feeling in +it, although for reasons very different, no more degradation than her +mistress saw in it. If Hesper was occasionally a little rude to her, +Mary was not one to <i>accept</i> a rudeness—that is, to wrap it up in +resentment, and put it away safe in the pocket of memory. She could not +help feeling things of the kind—sometimes with indignation and anger; +but she made haste to send them from her, and shut the doors against +them. She knew herself a far more blessed creature than Hesper, and +felt the obligation, from the Master himself, of so enduring as to keep +every channel of service open between Hesper and her. To Hesper, the +change from the vulgar service of Folter to the ministration of Mary +was like passing from a shallow purgatory to a gentle paradise. Mary's +service was full of live and near presence, as that of dew or summer +wind; Folter handled her as if she were dressing a doll, Mary as if she +were dressing a baby; her hands were deft as an angel's, her feet as +noiseless as swift. And to have Mary near was not only to have a +ministering spirit at hand, but to have a good atmosphere all +around—an air, a heaven, out of which good things must momently come. +Few could be closely associated with her and not become aware at least +of the capacity of being better, if not of the desire to be better.</p> + +<p>In the matter of immediate result, it was a transition from decoration +to dress. If in any sense Hesper was well dressed before, she was in +every sense well dressed now—dressed so, that is, as to reveal the +nature, the analogies, and the associations of her beauty: no manner of +dressing can make a woman look more beautiful than she is, though many +a mode may make her look less so.</p> + +<p>There was one in the house, however, who was not pleased at the change +from Folter to Mary: Sepia found herself in consequence less necessary +to Hesper. Hitherto Hesper had never been satisfied without Sepia's +opinion and final approval in that weightiest of affairs, the matter of +dress; but she found in Mary such a faculty as rendered appeal to Sepia +unnecessary; for she not only satisfied her idea of herself, and how +she would choose to look, but showed her taste as much surer than +Sepia's as Sepia's was readier than Hesper's own. Sepia was equal to +the dressing of herself—she never blundered there; but there was +little dependence to be placed upon her in dressing another. She cared +for herself, not for another; and to dress another, love is +needful—love, the only true artist—love, the only opener of eyes. She +cared nothing to minister to the comfort or beautification of her +cousin, and her displeasure did not arise from the jealousy that is +born of affection. So far as Hesper's self was concerned, Sepia did not +care a straw whether she was well or ill dressed; but, if the link +between them of dress was severed, what other so strong would be left? +And to find herself in any way a less object in Hesper's eyes, would be +to find herself on the inclined plane of loss, and probable ruin.</p> + +<p>Another, though a smaller, point was, that hitherto she had generally +been able so to dress Hesper as to make of her more or less a foil to +herself. My reader may remember that there was between Hesper and +Sepia, if not a resemblance, yet a relation of appearance, like, +vaguely, that between the twilight and the night; seen in certain +positions and circumstances, the one would recall the other; and it was +therefore a matter of no small consequence to Sepia that the relation +of her dress to Hesper's should be such as to give herself any +advantage to be derived in it from the relation of their looks. This +was far more difficult, of course, when she had no longer a voice in +the matter of Hesper's dress, and when the loving skill of the new maid +presented her rival to her individual best. Mary would have been glad +to help her as well, but Sepia drew back as from a hostile nature, and +they made no approximation. This was more loss to Sepia than she knew, +for Mary would have assisted her in doing the best when she had no +money, a condition which often made it the more trying that she had now +so little influence over her cousin's adornment. To dress was a far +more difficult, though not more important, affair with Sepia than with +Hesper, for she had nothing of her own, and from, her cousin no fixed +allowance. Any arrangement of the kind had been impossible at +Durnmelling, where there was no money; and here, where it would have +been easy enough, she judged it better to give no hint in its +direction, although plainly it had never suggested itself to Hesper. +There was nothing of the money-mean in her, any more than in her +husband. They were of course, as became people of fashion, regular and +unwearied attendants of the church of Mammon, ordering all their +judgments and ways in accordance with the precepts there delivered; but +they were none of Mammon's priests or pew-openers, money-grubs, or +accumulators. They gave liberally where they gave, and scraped no +inferior to spend either on themselves or their charities. They had +plenty, it is true; but so have many who withhold more than is meet, +and take the ewe-lamb to add to their flock. For one thing, they had no +time for that sort of wickedness, and took no interest in it. So +Hesper, although it had not come into her mind to give her the ease of +a stated allowance, behaved generously to Sepia—when she thought of +it; but she did not love her enough to be love-watchful, and seldom +thought how her money must be going, or questioned whether she might +not at the moment be in want of more. There are many who will give +freely, who do not care to understand need and anticipate want. Hence +at times Sepia's purse would be long empty before the giving-thought +would wake in the mind of Hesper. When it woke, it was gracious and +free.</p> + +<p>Had Sepia ventured to run up bills with the tradespeople, Hesper would +have taken it as a thing of course, and settled them with her own. But +Sepia had a certain politic pride in spending only what was given her; +also she saw or thought she saw serious reason for avoiding all +appearances of taking liberties; from the first of Mr. Redmain's visits +to Durnmelling, she had been aware, with an instinct keen in respect of +its objects, though blind as to its own nature, that he did not like +her, and soon satisfied herself that any overt attempt to please him +would but ripen his dislike to repugnance; and her dread was that he +might make it a condition with Mr. Mortimer that Hesper's intimacy with +her should cease; whereas, if once they were married, the husband's +disfavor would, she believed, only strengthen the wife's predilection. +Having so far gained her end, it remained, however, almost as desirable +as before that she should do nothing to fix or increase his +dislike—nay, that, if within the possible, she should become pleasing +to him. Did not even hate turn sometimes to its mighty opposite? But +she understood so little of the man with whom she had to deal that her +calculations were ill-founded.</p> + +<p>She was right in believing that Mr. Redmain disliked her, but she was +wrong in imagining that he had therefore any objection to her being for +the present in the house. He certainly did not relish the idea of her +continuing to be his wife's inseparable companion, but there would be +time enough to get rid of her after he had found her out. For she had +not long been one of his <i>family,</i> before he knew, with insight +unerring, that she had to be found out, and was therefore an +interesting subject for the exercise of his faculty of moral analysis. +He was certain her history was composed mainly of secrets. As yet, +however, he had discovered nothing.</p> + +<p>I must just remind my reader of the intellectual passion I have already +mentioned as characterizing Mr. Redmain's mental constitution. His +faults and vices were by no means peculiar; but the bent to which I +refer, certainly no virtue, and springing originally from predominant +evil, was in no small degree peculiar, especially in the degree to +which, derived as it was from his father, he had in his own being +developed it. Most men, he judged with himself, were such fools as well +as rogues, that there was not the least occasion to ask what they were +after: they did but turn themselves inside out before you! But, on the +other hand, there were not a few who took pains, more or less +successful, to conceal their game of life; and such it was the delight +of his being to lay bare to his own eyes-not to those of other people; +that, he said, would be to spoil his game! Men were his library, he +said-his history, his novels, his sermons, his philosophy, his poetry, +his whole literature—and he did not like to have his books thumbed by +other people. Human nature, in its countless aspects, was all about +him, he said, every mask crying to him to take it off. Unhappily, it +was but the morbid anatomy of human nature he cared to study. For all +his abuse of it, he did not yet recognize it as morbid, but took it as +normal, and the best to be had. No doubt, he therein judged and +condemned himself, but that he never thought of—nor, perceived, would +it have been a point of any consequence to him.</p> + +<p>From the first, he saw through Mr. Mortimer, and all belonging to him, +except Miss Yolland: she soon began to puzzle—and, so far, to please +him, though, as I have said, he did not like her. Had he been a younger +man, she would have captivated him; as it was, she would have repelled +him entirely, but that she offered him a good subject. He said to +himself that she was a bad lot, but what sort of a bad lot was not so +clear as to make her devoid of interest to him; he must discover how +she played her life-game; she had a history, and he would fain know it. +As I have said, however, so far it had come to nothing, for, upon the +surface, Sepia showed herself merely like any other worldly girl who +knows "on which side her bread is buttered."</p> + +<p>The moment he had found, or believed he had found, what there was to +know about her, he was sure to hate her heartily. For some time after +his marriage, he appeared at his wife's parties oftener than he +otherwise would have done, just for the sake of having an eye upon +Sepia; but had seen nothing, nor the shadow of anything—until one +night, by the merest chance, happening to enter his wife's +drawing-room, he caught a peculiar glance between Sepia and a young +man—not very young—who had just entered, and whom he had not seen +before.</p> + +<p>To not a few it seemed strange that, with her unquestioned powers of +fascination, she had not yet married; but London is not the only place +in which poverty is as repellent as beauty is attractive. At the same +time it must be confessed there was something about her which made not +a few men shy of her. Some found that, if her eyes drew them within a +certain distance, there they began to repel them, they could not tell +why. Others felt strangely uncomfortable in her presence from the +first. Not only much that a person has done, but much of what a person +is capable of, is, I suspect, written on the bodily presence; and, +although no human eye is capable of reading more than here and there a +scattered hint of the twilight of history, which is the aurora of +prophecy, the soul may yet shudder with an instinctive foreboding it +can not explain, and feel the presence, without recognizing the nature, +of the hostile.</p> + +<p>Sepia's eyes were her great power. She knew the laws of mortar-practice +in that kind as well as any officer of engineers those of projectiles. +There was something about her engines which it were vain to attempt to +describe. Their lightest glance was a thing not to be trifled with, and +their gaze a thing hardly to be withstood. Sustained and without hurt +defied, it could hardly be by man of woman born. They were large, but +no fool would be taken with mere size. They were as dark as ever eyes +of woman, but our older poets delighted in eyes as gray as glass: +certainly not in their darkness lay their peculiar witchery. They were +grandly proportioned, neither almond-shaped nor round, neither +prominent nor deep-set; but even shape by itself is not much. If I go +on to say they were luminous, plainly there the danger begins. Sepia's +eyes, I confess, were not lords of the deepest light—for she was not +true; but neither was theirs a surface light, generated of merely +physical causes: through them, concentrating her will upon their +utterance, she could establish a psychical contact with <i>almost</i> any +man she chose. Their power was an evil, selfish shadow of original, +universal love. By them she could produce at once, in the man on whom +she turned their play, a sense as it were of some primordial, fatal +affinity between her and him—of an aboriginal understanding, the rare +possession of but a few of the pairs made male and female. Into those +eyes she would call up her soul, and there make it sit, flashing light, +in gleams and sparkles, shoots and coruscations—not from great, black +pupils alone—to whose size there were who said the suicidal belladonna +lent its aid—but from great, dark irids as well—nay, from eyeballs, +eyelashes, and eyelids, as from spiritual catapult or culverin, would +she dart the lightnings of her present soul, invading with influence as +irresistible as subtile the soul of the man she chose to assail, who, +thenceforward, for a season, if he were such as she took him for, +scarce had choice but be her slave. She seldom exerted their full +force, however, without some further motive than mere desire to +captivate. There are women who fly their falcons at any game, little +birds and all; but Sepia did not so waste herself: her quarry must be +worth her hunt: she must either love him or need him. <i>Love!</i> did I +say? Alas! if ever holy word was put to unholy use, <i>love</i> is that +word! When Diana goes to hell, her name changes to Hecate, but love +among the devils is called love still!</p> + +<p>In more than one other country, whatever might be the cause, Sepia had +found <i>the men</i> less shy of her than here; and she had almost begun to +think her style was not generally pleasing to English eyes. Whether +this had anything to do with the fact that now in London she began to +amuse herself with Tom Helmer, I can not say with certainty; but almost +if not quite the first time they met, that morning, namely, when first +he called, and they sat in the bay-window of the drawing-room in +Glammis Square, she brought her eyes to play upon him; and, although he +addressed "The Firefly" poem to Hesper in the hope of pleasing her, it +was for the sake of Sepia chiefly that he desired the door of her house +to be an open one to him. Whether at that time she knew he was a +married man, it is hardly necessary to inquire, seeing it would have +made no difference whatever to one like her, whose design was only to +amuse herself with the youth, and possibly to make of him a screen. She +went so far, however, as to allow him, when there was opportunity, to +draw her into quiet corners, and even to linger when the other guests +were gone, and he had had his full share of champagne. Once, indeed, +they remained together so long in the little conservatory, lighted only +by an alabaster lamp, pale as the moon in the dawning, that she had to +unbolt the door to let him out. This did not take place without coming +to the knowledge of both Mr. and Mrs. Redmain; but the former was only +afraid there was nothing in it, and was far from any wish to control +her; and Sepia herself was the in-formant of the latter. To her she +would make game of her foolish admirer, telling how, on this and that +occasion, it was all she could do to get rid of him.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.<br /><br /> +HONOR.</h3> + +<p>Having now gained a partial insight into Letty's new position, Mary +pondered what she could do to make life more of life to her. Not many +knew better than she that the only true way to help a human heart is to +lift it up; but she knew also that every kind of loving aid tends more +or less to that uplifting; and that, if we can not do the great thing, +we must be ready to do the small: if we do not help in little things, +how shall we be judged fit to help in greater? We must help where we +can, that we may help where we can not. The first and the only thing +she could for a time think of, was, to secure for Letty, if possible, a +share in her husband's pleasures.</p> + +<p>Quietly, yet swiftly, a certain peaceful familiarity had established +itself between Hesper and Mary, to which the perfect balance of the +latter and her sense of the only true foundation of her position +contributed far more than the undefined partiality of the former. The +possibility of such a conversation as I am now going to set down was +one of the results.</p> + +<p>"Do you like Mr. Helmer, ma'am?" asked Mary one morning, as she was +brushing her hair.</p> + +<p>"Very well. How do you know anything of him?"</p> + +<p>"Not many people within ten miles of Testbridge do not know Mr. +Helmer," answered Mary.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I remember," said Hesper. "He used to ride about on a +long-legged horse, and talked to anybody that would listen to him. But +there was always something pleasing about him, and he is much improved. +Do you know, he is considered really very clever?"</p> + +<p>"I am not surprised," rejoined Mary. "He used to be rather foolish, and +that is a sign of cleverness—at least, many clever people are foolish, +I think."</p> + +<p>"You can't have had much opportunity for making the observation, Mary!"</p> + +<p>"Clever people think as much of themselves in the country as they do in +London, and that is what makes them foolish," returned Mary. "But I +used to think Mr. Helmer had very good points, and was worth doing +something for—if one only knew what."</p> + +<p>"He does not seem to want anything done for him," said Hesper.</p> + +<p>"I know one thing <i>you</i> could do for him, and it would be no trouble," +said Mary.</p> + +<p>"I will do anything for anybody that is no trouble," answered Hesper. +"I should like to know something that is no trouble."</p> + +<p>"It is only, the next time you ask him, to ask his wife," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"He is married, then?" returned Hesper with indifference. "Is the woman +presentable? Some shopkeeper's daughter, I suppose!"</p> + +<p>Mary laughed. "You don't imagine the son of a lawyer would be likely to +marry a shopkeeper's daughter!" she said.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" returned Hesper, with a look of non-intelligence.</p> + +<p>"Because a professional man is so far above a tradesman."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Hesper. "—But he should have told me if he wanted to bring +his wife with him. I don't care who she is, so long as she dresses +decently and holds her tongue. What are you laughing at, Mary?"</p> + +<p>Hesper called it laughing, but Mary was only smiling.</p> + +<p>"I can't help being amused," answered Mary, "that you should think it +such an out-of-the-way thing to be a shopkeeper's daughter, and here am +I all the time, feeling quite comfortable, and proud of the shopkeeper +whose daughter I am."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I beg your pardon," exclaimed Hesper, growing hot for, I almost +believe, the first time in her life, and therein, I fear, showing a +drop of bad blood from somewhere, probably her father's side of the +creation; for not even the sense of having hurt the feelings of an +inferior can make the thoroughbred woman of the world aware of the +least discomfort; and here was Hesper, not only feeling like a woman of +God's making, but actually showing it!—"How cruel of me!" she went on. +"But, you see, I never think of you—when I am talking to you—as—as +one of that class!"</p> + +<p>Mary laughed outright this time: she was amused, and thought it better +to show it, for that would show also she was not hurt. Hesper, however, +put it down to insensibility.</p> + +<p>"Surely, dear Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, "you can not think the class to +which I belong in itself so objectionable that it is rude to refer to +it in my hearing!"</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry," repeated Hesper, but in a tone of some offense: it +was one thing to confess a fault; another to be regarded as actually +guilty of the fault. "Nothing was further from my intention than to +offend you. I have not a doubt that shopkeepers are a most respectable +class in their way—"</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, dear Mrs. Redmain," said Mary again, "but you quite mistake +me. I am not in the least offended. I don't care what you think of the +class. There are a great many shopkeepers who are anything but +respectable—as bad, indeed, as any of the nobility."</p> + +<p>"I was not thinking of morals," answered Hesper. "In that, I dare say, +all classes are pretty much alike. But, of course, there are +differences."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps one of them is, that, in our class, we make respectability +more a question of the individual than you do in yours."</p> + +<p>"That may be very true," returned Hesper. "So long as a man behaves +himself, we ask no questions."</p> + +<p>"Will you let me tell you how the thing looks to me?" said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Certainly. You do not suppose I care for the opinions of the people +about me! I, too, have my way of looking at things."</p> + +<p>So said Hesper; yet it was just the opinions of the people about her +that ruled all those of her actions that could be said to be ruled at +all. No one boasts of freedom except the willing slave—the man so +utterly a slave that he feels nothing irksome in his fetters. Yet, +perhaps, but for the opinions of those about her, Hesper would have +been worse than she was.</p> + +<p>"Am I right, then, in thinking," began Mary, "that people of your class +care only that a man should wear the look of a gentleman, and carry +himself like one?—that, whether his appearance be a reality or a mask, +you do not care, so long as no mask is removed in your company?—that +he may be the lowest of men, but, so long as other people receive him, +you will, too, counting him good enough?"</p> + +<p>Hesper held her peace. She had by this time learned some facts +concerning the man she had married which, beside Mary's question, were +embarrassing.</p> + +<p>"It is interesting," she said at length, "to know how the different +classes in a country regard each other." But she spoke wearily: it was +interesting in the abstract, not interesting to her.</p> + +<p>"The way to try a man," said Mary, "would be to turn him the other way, +as I saw the gentleman who is taking your portrait do yesterday trying +a square—change his position quite, I mean, and mark how far he +continued to look a true man. He would show something of his real self +then, I think. Make a nobleman a shopkeeper, for instance, and see what +kind of a shopkeeper he made. If he showed himself just as honorable +when a shopkeeper as he had seemed when a nobleman, there would be good +reason for counting him an honorable man."</p> + +<p>"What odd fancies you have, Mary!" said Hesper, yawning.</p> + +<p>"I know my father would have been as honorable as a nobleman as he was +when a shopkeeper," persisted Mary.</p> + +<p>"That I can well believe—he was your father," said Hesper, kindly, +meaning what she said, too, so far as her poor understanding of the +honorable reached.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind telling me," asked Mary, "how you would define the +difference between a nobleman and a shopkeeper?"</p> + +<p>Hesper thought a little. The question to her was a stupid one. She had +never had interest enough in humanity to care a straw what any +shopkeeper ever thought or felt. Such people inhabited a region so far +below her as to be practically out of her sight. They were not of her +kind. It had never occurred to her that life must look to them much as +it looked to her; that, like Shylock, they had feelings, and would +bleed if cut with a knife. But, although she was not interested, she +peered about sleepily for an answer. Her thoughts, in a lazy fashion, +tumbled in her, like waves without wind—which, indeed, was all the +sort of thinking she knew. At last, with the decision of conscious +superiority, and the judicial air afforded by the precision of +utterance belonging to her class—a precision so strangely conjoined +with the lack of truth and logic both—she said, in a tone that gave to +the merest puerility the consequence of a judgment between contending +sages:</p> + +<p>"The difference is, that the nobleman is born to ease and dignity and +affluence, and the—shopkeeper to buy and sell for his living."</p> + +<p>"Many a nobleman," suggested Mary, "buys and sells without the +necessity of making a living."</p> + +<p>"That is the difference," said Hesper.</p> + +<p>"Then the nobleman buys and sells to make money, and the shopkeeper to +make a living?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," granted Hesper, lazily.</p> + +<p>"Which is the nobler end—to live, or to make money?" But this question +was too far beyond Hesper. She did not even choose to hear it.</p> + +<p>"And," she said, resuming her definition instead, "the nobleman deals +with great things, the shopkeeper with small."</p> + +<p>"When things are finally settled," said Mary—"Gracious, Mary!" cried +Hesper, "what do you mean? Are not things settled for good this many a +century? I am afraid I have been harboring an awful radical!—a—what +do they call it?—a communist!"</p> + +<p>She would have turned the whole matter out of doors, for she was tired +of it.</p> + +<p>"Things hardly look as if they were going to remain just as they are at +this precise moment," said Mary. "How could they, when, from the very +making of the world, they have been going on changing and changing, +hardly ever even seeming to standstill?"</p> + +<p>"You frighten me, Mary! You will do something terrible in my house, and +I shall get the blame of it!" said Hesper, laughing.</p> + +<p>But she did in truth feel a little uncomfortable. The shadow of dismay, +a formless apprehension overclouded her. Mary's words recalled +sentiments which at home she had heard alluded to with horror; and, +however little parents may be loved or respected by their children, +their opinions will yet settle, and, until they are driven out by +better or worse, will cling.</p> + +<p>"When I tell you what I was really thinking of, you will not be alarmed +at my opinions," said Mary, not laughing now, but smiling a deep, sweet +smile; "I do not believe there ever will be any settlement of things +but one; they can not and must not stop changing, until the kingdom of +heaven is come. Into that they must change, and rest."</p> + +<p>"You are leaving politics for religion now, Mary. That is the one fault +I have to find with you—you won't keep things in their own places! You +are always mixing them up—like that Mrs.—what's her name?—who will +mix religion and love in her novels, though everybody tells her they +have nothing to do with each other! It is so irreverent!"</p> + +<p>"Is it irreverent to believe that God rules the world he made, and that +he is bringing things to his own mind in it?"</p> + +<p>"You can't persuade me religion means turning things upside down."</p> + +<p>"It means that a good deal more than people think. Did not our Lord say +that many that are first shall be last, and the last first?"</p> + +<p>"What has that to do with this nineteenth century?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps that the honorable shopkeeper and the mean nobleman will one +day change places."</p> + +<p>"Oh," thought Hesper, "that is why the lower classes take so to +religion!" But what she said was: "Oh, yes, I dare say! But everything +then will be so different that it won't signify. When we are all +angels, nobody will care who is first, and who is last. I'm sure, for +one, it won't be anything to me."</p> + +<p>Hesper was a tolerable attendant at church—I will not say whether high +or low church, because I should be supposed to care.</p> + +<p>"In the kingdom of heaven," answered Mary, "things will always look +what they are. My father used to say people will grow their own dresses +there, as surely as a leopard his spots. He had to do with dresses, you +know. There, not only will an honorable man look honorable, but a mean +or less honorable man must look what he is."</p> + +<p>"There will be nobody mean there."</p> + +<p>"Then a good many won't be there who are called honorable here."</p> + +<p>"I have no doubt there will be a good deal of allowance made for some +people," said Hesper. "Society makes such demands!"</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.<br /><br /> +THE INVITATION.</h3> + +<p>When Letty received Mrs. Redmain's card, inviting her with her husband +to an evening party, it raised in her a bewildered flutter—of +pleasure, of fear, of pride, of shyness, of dismay: how dared she show +her face in such a grand assembly? She would not know a bit how to +behave herself! But it was impossible, for she had no dress fit to go +anywhere! What would Tom say if she looked a dowdy? He would be ashamed +of her, and she dared not think what might come of it!</p> + +<p>But close upon the postman came Mary, and a long talk followed. Letty +was full of trembling delight, but Mary was not a little anxious with +herself how Tom would take it.</p> + +<p>The first matter, however, was Letty's dress. She had no money, and +seemed afraid to ask for any. The distance between her and her husband +had been widening.</p> + +<p>Their council of ways and means lasted a good while, including many +digressions. At last, though unwillingly, Letty accepted Mary's +proposal that a certain dress, her best indeed, though she did not say +so, which she had scarcely worn, and was not likely to miss, should be +made to fit Letty. It was a lovely black silk, the best her father had +been able to choose for her the last time he was in London. A little +pang did shoot through her heart at the thought of parting with it, but +she had too much of that father in her not to know that the greatest +honor that can be shown any <i>thing</i> , is to make it serve a <i>person</i> ; +that the dearest gift of love, withheld from human necessity, is handed +over to the moth and the rust. But little idea had Letty, much as she +appreciated her kindness, what a sacrifice Mary was making for her that +she might look her own sweet self, and worthy of her renowned Tom!</p> + +<p>When Tom came home that night, however, the look of the world and all +that is in it changed speedily for Letty, and terribly. He arrived in +great good humor—somebody had been praising his verses, and the joy of +the praise overflowed on his wife. But when, pleased as any little girl +with the prospect of a party and a new frock, she told him, with +gleeful gratitude, of the invitation and the heavenly kindness which +had rendered it possible for her to accept it, the countenance of the +great man changed. He rejected the idea of her going with him to any +gathering of his grand friends—objected most of all to her going to +Mrs. Redmain's. Alas! he had begun to allow to himself that he had +married in too great haste—and beneath him. Wherever he went, his wife +could be no credit to him, and her presence would take from him all +sense of liberty! Not choosing, however, to acknowledge either of these +objections, and not willing, besides, to appear selfish in the eyes of +the woman who had given herself to him, he was only too glad to put all +upon another, to him equally genuine ground. Controlling his irritation +for the moment, he set forth with lordly kindness the absolute +impossibility of accepting such an offer as Mary's. Could she for a +moment imagine, he said, that he would degrade himself by taking his +wife out in a dress that was not her own?</p> + +<p>Here Letty interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"Mary has given me the dress," she sobbed, "—for my very own."</p> + +<p>"A second-hand dress! A dress that has been worn!" cried Tom. "How +could you dream of insulting me so? The thing is absolutely impossible. +Why, Letty, just think!—There should I be, going about as if the house +were my own, and there would be my wife in the next room, or perhaps at +my elbow, dressed in the finery of the lady's-maid of the house! It +won't bear thinking of! I declare it makes me so ashamed, as I lie +here, that I feel my face quite hot in the dark! To have to reason +about such a thing—with my own wife, too!"</p> + +<p>"It's not finery," sobbed Letty, laying hold of the one fact within her +reach; "it's a beautiful black silk."</p> + +<p>"It matters not a straw what it is," persisted Tom, adding humbug to +cruelty. "You would be nothing but a sham!—A live dishonesty! A +jackdaw in peacock's feathers!—I am sorry, Letty, your own sense of +truth and uprightness should not prevent even the passing desire to act +such a lie. Your fine dress would be just a fine fib—yourself would be +but a walking fib. I have been taking too much for granted with you: I +must bring you no more novels. A volume or two of Carlyle is what <i>you</i> +want."</p> + +<p>This was too much. To lose her novels and her new dress together, and +be threatened with nasty moral medicine—for she had never read a word +of Carlyle beyond his translation of that dream of Richter's, and +imagined him dry as a sand-pit—was bad enough, but to be so reproved +by her husband was more than she could bear. If she was a silly and +ignorant creature, she had the heart of a woman-child; and that +precious thing in the sight of God, wounded and bruised by the husband +in whom lay all her pride, went on beating laboriously for him only. +She did not blame him. Anything was better than that. The dear, simple +soul had a horror of rebuke. It would break hedges and climb stone +walls to get out of the path of judgment—ten times more eagerly if her +husband were the judge. She wept and wailed like a sick child, until at +length the hard heart of selfish Tom was touched, and he sought, after +the fashion of a foolish mother, to read the inconsolable a lesson of +wisdom. But the truer a heart, the harder it is to console with the +false. By and by, however, sleep, the truest of things, did for her +what even the blandishments of her husband could not.</p> + +<p>When she woke in the morning, he was gone: he had thought of an +emendation in a poem that had been set up the day before, and made +haste to the office, lest it should be printed without the precious +betterment.</p> + +<p>Mary came before noon, and found sadness where she had left joy. When +she had heard as much as Letty thought proper to tell her, she was +filled with indignation, and her first thought was to compass the +tyrant's own exclusion from the paradise whose gates he closed against +his wife. But second thoughts are sometimes best, and she saw the next +moment not only that punishment did not belong to her, but that the +weight of such would fall on Letty. The sole thing she could think of +to comfort her was, to ask her to spend the same evening with her in +her room. The proposal brightened Letty up at once: some time or other +in the course of the evening she would, she fancied, see, or at least +catch a glimpse of Tom in his glory!</p> + +<p>The evening came, and with beating heart Letty went up the back stairs +to Mary's room. She was dressing her mistress, but did not keep her +waiting long. She had provided tea beforehand, and, when Mrs. Redmain +had gone down, the two friends had a pleasant while together. Mary took +Letty to Mrs. Redmain's room while she put away her things, and there +showed her many splendors, which, moving no envy in her simple heart, +yet made her sad, thinking of Tom. As she passed to the drawing-room, +Sepia looked in, and saw them together.</p> + +<p>But, as the company kept arriving, Letty grew very restless. She could +not talk of anything for two minutes together, but kept creeping out of +the room and half-way down the stair, to look over the banister-rail, +and have a bird's-eye peep of a portion of the great landing, where +indeed she caught many a glimpse of beauty and state, but never a +glimpse of her Tom. Alas! she could not even imagine herself near him. +What she saw made her feel as if her idol were miles away, and she +could never draw nigh him again. How should the familiar associate of +such splendid creatures care a pin's point for his humdrum wife?</p> + +<p>Worn out at last, and thoroughly disappointed, she wanted to go home. +It was then past midnight. Mary went with her, and saw her safe in bed +before she left her.</p> + +<p>As she went up to her room on her return, she saw, through the door by +which the gardener entered the conservatory, Sepia standing there, and +Tom, with flushed face, talking to her eagerly.</p> + +<p>Letty cried herself to sleep, and dreamed that Tom had disowned her +before a great company of grand ladies, who mocked her from their sight.</p> + +<p>Tom came home while she slept, and in the morning was cross and +miserable—in part, because he had been so abominably selfish to her. +But the moment that, half frightened, half hopeful, she told him where +she was the night before, he broke into the worst anger he had ever yet +shown her. His shameful pride could not brook the idea that, where he +was a guest, his wife was entertained by one of the domestics!</p> + +<p>"How dare you be guilty of such a disgraceful thing!" he cried.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't, Tom—dear Tom!" pleaded Letty in terror. "It was you I +wanted to see—not the great people, Tom! I don't care if I never see +one of them again."</p> + +<p>"Why should you ever see one of them again, I should like to know! What +are they to you, or you to them?"</p> + +<p>"But you know I was asked to go, Tom!"</p> + +<p>"You're not such a fool as to fancy they cared about you! Everybody +knows they are the most heartless set of people in the world!"</p> + +<p>"Then why do you go, Tom?" said Letty, innocently.</p> + +<p>"That's quite another thing! A man has to cultivate connections his +wife need not know anything about. It is one of the necessities laid on +my position."</p> + +<p>Letty supposed it all truer than it was either intelligible or +pleasant, and said no more, but let poor, self-abused, fine-fellow Tom +scold and argue and reason away till he was tired. She was not sullen, +but bewildered and worn out. He got up, and left her without a word.</p> + +<p>Even at the risk of hurt to his dignity, of which there was no danger +from the presence of his sweet, modest little wife in the best of +company, it had been well for Tom to have allowed Letty the pleasure +within her reach; for that night Sepia's artillery played on him +ruthlessly. It may have been merely for her amusement—time, you see, +moves so slowly with such as have no necessities they must themselves +supply, and recognize no duties they must perform: without those two +main pillars of life, necessity and duty, how shall the temple stand, +when the huge, weary Samson comes tugging at it? The wonder is, there +is not a great deal more wickedness in the world. For listlessness and +boredness and nothing-to-do-ness are the best of soils for the breeding +of the worms that never stop gnawing. Anyhow, Sepia had flashed on Tom, +the tinder of Tom's heart had responded, and, any day when Sepia chose, +she might blow up a wicked as well as foolish flame; nor, if it should +suit her purpose, was Sepia one to hesitate in the use of the fire-fan. +All the way home, her eyes haunted him, and it is a more dreadful thing +than most are aware to be haunted by anything, good or bad, except the +being who is our life. And those eyes, though not good, were beautiful. +Evil, it is true, has neither part nor lot in beauty; it is absolutely +hostile to it, and will at last destroy it utterly; but the process is +a long one, so long that many imagine badness and beauty vitally +associable. Tom yielded to the haunting, and it was in part the fault +of those eyes that he used such hard words to his wife in the morning. +Wives have not seldom to suffer sorely for discomforts and wrongs in +their husbands of which they know nothing. But the thing will be set +right one day, and in a better fashion than if all the woman's-rights' +committees in the world had their will of the matter.</p> + +<p>About this time, from the top, left-hand corner of the last page of +"The Firefly," it appeared that Twilight had given place to Night; for +the first of many verses began to show themselves, in which Twilight, +or Hesper, or Vesper, or the Evening Star, was no more once mentioned, +but only and al-ways Nox, or Hecate, or the dark Diana. <i>Tenebrious</i> +was a great word with Tom about this time. He was very fond, also, of +the word <i>interlunar</i> . I will not trouble my reader with any specimen +of the outcome of Tom's new inspiration, partly for this reason, that +the verses not unfrequently came so near being good, nay, sometimes +were really so good, that I do not choose to set them down where they +would be treated with a mockery they do not in themselves deserve. He +did not direct his wife's attention to them, nor did he compose them at +home or at the office. Mostly he wrote them between acts at the +theatre, or in any public place where something in which he was not +interested was going on.</p> + +<p>Of all that read them, and here was a Nemesis awful in justice, there +was not one less moved by them than she who had inspired them. She saw +in them, it is true, a reflex of her own power—and that pleased, but +it did not move her. She took the devotion and pocketed it, as a greedy +boy might an orange or bull's-eye. The verses in which Tom delighted +were but the merest noise in the ears of the lady to whom of all he +would have had them acceptable. One momentary revelation as to how she +regarded them would have been enough to release him from his foolish +enthrallment. Indignation, chagrin, and mortification would have soon +been the death of such poor love as Tom's.</p> + +<p>Mary and Sepia were on terms of politeness—of readiness to help on the +one side, and condescension upon the other. Sepia would have +condescended to the Mother Mary. The pure human was an idea beyond her, +as beyond most people. They have not enough <i>religion</i> toward God to +know there is such a thing as religion toward their neighbor. But Sepia +never made an enemy-if she could help it. She could not afford the +luxury of hating—openly, at least. But I imagine she would have hated +Mary heartily could she have seen the way she regarded her—the look of +pitiful love, of compassionate and waiting helpfulness which her soul +would now and then cast upon her. Of all things she would have resented +pity; and she took Mary's readiness to help for servility—and +naturally, seeing in herself willingness came from nothing else, though +she called it prudence and necessity, and knew no shame because of it. +Her children justify the heavenly wisdom, but the worldly wisdom +justifies her children. Mary could not but feel how Sepia regarded her +service, but service, to be true, must be divine, that is, to the just +and the unjust, like the sun and the rain.</p> + +<p>Between Sepia and Mr. Redmain continued a distance too great for either +difference or misunderstanding. They met with a cold good morning, and +parted without any good night. Their few words were polite, and their +demeanor was civil. At the breakfast-table, Sepia would silently pass +things to Mr. Redmain; Mr. Redmain would thank her, but never trouble +himself to do as much for her. His attentions, indeed, were seldom +wasted at home; but he was not often rude to anybody save his wife and +his man, except when he was ill.</p> + +<p>It was a long time before he began to feel any interest in Mary. He +knew nothing of her save as a nice-looking maid his wife had +got—rather a prim-looking puss, he would have said, had he had +occasion to describe her. What Mary knew of him was merely the +reflection of him in the mind of his wife; but, the first time she saw +him, she felt she would rather not have to speak to him.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.<br /><br /> +A STRAY SOUND.</h3> + +<p>Mary went to see Letty as often as she could, and that was not seldom; +but she had scarcely a chance of seeing Tom; either he was not up, or +had gone—to the office, Letty supposed: she had no more idea of where +the office was, or of the other localities haunted by Tom, than he +himself had of what spirit he was of.</p> + +<p>One day, when Mary could not help remarking upon her pale, weary looks, +Letty burst into tears, and confided to her a secret of which she was +not the less proud that it caused her anxiety and fear. As soon as she +began to talk about it, the joy of its hope began to predominate, and +before Mary left her she might have seemed to a stranger the most +blessed little creature in the world. The greatness of her delight made +Mary sad for her. To any thoughtful heart it must be sad to think what +a little time the joy of so many mothers lasts—not because their +babies die, but because they live; but Mary's mournfulness was caused +by the fear that the splendid dawn of mother-hope would soon be +swallowed in dismal clouds of father-fault. For mothers and for wives +there is no redemption, no unchaining of love, save by the coming of +the kingdom—<i>in themselves</i> . Oh! why do not mothers, sore-hearted +mothers at least, if none else on the face of the earth, rush to the +feet of the Son of Mary?</p> + +<p>Yet every birth is but another link in the golden chain by which the +world shall be lifted to the feet of God. It is only by the birth of +new children, ever fresh material for the creative Spirit of the Son of +Man to work upon, that the world can finally be redeemed. Letty had no +<i>ideas</i> about children, only the usual instincts of appropriation and +indulgence; Mary had a few, for she recalled with delight some of her +father's ways with herself. Him she knew as, next to God, the source of +her life, so well had he fulfilled that first duty of all parents—the +transmission of life. About such things she tried to talk to Letty, but +soon perceived that not a particle of her thought found its way into +Letty's mind: she cared nothing for any duty concerned—only for the +joy of being a mother.</p> + +<p>She grew paler yet and thinner; dark hollows came about her eyes; she +was parting with life to give it to her child; she lost the girlish +gayety Tom used to admire, and the something more lovely that was +taking its place he was not capable of seeing. He gave her less and +less of his company. His countenance did not shine on her; in her heart +she grew aware that she feared him, and, ever as she shrunk, he +withdrew. Had it not now been for Mary, she would likely have died. She +did all for her that friend could. As often as she seemed able, she +would take her for a drive, or on the river, that the wind, like a +sensible presence of God, might blow upon her, and give her fresh life +to take home with her. So little progress did she make with Hesper, +that she could not help thinking it must have been for Letty's sake she +was allowed to go to London.</p> + +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Redmain went again to Durnmelling, but Mary begged Hesper +to leave her behind. She told her the reason, without mentioning the +name of the friend she desired to tend. Hesper shrugged her shoulders, +as much as to say she wondered at her taste; but she did not believe +that was in reality the cause of her wish, and, setting herself to find +another, concluded she did not choose to show herself at Testbridge in +her new position, and, afraid of losing if she opposed her, let her +have her way. Nor, indeed, was she so necessary to her at Durnmelling, +where there were few visitors, and comparatively little dressing was +required: for the mere routine of such ordinary days, Jemima was +enough, who, now and then called by Mary to her aid, had proved herself +handy and capable, and had learned much. So, all through the hottest of +the late summer and autumn weather, Mary remained in London, where +every pavement seemed like the floor of a baker's oven, and, for all +the life with which the city swarmed, the little winds that wandered +through it seemed to have lost their vitality. How she longed for the +common and the fields and the woods, where the very essence of life +seemed to dwell in the atmosphere even when stillest, and the joy that +came pouring from the throats of the birds seemed to flow first from +her own soul into them! The very streets and lanes of Testbridge looked +like paradise to Mary in Lon-don. But she never wished herself in the +shop again, although almost every night she dreamed of the glad old +time when her father was in it with her, and when, although they might +not speak from morning to night, their souls kept talking across crowd +and counters, and each was always aware of the other's supporting +presence.</p> + +<p>Longing, however, is not necessarily pain—it may, indeed, be intensest +bliss; and, if Mary longed for the freedom of the country, it was not +to be miserable that she could not have it. Her mere thought of it was +to her a greater delight than the presence of all its joys is to many +who desire them the most. That such things, and the possibility of such +sensations from them, should be in the world, was enough to make Mary +jubilant. But, then, she was at peace with her conscience, and had her +heart full of loving duty. Besides, an active patience is a heavenly +power. Mary could not only walk along a pavement dry and lifeless as +the Sahara, enjoying the summer that brooded all about and beyond the +city, but she bore the re-freshment of blowing winds and running waters +into Letty's hot room, with the clanging street in front, and the +little yard behind, where, from a cord stretched across between the +walls, hung a few pieces of ill-washed linen, motionless in the glare, +two plump sparrows picking up crumbs in their shadow—into this live +death Mary would carry a tone of breeze, and sailing cloud, and swaying +tree-top. In her the life was so concentrated and active that she was +capable of communicating life—the highest of human endowments.</p> + +<p>One evening, as Letty was telling her how the dressmaker up stairs had +been for some time unwell, and Mary was feeling reproachful that she +had not told her before, that she might have seen what she could do for +her, they became aware, it seemed gradually, of one softest, sweetest, +faintest music-tone coming from somewhere—but not seeming sufficiently +of this world to disclose whence. Mary went to the window: there was +nothing capable of music within sight. It came again; and +intermittingly came and came. For some time they would hear nothing at +all, and then again the most delicate of tones would creep into their +ears, bringing with it more, it seemed to Mary in the surprise of its +sweetness, than she could have believed single tone capable of +carrying. Once or twice a few consecutive sounds made a division +strangely sweet; and then again, for a time, nothing would reach them +but a note here and a note there of what she was fain to imagine a +wonderful melody. The visitation lasted for about an hour, then ceased. +Letty went to bed, and all night long dreamed she heard the angels +calling her. She woke weeping that her time was come so early, while as +yet she had tasted so little of the pleasure of life. But the truth +was, she had as yet, poor child, got so little of the <i>good</i> of life, +that it was not at all time for her to go.</p> + +<p>When her hour drew near, Tom condescended—unwillingly, I am sorry to +say, for he did not take the trouble to understand her feelings—to +leave word where he might be found if he should be wanted. Even this +assuagement of her fears Letty had to plead for; Mary's being so much +with her was to him reason, and he made it excuse, for absence; he had +begun to dread Mary. Nor, when at length he was sent for, was he in any +great haste; all was well over ere he arrived. But he was a little +touched when, drawing his face down to hers, she feebly whispered, +"He's as like to you, Tom, as ever small thing was to great!" She saw +the slight emotion, and fell asleep comforted.</p> + +<p>It was night when she woke. Mary was sitting by her.</p> + +<p>"O Mary!" she cried, "the angels have been calling me again. Did you +hear them?"</p> + +<p>"No," answered Mary, a little coldly, for, if ever she was inclined to +be hard, it was toward self-sentiment. "Why do you think the angels +should call you? Do you suppose them very desirous of your company?"</p> + +<p>"They do call people," returned Letty, almost crying; "and I don't know +why they mightn't call me. I'm not such a very wicked person!"</p> + +<p>Mary's heart smote her; she was refusing Letty the time God was giving +her! She could not wake her up, and, while God was waking her, she was +impatient!</p> + +<p>"I heard the call, too, Letty," she said; "but it was not the angels. +It was the same instrument we heard the other night. Who can there be +in the house to play like that? It was clearer this time. I thought I +could listen to it a whole year."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you wake me?" said Letty.</p> + +<p>"Because the more you sleep the better. And the doctor says I mustn't +let you talk. I will get you something, and then you must go to sleep +again."</p> + +<p>Tom did not appear any more that night; and, if they had wanted him +now, they would not have known where to find him. He was about nothing +very bad—only supping with some friends—such friends as he did not +even care to tell that he had a son.</p> + +<p>He was ashamed of being in London at this time of the year, and, but +that he had not money enough to go anywhere except to his mother's, he +would have gone, and left Letty to shift for herself.</p> + +<p>With his child he was pleased, and would not seldom take him for a few +moments; but, when he cried, he was cross with him, and showed himself +the unreasonable baby of the two.</p> + +<p>The angels did not want Letty just yet, and she slowly recovered.</p> + +<p>For Mary it was a peaceful time. She was able to read a good deal, and, +although there were no books in Mr. Redmain's house, she generally +succeeded in getting such as she wanted. She was able also to practice +as much as she pleased, for now the grand piano was entirely at her +service, and she took the opportunity of having a lesson every day.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.<br /><br /> +THE MUSICIAN.</h3> + +<p>One evening, soon after the baby's arrival, as Mary sat with him in her +lap, the sweet tones they had heard twice before came creeping into her +ears so gently that she seemed to be aware of their presence only after +they had been for some time coming and going: she laid the baby down, +and, stealing from the room, listened on the landing. Certainly the +sounds were born in the house, but whether they came from below or +above she could not tell. Going first down the stair, and then up, she +soon satisfied herself that they came from above, and thereupon +ventured a little farther up the stair.</p> + +<p>She had already been to see the dressmaker, whom she had come to know +through the making of Hesper's twilight robe of cloud, had found her +far from well, and had done what she could for her. But she was in no +want, and of more than ordinary independence—a Yorkshire woman, about +forty years of age, delicate, but of great patience and courage; a +plain, fair, freckled woman, with a belief in religion rather than in +God. Very strict, therefore, in her observances, she thought a great +deal more of the Sabbath than of man, a great deal more of the Bible +than of the truth, and ten times more of her creed than of the will of +God; and, had she heard any one utter such words as I have just +written, would have said he was an atheist. She was a worthy creature, +notwithstanding, only very unpleasant if one happened to step on the +toes of a pet ignorance. Mary soon discovered that there was no profit +in talking with her on the subjects she loved most: plainly she knew +little about them, except at second hand—that is, through the forms of +other minds than her own. Such people seem intended for the special +furtherance of the saints in patience; being utterly unassailable by +reason, they are especially trying to those who desire to stand on +brotherly terms with all men, and so are the more sensitive to the +rudeness that always goes with moral stupidity; intellectual stupidity +may coexist with the loveliness of an angel. It is one of the blessed +hopes of the world to come, that there will be none such in it. But why +so many words? I say to myself, Will one of such as I mean recognize +his portrait in my sketch? Many such have I met in my young days, and +in my old days I find they swarm still. I could wish that all such had +to earn their own bread like Ann Byron: had she been rich, she would +have been unbearable. Women like her, when they are well to do, walk +with a manly stride, make the tails of their dresses go like the screw +of a steamer behind them, and are not unfrequently Scotch.</p> + +<p>As Mary went up, the music ceased; but, hoping Miss Byrom would be able +to enlighten her concerning its source, she continued her ascent, and +knocked at her door. A voice, rather wooden, yet not without character, +invited her to enter.</p> + +<p>Ann sat near the window, for, although it was quite dusk, a little use +might yet be made of the lingering ghost of the daylight. Almost all +Mary could see of her was the reflection from the round eyes of a pair +of horn spectacles.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Miss Byrom?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Not at all well," answered Ann, almost in a tone of offense.</p> + +<p>"Is there nothing I can do for you?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"We are to owe no man anything but love, the apostle tells us."</p> + +<p>"You must owe a good deal of that, then," said Mary, one part vexed, +and two parts amused, "for you don't seem to pay much of it."</p> + +<p>She was just beginning to be sorry for what she had said when she was +startled by a sound, very like a little laugh, which seemed to come +from behind her. She turned quickly, but, before she could see anything +through the darkness, the softest of violin-tones thrilled the air +close beside her, and then she saw, seated on the corner of Ann's bed, +the figure of a man—young or old, she could not tell. How could he +have kept so still! His bow was wandering slowly about over the strings +of his violin; but presently, having overcome, as it seemed, with the +help of his instrument, his inclination to laugh, he ceased, and all +was still.</p> + +<p>"I came," said Mary, turning again to Ann, "hoping you might be able to +tell me where the sweet sounds came from which we have heard now two or +three times; but I had no idea there was any one in the room besides +yourself.—They come at intervals a great deal too long," she added, +turning toward the figure in the darkness.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid my ear is out sometimes," said the man, mistaking her +remark. "I think it comes of the anvil."</p> + +<p>The voice was manly, though gentle, and gave an impression of utter +directness and simplicity. It was Mary's turn, however, not to +understand, and she made no answer.</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry," the musician went on, "if I annoyed you, miss."</p> + +<p>Mary was hastening to assure him that the fact was quite the other way, +when Ann prevented her.</p> + +<p>"I told you so!" she said; "<i>you</i> make an idol of your foolish +plaything, but other people take it only for the nuisance it is."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, you never were more mistaken," said Mary. "Both Mrs. Helmer +and myself are charmed with the little that reaches us. It is, indeed, +seldom one hears tones of such purity."</p> + +<p>The player responded with a sigh of pleasure.</p> + +<p>"Now there you are, miss," cried Ann, "a-flattering of his folly till +not a word I say will be of the smallest use!"</p> + +<p>"If your words are not wise," said Mary, with suppressed indignation, +"the less he heeds them the better."</p> + +<p>"It ain't wise, to my judgment, miss, to make a man think himself +something when he is nothing. It's quite enough a man should deceive +his own self, without another to come and help him."</p> + +<p>"To speak the truth is not to deceive," replied Mary. "I have some +knowledge of music, and I say only what is true."</p> + +<p>"What good can it be spending his time scraping horsehair athort +catgut?"</p> + +<p>"They must fancy some good in it up in heaven," said Mary, "or they +wouldn't have so much of it there."</p> + +<p>"There ain't no fiddles in heaven," said Ann, with indignation; +"they've nothing there but harps and trumpets." Mary turned to the man, +who had not said a word.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind coming down with me," she said, "and playing a little, +very softly, to my friend? She has a little baby, and is not strong. It +would do her good."</p> + +<p>"She'd better read her Bible," said Ann, who, finding she could no +longer see, was lighting a candle.</p> + +<p>"She does read her Bible," returned Mary; "and a little music would, +perhaps, help her to read it to better purpose."</p> + +<p>"There, Ann!" cried the player.</p> + +<p>The woman replied with a scornful grunt.</p> + +<p>"Two fools don't make a wise man, for all the franchise," she said.</p> + +<p>But Mary had once more turned toward the musician, and in the light of +the candle was met by a pair of black eyes, keen yet soft, looking out +from tinder an overhanging ridge of forehead. The rest of the face was +in shadow, but she could see by the whiteness, through a beard that +clouded all the lower part of it, that he was smiling to himself: Mary +had said what pleased him, and his eyes sought her face, and seemed to +rest on it with a kind of trust, and a look as if he was ready to do +whatever she might ask of him.</p> + +<p>"You will come?" said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Yes, miss, with all my heart," he replied, and flashed a full smile +that rested upon Ann, and seemed to say he knew her not so hard as she +looked.</p> + +<p>Rising, he tucked his violin under his arm, and showed himself ready to +follow.</p> + +<p>"Good night, Miss Byrom," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Good night, miss," returned Ann, grimly. "I'm sorry for you both, +miss. But, until the spirit is poured out from on high, it's nothing +but a stumbling in the dark."</p> + +<p>This last utterance was a reflection rather than a remark.</p> + +<p>Mary made no reply. She did not care to have the last word; nor did she +fancy her cause lost when she had not at hand the answer that befitted +folly. She ran down the stair, and at the bottom stood waiting her new +acquaintance, who descended more slowly, careful not to make a noise.</p> + +<p>She could now see, by the gaslight that burned on the landing, a little +more of what the man was. He was powerfully built, rather over middle +height, and about the age of thirty. His complexion was dark, and the +hand that held the bow looked grimy. He bore himself well, but a little +stiffly, with a care over his violin like that of a man carrying a +baby. He was decidedly handsome, in a rugged way—mouth and chin but +hinted through a thick beard of darkest brown.</p> + +<p>"Come this way," said Mary, leading him into Letty's parlor. "I will +tell my friend you are come. Her room, you see, opens off this, and she +will hear you delightfully. Pray, take a seat."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, miss," said the man, but remained standing.</p> + +<p>"I have caught the bird, Letty," said Mary, loud enough for him to +hear; "and he is come to sing a little to you—if you feel strong +enough for it."</p> + +<p>"It will do me good," said Letty. "How kind of him!"</p> + +<p>The man, having heard, was already tuning his violin when Mary came +from the bedroom, and sat down on the sofa. The instant he had got it +to his mind, he turned, and, going to the farthest corner of the room, +closed his eyes tight, and began to play.</p> + +<p>But how shall I describe that playing? how convey an idea of it, +however remote? I fear it is nothing less than presumption in me, so +great is my ignorance, to attempt the thing. But would it be right, for +dread of bringing shame upon me through failure, to leave my readers +without any notion of it at all? On the other hand, I shall, at least, +have the merit of daring to fail—a merit of which I could well be +ambitious.</p> + +<p>If, then, my reader will imagine some music-loving sylph attempting to +guide the wind among the strings of an Aeolian harp, every now and then +for a moment succeeding, and then again for a while the wind having its +own way, he will gain, I think, something like a dream-notion of the +man's playing. Mary tried hard to get hold of some clew to the +combinations and sequences, but the motive of them she could not find. +Whatever their source, there was, either in the composition itself or +in his mode of playing, not a little of the inartistic, that is, the +lawless. Yet every now and then would come a passage of exquisite +melody, owing much, however, no doubt, to the marvelous delicacy of the +player's tones, and the utterly tender expression with which he +produced them. But ever as she thought to get some insight into the +movement of the man's mind, still would she be swept away on the storm +of some change, seeming of mood incongruous.</p> + +<p>At length came a little pause. He wiped his forehead with a blue cotton +handkerchief, and seemed ready to begin again. Mary interrupted him +with the question:</p> + +<p>"Will you please tell me whose music you have been playing?"</p> + +<p>He opened his eyes, which had remained closed even while he stood +motionless, and, with a smile sweeter than any she had ever seen on +such a strong face, answered:</p> + +<p>"It's nobody's, miss."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean you have been extemporizing all this time?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know exactly what that means."</p> + +<p>"You must have learned it from notes?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't read them if I had any to read," he answered.</p> + +<p>"Then what an ear and what a memory you must have! How often have you +heard it?"</p> + +<p>"Just as often as I've played it, and no oftener. Not being able to +read, and seldom hearing any music I care for, I'm forced to be content +with what runs out at my fingers when I shut my eyes. It all comes of +shutting my eyes. I couldn't play a thing but for shutting my eyes. +It's a wonderful deal that comes of shutting your eyes! Did you never +try it, miss?"</p> + +<p>Mary was so astonished both by what he said and the simplicity with +which he said it, having clearly no notion that he was uttering +anything strange, that she was silent, and the man, after a moment's +retuning, began again to play. Then did Mary gather all her listening +powers, and brace her attention to the tightest—but at first with no +better success. And, indeed, that was not the way to understand. It +seems to me, at least, in my great ignorance, that one can not +understand music unless he is humble toward it, and consents, if need +be, not to understand. When one is quiescent, submissive, opens the +ears of the mind, and demands of them nothing more than the +hearing—when the rising waters of question retire to their bed, and +individuality is still, then the dews and rains of music, finding the +way clear for them, soak and sink through the sands of the mind, down, +far down, below the thinking-place, down to the region of music, which +is the hidden workshop of the soul, the place where lies ready the +divine material for man to go making withal.</p> + +<p>Weary at last with vain effort, she ceased to endeavor, and in a little +while was herself being molded by the music unconsciously received to +the further understanding of it. It wrought in her mind pictures, not +thoughts. It is possible, however, my later knowledge may affect my +description of what Mary then saw with her mind's eye.</p> + +<p>First there was a crowd in slow, then rapid movement. Arose cries and +entreaties. Came hurried motions, disruption, and running feet. A pause +followed. Then woke a lively melody, changing to the prayer of some +soul too grateful to find words. Next came a bar or two of what seemed +calm, lovely speech, then a few slowly delivered chords, and all was +still.</p> + +<p>She came to herself, and then first knew that, like sleep, the music +had seized her unawares, and she had been understanding, or at least +enjoying, without knowing it. The man was approaching her from his dark +corner. His face was shining, but plainly he did not intend more music, +for his violin was already under his arm. He made her a little awkward +bow—not much more than a nod, and turned to the door. He had it half +open, and not yet could Mary speak. For Letty, she was fast asleep.</p> + +<p>From the top of the stair came the voice of Ann, screaming:</p> + +<p>"Here's your hat, Joe. I knew you'd be going when you played that. +You'd have forgotten it, I know!"</p> + +<p>Mary heard the hat come tumbling down the stair.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Ann," returned Joe. "Yes, I'm going. The ladies don't care +much for my music. Nobody does but myself. But, then, it's good for +me." The last two sentences were spoken in soliloquy, but Mary heard +them, for he stood with the handle of the door in his hand. He closed +it, picked up his hat, and went softly down the stair.</p> + +<p>The spell was broken, and Mary darted to the door. But, just as she +opened it, the outer door closed behind the strange musician, and she +had not even learned his name.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.<br /><br /> +A CHANGE.</h3> + +<p>As soon as Letty had strength enough to attend to her baby without +help, Mary, to the surprise of her mistress, and the destruction of her +theory concerning her stay in London, presented herself at Durnmelling, +found that she was more welcome than looked for, and the same hour +resumed her duties about Hesper.</p> + +<p>It was with curiously mingled feelings that she gazed from her window +on the chimneys of Thornwick. How much had come to her since first, in +the summer-seat at the end of the yew-hedge, Mr. Wardour opened to her +the door of literature! It was now autumn, and the woods, to get young +again, were dying their yearly death. For the moment she felt as if +she, too, had begun to grow old. Ministration had tired her a +little—but, oh! how different its weariness from that which came of +labor amid obstruction and insult! Her heart beat a little slower, +perhaps, but she could now be sad without losing a jot of hope. Nay, +rather, the least approach of sadness would begin at once to wake her +hope. She regretted nothing that had come, nothing that had gone. She +believed more and more that not anything worth having is ever lost; +that even the most evanescent shades of feeling are safe for those who +grow after their true nature, toward that for which they were made—in +other and higher words, after the will of God.</p> + +<p>But she did for a moment taste some bitterness in her cup, when, one +day, on the footpath of Testbridge, near the place where, that +memorable Sunday, she met Mr. Wardour, she met him again, and, looking +at her, and plainly recognizing her, he passed without salutation. Like +a sudden wave the blood rose to her face, and then sank to the deeps of +her heart; and from somewhere came the conviction that one day the +destiny of Godfrey Wardour would be in her hands: he had done more for +her than any but her father; and, when that day was come, he should not +find her fail him!</p> + +<p>She was then on her way to the shop. She did not at all relish entering +it, but, as she had a large money-interest in the business; she ought +at least, she said to herself, to pay the place a visit. When she went +in, Turnbull did not at first recognize her, and, taking her for a +customer, blossomed into repulsive suavity. The change that came over +his countenance, when he knew her, was a shadow of such mingled and +conflicting shades that she felt there was something peculiar in it +which she must attempt to analyze. It remained hardly a moment to +encounter question, but was almost immediately replaced with a +politeness evidently false. Then, first, she began to be aware of +distrusting the man.</p> + +<p>Asking a few questions about the business, to which he gave answers +most satisfactory, she kept casting her eyes about the shop, unable to +account for the impression the look of it made upon her. Either her +eyes had formed for themselves another scale, and could no more rightly +judge between past and present, or the aspect of the place was +different, and not so satisfactory. Was there less in it? she asked +herself—or was it only not so well kept as when she left it? She could +not tell. Neither could she understand the profound but distant +consideration with which Mr. Turnbull endeavored to behave to her, +treating her like a stranger to whom he must, against his inclination, +manifest all possible respect, while he did not invite her even to call +at <i>the villa.</i> She bought a pair of gloves of the young woman who +seemed to occupy her place, paid for them, and left the shop without +speaking to any one else. All the time, George was standing behind the +opposite counter, staring at her; but, much to her relief, he showed no +other sign of recognition.</p> + +<p>Before she went to find Beenie, who was still at Testbridge, in a +cottage of her own, she felt she must think over these things, and +come, if possible, to some conclusion about them. She left the town, +therefore, and walked homeward.</p> + +<p>What did it all mean? She knew very well they must look down on her ten +times more than ever, because of the <i>menial</i> position in which she had +placed herself, sinking thereby beyond all pretense to be regarded as +their equal. But, if that was what the man's behavior meant, why was he +so studiously—not so much polite as respectful? That did not use to be +Mr. Turnbull's way where he looked down upon one. And, then, what did +the shadow preceding this behavior mean? Was there not in it something +more than annoyance at the sight of her? It was with an effort he +dismissed it! She had never seen that look upon him!</p> + +<p>Then there was the impression the shop made on her! Was there anything +in that? Somehow it certainly seemed to have a shabby look! Was it +possible anything was wrong or going wrong with the concern? Her father +had always spoken with great respect of Mr. Turnbull's business +faculties, but she knew he had never troubled himself to, look into the +books or know how they stood with the bank. She knew also that Mr. +Turnbull was greedy after money, and that his wife was ambitious, and +hated the business. But, if he wanted to be out of it, would he not +naturally keep it up to the best, at least in appearance, that he might +part with his share in it to the better advantage?</p> + +<p>She turned, and, walking back to the town, sought Beenie.</p> + +<p>The old woman being naturally a gossip, Mary was hardly seated before +she began to pour out the talk of the town, in which came presently +certain rumors concerning Mr. Turnbull—mainly hints at speculation and +loss.</p> + +<p>The result was that Mary went from Beenie to the lawyer in whose care +her father had left his affairs. He was an old man, and had been ill; +had no suspicion of anything being wrong, but would look into the +matter at once. She went home, and troubled herself no more.</p> + +<p>She had been at Durnmelling but a few days, when Mr. Redmain, wishing +to see how things were on his estate in Cornwall, and making up his +mind to run down, carelessly asked his wife if she would accompany him: +it would be only for a few days, he said; but a breeze or two from the +Atlantic would improve her complexion. This was gracious; but he was +always more polite in the company of Lady Margaret, who continued to +show him the kindness no one else dared or was inclined to do. For some +years he had suffered increasingly from recurrent attacks of the +disease to which I have already referred; and, whatever might be the +motive of his mother-in-law's behavior, certainly, in those attacks, it +was a comfort to him to be near her. On such occasions in London, his +sole attendant was his man Mewks.</p> + +<p>Mary was delighted to see more of her country. She had traveled very +little, but was capable of gathering ten times more from a journey to +Cornwall than most travelers from one through Switzerland itself. The +place to which they went was lonely and lovely, and Mary, for the first +few days, enjoyed it unspeakably.</p> + +<p>But then, suddenly, as was not unusual, Mr. Redmain was taken ill. For +some reason or other, he had sent his man to London, and the only other +they had with them, besides the coachman, was useless in such a need, +while the housekeeper who lived at the place was nearly decrepit; so +that of the household Mary alone was capable of fit attendance in the +sickroom. Hesper shrunk, almost with horror, certainly with disgust, +from the idea of having anything to do with her husband as an invalid. +When she had the choice of her company, she said, she would not choose +his. Mewks was sent for at once, but did not arrive before the patient +had had some experience of Mary's tendance; nor, after he came, was she +altogether without opportunity of ministering to him. The attack was a +long and severe one, delaying for many weeks their return to London, +where Mr. Redmain declared he must be, at any risk, before the end of +November.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.<br /><br /> +LYDGATE STEET.</h3> + +<p>Letty's whole life was now gathered about her boy, and she thought +little, comparatively, about Tom. And Tom thought so little about her +that he did not perceive the difference. When he came home, he was +always in a hurry to be gone again. He had always something important +to do, but it never showed itself to Letty in the shape of money. He +gave her a little now and then, of course, and she made it go +incredibly far, but it was ever with more of a grudge that he gave it. +The influence over him of Sepia was scarcely less now that she was +gone; but, if she cared for him at all, it was mainly that, being now +not a little stale-hearted, his devotion reminded her pleasurably of a +time when other passions than those of self-preservation were strongest +in her; and her favor even now tended only to the increase of Tom's +growing disappointment, for, like Macbeth, he had begun already to +consider life but a poor affair. Across the cloud of this death +gleamed, certainly, the flashing of Sepia's eyes, or the softly +infolding dawn of her smile, but only, the next hour, nay, the next +moment, to leave all darker than before. Precious is the favor of any +true, good woman, be she what else she may; but what is the favor of +one without heart or faith or self-giving? Yet is there testimony only +too strong and terrible to the demoniacal power, enslaving and +absorbing as the arms of the kraken, of an evil woman over an +imaginative youth. Possibly, did he know beforehand her nature, he +would not love her, but, knowing it only too late, he loves and curses; +calls her the worst of names, yet can not or will not tear himself +free; after a fashion he still calls love, he loves the demon, and +hates her thralldom. Happily Tom had not reached this depth of +perdition; Sepia was prudent for herself, and knew, none better, what +she was about, so far as the near future was concerned, therefore held +him at arm's length, where Tom basked in a light that was of hell—for +what is a hell, or a woman like Sepia, but an inverted creation? His +nature, in consequence, was in all directions dissolving. He drank more +and more strong drink, fitting fuel to such his passion, and Sepia +liked to see him approach with his eyes blazing. There are not many +women like her; she is a rare type—but not, therefore, to be passed +over in silence. It is little consolation that the man-eating tiger is +a rare animal, if one of them be actually on the path; and to the +philosopher a possibility is a fact. But the true value of the study of +abnormal development is that, in the deepest sense, such development is +not abnormal at all, but the perfected result of the laws that avenge +law-breach. It is in and through such that we get glimpses, down the +gulf of a moral volcano, to the infernal possibilities of the +human—the lawless rot of that which, in its <i>attainable</i> idea, is +nothing less than divine, imagined, foreseen, cherished, and labored +for, by the Father of the human. Such inverted possibility, the +infernal possibility, I mean, lies latent in every one of us, and, +except we stir ourselves up to the right, will gradually, from a +possibility, become an energy. The wise man dares not yield to a +temptation, were it only for the terror that, if he do, he will yield +the more readily again. The commonplace critic, who recognizes life +solely upon his own conscious level, mocks equally at the ideal and its +antipode, incapable of recognizing the art of Shakespeare himself as +true to the human nature that will not be human.</p> + +<p>I have said that Letty did her best with what money Tom gave her; but +when she came to find that he had not paid the lodging for two months; +that the payment of various things he had told her to order and he +would see to had been neglected, and that the tradespeople were getting +persistent in their applications; that, when she told him anything of +the sort, he treated it at one time as a matter of no consequence which +he would speedily set right, at another as behavior of the creditor +hugely impertinent, which he would punish by making him wait his +time—her heart at length sank within her, and she felt there was no +bulwark between her and a sea of troubles; she felt as if she lay +already in the depths of a debtor's jail. Therefore, sparing as she had +been from the first, she was more sparing than ever. Not only would she +buy nothing for which she could not pay down, having often in +consequence to go without proper food, but, even when she had a little +in hand, would live like an anchorite. She grew very thin; and, +in-deed, if she had not been of the healthiest, could not have stood +her own treatment many weeks.</p> + +<p>Her baby soon began to show suffering, but this did not make her alter +her way, or drive her to appeal to Tom. She was ignorant of the +simplest things a mother needs to know, and never imagined her +abstinence could hurt her baby. So long as she went on nursing him, it +was all the same, she thought. He cried so much, that Tom made it a +reason with himself, and indeed gave it as one to Letty, for not coming +home at night: the child would not let him sleep; and how was he to do +his work if he had not his night's rest? It mattered little with +semi-mechanical professions like medicine or the law, but how was a man +to write articles such as he wrote, not to mention poetry, except he +had the repose necessary to the redintegration of his exhausted brain? +The baby went on crying, and the mother's heart was torn. The woman of +the house said he must be already cutting his teeth, and recommended +some devilish sirup. Letty bought a bottle with the next money she got, +and thought it did him good-because, lessening his appetite, it +lessened his crying, and also made him sleep more than he ought.</p> + +<p>At last one night Tom came home very much the worse of drink, and in +maudlin affection insisted on taking the baby from its cradle. The baby +shrieked. Tom was angry with the weakling, rated him soundly for +ingratitude to "the author of his being," and shook him roughly to +teach him the good manners of the world he had come to.</p> + +<p>Thereat in Letty sprang up the mother, erect and fierce. She darted to +Tom, snatched the child from his arms, and turned to carry him to the +inner room. But, as the mother rose in Letty, the devil rose in Tom. If +what followed was not the doing of the real Tom, it was the doing of +the devil to whom the real Tom had opened the door. With one stride he +overtook his wife, and mother and child lay together on the floor. I +must say for him that, even in his drunkenness, he did not strike his +wife as he would have struck a man; it was an open-handed blow he gave +her, what, in familiar language, is called a box on the ear, but for +days she carried the record of it on her cheek in five red finger-marks.</p> + +<p>When he saw her on the floor, Tom's bedazed mind came to itself; he +knew what he had done, and was sobered. But, alas! even then he thought +more of the wrong he had done to himself as a gentleman than of the +grievous wound he had given his wife's heart. He took the baby, who had +ceased to cry as soon as he was in his mother's arms, and laid him on +the rug, then lifted the bitterly weeping Letty, placed her on the +sofa, and knelt beside her—not humbly to entreat her pardon, but, as +was his wont, to justify himself by proving that all the blame was +hers, and that she had wronged him greatly in driving him to do such a +thing. This for apology poor Letty, never having had from him fuller +acknowledgment of wrong, was fain to accept. She turned on the sofa, +threw her arms about his neck, kissed him, and clung to him with an +utter forgiveness. But all it did for Tom was to restore him his good +opinion of himself, and enable him to go on feeling as much of a +gentleman as before.</p> + +<p>Reconciled, they turned to the baby. He was pale, his eyes were closed, +and they could not tell whether he breathed. In a horrible fright, Tom +ran for the doctor. Before he returned with him, the child had come to, +and the doctor could discover no injury from the fall they told him he +had had. At the same time, he said he was not properly nourished, and +must have better food.</p> + +<p>This was a fresh difficulty to Letty; it was a call for more outlay. +And now their landlady, who had throughout been very kind, was in +trouble about her own rent, and began to press for part at least of +theirs. Letty's heart seemed to labor under a stone. She forgot that +there was a thing called joy. So sad she looked that the good woman, +full of pity, assured her that, come what might, she should not be +turned out, but at the worst would only have to go a story higher, to +inferior rooms. The rent should wait, she said, until better days. But +this kindness relieved Letty only a little, for the rent past and the +rent to come hung upon her like a cloak of lead.</p> + +<p>Nor was even debt the worst that now oppressed her. For, possibly from +the fall, but more from the prolonged want of suitable nourishment and +wise treatment, after that terrible night, the baby grew worse. Many +were the tears the sleepless mother shed over the sallow face and +wasted limbs of her slumbering treasure—her one antidote to countless +sorrows; and many were the foolish means she tried to restore his +sinking vitality.</p> + +<p>Mary had written to her, and she had written to Mary; but she had said +nothing of the straits to which she was reduced; that would have been +to bring blame upon Tom. But Mary, with her fine human instinct, felt +that things must be going worse with her than before; and, when she +found that her return was indefinitely postponed by Mr. Redmain's +illness, she ventured at last in her anxiety upon a daring measure: she +wrote to Mr. Wardour, telling him she had reason to fear things were +not going well with Letty Helmer, and suggesting, in the gentlest way, +whether it might not now be time to let bygones be bygones, and make +some inquiry concerning her.</p> + +<p>To this letter Godfrey returned no answer. For all her denial, he had +never ceased to believe that Mary had been Letty's accomplice +throughout that miserable affair; and the very name—the Letty and the +Helmer—stung him to the quick. He took it, therefore, as a piece of +utter presumption in Mary to write to him about Letty, and that in the +tone, as he interpreted it, of one reading him a lesson of duty. But, +while he was thus indignant with Mary, he was also vexed with Letty +that she should not herself have written to him if she was in any need, +forgetting that he had never hinted at any door of communication open +between him and her. His heart quivered at the thought that she might +be in distress; he had known for certain, he said, the fool would bring +her to misery! For himself, the thought of Letty was an ever-open +wound—with an ever-present pain, now dull and aching, now keen and +stinging. The agony of her desertion, he said, would never cease +gnawing at his heart until it was laid in the grave; like most heathen +Christians, he thought of death as the end of all the joys, sorrows, +and interests generally of this life. But, while thus he brooded, a +fierce and evil joy awoke in him at the thought that now at last the +expected hour had come when he would heap coals of fire on her head. He +was still fool enough to think of her as having forsaken him, although +he had never given her ground for believing, and she had never had +conceit enough to imagine, that he cared the least for her person. If +he could but let her have a glimmer of what she had lost in losing him! +She knew what she had gained in Tom Helmer.</p> + +<p>He passed a troubled night, dreamed painfully, and started awake to +renewed pain. Before morning he had made up his mind to take the first +train to London. But he thought far more of being her deliverer than of +bringing her deliverance.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.<br /><br /> +GODFREY AND LETTY.</h3> + +<p>It was a sad, gloomy, kindless November night, when Godfrey arrived in +London. The wind was cold, the pavements were cold, the houses seemed +to be not only cold but feeling it. The very dust that blow in his face +was cold. Now cold is a powerful ally of the commonplace, and +imagination therefore was not very busy in the bosom of Godfrey Wardour +as he went to find Letty Helmer, which was just as well, in the +circumstances. He was cool to the very heart when he walked up to the +door indicated by Mary, and rung the bell: Mrs. Helmer was at home: +would he walk up stairs?</p> + +<p>It was not a house of ceremonies; he was shown up and up and into the +room where she sat, without a word carried before to prepare her for +his visit. It was so dark that he could see nothing but the figure of +one at work by a table, on which stood a single candle. There was but a +spark of fire in the dreary grate, and Letty was colder than any one +could know, for she was at the moment making down the last woolly +garment she had, in the vain hope of warming her baby.</p> + +<p>She looked up. She had thought it was the landlady, and had waited for +her to speak. She gazed for a moment in bewilderment, saw who it was, +and jumped up half frightened, half ready to go wild with joy. All the +memories of Godfrey rushed in a confused heap upon her, and overwhelmed +her. She ran to him, and the same moment was in his arms, with her head +on his shoulder, weeping tears of such gladness as she had not known +since the first week of her marriage.</p> + +<p>Neither spoke for some time; Letty could not because she was crying, +and Godfrey would not because he did not want to cry. Those few moments +were pure, simple happiness to both of them; to Letty, because she had +loved him from childhood, and hoped that all was to be as of old +between them; to Godfrey, because, for the moment, he had forgotten +himself, and had neither thought of injury nor hope of love, +remembering only the old days and the Letty that used to be. It may +seem strange that, having never once embraced her all the time they +lived together, he should do so now; but Letty's love would any time +have responded to the least show of affection, and when, at the sight +of his face, into which memory had called up all his tenderness, she +rushed into his arms, how could he help kissing her? The pity was that +he had not kissed her long before. Or was it a pity? I think not.</p> + +<p>But the embrace could not be a long one. Godfrey was the first to relax +its strain, and Letty responded with an instant collapse; for instantly +she feared she had done it all, and disgusted Godfrey. But he led her +gently to the sofa, and sat down beside her on the hard old slippery +horsehair. Then first he perceived what a change had passed upon her. +Pale was she, and thin, and sad, with such big eyes, and the bone +tightening the skin upon her forehead! He felt as if she were a +spectre-Letty, not the Letty he had loved. Glancing up, she caught his +troubled gaze.</p> + +<p>"I am not ill, Cousin Godfrey," she said. "Do not look at me so, or I +shall cry again. You know you never liked to see me cry."</p> + +<p>"My poor girl!" said Godfrey, in a voice which, if he had not kept it +lower than natural, would have broken, "you are suffering."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I'm not," replied Letty, with a pitiful effort at the +cheerful; "I am only so glad to see you again, Cousin Godfrey."</p> + +<p>She sat on the edge of the sofa, and had put her open hands, palm to +palm, between her knees, in a childish way, looking like one chidden, +who did not deserve it, but was ready to endure. For a moment Godfrey +sat gazing at her, with troubled heart and troubled looks, then between +his teeth muttered, "Damn the rascal!"</p> + +<p>Letty sat straight up, and turned upon him eyes of appeal, scared, yet +ready to defend. Her hands were now clinched, one on each side of her; +she was poking the little fists into the squab of the sofa.</p> + +<p>"Cousin Godfrey!" she cried, "if you mean Tom, you must not, you must +not. I will go away if you speak a word against him. I will; I will.—I +<i>must,</i> you know!"</p> + +<p>Godfrey made no reply—neither apologized nor sought to cover.</p> + +<p>"Why, child!" he said at last, "you are half starved!"</p> + +<p>The pity and tenderness of both word and tone were too much for her. +She had not been at all pitying herself, but such an utterance from the +man she loved like an elder brother so wrought upon her enfeebled +condition that she broke into a cry. She strove to suppress her +emotion; she fought with it; in her agony she would have rushed from +the room, had not Godfrey caught her, drawn her down beside him, and +kept her there. "You shall not leave me!" he said, in that voice Letty +had always been used to obey. "Who has a right to know how things go +with you, if I have not? Come, you must tell me all about it."</p> + +<p>"I have nothing to tell, Cousin Godfrey," she replied with some +calmness, for Godfrey's decision had enabled her to conquer herself, +"except that baby is ill, and looks as if he would never get better, +and it is like to break my heart. Oh, he is such a darling, Cousin +Godfrey!"</p> + +<p>"Let me see him," said Godfrey, in his heart detesting the child—the +visible sign that another was nearer to Letty than he.</p> + +<p>She jumped up, almost ran into the next room, and, coming back with her +little one, laid him in Godfrey's arms. The moment he felt the weight +of the little, sad-looking, sleeping thing, he grew human toward him, +and saw in him Letty and not Tom.</p> + +<p>"Good God! the child is starving, too," he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Cousin Godfrey!" cried Letty; "he is not starving. He had a +fresh-laid egg for breakfast this morning, and some arrowroot for +dinner, and some bread and milk for tea—"</p> + +<p>"London milk!" said Godfrey.</p> + +<p>"Well, it is not like the milk in the dairy at Thornwick," admitted +Letty. "If he had milk like that, he would soon be well!"</p> + +<p>But Godfrey dared not say, "Bring him to Thornwick": he knew his mother +too well for that!</p> + +<p>"When were you anywhere in the country?" he asked. In a negative kind +of way he was still nursing the baby.</p> + +<p>"Not since we were married," she answered, sadly. "You see, poor Tom +can't afford it."</p> + +<p>Now Godfrey happened to have heard, "from the best authority," that +Tom's mother was far from illiberal to him.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Helmer allows him so much a year—does she not?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I know he gets money from her, but it can't be much," she answered.</p> + +<p>Godfrey's suspicions against Tom increased every moment. He must learn +the truth. He would have it, if by an even cruel experiment! He sat a +moment silent—then said, with assumed cheerfulness:</p> + +<p>"Well, Letty, I suppose, for the sake of old times, you will give me +some dinner?"</p> + +<p>Then, indeed, her courage gave way. She turned from him, laid her head +on the end of the sofa, and sobbed so that the room seemed to shake +with the convulsions of her grief. "Letty," said Godfrey, laying his +hand on her head, "it is no use any more trying to hide the truth. I +don't want any dinner; in fact, I dined long ago. But you would not be +open with me, and I was forced to find out for myself: you have not +enough to eat, and you know it. I will not say a word about who is to +blame—for anything I know, it may be no one—I am sure it is not you. +But this must not go on! See, I have brought you a little pocket-book. +I will call again tomorrow, and you will tell me then how you like it."</p> + +<p>He laid the pocket-book on the table. There was ten times as much in it +as ever Letty had had at once. But she never knew what was in it. She +rose with instant resolve. All the woman in her waked at once. She felt +that a moment was come when she must be resolute, or lose her hold on +life.</p> + +<p>"Cousin Godfrey," she said, in a tone he scarcely recognized as +hers—it frightened him as if it came from a sepulchre—"if you do not +take that purse away, I will throw it in the fire without opening it! +If my husband can not give me enough to eat, I can starve as well as +another. If you loved Tom, it would be different, but you hate him, and +I will have nothing from you. Take it away, Cousin Godfrey."</p> + +<p>Mortified, hurt, miserable, Godfrey took the purse, and, without a +word, walked from the room. Somewhere down in his secret heart was +dawning an idea of Letty beyond anything he used to think of her, but +in the mean time he was only blindly aware that his heart had been shot +through and through. Nor was this the time for him to reflect that, +under his training, Letty, even if he had married her, would never have +grown to such dignity.</p> + +<p>It was, indeed, only in that moment she had become capable of the +action. She had been growing as none, not Mary, still less herself, +knew, under the heavy snows of affliction, and this was her first +blossom. Not many of my readers will mistake me, I trust. Had it been +in Letty pride that refused help from such an old friend, that pride I +should count no blossom, but one of the meanest rags that ever +fluttered to scare the birds. But the dignity of her refusal was in +this—that she would accept nothing in which her husband had and could +have no human, that is, no spiritual share. She had married him because +she loved him, and she would hold by him wherever that might lead her: +not wittingly would she allow the finest edge, even of ancient +kindness, to come between her Tom and herself! To accept from her +cousin Godfrey the help her husband ought to provide her, would be to +let him, however innocently, step into his place! There was no +reasoning in her resolve: it was allied to that spiritual insight +which, in simple natures, and in proportion to their simplicity, +approaches or amounts to prophecy. As the presence of death will +sometimes change even an ordinary man to a prophet, in times of sore +need the childlike nature may well receive a vision sufficing to direct +the doubtful step. Letty felt that the taking of that money would be +the opening of a gulf to divide her and Tom for ever.</p> + +<p>The moment Godfrey was out of the room she cast herself on the floor, +and sobbed as if her heart must break. But her sobs were tearless. And, +oh, agony of agonies! unsought came the conviction, and she could not +send it away—to this had sunk her lofty idea of her Tom!—that he +would have had her take the money! More than once or twice, in the +ill-humors that followed a forced hilarity, he had forgotten his claims +to being a gentleman so far as—not exactly to reproach her with having +brought him to poverty—but to remind her that, if she was poor, she +was no poorer than she had been when dependent on the charity of a +distant relation!</p> + +<p>The baby began to cry. She rose and took him from the sofa where +Godfrey had laid him when he was getting out the pocket-book, held him +fast to her bosom, as if by laying their two aching lives together they +might both be healed, and, rocking him to and fro, said to herself, for +the first time, that her trouble was greater than she could bear. "O +baby! baby! baby!" she cried, and her tears streamed on the little wan +face. But, as she sat with him in her arms, the blessed sleep came, and +the storm sank to a calm.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.<br /><br /> +RELIEF.</h3> + +<p>It was dark, utterly dark, when she woke. For a minute she could not +remember where she was. The candle had burned out: it must be late. The +baby was on her lap—still, very still. One faint gleam of satisfaction +crossed her "during dark" at the thought that he slept so peacefully, +hidden from the gloom which, somehow, appeared to be all the same gloom +outside and inside of her. In that gloom she sat alone.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a prayer was in her heart. It was moving there as of itself. +It had come there by no calling of it thither, by no conscious will of +hers. "O God," she cried, "I am desolate!—Is there no help for me?" +And therewith she knew that she had prayed, and knew that never in her +life had she prayed before.</p> + +<p>She started to her feet in an agony: a horrible fear had taken +possession of her. With one arm she held the child fast to her bosom, +with the other hand searched in vain to find a match. And still, as she +searched, the baby seemed to grow heavier upon her arm, and the fear +sickened more and more at her heart.</p> + +<p>At last she had light! and the face of the child came out of the +darkness. But the child himself had gone away into it. The Unspeakable +had come while she slept—had come and gone, and taken her child with +him. What was left of him was no more good to kiss than the last doll +of her childhood!</p> + +<p>When Tom came home, there was his wife on the floor as if dead, and a +little way from her the child, dead indeed, and cold with death. He +lifted Letty and carried her to the bed, amazed to find how light she +was: it was long since he had had her thus in his arms. Then he laid +her dead baby by her side, and ran to rouse the doctor. He came, and +pronounced the child quite dead—from lack of nutrition, he said. To +see Tom, no one could have helped contrasting his dress and appearance +with the look and surroundings of his wife; but no one would have been +ready to lay blame on him; and, as for himself, he was not in the least +awake to the fact of his guilt.</p> + +<p>The doctor gave the landlady, who had responded at once to Tom's call, +full directions for the care of the bereaved mother; Tom handed her the +little money he had in his pocket, and she promised to do her best. And +she did it; for she was one of those, not a few, who, knowing nothing +of religion toward God, are yet full of religion toward their fellows, +and with the Son of Man that goes a long way. As soon as it was light, +Tom went to see about the burying of his baby.</p> + +<p>He betook himself first to the editor of "The Firefly," but had to wait +a long time for his arrival at the office. He told him his baby was +dead, and he wanted money. It was forthcoming at once; for literary +men, like all other artists, are in general as ready to help each other +as the very poor themselves. There is less generosity, I think, among +business-men than in any other class. The more honor to the exceptions!</p> + +<p>"But," said the editor, who had noted the dry, burning palm, and saw +the glazed, fiery eye of Tom, "my dear fellow, you ought to be in bed +yourself. It's no use taking on about the poor little kid: <i>you</i> +couldn't help it. Go home to your wife, and tell her she's got you to +nurse; and, if she's in any fix, tell her to come to me."</p> + +<p>Tom went home, but did not give his wife the message. She lay all but +insensible, never asked for anything, or refused anything that was +offered her, never said a word about her baby, or about Tom, or seemed +to be more than when she lay in her mother's lap. Her baby was buried, +and she knew nothing of it. Not until nine days were over did she begin +to revive.</p> + +<p>For the first few days, Tom, moved with undefined remorse, tried to +take a part in nursing her. She took things from him, as she did from +the landlady, without heed or recognition. Just once, opening suddenly +her eyes wide upon him, she uttered a feeble wail of "<i>Baby!</i> " and, +turning her head, did not look at him again. Then, first, Tom's +conscience gave him a sharp sting.</p> + +<p>He was far from well. The careless and in many respects dissolute life +he had been leading had more than begun to tell on a constitution by no +means strong, but he had never become aware of his weakness nor had +ever felt really ill until now.</p> + +<p>But that sting, although the first sharp one, was not his first warning +of a waking conscience. Ever since he took his place at his wife's +bedside, he had been fighting off the conviction that he was a brute. +He would not, he could not believe it. What! Tom Helmer, the fine, +indubitable fellow! such as he had always known himself!—he to cower +before his own consciousness as a man unworthy, and greatly to be +despised! The chaos was come again! And, verily, chaos was there, but +not by any means newly come. And, moreover, when chaos begins to be +conscious of itself, then is the dawn of an ordered world at hand. Nay, +the creation of it is already begun, and the pangs of the waking +conscience are the prophecy of the new birth.</p> + +<p>With that pitiful cry of his wife after her lost child, disbelief in +himself got within the lines of his defense; he could do no more, and +began to loathe that conscious self which had hitherto been his pride.</p> + +<p>Whatever the effect of illness may be upon the temper of some, it is +most certainly an ally of the conscience. All pains, indeed, and all +sorrows, all demons, yea, and all sins themselves under the suffering +care of the highest minister, are but the ministers of truth and +righteousness. I never came to know the condition of such as seemed +exceptionally afflicted but I seemed to see reason for their +affliction, either in exceptional faultiness of character or the +greatness of the good it was doing them.</p> + +<p>But conscience reacts on the body—for sickness until it is obeyed, for +health thereafter. The moment conscience spoke thus plainly to Tom, the +little that was left of his physical endurance gave way, his illness +got the upper hand, and he took to his bed—all he could have for bed, +that is—namely, the sofa in the sitting-room, widened out with chairs, +and a mattress over all. There he lay, and their landlady had enough to +do. Not that either of her patients was exacting; they were both too +ill and miserable for that. It is the self-pitiful, self-coddling +invalid that is exacting. Such, I suspect, require something sharper +still.</p> + +<p>Tom groaned and tossed, and cursed himself, and soon passed into +delirium. Straightway his visions, animate with shame and confusion of +soul, were more distressing than even his ready tongue could have told. +Dead babies and ghastly women pursued him everywhere. His fever +increased. The cries of terror and dismay that he uttered reached the +ears of his wife, and were the first thing that roused her from her +lethargy. She rose from her bed, and, just able to crawl, began to do +what she could for him. If she could but get near enough to him, the +husband would yet be dearer than any child. She had him carried to the +bed, and thereafter took on the sofa what rest there was for her. To +and fro between bed and sofa she crept, let the landlady say what she +might, gave him all the food he could be got to take, cooled his +burning hands and head, and cried over him because she could not take +him on her lap like the baby that was gone. Once or twice, in a quieter +interval, he looked at her pitifully, and seemed about to speak; but +the back-surging fever carried far away the word of love for which she +listened so eagerly. The doctor came daily, but Tom grew worse, and +Letty could not get well.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL.<br /><br /> +GODFREY AND SEPIA.</h3> + +<p>When the Redmains went to Cornwall, Sepia was left at Durnmelling, in +the expectation of joining them in London within a fortnight at latest. +The illness of Mr. Redmain, however, caused her stay to be prolonged, +and she was worn out with <i>ennui</i> . The self she was so careful over was +not by any means good company: not seldom during her life had she found +herself capable of almost anything to get rid of it, short of suicide +or repentance. This autumn, at Durnmelling, she would even, +occasionally, with that object, when the weather was fine, go for a +solitary walk—a thing, I need not say, she hated in itself, though now +it was her forlorn hope, in the poor possibility of falling in with +some distraction. But the hope was not altogether a vague one; for was +there not a man somewhere underneath those chimneys she saw over the +roof of the laundry? She had never spoken to him, but Hesper and she +had often talked about him, and often watched him ride—never man more +to her mind. In her wanderings she had come upon the breach in the +ha-ha, and, clambering up, found herself on the forbidden ground of a +neighbor whom the family did not visit. To no such folly would Sepia be +a victim.</p> + +<p>The analysis of such a nature as hers, with her story to set it forth, +would require a book to itself, and I must happily content myself with +but a fact here and there in her history.</p> + +<p>In one of her rambles on his ground she had her desire, and met Godfrey +Wardour. He lifted his hat, and she stopped and addressed him by way of +apology.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid you think me very rude, Mr. Wardour," she said. "I know I +am trespassing, but this field of yours is higher than the ground about +Durnmelling, and seems to take pounds off the weight of the atmosphere."</p> + +<p>For all he had gone through, Godfrey was not yet less than courteous to +ladies. He assured Miss Yolland that Thornwick was as much at her +service as if it were a part of Durnmelling. "Though, indeed," he +added, with a smile, "it would be more correct to say, 'as if +Durnmelling were a part of Thornwick'—for that was the real state of +the case once upon a time."</p> + +<p>The statement interested or seemed to interest Miss Yolland, giving +rise to many questions; and a long conversation ensued. Suddenly she +woke, or seemed to wake, to the consciousness that she had forgotten +herself and the proprieties together: hastily, and to all appearance +with some confusion, she wished him a good morning; but she was not too +much confused to thank him again for the permission he had given her to +walk on his ground.</p> + +<p>It was not by any intention on the part of Godfrey that they met +several times after this; but they always had a little conversation +before they parted; nor did Sepia find any difficulty in getting him +sufficiently within their range to make him feel the power of her eyes. +She was too prudent, however, to bring to bear upon any man all at once +the full play of her mesmeric battery; and things had got no further +when she went to London—a week or two before the return of the +Redmains, ostensibly to get things in some special readiness for +Hesper; but that this may have been a pretense appears possible from +the fact that Mary came from Cornwall on the same mission a few days +later.</p> + +<p>I have just mentioned an acquaintance of Sepia's, who attracted the +notice and roused the peculiar interest of Mr. Redmain, because of a +look he saw pass betwixt them. This man spoke both English and French +with a foreign accent, and gave himself out as a Georgian—Count +Galofta, he called himself: I believe he was a prince in Paris. At this +time he was in London, and, during the ten days that Sepia was alone, +came to see her several times—called early in the forenoon first, the +next day in the evening, when they went together to the opera, and once +came and staid late. Whether from her dark complexion making her look +older than she was, or from the subduing air which her experience had +given her, or merely from the fact that she belonged to nobody much, +Miss Yolland seemed to have <i>carte blanche</i> to do as she pleased, and +come and go when and where she liked, as one knowing well enough how to +take care of herself.</p> + +<p>Mary, arriving unexpectedly at the house in Glammis Square, met him in +the hall as she entered: he had just taken leave of Sepia, who was +going up the stair at the moment. Mary had never seen him before, but +something about him caused her to look at him again as he passed.</p> + +<p>Somehow, Tom also had discovered Sepia's return, and had gone to see +her more than once.</p> + +<p>When Mr. and Mrs. Redmain arrived, there was so much to be done for +Hesper's wardrobe that, for some days, Mary found it impossible to go +and see Letty. Her mistress seemed harder to please than usual, and +more doubtful of humor than ever before. This may have arisen—but I +doubt it—from the fact that, having gone to church the Sunday before +they left, she had there heard a different sort of sermon from any she +had heard in her life before: sermons have something to do with the +history of the world, however many of them may be no better than a +withered leaf in the blast.</p> + +<p>The morning after her arrival, Hesper, happening to find herself in +want of Mary's immediate help, instead of calling her as she generally +did, opened the door between their rooms, and saw Mary on her knees by +her bedside. Now, Hesper had heard of saying prayers—night and morning +both—and, when a child, had been expected, and indeed compelled, to +say her prayers; but to be found on one's knees in the middle of the +day looked to her a thing exceedingly odd. Mary, in truth, was not much +in the way of kneeling at such a time: she had to pray much too often +to kneel always, and God was too near her, wherever she happened to be, +for the fancy that she must seek him in any particular place; but so it +happened now. She rose, a little startled rather than troubled, and +followed her mistress into her room.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to have disturbed you, Mary," said Hesper, herself a little +annoyed, it is not quite easy to say why; "but people do not generally +say their prayers in the middle of the day."</p> + +<p>"I say mine when I need to say them," answered Mary, a little cross +that Hesper should take any notice. She would rather the thing had not +occurred, and it was worse to have to talk about it.</p> + +<p>"For my part, I don't see any good in being righteous overmuch," said +Hesper.</p> + +<p>I wonder if there was another saying in the Bible she would have been +so ready to quote!</p> + +<p>"I don't know what that means," returned Mary. "I believe it is +somewhere in the Bible, but I am sure Jesus never said it, for he tells +us to be righteous as our Father in heaven is righteous."</p> + +<p>"But the thing is impossible," said Hesper. "How is one with such +claims on her as I have, to attend to these things? Society has claims: +no one denies that."</p> + +<p>"And has God none?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"Many people think now there is no God at all," returned Hesper, with +an almost petulant expression.</p> + +<p>"If there is no God, that settles the question," answered Mary. "But, +if there should be one, how then?"</p> + +<p>"Then I am sure he would never be hard on one like me. I do just like +other people. One must do as people do. If there is one thing that must +be avoided more than another, it is peculiarity. How ridiculous it +would be of any one to set herself against society!"</p> + +<p>"Then you think the Judge will be satisfied if you say, 'Lord, I had so +many names in my visiting-book, and so many invitations I could not +refuse, that it was impossible for me to attend to those things'?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see that I'm at all worse than other people," persisted +Hesper. "I can't go and pretend to be sorry for sins I should commit +again the next time there was a necessity. I don't see what I've got to +repent of."</p> + +<p>Nothing had been said about repentance: here, I imagine, the sermon may +have come in.</p> + +<p>"Then, of course, you can't repent," said Mary.</p> + +<p>Hesper recovered herself a little.</p> + +<p>"I am glad you see the thing as I do," she said.</p> + +<p>"I don't see it at all as you do, ma'am," answered Mary, gently.</p> + +<p>"Why!" exclaimed Hesper, taken by surprise, "what have I got to repent +of?"</p> + +<p>"Do you really want me to say what I think?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"Of course, I do," returned Hesper, getting angry, and at the same time +uneasy: she knew Mary's freedom of speech upon occasion, but felt that +to draw back would be to yield the point. "What have I done to be +ashamed of, pray?"</p> + +<p>Some ladies are ready to plume themselves upon not having been guilty +of certain great crimes. Some thieves, I dare say, console themselves +that they have never committed murder.</p> + +<p>"If I had married a man I did not love," answered Mary, "I should be +more ashamed of myself than I can tell."</p> + +<p>"That is the way of looking at such things in the class you belong to, +I dare say," rejoined Hesper; "but with us it is quite different. There +is no necessity laid upon <i>you. Our</i> position obliges us."</p> + +<p>"But what if God should not see it as you do?"</p> + +<p>"If that is all you have got to bring against me!—" said Hesper, with +a forced laugh.</p> + +<p>"But that is not all," replied Mary. "When you married, you promised +many things, not one of which you have ever done."</p> + +<p>"Really, Mary, this is intolerable!" cried Hesper.</p> + +<p>"I am only doing what you asked me, ma'am," said Mary. "And I have said +nothing that every one about Mr. Redmain does not know as well as I do."</p> + +<p>Hesper wished heartily she had never challenged Mary's judgment.</p> + +<p>"But," she resumed, more quietly, "how could you, how could any one, +how could God himself, hard as he is, ask me to fulfill the part of a +loving wife to a man like Mr. Redmain?—There is no use mincing matters +with <i>you,</i> Mary."</p> + +<p>"But you promised," persisted Mary. "It belongs, besides, to the very +idea of marriage."</p> + +<p>"There are a thousand promises made every day which nobody is expected +to keep. It is the custom, the way of the world! How many of the +clergy, now, believe the things they put their names to?"</p> + +<p>"They must answer for themselves. We are not clergymen, but women, who +ought never to say a thing except we mean it, and, when we have said +it, to stick to it."</p> + +<p>"But just look around you, and see how many there are in precisely the +same position! Will you dare to say they are all going to be lost +because they do not behave like angels to their brutes of husbands?"</p> + +<p>"I say, they have got to repent of behaving to their husbands as their +husbands behave to them."</p> + +<p>"And what if they don't?"</p> + +<p>Mary paused a little.</p> + +<p>"Do you expect to go to heaven, ma'am?" she asked</p> + +<p>"I hope so."</p> + +<p>"Do you think you will like it?"</p> + +<p>"I must say, I think it will be rather dull."</p> + +<p>"Then, to use your own word, you must be very like lost anyway. There +does not seem to be a right place for you anywhere, and that is very +like being lost—is it not?"</p> + +<p>Hesper laughed.</p> + +<p>"I am pretty comfortable where I am," she said.</p> + +<p>"Husband and all!" thought Mary, but she did not say that. What she did +say was:</p> + +<p>"But you know you can't stay here. God is not going to keep up this way +of things for you; can you ask it, seeing you don't care a straw what +he wants of you? But I have sometimes thought, What if hell be just a +place where God gives everybody everything she wants, and lets +everybody do whatever she likes, without once coming nigh to interfere! +What a hell that would be! For God's presence in the very being, and +nothing else, is bliss. That, then, would be altogether the opposite of +heaven, and very much the opposite of this world. Such a hell would go +on, I suppose, till every one had learned to hate every one else in the +same world with her."</p> + +<p>This was beyond Hesper, and she paid no attention to it.</p> + +<p>"You can never, in your sober senses, Mary," she said, "mean that God +requires of me to do things for Mr. Redmain that the servants can do a +great deal better! That would be ridiculous—not to mention that I +oughtn't and couldn't and wouldn't do them for any man!"</p> + +<p>"Many a woman," said Mary, with a solemnity in her tone which she did +not intend to appear there, "has done many more trying things for +persons of whom she knew nothing."</p> + +<p>"I dare say! But such women go in for being saints, and that is not my +line. I was not made for that."</p> + +<p>"You were made for that, and far more," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"There are such women, I know," persisted Hesper; "but I do not know +how they find it possible."</p> + +<p>"I can tell you how they find it possible. They love every human being +just because he is human. Your husband might be a demon from the way +you behave to him."</p> + +<p>"I suppose <i>you</i> find it agreeable to wait upon him: he is civil to +you, I dare say!"</p> + +<p>"Not very," replied Mary, with a smile; "but the person who can not +bear with a sick man or a baby is not fit to be a woman."</p> + +<p>"You may go to your own room," said Hesper.</p> + +<p>For the first time, a feeling of dislike to Mary awoke in the bosom of +her mistress—very naturally, <i>all</i> my readers will allow. The next few +days she scarcely spoke to her, sending directions for her work through +Sepia, who discharged the office with dignity.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI.<br /><br /> +THE HELPER.</h3> + +<p>At length one morning, when she believed Mrs. Redmain would not rise +before noon, Mary felt she must go and see Letty. She did not find her +in the quarters where she had left her, but a story higher, in a mean +room, sitting with her hands in her lap. She did not lift her eyes when +Mary entered: where hope is dead, curiosity dies. Not until she had +come quite near did she raise her head, and then she seemed to know +nothing of her. When she did recognize her, she held out her hand in a +mechanical way, as if they were two specters met in a miserable dream, +in which they were nothing to each other, and neither could do, or +cared to do, anything for the other.</p> + +<p>"My poor Letty!" cried Mary, greatly shocked, "what has come to you? +Are you not glad to see me? Has anything happened to Tom?"</p> + +<p>She broke into a low, childish wail, and for a time that was all Mary +heard. Presently, however, she became aware of a feeble moaning in the +adjoining chamber, the sound of a human sea in trouble—mixed with a +wandering babble, which to Letty was but as the voice of her own +despair, and to Mary was a cry for help. She abandoned the attempt to +draw anything from Letty, and went into the next room, the door of +which stood wide. There lay Tom, but so changed that Mary took a moment +to be certain it was he. Going softly to him, she laid her hand on his +head. It was burning. He opened his eyes, but she saw their sense was +gone. She went back to Letty, and, sitting down beside her, put her arm +about her, and said:</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you send for me, Letty? I would have come to you at once. I +will come now, to-night, and help you to nurse him. Where is the baby?"</p> + +<p>Letty gave a shriek, and, starting from her chair, walked wildly about +the room, wringing her hands. Mary went after her, and taking her in +her arms, said:</p> + +<p>"Letty, dear, has God taken your baby?"</p> + +<p>Letty gave her a lack-luster look.</p> + +<p>"Then," said Mary, "he is not far away, for we are all in God's arms."</p> + +<p>But what is the use of the most sovereign of medicines while they stand +on the sick man's table? What is the mightiest of truths so long as it +is not believed? The spiritually sick still mocks at the medicine +offered; he will not know its cure. Mary saw that, for any comfort to +Letty, God was nowhere. It went to her very heart. Death and desolation +and the enemy were in possession. She turned to go, that she might +return able to begin her contest with ruin. Letty saw that she was +going, and imagined her offended and abandoning her to her misery. She +flew to her, stretching out her arms like a child, but was so feeble +that she tripped and fell. Mary lifted her, and laid her wailing on her +couch.</p> + +<p>"Letty," said Mary, "you didn't think I was going to leave you! But I +must go for an hour, perhaps two, to make arrangements for staying with +you till Tom is over the worst."</p> + +<p>Then Letty clasped her hands in her old, beseeching way, and looked up +with a faint show of comfort.</p> + +<p>"Be courageous, Letty," said Mary. "I shall be back as soon as ever I +can. God has sent me to you."</p> + +<p>She drove straight home, and heard that Mrs. Redmain was annoyed that +she had gone out.</p> + +<p>"I offered to dress her," said Jemima; "and she knows I can quite well; +but she would not get up till you came, and made me fetch her a book. +So there she is, a-waiting for you!"</p> + +<p>"I am sorry," said Mary; "but I had to go, and she was fast asleep."</p> + +<p>When she entered her room, Hesper gave her a cold glance over the top +of her novel, and went on with her reading. Mary proceeded to get her +things ready for dressing. But by this time she had got interested in +the story.</p> + +<p>"I shall not get up yet," she said.</p> + +<p>"Then, please, ma'am," replied Mary, "would you mind letting Jemima +dress you? I want to go out again, and should be glad if you could do +without me for some days. My friend's baby is dead, and both she and +her husband are very ill."</p> + +<p>Hesper threw down her book, and her eyes flamed.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by using me so, Miss Marston?" she said.</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry to put you to inconvenience," answered Mary; "but the +husband seems dying, and the wife is scarcely able to crawl."</p> + +<p>"I have nothing to do with it," interrupted Hesper. "When you made it +necessary for me to part with my maid, you undertook to perform her +duties. I did not engage you as a sick-nurse for other people."</p> + +<p>"'No, ma'am," replied Mary; "but this is an extreme case, and I can not +believe you will object to my going."</p> + +<p>"I do object. How, pray, is the world to go on, if this kind of thing +be permitted! I may be going out to dinner, or to the opera to-night, +for anything you know, and who is there to dress me? No; on principle, +and for the sake of example, I will not let you go."</p> + +<p>"I thought," said Mary, not a little disappointed in Hesper, "I did not +stand to you quite in the relation of an ordinary servant."</p> + +<p>"Certainly you do not: I look for a little more devotion from you than +from a common, ungrateful creature who thinks only of herself. But you +are all alike."</p> + +<p>More and more distressed to find one she had loved so long show herself +so selfish, Mary's indignation had almost got the better of her. But a +little heightening of her color was all the show it made.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, it is quite necessary, ma'am," she persisted, "that I should +go."</p> + +<p>"The law has fortunately made provision against such behavior," said +Hesper. "You can not leave without giving me a month's notice."</p> + +<p>"The understanding on which I came to you was very different," said +Mary, sadly.</p> + +<p>"It was; but, since then, you consented to become my maid."</p> + +<p>"It is ungenerous to take advantage of that," returned Mary, growing +angry again.</p> + +<p>"I have to protect myself and the world in general from the +consequences that must follow were such lawless behavior allowed to +pass."</p> + +<p>Hesper spoke with calm severity, and Mary, making up her mind, answered +now with almost equal calmness.</p> + +<p>"The law was made for both sides, ma'am; and, as you bring the law to +me, I will take refuge in the law. It is, I believe, a month's warning +or a month's wages; and, as I have never had any wages, I imagine I am +at liberty to go. Good-by, ma'am."</p> + +<p>Hesper made her no answer, and Mary left the room. She went to her own, +stuffed her immediate necessities into a bag, let herself out of the +house, called a cab, and, with a great lump in her throat, drove to the +help of Letty.</p> + +<p>First she had a talk with the landlady, and learned all she could tell. +Then she went up, and began to make things as comfortable as she could: +all was in sad disorder and neglect.</p> + +<p>With the mere inauguration of cleanliness, and the first dawn of coming +order, the courage of Letty began to revive a little. The impossibility +of doing all that ought to be done, had, in her miserable weakness, so +depressed her that she had not done even as much as she could—except +where Tom was immediately concerned: there she had not failed of her +utmost.</p> + +<p>Mary next went to the doctor to get instructions, and then to buy what +things were most wanted. And now she almost wished Mrs. Redmain had +paid her for her services, for she must write to Mr. Turnbull for +money, and that she disliked. But by the very next post she received, +inclosed in a business memorandum in George's writing, the check for +fifty pounds she had requested.</p> + +<p>She did not dare write to Tom's mother, because she was certain, were +she to come up, her presence would only add to the misery, and take +away half the probability of his recovery and of Letty's, too. In the +case of both, nourishment was the main thing; and to the fit providing +and the administering of it she bent her energy.</p> + +<p>For a day or two, she felt at times as if she could hardly get through +what she had undertaken; but she soon learned to drop asleep at any +moment, and wake immediately when she was wanted; and thereafter her +strength was by no means so sorely tried.</p> + +<p>Under her skillful nursing—skillful, not from experience, but simply +from her faith, whence came both conscience of and capacity for doing +what the doctor told her—things went well. It is from their want of +this faith, and their consequent arrogance and conceit, that the ladies +who aspire to help in hospitals give the doctors so much trouble: they +have not yet learned <i>obedience,</i> the only path to any good, the one +essential to the saving of the world. One who can not obey is the +merest slave—essentially and in himself a slave. The crisis of Tom's +fever was at length favorably passed, but the result remained doubtful. +By late hours and strong drink, he had done not a little to weaken a +constitution, in itself, as I have said, far from strong; while the +unrest of what is commonly and foolishly called a bad conscience, with +misery over the death of his child and the conduct which had disgraced +him in his own eyes and ruined his wife's happiness, combined to retard +his recovery.</p> + +<p>While he was yet delirious, and grief and shame and consternation +operated at will on his poetic nature, the things he kept saying over +and over were very pitiful; but they would have sounded more miserable +by much in the ears of one who did not look so far ahead as Mary. She, +trained to regard all things in their true import, was rejoiced to find +him loathing his former self, and beyond the present suffering saw the +gladness at hand for the sorrowful man, the repenting sinner. Had she +been mother or sister to him, she could hardly have waited on him with +more devotion or tenderness.</p> + +<p>One day, as his wife was doing some little thing for him, he took her +hand in his feeble grasp, and pressing it to his face, wet with the +tears of reviving manhood, said:</p> + +<p>"We might have been happy together, Letty, if I had but known how much +you were worth, and how little I was worth myself!—Oh me! oh me!"</p> + +<p>He burst into an incontrollable wail that tortured Letty with its +likeness to the crying of her baby.</p> + +<p>"Tom! my own darling Tom!" she cried, "when you speak as if I belonged +to you, it makes me as happy as a queen. When you are better, you will +be happy, too, dear. Mary says you will."</p> + +<p>"O Letty!" he sobbed—"the baby!"</p> + +<p>"The baby's all right, Mary says; and, some day, she says, he will run +into your arms, and know you for his father."</p> + +<p>"And I shall be ashamed to look at him!" said Tom.</p> + +<p>An hour or so after, he woke from a short sleep, and his eyes sought +Letty's watching face.</p> + +<p>"I have seen baby," he said, "and he has forgiven me. I dare say it was +only a dream," he added, "but somehow it makes me happier. At least, I +know how the thing might be."</p> + +<p>"It was true, whether it was but a dream or something more," said Mary, +who happened to be by.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mary," he returned. "You and Letty have saved me from what +I dare not think of! I could die happy now—if it weren't for one +thing."</p> + +<p>"What is that?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"I am ashamed to say," he replied, "but I ought to say it and bear the +shame, for the man who does shamefully ought to be ashamed. It is that, +when I am in my grave—or somewhere else, for I know Mary does not like +people to talk about being in their graves—you say it is heathenish, +don't you, Mary?—when I am where they can't find me, then, it is +horrid to think that people up here will have a hold on me and a right +over me still, because of debts I shall never be able to pay them."</p> + +<p>"Don't be too sure of that, Tom," said Mary, cheerfully. "I think you +will pay them yet.—But I have heard it said," she went on, "that a man +in debt never tells the truth about his debts—as if he had only the +face to make them, not to talk about them: can you make a clean breast +of it, Tom?"</p> + +<p>"I don't exactly know what they are; but I always did mean to pay them, +and I have some idea about them. I don't think they would come to more +than a hundred pounds."</p> + +<p>"Your mother would not hesitate to pay that for you?" said Mary.</p> + +<p>"I know she wouldn't; but, then, I'm thinking of Letty."</p> + +<p>He paused, and Mary waited.</p> + +<p>"You know, when I am gone," he resumed, "there will be nothing for her +but to go to my mother; and it breaks my heart to think of it. Every +sin of mine she will lay to her charge; and how am I to lie still in my +grave—oh, I beg your pardon, Mary."</p> + +<p>"I will pay your debts, Tom, and gladly," said Mary, "if they don't +come to much more than you say—than you think, I mean."</p> + +<p>"But, don't you see, Mary, that would be only a shifting of my debt +from them to you? Except for Letty, it would not make the thing any +better."</p> + +<p>"What!" said Mary, "is there no difference between owing a thing to one +who loves you and one who does not? to one who would always be wishing +you had paid him and one who is glad to have even the poor bond of a +debt between you and her? All of us who are sorry for our sins are +brothers and sisters."</p> + +<p>"O Mary!" said Tom.</p> + +<p>"But I will tell you what will be better: let your mother pay your +debts, and I will look after Letty. I will care for her like my own +sister, Tom."</p> + +<p>"Then I shall die happy," said Tom; and from that day began to recover.</p> + +<p>Many who would pay money to keep a man alive or to deliver him from +pain would pay nothing to take a killing load off the shoulders of his +mind. Hunger they can pity—not mental misery.</p> + +<p>Tom would not hear of his mother being written to.</p> + +<p>"I have done Letty wrong enough already," he said, "without subjecting +her to the cruel tongue of my mother. I have conscience enough left not +to have anybody else abuse her."</p> + +<p>"But, Tom," expostulated Mary, "if you want to be good, one of your +first duties is to be reconciled to your mother."</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry things are all wrong between us, Mary," said Tom. +"But, if you want her to come here, you don't know what you are talking +about. She must have everything her own way, or storm from morning to +night. I would gladly make it up with her, but live with her, or die +with her, I could <i>not</i> . To make either possible, you must convert her, +too. When you have done that, I will invite her at once."</p> + +<p>"Never mind me, Tom," said Letty. "So long as you love me, I don't care +what even your mother thinks of me. I will do everything I can to make +her comfortable, and satisfied with me."</p> + +<p>"Wait till I am better, anyhow, Letty; for I solemnly assure you I +haven't a chance if my mother comes. I will tell you what, Mary: I +promise you, if I get better, I will do what is possible to be a son to +my mother; and for the present I will dictate a letter, if you will +write it, bidding her good-by, and asking her pardon for everything I +have done wrong by her, which you will please send if I should die. I +can not and I will not promise more."</p> + +<p>He was excited and exhausted, and Mary dared not say another word. Nor +truly did she at the moment see what more could be said. Where all +relation has been perverted, things can not be set right by force. +Perhaps all we can do sometimes is to be willing and wait.</p> + +<p>The letter was dictated and written—a lovely one, Mary thought—and it +made her weep as she wrote it. Tom signed it with his own hand. Mary +folded, sealed, addressed it, and laid it away in her desk.</p> + +<p>The same evening Tom said to Letty, putting his thin, long hand in +hers—</p> + +<p>"Mary thinks we shall know each other there, Letty."</p> + +<p>"Tom!" interrupted Letty, "don't talk like that; I <i>can't</i> bear it. If +you do, I shall die before you."</p> + +<p>"All I wanted to say," persisted Tom, "was, that I should sit all day +looking out for you, Letty."</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII.<br /><br /> +THE LEPER.</h3> + +<p>The faint, sweet, luminous jar of bow and string, as betwixt them they +tore the silky air into a dying sound, came hovering—neither could +have said whether it was in the soul only, or there and in the outer +world too.</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> that?" said Tom.</p> + +<p>"Mary!" Letty called into the other room, "there is our friend with the +violin again! Don't you think Tom would like to hear him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do," answered Mary.</p> + +<p>"Then would you mind asking him to come and play a little to us? It +would do Tom good, I do think." Mary went up the one stair—all that +now divided them, and found the musician with his sister—his +half-sister she was.</p> + +<p>"I thought we should have you in upon us!" said Ann. "Joe thinks he can +play so as nobody can hear him; and I was fool enough to let him try. I +am sorry."</p> + +<p>"I am glad," rejoined Mary, "and am come to ask him down stairs; for +Mrs. Helmer and I think it will do her husband good to hear him. He is +very fond of music."</p> + +<p>"Much help music will be to him, poor young man!" said Ann, scornfully.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't you give a sick man a flower, even if it only made him a +little happier for a moment with its scent and its loveliness?" asked +Mary.</p> + +<p>"No, I wouldn't. It would only be to help the deceitful heart to be +more desperately wicked."</p> + +<p>I will not continue the conversation, although they did a little +longer. Ann's father had been a preacher among the followers of +Whitefield, and Ann was a follower of her father. She laid hold upon +the garment of a hard master, a tyrannical God. Happy he who has +learned the gospel according to Jesus, as reported by John—that God is +light, and in him is no darkness at all! Happy he who finds God his +refuge from all the lies that are told for him, and in his name! But it +is love that saves, and not opinion that damns; and let the Master +himself deal with the weeds in his garden as with the tares in his +field.</p> + +<p>"I read my Bible a good deal," said Mary, at last, "but I never found +one of those things you say in it."</p> + +<p>"That's because you were never taught to look for them," said Ann.</p> + +<p>"Very likely," returned Mary. "In the mean time I prefer the +violin—that is, with one like your brother to play it."</p> + +<p>She turned to the door, and Joseph Jasper, who had not spoken a word, +rose and followed her. As soon as they were outside, Mary turned to +him, and begged he would play the same piece with which he had ended on +the former occasion.</p> + +<p>"I thought you did not care for it! I am so glad!" he said.</p> + +<p>"I care for it very much," replied Mary, "and have often thought of it +since. But you left in such haste! before I could find words to thank +you!"</p> + +<p>"You mean the ten lepers, don't you?" he said. "But of course you do. I +always end off with them."</p> + +<p>"Is that how you call it?" returned Mary. "Then you have given me the +key to it, and I shall understand it much better this time, I hope."</p> + +<p>"That is what I call it," said Joseph, "—to myself, I mean, not to +Ann. She would count it blasphemy. God has made so many things that she +thinks must not be mentioned in his hearing!"</p> + +<p>When they entered the room, Joseph, casting a quick look round it, made +at once for the darkest corner. Three swift strides took him there; +and, without more preamble than if he had come upon a public platform +to play, he closed his eyes and began.</p> + +<p>And now at last Mary understood at least this specimen of his strange +music, and was able to fill up the blanks in the impression it formerly +made upon her. Alas, that my helpless ignorance should continue to make +it impossible for me to describe it!</p> + +<p>A movement even and rather slow, full of unexpected chords, wonderful +to Mary, who did not know that such things could be made on the violin, +brought before her mind's eye the man who knew all about everything, +and loved a child more than a sage, walking in the hot day upon the +border be-tween Galilee and Samaria. Sounds arose which she interpreted +as the stir of village life, the crying and calling of domestic +animals, and of busy housewives at their duties, carried on half out of +doors, in the homeliness of country custom. Presently the instrument +began to tell the gathering of a crowd, with bee-like hum, and the +crossing of voice with voice—but, at a distance, the sounds confused +and obscure. Swiftly then they seemed to rush together, to blend and +lose themselves in the unity of an imploring melody, in which she heard +the words, uttered afar, with uplifted hands and voices, drawing nearer +and nearer as often repeated, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." Then +came a brief pause, and then what, to her now fully roused imagination, +seemed the voice of the Master, saying, "Go show yourselves unto the +priests." Then followed the slow, half-unwilling, not hopeful march of +timeless feet; then a clang as of something broken, then a silence as +of sunrise, then air and liberty—long-drawn notes divided with quick, +hurried ones; then the trampling of many feet, going farther and +farther—merrily, with dance and song; once more a sudden pause—and a +melody in which she read the awe-struck joyous return of one. Steadily +yet eagerly the feet drew nigh, the melody growing at once in awe and +jubilation, as the man came nearer and nearer to him whose word had +made him clean, until at last she saw him fall on his face before him, +and heard his soul rushing forth in a strain of adoring thanks, which +seemed to end only because it was choked in tears.</p> + +<p>The violin ceased, but, as if its soul had passed from the instrument +into his, the musician himself took up the strain, and in a mellow +tenor voice, with a mingling of air and recitative, and an expression +which to Mary was entrancing, sang the words, "And he was a Samaritan."</p> + +<p>At the sound of his own voice, he seemed to wake up, hung his head for +a moment, as if ashamed of having shown his emotion, tucked his +instrument under his arm, and walked from the room, without a word +spoken on either side. Nor, while he played, had Mary once seen the +face of the man; her soul sat only in the porch of her ears, and not +once looked from the windows of her eyes.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII.<br /><br /> +MARY AND MR. REDMAIN.</h3> + +<p>A few rudiments of righteousness lurked, in their original +undevelopment, but still in a measure active, in the being of Mr. +Redmain: there had been in the soul of his mother, I suspect, a strain +of generosity, and she had left a mark of it upon him, and it was the +best thing about him. But in action these rudiments took an evil shape.</p> + +<p>Preferring inferior company, and full of that suspicion which puts the +last edge upon what the world calls knowledge of human nature, he +thought no man his equal in penetrating the arena of motive, and +reading actions in the light of motive; and, that the fundamental +principle of all motive was self-interest, he assumed to be beyond +dispute. With this candle, not that of the Lord, he searched the dark +places of the soul; but, where the soul was light, his candle could +show him nothing—served only to blind him yet further, if possible, to +what was there present. And, because he did not seek the good, never +yet in all his life had he come near enough to a righteous man to +recognize that in something or other that man was different from +himself. As for women—there was his wife—of whom he was willing to +think as well as she would let him! And she, firmly did he believe, was +an angel beside Sepia!—of whom, bad as she was, it is quite possible +he thought yet worse than she deserved: alas for the woman who is not +good, and falls under the judgment of a bad man!—the good woman he can +no more hurt than the serpent can bite the adamant. He believed he knew +Sepia's self, although he did not yet know her history; and he scorned +her the more that he was not a hair better himself. He had regard +enough for his wife, and what virtue his penetration conceded her, to +hate their intimacy; and ever since his marriage had been scheming how +to get rid of Sepia—only, however, through finding her out: he must +unmask her: there would be no satisfaction in getting rid of her +without his wife's convinced acquiescence. He had been, therefore, +almost all the time more or less on the watch to uncover the wickedness +he felt sure lay at no great depth beneath her surface; and in the mean +time, and for the sake of this end, he lived on terms of decent +domiciliation with her. She had no suspicion how thin was the crust +between her and the lava.</p> + +<p>In Cornwall, he began at length to puzzle himself about Mary. Of course +she was just like the rest! but he did not at once succeed in fitting +what he saw to what he entirely believed of her. She remained, like +Sepia, a riddle to be solved. He was not so ignorant as his wife +concerning the relations of the different classes, and he felt certain +there must be some reason, of course a discreditable one, for her +leaving her former, and taking her present, position. The attack he had +in Cornwall afforded him unexpected opportunity of making her out, as +he called it.</p> + +<p>Upon this occasion it was also that Mary first ventured to expostulate +with her mistress on her neglect of her husband. She heard her +patiently; and the same day, going to his room, paid him some small +attention—handed him his medicine, I believe, but clumsily, because +ungraciously. The next moment, one of his fits of pain coming on, he +broke into such a torrent of cursing as swept her in stately dignity +from the room. She would not go near him again.</p> + +<p>"Brought up as you have been, Mary," she said, "you can not enter into +the feelings of one in my position, to whom the very tone even of +coarse language is unspeakably odious. It makes me sick with disgust. +Coarseness is what no lady can endure. I beg you will not mention Mr. +Redmain to me again."</p> + +<p>"Dear Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, "ugly as such language is, there are +many things worse. It seems to me worse that a wife should not go near +her husband when he is suffering than that he should in his pain speak +bad words."</p> + +<p>She had been on the point of saying that a thin skin was not purity, +but bethought herself in time.</p> + +<p>"You are scarcely in a position to lay down the law for me, Mary," said +Hesper. "We will, if you please, drop the subject."</p> + +<p>Mary's words were overheard, as was a good deal in the house more than +was reckoned on, and reached Mr. Redmain, whom they perplexed: what +could the young woman hope from taking his part?</p> + +<p>One morning, after the arrival of Mewks, his man, Mary heard Mr. +Redmain calling him in a tone which betrayed that he had been calling +for some time: the house was an old one, and the bells were neither in +good trim, nor was his in a convenient position. She thought first to +find Mewks, but pity rose in her heart. She ran to Mr. Redmain's door, +which stood half open, and showed herself.</p> + +<p>"Can <i>I</i> not do something for you, sir?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you can. Go and tell that lumbering idiot to come to me +instantly. No! here, you!—there's a good girl!—Oh, damn!—Just give +me your hand, and help me to turn an inch or two."</p> + +<p>Change of posture relieved him a little. "Thank you," he said. "That is +better. Wait a few moments, will you—till the rascal comes?"</p> + +<p>Mary stood back, a little behind him, thinking not to annoy him with +the sight of her.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing there?" he cried. "I like to see what people are +about in my room. Come in front here, and let me look at you."</p> + +<p>Mary obeyed, and with a smile took the position he pointed out to her. +Immediately followed another agony of pain, in which he looked beset +with demons, whom he not feared but hated. Mary hurried to him, and, in +the compassion which she inherited long back of Eve, took his hand, the +fingers of which were twisting themselves into shapes like tree-roots. +With a hoarse roar, he dashed hers from him, as if it had been a +serpent. She returned to her place, and stood.</p> + +<p>"What did you mean by that?" he said, when he came to himself. "Do you +want to make a fool of me?"</p> + +<p>Mary did not understand him, and made no reply. Another fit came. This +time she kept her distance.</p> + +<p>"Come here," he howled; "take my head in your hands."</p> + +<p>She obeyed.</p> + +<p>"Damned nice hands you've got!" he gasped; "much nicer than your +mistress's."</p> + +<p>Mary took no notice. Gently she withdrew her hands, for the fit was +over.</p> + +<p>"I see! that's the way of you!" he said, as she stepped back. "But come +now, tell me how it is that a nice, well-behaved, handsome girl like +you, should leave a position where, they tell me, you were your own +mistress, and take a cursed place as lady's maid to my wife."</p> + +<p>"It was because I liked Mrs. Redmain so much," answered Mary. "But, +indeed, I was not very comfortable where I was."</p> + +<p>"What the devil did you see to like in her? I never saw anything!"</p> + +<p>"She is so beautiful!" said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Is she! ho! ho!" he laughed. "What is that to another woman! You are +new to the trade, my girl, if you think that will go down! One woman +taking to another because 'she's so beautiful'! Ha! ha! ha!"</p> + +<p>He repeated Mary's words with an indescribable contempt, and his laugh +was insulting to a degree; but it went off in a cry of suffering.</p> + +<p>"Hypocrisy mustn't be too barefaced," he resumed, when again his +torture abated. "I didn't make you stop to amuse me! It's little of +that this beastly world has got for me! Come, a better reason for +waiting on my wife?"</p> + +<p>"That she was kind to me," said Mary, "may be a better reason, but it +is not a truer."</p> + +<p>"It's more than ever she was to me! What wages does she give you?"</p> + +<p>"We have not spoken about that yet, sir."</p> + +<p>"You haven't had any?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't wanted any yet."</p> + +<p>"Then what the deuce ever made you come to this house?"</p> + +<p>"I hoped to be of some service to Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, growing +troubled.</p> + +<p>"And you ain't of any? Is that why you don't want wages?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir. That is not the reason."</p> + +<p>"Then what <i>is</i> the reason? Come! Trust me. I will be much better to +you than your mistress. Out with it! I knew there was something!"</p> + +<p>"I would rather not talk more about it," said Mary, knowing that her +feeling in relation to Hesper would be altogether incredible, and the +notion of it ridiculous to him.</p> + +<p>"You needn't mind telling <i>me</i> ! I know all about such things.—Look +here! Give me that pocket-book on the table."</p> + +<p>Mary brought him the pocket-book. He opened it, and, taking from it +some notes, held them out to her.</p> + +<p>"If your mistress won't pay you your wages, I will. There! take that. +You're quite welcome. What matter which pays you? It all comes out of +the same stocking-foot."</p> + +<p>"I don't know yet," answered Mary, "whether I shall accept wages from +Mrs. Redmain. Something might happen to make it impossible; or, if I +had taken money, to make me regret it."</p> + +<p>"I like that! There you keep a hold on her!" said Mr. Redmain, in a +confidential tone, while in his heart he was more puzzled than ever. +"There's no occasion, though, for all that," he went on, "to go without +your money when you can have it and she be nothing the wiser. +There—take it. I will swear you any oath you like not to tell my +stingy wife."</p> + +<p>"She is not stingy," said Mary; "and, if I don't take wages from her, I +certainly shall not from any one else.—Besides," she added, "it would +be dishonest."</p> + +<p>"Oh! that's the dodge!" said Mr. Redmain to himself; but aloud, "Where +would be the dishonesty, when the money is mine to do with as I please?"</p> + +<p>"Where the dishonesty, sir!" exclaimed Mary, astounded. "To take wages +from you, and pretend to Mrs. Redmain I was going without!"</p> + +<p>"Ha! ha! The first time, no doubt, you ever pretended anything!"</p> + +<p>"It would be," said Mary, "so far as I can, at the moment, remember."</p> + +<p>"Go along," cried Mr. Redmain, losing, or pretending to lose, patience +with her; "you are too unscrupulous a liar for me to deal with."</p> + +<p>Mary turned and left the room. As she went, his keen glance caught the +expression of her countenance, and noted the indignant red that flushed +her cheeks, and the lightning of wronged innocence in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"I ought not to have said it," he remarked to himself.</p> + +<p>He did not for a moment fancy she had spoken the truth; but the look of +her went to a deeper place in him than he knew even the existence of.</p> + +<p>"Hey! stop," he cried, as she was disappearing. "Come back, will you?"</p> + +<p>"I will find Mr. Mewks," she answered, and went.</p> + +<p>After this, Mary naturally dreaded conference with Mr. Redmain; and he, +thinking she must have time to get over the offense he had given her, +made for the present no fresh attempt to come, by her own aid, at a +bird's-eye view of her character and scheme of life. His curiosity, +however, being in no degree assuaged concerning the odd human animal +whose spoor he had for the moment failed to track, he meditated how +best to renew the attempt in London. Not small, therefore, was his +annoyance to find, a few days after his arrival, that she was no longer +in the house. He questioned his wife as to the cause of her absence, +and told her she was utterly heartless in refusing her leave to go and +nurse her friend; whereupon Hesper, neither from desire to do right nor +from regard to her husband's opinion, but because she either saw or +fancied she saw that, now Mary did not dress her, she no longer caused +the same sensation on entering a room, resolved to write to her—as if +taking it for granted she had meant to return as soon as she was able. +And to prick the sides of this intent came another spur, as will be +seen from the letter she wrote:</p> + +<p>"Dear Mary, can you tell me what is become of my large sapphire ring? I +have never seen it since you brought my case up with you from Cornwall. +I have been looking for it all the morning, but in vain. You <i>must</i> +have it. I shall be lost without it, for you know it has not its equal +for color and brilliance. I do not believe you intended for a moment to +keep it, but only to punish me for thinking I could do without you. If +so, you have your revenge, for I find I can not do without either of +you—you or the ring—so you will not carry the joke further than I can +bear. If you can not come at once, write and tell me it is safe, and I +shall love you more than ever. I am dying to see you again. Yours +faithfully, H. R."</p> + +<p>By this time, Letty was much better, and Tom no longer required such +continuous attention; Mary, therefore, betook herself at once to Mr. +Redmain's. Hesper was out shopping, and Mary went to her own room to +wait for her, where she was glad of the opportunity of getting at some +of the things she had left behind her.</p> + +<p>"While she was looking for what she wanted, Sepia entered, and was, or +pretended to be, astonished to see her. In a strange, sarcastic tone:</p> + +<p>"Ah, you there!" she said. "I hope you will find it."</p> + +<p>"If you mean the ring, that is not likely, Miss Yolland," Mary answered.</p> + +<p>Sepia was silent a moment or two, then said:</p> + +<p>"How is your cousin?"</p> + +<p>"I have no cousin," replied Mary.</p> + +<p>"The person, I mean, you have been staying with?"</p> + +<p>"Better, thank you."</p> + +<p>"Almost a pity, is it not—if there should come trouble about this +ring?"</p> + +<p>"I do not understand you. The ring will, of course, be found," returned +Mary.</p> + +<p>"In any case the blame will come on you: it was in your charge."</p> + +<p>"The ring was in the case when I left."</p> + +<p>"You will have to prove that."</p> + +<p>"I remember quite well."</p> + +<p>"That no one will question."</p> + +<p>Beginning at last to understand her insinuations, Mary was so angry +that she dared not speak.</p> + +<p>"But it will hardly go to clear you," Sepia went on. "Don't imagine I +mean you have taken it; I am only warning you how the matter will look, +that you may be prepared. Mr. Redmain is one to believe the worst +things of the best people."</p> + +<p>"I am obliged to you," said Mary, "but I am not anxious."</p> + +<p>"It is necessary you should know also," continued Sepia, "that there is +some suspicion attaching to a female friend of yours as well, a young +woman who used to visit you—the wife of the other, it is supposed. She +was here, I remember, one night there was a party; I saw you together +in my cousin's bedroom. She had just dressed and gone down."</p> + +<p>"I remember," said Mary. "It was Mrs. Helmer."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"It is very unfortunate, certainly; but the truth must be told: a few +days before you left, one of the servants, hearing some one in the +house in the middle of the night, got up and went down, but only in +time to hear the front door open and shut. In the morning a hat was +found in the drawing-room, with the name <i>Thomas Helmer</i> in it: that is +the name of your friend's husband, I believe?"</p> + +<p>"I am aware Mr. Helmer was a frequent visitor," said Mary, trying to +keep cool for what was to come.</p> + +<p>This that Sepia told her was true enough, though she was not accurate +as to the time of its occurrence. I will relate briefly how it came +about.</p> + +<p>Upon a certain evening, a few days before Mary's return from Cornwall, +Tom would have gone to see Miss Yolland had he not known that she meant +to go to the play with a Mr. Emmet, a cousin of the Redmains. Before +the hour arrived, however, Count Galofta called, and Sepia went out +with him, telling the man who opened the door to ask Mr. Emmet to wait. +The man was rather deaf, and did not catch with certainty the name she +gave. Mr. Emmet did not appear, and it was late before Sepia returned.</p> + +<p>Tom, jealous even to hatred, spent the greater part of his evening in a +tavern on the borders of the city—in gloomy solitude, drinking +brandy-and-water, and building castles of the most foolish type—for +castles are as different as the men that build them. Through all the +rooms of them glided the form of Sepia, his evil genius. He grew more +and more excited as he built, and as he drank. He rose at last, paid +his bill, and, a little suspicious of his equilibrium, stalked into the +street. There, almost unconsciously, he turned and walked westward. It +was getting late; before long the theatres would be emptying: he might +have a peep of Sepia as she came out!—but where was the good when that +fellow was with her! "But," thought Tom, growing more and more daring +as in an adventurous dream, "why should I not go to the house, and see +her after he has left her at the door?"</p> + +<p>He went to the house and rang the bell. The man came, and said +immediately that Miss Yolland was out, but had desired him to ask Mr. +Helmer to wait; whereupon Tom walked in, and up the stair to the +drawing-room, thence into a second and a third drawing-room, and from +the last into the conservatory. The man went down and finished his +second, pint of ale. From the conservatory, Tom, finding himself in +danger of havoc among the flower-pots, turned back into the third room, +threw himself on a couch, and fell fast asleep.</p> + +<p>He woke in the middle of the night in pitch darkness; and it was some +time before he could remember where he was. When he did, he recognized +that he was in an awkward predicament. But he knew the house well, and +would make the attempt to get out undiscovered. It was foolish, but Tom +was foolish. Feeling his way, he knocked down a small table with a +great crash of china, and, losing his equanimity, rushed for the stair. +Happily the hall lamp was still alight, and he found no trouble with +bolts or lock: the door was not any way secured.</p> + +<p>The first breath of the cold night-air brought with it such a gush of +joy as he had rarely experienced; and he trod the silent streets with +something of the pleasure of an escaped criminal, until, alas! the +wind, at the first turning, let him know that he had left his hat +behind him! He felt as if he had committed a murder, and left his +card-case with the body. A vague terror grew upon him as he hurried +along. Justice seemed following on his track. He had found the door on +the latch: if anything was missing, how should he explain the presence +of his hat without his own? The devil of the brandy he had drunk was +gone out of him, and only the gray ashes of its evil fire were left in +his sick brain, but it had helped first to kindle another fire, which +was now beginning to glow unsuspected—that of a fever whose fuel had +been slowly gathering for some time.</p> + +<p>He opened the door with his pass-key, and hurried up the stair, his +long legs taking three steps at a time. Never before had he felt as if +he were fleeing to a refuge when going home to his wife.</p> + +<p>He opened the door of the sitting-room—and there on the floor lay +Letty and little Tom, as I have already told.</p> + +<p>"Why have I heard nothing of this before?" said Mary.</p> + +<p>"I am not aware of any right you have to know what happens in this +house."</p> + +<p>"Not from you, of course, Miss Yolland—perhaps not from Mrs. Redmain; +but the servants talk of most things, and I have not heard a word—"</p> + +<p>"How could you," interrupted Sepia, "when you were not in the +house?—And, so long as nothing was missed, the thing was of no +consequence," she added. "Now it is different."</p> + +<p>This confused Mary a little. She stopped to consider. One thing was +clear—that, if the ring was not lost till after she left—and of so +much she was sure—it could not be Tom that had taken it, for he was +then ill in bed. Something to this effect she managed to say.</p> + +<p>"I told you already," returned Sepia, "that I had no suspicion of +him—at least, I desire to have none, but you may be required to prove +all you say; and it is as well to let you understand—though there is +no reason why <i>I</i> should take the trouble—that your going to those +very people at the time, and their proving to be friends of yours, adds +to the difficulty."</p> + +<p>"How?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"I am not on the jury," replied Sepia, with indifference.</p> + +<p>The scope of her remarks seemed to Mary intended to show that any +suspicion of her would only be natural. For the moment the idea amused +her. But Sepia's way of talking about Tom, whatever she meant by it, +was disgraceful!</p> + +<p>"I am astonished you should seem so indifferent," she said, "if the +character of a gentleman with whom you have been so intimate is so +seriously threatened as you would imply. I know he has been to see you +more than once while Mr. and Mrs. Redmain were not yet returned."</p> + +<p>Sepia's countenance changed; an evil fire glowed in her eyes, and she +looked at Mary as if she would search her to the bone. The poorer the +character, the more precious the repute!</p> + +<p>"The foolish fellow," she returned, with a smile of contempt, "chose to +fall in love with me!—A married man, too!"</p> + +<p>"If you understood that, how did he come to be here so often?" asked +Mary, looking her in the face.</p> + +<p>But Sepia knew better than declare war a moment before it was +unavoidable.</p> + +<p>"Have I not just told you," she said, in a haughty tone, "that the man +was in love with me?"</p> + +<p>"And have you not just told me he was a married man? Could he have come +to the house so often without at least your permission?"</p> + +<p>Mary was actually taking the upper hand with her! Sepia felt it with +scarcely repressive rage.</p> + +<p>"He deserved the punishment," she replied, with calmness.</p> + +<p>"You do not seem to have thought of his wife!"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not. She never gave me offense."</p> + +<p>"Is offense the only ground for casting a regard on a fellow-creature?"</p> + +<p>"Why should I think of her?"</p> + +<p>"Because she was your neighbor, and you were doing her a wrong."</p> + +<p>"Once for all, Marston," cried Sepia, overcome at last, "this kind of +thing will not do with me. I may not be a saint, but I have honesty +enough to know the genuine thing from humbug. You have thrown dust in a +good many eyes in this house, but <i>none</i> in mine."</p> + +<p>By this time Mary had got her temper quite in hand, taking a lesson +from the serpent, who will often keep his when the dove loses hers. She +hardly knew what fear was, for she had in her something a little +stronger than what generally goes by the name of faith. She was +therefore able to see that she ought, if possible, to learn Sepia's +object in talking thus to her.</p> + +<p>"Why do you say all this to me?" she asked, quietly. "I can not flatter +myself it is from friendship."</p> + +<p>"Certainly not. But the motive may be worthy, for all that. You are not +the only one involved. People who would pass for better than their +neighbors will never believe any good purpose in one who does not +choose to talk their slang."</p> + +<p>Sepia had repressed her rage, and through it looked aggrieved. "She +confesses to a purpose," said Mary to herself, and waited.</p> + +<p>"They are not all villains who are not saints," Sepia went on. "—This +man's wife is your friend?"</p> + +<p>"She is."</p> + +<p>"Well, the man himself is my friend—in a sort of a sense." A strange +shiver went through Mary, and seemed to make her angry. Sepia went on:</p> + +<p>"I confess I allowed the poor boy—he is little more—to talk foolishly +to me. I was amused at first, but perhaps I have not quite escaped +unhurt; and, as a woman, you must understand that, when a woman has +once felt in that way, if but for a moment, she would at least +be—sorry—" Here her voice faltered, and she did not finish the +sentence, but began afresh: "What I want of you is, through his wife, +or any way you think best, to let the poor fellow know he had better +slip away—to France, say—and stop there till the thing blow over."</p> + +<p>"But why should you imagine he has had anything to do with the matter? +The ring will be found, and then the hat will not signify."</p> + +<p>"Well," replied Sepia, putting on an air of openness, and for that sake +an air of familiarity, "I see I must tell you the whole truth. I never +did for a moment believe Mr. Helmer had anything to do with the +business, though, when you put me out of temper, I pretended to believe +it, and that you were in it as well: that was mere irritation. But +there is sure to be trouble; for my cousin is miserable about her +sapphire, which she values more than anything she has; and, if it is +not found, the affair will be put into the hands of the police, and +then what will become of poor Mr. Helmer, be he as innocent as you and +I believe him! Even if the judge should declare that he leaves the +court without a blot on his character, Newgate mud is sure to stick, +and he will be half looked upon as a thief for the rest of his days: +the world is so unjust. Nor is that all; for they will put you in the +witness-box, and make you confess the man an old friend of yours from +the same part of the country; whereupon the counsel for the prosecution +will not fail to hint that you ought to be standing beside the accused. +Believe me, Mary, that, if Mr. Helmer is taken up for this, you will +not come out of it clean."</p> + +<p>"Still you explain nothing," said Mary. "You would not have me believe +it is for my sake you are giving yourself all this trouble?"</p> + +<p>"No. But I thought you would see where I was leading you. For—and now +for the <i>whole</i> truth—although nothing can touch the character of one +in my position, it would be worse than awkward for me to be spoken of +in connection with the poor fellow's visits to the house: <i>my</i> honesty +would not be called in question as yours would, but what is dear to me +as my honesty might—nay, it certainly would. You see now why I came to +you!—You must go to his wife, or, better still, to Mr. Helmer himself, +and tell him what I have been saying to you. He will at once see the +necessity of disappearing for a while."</p> + +<p>Mary had listened attentively. She could not help fearing that +something worse than unpleasant might be at hand; but she did not +believe in Sepia, and in no case could consent that Tom should +compromise himself. Danger of this kind must be met, not avoided. +Still, whatever could be done ought to be done to protect him, +especially in his present critical state. A breath of such a suspicion +as this reaching him might be the death of him, and of Letty, too.</p> + +<p>"I will think over what you have said," she answered; "but I can not +give him the advice you wish me. What I shall do I can not say—the +thing has come upon me with such a shock."</p> + +<p>"You have no choice that I see," said Sepia. "It is either what I +propose or ruin. I give you fair warning that I will stick at nothing +where my reputation is concerned. You and yours shall be trod in the +dirt before I allow a spot on my character!"</p> + +<p>To Mary's relief they were here interrupted by the hurried entrance of +Mrs. Redmain. She almost ran up to her, and took her by both hands.</p> + +<p>"You dear creature! You have brought me my ring!" she cried.</p> + +<p>Mary shook her head with a little sigh.</p> + +<p>"But you have come to tell me where it is?"</p> + +<p>"Alas! no, dear Mrs. Redmain!" said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Then you must find it," she said, and turned away with an +ominous-looking frown. "I will do all I can to help you find it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you <i>must</i> find it! My jewel-case was in your charge."</p> + +<p>"But there has been time to lose everything in it, the one after the +other, since I gave it up. The sapphire ring was there, I know, when I +went."</p> + +<p>"That can not be. You gave me the box, and I put it away myself, and, +the next time I looked in it, it was not there."</p> + +<p>"I wish I had asked you to open it when I gave it you," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"I wish you had," said Hesper. "But the ring must be found, or I shall +send for the police."</p> + +<p>"I will not make matters worse, Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, with as much +calmness as she could assume, and much was needed, "by pointing out +what your words imply. If you really mean what you say, it is I who +must insist on the police being sent for."</p> + +<p>"I am sure, Mary," said Sepia, speaking for the first time since +Hesper's entrance, "that your mistress has no intention of accusing +you."</p> + +<p>"Of course not," said Hesper; "only, what am I to do? I must have my +ring. Why did you come, if you had nothing to tell me about it?"</p> + +<p>"How could I stay away when you were in trouble? Have you searched +everywhere?"</p> + +<p>"Everywhere I can think of."</p> + +<p>"Would you like me to help you look? I feel certain it will be found."</p> + +<p>"No, thank you. I am sick of looking."</p> + +<p>"Shall I go, then?—What would you like me to do?"</p> + +<p>"Go to your room, and wait till I send for you."</p> + +<p>"I must not be long away from my invalids," said Mary, as cheerfully as +she could.</p> + +<p>"Oh, indeed! I thought you had come back to your work!"</p> + +<p>"I did not understand from your letter you wished that, ma'am—though, +indeed, I could not have come just yet in any case."</p> + +<p>"Then you mean to go, and leave things just as they are?"</p> + +<p>"I am afraid there is no help for it. If I could do anything-. But I +will call again to-morrow, and every day till the ring is found, if you +like."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Hesper, dryly; "I don't think that would be of much +use."</p> + +<p>"I will call anyhow," returned Mary, "and inquire whether you would +like to see me.—I will go to my room now, and while I wait will get +some things I want."</p> + +<p>"As you please," said Hesper.</p> + +<p>Scarcely was Mary in her room, however, when she heard the door, which +had the trick of falling-to of itself, closed and locked, and knew that +she was a prisoner. For one moment a frenzy of anger overcame her; the +next, she remembered where her life was hid, knew that nothing could +touch her, and was calm. While she took from her drawers the things she +wanted, and put them in her hand-bag, she heard the door unlocked, but, +as no one entered, she sat down to wait what would next arrive.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Redmain, as soon as she was aware of her loss, had gone in her +distress to tell her husband, whose gift the ring had been. Unlike his +usual self, he had showed interest in the affair. She attributed this +to the value of the jewel, and the fact that he had himself chosen it: +he was rather, and thought himself very, knowing in stones; and the +sapphire was in truth a most rare one: but it was for quite other +reasons that Mr. Redmain cared about its loss: it would, he hoped, like +the famous carbuncle, cast a light all round it.</p> + +<p>He was as yet by no means well, and had not been from the house since +his return.</p> + +<p>The moment Mary was out of the room, Hesper rose.</p> + +<p>"I should be a fool to let her leave the house," she said.</p> + +<p>"Hesper, you will do nothing but mischief," cried Sepia.</p> + +<p>Hesper paid no attention, but, going after Mary, locked the door of her +room, and, running to her husband's, told him she had made her a +prisoner.</p> + +<p>No sooner was she in her husband's room than Sepia hastened to unlock +Mary's door; but, just as she did so, she heard some one on the stair +above, and retreated without going in. She would then have turned the +key again, but now she heard steps on the stair below, and once more +withdrew.</p> + +<p>Mary heard a knock at her door. Mewks entered. He brought a request +from his master that she would go to his room.</p> + +<p>She rose and went, taking her bag with her.</p> + +<p>"You may go now, Mrs. Redmain," said her husband when Mary entered. +"Get out, Mewks," he added; and both lady and valet disappeared.</p> + +<p>"So!" he said, with a grin of pleasure. "Here's a pretty business! You +may sit down, though. You haven't got the ring in that bag there?"</p> + +<p>"Nor anywhere else, sir," answered Mary. "Shall I shake it out on the +floor?—or on the sofa would be better."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense! You don't imagine me such a fool as to suppose, if you had +it, you would carry it about in your bag!"</p> + +<p>"You don't believe I have it, sir—do you?" she returned, in a tone of +appeal.</p> + +<p>"How am I to know what to believe? There is something dubious about +you—you have yourself all but admitted that: how am I to know that +robbery mayn't be your little dodge? All that rubbish you talked down +at Lychford about honesty, and taking no wages, and loving your +mistress, and all that rot, looks devilish like something off the +square! That ring, now, the stone of it alone, is worth seven hundred +pounds: one might let pretty good wages go for a chance like that!"</p> + +<p>Mary looked him in the face, and made him no answer. He spied a danger: +if he irritated her, he would get nothing out of her!</p> + +<p>"My girl," he said, changing his tone, "I believe you know nothing +about the ring; I was only teasing you."</p> + +<p>Mary could not help a sigh of relief, and her eyes fell, for she felt +them beginning to fill. She could not have believed that the judgment +of such a man would ever be of consequence to her. But the unity of the +race is a thing that can not be broken.</p> + +<p>Now, although Mr. Redmain was by no means so sure of her innocence as +he had pretended, he did at least wish and hope to find her +innocent—from no regard for her, but because there was another he +would be more glad to find concerned in the ugly affair.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Redmain," he went on, "would have me hand you over to the police; +but I won't. You may go home when you please, and you need fear +nothing."</p> + +<p>He had the house where the Helmers lodged already watched, and knew +this much, that some one was ill there, and that the doctor came almost +every day.</p> + +<p>"I certainly shall fear nothing," said Mary, not quite trusting him; +"my fate is in God's hands."</p> + +<p>"We know all about that," said Mr. Redmain; "I'm up to most dodges. But +look here, my girl: it wouldn't be prudent in me, lest there should be +such a personage as you have just mentioned, to be hard upon any of my +fellow-creatures: I am one day pretty sure to be in misfortune myself. +You mightn't think it of me, but I am not quite a heathen, and do +reflect a little at times. You may be as wicked as myself, or as good +as Joseph, for anything I know or care, for, as I say, it ain't my +business to judge you. Tell me now what you are up to, and I will make +it the better for you."</p> + +<p>Mary had been trying hard to get at what he was "up to," but found +herself quite bewildered.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry, sir," she faltered, "but I haven't the slightest idea what +you mean."</p> + +<p>"Then you go home," he said. "I will send for you when I want you."</p> + +<p>The moment she was out of the room, he rang his bell violently. Mewks +appeared.</p> + +<p>"Go after that young woman—do you hear? You know her—Miss—damn it, +what's her name?—Harland or Cranston, or—oh, hang it! you know well +enough, you rascal!"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean Miss Marston, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do! Why didn't you say so before? Go after her, I tell +you; and make haste. If she goes straight home—you know where—come +back as soon as she's inside the door."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Damn you, go, or you'll lose sight of her!"</p> + +<p>"I'm a-listenin' after the street-door, sir. It ain't gone yet. There +it is now!"</p> + +<p>And with the word he left the room.</p> + +<p>Mary was too much absorbed in her own thoughts to note that she was +followed by a man with the collar of his great-coat up to his eyes, and +a woolen comforter round his face. She walked on steadily for home, +scarce seeing the people that passed her. It was clear to Mewks that +she had not a suspicion of being kept in sight. He saw her in at her +own door, and went back to his master.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV.<br /><br /> +JOSEPH JASPER.</h3> + +<p>Another fact Mewks carried to his master—namely, that, as Mary came +near the door of the house, she was met by "a rough-looking man," who +came walking slowly along, as if he had been going up and down waiting +for her. He made her an awkward bow as she drew near, and she stopped +and had a long conversation with him—such at least it seemed to Mewks, +annoyed that he could hear nothing of it, and fearful of attracting +their attention—after which the man went away, and Mary went into the +house. This report made his master grin, for, through the description +Mewks gave, he suspected a thief disguised as a workman; but, his hopes +being against the supposition, he dwelt the less upon it.</p> + +<p>The man who stopped Mary, and whom, indeed, she would have stopped, was +Joseph Jasper, the blacksmith. That he was rough in appearance, no one +who knew him would have wished himself able to deny, and one less like +a thief would have been hard to find. His hands were very rough and +ingrained with black; his fingers were long, but chopped off square at +the points, and had no resemblance to the long, tapering fingers of an +artist or pickpocket. His clothes were of corduroy, not very grimy, +because of the huge apron of thick leather he wore at his work, but +they looked none the better that he had topped them with his tall +Sunday hat. His complexion was a mixture of brown and browner; his +black eyebrows hung far over the blackest of eyes, the brightest +flashing of which was never seen, because all the time he played he +kept them closed tight. His face wore its natural clothing—a mustache +thick and well-shaped, and a beard not too large, of a color that +looked like black burned brown. His hair was black and curled all over +his head. His whole appearance was that of a workman; a careless glance +could never have suspected him a poet-musician; as little could even +such a glance have failed to see in him an honest man. He was +powerfully built, over the middle height, but not tall. He spoke very +fair old-fashioned English, with the Yorkshire tone and turn. His walk +was rather plodding, and his movements slow and stiff; but in communion +with his violin they were free enough, and the more delicate for the +strength that was in them; at the anvil they were as supple as +powerful. On his face dwelt an expression that was not to be read by +the indifferent—a waiting in the midst of work, as of a man to whom +the sense of the temporary was always present, but present with the +constant reminder that, just therefore, work must be as good as work +can be that things may last their due time.</p> + +<p>The following was the conversation concerning the purport of which +Mewks was left to what conjecture was possible to a serving-man of his +stamp.</p> + +<p>Mary held out her hand to Jasper, and it disappeared in his. He held it +for a moment with a great but gentle grasp, and, as he let it go, said:</p> + +<p>"I took the liberty of watching for you, miss. I wanted to ask a favor +of you. It seemed to me you would take no offense."</p> + +<p>"You might be sure of that," Mary answered. "You have a right to +anything I can do for you."</p> + +<p>He fixed his gaze on her for a moment, as if he did not understand her. +"That's where it is," he said: "I've <i>done</i> nothing for your people. +It's all very well to go playing and playing, but that's not doing +anything; and, if <i>he</i> had done nothing, there would ha' been no +fiddling. You understand me, miss, I know: work comes before music, and +makes the soul of it; it's not the music that makes the doing. I'm a +poor hand at saying without my fiddle, miss: you'll excuse me."</p> + +<p>Mary's heart was throbbing. She had not heard a word like this—not +since her father went to what people call the "long home"—as if a home +could be too long! What do we want but an endless home?—only it is not +the grave! She felt as if the spirit of her father had descended on the +strange workman, and had sent him to her. She looked at him with +shining eyes, and did not speak. He resumed, as fearing he had not +conveyed his thought.</p> + +<p>"What I think I mean is, miss, that, if the working of miracles in his +name wouldn't do it, it's not likely playing the fiddle will."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I understand you so well!" said Mary, in a voice hardly her own, +"—so well! It makes me happy to hear you! Tell me what I can do for +you."</p> + +<p>"The poor gentleman in there must want all the help you can give him, +and more. There must be something left, surely, for a man to do. He +must want lifting at times, for instance, and that's not fit for either +of you ladies."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Mary, heartily. "I will mention it to Mrs. Helmer, +and I am sure she will be very glad of your help sometimes."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't you ask her now, miss? I should like to know at what hour I +might call. But perhaps the best way would be to walk about here in the +evening, after my day's work is over, and then you could run down any +time, and look out: that would be enough; I should be there. Saturday +nights I could just as well be there all night."</p> + +<p>To Tom and Letty it seemed not a little peculiar that a man so much a +stranger should be ready to walk about the street in order to be at +hand with help for them; but Mary was only delighted, not surprised, +for what the man had said to her made the thing not merely +intelligible, but absolutely reasonable.</p> + +<p>Joseph was not, however, allowed to wander the street. The arrangement +made was, that, as soon as his work was over, he should come and see +whether there was anything he could do for them. And he never came but +there was plenty to do. He took a lodging close by, that he might be +with them earlier, and stay later; and, when nothing else was wanted of +him, he was always ready to discourse on his violin. Sometimes Tom +enjoyed his music much, though he found no little fault with his mode +of playing, for Tom knew something about everything, and could render +many a reason; at other times, he preferred having Mary read to him.</p> + +<p>On one of these latter occasions, Mary, occupied in cooking something +for the invalid, asked Joseph to read for her. He consented, but read +very badly—as if he had no understanding of the words, but, on the +other hand, stopping every few lines, apparently to think and master +what he had read. This was not good reading anyway, least of all for an +invalid who required the soothing of half-thought, molten and diluted +in sweet, even, monotonous sound, and it was long before Mary asked him +again.</p> + +<p>Many things showed that he had had little education, and therefore +probably the more might be made of him. Mary saw that he must be what +men call a genius, for his external history had been, by his own +showing, of an altogether commonplace type.</p> + +<p>His father, who was a blacksmith before him, and a local preacher, had +married a second time, and Joseph was the only child of the second +marriage. His father had brought him up to his own trade, and, after +his death, Joseph came to work in London, whither his sister had +preceded him. He was now thirty, and had from the first been saving +what he could of his wages in the hope of one day having a smithy of +his own, and his time more at his ordering.</p> + +<p>Mary saw too that in his violin he possessed a grand fundamental +undeveloped education; he was like a man going about the world with a +ten-thousand-pound-note in his pocket, and not many sixpences to pay +his way with. But there was another education working in him far +deeper, and already more developed, than that which divine music even +was giving him; this also Mary thoroughly recognized; this it was in +him that chiefly attracted her; and the man himself knew it as +underlying all his consciousness.</p> + +<p>Though he could ill read aloud, he could read well for his inward +nourishment; he could write tolerably, and, if he could not spell, that +mattered a straw, and no more; he had never read a play of +Shakespeare—had never seen a play; knew nothing of grammar or +geography—or of history, except the one history comprising all. He +knew nothing of science; but he could shoe a horse as well as any man +in the three Ridings, and make his violin talk about things far beyond +the ken of most men of science.</p> + +<p>So much of a change had passed upon Tom in his illness, that Mary saw +it not unreasonable to try upon him now and then a poem of her favorite +singer. Occasionally, of course, the feeling was altogether beyond him, +but even then he would sometimes enter into the literary merit of the +utterance.</p> + +<p>"I had no idea there were such gems in George Herbert, Mary!" he said +once. "I declare, some of them are even in their structure finer than +many things that have nothing in them to admire except the structure."</p> + +<p>"That is not to be wondered at," replied Mary.</p> + +<p>"No," said Joseph; "it is not to be wondered at; for it's clear to me +the old gentleman plied a good bow. I can see that plain enough."</p> + +<p>"Tell us how you see it," said Mary, more interested than she would +have liked to show.</p> + +<p>"Easily," he answered. "There was one poem"—he pronounced it +<i>pome</i> —"you read just now—"</p> + +<p>"Which? which?" interrupted Mary, eagerly.</p> + +<p>"That I can not tell you; but, all the time you were reading it, I +heard the gentleman—Mr. George Herbert, you call him—playing the tune +to it."</p> + +<p>"If you heard him so well," ventured Mary, "you could, I fancy, play +the tune over again to us."</p> + +<p>"I think I could," he answered, and, rising, went for his instrument, +which he always brought, and hung on an old nail in the wall the moment +he came in.</p> + +<p>He played a few bars of a prelude, as if to get himself into harmony +with the recollection of what he had heard the master play, and then +began a lively melody, in which he seemed as usual to pour out his +soul. Long before he reached the end of it, Mary had reached the poem.</p> + +<p>"This is the one you mean, is it not?" she said, as soon as he had +finished—and read it again.</p> + +<p>In his turn he did not speak till she had ended.</p> + +<p>"That's it, miss," he said then; "I can't mistake it; for, the minute +you began, there was the old gentleman again with his fiddle."</p> + +<p>"And you know now what it says, don't you?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"I heard nothing but the old gentleman," answered the musician.</p> + +<p>Mary turned to Tom.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind if I tried to show Mr. Jasper what I see in the poem? +He can't get a hold of it himself for the master's violin in his ears; +it won't let him think about it."</p> + +<p>"I should like myself to hear what you have got to say about it, Mary! +Go on," said Tom.</p> + +<p>Mary had now for a long time been a student of George Herbert; and +anything of a similar life-experience goes infinitely further, to make +one understand another, than any amount of learning or art. Therefore, +better than many a poet, Mary was able to set forth the scope and +design of this one. Herself at the heart of the secret from which came +all his utterance, she could fit herself into most of the convolutions +of the shell of his expression, and was hence able also to make others +perceive in his verse not a little of what they were of themselves +unable to see.</p> + +<p>"We shall have you lecturing at the Royal Institution yet, Mary," said +Tom; "only it will be long before its members care for that sort of +antique."</p> + +<p>Tom's insight had always been ahead of his character, and of late he +had been growing. People do grow very fast in bed sometimes. Also he +had in him plenty of material, to which a childlike desire now began to +give shapes and sequences.</p> + +<p>The musician's remark consisted in taking his violin, and once more +giving his idea of the "old gentleman's" music, but this time with a +richer expression and fuller harmonies. Mary had every reason to be +satisfied with her experiment. From that time she talked a good deal +more about her favorite writers, and interested both the critical taste +of Tom and the artistic instinct of the blacksmith.</p> + +<p>But Joseph's playing had great faults: how could it be otherwise?—and +to Mary great seemed the pity that genius should not be made perfect in +faculty, that it should not have that redemption of its body for which +unwittingly it groaned. And the man was one of those childlike natures +which may indeed go a long time without discovering this or that +external fault in themselves, patent to the eye of many an inferior +onlooker—for the simple soul is the last to see its own outside—but, +once they become aware of it, begin that moment to set the thing right. +At the same time he had not enough of knowledge to render it easy to +show him by words wherein any fault consisted—the nature, the being of +the fault, that is—what it simply was; but Mary felt confident that, +the moment he saw a need, he would obey its law.</p> + +<p>She had taken for herself the rooms below, formerly occupied by the +Helmers, with the hope of seeing them before long reinstated in them; +and there she had a piano, the best she could afford to hire: with its +aid she hoped to do something toward the breaking of the invisible +bonds that tied the wings of Jasper's genius.</p> + +<p>His great fault lay in his time. Dare I suggest that he contented +himself with measuring it to his inner ear, and let his fingers, like +horses which he knew he had safe in hand, play what pranks they +pleased? A reader may, I think, be measuring verse correctly to +himself, and yet make of it nothing but rugged prose to his hearers. +Perhaps this may be how severe masters of quantity in the abstract are +so careless of it in the concrete—in the audible, namely, where alone +it is of value. Shall I analogize yet a little further, and suggest the +many who admire righteousness and work iniquity; who say, "Lord, Lord," +and seldom or never obey? Anyhow, a man may have a good enough ear, +with which he holds all the time a secret understanding, and from +carelessness offend grievously the ears he ought to please; and it was +thus with Joseph Jasper.</p> + +<p>Mary was too wise to hurry anything. One evening when he came as usual, +and she knew he was not at the moment wanted, she asked him to take a +seat while she played something to him. But she was not a little +disappointed in the reception he gave her offering—a delicate morsel +from Beethoven. She tried something else, but with no better result. He +showed little interest: he was not a man capable of showing where +nothing was, for he never meant to show anything; his expression was +only the ripple of the unconscious pool to the sway and swirl of the +fishes below. It seemed as if he had only a narrow entrance for the +admission of music into his understanding—but a large outlet for the +spring that rose within him, and was, therefore, a somewhat remarkable +exception to the common run of mortals: in such, the capacity for +reception far exceeds the capability of production. His dominant +thoughts were in musical form, and easily found their expression in +music; but, mainly no doubt from want of practice in reception, and +experience of variety in embodiment, the forms in which others gave +themselves utterance could not with corresponding readiness find their +way to the sympathetic place in him. But pride or repulsion had no +share in this defect. The man was open and inspired, and stupid as a +child.</p> + +<p>The next time she made the attempt to open this channel between them, +something she played did find him, and for a few minutes he seemed lost +in listening.</p> + +<p>"How nice it would be," she said, "if we could play together sometimes!"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean both at once, miss?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes—you on your violin, and I on the piano."</p> + +<p>"That could hardly be, I'm afraid, miss," he answered; "for, you see, I +don't know always—not exactly—what I'm going to play; and if I don't +know, and you don't know, how are we to keep together?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody can play your own things but yourself, of course—that is, +until you are able to write them down; but, if you would learn +something, we could play that together."</p> + +<p>"I don't know how to learn. I've heard tell of the notes and all that, +but I don't know how to work them."</p> + +<p>"You have heard the choir in the church—all keeping with the organ," +said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Scarcely since I was a child—and not very often then—though my +mother took me sometimes. But I was always wanting to get out again, +and gave no heed."</p> + +<p>"Do you never go to church now?"</p> + +<p>"No, miss—not for long. Time's too precious to waste."</p> + +<p>"How do you spend it, then?"</p> + +<p>"As soon as I've had my breakfast—that's on a Sunday, I mean—I get up +and lock my door, and set myself to have a day of it. Then I read the +next thing where I stopped last—whether it be a chapter or a +verse—till I get the sense of it—if I can't get that, it's no manner +of use to me; and I generally know when I've got it by finding the bow +in one hand and the fiddle in the other. Then, with the two together, I +go stirring and stirring about at the story, and the music keeps coming +and coming; and when it stops, which it does sometimes all at once, +then I go back to the book."</p> + +<p>"But you don't go on like that all day, do you?" said Mary.</p> + +<p>"I generally go on till I'm hungry, and then I go out for something to +eat. My landlady won't get me any dinner. Then I come back and begin +again."</p> + +<p>"Will you let me teach you to read music?" said Mary, more and more +delighted with him, and desirous of contributing to his growth—the one +great service of the universe.</p> + +<p>"If you would, miss, perhaps then I might be able to learn. You see, I +never was like other people. Mother was the only one that didn't take +me for an innocent. She used to talk big things about me, and the rest +used to laugh at her. She gave me her large Testament when she was +dying, but, if it hadn't been for Ann, I should never have been able to +read it well enough to understand it. And now Ann tells me I'm a +heathen and worship my fiddle, because I don't go to chapel with her; +but it do seem such a waste of good time. I'll go to church, though, +miss, if you tell me it's the right thing to do; only it's hard to work +all the week, and be weary all the Sunday. I should only be longing for +my fiddle all the time. You don't think, miss, that a great person like +God cares whether we pray to him in a room or in a church?"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't," answered Mary. "For my own part, I find I can pray best +at home."</p> + +<p>"So can I," said Joseph, with solemn fervor. "Indeed, miss, I can't +pray at all sometimes till I get my fiddle under my chin, and then it +says the prayers for me till I grow able to pray myself. And sometimes, +when I seem to have got to the outside of prayer, and my soul is +hungrier than ever, only I can't tell what I want, all at once I'm at +my fiddle again, and it's praying for me. And then sometimes it seems +as if I lost myself altogether, and God took me, for I'm nowhere and +everywhere all at once."</p> + +<p>Mary thought of the "groanings that can not be uttered." Perhaps that +is just what music is meant for—to say the things that have no shape, +therefore can have no words, yet are intensely alive—the unembodied +children of thought, the eternal child. Certainly the musician can +groan the better with the aid of his violin. Surely this man's +instrument was the gift of God to him. All God's gifts are a giving of +himself. The Spirit can better dwell in a violin than in an ark or in +the mightiest of temples.</p> + +<p>But there was another side to the thing, and Mary felt bound to present +it.</p> + +<p>"But, you know, Mr. Jasper," she said, "when many violins play +together, each taking a part in relation to all the rest, a much +grander music is the result than any single instrument could produce."</p> + +<p>"I've heard tell of such things, miss, but I've never heard them." He +had never been to concert or oratorio, any more than the play.</p> + +<p>"Then you shall hear them," said Mary, her heart filling with delight +at the thought. "—But what if there should be some way in which the +prayers of all souls may blend like many violins? We are all brothers +and sisters, you know—and what if the gathering together in church be +one way of making up a concert of souls?—Imagine one mighty prayer, +made up of all the desires of all the hearts God ever made, breaking +like a huge wave against the foot of his throne!"</p> + +<p>"There would be some force in a wave like that, miss!" said Joseph. +"But answer me one question: Ain't it Christ that teaches men to pray?"</p> + +<p>"Surely," answered Mary. "He taught them with his mouth when he was on +the earth; and now he teaches them with his mind."</p> + +<p>"Then, miss, I will tell you why it seems to me that churches can't be +the places to tune the fiddles for that kind of consort—and that's +just why I more than don't care to go into one of them: I never heard a +sermon that didn't seem to be taking my Christ from me, and burying him +where I should never find him any more. For the somebody the clergy +talk about is not only nowise like my Christ, but nowise like a live +man at all. It always seemed to me more like a guy they had dressed up +and called by his name than the man I read about in my mother's big +Testament."</p> + +<p>"How my father would have delighted in this man!" said Mary to herself.</p> + +<p>"You see, miss," Jasper resumed, "I can't help knowing something about +these matters, because I was brought up in it all, my father being a +local preacher, and a very good man. Perhaps, if I had been as clever +as Sister Ann, I might be thinking now just as she does; but it seems +to me a man that is born stupid has much to be thankful for: he can't +take in things before his heart's ready for believing them, and so they +don't get spoiled, like a child's book before he is able to read it. +All that I heard when I went with my father to his preachings was to me +no more than one of the chapters full of names in the Book of +Chronicles—though I do remember once hearing a Wesleyan clergyman say +that he had got great spiritual benefit from those chapters. I wasn't +even frightened at the awful things my father said about hell, and the +certainty of our going there if we didn't lay hold upon the Saviour; +for, all the time, he showed but such a ghost or cloud of a man that he +called the Saviour as it wasn't possible to lay hold upon. Not that I +reasoned about it that way then; I only felt no interest in the affair; +and my conscience said nothing about it. But after my father and mother +were gone, and I was at work away from all my old friends—well, I +needn't trouble you with what it was that set me a-thinking—it was +only a great disappointment, such as I suppose most young fellows have +to go through—I shouldn't wonder," he added with a smile, "if that was +what you ladies are sent into this world for—to take the conceit out +of the likes of us, and give us something to think about. What came of +it was, that I began to read my mother's big Testament in earnest, and +then my conscience began to speak. Here was a man that said he was +God's son, and sent by him to look after us, and we must do what he +told us or we should never be able to see our Father in heaven! That's +what I made out of it, miss. And my conscience said to me, that I must +do as he said, seeing he had taken all that trouble, and come down to +look after us. If he spoke the truth, and nobody could listen to him +without being sure of that, there was nothing left but just to do the +thing he said. So I set about getting a hold of anything he did say, +and trying to do it. And then it was that I first began to be able to +play on the fiddle, though I had been muddling away at it for a long +time before. I knew I could play then, because I understood what it +said to me, and got help out of it. I don't really mean that, you know, +miss; for I know well enough that the fiddle in itself is nothing, and +nothing is anything but the way God takes to teach us. And that's how I +came to know you, miss."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean that?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"I used to be that frightened of Sister Ann that, after I came to +London, I wouldn't have gone near her, but that I thought Jesus Christ +would have me go; and, if I hadn't gone to see her, I should never have +seen you. When I went to see her, I took my fiddle with me to take care +of me; and, when she would be going on at me, I would just give my +fiddle a squeeze under my arm, and that gave me patience."</p> + +<p>"But we heard you playing to her, you know."</p> + +<p>"That was because I always forgot myself while she was talking. The +first time, I remember, it was from misery—what she was saying sounded +so wicked, making God out not fit for any honest man to believe in. I +began to play without knowing it, and it couldn't have been very loud, +for she went on about the devil picking up the good seed sown in the +heart. Off I went into that, and there I saw no end of birds with long +necks and short legs gobbling up the corn. But, a little way off, there +was the long beautiful stalks growing strong and high, waving in God's +wind; and the birds did not go near them."</p> + +<p>Mary drew a long breath, and said to herself:</p> + +<p>"The man is a poet!"—"You're not afraid of your sister now?" she said +to him.</p> + +<p>"Not a bit," he answered. "Since I knew you, I feel as if we had in a +sort of a way changed places, and she was a little girl that must be +humored and made the best of. When she scolds, I laugh, and try to make +a bit of fun with her. But she's always so sure she's right, that you +wonder how the world got made before she was up."</p> + +<p>They parted with the understanding that, when he came next, she should +give him his first lesson in reading music. With herself Mary made +merry at the idea of teaching the man of genius his letters.</p> + +<p>But, when once, through trying to play with her one of his own pieces +which she had learned from hearing him play it, he had discovered how +imperative it was to keep good time, he set himself to the task with a +determination that would have made anything of him that he was only +half as fit to become as a musician.</p> + +<p>When, however, in a short time, he was able to learn from notes, he +grew so delighted with some of the music Mary got for him, entering +into every nicety of severest law, and finding therein a better liberty +than that of improvisation, that he ceased for long to play anything of +his own, and Mary became mortally afraid lest, in developing the +performer, she had ruined the composer.</p> + +<p>"How can I go playing such loose, skinny things," he would say, "when +here are such perfect shapes all ready to my hand!"</p> + +<p>But Mary said to herself that, if these were shapes, his were odors.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV.<br /><br /> +THE SAPPHIRE.</h3> + +<p>One morning, as Mary sat at her piano, Mewks was shown into the room. +He brought the request from his master that she would go to him; he +wanted particularly to see her. She did not much like it, neither did +she hesitate.</p> + +<p>She was shown into the room Mr. Redmain called his study, which +communicated by a dressing-room with his bedroom. He was seated, +evidently waiting for her.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Miss Marston!" he said; "I have a piece of good news for you—so +good that I thought I should like to give it you myself."</p> + +<p>"You are very kind, sir," Mary answered.</p> + +<p>"There!" he went on, holding out what she saw at once was the lost ring.</p> + +<p>"I am so glad!" she said, and took it in her hand. "Where was it found?"</p> + +<p>"There's the point!" he returned. "That is just why I sent for you! Can +you suggest any explanation of the fact that it was found, after all, +in a corner of my wife's jewel-box? Who searched the box last?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know, sir."</p> + +<p>"Did you search it?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir. I offered to help Mrs. Redmain to look for the ring, but she +said it was no use. Who found it, sir?"</p> + +<p>"I will tell you who found it, if you will tell me who put it there."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you mean, sir. It must have been there all the time."</p> + +<p>"That's the point again! Mrs. Redmain swears it was not, and could not +have been, there when she looked for it. It is not like a small thing, +you see. There is something mysterious about it."</p> + +<p>He looked hard at Mary.</p> + +<p>Now, Mary had very much admired the ring, as any one must who had an +eye for stones; and had often looked at it—into the heart of +it—almost loving it; and while they were talking now, she kept gazing +at it. When Mr. Redmain ended, she stood silent. In her silence, her +attention concentrated itself upon the sapphire. She stood long, +looking closely at it, moving it about a little, and changing the +direction of the light; and, while her gaze was on the ring, Mr. +Redmain's gaze was on her, watching her with equal attention. At last, +with a sigh, as if she waked from a reverie, she laid the ring on the +table. But Mr. Redmain still stared in her face.</p> + +<p>"Now what is it you've got in your head?" he said at last. "I have been +watching you think for three minutes and a half, I do believe. Come, +out with it!"</p> + +<p>"Hardly <i>think</i> , sir," answered Mary. "I was only plaguing myself +between my recollection of the stone and the actual look of it. It is +so annoying to find what seemed a clear recollection prove a deceitful +one! It may appear a presumptuous thing to say, but my recollection +seems of a finer color."</p> + +<p>While she spoke, she had again taken the ring, and was looking at it. +Mr. Redmain snatched it from her hand.</p> + +<p>"The devil!" he cried. "You haven't the face to hint that the stone has +been changed?"</p> + +<p>Mary laughed.</p> + +<p>"Such a thing never came into my head, sir; but now that you have put +it there, I could almost believe it."</p> + +<p>"Go along with you!" he cried, casting at her a strange look which she +could not understand, and the same moment pulling the bell hard.</p> + +<p>That done, he began to examine the ring intently, as Mary had been +doing, and did not speak a word. Mewks came.</p> + +<p>"Show Miss Marston out," said his master; "and tell my coachman to +bring the hansom round directly."</p> + +<p>"For Miss Marston?" inquired Mewks, who had learned not a little +cunning in the service.</p> + +<p>"No!" roared Mr. Redmain; and Mewks darted from the room, followed more +leisurely by Mary.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what's come to master!" ventured Mewks, as he led the way +down the stair.</p> + +<p>But Mary took no notice, and left the house.</p> + +<p>For about a week she heard nothing.</p> + +<p>In the meantime Mr. Redmain had been prosecuting certain inquiries he +had some time ago begun, and another quite new one besides. He was +acquainted with many people of many different sorts, and had been to +jewelers and pawnbrokers, gamblers and lodging-house keepers, and had +learned some things to his purpose.</p> + +<p>Once more Mary received from him a summons, and once more, considerably +against her liking, obeyed. She was less disinclined to go this time, +however, for she felt not a little curious about the ring.</p> + +<p>"I want you to come back to the house," he said, abruptly, the moment +she entered his room.</p> + +<p>For such a request Mary was not prepared. Even since the ring was +found, so long a time had passed that she never expected to hear from +the house again. But Tom was now so much better, and Letty so much like +her former self, that, if Mrs. Redmain had asked her, she might perhaps +have consented.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Redmain," she answered, "you must see that I can not do so at your +desire."</p> + +<p>"Oh, rubbish! humbug!" he returned, with annoyance. "Don't fancy I am +asking you to go fiddle-faddling about my wife again: I don't see how +you <i>can</i> do that, after the way she has used you! But I have reasons +for wanting to have you within call. Go to Mrs. Perkin. I won't take a +refusal."</p> + +<p>"I can not do it, Mr. Redmain," said Mary; "the thing is impossible." +And she turned to leave the room.</p> + +<p>"Stop, stop!" cried Mr. Redmain, and jumped from his chair to prevent +her.</p> + +<p>He would not have succeeded had not Mewks met her in the doorway full +in the face. She had to draw back to avoid him, and the man, perceiving +at once how things were, closed the door the moment he entered, and +stood with his back against it.</p> + +<p>"He's in the drawing-room, sir," said Mewks.</p> + +<p>A scarcely perceptible sign of question was made by the master, and +answered in kind by the man.</p> + +<p>"Show him here directly," said Mr. Redmain. Then turning to Mary, "Go +out that way, Miss Marston, if you will go," he said, and pointed to +the dressing-room.</p> + +<p>Mary, without a suspicion, obeyed; but, just as she discovered that the +door into the bedroom beyond was locked, she heard the door behind her +locked also. She turned, and knocked.</p> + +<p>"Stay where you are," said Mr. Redmain, in a low but imperative voice. +"I can not let you out till this gentleman is gone. You must hear what +passes: I want you for a witness."</p> + +<p>Bewildered and annoyed, Mary stood motionless in the middle of the +room, and presently heard a man, whose voice seemed not quite strange +to her, greet Mr. Redmain like an old friend. The latter made a slight +apology for having sent for him to his study—claiming the privilege, +he said, of an invalid, who could not for a time have the pleasure of +meeting him either at the club or at his wife's parties. The visitor +answered agreeably, with a touch of merriment that seemed to indicate a +soul at ease with itself and with the world.</p> + +<p>But here Mary all at once came to herself, and was aware that she was +in quite a false position. She withdrew therefore to the farthest +corner, sat down, closed her ears with the palms of her hands, and +waited.</p> + +<p>She had sat thus for a long time, not weary, but occupied with such +thoughts as could hardly for a century or two cross the horizon line of +such a soul as Mr. Redmain's, even if he were at once to repent, when +she heard a loud voice calling her name from a distance. She raised her +head, and saw the white, skin-drawn face of Mr. Redmain grinning at her +from the open door. When he spoke again, his words sounded like +thunder, for she had removed her hands from her ears.</p> + +<p>"I fancy you've had a dose of it!" he said.</p> + +<p>As he spoke, she rose to her feet, her countenance illumined both with +righteous anger and the tender shine of prayer. Her look went to what +he had of a heart, and the slightest possible color rose to his face.</p> + +<p>"Gone a step too far, damn it!" he murmured to himself. "There's no +knowing one woman by another!"</p> + +<p>"I see!" he said; "it's been a trifle too much for you, and I don't +wonder! You needn't believe a word I said about myself. It was all hum +to make the villain show his game."</p> + +<p>"I have not heard a word, Mr. Redmain," she said with indignation.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you needn't trouble yourself!" he returned. "I meant you to hear +it all. What did I put you there for, but to get your oath to what I +drew from the fellow? A fine thing if your pretended squeamishness ruin +my plot! What do you think of yourself, hey?—But I don't believe it."</p> + +<p>He looked at her keenly, expecting a response, but Mary made him none. +For some moments he regarded her curiously, then turned away into the +study, saying:</p> + +<p>"Come along. By Jove! I'm ashamed to say it, but I half begin to +believe in you. I did think I was past being taken in, but it seems +possible for once again. Of course, you will return to Mrs. Redmain now +that all is cleared up."</p> + +<p>"It is impossible," Mary answered. "I can not live in a house where the +lady mistrusts and the gentleman insults me."</p> + +<p>She left the room, and Mr. Redmain did not try to prevent her. As she +left the house she burst into tears; and the fact Mewks carried to his +master.</p> + +<p>The man was the more careful to report everything about Mary, that +there was one in the house of whom he never reported anything, but to +whom, on the contrary, he told everything he thought she would care to +know. Till Sepia came, he had been conventionally faithful—faithful +with the faith of a lackey, that is—but she had found no difficulty in +making of him, in respect of her, a spy upon his master.</p> + +<p>I will now relate what passed while Mary sat deaf in the corner.</p> + +<p>Mr. Redmain asked his visitor what he would have, as if, although it +was quite early, he must, as a matter of course, stand in need of +refreshment. He made choice of brandy and soda-water, and the bell was +rung. A good deal of conversation followed about a disputed point in a +late game of cards at one of the clubs.</p> + +<p>The talk then veered in another direction—that of personal adventure, +so guided by Mr. Redmain. He told extravagant stories about himself and +his doings, in particular various <i>ruses</i> by which he had contrived to +lay his hands on money. And whatever he told, his guest capped, +narrating trick upon trick to which on different occasions he had had +recourse. At all of them Mr. Redmain laughed heartily, and applauded +their cleverness extravagantly, though some of them were downright +swindling.</p> + +<p>At last Mr. Redmain told how he had once got money out of a lady. I do +not believe there was a word of truth in it. But it was capped by the +other with a narrative that seemed specially pleasing to the listener. +In the midst of a burst of laughter, he rose and rang the bell. Count +Galofta thought it was to order something more in the way of +"refreshment," and was not a little surprised when he heard his host +desire the man to request the favor of Miss Yolland's presence. But the +Count had not studied non-expression in vain, and had brought it to a +degree of perfection not easily disturbed. Casting a glance at him as +he gave the message, Mr. Redmain could read nothing; but this was in +itself suspicious to him—and justly, for the man ought to have been +surprised at such a close to the conversation they had been having.</p> + +<p>Sepia had been told that Galofta was in the study, and therefore +received the summons thither—a thing that had never happened +before—with the greater alarm. She made, consequently, what +preparation she could against surprise. Thoroughly capable of managing +her features, her anxiety was sufficient nevertheless to deprive her of +power over her complexion, and she entered the room with the pallor +peculiar to the dark-skinned. Having greeted the Count with the +greatest composure, she turned to Mr. Redmain with question in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Count Galofta," said Mr. Redmain in reply, "has just been telling me a +curious story of how a certain rascal got possession of a valuable +jewel from a lady with whom he pretended to be in love, and I thought +the opportunity a good one for showing you a strange discovery I have +made with regard to the sapphire Mrs. Redmain missed for so long. Very +odd tricks are played with gems—such gems, that is, as are of value +enough to make it worth a rogue's while."</p> + +<p>So saying, he took the ring from one drawer, and from another a bottle, +from which he poured something into a crystal cup. Then he took a file, +and, looking at Galofta, in whose well-drilled features he believed he +read something that was not mere curiosity, said, "I am going to show +you something very curious," and began to file asunder that part of the +ring which immediately clasped the sapphire, the setting of which was +open.</p> + +<p>"What a pity!" cried Sepia; "you are destroying the ring! What will +Cousin Hesper say?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Redmain filed away, heedless; then with the help of a pair of +pincers freed the stone, and held it up in his hand.</p> + +<p>"You see this?" he said.</p> + +<p>"A splendid sapphire!" answered Count Galofta, taking it in his +fingers, but, as Mr. Redmain saw, not looking at it closely.</p> + +<p>"I have always heard it called a splendid stone," said Sepia, whose +complexion, though not her features, passed through several changes +while all this was going on: she was anxious.</p> + +<p>Nor did her inquisitor fail to surprise the uneasy glances she threw, +furtively though involuntarily, in the face of the Count—who never +once looked in hers: tolerably sure of himself, he was not sure of her.</p> + +<p>"That ring, when I bought it—the stone of it," said Mr. Redmain, "was +a star sapphire, and worth seven hundred pounds; now, the whole affair +is worth about ten."</p> + +<p>As he spoke, he threw the stone into the cup, let it lie a few moments, +and took it out again; when, almost with a touch, he divided it in two, +the one a mere scale.</p> + +<p>"There!" he said, holding out the thin part on the tip of a finger, +"that is a slice of sapphire; and there!" holding out the rest of the +seeming stone, "that is glass."</p> + +<p>"What a shame!" cried Sepia.</p> + +<p>"Of course," said the Count, "you will prosecute the jeweler."</p> + +<p>"I will not prosecute the jeweler," answered Mr. Redmain; "but I have +taken some trouble to find out who changed the stones."</p> + +<p>With that he threw both the bits of blue into a drawer, and the +contents of the cup into the fire. A great flame flew up the chimney, +and, as if struck at the sight of it, he stood gazing for a moment +after it had vanished.</p> + +<p>When he turned, the Count was gone, as he had expected, and Sepia stood +with eyes full of anger and fear. Her face was set and colorless, and +strange to look upon.</p> + +<p>"Very odd—ain't it?" said Mr. Redmain, and, opening the door of his +dressing-room, called out:</p> + +<p>"Miss Marston!"</p> + +<p>When he turned, Sepia too was gone.</p> + +<p>I would not have my reader take Sepia for an accomplice in the robbery. +Even Mr. Redmain did not believe that: she was much too prudent! His +idea was, that she had been wearing the ring—Hesper did not mind what +she wore of hers—and that (I need not give his conjecture in detail), +with or without her knowledge, the fellow had got hold of it and +carried it away, then brought it back, treating the thing as a joke, +when she was only too glad to restore it to the jewel-case, hoping the +loss of it would then pass for an oversight on the part of Hesper. If +he was right in this theory of the affair, then the Count had certainly +a hold upon her, and she dared not or would not expose him! He had +before discovered that, about the time when the ring disappeared, the +Count had had losses, and was supposed unable to meet them, but had +suddenly showed himself again "flush of money," and from that time had +had an extraordinary run of luck.</p> + +<p>When he went out of the door of Mr. Redmain's study, he vanished from +the house and from London. Turning the first corner he came to, and the +next and the next, he stepped into a mews, the court of which seemed +empty, and slipped behind the gate. He wore a new hat, and was clean +shaved except his upper lip. Presently a man came out of the mews in a +Scotch cap and a full beard.</p> + +<p>What had become of him Mr. Redmain did not care. He had no desire to +punish him. It was enough he had found him out, proved his suspicion +correct, and obtained evidence against Sepia. He did not at once make +up his mind how he would act on this last; while he lived, it did not +matter so much; and he had besides a certain pleasure in watching his +victim. But Hesper, free, rich, and beautiful, and far from wise, with +Sepia for counselor, was not an idea to be contemplated with +equanimity. Still he shrank from the outcry and scandal of sending her +away; for certainly his wife, if it were but to oppose him, would +refuse to believe a word against her cousin.</p> + +<p>For the present, therefore, the thing seemed to blow over. Mr. Redmain, +who had pleasure in behaving handsomely so far as money was concerned, +bought his wife the best sapphire he could find, and, for once, really +pleased her.</p> + +<p>But Sepia knew that Mr. Redmain had now to himself justified his +dislike of her; and, as he said nothing, she was the more certain he +meant something. She lived, therefore, in constant dread of his sudden +vengeance, against which she could take no precaution, for she had not +even a conjecture as to what form it might assume. From that hour she +was never at peace in his presence, and hardly out of it; from every +possible <i>tete-a-tete</i> with him she fled as from a judgment.</p> + +<p>Nor was it a small addition to her misery that she imagined Mary +cognizant of Mr. Redmain's opinion and intention with regard to her, +and holding the worst possible opinion of her. For, whatever had passed +first between the Count and Mr. Redmain, she did not doubt Mary had +heard, and was prepared to bring against her when the determined moment +should arrive. How much the Count might or might not have said, she +could not tell; but, seeing their common enemy had permitted him to +escape, she more than dreaded he had sold her secret for his own +impunity, and had laid upon her a burden of lies as well.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI.<br /><br /> +REPARATION.</h3> + +<p>With all Mr. Redmain's faults, there was a certain love of justice in +the man; only, as is the case with most of us, it had ten times the +reference to the action of other people that it had to his own: I mean, +he made far greater demand for justice upon other people than upon +himself; and was much more indignant at any shortcoming of theirs which +crossed any desire or purpose of his than he was anxious in his own +person to fulfill justice when that fulfillment in its turn would cross +any wish he cherished. Badly as he had himself behaved to Mary, he was +now furious with his wife for having treated her so heartlessly that +she could not return to her service; for he began to think she might be +one to depend upon, and to desire her alliance in the matter of ousting +Sepia from the confidence of his wife.</p> + +<p>However indifferent a woman may be to the opinion of her husband, he +can nevertheless in general manage to make her uncomfortable enough if +he chooses; and Mr. Redmain did choose now, in the event of her +opposition to his wishes: when he set himself to do a thing, he hated +defeat even more than he loved success.</p> + +<p>The moment Mary was out of the study, he walked into his wife's +boudoir, and shut the door behind him. His presence there was enough to +make her angry, but she took no notice of it.</p> + +<p>"I understand, Mrs. Redmain," he began, "that you wish to bring the +fate of Sodom upon the house."</p> + +<p>"I do not know what you mean," she answered, scarcely raising her eyes +from her novel—and spoke the truth, for she knew next to nothing of +the Bible, while the Old Testament was all the literature Mr. Redmain +was "up in."</p> + +<p>"You have turned out of it the only just person in it, and we shall all +be in hell soon!"</p> + +<p>"How dare you come to my room with such horrid language!"</p> + +<p>"You'll hear worse before long, if you keep on at this rate. My +language is not so bad as your actions. If you don't have that girl +back, and in double-quick time, too, I shall know how to make you!"</p> + +<p>"You have taught me to believe you capable of anything."</p> + +<p>"You shall at least find me capable of a good deal. Do you imagine, +madam, I have found you a hair worse than I expected?"</p> + +<p>"I never took the trouble to imagine anything about you."</p> + +<p>"Then I need not ask you whether I married you to please you or to +please myself?"</p> + +<p>"You need not. You can best answer that question yourself."</p> + +<p>"Then we understand each other."</p> + +<p>"We do not, Mr. Redmain; and, if this occurs again, I shall go to +Durnmelling."</p> + +<p>She spoke with a vague idea that he also stood in some awe of the +father and mother whose dread, however well she hid it, she would +never, while she lived, succeed in shaking off. But to the husband it +was a rare delight to speak with conscious rectitude in the moral +chastisement of his wife. He burst into a loud and almost merry laugh.</p> + +<p>"Happy they will be to see you there, madam! Why, you goose, if I send +a telegram before you, they won't so much as open the door to you! They +know better which side their bread is buttered."</p> + +<p>Hesper started up in a rage. This was too much—and the more too much, +that she believed it would be as he said.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Redmain, if you do not leave the room, I will."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't!" he cried, in a tone of pretended alarm. His pleasure was +great, for he had succeeded in stinging the impenetrable. "You really +ought to consider before you utter such an awful threat! I will go +myself a thousand times rather!—But will you not feel the want of +pocket-money when you come to pay a rough cabman? The check I gave you +yesterday will not last you long."</p> + +<p>"The money is my own, Mr. Redmain."</p> + +<p>"But you have not yet opened a banking-account in your own name."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you have a meaning, Mr. Redmain; but I am not in the habit +of using cabs."</p> + +<p>"Then you had better get into the habit; for I swear to you, madam, if +you don't fetch that girl home within the week, I will, next Monday, +discharge your coachman, and send every horse in the stable to +Tattersall's! Good morning."</p> + +<p>She had no doubt he would do as he said; she knew Mr. Redmain would +just enjoy selling her horses. But she could not at once give in. I say +"<i>could</i> not," because hers was the weak will that can hardly bring +itself to do what it knows it must, and is continually mistaken for the +strong will that defies and endures. She had a week to think about it, +and she would see!</p> + +<p>During the interval, he took care not once to refer to his threat, for +that would but weaken the impression of it, he knew.</p> + +<p>On the Sunday, after service, she knocked at his door, and, being +admitted, bade him good morning, but with no very gracious air—as, +indeed, he would have been the last to expect.</p> + +<p>"We have had a sermon on the forgiveness of injuries, Mr. Redmain," she +said.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" interrupted her husband, "it would have been more to the +purpose if I, or poor Mary Marston, had had it; for I swear you put our +souls in peril!"</p> + +<p>"The ring was no common one, Mr. Redmain; and the young woman had, by +leaving the house, placed herself in a false position: every one +suspected her as much as I did. Besides, she lost her temper, and +talked about forgiving <i>me</i> , when I was in despair about my ring!"</p> + +<p>"And what, pray, was your foolish ring compared to the girl's +character?"</p> + +<p>"A foolish ring, indeed!—Yes, it was foolish to let you ever have the +right to give it me! But, as to her character, that of persons in her +position is in constant peril. They have to lay their account with +that, and must get used to it. How was I to know? We can not read each +other's hearts."</p> + +<p>"Not where there is no heart in the reader."</p> + +<p>Hesper's face flushed, but she did her best not to lose her temper. Not +that it would have been any great loss if she had, for there is as much +difference in the values of tempers as in those who lose them. She said +nothing, and her husband resumed:</p> + +<p>"So you came to forgive me?" he said.</p> + +<p>"And Marston," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Well, I will accept the condescension—that is, if the terms of it are +to my mind."</p> + +<p>"I will make no terms. Marston may return when she pleases."</p> + +<p>"You must write and ask her."</p> + +<p>"Of course, Mr. Redmain. It would hardly be suitable that <i>you</i> should +ask her."</p> + +<p>"You must write so as to make it possible to accept your offer."</p> + +<p>"I am not deceitful, Mr. Redmain."</p> + +<p>"You are not. A man must be fair, even to his wife."</p> + +<p>"I will show you the letter I write."</p> + +<p>"If you please."</p> + +<p>She had to show him half a score ere he was satisfied, declaring he +would do it himself, if she could not make a better job of it.</p> + +<p>At length one was dispatched, received, and answered: Mary would not +return. She had lost all hope of being of any true service to Mrs. +Redmain, and she knew that, with Tom and Letty, she was really of use +for the present. Mrs. Redmain carried the letter, with ill-concealed +triumph, to her husband; nor did he conceal his annoyance.</p> + +<p>"You must have behaved to her very cruelly," he said. "But you have +done your best now—short of a Christian apology, which it would be +folly to demand of you. I fear we have seen the last of her."—"And +there was I," he said to himself, "for the first time in my life, +actually beginning to fancy I had perhaps thrown salt upon the tail of +that rare bird, an honest woman! The devil has had quite as much to do +with my history as with my character! Perhaps that will be taken into +the account one day."</p> + +<p>But Mary lay awake at night, and thought of many things she might have +said and done better when she was with Hesper, and would gladly have +given herself another chance; but she could no longer flatter herself +she would ever be of any real good to her. She believed there was more +hope of Mr. Redmain even. For had she not once, for one brief moment, +seen him look a trifle ashamed of himself? while Hesper was and +remained, so far as she could judge, altogether satisfied with herself. +Equal to her own demands upon herself, there was nothing in her to +begin with—no soil to work upon.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII.<br /><br /> +ANOTHER CHANGE.</h3> + +<p>For some time Tom made progress toward health, and was able to read a +good part of the day. Most evenings he asked Joseph to play to him for +a while; he was fond of music, and fonder still of criticism—upon +anything. When he had done with Joseph, or when he did not want him, +Mary was always ready to give the latter a lesson; and, had he been a +less gifted man than he was, he could not have failed to make progress +with such a teacher.</p> + +<p>The large-hearted, delicate-souled woman felt nothing strange in the +presence of the workingman, but, on the contrary, was comfortably aware +of a being like her own, less privileged but more gifted, whose +nearness was strength. And no teacher, not to say no woman, could have +failed to be pleased at the thorough painstaking with which he followed +the slightest of her hints, and the delight his flushed face would +reveal when she praised the success he had achieved.</p> + +<p>It was not long before he began to write some of the things that came +into his mind. For the period of quiescence as to production, which +followed the initiation of more orderly study, was, after all, but of +short duration, and the return tide of musical utterance was stronger +than ever. Mary's delight was great when first he brought her one of +his compositions very fairly written out—after which others followed +with a rapidity that astonished her. They enabled her also to +understand the man better and better; for to have a thing to brood over +which we are capable of understanding must be more to us than even the +master's playing of it. She could not be sure this or that was correct, +according to the sweet inexorability of musical ordainment, but the +more she pondered them, the more she felt that the man was original, +that the material was there, and the law at hand, that he brought his +music from the only bottomless well of utterance, the truth, namely, by +which alone the soul most glorious in gladness, or any other the +stupidest of souls, can live.</p> + +<p>To the first he brought her she contrived to put a poor little faulty +accompaniment; and when she played his air to him so accompanied, his +delight was touching, and not a little amusing. Plainly he thought the +accompaniment a triumph of human faculty, and beyond anything he could +ever develop. Never pupil was more humble, never pupil more obedient; +thinking nothing of himself or of anything he had done or could do, his +path was open to the swiftest and highest growth. It matters little +where a man may be at this moment; the point is whether he is growing. +The next point will be, whether he is growing at the ratio given him. +The key to the whole thing is <i>obedience</i> , and nothing else.</p> + +<p>What the gift of such an instructor was to Joseph, my reader may be +requested to imagine. He was like a man seated on the grass outside the +heavenly gate, from which, slow-opening every evening as the sun went +down, came an angel to teach, and teach, until he too should be fit to +enter in: an hour would arrive when she would no longer have to come +out to him where he sat. Under such an influence all that was gentlest +and sweetest in his nature might well develop with rapidity, and every +accidental roughness—and in him there was no other—by swift degrees +vanish from both speech and manners. The angels do not want tailors to +make their clothes: their habits come out of themselves. But we are +often too hard upon our fellows; for many of those in the higher ranks +of life—no, no, I mean of society—whose insolence wakens ours, as +growl wakes growl in the forest, are not yet so far removed from the +savage—I mean in their personal history—as some in the lowest ranks. +When a nobleman mistakes the love of right in another for a hatred of +refinement, he can not be far from mistaking insolence for good +manners. Of such a nobility, good Lord, deliver us from all envy!</p> + +<p>As to falling in love with a lady like Mary, such a thing was as far +from Jasper's consciousness as if she had been a duchess. She belonged +to another world from his, a world which his world worshiped, waiting. +He might miss her even to death; her absence might, for him, darken the +universe as if the sun had withdrawn his brightness; but who thinks of +falling in love with the sun, or dreams of climbing nearer to his +radiance?</p> + +<p>The day will one day come—or what of the long-promised kingdom of +heaven?—when a woman, instead of spending anxious thought on the +adornment of her own outward person, will seek with might the adornment +of the inward soul of another, and will make that her crown of +rejoicing. Nay, are there none such even now? The day will come when a +man, rather than build a great house for the overflow of a mighty +hospitality, will give himself, in the personal labor of outgoing love, +to build spiritual houses like St. Paul—a higher art than any of man's +invention. O my brother, what were it not for thee to have a hand in +making thy brother beautiful!</p> + +<p>Be not indignant, my reader: not for a moment did I imagine thee +capable of such a mean calling! It is left to a certain school of weak +enthusiasts, who believe that such growth, such embellishment, such +creation, is all God cares about; these enthusiasts can not indeed see, +so blind have they become with their fixed idea, how God could care for +anything else. They actually believe that the very Son of the +life-making God lived and died for that, and for nothing else. That +such men and women are fools, is and has been so widely believed, that, +to men of the stamp of my indignant reader, it has become a fact! But +the end alone will reveal the beginning. Such a fool was Prometheus, +with the vulture at his heart—but greater than Jupiter with his gods +around him.</p> + +<p>There soon came a change, however, and the lessons ceased altogether.</p> + +<p>Tom had come down to his old quarters, and, in the arrogance of +convalescence, had presumed on his imagined strength, and so caught +cold. An alarming relapse was the consequence, and there was no more +playing; for now his condition began to draw to a change, of which, for +some time, none of them had even thought, the patient had seemed so +certainly recovering. The cold settled on his lungs, and he sank +rapidly.</p> + +<p>Joseph, whose violin was useless now, was not the less in attendance. +Every evening, when his work was over, he came knocking gently at the +door of the parlor, and never left until Tom was settled for the night. +The most silently helpful, undemonstrative being he was, that doctor +could desire to wait upon patient. When it was his turn to watch, he +never closed an eye, but at daybreak—for it was now spring—would +rouse Mary, and go off straight to his work, nor taste food until the +hour for the mid-day meal arrived.</p> + +<p>Tom speedily became aware that his days were numbered—phrase of +unbelief, for are they not numbered from the beginning? Are our hairs +numbered, and our days forgotten—till death gives a hint to the +doctor? He was sorry for his past life, and thoroughly ashamed of much +of it, saying in all honesty he would rather die than fall for one +solitary week into the old ways—not that he wished to die, for, with +the confidence of youth, he did not believe he could fall into the old +ways again. For my part, I think he was taken away to have a little +more of that care and nursing which neither his mother nor his wife had +been woman enough to give the great baby. After all, he had not been +one of the worst of babies.</p> + +<p>Is it strange that one so used to bad company and bad ways should have +so altered, in so short a time, and without any great struggle? The +assurance of death at the door, and a wholesome shame of things that +are past, may, I think, lead up to such a swift change, even in a much +worse man than Tom. For there is the Life itself, all-surrounding, and +ever pressing in upon the human soul, wherever that soul will afford a +chink of entrance; and Tom had not yet sealed up all his doors.</p> + +<p>When he lay there dead—for what excuse could we have for foolish +lamentation, if we did not speak of the loved as <i>lying dead?</i> —Letty +had him already enshrined in her heart as the best of husbands—as her +own Tom, who had never said a hard word to her—as the cleverest as +well as kindest of men who had written poetry that would never die +while the English language was spoken. Nor did "The Firefly" spare its +dole of homage to the memory of one of its gayest writers. Indeed, all +about its office had loved him, each after his faculty. Even the boy +cried when he heard he was gone, for to him too he had always given a +kind word, coming and going. A certain little runnel of verse flowed no +more through the pages of "The Firefly," and in a month there was not +the shadow of Tom upon his age. But the print of him was deep in the +heart of Letty, and not shallow in the affection of Mary; nor were such +as these, insignificant records for any one to leave behind him, as +records go. Happy was he to have left behind him any love, especially +such a love as Letty bore him! For what is the loudest praise of +posterity to the quietest love of one's own generation? For his mother, +her memory was mostly in her temper. She had never understood her +wayward child, just because she had given him her waywardness, and not +parted with it herself, so that between them the two made havoc of +love. But she who gives her child all he desires, in the hope of thus +binding his love to herself, no less than she who thwarts him in +everything, may rest assured of the neglect she has richly earned. When +she heard of his death, she howled and cursed her fate, and the woman, +meaning poor Letty, who had parted her and her Tom, swearing she would +never set eyes upon her, never let her touch a farthing of Tom's money. +She would not hear of paying his debts until Mary told her she then +would, upon which the fear of public disapprobation wrought for right +if not righteousness.</p> + +<p>But what was Mary to do now with Letty? She was little more than a baby +yet, not silly from youth, but young from silliness. Children must +learn to walk, but not by being turned out alone in Cheapside.</p> + +<p>She was relieved from some perplexity for the present, however, by the +arrival of a letter from Mrs. Wardour to Letty, written in a tone of +stiffly condescendent compassion—not so unpleasant to Letty as to her +friend, because from childhood she had been used to the nature that +produced it, and had her mind full of a vast, undefined notion of the +superiority of the writer. It may be a question whether those who fill +our inexperienced minds with false notions of their greatness, do us +thereby more harm or good; certainly when one comes to understand with +what an arrogance and self-assertion they have done so, putting into us +as reverence that which in them is conceit, one is ready to be scornful +more than enough; but, rather than have a child question such claims, I +would have him respect the meanest soul that ever demanded respect; the +first shall be last in good time, and the power of revering come forth +uninjured; whereas a child judging his elders has already withered the +blossom of his being.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Wardour's letter was kind-perhaps a little repentant; it is +hard to say, for ten persons will repent of a sin for one who will +confess it—I do not mean to the priest—that may be an easy matter, +but to the only one who has a claim to the confession, namely, the +person wronged. Yet such confession is in truth far more needful to the +wronger than to the wronged; it is a small thing to be wronged, but a +horrible thing to wrong.</p> + +<p>The letter contained a poverty-stricken expression of sympathy, and an +invitation to spend the summer months with them at her old home. It +might, the letter said, prove but a dull place to her after the gayety +to which she had of late been accustomed, but it might not the less +suit her present sad situation, and possibly uncertain prospects.</p> + +<p>Letty's heart felt one little throb of gladness at the thought of being +again at Thornwick, and in peace. With all the probable unpleasant +accompaniments of the visit, nowhere else, she thought, could she feel +the same sense of shelter as where her childhood had passed. Mary also +was pleased; for, although Letty might not be comfortable, the visit +would end, and by that time she might know what could be devised best +for her comfort and well-being.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII.<br /><br /> +DISSOLUTION.</h3> + +<p>It was now Mary's turn to feel that she was, for the first time in her +life, about to be cut adrift—adrift, that is, as a world is adrift, on +the surest of paths, though without eyes to see. For ten days or so, +she could form no idea of what she was likely or would like to do next. +But, when we are in such perplexity, may not the fact be accepted as +showing that decision is not required of us—perhaps just because our +way is at the moment being made straight for us?</p> + +<p>Joseph called once or twice, but, for Letty's sake, they had no music. +As they met so seldom now, Mary, anxious to serve him as she could, +offered him the loan of some of her favorite books. He accepted it with +a gladness that surprised her, for she did not know how much he had of +late been reading.</p> + +<p>One day she received an unexpected visit—from Mr. Brett, her lawyer. +He had been searching into the affairs of the shop, and had discovered +enough to make him uneasy, and indeed fill him with self-reproach that +he had not done so with more thoroughness immediately on her father's +death. He had come to tell her all he knew, and talk the matter over +with her, that they might agree what proceedings should be taken.</p> + +<p>I will not weary myself or my readers with business detail, for which +kind of thing I have no great aptitude, and a good deal of +incapacitating ignorance; but content myself with the briefest +statement of the condition in which Mr. Brett found the affairs of Mr. +Turnbull.</p> + +<p>He had been speculating in several companies, making haste to be rich, +and had periled and lost what he had saved of the profits of the +business, and all of Mary's as well that had not been elsewhere +secured. He had even trenched on the original capital of the firm, by +postponing the payment of moneys due, and allowing the stock to run +down and to deteriorate, and things out of fashion to accumulate, so +that the business had perceptibly fallen off. But what displeased Mary +more than anything was, that he had used money of her father's to +speculate with in more than one public-house; and she knew that, if in +her father's lifetime he had so used even his own, it would have been +enough to make him insist on dissolving partnership.</p> + +<p>It was impossible to allow her money to remain any longer in the power +of such a man, and she gave authority to Mr. Brett to make the +necessary arrangements for putting an end to business relations between +them.</p> + +<p>It was a somewhat complicated, therefore tedious business; and things +looked worse the further they were searched into. Unable to varnish the +facts to the experience of a professional eye, Mr. Turnbull wrote Mary +a letter almost cringing in its tone, begging her to remember the years +her father and he had been as brothers; how she had grown up in the +shop, and had been to him, until misunderstandings arose, into the +causes of which he could not now enter, in the place of a daughter; and +insisting that her withdrawal from it had had no small share in the +ruin of the business. For these considerations, and, more than all, for +the memory of her father, he entreated her to leave things as they +were, to trust him to see after the interests of the daughter of his +old friend, and not insist upon measures which must end in a forced +sale, in the shutting up of the shop of Turnbull and Marston, and the +disgracing of her father's name along with his.</p> + +<p>Mary replied that she was acting by the advice of her father's lawyer, +and with the regard she owed her father's memory, in severing all +connection with a man in whom she no longer had confidence; and +insisted that the business must be wound up as soon as possible.</p> + +<p>She instructed Mr. Brett, at the same time, that, if it could be +managed, she would prefer getting the shop, even at considerable loss, +into her own hands, with what stock might be in it, when she would +attempt to conduct the business on principles her father would have +approved, whereby she did not doubt of soon restoring it to repute. +While she had no intention, she said, of selling so <i>well</i> as Mr. +Turnbull would fain have done, she believed she would soon be able to +buy to just as good advantage as he. It would be necessary, however, to +keep her desire a secret, else Mr. Turnbull would be certain to +frustrate it.</p> + +<p>Mr. Brett approved of her plan, for he knew she was much respected, and +had many friends. Mr. Turnbull would be glad, he said, to give up the +whole to escape prosecution—that at least was how Mary interpreted his +somewhat technical statement of affairs between them.</p> + +<p>The swindler wrote again, begging for an interview—which she declined, +except in the presence of her lawyer.</p> + +<p>She made up her mind that she would not go near Testbridge till +everything was settled, and the keys of the shop in Mr. Brett's hands; +and remained, therefore, where she was—with Letty, who to keep her +company delayed her departure as long as she could without giving +offense at Thornwick.</p> + +<p>A few days before Letty was at last compelled to leave, Jasper called, +and heard about as much as they knew themselves of their plans. When +Mary said to him she would miss her pupil, he smiled in a sort of +abstracted way, as if not quite apprehending what she said, which +seemed to Mary a little odd, his manners in essentials being those of a +gentleman, as judged by one a little more than a lady; for there is an +unnamed degree higher than the ordinary <i>lady</i> . So Mary was left +alone—more alone than she had ever been in her life. But she did not +feel lonely, for the best of reasons—that she never fancied herself +alone, but knew that she was not. Also she had books at her command, +being one of the few who can read; and there were picture-galleries to +go to, and music-lessons to be had. Of these last she crowded in as +many as her master could be persuaded to give her—for it would be +long, she knew, before she was able to have such again.</p> + +<p>Joseph Jasper never came near her. She could not imagine why, and was +disappointed and puzzled. To know that Ann Byrom was in the house was +not a great comfort to her—she regarded so much that Mary loved as of +earth and not of heaven. God's world even she despised, because men +called it nature, and spoke of its influences. But Mary did go up to +see her now and then. Very different she seemed from the time when +first they were at work together over Hesper's twilight dress! Ever +since Mary had made the acquaintance of her brother, she seemed to have +changed toward her. Perhaps she was jealous; perhaps she believed Mary +was confirming him in his bad ways. Just where they were all three of +one mind—just <i>there</i> her rudimentary therefore self-sufficient +religion shut them out from her sympathy and fellowship.</p> + +<p>Alone, and with her time at her command, Mary was more inclined than +she had ever been, except for her father's company, to go to church. +The second Sunday after Letty left her, she went to the one nearest, +and in the congregation thought she saw Joseph. A week before, she +would have waited for him as he came out, but, now that he seemed to +avoid her, she would not, and went home neither comforted by the sermon +nor comfortable with herself. For the parson, instead of recognizing, +through all defects of the actual, the pattern after which God had made +man, would fain have him remade after the pattern of the middle-age +monk—a being far superior, no doubt, to the most of his +contemporaries, but as far from the beauty of the perfect man as the +mule is from that of the horse; and she was annoyed with herself that +she was annoyed with Joseph. It was the middle of summer before the +affairs of the firm were wound up, and the shop in the hands of the +London man whom Mr. Brett had employed in the purchase.</p> + +<p>Lawyer as he was, however, Mr. Brett had not been sharp enough for +Turnbull. The very next day, a shop in the same street, that had been +to let for some time, displayed above its now open door the sign, <i>John +Turnbull, late</i> —then a very small of—<i>Turnbull and Marston;</i> +whereupon Mr. Brett saw the oversight of which he had been guilty. +There was nothing in the shop when it was opened, but that Turnbull +utilized for advertisement: he had so arranged, that within an hour the +goods began to arrive, and kept arriving, by every train, for days and +days after, while all the time he made public show of himself, fussing +about, the most triumphant man in the town. It made people talk, and if +not always as he would have liked to hear them talk, yet it was talk, +and, in the matter of advertisement, that is the main thing.</p> + +<p>When it was told Mary, it gave her not the smallest uneasiness. She +only saw what had several times seemed on the point of arriving in her +father's lifetime. She would not have moved a finger to prevent it. Let +the two principles meet, with what result God pleased!</p> + +<p>Whether he had suspected her design, and had determined to challenge +her before the public, I can not tell; but his wife's aversion to +shopkeeping was so great, that one who knew what sort of scene passed +because of it between them, would have expected that, but for some very +strong reason, he would have been glad enough to retire from that mode +of gaining a livelihood. As it was, things appeared to go on with them +just as before. They still inhabited the villa, the wife scornful of +her surroundings, and the husband driving a good horse to his shop +every morning. How he managed it all, nobody knew but himself, and +whether he succeeded or not was a matter of small interest to any +except his own family and his creditors. He was a man nowise beloved, +although there was something about him that carried simple people with +him—for his ends, not theirs. To those who alluded to the change, he +represented it as entirely his own doing, to be rid of the interference +of Miss Marston in matters of which she knew nothing. He knew well that +a confident lie has all the look of truth, and, while fact and +falsehood were disputing together in men's mouths, he would be selling +his drapery. The country people were flattered by the confidence he +seemed to put in them by this explanation, and those who liked him +before sought the new shop as they had frequented the old one.</p> + +<p>Unlike most men, not to say lawyers, Mr. Brett was fully recognizant to +Mary of his oversight, and was not a little relieved to be assured she +would not have had the thing otherwise: she would gladly meet Mr. +Turnbull in a fair field—not that she would in the least acknowledge +or think of him as a rival; she would simply carry out her own ideas of +right, without regard to him or any measures he might take; the result +should be as God willed. Mr. Brett shook his head: he knew her father +of old, and saw the daughter prepared to go beyond the father. Theirs +were principles that did not come within the range of his practice! He +said to himself and his wife that the world could not go on for a +twelvemonth if such ways were to become universal: whether by the world +he meant his own profession, I will not inquire. Certainly he did not +make the reflection that the new ways are intended to throw out the old +ways; and the worst argument against any way is that the world can not +go on so; for that is just what is wanted—that the world should not go +on so. Mr. Brett nevertheless admired not only Mary's pluck, but the +business faculty which every moment she manifested: there is a holy way +of doing business, and, little as business men may think it, that is +the standard by which they must be tried; for their judge in business +affairs is not their own trade or profession, but the man who came to +convince the world concerning right and wrong and the choice between +them; or, in the older speech-to reprove the world of sin, and of +righteousness, and of judgment.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLIX" id="CHAPTER_XLIX"></a>CHAPTER XLIX.<br /><br /> +THORNWICK.</h3> + +<p>It was almost with bewilderment that Mrs. Helmer revisited Thornwick. +The near past seemed to have vanished like a dream that leaves a sorrow +behind it, and the far past to take its place. She had never been +accustomed to reflect on her own feelings; things came, were welcome or +unwelcome, proved better or worse than she had anticipated, passed +away, and were mostly forgotten. With plenty of faculty, Letty had not +yet emerged from the chrysalid condition; she lived much as one in a +dream, with whose dream mingle sounds and glimmers from the waking +world. Very few of us are awake, very few even alive in true, availing +sense. "Pooh! what stuff!" says the sleeper, and will say it until the +waking begins to come.</p> + +<p>On the threshold of her old home, then, Letty found her old self +awaiting her; she crossed it, and was once more just Letty, a Letty +wrapped in the garments of sorrow, and with a heaviness at the heart, +but far from such a miserable Letty as during the last of her former +life there. Little joy had been hers since the terrible night when she +fled from its closed doors; and now that she returned, she could take +up everything where she had left it, except the gladness. But peace is +better than gladness, and she was on the way to find that.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wardour, who, for all her severity, was not without a good-sized +heart, and whoso conscience had spoken to her in regard of Letty far +oftener than any torture would have made her allow, was touched with +compassion at sight of her worn and sad look; and, granting to herself +that the poor thing had been punished enough, even for her want of +respect to the house of Thornwick, broke down a little, though with +well-preserved dignity, and took the wandering ewe-lamb to her bosom. +Letty, loving and forgiving always, nestled in it for a moment, and in +her own room quietly wept a long time. When she came out, Mrs. Wardour +pleased herself with the fancy that her eyes were red with the tears of +repentance; but Letty never dreamed of repenting, for that would have +been to deny Tom, to cut off her married life, throw it from her, and +never more see Tom.</p> + +<p>By degrees, rapid yet easy, she slid into all her old ways; took again +the charge of the dairy as if she had never left it; attended to the +linen; darned the stockings; and in everything but her pale, thin face, +and heavy, exhausted heart, was the young Letty again. She even went to +the harness-room to look to Cousin Godfrey's stirrups and bits; but +finding, morning after morning for a whole week, that they had not once +been neglected, dismissed the care-not without satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wardour continued kind to her; but every now and then would allow +a tone as of remembered naughtiness to be sub-audible in speech or +request. Letty, even in her own heart, never resented it. She had been +so used to it in the old days, that it seemed only natural. And then +her aunt considered her health in the kindest way. Now that Letty had +known some of the troubles of marriage, she felt more sympathy with +her, did not look down upon her from quite such a height, and to Letty +this was strangely delightful. Oh, what a dry, hard, cold world this +would grow to, but for the blessing of its many sicknesses!</p> + +<p>When Godfrey saw her moving about the house as in former days, but +changed, like one of the ghosts of his saddest dreams, a new love began +to rise out of the buried seed of the old. In vain he reasoned with +himself, in vain he resisted. The image of Letty, with its trusting +eyes fixed on him so "solemn sad," and its watching looks full of +ministration, haunted him, and was too much for him. She was never the +sort of woman he could have fancied himself falling in love with; he +did in fact say to himself that she was only <i>almost</i> a lady-but at the +word his heart rebuked him for a traitor to love and its holy laws. +Neither in person was she at all his ideal. A woman like Hesper, +uplifted and strong, broad-fronted and fearless, large-limbed, and full +of latent life, was more of the ideal he could have written poetry +about. But we are deeper than we know. Who is capable of knowing his +own ideal? The ideal of a man's self is hid in the bosom of God, and +may lie ages away from his knowledge; and his ideal of woman is the +ideal belonging to this unknown self: the ideal only can bring forth an +ideal. He can not, therefore, know his own ideal of woman; it is, +nevertheless—so I presume—this his own unknown ideal that makes a man +choose against his choice. Gladly would Godfrey now have taken Letty to +his arms. It was no longer anything that from boyhood he had vowed +rather to die unmarried, and let the land go to a stranger, than marry +a widow. He had to recall every restraining fact of his and her +position to prevent him from now precipitating that which he had before +too long delayed. But the gulf of the grave and the jealousy of a +mother were between them; for, if he were again to rouse her +suspicions, she would certainly get rid of Letty, as she had before +intended, so depriving her of a home, and him of opportunity. He kept, +therefore, out of Letty's way as much as he could, went more about the +farm, and took long rides.</p> + +<p>Nothing was further from Letty than any merest suspicion of the sort of +regard Godfrey cherished for her. There was in her nothing of the +self-sentimental. Her poet was gone from her, but she did not therefore +take to poetry; nay, what poetry she had learned to like was no longer +anything to her, now her singing bird had flown to the land of song. To +her, Tom was the greatest, the one poet of the age; he had been +hers—was hers still, for did he not die telling her that he would go +on watching till she came to him? He had loved her, she knew; he had +learned to love her better before he died. She must be patient; the day +would come when she should be a Psyche, as he had told her, and soar +aloft in search of her mate. The sense of wifehood had grown one with +her consciousness. It mingled with all her prayers, both in chamber and +in church. As she went about the house, she was dreaming of her Tom—an +angel in heaven, she said to herself, but none the less her husband, +and waiting for her. If she did not read poetry, she read her New +Testament; and if she understood it only in a childish fashion, she +obeyed it in a child-like one, whence the way of all wisdom lay open +before her. It is not where one is, but in what direction he is going. +Before her, too, was her little boy—borne in his father's arms, she +pictured him, and hearing from him of the mother who was coming to them +by and by, when God had made her good enough to rejoin them!</p> + +<p>But, while she continued thus simple, Godfrey could not fail to see how +much more of a woman she had grown: he was not yet capable of seeing +that she would—could never hare got so far with him, even if he had +married her.</p> + +<p>Love and marriage are of the Father's most powerful means for the +making of his foolish little ones into sons and daughters. But so +unlike in many cases are the immediate consequences to those desired +and expected, that it is hard for not a few to believe that he is +anywhere looking after their fate—caring about them at all. And the +doubt would be a reasonable one, if the end of things was marriage. But +the end is life—that we become the children of God; after which, all +things can and will go their grand, natural course; the heart of the +Father will be content for his children, and the hearts of the children +will be content in their Father.</p> + +<p>Godfrey indulged one great and serious mistake in reference to Letty, +namely, that, having learned the character of Tom through the saddest +of personal experience, she must have come to think of him as he did, +and must have dismissed from her heart every remnant of love for him. +Of course, he would not hint at such a thing, he said to himself, nor +would she for a moment allow it, but nothing else could be the state of +her mind! He did not know that in a woman's love there is more of the +specially divine element than in a man's—namely, the original, the +unmediated. The first of God's love is not founded upon any merit, +rests only on being and need, and the worth that is yet unborn.</p> + +<p>The Redmains were again at Durnmelling—had been for some weeks; and +Sepia had taken care that she and Godfrey should meet—on the footpath +to Testbridge, in the field accessible by the breach in the ha-ha—here +and there and anywhere suitable for a little detention and talk that +should seem accidental, and be out of sight. Nor was Godfrey the man to +be insensible to the influence of such a woman, brought to bear at +close quarters. A man less vulnerable—I hate the word, but it is the +right one with Sepia concerned, for she was, in truth, an enemy—might +perhaps have yielded room to the suspicion that these meetings were not +all so accidental as they appeared, and as Sepia treated them; but no +glimmer of such a thought passed through the mind of Godfrey. He knew +nothing of all that my readers know to Sepia's disadvantage, and her +eyes were enough to subdue most men from the first—for a time at +least. Had it not been for the return of Letty, she would by this time +have had him her slave: nothing but slavery could it ever be to love a +woman like her, who gave no love in return, only exercised power. But +although he was always glad to meet her, and his heart had begun to +beat a little faster at sight of her approach, the glamour of her +presence was nearly destroyed by the arrival of Letty; and Sepia was +more than sharp enough to perceive a difference in the expression of +his eyes the next time she met him. At the very first glance she +suspected some hostile influence at work—intentionally hostile, for +persons with a consciousness like Sepia's are always imagining enemies. +And as the two worst enemies she could have were the truth and a woman, +she was alternately jealous and terrified: the truth and a woman +together, she had not yet begun to fear; that would, indeed, be too +much!</p> + +<p>She soon found there was a young woman at Thornwick, who had but just +arrived; and ere long she learned who she was—one, indeed, who had +already a shadowy existence in her life—was it possible the shadow +should be now taking solidity, and threatening to foil her? Not once +did it occur to her that, were it so, there would be retribution in it. +She had heard of Tom's death through "The Firefly," which had a kind, +extravagant article about him, but she had not once thought of his +widow—and there she was, a hedge across the path she wanted to go! If +the house of Durnmelling had but been one story higher, that she might +see all round Thornwick!</p> + +<p>For some time now, as I have already more than hinted, Sepia had been +fashioning a man to her thrall—Mewks, namely, the body-servant of Mr. +Redmain. It was a very gradual process she had adopted, and it had been +the more successful. It had got so far with him that whatever Sepia +showed the least wish to understand, Mewks would take endless trouble +to learn for her. The rest of the servants, both at Durnmelling and in +London, were none of them very friendly with her—least of all Jemima, +who was now with her mistress as lady's-maid, the accomplished +attendant whom Hesper had procured in place of Mary being away for a +holiday.</p> + +<p>The more Sepia realized, or thought she realized, the position she was +in, the more desirous was she to get out of it, and the only feasible +and safe way, in her eyes, was marriage: there was nothing between that +and a return to what she counted slavery. Rather than lift again such a +hideous load of irksomeness, she would find her way out of a world in +which it was not possible, she said, to be both good and comfortable: +she had, in truth, tried only the latter. But if she could, she +thought, secure for a husband this gentleman-yeoman, she might hold up +her head with the best. Even if Galofta should reappear, she would know +then how to meet him: with a friend or two, such as she had never had +yet, she could do what she pleased! It was hard work to get on quite +alone—or with people who cared only for themselves! She must have some +love on her side! some one who cared for <i>her</i> !</p> + +<p>From all she could learn, there was nothing that amounted even to +ordinary friendship between Mr. Wardour and the young widow. She was in +the family but as a distant poor relation—"Much as I am myself!" +thought Sepia, with a bitter laugh that even in her own eyes she should +be comparable to a poor creature like Letty. The fact, however, +remained that Godfrey was a little altered toward her: she must have +been telling him something against her—something she had heard from +that detestable little hypocrite who was turned away on suspicion of +theft! Yes—that was how Sepia talked <i>to herself</i> about Mary.</p> + +<p>One morning, Letty, finding she had an hour's leisure, for her aunt did +not pursue her as of old time, wandered out to the oak on the edge of +the ha-ha, so memorable with the shadowy presence of her Tom. She had +not been seated under it many minutes before Godfrey caught sight of +her from his horse's back: knowing his mother was gone to Testbridge, +he yielded to an urgent longing, took his horse to the stable, and +crossed the grass to where she sat.</p> + +<p>Letty was thinking of Tom—what else was there of her own to +do?—thinking like a child, looking up into the cloud-flecked sky, and +thinking Tom was somewhere there, though she could not see him: she +must be good and patient, that she might go up to him, as he could not +come down to her—if he could, he would have come long ago! All the +enchantment of the first days of her love had come back upon the young +widow; all the ill that had crept in between had failed from out her +memory, as the false notes in music melt in the air that carries the +true ones across ravine and river, meadow and grove, to the listening +ear. Letty lived in a dream of her husband—in heaven, "yet not from +her"—such a dream of bliss and hope as in itself went far to make up +for all her sorrows.</p> + +<p>She was sitting with her back toward the tree and her face to +Thornwick, and yet she did not see Godfrey till he was within a few +yards of her. She smiled, expecting his kind greeting, but was startled +to hear from behind her instead the voice of a lady greeting him. She +turned her head involuntarily: there was the head of Sepia rising above +the breach in the ha-ha, and Godfrey had turned aside and run to give +her his hand.</p> + +<p>Now Letty knew Sepia by sight, from the evening she had spent at the +old hall; more of her she knew nothing. From the mind of Tom, in his +illness, her baleful influence had vanished like an evil dream, and +Mary had not thought it necessary to let him know how falsely, +contemptuously, and contemptibly, she had behaved toward him. Letty, +therefore, had no feeling toward Sepia but one of admiration for her +grace and beauty, which she could appreciate the more that they were so +different from her own.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Sepia, holding fast by Godfrey's hand, and coming up +with a little pant. "What a lovely day it is for your haymaking! How +can you afford the time to play knight-errant to a distressed damsel?"</p> + +<p>"The hay is nearly independent of my presence," replied Godfrey. "Sun +and wind have done their parts too well for my being of much use."</p> + +<p>"Take me with you to see how they are getting on. I am as fond of hay +as Bottom in his translation."</p> + +<p>She had learned Godfrey's love of literature, and knew that one +quotation may stand for much knowledge.</p> + +<p>"I will, with pleasure," said Godfrey, perhaps a little consoled in the +midst of his disappointment; and they walked away, neither taking +notice of Letty.</p> + +<p>"I did not know," she said to herself, "that the two houses had come +together at last! What a handsome couple they make!"</p> + +<p>What passed between them is scarcely worthy of record. It is enough to +say that Sepia found her companion distrait, and he felt her a little +invasive. In a short while they came back together, and Sepia saw Letty +under the great bough of the Durnmelling oak. Godfrey handed her down +the rent, careful himself not to invade Durnmelling with a single foot. +She ran home, and up to a certain window with her opera-glass. But the +branches and foliage of the huge oak would have concealed pairs and +pairs of lovers.</p> + +<p>Godfrey turned toward Letty. She had not stirred.</p> + +<p>"What a beautiful creature Miss Yolland is!" she said, looking up with +a smile of welcome, and a calmness that prevented the slightest +suspicion of a flattering jealousy.</p> + +<p>"I was coming to <i>you</i> ," returned Godfrey. "I never saw her till her +head came up over the ha-ha.—Yes, she is beautiful—at least, she has +good eyes."</p> + +<p>"They are splendid! What a wife she would make for you, Cousin Godfrey! +I should like to see such a two."</p> + +<p>Letty was beyond the faintest suggestion of coquetry. Her words drove a +sting to the heart of Godfrey. He turned pale. But not a word would he +have spoken then, had not Letty in her innocence gone on to torture +him. She sprang from the ground.</p> + +<p>"Are you ill, Cousin Godfrey?" she cried in alarm, and with that sweet +tremor of the voice that shows the heart is near. "You are quite +white!—Oh, dear! I've said something I oughtn't to have said! What can +it be? Do forgive me, Cousin Godfrey." In her childlike anxiety she +would have thrown her arms round his neck, but her hands only reached +his shoulders. He drew back: such was the nature of the man that every +sting tasted of offense. But he mastered himself, and in his turn, +alarmed at the idea of having possibly hurt her, caught her hands in +his. As they stood regarding each other with troubled eyes, the +embankment of his prudence gave way, and the stored passion broke out.</p> + +<p>"You don't <i>mean</i> you would like to see me married, Letty?" he groaned.</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, I do, Cousin Godfrey! You would make such a lovely +husband!"</p> + +<p>"Ah! I thought as much! I knew you never cared for me, Letty!"</p> + +<p>He dropped her hands, and turned half aside, like a figure warped with +fire.</p> + +<p>"I care for you more than anybody in the world—except, perhaps, Mary," +said Letty: truthfulness was a part of her.</p> + +<p>"And I care for you more than all the world!—more than very being—it +is worthless without you. O Letty! your eyes haunt me night and day! I +love you with my whole soul."</p> + +<p>"How kind of you, Cousin Godfrey!" faltered Letty, trembling, and not +knowing what she said. She was very frightened, but hardly knew why, +for the idea of Godfrey in love with her was all but inconceivable. +Nevertheless, its approach was terrible. Like a fascinated bird she +could not take her eyes off his face. Her knees began to fail her; it +was all she could do to stand. But Godfrey was full of himself, and had +not the most shadowy suspicion of how she felt. He took her emotion for +a favorable sign, and stupidly went on:</p> + +<p>"Letty, I can't help it! I know I oughtn't to speak to you like +this—so soon, but I can't keep quiet any longer. I love you more than +the universe and its Maker. A thousand times rather would I cease to +live, than live without you to love me. I have loved you for years and +years—longer than I know. I was loving you with heart and soul and +brain and eyes when you went away and left me."</p> + +<p>"Cousin Godfrey!" shrieked Letty, "don't you know I belong to Tom?"</p> + +<p>And she dropped like one lifeless on the grass at his feet.</p> + +<p>Godfrey felt as if suddenly damned; and his hell was death. He stood +gazing on the white face. The world, heaven, God, and nature were dead, +and that was the soul of it all, dead before him! But such death is +never born of love. This agony was but the fog of disappointed +self-love; and out of it suddenly rose what seemed a new power to live, +but one from a lower world: it was all a wretched dream, out of which +he was no more to issue, in which he must go on for ever, dreaming, yet +acting as one wide awake! Mechanically he stooped and lifted the +death-defying lover in his arms, and carried her to the house. He felt +no thrill as he held the treasure to his heart. It was the merest +material contact. He bore her to the room where his mother sat, laid +her on the sofa, said he had found her under the oak-tree—and went to +his study, away in the roof. On a chair in the middle of the floor he +sat, like a man bereft of all. Nothing came between him and suicide but +an infinite scorn. A slow rage devoured his heart. Here he was, a man +who knew his own worth, his faithfulness, his unchangeableness, cast +over the wall of the universe, into the waste places, among the broken +shards of ruin! If there was a God—and the rage in his heart declared +his being—why did he make him? To make him for such a misery was pure +injustice, was willful cruelty! Henceforward he would live above what +God or woman could do to him! He rose and went to the hay-field, whence +he did not return till after midnight.</p> + +<p>He did not sleep, but he came to a resolution. In the morning he told +his mother that he wanted a change; now that the hay was safe, he would +have a run, he hardly knew where—possibly on the Continent; she must +not be uneasy if she did not hear from him for a week or two; perhaps +he would have a look at the pyramids. The old lady was filled with +dismay; but scarcely had she begun to expostulate when she saw in his +eyes that something was seriously amiss, and held her peace—she had +had to learn that with both father and son. Godfrey went, and courted +distraction. Ten years before, he would have brooded: that he would not +do now: the thing was not worth it! His pride was strong as ever, and +both helped him to get over his suffering, and prevented him from +gaining the good of it. He intrenched himself in his pride. No one +should say he had not had his will! He was a strong man, and was going +to prove it to himself afresh!</p> + +<p>Thus thought Godfrey; but he is in reality a weak man who must have +recourse to pride to carry him through. Only, if a man has not love +enough to make a hero of him, what is he to do?</p> + +<p>He was away a month, and came back in seeming health and spirits. But +it was no small relief to him to find on his arrival that Letty was no +longer at Thornwick.</p> + +<p>She had gone through a sore time. To have made Godfrey unhappy, made +her miserable; but how was she to help it? She belonged to Tom! Not +once did she entertain the thought of ceasing to be Tom's. She did not +even say to herself, what would Tom do if she forgot and forsook +him—and for what he could not help! for having left her because death +took him away! But what was she to do? She must not remain where she +was. No more must she tell his mother why she went.</p> + +<p>She wrote to Mary, and told her she could not stay much longer. They +were very kind, she said, but she must be gone before Godfrey came back.</p> + +<p>Mary suspected the truth. The fact that Letty did not give her any +reason was almost enough. The supposition also rendered intelligible +the strange mixture of misery and hardness in Godfrey's behavior at the +time of Letty's old mishap. She answered, begging her to keep her mind +easy about the future, and her friend informed of whatever concerned +her.</p> + +<p>This much from Mary was enough to set Letty at comparative ease. She +began to recover strength, and was able to write a letter to Godfrey, +to leave where he would find it, in his study.</p> + +<p>It was a lovely letter—the utterance of a simple, childlike +spirit—with much in it, too, I confess, that was but prettily +childish. She poured out on Godfrey the affection of a womanchild. She +told him what a reverence and love he had been to her always; told him, +too, that it would change her love into fear, perhaps something worse, +if he tried to make her forget Tom. She told him he was much too grand +for her to dare love him in that way, but she could look up to him like +an angel—only he must not come between her and Tom. Nothing could be +plainer, simpler, honester, or stronger, than the way the little woman +wrote her mind to the great man. Had he been worthy of her, he might +even yet, with her help, have got above his passion in a grand way, and +been a great man indeed. But, as so many do, he only sat upon himself, +kept himself down, and sank far below his passion.</p> + +<p>When he went to his study the day after his return, he saw the letter. +His heart leaped like a wild thing in a trap at sight of the +ill-shaped, childish writing; but—will my lady reader believe it?—the +first thought that shot through it was—"She shall find it too late! I +am not one to be left and taken at will!" When he read it, however, it +was with a curling lip of scorn at the childishness of the creature to +whom he had offered the heart of Godfrey Wardour. Instead of admiring +the lovely devotion of the girl-widow to her boy-husband, he scorned +himself for having dreamed of a creature who could not only love a fool +like Tom Helmer, but go on loving him after he was dead, and that even +when Godfrey Wardour had condescended to let her know he loved her. It +was thus the devil befooled him. Perhaps the worst devil a man can be +posessed withal, is himself. In mere madness, the man is beside +himself; but in this case he is inside himself; the presiding, +indwelling, inspiring sprit of him is himself, and that is the hardest +of all to cast out. Godfrey rose form the reading of that letter +<i>cured,</i> as he called it. But it was a cure that left the wound open as +a door to the entrance of evil things. He tore the letter into a +thousand pieces, and throw them into the empty grate—not even showed +it the respect of burning it with fire.</p> + +<p>Mary had got her affairs settled, and was again in the old place, the +hallowed temple of so many holy memories. I do not forget it was a shop +I call a temple. In that shop God had been worshiped with holiest +worship—that is, obedience—and would be again. Neither do I forget +that the devil had been worshiped there too—in what temple is he not? +He has fallen like lightning from heaven, but has not yet been cast out +of the earth. In that shop, however, he would be worshiped no more for +a season.</p> + +<p>At once she wrote to Letty, saying the room which had been hers was at +her service as soon as she pleased to occupy it: she would take her +father's.</p> + +<p>Letty breathed a deep breath of redemption, and made haste to accept +the offer. But to let Mrs. Wardour know her resolve was a severe strain +on her courage.</p> + +<p>I will not give the conversation that followed her announcement that +she was going to visit Mary Marston. Her aunt met it with scorn and +indignation. Ingratitude, laziness, love of low company, all the old +words of offense she threw afresh in her face. But Letty could not help +being pleased to find that her aunt's storm no longer swamped her boat. +When she began, however, to abuse Mary, calling her a low creature, who +actually gave up an independent position to put herself at the beck and +call of a fine lady, Letty grew angry.</p> + +<p>"I must not sit and hear you call Mary names, aunt," she said. "When +you cast me out, she stood by me. You do not understand her. She is the +only friend I ever had-except Tom."</p> + +<p>"You dare, you thankless hussy, to say such a thing in the house where +you've been clothed and fed and sheltered for so many years! You're the +child of your father with a vengeance! Get out of my sight!"</p> + +<p>"Aunt—" said Letty, rising.</p> + +<p>"No aunt of yours!" interrupted the wrathful woman.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Wardour," said Letty, with dignity, "you have been my benefactor, +but hardly my friend: Mary has taught me the difference. I owe you more +than you will ever give me the chance of repaying you. But what +friendship could have stood for an hour the hard words you have been in +the way of giving me, as far back as I can remember! Hard words take +all the sweetness from shelter. Mary is the only Christian <i>I</i> have +ever known."</p> + +<p>"So we are all pagans, except your low-lived lady's-maid! Upon my word!"</p> + +<p>"She makes me feel, often, often," said Letty, bursting into tears, "as +if I were with Jesus himself—as if he must be in the room somewhere."</p> + +<p>So saying, she left her, and went to put up her things. Mrs. Wardour +locked the door of the room where she sat, and refused to see or speak +to her again. Letty went away, and walked to Testbridge.</p> + +<p>"Godfrey will do something to make her understand," she said to +herself, weeping as she walked.</p> + +<p>Whether Godfrey ever did, I can not tell.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_L" id="CHAPTER_L"></a>CHAPTER L.<br /><br /> +WILLIAM AND MARY MARSTON.</h3> + +<p>The same day on which Turnbull opened his new shop, a man was seen on a +ladder painting out the sign above the old one. But the paint took time +to dry.</p> + +<p>The same day, also, Mary returned to Testbridge, and, going in by the +kitchen-door, went up to her father's room, of which and of her own she +had kept the keys—to the indignation of Turnbull, who declared he did +not know how to get on without them for storage. But, for all his +bluster, he was afraid of Mary, and did not dare touch anything she had +left.</p> + +<p>That night she spent alone in the house. But she could not sleep. She +got up and went down to the shop. It was a bright, moonlit night, and +all the house, even where the moon could not enter, was full of glimmer +and gleam, except the shop. There she lighted a candle, sat down on a +pile of goods, and gave herself up to memories of the past. Back and +back went her thoughts as far as she could send them. God was +everywhere in all the story; and the clearer she saw him there the +surer she was that she would find him as she went on. She was neither +sad nor fearful. The dead hours of the night came, that valley of the +shadow of death where faith seems to grow weary and sleep, and all the +things of the shadow wake up and come out and say, "Here we are, and +there is nothing but us and our kind in the universe!" They woke up and +came out upon Mary now, but she fought them off. Either there is +mighty, triumphant life at the root and apex of all things, or life is +not—and whence, then, the power of dreaming horrors? It is life +alone—life imperfect—that can fear; death can not fear. Even the +terror that walketh by night is a proof that I live, and that it shall +not prevail against me. And to Mary, besides her heavenly Father, her +William Marston seemed near all the time. Whereever she turned she saw +the signs of him, and she pleased herself to think that perhaps he was +there to welcome her. But it would not have made her the least sad to +know for certain that he was far off, and would never come near her +again in this world. She knew that, spite of time and space, she was +and must be near him so long as she loved and did the truth. She knew +there is no bond so strong, none so close, none so lasting as the +truth. In God alone, who is the truth, can creatures meet.</p> + +<p>The place was left in sad confusion and dirt, and she did not a little +that night to restore order at least. But at length she was tired, and +went up to her room.</p> + +<p>On the first landing there was a window to the street. She stopped and +looked out, candle in hand, but drew back with a start: on the opposite +side of the way stood a man, looking up, she thought, at the house! She +hastened to her room, and to bed. If God was not watching, no waking +was of use; and if God was watching, she might sleep in peace. She did +sleep, and woke refreshed.</p> + +<p>Her first care in the morning was to write to Letty—with the result I +have set down. The next thing she did was to go and ask Beenie to give +her some breakfast. The old woman was delighted to see her, and ready +to lock her door at once and go back to her old quarters. They returned +together, while Testbridge was yet but half awake.</p> + +<p>Many things had to be done before the shop could be opened. Beenie went +after charwomen, and soon a great bustle of cleaning arose. But the +door was kept shut, and the front windows.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon Letty came fresh from misery into more than +counterbalancing joy. She took but time to put off her bonnet and +shawl, and was presently at work helping Mary, cheerful as hope and a +good conscience could make her.</p> + +<p>Mary was in no hurry to open the shop. There was "stock to be taken," +many things had to be rearranged, and not a few things to be added, +before she could begin with comfort; and she must see to it all +herself, for she was determined to engage no assistant until she could +give her orders without hesitation.</p> + +<p>She was soon satisfied that she could not do better than make a +proposal to Letty which she had for some time contemplated—namely, +that she should take up her permanent abode with her, and help her in +the shop. Letty was charmed, nor ever thought of the annoyance it would +be to her aunt. Mary had thought of that, but saw that, for Letty to +allow the prejudices of her aunt to influence her, would be to order +her life not by the law of that God whose Son was a workingman, but +after the whim and folly of an ill-educated old woman. A new spring of +life seemed to bubble up in Letty the moment Mary mentioned the matter; +and in serving she soon proved herself one after Mary's own heart. +Letty's day was henceforth without a care, and her rest was sweet to +her. Many customers were even more pleased with her than with Mary. +Before long, Mary, besides her salary, gave her a small share in the +business.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wardour carried her custom to the Turnbulls.</p> + +<p>When the paint was dry which obliterated the old sign, people saw the +now one begin with an <i>M</i> ., and the sign-writer went on until there +stood in full, <i>Mary Marston</i> . Mr. Brett hinted he would rather have +seen it without the Christian name; but Mary insisted she would do and +be nothing she would not hold just that name to; and on the sign her +own name, neither more nor less, should stand. She would have liked, +she said, to make it <i>William and Mary Marston</i> ; for the business was +to go on exactly as her father had taught her; the spirit of her father +should never be out of the place; and if she failed, of which she had +no fear, she would fail trying to carry out his ideas-but people were +too dull to understand, and she therefore set the sign so in her heart +only.</p> + +<p>Her old friends soon began to come about her again, and it was not many +weeks before she saw fit to go to London to add to her stock.</p> + +<p>The evening of her return, as she and Letty sat over a late tea, a +silence fell, during which Letty had a brooding fit.</p> + +<p>"I wonder how Cousin Godfrey is getting on?" she said at last, and +smiled sadly.</p> + +<p>"How do you mean <i>getting on</i> ?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"I was wondering whether Miss Yolland and he—"</p> + +<p>Mary started from her seat, white as the table-cloth.</p> + +<p>"Letty!" she said, in a voice of utter dismay, "you don't mean that +woman is—is making friends with <i>him</i> ?"</p> + +<p>"I saw them together more than once, and they seemed—well, on very +good terms."</p> + +<p>"Then it is all over with him!" cried Mary, in despair. "O Letty! what +<i>is</i> to be done? Why didn't you tell me before? He'll be madly in love +with her by this time! They always are."</p> + +<p>"But where's the harm, Mary? She's a very handsome lady, and of a good +family."</p> + +<p>"We're all of good enough family," said Mary, a little petulantly. "But +that Miss Yolland—Letty—that Miss Yolland—she's a bad woman, Letty."</p> + +<p>"I never heard you say such a hard word of anybody before, Mary! It +frightens me to hear you."</p> + +<p>"It's a true word of her, Letty."</p> + +<p>"How can you be so sure?"</p> + +<p>Mary was silent. There was that about Letty that made the maiden shrink +from telling the married woman what she knew. Besides, in so far as Tom +had been concerned, she could not bring herself, even without +mentioning his name, to talk of him to his wife: there was no evil to +be prevented and no good to be done by it. If Letty was ever to know +those passages in his life, she must hear them first in high places, +and from the lips of the repentant man himself!</p> + +<p>"I can not tell you, Letty," she said. "You know the two bonds of +friendship are the right of silence and the duty of speech. I dare say +you have some things which, truly as I know you love me, you neither +wish nor feel at liberty to tell me."</p> + +<p>Letty thought of what had so lately passed between her and her cousin +Godfrey, and felt almost guilty. She never thought of one of the many +things Tom had done or said that had cut her to the heart; those had no +longer any existence. They were swallowed in the gulf of forgetful +love—dismissed even as God casts the sins of his children behind his +back: behind God's back is just nowhere. She did not answer, and again +there was silence for a time, during which Mary kept walking about the +room, her hands clasped behind her, the fingers interlaced, and twisted +with a strain almost fierce.</p> + +<p>"There's no time! there's no time!" she cried at length. "How are we to +find out? And if we knew all about it, what could we do? O Letty! what +<i>am</i> I to do?"</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, Mary dear, <i>you</i> can't be to blame! One would think you +fancied yourself accountable for Cousin Godfrey!"</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> accountable for him. He has done more for me than any man but +my father; and I know what he does not know, and what the ignorance of +will be his ruin. I know that one of the best men in the world"—so in +her agony she called him—"is in danger of being married by one of the +worst women; and I can't bear it—I can't bear it!"</p> + +<p>"But what can you do, Mary?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I want to know," returned Mary, with irritation. "What +<i>am</i> I to do? What <i>am</i> I to do?"</p> + +<p>"If he's in love with her, he wouldn't believe a word any one—even +you—told him against her."</p> + +<p>"That is true, I suppose; but it won't clear me. I must do something."</p> + +<p>She threw herself on the couch with a groan.</p> + +<p>"It's horrid!" she cried, and buried her face in the pillow.</p> + +<p>All this time Letty had been so bewildered by Mary's agitation, and the +cause of it was to her so vague, that apprehension for her cousin did +not wake. But when Mary was silent, then came the thought that, if she +had not so repulsed him—but she could not help it, and would not think +in that direction.</p> + +<p>Mary started from the couch, and began again to pace the room, wringing +her hands, and walking up and down like a wild beast in its cage. It +was so unlike her to be thus seriously discomposed, that Letty began to +be frightened. She sat silent and looked at her. Then spoke the spirit +of truth in the scholar, for the teacher was too troubled to hear. She +rose, and going up to Mary from behind, put her arm round her, and +whispered in her ear:</p> + +<p>"Mary, why don't you ask Jesus?"</p> + +<p>Mary stopped short, and looked at Letty. But she was not thinking about +her; she was questioning herself: why had she not done as Letty said? +Something was wrong with her: that was clear, if nothing else was! She +threw herself again on the couch, and Letty saw her body heaving with +her sobs. Then Letty was more frightened, and feared she had done +wrong. Was it her part to remind Mary of what she knew so much better +than she?</p> + +<p>"But, then, I was only referring her to herself!" she thought.</p> + +<p>A few minutes, and Mary rose. Her face was wet and white, but +perplexity had vanished from it, and resolution had taken its place. +She threw her arms round Letty, and kissed her, and held her face +against hers. Letty had never seen in her such an expression of emotion +and tenderness.</p> + +<p>"I have found out, Letty, dear," she said. "Thank you, thank you, +Letty! You are a true sister."</p> + +<p>"What have you found out, Mary?"</p> + +<p>"I have found out why I did not go at once to ask Him what I ought to +do. It was just because I was afraid of what he would tell me to do."</p> + +<p>And with that the tears ran down her cheeks afresh.</p> + +<p>"Then you know now what to do?" asked Letty.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Mary, and sat down.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_LI" id="CHAPTER_LI"></a>CHAPTER LI.<br /><br /> +A HARD TASK.</h3> + +<p>The next morning, leaving the shop to Letty, Mary set out immediately +after breakfast to go to Thornwick. But the duty she had there to +perform was so distasteful, that she felt her very limbs refuse the +office required of them. They trembled so under her that she could +scarcely walk. She sent, therefore, to the neighboring inn for a fly. +All the way, as she went, she was hoping she might be spared an +encounter with Mrs. Wardour; but the old lady heard the fly, saw her +get out, and, imagining she had brought Letty back in some fresh +trouble, hastened to prevent either of them from entering the house. +The door stood open, and they met on the broad step.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Mrs. Wardour," said Mary, trying to speak without +betraying emotion.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Miss Marston," returned Mrs. Wardour, grimly.</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Wardour at home?" asked Mary.</p> + +<p>"What is your business with <i>him</i> ?" rejoined the mother.</p> + +<p>"Yes; it is with him," returned Mary, as if she had mistaken her +question, and there had been a point of exclamation after the <i>What</i> .</p> + +<p>"About that hussy?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know whom you call by the name," replied Mary, who would have +been glad indeed to find a fellow-protector of Godfrey in his mother.</p> + +<p>"You know well enough whom I mean. Whom should it be, but Letty Lovel!"</p> + +<p>"My business has nothing to do with her," answered Mary.</p> + +<p>"Whom has it to do with, then?"</p> + +<p>"With Mr. Wardour."</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Only Mr. Wardour himself must hear it. It is his business, not mine."</p> + +<p>"I will have nothing to do with it."</p> + +<p>"I have no desire to give you the least trouble about it," rejoined +Mary.</p> + +<p>"You can't see Mr. Wardour. He's not one to be at the beck and call of +every silly woman that wants him."</p> + +<p>"Then I will write, and tell him I called, but you would not allow me +to see him."</p> + +<p>"I will give him a message, if you like."</p> + +<p>"Then tell him what I have just said. I am going home to write to him. +Good morning."</p> + +<p>She was getting into the fly again, when Mrs. Wardour, reflecting that +it must needs be something of consequence that brought her there so +early in a fly, and made her show such a determined front to so great a +personage as herself, spoke again.</p> + +<p>"I will tell him you are here; but you must not blame me if he does not +choose to see you. We don't feel you have behaved well about that girl."</p> + +<p>"Letty is my friend. I have behaved to her as if she were my sister."</p> + +<p>"You had no business to behave to her as if she were your sister. You +had no right to tempt her down to your level."</p> + +<p>"Is it degradation to earn one's own living?"</p> + +<p>"You had nothing to do with her. She would have done very well if you +had but let her alone."</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, ma'am, but I have <i>some</i> right in Letty. I am sorry to have +to assert it, but she would have been dead long ago if I had behaved to +her as you would have me."</p> + +<p>"That was all her own fault."</p> + +<p>"I will not talk with you about it: you do not know the circumstances +to which I refer. I request to see Mr. Wardour. I have no time to waste +in useless altercation."</p> + +<p>Mary was angry, and it did her good; it made her fitter to face the +harder task before her.</p> + +<p>That moment they heard the step of Godfrey approaching through a long +passage in the rear. His mother went into the parlor, leaving the door, +which was close to where Mary stood, ajar. Godfrey, reaching the hall, +saw Mary, and came up to her with a formal bow, and a face flushed with +displeasure.</p> + +<p>"May I speak to you alone, Mr. Wardour?" said Mary. "Can you not say +what you have to say here?"</p> + +<p>"It is impossible."</p> + +<p>"Then I am curious to know—"</p> + +<p>"Let your curiosity plead for me, then."</p> + +<p>With a sigh of impatience he yielded, and led the way to the +drawing-room, which was at the other end of the hall. Mary turned and +shut the door he left open.</p> + +<p>"Why all this mystery, Miss Marston?" he said. "I am not aware of +anything between you and me that can require secrecy."</p> + +<p>He spoke with unconcealed scorn.</p> + +<p>"When I have made my communication, you will at least allow secrecy to +have been necessary."</p> + +<p>"Some objects may require it!" said Wardour, in a tone itself an insult.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Wardour," returned Mary, "I am here for your sake, not my own. May +I beg you will not render a painful duty yet more difficult?"</p> + +<p>"May <i>I</i> beg, then, that you will be as brief as possible? I am more +than doubtful whether what you have to say will seem to me of so much +consequence as you suppose."</p> + +<p>"I shall be very glad to find it so."</p> + +<p>"I can not give you more than ten minutes." Mary looked at her watch.</p> + +<p>"You have lately become acquainted with Miss Yolland, I am told," she +began.</p> + +<p>"Whew!" whistled Godfrey, yet hardly as if he were surprised.</p> + +<p>"I have been compelled to know a good deal of that lady."</p> + +<p>"As lady's-maid in her family, I believe."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mary—then changing her tone after a slight pause, went on: +"Mr. Wardour, I owe you more than I can ever thank you for. I strongly +desire to fulfill the obligation your goodness has laid upon me, though +I can never discharge it. For the sake of that obligation—for your +sake, I am risking much—namely, your opinion of me."</p> + +<p>He made a gesture of impatience.</p> + +<p>"I <i>know</i> Miss Yolland to be a woman without principle. I know it by +the testimony of my own eyes, and from her own confession. She is +capable of playing a cold-hearted, cruel game for her own ends. Be +persuaded to consult Mr. Redmain before you commit yourself. Ask him if +Miss Yolland is fit to be the wife of an honest man."</p> + +<p>There was nothing in Godfrey's countenance but growing rage. Turning to +the door, Mary would have gone without another word.</p> + +<p>"Stay!" cried Godfrey, in a voice of suppressed fury. "Do not dare to +go until I have told you that you are a vile slanderer. I knew +something of what I had to expect, but you should never have entered +this room had I known how far your effrontery could carry you. Listen +to me: if anything more than the character of your statement had been +necessary to satisfy me of the falsehood of every word of it, you have +given it me in your reference to Mr. Redmain—a man whose life has +rendered him unfit for the acquaintance, not to say the confidence of +any decent woman. This is a plot—for what final object, God +knows—between you and him! I should be doing my duty were I to expose +you both to the public scorn you deserve."</p> + +<p>"Now I am clear!" said Mary to herself, but aloud, and stood erect, +with glowing face and eyes of indignation: "Then why not do your duty, +Mr. Wardour? I should be glad of anything that would open your eyes. +But Miss Yolland will never give Mr. Redmain such an opportunity. Nor +does he desire it, for he might have had it long ago, by the criminal +prosecution of a friend of hers. For my part, I should be sorry to see +her brought to public shame."</p> + +<p>"Leave the house!" said Godfrey through his teeth, and almost under his +breath.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry it is so hard to distinguish between truth and falsehood," +said Mary, as she went to the door.</p> + +<p>She walked out, got into the fly, and drove home; went into the shop, +and served the rest of the morning; but in the afternoon was obliged to +lie down, and did not appear again for three days.</p> + +<p>The reception she had met with did not much surprise her: plainly Sepia +had been before her. She had pretended to make Godfrey her confidant, +had invented, dressed, and poured out injuries to him, and so blocked +up the way to all testimony unfavorable to her. Was there ever man in +more pitiable position?</p> + +<p>It added to Godfrey's rage that he had not a doubt Mary knew what had +passed between Letty and him. That, he reasoned, was at the root of it +all: she wanted to bring them together yet: it would be a fine thing +for her to have her bosom-friend mistress of Thornwick! What a cursed +thing he should ever have been civil to her! And what a cursed fool he +was ever to have cared a straw for such a low-minded creature as that +Letty! Thank Heaven, he was cured of that!</p> + +<p>Cured?—He had fallen away from love—that was all the cure!</p> + +<p>Like the knight of the Red Cross, he was punished for abandoning Una, +by falling in love with Duessa. His rage against Letty, just because of +her faithfulness, had cast him an easy prey into the arms of the +clinging Sepia.</p> + +<p>And now what more could Mary do? Just one thing was left: Mr. Redmain +could satisfy Mr. Wardour of the fact he would not hear from her!—so, +at least, thought Mary yet. If Mr. Redmain would take the trouble to +speak to him, Mr. Wardour must be convinced! However true might be what +Mr. Wardour had said about Mr. Redmain, fact remained fact about Sepia!</p> + +<p>She sat down and wrote the following letter:</p> + +<p>"Sir: I hardly know how to address you without seeming to take a +liberty; at the same time I can not help hoping you trust me enough to +believe that I would not venture such a request as I am about to make, +without good reason. Should you kindly judge me not to presume, and +should you be well enough in health, which I fear may not be the case, +would you mind coming to see me here in my shop? I think you must know +it—it used to be Turnbull and Marston—the Marston was my father. You +will see my name over the door. Any hour from morning to night will do +for me; only please let it be as soon as you can make it convenient.</p> + +<p class="c">"I am, sir,<br /> +"Your humble and grateful servant,<br /> +"MARY MARSTON"</p> + +<p>"What the deuce is she grateful to me for?" grumbled Mr. Redmain when +he read it. "I never did anything for her! By Jove, the gypsy herself +wouldn't let me! I vow she's got more brains of her own than any +half-dozen women I ever had to do with before!"</p> + +<p>The least thing bearing the look of plot, or intrigue, or secret to be +discovered or heard, was enough for Mr. Redmain. What he had of pride +was not of the same sort as Wardour's: it made no pretense to dignity, +and was less antagonistic, so long at least as there was no talk of +good motive or righteous purpose. Far from being offended with Mary's +request, he got up at once, though indeed he was rather unwell and +dreading an attack, ordered his brougham, and drove to Testbridge. +There, careful of secrecy, he went to several shops, and bought +something at each, but pretended not to find the thing he wanted.</p> + +<p>He then said he would lunch at the inn, told his coachman to put up, +and, while his meal was getting ready, went to Mary's shop, which was +but a few doors off. There he asked for a certain outlandish stuff, and +insisted on looking over a bale not yet unpacked. Mary understood him, +and, whispering Letty to take him to the parlor, followed a minute +after.</p> + +<p>As soon as she entered—</p> + +<p>"Come, now, what's it all about?" he said.</p> + +<p>Mary began at once to tell him, as directly as she could, that she was +under obligation to Mr. Wardour of Thornwick, and that she had reason +to fear Miss Yolland was trying to get a hold of him—"And you know +what that would be for any man!" she said.</p> + +<p>"No, by Jove! I don't," he answered. "What would it be?"</p> + +<p>"Utter ruin," replied Mary. "Then go and tell him so, if you want to +save him."</p> + +<p>"I have told him. But he does not like me, and won't believe me."</p> + +<p>"Then let him take his own course, and be ruined."</p> + +<p>"But I have just told you, sir, I am under obligation to him—great +obligation!"</p> + +<p>"Oh! I see! you want him yourself!—Well, as you wish it, I would +rather you should have him than that she-devil. But come, now, you must +be open with me."</p> + +<p>"I am. I will be."</p> + +<p>"You say so, of course. Women do.—But you confess you want him +yourself?"</p> + +<p>Mary saw it would be the worst possible policy to be angry with him, +especially as she had given him the trouble to come to her, and she +must not lose this her last chance.</p> + +<p>"I do not want him," she answered, with a smile; "and, if I did, he +would never look at one in my position. He would as soon think of +marrying the daughter of one of his laborers—and quite right, too—for +the one might just be as good as the other."</p> + +<p>"Well, now, that's a pity. I would have done a good deal for <i>you</i> —I +don't know why, for you're a little humbug if ever there was one! But, +if you don't care about the fellow, I don't see why I should take the +trouble. Confess—you're a little bit in love with him—ain't you, now? +Confess to that, and I will do what I can."</p> + +<p>"I can't confess to a lie. I owe Mr. Wardour a debt of gratitude—that +is all—but no light thing, you will allow, sir!"</p> + +<p>"I don't know; I never tried its weight. Anyhow, I should make haste to +be rid of it."</p> + +<p>"I have sought to make him this return, but he only fancies me a +calumniator. Miss Yolland has been beforehand with me."</p> + +<p>"Then, by Jove! I don't see but you're quits with him. If he behaves +like that to you, don't you see, it wipes it all out? Upon my soul! I +don't see why you should trouble your head about him. Let him take his +way, and go to—Sepia."</p> + +<p>"But, sir, what a dreadful thing it would be, knowing what she is, to +let a man like him throw himself away on her!"</p> + +<p>"I don't see it. I've no doubt he's just as bad as she is. We all are; +we're all the same. And, if he weren't, it would be the better joke. +Besides, you oughtn't to keep up a grudge, don't you know; you ought to +let the—the <i>woman</i> have a chance. If he marries her—and that must be +her game this time—she'll grow decent, and be respectable ever after, +you may be sure—go to church, as you would have her, and all +that—never miss a Sunday, I'll lay you a thousand."</p> + +<p>"He's of a good old family!" said Mary, foolishly, thinking that would +weigh with him.</p> + +<p>"Good old fiddlestick! Damned old worn-out broom-end! <i>She's</i> of a good +old family—quite good enough for his, you may take your oath! Why, my +girl! the thing's not worth burning your fingers with. You've brought +me here on a goose-errand. I'll go and have my lunch."</p> + +<p>He rose.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to have vexed you, sir," said Mary, greatly disappointed.</p> + +<p>"Never mind.—I'm horribly sold," he said, with a tight grin. "I +thought you must have some good thing in hand to make it worth your +while to send for me."</p> + +<p>"Then I must try something else," reflected Mary aloud.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't advise you. The man's only the surer to hate you and stick +to her. Let him alone. If he's a stuck-up fellow like that, it will +take him down a bit—when the truth comes out, that is, as come out it +must. There's one good thing in it, my wife'll get rid of her. But I +don't know! there's an enemy, as the Bible says, that sticketh closer +than a brother. And they'll be next door when Durnmelling is mine! But +I can sell it."</p> + +<p>"If he <i>should</i> come to you, will you tell him the truth?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that. It might spoil my own little game."</p> + +<p>"Will you let him think me a liar and slanderer?"</p> + +<p>"No, by Jove! I won't do that. I don't promise to tell him all the +truth, or even that what I do tell him shall be exactly true; but I +won't let him think ill of my little puritan; that would spoil <i>your</i> +game. Ta, ta!"</p> + +<p>He went out, with his curious grin, amused, and enjoying the idea of a +proud fellow like that being taken in with Sepia.</p> + +<p>"I hope devoutly he'll marry her!" he said to himself as he went to his +luncheon. "Then I shall hold a rod over them both, and perhaps buy that +miserable little Thornwick. Mortimer would give the skin off his back +for it."</p> + +<p>The thing that ought to be done had to be done, and Mary had done +it—alas! to no purpose for the end desired: what was left her to do +further? She could think of nothing. Sepia, like a moral hyena, must +range her night. She went to bed, and dreamed she was pursued by a +crowd, hooting after her, and calling her all the terrible names of +those who spread evil reports. She woke in misery, and slept no more.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_LII" id="CHAPTER_LII"></a>CHAPTER LII.<br /><br /> +A SUMMONS.</h3> + +<p>One hot Saturday afternoon, in the sleepiest time of the day, when +nothing was doing; and nobody in the shop, except a poor boy who had +come begging for some string to help him fly his kite, though for the +last month wind had been more scarce than string, Jemima came in from +Durnmelling, and, greeting Mary with the warmth of the friendship that +had always been true between them, gave her a letter.</p> + +<p>"Whom is this from?" asked Mary, with the usual human waste of inquiry, +seeing she held the surest answer in her hand.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Mewks gave it me," said Jemima. "He didn't say whom it was from."</p> + +<p>Mary made haste to open it: she had an instinctive distrust of +everything that passed through Mewks's hands, and greatly feared that, +much as his master trusted him, he was not true to him. She found the +following note from Mr. Redmain:</p> + +<p>"DEAR MISS MARSTON: Come and see me as soon as you can; I have +something to talk to you about. Send word by the bearer when I may look +for you. I am not well.</p> + +<p>"Yours truly,</p> + +<p>"F. G. REDMAIN."</p> + +<p>Mary went to her desk and wrote a reply, saying she would be with him +the next morning about eleven o'clock. She would have gone that same +night, she said, but, as it was Saturday, she could not, because of +country customers, close in time to go so far.</p> + +<p>"Give it into Mr. Redmain's own hand, if you can, Jemima," she said.</p> + +<p>"I will try; but I doubt if I can, miss," answered the girl.</p> + +<p>"Between ourselves, Jemima," said Mary, "I do not trust that man Mewks."</p> + +<p>"Nobody does, miss, except the master and Miss Yolland."</p> + +<p>"Then," thought Mary, "the thing is worse than I had supposed."</p> + +<p>"I'll do what I can, miss," Jemima went on. "But he's so sharp!—Mr. +Mewks, I mean."</p> + +<p>After she was gone, Mary wished she had given her a verbal message; +that she might have insisted on delivering in person.</p> + +<p>Jemima, with circumspection, managed to reach Mr. Redmain's room +unencountered, but just as she knocked at the door, Mewks came behind +her from somewhere, and snatching the letter out of her hand, for she +carried it ready to justify her entrance to the first glance of her +irritable master, pushed her rudely away, and immediately went in. But +as he did so he put the letter in his pocket.</p> + +<p>"Who took the note?" asked his master.</p> + +<p>"The girl at the lodge, sir."</p> + +<p>"Is she not come back yet?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir, not yet. She'll be in a minute, though. I saw her coming up +the avenue."</p> + +<p>"Go and bring her here."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>Mewks went, and in two minutes returned with the letter, and the +message that Miss Marston hadn't time to direct it.</p> + +<p>"You damned rascal! I told you to bring the messenger here."</p> + +<p>"She ran the whole way, sir, and not being very strong, was that tired, +that, the moment she got in, the poor thing dropped in a dead faint. +They ain't got her to yet."</p> + +<p>His master gave him one look straight in the eyes, then opened the +letter, and read it.</p> + +<p>"Miss Marston will call here tomorrow morning," he said; "see that +<i>she</i> is shown up at once—here, to my sitting-room. I hope I am +explicit."</p> + +<p>When the man was gone, Mr. Redmain nodded his head three times, and +grinned the skin tight as a drum-head over his cheek-bones.</p> + +<p>"There isn't a damned soul of them to be trusted!" he said to himself, +and sat silently thoughtful.</p> + +<p>Perhaps he was thinking how often he had come short of the hope placed +in him; times of reflection arrive to most men; and a threatened attack +of the illness he believed must one day carry him off, might well have +disposed him to think.</p> + +<p>In the evening he was worse.</p> + +<p>By midnight he was in agony, and Lady Margaret was up with him all +night. In the morning came a lull, and Lady Margaret went to bed. His +wife had not come near him. But Sepia might have been seen, more than +once or twice, hovering about his door.</p> + +<p>Both she and Mewks thought, after such a night, he must have forgotten +his appointment with Mary.</p> + +<p>When he had had some chocolate, he fell into a doze. But his sleep was +far from profound. Often he woke and again dozed off.</p> + +<p>The clock in the dressing-room struck eleven.</p> + +<p>"Show Miss Marston up the moment she arrives," he said—and his voice +was almost like that of a man in health.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," replied the startled Mewks, and felt he must obey.</p> + +<p>So Mary was at once shown to the chamber of the sick man.</p> + +<p>To her surprise (for Mewks had given her no warning), he was in bed, +and looking as ill as ever she had seen him. His small head was like a +skull covered with parchment. He made the slightest of signs to her to +come nearer—and again. She went close to the bed. Mewks sat down at +the foot of it, out of sight. It was a great four-post-bed, with +curtains.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you're come," he said, with a feeble grin, all he had for a +smile. "I want to have a little talk with you. But I can't while that +brute is sitting there. I have been suffering horribly. Look at me, and +tell me if you think I am going to die—not that I take your opinion +for worth anything. That's not what I wanted you for, though. I wasn't +so ill then. But I want you the more to talk to now. <i>You</i> have a bit +of a heart, even for people that don't deserve it—at least I'm going +to believe you have; and, if I am wrong, I almost think I would rather +not know it till I'm dead and gone!—Good God! where shall I be then?"</p> + +<p>I have already said that, whether in consequence of remnants of +mother-teaching or from the movements of a conscience that had more +vitality than any of his so-called friends would have credited it with, +Mr. Redmain, as often as his sufferings reached a certain point, was +subject to fits of terror—horrible anguish it sometimes amounted +to—at the thought of hell. This, of course, was silly, seeing hell is +out of fashion in far wider circles than that of Mayfair; but denial +does not alter fact, and not always fear. Mr. Redmain laughed when he +was well, and shook when he was suffering. In vain he argued with +himself that what he held by when in health was much more likely to be +true than a dread which might be but the suggestion of the disease that +was slowly gnawing him to death: as often as the sickness returned, he +received the suggestion afresh, whatever might be its source, and +trembled as before. In vain he accused himself of cowardice—the thing +was there—<i>in him</i> —nothing could drive it out. And, verily, even a +madman may be wiser than the prudent of this world; and the courage of +not a few would forsake them if they dared but look the danger in the +face. I pity the poor ostrich, and must I admire the man of whose kind +he is the type, or take him in any sense for a man of courage? Wait +till the thing stares you in the face, and then, whether you be brave +man or coward, you will at all events care little about courage or +cowardice. The nearer a man is to being a true man, the sooner will +conscience of wrong make a coward of him; and herein Redmain had a +far-off kindred with the just. After the night he had passed, he was +now in one of his terror-fits; and this much may be said for his good +sense—that, if there was anywhere a hell for the use of anybody, he +was justified in anticipating a free entrance.</p> + +<p>"Mewks!" he called, suddenly, and his tone was loud and angry.</p> + +<p>Mewks was by his bedside instantly.</p> + +<p>"Get out with you! If I find you in this room again, without having +been called, I will kill you! I am strong enough for that, even without +this pain. They won't hang a dying man, and where I am going they will +rather like it."</p> + +<p>Mewks vanished.</p> + +<p>"You need not mind, my girl," he went on, to Mary. "Everybody knows I +am ill—very ill. Sit down there, on the foot of the bed, only take +care you don't shake it, and let me talk to you. People, you know, say +nowadays there ain't any hell—or perhaps none to speak of?"</p> + +<p>"I should think the former more likely than the latter," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"You don't believe there is any? I <i>am</i> glad of that! for you are a +good girl, and ought to know."</p> + +<p>"You mistake me, sir. How can I imagine there is no hell, when <i>he</i> +said there was?"</p> + +<p>"Who's <i>he</i> ?"</p> + +<p>"The man who knows all about it, and means to put a stop to it some +day."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; I see! Hm!—But I don't for the life of me see what a fellow +is to make of it all—don't you know? Those parsons! They will have it +there's no way out of it but theirs, and I never could see a handle +anywhere to that door!"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> don't see what the parsons have got to do with it, or, at least, +what you have got to do with the parsons. If a thing is true, you have +as much to do with it as any parson in England; if it is not true, +neither you nor they have anything to do with it."</p> + +<p>"But, I tell you, if it be all as true as—as—that we are all sinners, +I don't know what to do with it!"</p> + +<p>"It seems to me a simple thing. <i>That</i> man as much as said he knew all +about it, and came to find men that were lost, and take them home."</p> + +<p>"He can't well find one more lost than I am! But how am I to believe +it? How can it be true? It's ages since he was here, if ever he was at +all, and there hasn't been a sign of him ever since, all the time!"</p> + +<p>"There you may be quite wrong. I think I could find you some who +believe him just as near them now as ever he was to his own +brothers—believe that he hears them when they speak to him, and heeds +what they say."</p> + +<p>"That's bosh. You would have me believe against the evidence of my +senses!"</p> + +<p>"You must have strange senses, Mr. Redmain, that give you evidence +where they can't possibly know anything! If that man spoke the truth +when he was in the world, he is near us now; if he is not near us, +there is an end of it all."</p> + +<p>"The nearer he is, the worse for me!" sighed Mr. Redmain.</p> + +<p>"The nearer he is, the better for the worst man that ever breathed."</p> + +<p>"That's queer doctrine! Mind you, I don't say it mayn't be all right. +But it does seem a cowardly thing to go asking him to save you, after +you've been all your life doing what ought to damn you—if there be a +hell, mind you, that is."</p> + +<p>"But think," said Mary, "if that should be your only chance of being +able to make up for the mischief you have done? No punishment you can +have will do anything for that. No suffering of yours will do anything +for those you have made suffer. But it is so much harder to leave the +old way than to go on and let things take their chance!"</p> + +<p>"There may be something in what you say; but still I can't see it +anything better than sneaking, to do a world of mischief, and then +slink away into heaven, leaving all the poor wretches to look after +themselves."</p> + +<p>"I don't think Jesus Christ is worse pleased with you for feeling like +that," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Eh? What? What's that you say?—Jesus Christ worse pleased with me? +That's a good one! As if he ever thought about a fellow like me!"</p> + +<p>"If he did not, you would not be thinking about him just this minute, I +suspect. There's no sense in it, if he does not think about you. He +said himself he didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to +repentance."</p> + +<p>"I wish I could repent."</p> + +<p>"You can, if you will."</p> + +<p>"I can't make myself sorry for what's gone and done with."</p> + +<p>"No; it wants him to do that. But you can turn from your old ways, and +ask him to take you for a pupil. Aren't you willing to learn, if he be +willing to teach you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. It's all so dull and stupid! I never could bear going to +church."</p> + +<p>"It's not one bit like that! It's like going to your mother, and saying +you're going to try to be a good boy, and not vex her any more."</p> + +<p>"I see. It's all right, I dare say! But I've had as much of it as I can +stand! You see, I'm not used to such things. You go away, and send +Mewks. Don't be far off, though, and mind you don't go home without +letting me know. There! Go along."</p> + +<p>She had just reached the door, when he called her again.</p> + +<p>"I say! Mind whom you trust in this house. There's no harm in Mrs. +Redmain; she only grows stupid directly she don't like a thing. But +that Miss Yolland!—that woman's the devil. I know more about her than +you or any one else. I can't bear her to be about Hesper; but, if I +told her the half I know, she would not believe the half of that. I +shall find a way, though. But I am forgetting! you know her as well as +I do—that is, you would, if you were wicked enough to understand. I +will tell you one of these days what, I am going to do. There! don't +say a word. I want no advice on <i>such</i> things. Go along, and send +Mewks."</p> + +<p>With all his suspicion of the man, Mr. Redmain did not suspect <i>how</i> +false Mewks was: he did not know that Miss Yolland had bewitched him +for the sake of having an ally in the enemy's camp. All he could +hear—and the dressing-room door was handy—the fellow duly reported to +her. Already, instructed by her fears, she had almost divined what Mr. +Redmain meant to do.</p> + +<p>Mary went and sat on the lowest step of the stair just outside the room.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing there?" said Lady Margaret, coming from the +corridor.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Redmain will not have me go yet, my lady," answered Mary, rising. +"I must wait first till he sends for me."</p> + +<p>Lady Margaret swept past her, murmuring, "Most peculiar!" Mary sat down +again.</p> + +<p>In about an hour, Mewks came and said his master wanted her.</p> + +<p>He was very ill, and could not talk, but he would not let her go. He +made her sit where he could see her, and now and then stretched out his +hand to her. Even in his pain he showed a quieter spirit. "Something +may be working—who can tell!" thought Mary.</p> + +<p>It was late in the afternoon when at length he sought further +conversation.</p> + +<p>"I have been thinking, Mary," he said, "that if I do wake up in hell +when I die, no matter how much I deserve it, nobody will be the better +for it, and I shall be all the worse."</p> + +<p>He spoke with coolness, but it was by a powerful effort: he had waked +from a frightful dream, drenched from head to foot. Coward? No. He had +reason to fear.</p> + +<p>"Whereas," rejoined Mary, taking up his clew, "everybody will be the +better if you keep out of it—everybody," she repeated, "—God, and +Jesus Christ, and all their people."</p> + +<p>"How do you make that out?" he asked. "God has more to do than look +after such as me."</p> + +<p>"You think he has so many worlds to look to—thousands of them only +making? But why does he care about his worlds? Is it not because they +are the schools of his souls? And why should he care for the souls? Is +it not because he is making them children—his own children to +understand him and be happy with his happiness?"</p> + +<p>"I can't say I care for his happiness. I want my own. And yet I don't +know any that's worth the worry of it. No; I would rather be put out +like a candle."</p> + +<p>"That's because you have been a disobedient child, taking your own way, +and turning God's good things to evil. You don't know what a splendid +thing life is. You actually and truly don't know, never experienced in +your being the very thing you were made for."</p> + +<p>"My father had no business to leave me so much money."</p> + +<p>"You had no business to misuse it."</p> + +<p>"I didn't <i>quite</i> know what <i>I</i> was doing."</p> + +<p>"You do now."</p> + +<p>Then came a pause.</p> + +<p>"You think God hears prayer—do you?"</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>"Then I wish you would ask him to let me off—I mean, to let me die +right out when I do die. What's the good of making a body miserable?"</p> + +<p>"That, I am sure it would be of no use to pray for. He certainly will +not throw away a thing he has made, because that thing may be foolish +enough to prefer the dust-hole to a cabinet."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't you do it now, if I asked you?"</p> + +<p>"I would not. I would leave you in God's hands rather than inside the +gate of heaven."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand you. And you wouldn't say so if you cared for me! +Only, why should you care for me?"</p> + +<p>"I would give my life for you."</p> + +<p>"Come, now! I don't believe that."</p> + +<p>"Why, I couldn't be a Christian if I wouldn't!"</p> + +<p>"You are getting absurd!" he cried. But he did not look exactly as if +he thought it.</p> + +<p>"Absurd!" repeated Mary. "Isn't that what makes <i>him</i> our Saviour? How +could I be his disciple, if I wouldn't do as he did?"</p> + +<p>"You are saying a good deal!"</p> + +<p>"Can't you see that I have no choice?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> wouldn't do that for anybody under the sun!"</p> + +<p>"You are not his disciple. You have not been going about with him."</p> + +<p>"And you have?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—for many years. Besides, I can not help thinking there is one for +whom you would do it."</p> + +<p>"If you mean my wife, you never were more mistaken. I would do nothing +of the sort."</p> + +<p>"I did not mean your wife. I mean Jesus Christ."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I dare say! Well, perhaps; if I knew him as you do, and if I were +quite sure he wanted it done for him."</p> + +<p>"He does want it done for him—always and every day—not for his own +sake, though it does make him very glad. To give up your way for his is +to die for him; and, when any one will do that, then he is able to do +everything for him; for then, and not till then, he gets such a hold of +him that he can lift him up, and set him down beside himself. That's +how my father used to teach me, and now I see it for myself to be true."</p> + +<p>"It's all very grand, no doubt; but it ain't nowhere, you know. It's +all in your own head, and nowhere else. You don't, you <i>can't</i> +positively believe all that!"</p> + +<p>"So much, at least, that I live in the strength and hope it gives me, +and order my ways according to it."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you teach my wife so?"</p> + +<p>"I tried, but she didn't care to think. I could not get any further +with her. She has had no trouble yet to make her listen."</p> + +<p>"By Jove! I should have thought marrying a fellow like me might have +been trouble enough to make a saint of her."</p> + +<p>It was impossible to fix him to any line of thought, and Mary did not +attempt it. To move the child in him was more than all argument.</p> + +<p>A pause followed. "I don't love God," he said.</p> + +<p>"I dare say not," replied Mary. "How should you, when you don't know +him?"</p> + +<p>"Then what's to be done? I can't very well show myself where I hate the +master of the house!"</p> + +<p>"If you knew him, you would love him."</p> + +<p>"You are judging by yourself. But there is as much difference between +you and me as between light and darkness."</p> + +<p>"Not quite that," replied Mary, with one of those smiles that used to +make her father feel as if she were that moment come fresh from God to +him. "If you knew Jesus Christ, you could not help loving him, and to +love him is to love God."</p> + +<p>"You wear me out! Will you never come to the point? <i>Know Jesus +Christ!</i> How am I to go back two thousand years?"</p> + +<p>"What he was then he is now," answered Mary. "And you may even know him +better than they did at the time who saw him; for it was not until they +understood him better, by his being taken from them, that they wrote +down his life."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you mean I must read the New Testament?" said Mr. Redmain, +pettishly.</p> + +<p>"Of course!" answered Mary, a little surprised; for she was unaware how +few have a notion what the New Testament is, or is meant for.</p> + +<p>"Then why didn't you say so at first? There I have you! That's just +where I learn that I must be damned for ever!"</p> + +<p>"I don't mean the Epistles. Those you can't understand—yet."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you don't mean <i>them.</i> I hate them."</p> + +<p>"I don't wonder. You have never seen a single shine of what they are; +and what most people think them is hardly the least like them. What I +want you to read is the life and death of the son of man, the master of +men."</p> + +<p>"I can't read. I should only make myself twice as ill. I won't try."</p> + +<p>"But I will read to you, if you will let me."</p> + +<p>"How comes it you are such a theologian? A woman is not expected to +know about that sort of thing."</p> + +<p>"I am no theologian. There just comes one of the cases in which those +who call themselves his followers do not believe what the Master said: +he said God hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed +them to babes. I had a father who was child enough to know them, and I +was child enough to believe him, and so grew able to understand them +for myself. The whole secret is to do the thing the Master tells you: +then you will understand what he tells you. The opinion of the wisest +man, if he does not do the things he reads, is not worth a rush. He may +be partly right, but you have no reason to trust him."</p> + +<p>"Well, you shall be my chaplain. To-morrow, if I'm able to listen, you +shall see what you can make of the old sinner."</p> + +<p>Mary did not waste words: where would have been the use of pulling up +the poor spiritual clodpole at every lumbering step, at any word +inconsistent with the holy manners of the high countries? Once get him +to court, and the power of the presence would subdue him, and make him +over again from the beginning, without which absolute renewal the best +observance of religious etiquette is worse than worthless. Many good +people are such sticklers for the proprieties! For myself, I take +joyous refuge with the grand, simple, every-day humanity of the man I +find in the story—the man with the heart like that of my father and my +mother and my brothers and sisters. If I may but see and help to show +him a little as he lived to show himself, and not as church talk and +church ways and church ceremonies and church theories and church plans +of salvation and church worldliness generally have obscured him for +hundreds of years, and will yet obscure him for hundreds more!</p> + +<p>Toward evening, when she had just rendered him one of the many +attentions he required, and which there was no one that day but herself +to render, for he would scarcely allow Mewks to enter the room, he said +to her:</p> + +<p>"Thank you; you are very good to me. I shall remember you. Not that I +think I'm going to die just yet; I've often been as bad as this, and +got quite well again. Besides, I want to show that I have turned over a +new leaf. Don't you think God will give me one more chance, now that I +really mean it? I never did before."</p> + +<p>"God can tell whether you mean it without that," she answered, not +daring to encourage him where she knew nothing. "But you said you would +remember me, Mr. Redmain: I hope you didn't mean in your will."</p> + +<p>"I did mean in my will," he answered, but in a tone of displeasure. "I +must say, however, I should have preferred you had not <i>shown</i> quite +such an anxiety about it. I sha'n't be in my coffin to-morrow; and I'm +not in the way of forgetting things."</p> + +<p>"I <i>beg</i> you," returned Mary, flushing, "to do nothing of the sort. I +have plenty of money, and don't care about more. I would much rather +not have any from you."</p> + +<p>"But think how much good you might do with it!" said Mr. Redmain, +satirically. "—It was come by honestly—so far as I know."</p> + +<p>"Money can't do half the good people think. It is stubborn stuff to +turn to any good. And in this case it would be directly against good."</p> + +<p>"Nobody has a right to refuse what comes honestly in his way. There's +no end to the good that may be done with money—to judge, at least, by +the harm I've done with mine," said Mr. Redmain, this time with +seriousness.</p> + +<p>"It is not in it," persisted Mary. "If it had been, our Lord would have +used it, and he never did."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but he was all an exception!"</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, he is the only man who is no exception. We are the +exceptions. Every one but him is more or less out of the straight. Do +you not see?—he is the very one we must all come to be the same as, or +perish! No, Mr. Redmain! don't leave me any money, or I shall be +altogether bewildered what to do with it. Mrs. Redmain would not take +it from me. Miss Yolland might, but I dared not give it to her. And for +societies, I have small faith in them."</p> + +<p>"Well, well! I'll think about it," said Mr. Redmain, who had now got so +far on the way of life as to be capable of believing that when Mary +said a thing she meant it, though he was quite incapable of +understanding the true relations of money. Few indeed are the +Christians capable of that! The most of them are just where Peter was, +when, the moment after the Lord had honored him as the first to +recognize him as the Messiah, he took upon him to object altogether to +his Master's way of working salvation in the earth. The Roman emperors +took up Peter's plan, and the devil has been in the church ever +since—Peter's Satan, whom the Master told to get behind him. They are +poor prophets, and no martyrs, who honor money as an element of any +importance in the salvation of the world. Hunger itself does +incomparably more to make Christ's kingdom come than ever money did, or +ever will do while time lasts. Of course money has its part, for +everything has; and whoever has money is bound to use it as best he +knows; but his best is generally an attempt to do saint-work by +devil-proxy.</p> + +<p>"I can't think where on earth-you got such a sackful of extravagant +notions!" Mr. Redmain added.</p> + +<p>"I told you before, sir, I had a father who set me thinking!" answered +Mary.</p> + +<p>"I wish I had had a father like yours," he rejoined.</p> + +<p>"There are not many such to be had."</p> + +<p>"I fear mine wasn't just what he ought to be, though he can't have been +such a rascal as his son: he hadn't time; he had his money to make."</p> + +<p>"He had the temptation to make it, and you have the temptation to spend +it: which is the more dangerous, I don't know. Each has led to many +crimes."</p> + +<p>"Oh, as to crimes—I don't know about that! It depends on what you call +crimes."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter whether men call a deed a crime or a fault; the +thing is how God regards it, for that is the only truth about it. What +the world thinks, goes for nothing, because it is never right. It would +be worse in me to do some things the world counts perfectly honorable, +than it would be for this man to commit a burglary, or that a murder. I +mean my guilt might be greater in committing a respectable sin, than +theirs in committing a disreputable one."</p> + +<p>Had Mary known anything of science, she might have said that, in morals +as in chemistry, the qualitative analysis is easy, but the quantitative +another affair.</p> + +<p>The latter part of this conversation, Sepia listening heard, and +misunderstood utterly.</p> + +<p>All the rest of the day Mary was with Mr. Redmain, mostly by his +bedside, sitting in silent watchfulness when he was unable to talk with +her. Nobody entered the room except Mewks, who, when he did, seemed to +watch everything, and try to hear everything, and once Lady Margaret. +When she saw Mary seated by the bed, though she must have known well +enough she was there, she drew herself up with grand English +repellence, and looked scandalized. Mary rose, and was about to retire. +But Mr. Redmain motioned her to sit still.</p> + +<p>"This is my spiritual adviser, Lady Margaret," he said.</p> + +<p>Her ladyship cast a second look on Mary, such as few but her could +cast, and left the room.</p> + +<p>On into the gloom of the evening Mary sat. No one brought her anything +to eat or drink, and Mr. Redmain was too much taken up with himself, +soul and body, to think of her. She was now past hunger, and growing +faint, when, through the settled darkness, the words came to her from +the bed:</p> + +<p>"I should like to have you near me when I am dying, Mary."</p> + +<p>The voice was a softer than she had yet heard from Mr. Redmain, and its +tone went to her heart.</p> + +<p>"I will certainly be with you, if God please," she answered.</p> + +<p>"There is no fear of God," returned Mr. Redmain; "it's the devil will +try to keep you away. But never you heed what any one may do or say to +prevent you. Do your very best to be with me. By that time I may not be +having my own way any more. Be sure, the first moment they can get the +better of me, they will. And you mustn't place confidence in a single +soul in this house. I don't say my wife would play me false so long as +I was able to swear at her, but I wouldn't trust her one moment longer. +You come and be with me in spite of the whole posse of them."</p> + +<p>"I will try, Mr. Redmain," she answered, faintly. "But indeed you must +let me go now, else I may be unable to come to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" he asked hurriedly, half lifting his head with a +look of alarm. "There's no knowing," he went on, muttering to himself, +"what may happen in this cursed house."</p> + +<p>"Nothing," replied Mary, "but that I have not had anything to eat since +I left home. I feel rather faint."</p> + +<p>"They've given you nothing to eat!" cried Mr. Redmain, but in a tone +that seemed rather of satisfaction than displeasure. "Ring—no, don't."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I would rather not have anything now till I get home," said +Mary. "I don't feel inclined to eat where I am not welcome."</p> + +<p>"Right! right! right!" said Mr. Redmain. "Stick to that. Never eat +where you are not welcome. Go home directly. Only say when you will +come to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"I can't very well during the day," answered Mary. "There is so much to +be done, and I have so little help. But, if you should want me, I would +rather shut up the shop than not come."</p> + +<p>"There is no need for that! Indeed, I would much rather have you in the +evening. The first of the night is worst of all. It's then the devils +are out.—Look here," he added, after a short pause, during which Mary, +for as unfit as she felt, hesitated to leave him, "—being in business, +you've got a lawyer, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Then you go to him to-night the first thing, and tell him to come to +me to-morrow, about noon. Tell him I am ill, and in bed, and +particularly want to see him; and he mustn't let anything they say keep +him from me, not even if they tell him I am dead."</p> + +<p>"I will," said Mary, and, stroking the thin hand that lay outside the +counterpane, turned and left him.</p> + +<p>"Don't tell any one you are gone," he called after her, with a voice +far from feeble. "I don't want any of their damned company."</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_LIII" id="CHAPTER_LIII"></a>CHAPTER LIII.<br /><br /> +A FRIEND IN NEED.</h3> + +<p>Mary left the house, and saw no one on her way. But it was better, she +said to herself, that he should lie there untended, than be waited on +by unloving hands.</p> + +<p>The night was very dark. There was no moon, and the stars were hidden +by thick clouds. She must walk all the way to Testbridge. She felt +weak, but the fresh air was reviving. She did not know the way so +familiarly as that between Thornwick and the town, but she would enter +the latter before arriving at the common.</p> + +<p>She had not gone far when the moon rose, and from behind the clouds +diminished the darkness a little. The first part of her journey lay +along a narrow lane, with a small ditch, a rising bank, and a hedge on +each side. About the middle of the lane was a farmyard, and a little +way farther a cottage. Soon after passing the gate of the farmyard, she +thought she heard steps behind her, seemingly soft and swift, and +naturally felt a little apprehension; but her thoughts flew to the one +hiding-place for thoughts and hearts and lives, and she felt no terror. +At the same time something moved her to quicken her pace. As she drew +near the common, she heard the steps more plainly, still soft and +swift, and almost wished she had sought refuge in the cottage she had +just passed—only it bore no very good character in the neighborhood. +When she reached the spot where the paths united, feeling a little at +home, she stopped to listen. Behind her were the footsteps plain +enough! The same moment the clouds thinned about the moon, and a pale +light came filtering through upon the common in front of her. She cast +one look over her shoulder, saw something turn a corner in the lane, +and sped on again. She would have run, but there was no place of refuge +now nearer than the corner of the turnpike-road, and she knew her +breath would fail her long before that. How lonely and shelterless the +common looked! The soft, swift steps came nearer and nearer.</p> + +<p>Was that music she heard? She dared not stop to listen. But +immediately, thereupon, was poured forth on the dim air such a stream +of pearly sounds as if all the necklaces of some heavenly choir of +woman-angels were broken, and the beads came pelting down in a cataract +of hurtless hail. From no source could they come save the bow and +violin of Joseph Jasper! Where could he be? She was so rejoiced to know +that he must be somewhere near, that, for very delight of unsecured +safety, she held her peace, and had almost stopped. But she ran on +again. She was now nigh the ruined hut with which my narrative has made +the reader acquainted. In the mean time the moon had been growing out +of the clouds, clearer and clearer. The hut came in sight. But the look +of it was somehow altered—with an undefinable change, such as might +appear on a familiar object in a dream; and leaning against the side of +the door stood a figure she could not mistake for another than her +musician. Absorbed in his music, he did not see her. She called out, +"Joseph! Joseph!" He started, threw his bow from him, tucked his violin +under his arm, and bounded to meet her. She tried to stop, and the same +moment to look behind her. The consequence was that she fell—but safe +in the smith's arms. That instant appeared a man running. He half +stopped, and, turning from the path, took to the common. Jasper handed +his violin to Mary, and darted after him. The chase did not last a +minute; the man was nearly spent. Joseph seized him by the wrist, saw +something glitter in his other hand, and turned sick. The fellow had +stabbed him. With indignation, as if it were a snake that had bit him, +the blacksmith flung from him the hand he held. The man gave a cry, +staggered, recovered himself, and ran. Joseph would have followed +again, but fell, and for a minute or two lost consciousness. When he +came to himself, Mary was binding up his arm.</p> + +<p>"What a fool I am!" he said, trying to get up, but yielding at once to +Mary's prevention. "Ain't it ridic'lous now, miss, that a man of my +size, and ready to work a sledge with any smith in Yorkshire, should +turn sick for a little bit of a job with a knife? But my father was +just the same, and he was a stronger man than I'm like to be, I fancy."</p> + +<p>"It is no such wonder as you think," said Mary; "you have lost a good +deal of blood."</p> + +<p>Her voice faltered. She had been greatly alarmed—and the more that she +had not light enough to get the edges of the wound properly together.</p> + +<p>"You've stopped it—ain't you, miss?"</p> + +<p>"I think so."</p> + +<p>"Then I'll be after the fellow."</p> + +<p>"No, no; you must not attempt it. You must lie still awhile. But I +don't understand it at all! That cottage used to be a mere hovel, +without door or window! It can't be you live in it?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, that I do! and it's not a bad place either," answered Joseph. +"That's what I went to Yorkshire to get my money for. It's mine—bought +and paid for."</p> + +<p>"But what made you think of coming here?"</p> + +<p>"Let's go into the smithy—house I won't presume to call it," said +Joseph, "though it has a lean-to for the smith—and I'll tell you +everything about it. But really, miss, you oughtn't to be out like this +after dark. There's too many vagabonds about."</p> + +<p>With but little need of the help Mary yet gave him, Joseph got up, and +led her to what was now a respectable little smithy, with forge and +bellows and anvil and bucket. Opening a door where had been none, he +brought a chair, and making her sit down, began to blow the covered +fire on the hearth, where he had not long before "boiled his kettle" +for his tea. Then closing the door, he lighted a candle, and Mary +looking about her could scarcely believe the change that had come upon +the miserable vacuity. Joseph sat down upon his anvil, and begged to +know where she had just been, and how far she had run from the rascal. +When he had learned something of the peculiar relations in which Mary +stood to the family at Durnmelling, he began to think there might have +been something more in the pursuit than a chance ruffianly assault, and +the greater were his regrets that he had not secured the miscreant.</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, miss," he said, "you'll never come from there alone in the +dark again!"</p> + +<p>"I understand you, Joseph," answered Mary, "for I know you would not +have me leave doing what I can for the poor man up there, because of a +little danger in the way."</p> + +<p>"No, that I wouldn't, miss. That would be as much as to say you would +do the will of God when the devil would let you. What I mean is, that +here am I—your slave, or servant, or soldier, or whatever you may +please to call me, ready at your word."</p> + +<p>"I must not take you from your work, you know, Joseph."</p> + +<p>"Work's not everything, miss," he answered; "and it's seldom so +pressing but that—except I be shoeing a horse—I can leave it when I +choose. Any time you want to go anywhere, don't forget as you've got +enemies about, and just send for me. You won't have long to wait till I +come. But I am main sorry the rascal didn't have something to keep him +in mind of his manners."</p> + +<p>Part of this conversation, and a good deal more, passed on their way to +Testbridge, whither, as soon as Joseph seemed all right, Mary, who had +forgotten her hunger and faintness, insisted on setting out at once. In +her turn she questioned Joseph, and learned that, as soon as he knew +she was going to settle at Testbridge, he started off to find if +possible a place in the neighborhood humble enough to be within his +reach, and near enough for the hope of seeing her sometimes, and having +what help she might please to give him. The explanation afforded Mary +more pleasure than she cared to show. She had a real friend near +her—one ready to help her on her own ground—one who understood her +because he understood the things she loved! He told her that already he +had work enough to keep him going; that the horses he once shod were +always brought to him again; that he was at no expense such as in a +town; and that he had plenty of time both for his violin and his books.</p> + +<p>When they came to the suburbs, she sent him home, and went straight to +Mr. Brett with Mr. Redmain's message. He undertook to be at Durnmelling +at the time appointed, and to let nothing prevent him from seeing his +new client.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_LIV" id="CHAPTER_LIV"></a>CHAPTER LIV.<br /><br /> +THE NEXT NIGHT.</h3> + +<p>Mr. Bratt found no difficulty in the way of the interview, for Mr. +Redmain had given Mewks instructions he dared not disobey: his master +had often ailed, and recovered again, and he must not venture too far! +As soon as he had shown the visitor into the room he was dismissed, but +not before he had satisfied himself that he was a lawyer. He carried +the news at once to Sepia, and it wrought no little anxiety in the +house. There was a will already in existence, and no ground for +thinking a change in it boded anything good. Mr. Mortimer never deigned +to share his thoughts, anxieties, or hopes with any of his people; but +the ladies met in deep consultation, although of course there was +nothing to be done. The only operative result was that it let Sepia +know how, though for reasons somewhat different, her anxiety was shared +by the others: unlike theirs, her sole desire was—<i>not</i> to be +mentioned in the will: that could only be for the sake of leaving her a +substantial curse! Mr. Redmain's utter silence, after, as she well +knew, having gathered damning facts to her discredit, had long +convinced her he was but biding his time. Certain she was he would not +depart this life without leaving his opinion of her and the proofs of +its justice behind him, carrying weight as the affidavit of a dying +man. Also she knew Hesper well enough to be certain that, however she +might delight in opposition to the desire of her husband, she would for +the sake of no one carry that opposition to a point where it became +injurious to her interests. Sepia's one thought therefore was: could +not something be done to prevent the making of another will, or the +leaving of any fresh document behind him? What he might already have +done, she could nowise help; what he might yet do, it would be well to +prevent. Once more, therefore, she impressed upon Mewks, and that in +the names of Mrs. Redmain and Lady Margaret, as well as in her own +person, the absolute necessity of learning as much as possible of what +might pass between his master and the lawyer.</p> + +<p>Mewks was driven to the end of his wits, and they were not a few, to +find excuses for going into the room, and for delaying to go out again, +while with all his ears he listened. But both client and lawyer were +almost too careful for him; and he had learned positively nothing when +the latter rose to depart. He instantly left the room, with the door a +trifle ajar, and listening intently, heard his master say that Mr. +Brett must come again the next morning; that he felt better, and would +think over the suggestions he had made; and that he must leave the +memoranda within his reach, on the table by his bedside. Ere the lawyer +issued, Mewks was on his way with all this to his tempter.</p> + +<p>Sepia concluded there had been some difference of opinion between Mr. +Redmain and his adviser, and hoped that nothing had been finally +settled. Was there any way to prevent the lawyer from seeing him again? +Could she by any means get a peep at the memoranda mentioned? She dared +not suggest the thing to Hesper or Lady Malice—of all people they were +those in relation to whom she feared their possible contents—and she +dared not show herself in Mr. Redmain's room. Was Mewks to be trusted +to the point of such danger as grew in her thought?</p> + +<p>The day wore on. Toward evening he had a dreadful attack. Any other man +would have sent before now for what medical assistance the town could +afford him, but Mr. Redmain hated having a stranger about him, and, as +he knew how to treat himself, it was only when very ill that he would +send for his own doctor to the country, fearing that otherwise he might +give him up as a patient, such visits, however well remunerated, being +seriously inconvenient to a man with a large London practice. But now +Lady Margaret took upon herself to send a telegram.</p> + +<p>An hour before her usual time for closing the shop, Mary set out for +Durnmelling; and, at the appointed spot on the way, found her squire of +low degree in waiting. At first sight, however, and although she was +looking out for him, she did not certainly recognize him. I would not +have my reader imagine Joseph one of those fools who delight in +appearing something else than they are; but while every workman ought +to look a workman, it ought not to be by looking less of a man, or of a +<i>gentleman</i> in the true sense; and Joseph, having, out of respect to +her who would honor him with her company, dressed himself in a new suit +of unpretending gray, with a wide-awake hat, looked at first sight more +like a country gentleman having a stroll over his farm, than a man +whose hands were hard with the labors of the forge. He took off his hat +as she approached—if not with ease, yet with the clumsy grace peculiar +to him; for, unlike many whose manners are unobjectionable, he had in +his something that might be called his own. But the best of it was, +that he knew nothing about his manners, beyond the desire to give honor +where honor was due.</p> + +<p>He walked with her to the door of the house; for they had agreed that, +from whatever quarter had come the pursuit, and whatever might have +been its object, it would be well to show that she was attended. They +had also arranged at what hour, and at what spot close at hand, he was +to be waiting to accompany her home. But, although he said nothing +about it, Joseph was determined not to leave the place until she +rejoined him.</p> + +<p>It was nearly dark when he left her; and when he had wandered up and +down the avenue awhile, it seemed dark enough to return to the house, +and reconnoiter a little.</p> + +<p>He had already made the acquaintance of the farmer who occupied a +portion of the great square, behind the part where the family lived: he +had had several of his horses to shoe, and had not only given +satisfaction by the way in which he shod them, but had interested their +owner with descriptions of more than one rare mode of shoeing to which +he had given attention; he was, therefore, the less shy of being +discovered about the place.</p> + +<p>From the back he found his way into the roofless hall, and there paced +quietly up and down, measuring the floor, and guessing at the height +and thickness of the walls, and the sort of roof they had borne. He +noted that the wall of the house rose higher than those of the ruin +with which it was in contact; and that there was a window in it just +over one of those walls. Thinking whether it had been there when the +roof was on, he saw through it the flickering of a fire, and wondered +whether it could be the window of Mr. Redmain's room.</p> + +<p>Mary, having resolved not to give any notice of her arrival, if she +could get in without it, and finding the hall-door on the latch, +entered quietly, and walked straight to Mr. Redmain's bedroom. When she +opened the door of it, Mewks came hurriedly to meet her, as if he would +have made her go out again, but she scarcely looked at him, and +advanced to the bed. Mr. Redmain was just waking from the sleep into +which he had fallen after a severe paroxysm.</p> + +<p>"Ah, there you are!" he said, smiling her a feeble welcome. "I am glad +you are come. I have been looking out for you. I am very ill. If it +comes again to-night, I think it will make an end of me."</p> + +<p>She sat down by the bedside. He lay quite still for some time, +breathing like one very weary. Then he seemed to grow easier, and said, +with much gentleness:</p> + +<p>"Can't you talk to me?"</p> + +<p>"Would you like me to read to you?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"No," he answered; "I can't bear the light; it makes my head furious."</p> + +<p>"Shall I talk to you about my father?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe in fathers," he replied. "They're always after some +notion of their own. It's not their children they care about."</p> + +<p>"That may be true of some fathers," answered Mary; "but it is not the +least true of mine."</p> + +<p>"Where is he? Why don't you bring him to see me, if he is such a good +man? He might be able to do something for me."</p> + +<p>"There is none but your own father can do anything for you," said Mary. +"My father is gone home to him, but if he were here, he would only tell +you about <i>him</i> ."</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you talk?" said Mr. Redmain, crossly. "What's the good of +sitting there saying nothing! How am I to forget that the pain will be +here again, if you don't say a word to help me?"</p> + +<p>Mary lifted up her heart, and prayed for something to say to the sad +human soul that had never known the Father. But she could think of +nothing to talk about except the death of William Marston. So she began +with the dropping of her watch, and, telling whatever seemed at the +moment fit to tell, ended with the dream she had the night of his +funeral. By that time the hidden fountain was flowing in her soul, and +she was able to speak straight out of it.</p> + +<p>"I can not tell you, sir," she said, closing the story of her dream, +"what a feeling it was! The joy of it was beyond all expression."</p> + +<p>"You're not surely going to offer me a dream in proof of anything!" +muttered the sick man.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Mary—"in proof of what it can prove. The joy of a +child over a new toy, or a colored sweetmeat, shows of what bliss the +human soul is made capable."</p> + +<p>"Oh, capable, I dare say!"</p> + +<p>"And more than that," Mary went on, adding instead of replying, "no one +ever felt such gladness without believing in it. There must be +somewhere the justification of such gladness. There must be the father +of it somewhere."</p> + +<p>"Well! I don't like to say, after your kindness in coming here to take +care of me, that you talk the worst rubbish I ever heard; but just tell +me of what use is it all to me, in the state I am in! What I want is to +be free of pain, and have some pleasure in life—not to be told about a +father."</p> + +<p>"But what if the father you don't want is determined you shall not have +what you do want? What if your desire is not worth keeping you alive +for? And what if he is ready to help your smallest effort to be the +thing he wants you to be—and in the end to give you your heart's +desire?"</p> + +<p>"It sounds very fine, but it's all so thin, so up in the clouds! It +don't seem to have a leg to stand upon. Why, if that were true, +everybody would be good! There would be none but saints in the world! +What's in it, I'm sure I don't know."</p> + +<p>"It will take ages to know what is in it; but, if you should die now, +you will be glad to find, on the other side, that you have made a +beginning. For my part, if I had everything my soul could desire, +except God with me, I could but pray that he would come to me, or not +let me live a moment longer; for it would be but the life of a devil."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by a devil?"</p> + +<p>"A power that lives against its life," said Mary.</p> + +<p>Mr. Redmain answered nothing. He did not perceive an atom of sense in +the words. They gave him not a glimmer. Neither will they to many of my +readers; while not a few will think they see all that is in them, and +see nothing.</p> + +<p>He was silent for a long time—whether he waked or slept she could not +tell.</p> + +<p>The annoyance was great in the home conclave when Mewks brought the +next piece of news—namely, that there was that designing Marston in +the master's room again, and however she got into the house he was sure +<i>he</i> didn't know.</p> + +<p>"All the same thing over again, miss!—hard at it a-tryin' to convert +'im!—And where's the use, you know, miss? If a man like my master's to +be converted and get off, I don't for my part see where's the good o' +keepin' up a devil."</p> + +<p>"I am quite of your opinion, Mewks," said Sepia.</p> + +<p>But in her heart she was ill at ease.</p> + +<p>All day long she had been haunted with an ever-recurring temptation, +which, instead of dismissing it, she kept like a dog in a string. +Different kinds of evil affect people differently. Ten thousand will do +a dishonest thing, who would indignantly reject the dishonest thing +favored by another ten thousand. They are not sufficiently used to its +ugly face not to dislike it, though it may not be quite so ugly as +their <i>protege</i> . A man will feel grandly honest against the +dishonesties of another trade than his, and be eager to justify those +of his own. Here was Sepia, who did not care the dust of a butterfly's +wing for causing any amount of family misery, who would without a pang +have sacrificed the genuine reputation of an innocent man to save her +own false one—shuddering at an idea as yet bodiless in her brain—an +idea which, however, she did not dismiss, and so grew able to endure!</p> + +<p>I have kept this woman—so far as personal acquaintance with her is +concerned—in the background of my history. For one thing, I am not +fond of <i>post-mortem</i> examinations; in other words, I do not like +searching the decompositions of moral carrion. Analysis of such is, +like the use of reagents on dirt, at least unpleasant. Nor was any true +end to be furthered by a more vivid presentation of her. Nosology is a +science doomed, thank God, to perish! Health alone will at last fill +the earth. Or, if there should be always the ailing to help, a man will +help them by being sound himself, not by knowing the ins and outs of +disease. Diagnosis is not therapy.</p> + +<p>Sepia was unnatural—as every one is unnatural who does not set his +face in the direction of the true Nature; but she had gone further in +the opposite direction than many people have yet reached. At the same +time, whoever has not faced about is on the way to a capacity for worse +things than even our enemies would believe of us.</p> + +<p>Her very existence seemed to her now at stake. If by his dying act Mr. +Redmain should drive her from under Hesper's roof, what was to become +of her! Durnmelling, too, would then be as certainly closed against +her, and she would be compelled to take a situation, and teach music, +which she hated, and French and German, which gave her no pleasure +apart from certain strata of their literature, to insolent girls whom +she would be constantly wishing to strangle, or stupid little boys who +would bore her to death. Her very soul sickened at the thought—as well +it might; for to have to do such service with such a heart as hers, +must indeed be torment. All hope of marrying Godfrey Wardour would be +gone, of course. Did he but remain uncertain as to the truth or +falsehood of a third part of what Mr. Redmain would record against her, +he would never meet her again!</p> + +<p>Since the commencement of this last attack of Mr. Redmain's malady, she +had scarcely slept; and now what Mewks reported rendered her nigh +crazy. For some time she had been generally awake half the night, and +all the last night she had been wandering here and there about the +house, not unfrequently couched where she could hear every motion in +Mr. Redmain's room. Haunted by fear, she in turn haunted her fear. She +could not keep from staring down the throat of the pit. She was a slave +of the morrow, the undefined, awful morrow, ever about to bring forth +no one knows what. That morrow could she but forestall!</p> + +<p>If any should think that anxiety and watching must have so wrought on +Sepia that she came to be no longer accountable for her actions, I will +not oppose the kind conclusion. For my own part, until I shall have +seen a man absolutely one with the source of his being, I do not +believe I shall ever have seen a man absolutely sane. What many would +point to as plainest proofs of sanity, I should regard as surest signs +of the contrary.</p> + +<p>A sign of my own insanity is it?</p> + +<p>Your insanity may be worse than mine, for you are aware of none, and I +with mine do battle. I believe all insanity has moral as well as +physical roots. But enough of this. There are questions we can afford +to leave.</p> + +<p>Sepia had got very thin during these trying days. Her great eyes were +larger yet, and filled with a troubled anxiety. Not paleness, for of +that her complexion was incapable, but a dull pallor possessed her +cheek. If one had met her as she roamed the house that night, he might +well have taken her for some naughty ancestor, whose troubled +conscience, not yet able to shake off the madness of some evil deed, +made her wander still about the place where she had committed it.</p> + +<p>She believed in no supreme power who cares that right should be done in +his worlds. Here, it may be, some of my unbelieving acquaintances, +foreseeing a lurid something on the horizon of my story, will be +indignant that the capacity for crime should be thus associated with +the denial of a Live Good. But it remains a mere fact that it is easier +for a man to commit a crime when he does not fear a willed retribution. +Tell me there is no merit in being prevented by fear; I answer, the +talk is not of merit. As the world is, that is, as the race of men at +present is, it is just as well that the man who has no merit, and never +dreamed of any, should yet be a little hindered from cutting his +neighbor's throat at his evil pleasure.—No; I do not mean hindered by +a lie—I mean hindered by the poorest apprehension of the grandest +truth.</p> + +<p>Of those who do not believe, some have never had a noble picture of God +presented to them; but whether their phantasm is of a mean God because +they refuse him, or they refuse him because their phantasm of him is +mean, who can tell? Anyhow, mean notions must come of meanness, and, +uncharitable as it may appear, I can not but think there is a moral +root to all chosen unbelief. But let God himself judge his own.</p> + +<p>With Sepia, what was <i>best</i> meant what was best for her, and <i>best for +her</i> meant <i>most after her liking</i> .</p> + +<p>She had in her time heard a good deal about <i>euthanasia</i> , and had taken +her share in advocating it. I do not assume this to be anything +additional against her; one who does not believe in God, may in such an +advocacy indulge a humanity pitiful over the irremediable ills of the +race; and, being what she was, she was no worse necessarily for +advocating that than for advocating cremation, which she +did—occasionally, I must confess, a little coarsely. But the notion of +<i>euthanasia</i> might well work for evil in a mind that had not a thought +for the case any more than for the betterment of humanity, or indeed +for anything but its own consciousness of pleasure or comfort. +Opinions, like drugs, work differently on different constitutions. +Hence the man is foolish who goes scattering vague notions regardless +of the soil on which they may fall.</p> + +<p>She was used to asking the question, What's the good? but always in +respect of something she wanted out of her way.</p> + +<p>"What's the good of an hour or two more if you're not enjoying it?" she +said to herself again and again that Monday. "What's the good of living +when life is pain—or fear of death, from which no fear can save you?" +But the question had no reference to her own life: she was judging for +another—and for another not for his sake, or from his point of view, +but for her own sake, and from where she stood.</p> + +<p>All the day she wandered about the house, such thoughts as these in her +heart, and in her pocket a bottle of that concentrated which Mr. +Redmain was taking much diluted for medicine. But she <i>hoped not to +have to use it</i> . If only Mr. Redmain would yield the conflict, and +depart without another interview with the lawyer!</p> + +<p>But if he would not, and two drops from the said bottle, not taken by +herself, but by another, would save her, all her life to come, from +endless anxiety and grinding care, from weariness and disgust, and +indeed from want; nor that alone, but save likewise that other from an +hour, or two hours, or perhaps a week, or possibly two weeks, or—who +could tell?—it might be a month of pain and moaning and weariness, +would it not be well?—must it not be more than well?</p> + +<p>She had not learned to fear temptation; she feared poverty, dependence, +humiliation, labor, <i>ennui</i> , misery. The thought of the life that must +follow and wrap her round in the case of the dreaded disclosure was +unendurable; the thought of the suggested frustration was not <i>so</i> +unendurable—was not absolutely unendurable—was to be borne—might be +permitted to come—to return—was cogitated—now with imagined +resistance, now with reluctant and partial acceptance, now with faint +resolve, and now with determined resolution—now with the beaded drops +pouring from the forehead, and now with a cold, scornful smile of +triumphant foil and success.</p> + +<p>Was she so very exceptionally bad, however? You who hate your brother +or your sister—you do not think yourself at all bad! But you are a +murderer, and she was only a murderer. You do not feel wicked? How do +you know she did? Besides, you hate, and she did not hate; she only +wanted to take care of herself. Lady Macbeth did not hate Duncan; she +only wanted to give her husband his crown. You only hate your brother; +you would not, you say, do him any harm; and I believe you would not do +him mere bodily harm; but, were things changed, so that hate-action +became absolutely safe, I should have no confidence what you might not +come to do. No one can tell what wreck a gust of passion upon a sea of +hate may work. There are men a man might well kill, if he were anything +less than ready to die for them. The difference between the man that +hates and the man that kills may be nowhere but in the courage. These +are <i>grewsome</i> thinkings: let us leave them—but hating with them.</p> + +<p>All the afternoon Sepia hovered about Mr. Rcdmain's door, down upon +Mewks every moment he appeared. Her head ached; she could hardly +breathe. Rest she could not. Once when Mewks, coming from the room, +told her his master was asleep, she crept in, and, softly approaching +the head of the bed, looked at him from behind, then stole out again.</p> + +<p>"He seems dying, Mewks," she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, miss! I've often seen him as bad. He's better."</p> + +<p>"Who's that whispering?" murmured the patient, angrily, though half +asleep.</p> + +<p>Mewks went in, and answered:</p> + +<p>"Only me and Jemima, sir."</p> + +<p>"Where's Miss Marston?"</p> + +<p>"She's not come yet, sir."</p> + +<p>"I want to go to sleep again. You must wake me the moment she comes."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>Mewks went back to Sepia.</p> + +<p>"His voice is much altered," she said.</p> + +<p>"He most always speaks like that now, miss, when he wakes—very +different from I used to know him! He'd always swear bad when he woke; +but Miss Marston do seem t' 'ave got a good deal of that out of him. +Anyhow, this last two days he's scarce swore enough to make it feel +home-like."</p> + +<p>"It's death has got it out of him," said Sepia. "I don't think he can +last the night through. Fetch me at once if—And don't let that Marston +into the room again, whatever you do."</p> + +<p>She spoke with the utmost emphasis, plainly clinching instructions +previously given, then went slowly up the stair to her own room. Surely +he would die to-night, and she would not be led into temptation! She +would then have but to get a hold of the paper! What a hateful and +unjust thing it was that her life should be in the power of that man—a +miserable creature, himself hanging between life and death!—that such +as he should be able to determine her fate, and say whether she was to +be comfortable or miserable all the rest of a life that was to outlast +his so many years! It was absurd to talk of a Providence! She must be +her own providence!</p> + +<p>She stole again down the stair. Her cousin was in her own room safe +with a novel, and there was Mewks fast asleep in an easy-chair in the +study, with the doors of the dressing-room and chamber ajar! She crept +into the sick-room. There was the tumbler with the medicine! and her +fingers were on the vial in her pocket. The dying man slept.</p> + +<p>She drew near the table by the bed. He stirred as if about to awake. +Her limbs, her brain seemed to rebel against her will.—But what folly +it was! the man was not for this world a day longer; what could it +matter whether he left it a few hours earlier or later? The drops on +his brow rose from the pit of his agony; every breath was a torture; it +were mercy to help him across the verge; if to more life, he would owe +her thanks; if to endless rest, he would never accuse her.</p> + +<p>She took the vial from her pocket. A hand was on the lock of the door! +She turned and fled through the dressing-room and study, waking Mewks +as she passed. He, hurrying into the chamber, saw Mary already entered.</p> + +<p>When Sepia learned who it was that had scared her, she felt she could +kill her with less compunction than Mr. Redmain. She hated her far +worse.</p> + +<p>"You <i>must</i> get the viper out of-the house, Mewks," she said. "It is +all your fault she got into the room."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I'm willing enough," he answered, "—even if it wasn't you as +as't me, miss! But what am I to do? She's that brazen, you wouldn' +believe, miss! It wouldn' be becomin' to tell you what I think that +young woman fit to do."</p> + +<p>"I don't doubt it," responded Sepia. "But surely," she went on, "the +next time he has an attack, and he's certain to have one soon, you will +be able to get her hustled out!"</p> + +<p>"No, miss—least of all just then. She'll make that a pretense for not +going a yard from the bed—as if me that's been about him so many years +didn't know what ought to be done with him in his paroxes of pain +better than the likes of her! Of all things I do loathe a row, +miss—and the talk of it after; and sure I am that without a row we +don't get her out of that room. The only way is to be quiet, and seem +to trust her, and watch for the chance of her going out—then shut her +out, and keep her out."</p> + +<p>"I believe you are right," returned Sepia, almost with a hope that no +such opportunity might arrive, but at the same time growing more +determined to take advantage of it if it should.</p> + +<p>Hence partly it came that Mary met with no interruption to her watching +and ministering. Mewks kept coming and going—watching her, and +awaiting his opportunity. Mr. Redmain scarcely heeded him, only once +and again saying in sudden anger, "What can that idiot be about? He +might know by this time I'm not likely to want <i>him</i> so long as <i>you</i> +are in the room!"</p> + +<p>And said Mary to herself: "Who knows what good the mere presence of one +who trusts may be to him, even if he shouldn't seem to take much of +what she says! Perhaps he may think of some of it after he is dead—who +knows?" Patiently she sat and waited, full of help that would have +flowed in a torrent, but which she felt only trickle from her heart +like a stream that is lost on the face of the rock down which it flows.</p> + +<p>All at once she bethought herself, and looked at her watch: Joseph had +been waiting for her more than an hour, and would not, she knew, if he +stopped all night, go away without her! And for her, she could not +forsake the poor man her presence seemed to comfort! He was now lying +very still: she would slip out and send Joseph away, and be back before +the patient or any one else should miss her!</p> + +<p>She went softly from the room, and glided down the stairs, and out of +the house, seeing no one—but not unseen: hardly was she from the room, +when the door of it was closed and locked behind her, and hardly from +the house, when the house-door also was closed and locked behind her. +But she heard nothing, and ran, without the least foreboding of mishap, +to the corner where Joseph was to meet her.</p> + +<p>There he was, waiting as patiently as if the hour had not yet come.</p> + +<p>"I can't leave him, Joseph. My heart won't let me," she said. "I can +not go back before the morning. I will look in upon you as I pass."</p> + +<p>So saying, and without giving him time to answer, she bade him good +night, and ran back to the house, hoping to get in as before without +being seen. But to her dismay she found the door already fast, and +concluded the hour had arrived when the house was shut up for the +night. She rang the bell, but there was no answer—for there was Mewks +himself standing close behind the door, grinning like his master an +evil grin. As she knocked and rang in vain, the fact flashed upon her +that she was intentionally excluded. She turned away, overwhelmed with +a momentary despair. What was she to do? There stood Joseph! She ran +back to him, and told him they had shut her out.</p> + +<p>"It makes me miserable," she went on, "to think of the poor man calling +me, and me nowhere to answer. The worst of it is, I seem the only +person he has any faith in, and what I have been telling him about the +father of us all, whose love never changes, will seem only the idler +tale, when he finds I am gone, and nowhere to be found—as they're sure +to tell him. There's no saying what lies they mayn't tell him about my +going! Rather than go, I will sit on the door-step all night, just to +be able to tell him in the morning that I never went home."</p> + +<p>"Why have they done it, do you think? asked Joseph.</p> + +<p>"I dare hardly allow myself to conjecture," answered Mary. "None of +them like me but Jemima—not even Mrs. Redmain now, I am afraid; for +you see I never got any of the good done her I wanted, and, till +something of that was done, she could not know how I felt toward her. I +shouldn't a bit wonder if they fancy I have a design on his money—as +if anybody fit to call herself a woman would condescend to such a +thing! But when a woman would marry for money, she may well think as +badly of another woman."</p> + +<p>"This is a serious affair," said Joseph. "To have a dying man believe +you false to him would be dreadful! We must find some way in. Let us go +to the kitchen-door."</p> + +<p>"If Jemima happened to be near, then, perhaps!" rejoined Mary; "but if +they want to keep me out, you may be sure Mewks has taken care of one +door as well as another. He knows I'm not so easy to keep out."</p> + +<p>"If you did get in," said Joseph, speaking in a whisper as they went, +"would you feel quite safe after this?"</p> + +<p>"I have no fear. I dare say they would lock me up somewhere if they +could, before I got to Mr. Redmain's room: once in, they would not dare +touch me."</p> + +<p>"I shall not go out of hearing so long as you are in that house," said +Joseph, with decision. "Not until I have you out again do I leave the +premises. If anything should make you feel uncomfortable, you cry out, +miss, and I'll make a noise at the door that everybody at Thornwick +over there shall hear me."</p> + +<p>"It is a large house, Joseph: one might call in many a part of it, and +never be heard out of doors. I don't think you could hear me from Mr. +Redmain's room," said Mary, with a little laugh, for she was amused as +well as pleased at the protection Joseph would give her; "it is up two +flights, and he chose it himself for the sake of being quiet when he +was ill."</p> + +<p>As she spoke, they reached the door they sought—the most likely of all +to be still open: it was fast and dark as if it had not been unbolted +for years. One or two more entrances they tried, but with no better +success.</p> + +<p>"Come this way," whispered Joseph. "I know a place where we shall at +least be out of their sight, and where we can plan at our leisure."</p> + +<p>He led her to the back entrance to the old hall. Alas! even that was +closed.</p> + +<p>"This <i>is</i> disappointing," he said; "for, if we were only in there, I +think something might be done."</p> + +<p>"I believe I know a way," said Mary, and led him to a place near, used +for a wood-shed.</p> + +<p>At the top of a great heap of sticks and fagots was an opening in the +wall, that had once been a window, or perhaps a door.</p> + +<p>"That, I know, is the wall of the tower," she said; "and there can be +no difficulty in getting through there. Once in, it will be easy to +reach the hall—that is, if the door of the tower is not locked."</p> + +<p>In an instant Joseph was at the top of the heap, and through the +opening, hanging on, and feeling with his feet. He found footing at no +great distance, and presently Mary was beside him. They descended +softly, and found the door into the hall wide open.</p> + +<p>"Can you tell me what window is that," whispered Joseph, "just above +the top of the wall?"</p> + +<p>"I can not," answered Mary. "I never could go about this house as I did +about Mr. Redmain's; my lady always looked so fierce if she saw me +trying to understand the place. But why do you ask?"</p> + +<p>"You see the flickering of a fire? Could it be Mr. Redmain's room?"</p> + +<p>"I can not tell. I do not think it. That has no window in this +direction, so far as I know. But I could not be certain."</p> + +<p>"Think how the stairs turn as you go up, and how the passages go to the +room. Think in what direction you look every corner you turn. Then you +will know better whether or not it might be."</p> + +<p>Mary was silent, and thought. In her mind she followed every turn she +had to take from the moment she entered the house till she got to the +door of Mr. Redmain's room, and then thought how the windows lay when +she entered it. Her conclusion was that one side of the room must be +against the hall, but she could remember no window in it.</p> + +<p>"But," she added, "I never was in that room when I was here before, +and, the twice I have now been in it, I was too much occupied to take +much notice of things about me. Two windows, I know, look down into a +quiet little corner of the courtyard, where there is an old pump +covered with ivy. I remember no other."</p> + +<p>"Is there any way of getting on to the top of that wall from this +tower?" asked Joseph.</p> + +<p>"Certainly there is. People often walk round the top of those walls. +They are more than thick enough for that."</p> + +<p>"Are you able to do it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, quite. I have been round them more than once. But I don't like +the idea of looking in at a window."</p> + +<p>"No more do I, miss; but you must remember, if it is his room, it will +only be your eyes going where the whole of you has a right to be; and, +if it should not be that room, they have driven you to it: such a +necessity will justify it."</p> + +<p>"You must be right," answered Mary, and, turning, led the way up the +stair of the tower, and through a gap in the wall out upon the top of +the great walls.</p> + +<p>It was a sultry night. A storm was brooding between heaven and earth. +The moon was not yet up, and it was so dark that they had to feel their +way along the wall, glad of the protection of a fence of thick ivy on +the outer side. Looking down into the court on the one hand, and across +the hall to the lawn on the other, they saw no living thing in the +light from various windows, and there was little danger of being +discovered. In the gable was only the one window for which they were +making. Mary went first, as better knowing the path, also as having the +better right to look in. Through the window, as she went, she could see +the flicker, but not the fire. All at once came a great blaze. It +lasted but a moment—long enough, however, to let them see plainly into +a small closet, the door of which was partly open.</p> + +<p>"That is the room, I do believe," whispered Mary. "There is a closet, +but I never was in it."</p> + +<p>"If only the window be not bolted!" returned Joseph.</p> + +<p>The same instant Mary heard the voice of Mr. Redmain call in a tone of +annoyance—"Mary! Mary Marston! I want you. Who is that in the +room?—Damn you! who are you?"</p> + +<p>"Let me pass you," said Joseph, and, making her hold to the ivy, here +spread on to the gable, he got between Mary and the window. The blaze +was gone, and the fire was at its old flicker. The window was not +bolted. He lifted the sash. A moment and he was in. The next, Mary was +beside him.</p> + +<p>Something, known to her only as an impulse, induced Mary to go softly +to the door of the closet, and peep into the room. She saw Hesper, as +she thought, standing—sidewise to the closet—by a chest of drawers +invisible from the bed. A candle stood on the farther side of her. She +held in one hand the tumbler from which, repeatedly that evening, Mary +had given the patient his medicine: into this she was pouring, with an +appearance of care, something from a small dark bottle.</p> + +<p>With a sudden suspicion of foul play, Mary glided swiftly into the +room, and on to where she stood. It was Sepia! She started with a +smothered shriek, turned white, and almost dropped the bottle; then, +seeing who it was, recovered herself. But such a look as she cast on +Mary! such a fire of hate as throbbed out of those great black eyes! +Mary thought for a moment she would dart at her. But she turned away, +and walked swiftly to the door. Joseph, however, peeping in behind +Mary, had caught a glimpse of the bottle and tumbler, also of Sepia's +face. Seeing her now retiring with the bottle in her hand, he sprang +after her, and, thanks to the fact that she had locked the door, was in +time to snatch it from her. She turned like a wild beast, and a +terrible oath came hissing as from a feline throat. When, however, she +saw, not Mary, but the unknown figure of a powerful man, she turned +again to the door and fled. Joseph shut and locked it, and went back to +the closet. Mary drew near the bed.</p> + +<p>"Where have you been all this time?" asked the patient, querulously; +"and who was that went out of the room just now? What's all the hurry +about?"</p> + +<p>Anxious he should be neither frightened nor annoyed, Mary replied to +the first part of his question only.</p> + +<p>"I had to go and tell a friend, who was waiting for me, that I +shouldn't be home to-night. But here I am now, and I will not leave you +again."</p> + +<p>"How did the door come to be locked? And who was that went out of the +room?"</p> + +<p>While he was thus questioning, Joseph crept softly out of the window; +and all the rest of the night he lay on the top of the wall under it.</p> + +<p>"It was Miss Yolland," answered Mary.</p> + +<p>"What business had she in my room?"</p> + +<p>"She shall not enter it again while I am here."</p> + +<p>"Don't let Mewks in either," he rejoined. "I heard the door unlock and +lock again: what did it mean?"</p> + +<p>"Wait till to-morrow. Perhaps we shall find out then."</p> + +<p>He was silent a little.</p> + +<p>"I must get out of this house, Mary," he sighed at length.</p> + +<p>"When the doctor comes, we shall see," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"What! is the doctor coming? I am glad of that. Who sent for him?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know; I only heard he was coming."</p> + +<p>"But your lawyer, Mary—what's his name?—will be here first: we'll +talk the thing over with him, and take his advice. I feel better, and +shall go to sleep again."</p> + +<p>All night long Mary sat by him and watched. Not a step, so far as she +knew, came near the door; certainly not a hand was laid upon the lock. +Mr. Redmain slept soundly, and in the morning was beyond a doubt better.</p> + +<p>But Mary could not think of leaving him until Mr. Brett came. At Mr. +Redmain's request she rang the bell. Mewks made his appearance, with +the face of a ghost. His master told him to bring his breakfast.</p> + +<p>"And see, Mewks," he added, in a tone of gentleness that terrified the +man, so unaccustomed was he to such from the mouth of his master—"see +that there is enough for Miss Marston as well. She has had nothing all +night. Don't let my lady have any trouble with it.—Stop," he cried, as +Mewks was going, "I won't have you touch it either; I am fastidious +this morning. Tell the young woman they call Jemima to come here to +Miss Marston."</p> + +<p>Mewks slunk away. Jemima came, and Mr. Redmain ordered her to get +breakfast for himself and Mary. It was done speedily, and Mary remained +in the sick-chamber until the lawyer arrived.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_LV" id="CHAPTER_LV"></a>CHAPTER LV.<br /><br /> +DISAPPEARANCE.</h3> + +<p>"I am afraid I must ask you to leave us now, Miss Marston," said Mr. +Brett, seated with pen, ink, and paper, to receive his new client's +instructions.</p> + +<p>"No," said Mr. Redmain; "she must stay where she is. I fancy something +happened last night which she has got to tell us about."</p> + +<p>"Ah! What was that?" asked Mr. Brett, facing round on her.</p> + +<p>Mary began her story with the incident of her having been pursued by +some one, and rescued by the blacksmith, whom she told her listeners +she had known in London. Then she narrated all that had happened the +night before, from first to last, not forgetting the flame that lighted +the closet as they approached the window.</p> + +<p>"Just let me see those memoranda," said Mr. Brett to Mr. Redmain, +rising, and looking for the paper where he had left it the day before.</p> + +<p>"It was of that paper I was this moment thinking," answered Mr. Redmain.</p> + +<p>"It is not here!" said Mr. Brett.</p> + +<p>"I thought as much! The fool! There was a thousand pounds there for +her! I didn't want to drive her to despair: a dying man must mind what +he is about. Ring the bell and see what Mewks has to say to it."</p> + +<p>Mewks came, in evident anxiety.</p> + +<p>I will not record his examination. Mr. Brett took it for granted he had +deliberately and intentionally shut out Mary, and Mewks did not attempt +to deny it, protesting he believed she was boring his master. The grin +on that master's face at hearing this was not very pleasant to behold. +When examined as to the missing paper, he swore by all that was holy he +knew nothing about it.</p> + +<p>Mr. Brett next requested the presence of Miss Yolland. She was nowhere +to be found. The place was searched throughout, but there was no trace +of her.</p> + +<p>When the doctor arrived, the bottle Joseph had taken from her was +examined, and its contents discovered.</p> + +<p>Lady Malice was grievously hurt at the examination she found had been +going on.</p> + +<p>"Have I not nursed you like my own brother, Mr. Redmain?" she said.</p> + +<p>"You may be glad you have escaped a coroner's inquest in your house, +Lady Margaret!" said Mr. Brett.</p> + +<p>"For me," said Mr. Redmain, "I have not many days left me, but somehow +a fellow does like to have his own!"</p> + +<p>Hesper sought Mary, and kissed her with some appearance of gratitude. +She saw what a horrible suspicion, perhaps even accusation, she had +saved her from. The behavior and disappearance of Sepia seemed to give +her little trouble.</p> + +<p>Mr. Brett got enough out of Mewks to show the necessity of his +dismissal, and the doctor sent from London a man fit to take his place.</p> + +<p>Almost every evening, until he left Durnmelling, Mary went to see Mr. +Redmain. She read to him, and tried to teach him, as one might an +unchildlike child. And something did seem to be getting into, or waking +up in, him. The man had never before in the least submitted; but now it +looked as if the watching spirit of life were feeling through the +dust-heap of his evil judgments, low thoughts, and bad life, to find +the thing that spirit had made, lying buried somewhere in the frightful +tumulus: when the two met and joined, then would the man be saved; God +and he would be together. Sometimes he would utter the strangest +things—such as if all the old evil modes of thinking and feeling were +in full operation again; and sometimes for days Mary would not have an +idea what was going on in him. When suffering, he would occasionally +break into fierce and evil language, then be suddenly silent. God and +Satan were striving for the man, and victory would be with him with +whom the man should side.</p> + +<p>For some time it remained doubtful whether this attack was not, after +all, going to be the last: the doctor himself was doubtful, and, having +no reason to think his death would be a great grief in the house, did +not hesitate much to express his doubt. And, indeed, it caused no +gloom. For there was little love in the attentions the Mortimers paid +him; and in what other hope could Hesper have married, than that one +day she would be free, with a freedom informed with power, the power of +money! But to the mother's suggestions as to possible changes in the +future, the daughter never responded: she had no thought of plans in +common with her.</p> + +<p>Strange rumors came abroad. Godfrey Wardour heard something of them, +and laughed them to scorn. There was a conspiracy in that house to ruin +the character of the loveliest woman in creation! But when a week after +week passed, and he heard nothing of or from her, he became anxious, +and at last lowered his pride so far as to call on Mary, under the +pretense of buying something in the shop.</p> + +<p>His troubled look filled her with sympathy, but she could not help +being glad afresh that he had escaped the snares laid for him. He +looked at her searchingly, and at last murmured a request that she +would allow him to have a little conversation with her.</p> + +<p>She led the way to her parlor, closed the door, and asked him to take a +seat. But Godfrey was too proud or too agitated to sit.</p> + +<p>"You will be surprised to see me on such an errand, Miss Marston!" he +said.</p> + +<p>"I do not yet know your errand," replied Mary; "but I may not be so +much surprised as you think."</p> + +<p>"Do not imagine," said Godfrey, stiffly, "that I believe a word of the +contemptible reports in circulation. I come only to ask you to tell me +the real nature of the accusations brought against Miss Yolland: your +name is, of course, coupled with them."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Wardour," said Mary, "if I thought you would believe what I told +yon, I would willingly do as you ask me. As it is, allow me to refer +you to Mr. Brett, the lawyer, whom I dare say you know."</p> + +<p>Happily, the character of Mr. Brett was well known in Testbridge and +all the country round; and from him Godfrey Wardour learned what sent +him traveling on the Continent again—not in the hope of finding Sepia. +What became of her, none of her family ever learned.</p> + +<p>Some time after, it came out that the same night on which the presence +of Joseph rescued Mary from her pursuer, a man speaking with a foreign +accent went to one of the surgeons in Testbridge to have his shoulder +set, which he said had been dislocated by a fall. When Joseph heard it, +he smiled, and thought he knew what it meant.</p> + +<p>Hesper was no sooner in London, than she wrote to Mary, inviting her to +go and visit her. But Mary answered she could no more leave home, and +must content herself with the hope of seeing Mrs. Redmain when she came +to Durnmelling.</p> + +<p>So long as her husband lived, the time for that did not again arrive; +but when Mary went to London, she always called on her, and generally +saw Mr. Redmain. But they never had any more talk about the things Mary +loved most. That he continued to think of those things, she had one +ground of hoping, namely, the kindness with which he invariably +received her, and the altogether gentler manner he wore as often and as +long as she saw him. Whether the change was caused by something better +than physical decay, who knows save him who can use even decay for +redemption? He lived two years more, and died rather suddenly. After +his death, and that of her father, which followed soon, Hesper went +again to Durnmelling, and behaved better to her mother than before. +Mary sometimes saw her, and a flicker of genuine friendship began to +appear on Hesper's part.</p> + +<p>Mr. Turnbull was soon driving what he called a roaring trade. He bought +and sold a great deal more than Mary, but she had business sufficient +to employ her days, and leave her nights free, and bring her and Letty +enough to live on as comfortably as they desired—with not a little +over, to use, when occasion was, for others, and something to lay by +for the time of lengthening shadows.</p> + +<p>Turnbull seemed to hare taken a lesson from his late narrow escape, for +he gave up the worst of his speculations, and confined himself to +"<i>genuine business-principles</i> "—the more contentedly that, all Marston +folly swept from his path, he was free to his own interpretation of the +phrase. He grew a rich man, and died happy—so his friends said, and +said as they saw. Mrs. Turnbull left Testbridge, and went to live in a +small county-town where she was unknown. There she was regarded as the +widow of an officer in her Majesty's service, and, as there was no one +within a couple of hundred miles to support an assertion to the +contrary, she did not think it worth her while to make one: was not the +supposed brevet a truer index to her consciousness of herself than the +actual ticket by ill luck attached to her—Widow of a linen-draper?</p> + +<p>George carried on the business; and, when Mary and he happened to pass +in the street, they nodded to each other.</p> + +<p>Letty was diligent in business, but it never got into her heart. She +continued to be much liked, and in the shop was delightful. If she ever +had another offer of marriage, the fact remained unknown. She lived to +be a sweet, gracious little old lady—and often forgot that she was a +widow, but never that she was a wife. All the days of her appointed +time she waited till her change should come, and she should find her +Tom on the other side, looking out for her, as he had said he would. +Her mother-in-law could not help dying; but she never "forgave" +her—for what, nobody knew.</p> + +<p>After a year or so, Mrs. Wardour began to take a little notice of her +again; but she never asked her to Thornwick until she found herself +dying. Perhaps she then remembered a certain petition in the Lord's +prayer. But will it not be rather a dreadful thing for some people if +they are forgiven as they forgive?</p> + +<p>Old Mr. Duppa died, and a young man came to minister to his +congregation who thought the baptism of the spirit of more importance +than the most correct of opinions concerning even the baptizing spirit. +From him Mary found she could learn, and would be much to blame if she +did not learn. From him Letty also heard what increased her desire to +be worth something before she went to rejoin Tom.</p> + +<p>Joseph Jasper became once more Mary's pupil. She was now no more +content with her little cottage piano, but had an instrument of quite +another capacity on which to accompany the violin of the blacksmith.</p> + +<p>To him trade came in steadily, and before long he had to build a larger +shoeing-shed. From a wide neighborhood horses were brought him to be +shod, cart-wheels to be tired, axles to be mended, plowshares to be +sharpened, and all sorts of odd jobs to be done. He soon found it +necessary to make arrangement with a carpenter and wheelwright to work +on his premises. Before two years were over, he was what people call a +flourishing man, and laying by a little money.</p> + +<p>"But," he said to Mary, "I can't go on like this, you know, miss. I +don't want money. It must be meant to do something with, and I must +find out what that something is."</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_LVI" id="CHAPTER_LVI"></a>CHAPTER LVI.<br /><br /> +A CATASTROPHE.</h3> + +<p>One winter evening, as soon as his work was over for the day, Joseph +locked the door of his smithy, washed himself well, put on clean +clothes, and, taking his violin, set out for Testbridge: Mary was +expecting him to tea. It was the afternoon of a holiday, and she had +closed early.</p> + +<p>Was there ever a happier man than Joseph that night as he strode along +the footpath? A day of invigorating and manly toil behind him, folded +up in the sense of work accomplished; a clear sky overhead, beginning +to breed stars; the pale amber hope of to-morrow's sunrise low down in +the west; a frosty air around him, challenging to the surface the glow +of the forge which his day's labor had stored in his body; his heart +and brain at rest with his father in heaven; his precious violin under +his arm; before him the welcoming parlor, where two sweet women waited +his coming, one of them the brightest angel, in or out of heaven, to +him; and the prospect of a long evening of torrent-music between +them—who, I repeat, could have been more blessed, heart, and soul, and +body, than Joseph Jasper? His being was like an all-sided lens +concentrating all joys in the one heart of his consciousness. God only +knows how blessed he could make us if we would but let him! He pressed +his violin-case to his heart, as if it were a living thing that could +know that he loved it.</p> + +<p>Before he reached the town, the stars were out, and the last of the +sunset had faded away. Earth was gone, and heaven was all. Joseph was +now a reader, and read geology and astronomy: "I've got to do with them +all!" he said to himself, looking up. "There lie the fields of my +future, when this chain of gravity is unbound from my feet! Blessed am +I here now, my God, and blessed shall I be there then."</p> + +<p>When he reached the suburbs, the light of homes was shining through +curtains of all colors. "Every nest has its own birds," said Joseph; +"every heart its own joys!" Just then, he was in no mood to think of +the sorrows. But the sorrows are sickly things and die, while the joys +are strong divine children, and shall live for evermore.</p> + +<p>When he reached the streets, all the shops he passed were closed, +except the beer-shops and the chemists'. "The nettle and the dock!" +said Joseph.</p> + +<p>When he reached Mary's shop, he turned into the court to the +kitchen-door. "Through the kitchen to the parlor!" he said. "Through +the smithy to the presence-chamber! O my God—through the mud of me, up +to thy righteousness!"</p> + +<p>He was in a mood for music—was he not? One might imagine the violin +under his arm was possessed by an angel, and, ignoring his ears, was +playing straight into his heart!</p> + +<p>Beenie let him in, and took him up to the parlor. Mary came half-way to +meet him. The pressure as of heaven's atmosphere fell around him, +calming and elevating. He stepped across the floor, still, stately, and +free. He laid down his violin, and seated himself where Mary told him, +in her father's arm-chair by the fire. Gentle nothings with a down of +rainbows were talked until tea was over, and then without a word they +set to their music—Mary and Joseph, with their own hearts and Letty +for their audience.</p> + +<p>They had not gone far on the way to fairyland, however, when Beenie +called Letty from the room, to speak to a friend and customer, who had +come from the country on a sudden necessity for something from the +shop. Letty, finding herself not quite equal to the emergency, came in +her turn to call Mary: she went as quietly as if she were leaving a +tiresome visitor. The music was broken, and Joseph left alone with the +dumb instruments.</p> + +<p>But in his hands solitude and a violin were sure to marry in music. He +began to play, forgot himself utterly, and, when the customer had gone +away satisfied, and the ladies returned to the parlor, there he stood +with his eyes closed, playing on, nor knowing they were beside him. +They sat down, and listened in silence.</p> + +<p>Mary had not listened long before she found herself strangely moved. +Her heart seemed to swell up into her throat, and it was all she could +do to keep from weeping. A little longer and she was compelled to +yield, and the silent tears flowed freely. Letty, too, was +overcome—more than ever she had been by music. She was not so open to +its influences as Mary, but her eyes were full, and she sat thinking of +her Tom, far in the regions that are none the less true that we can not +see them.</p> + +<p>A mood had taken shape in the mind of the blacksmith, and wandered from +its home, seeking another country. It is not the ghosts of evil deeds +that alone take shape, and go forth to wander the earth. Let but a mood +be strong enough, and the soul, clothing itself in that mood as with a +garment, can walk abroad and haunt the world. Thus, in a garment of +mood whose color and texture was music, did the soul of Joseph Jasper +that evening, like a homeless ghost, come knocking at the door of Mary +Marston. It was the very being of the man, praying for admittance, even +as little Abel might have crept up to the gate from which his mother +had been driven, and, seeing nothing of the angel with the flaming +sword, knocked and knocked, entreating to be let in, pleading that all +was not right with the world in which he found himself. And there Mary +saw Joseph stand, thinking himself alone with his violin; and the +violin was his mediator with her, and was pleading and pleading for the +admittance of its master. It prayed, it wept, it implored. It cried +aloud that eternity was very long, and like a great palace without a +quiet room. "Gorgeous is the glory," it sang; "white are the garments, +and lovely are the faces of the holy; they look upon me gently and +sweetly, but pitifully, for they know that I am alone—yet not alone, +for I love. Oh, rather a thousand-fold let me love and be alone, than +be content and joyous with them all, free of this pang which tells me +of a bliss yet more complete, fulfilling the gladness of heaven!"</p> + +<p>All the time Joseph knew nothing of where his soul was; for he thought +Mary was in the shop, and beyond the hearing of his pleader. Nor was +this exactly the shape the thing took to the consciousness of the +musician. He seemed to himself to be standing alone in a starry and +moonlit night, among roses, and sweet-peas, and apple-blossoms—for the +soul cares little for the seasons, and will make its own month out of +many. On the bough of an apple-tree, in the fair moonlight, sat a +nightingale, swaying to and fro like one mad with the wine of his own +music, singing as if he wanted to break his heart and have done, for +the delight was too much for mortal creature to endure. And the song of +the bird grew the prayer of a man in the brain and heart of the +musician, and thence burst, through the open fountain of the violin, +and worked what it could work, in the world of forces. "I love thee! I +love thee! I love thee!" cried the violin; and the worship was entreaty +that knew not itself. On and on it went, ever beginning ere it ended, +as if it could never come to a close; and the two sat listening as if +they cared but to hear, and would listen for ever—listening as if, +when the sound ceased, all would be at an end, and chaos come again.</p> + +<p>Ah, do not blame, thou who lovest God, and fearest the love of the +human! Hast thou yet to learn that the love of the human is love, is +divine, is but a lower form of a part of the love of God? When thou +lovest man, or woman, or child, yea, or even dog, aright, then wilt +thou no longer need that I tell thee how God and his Christ would not +be content with each other alone in the glories even of the eternal +original love, because they could create more love. For that more love, +together they suffered and patiently waited. He that loveth not his +brother whom he hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen?</p> + +<p>A sob, like a bird new-born, burst from Mary's bosom. It broke the +enchantment in which Joseph was bound. That enchantment had possessed +him, usurping as it were the throne of his life, and displacing it; +when it ceased, he was not his own master. He started—to conscious +confusion only, neither knowing where he was nor what he did. His limbs +for the moment were hardly his own. How it happened he never could +tell, but he brought down his violin with a crash against the piano, +then somehow stumbled and all but fell. In the act of recovering +himself, he heard the neck of his instrument part from the body with a +tearing, discordant cry, like the sound of the ruin of a living world. +He stood up, understanding now, holding in his hand his dead music, and +regarding it with a smile sad as a winter sunset gleaming over a grave. +But Mary darted to him, threw her arms round him, laid her head on his +bosom, and burst into tears. Tenderly he laid his broken violin on the +piano, and, like one receiving a gift straight from the hand of the +Godhead, folded his arms around the woman—enough, if music itself had +been blotted from his universe! His violin was broken, but his being +was made whole! his treasure taken—type of his self, and a woman given +him instead!</p> + +<p>"It's just like him!" he murmured.</p> + +<p>He was thinking of him who, when a man was brought him to be delivered +from a poor palsy, forgave him his sins.</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_LVII" id="CHAPTER_LVII"></a>CHAPTER LVII.<br /><br /> +THE END OF THE BEGINNING.</h3> + +<p>Joseph Jasper and Mary Marston were married the next summer. Mary did +not leave her shop, nor did Joseph leave his forge. Mary was proud of +her husband, not merely because he was a musician, but because he was a +blacksmith. For, with the true taste of a right woman, she honored the +manhood that could do hard work. The day will come, and may I do +something to help it hither, when the youth of our country will +recognize that, taken in itself, it is a more manly, and therefore in +the old true sense a more <i>gentle</i> thing, to follow a good handicraft, +if it make the hands black as a coal, than to spend the day in keeping +books, and making up accounts, though therein the hands should remain +white—or red, as the case may be. Not but that, from a higher point of +view still, all work, set by God, and done divinely, is of equal honor; +but, where there is a choice, I would gladly see boy of mine choose +rather to be a blacksmith, or a watchmaker, or a bookbinder, than a +clerk. Production, making, is a higher thing in the scale of reality, +than any mere transmission, such as buying and selling. It is, besides, +easier to do honest work than to buy and sell honestly. The more honor, +of course, to those who are honest under the greater difficulty! But +the man who knows how needful the prayer, "Lead us not into +temptation," knows that he must not be tempted into temptation even by +the glory of duty under difficulty. In humility we must choose the +easiest, as we must hold our faces unflinchingly to the hardest, even +to the seeming impossible, when it is given us to do.</p> + +<p>I must show the blacksmith and the shopkeeper once more—two years +after marriage—time long enough to have made common people as common +to each other as the weed by the roadside; but these are not common to +each other yet, and never will be. They will never complain of being +<i>desillusionnes</i> , for they have never been illuded. They look up each +to the other still, because they were right in looking up each to the +other from the first. Each was, and therefore each is and will be, real.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">".... The man is honest."</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Therefore he will be, Timon."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It was a lovely morning in summer. The sun was but a little way above +the horizon, and the dew-drops seemed to have come scattering from him +as he shook his locks when he rose. The foolish larks were up, of +course, for they fancied, come what might of winter and rough weather, +the universe founded in eternal joy, and themselves endowed with the +best of all rights to be glad, for there was the gladness inside, and +struggling to get outside of them. And out it was coming in a divine +profusion! How many baskets would not have been wanted to gather up the +lordly waste of those scattered songs! in all the trees, in all the +flowers, in every grass-blade, and every weed, the sun was warming and +coaxing and soothing life into higher life. And in those two on the +path through the fields from Testbridge, the same sun, light from the +father of lights, was nourishing highest life of all—that for the sake +of which the Lord came, that he might set it growing in hearts of whose +existence it was the very root.</p> + +<p>Joseph and Mary were taking their walk together before the day's work +should begin. Those who have a good conscience, and are not at odds +with their work, can take their pleasure any time—as well before their +work as after it. Only where the work of the day is a burden grievous +to be borne, is there cause to fear being unfitted for duty by +antecedent pleasure. But the joy of the sunrise would linger about Mary +all the day long in the gloomy shop; and for Joseph, he had but to lift +his head to see the sun hastening on to the softer and yet more hopeful +splendors of the evening. The wife, who had not to begin so early, was +walking with her husband, as was her custom, even when the weather was +not of the best, to see him fairly started on his day's work. It was +with something very like pride, yet surely nothing evil, that she would +watch the quick blows of his brawny arm, as he beat the cold iron on +the anvil till it was all aglow like the sun that lighted the +world—then stuck it into the middle of his coals, and blew softly with +his bellows till the flame on the altar of his work-offering was awake +and keen. The sun might shine or forbear, the wind might blow or be +still, the path might be crisp with frost or soft with mire, but the +lighting of her husband's forge-fire, Mary, without some forceful +reason, never omitted to turn by her presence into a holy ceremony. It +was to her the "Come let us worship and bow down" of the daily service +of God-given labor. That done, she would kiss him, and leave him: she +had her own work to do. Filled with prayer she would walk steadily back +the well-known way to the shop, where, all day long, ministering with +gracious service to the wants of her people, she would know the evening +and its service drawing nearer and nearer, when Joseph would come, and +the delights of heaven would begin afresh at home, in music, and verse, +and trustful talk. Every day was a life, and every evening a blessed +death—type of that larger evening rounding our day with larger hope. +But many Christians are such awful pagans that they will hardly believe +it possible a young loving pair should think of that evening, except +with misery and by rare compulsion!</p> + +<p>That morning, as they went, they talked—thus, or something like this:</p> + +<p>"O Mary!" said Joseph, "hear the larks! They are all saying: 'Jo-seph! +Jo-seph! Hearkentome, Joseph! Whatwouldyouhavebeenbutfor Ma-ry, +Jo-seph?' That's what they keep on singing, singing in the ears of my +heart, Mary!"</p> + +<p>"You would have been a true man, Joseph, whatever the larks may say."</p> + +<p>"A solitary melody, praising without an upholding harmony, at best, +Mary!"</p> + +<p>"And what should I have been, Joseph? An inarticulate harmony—sweetly +mumbling, with never a thread of soaring song!"</p> + +<p>A pause followed.</p> + +<p>"I shall be rather shy of your father, Mary," said Joseph. "Perhaps he +won't be content with me."</p> + +<p>"Even if you weren't what you are, my father would love you because I +love you. But I know my father as well as I know you; and I know you +are just the man it must make him happy afresh, even in heaven, to +think of his Mary marrying. You two can hardly be of two minds in +anything!"</p> + +<p>"That was a curious speech of Letty's yesterday! You heard her say, did +you not, that, if everybody was to be so very good in heaven, she was +afraid it would be rather dull?"</p> + +<p>"We mustn't make too much of what Letty says, either when she's merry +or when she's miserable. She speaks both times only out of half-way +down."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes! I wasn't meaning to find any fault with her; I was only +wishing to hear what you would say. For nobody can make a story without +somebody wicked enough to set things wrong in it, and then all the work +lies in setting them right again, and, as soon as they are set right, +then the story stops."</p> + +<p>"There's no thing of the sort in music, Joseph, and that makes one +happy enough."</p> + +<p>"Yes, there is, Mary. There's strife and difference and compensation +and atonement and reconciliation."</p> + +<p>"But there's nothing wicked."</p> + +<p>"No, that there is not."</p> + +<p>"Well!" said Mary, "perhaps it may only be because we know so little +about good, that it seems to us not enough. We know only the beginnings +and the fightings, and so write and talk only about them. For my part, +I don't feel that strife of any sort is necessary to make me enjoy +life; of all things it is what makes me miserable. I grant you that +effort and struggle add immeasurably to the enjoyment of life, but +those I look upon as labor, not strife. There may be whole worlds for +us to help bring into order and obedience. And I suspect there must be +no end of work in which is strife enough—and that of a kind hard to +bear. There must be millions of spirits in prison that want preaching +to; and whoever goes among them will have that which is behind of the +afflictions of Christ to fill up. Anyhow there will be plenty to do, +and that's the main thing. Seeing we are made in the image of God, and +he is always working, we could not be happy without work."</p> + +<p>"Do you think we shall get into any company we like up there?" said +Joseph. "I must think a minute. When I want to understand, I find +myself listening for what my father would say. Yes, I think I know what +he would say to that: 'Yes; but not till you are fit for it; and then +the difficulty would be to keep out of it. For all that is fit must +come to pass in the land of fitnesses—that is, the land where all is +just as it ought to be.'—That's how I could fancy I heard my father +answer you."</p> + +<p>"With that answer I am well content," said Joseph.—"But you don't want +to die, do you, Mary?"</p> + +<p>"No; I want to live. And I've got such a blessed plenty of life while +waiting for more, that I am quite content to wait. But I do wonder that +some people I know, should cling to what they call life as they do. It +is not that they are comfortable, for they are constantly complaining +of their sufferings; neither is it from submission to the will of God, +for to hear them talk you must think they imagine themselves hardly +dealt with; they profess to believe the Gospel, and that it is their +only consolation; and yet they speak of death as the one paramount +evil. In the utmost weariness, they yet seem incapable of understanding +the apostle's desire to depart and be with Christ, or of imagining that +to be with him can be at all so good as remaining where they are. One +is driven to ask whether they can be Christians any further than +anxiety to secure whatever the profession may be worth to them will +make them such."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think, though," said Joseph, "that some people have a trick +of putting on their clothes wrong side out, and so making themselves +appear less respectable than they are? There was my sister Ann: she +used to go on scolding at people for not believing, all the time she +said they could not believe till God made them—if she had said +<i>except</i> God made them, I should have been with her there!—and then +talking about God so, that I don't see how, even if they could, any one +would have believed in such a monster as she made of him; and then, if +you objected to believe in such a God, she would tell you it was all +from the depravity of your own heart you could not believe in him; and +yet this sister Ann of mine, I know, once went for months without +enough to eat—without more than just kept body and soul together, that +she might feed the children of a neighbor, of whom she knew next to +nothing, when their father lay ill of a fever, and could not provide +for them. And she didn't look for any thanks neither, except it was +from that same God she would have to be a tyrant from the +beginning—one who would calmly behold the unspeakable misery of +creatures whom he had compelled to exist, whom he would not permit to +cease, and for whom he would do a good deal, but not all that he could. +Such people, I think, are nearly as unfair to themselves as they are to +God."</p> + +<p>"You're right, Joseph," said Mary. "If we won't take the testimony of +such against God, neither must we take it against themselves. Only, why +is it they are always so certain they are in the right?"</p> + +<p>"For the perfecting of the saints," suggested Joseph, with a curious +smile.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," answered Mary. "Anyhow, we may get that good out of them, +whether they be here for the purpose or not. I remember Mr. Turnbull +once accusing my father of irreverence, because he spoke about God in +the shop. Said my father, 'Our Lord called the old temple his father's +house and a den of thieves in the same breath.' Mr. Turnbull saw +nothing but nonsense in the answer. Said my father then, 'You will +allow that God is everywhere?' 'Of course,' replied Mr. Turnbull. +'Except in this shop, I suppose you mean?' said my father. 'No, I +don't. That's just why I wouldn't have you do it.' 'Then you wouldn't +have me think about him either?' 'Well! there's a time for everything.' +Then said my father, very solemnly, 'I came from God, and I'm going +back to God, and I won't have any gaps of death in the middle of my +life.' And that was nothing to Mr. Turnbull either."</p> + +<p>To one in ten of my readers it may be something.</p> + +<p>Just ere they came in sight of the smithy, they saw a lady and +gentleman on horseback flying across the common.</p> + +<p>"There go Mrs. Redmain and Mr. Wardour!" said Joseph. "They're to be +married next month, they say. Well, it's a handsome couple they'll +make! And the two properties together'll make a fine estate!"</p> + +<p>"I hope she'll learn to like the books he does," said Mary. "I never +could get her to listen to anything for more than three minutes."</p> + +<p>Though Joseph generally dropped work long before Mary shut the shop, +she yet not unfrequently contrived to meet him on his way home; and +Joseph always kept looking out for her as he walked.</p> + +<p>That very evening they were gradually nearing each other—the one from +the smithy, the other from the shop—with another pair between them, +however, going toward Testbridge—Godfrey Wardour and Hesper Redmain.</p> + +<p>"How strange," said Hesper, "that after all its chances and breakings, +old Thornwick should be joined up again at last!"</p> + +<p>Partly by a death in the family, partly through the securities her +husband had taken on the property, partly by the will of her father, +the whole of Durnmelling now belonged to Hesper.</p> + +<p>"It is strange," answered Godfrey, with an involuntary sigh.</p> + +<p>Hesper turned and looked at him.</p> + +<p>It was not merely sadness she saw on his face. There was something +there almost like humility, though Hesper was not able to read it as +such. He lifted his head, and did not avoid her gaze.</p> + +<p>"You are wondering, Hesper," he said, "that I do not respond with more +pleasure. To tell you the truth, I have come through so much that I am +almost afraid to expect the fruition of any good. Please do not +imagine, you beautiful creature! it is of the property I am thinking. +In your presence that would be impossible. Nor, indeed, have I begun to +think of it. I shall, one day, come to care for it, I do not +doubt—that is, when once I have you safe; but I keep looking for the +next slip that is to come—between my lip and this full cup of +hap-piness. I have told you all, Hesper, and I thank you that you do +not despise me. But it may well make me solemn and fearful, to think, +after all the waves and billows that have gone over me, such a splendor +should be mine!—But, do you really love me, Hesper—or am I walking in +my sleep? I had thought, 'Surely now at last I shall never love +again!'—and instead of that, here I am loving, as I never loved +before!—and doubting whether I ever did love before!"</p> + +<p>"I never loved before," said Hesper. "Surely to love must be a good +thing, when it has made you so good! I am a poor creature beside you, +Godfrey, but I am glad to think whatever I know of love you have taught +me. It is only I who have to be ashamed!"</p> + +<p>"That is all your goodness!" interrupted Godfrey. "Yet, at this moment, +I can not quite be sorry for some things I ought to be sorry for: but +for them I should not be at your side now—happier than I dare allow +myself to feel. I dare hardly think of those things, lest I should be +glad I had done wrong."</p> + +<p>"There are things I am compelled to know of myself, Godfrey, which I +shall never speak to you about, for even to think of them by your side +would blast all my joy. How plainly Mary used to tell me what I was! I +scorned her words! It seemed, then, too late to repent. And now I am +repenting! I little thought ever to give in like this! But of one thing +I am sure—that, if I had known you, not all the terrors of my father +would have made me marry the man."</p> + +<p>Was this all the feeling she had for her dead husband? Although Godfrey +could hardly at the moment feel regret she had not loved him, it yet +made him shiver to hear her speak of him thus. In the perfected +grandeur of her external womanhood, she seemed to him the very ideal of +his imagination, and he felt at moments the proudest man in the great +world; but at night he would lie in torture, brooding over the horrors +a woman such as she must have encountered, to whom those mysteries of +our nature, which the true heart clothes in abundant honor, had been +first presented in the distortions of a devilish caricature. There had +been a time in Godfrey's life when, had she stood before him in all her +splendor, he would have turned from her, because of her history, with a +sad disgust. Was he less pure now? He was more pure, for he was +humbler. When those terrible thoughts would come, and the darkness +about him grow billowy with black flame, "God help me," he would cry, +"to make the buffeted angel forget the past!"</p> + +<p>They had talked of Mary more than once, and Godfrey, in part through +what Hesper told him of her, had come to see that he was unjust to her. +I do not mean he had come to know the depth and extent of his +injustice—that would imply a full understanding of Mary herself, which +was yet far beyond him. A thousand things had to grow, a thousand +things to shift and shake themselves together in Godfrey's mind, before +he could begin to understand one who cared only for the highest.</p> + +<p>Godfrey and Hesper made a glorious pair to look at—but would theirs be +a happy union?—Happy, I dare say—and not too happy. He who sees to +our affairs will see that the <i>too</i> is not in them. There were fine +elements in both, and, if indeed they loved, and now I think, from very +necessity of their two hearts, they must have loved, then all would, by +degrees, by slow degrees, most likely, come right with them.</p> + +<p>If they had been born again both, before they began, so to start fresh, +then like two children hand in hand they might have run in through the +gates into the city. But what is love, what is loss, what defilement +even, what are pains, and hopes, and disappointments, what sorrow, and +death, and all the ills that flesh is heir to, but means to this very +end, to this waking of the soul to seek the home of our being—the life +eternal? Verily we must be born from above, and be good children, or +become, even to our self-loving selves, a scorn, a hissing, and an +endless reproach.</p> + +<p>If they had had but Mary to talk to them! But they did not want her: +she was a good sort of creature, who, with all her disagreeableness, +meant them well, and whom they had misjudged a little and made cry! +They had no suspicion that she was one of the lights of the world—one +of the wells of truth, whose springs are fed by the rains on the +eternal hills.</p> + +<p>Turning a clump of furze-bushes on the common, they met Mary. She +stepped from the path. Mr. Wardour took off his hat. Then Mary knew +that his wrath was past, and she was glad.</p> + +<p>They stopped. "Well, Mary," said Hesper, holding out her hand, and +speaking in a tone from which both haughtiness and condescension had +vanished, "where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"To meet my husband," answered Mary. "I see him coming."</p> + +<p>With a deep, loving look at Hesper, and a bow and a smile to Godfrey, +she left them, and hastened to meet her working-man.</p> + +<p>Behind Godfrey Wardour and Hesper Redmain walked Joseph Jasper and Mary +Marston, a procession of love toward a far-off, eternal goal. But which +of them was to be first in the kingdom of heaven, Mary or Joseph or +Hesper or Godfrey, is not to be told: they had yet a long way to walk, +and there are first that shall be last, and last that shall be first.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mary Marston, by George MacDonald + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY MARSTON *** + +***** This file should be named 8201-h.htm or 8201-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/2/0/8201/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks, Juliet + +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: Mary Marston + +Author: George MacDonald + +Posting Date: August 23, 2010 [EBook #8201] +Release Date: June, 2005 +First Posted: July 1, 2003 +[Last updated: May 25, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY MARSTON *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks, Juliet +Sutherland and the DP Team + + + + + + + + + + +MARY MARSTON + +A NOVEL. + +BY + +GEORGE MACDONALD + +AUTHOR OF "ANNALS OF A QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD," "ROBERT FALCONER," ETC., +ETC. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + I.--THE SHOP + II.--CUSTOMERS + III.--THE ARBOR AT THORNWICK + IV.--GODFREY WARDOUR + V.--GODFREY AND LETTY + VI.--TOM HELMER + VII.--DURNMELLING + VIII.--THE OAK + IX.--CONFUSION + X.--THE HEATH AND THE HUT + XI.--WILLIAM MARSTON + XII.--MARY'S DREAM + XIII.--THE HUMAN SACRIFICE + XIV.--UNGENEROUS BENEVOLENCE + XV.--THE MOONLIGHT + XVI.--THE MORNING + XVII.--THE RESULT + XVIII.--MARY AND GODFREY + XIX.--MARY IN THE SHOP + XX.--THE WEDDING-DRESS + XXI.--MR. REDMAIN + XXII.--MRS. REDMAIN + XXIII.--THE MENIAL + XXIV.--MRS. REDMAIN'S DRAWING-ROOM + XXV.--MARY'S RECEPTION + XXVI.--HER POSITION + XXVII.--MR. AND MRS. HELMER + XXVIII.--MARY AND LETTY + XXIX.--THE EVENING STAR + XXX.--A SCOLDING + XXXI.--SEPIA + XXXII.--HONOR + XXXIII.--TUB INVITATION + XXXIV.--A STRAY SOUND + XXXV.--THE MUSICIAN + XXXVI.--A CHANGE + XXXVII.--LYDGATE STREET + XXXVIII.--GODFREY AND LETTY + XXXIX.--RELIEF + XL.--GODFREY AND SEPIA + XLI.--THE HELPER + XLII.--THE LEPER + XLIII.--MARY AND MR. REDMAIN + XLIV.--JOSEPH JASPER + XLV.--THE SAPPHIRE + XLVI.--REPARATION + XLVII.--ANOTHER CHANGE + XLVIII.--DISSOLUTION + XLIX.--THORNWICK + L.--WILLIAM AND MARY MARSTON + LI.--A HARD TASK + LII.--A SUMMONS + LIII.--A FRIEND IN NEED + LIV.--THE NEXT NIGHT + LV.--DISAPPEARANCE + LVI.--A CATASTROPHE + LVII.--THE END OF THE BEGINNING + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE SHOP + + +It was an evening early in May. The sun was low, and the street was +mottled with the shadows of its paving-stones--smooth enough, but far +from evenly set. The sky was clear, except for a few clouds in the +west, hardly visible in the dazzle of the huge light, which lay among +them like a liquid that had broken its vessel, and was pouring over the +fragments. The street was almost empty, and the air was chill. The +spring was busy, and the summer was at hand; but the wind was blowing +from the north. + +The street was not a common one; there was interest, that is feature, +in the shadowy front of almost each of its old houses. Not a few of +them wore, indeed, something like a human expression, the look of +having both known and suffered. From many a porch, and many a latticed +oriel, a long shadow stretched eastward, like a death flag streaming in +a wind unfelt of the body--or a fluttering leaf, ready to yield, and +flit away, and add one more to the mound of blackness gathering on the +horizon's edge. It was the main street of an old country town, dwindled +by the rise of larger and more prosperous places, but holding and +exercising a charm none of them would ever gain. + +Some of the oldest of its houses, most of them with more than one +projecting story, stood about the middle of the street. The central and +oldest of these was a draper's shop. The windows of the ground-floor +encroached a little on the pavement, to which they descended very +close, for the floor of the shop was lower than the street. But, +although they had glass on three oriel sides, they were little used for +the advertising of the stores within. A few ribbons and gay +handkerchiefs, mostly of cotton, for the eyes of the country people on +market-days, formed the chief part of their humble show. The door was +wide and very low, the upper half of it of glass--old, and +bottle-colored; and its threshold was a deep step down into the shop. +As a place for purchases it might not to some eyes look promising, but +both the ladies and the housekeepers of Testbridge knew that rarely +could they do better in London itself than at the shop of Turnbull and +Marston, whether variety, quality, or price, was the point in +consideration. And, whatever the first impression concerning it, the +moment the eyes of a stranger began to grow accustomed to its gloom, +the evident size and plenitude of the shop might well suggest a large +hope. It was low, indeed, and the walls could therefore accommodate few +shelves; but the ceiling was therefore so near as to be itself +available for stowage by means of well-contrived slides and shelves +attached to the great beams crossing it in several directions. During +the shop-day, many an article, light as lace, and heavy as broadcloth, +was taken from overhead to lay upon the counter. The shop had a special +reputation for all kinds of linen goods, from cambric handkerchiefs to +towels, and from table-napkins to sheets; but almost everything was to +be found in it, from Manchester moleskins for the navy's trousers, to +Genoa velvet for the dowager's gown, and from Horrocks's prints to +Lyons silks. It had been enlarged at the back, by building beyond the +original plan, and that part of it was a little higher, and a little +better lighted than the front; but the whole place was still dark +enough to have awaked the envy of any swindling London shopkeeper. Its +owners, however, had so long enjoyed the confidence of the +neighborhood, that faith readily took the place of sight with their +customers--so far at least as quality was concerned; and seldom, except +in a question of color or shade, was an article carried to the door to +be confronted with the day. It had been just such a shop, untouched of +even legendary change, as far back as the memory of the sexton reached; +and he, because of his age and his occupation, was the chief authority +in the local history of the place. + +As, on this evening, there were few people in the street, so were there +few in the shop, and it was on the point of being closed: they were not +particular there to a good many minutes either way. Behind the counter, +on the left hand, stood a youth of about twenty, young George Turnbull, +the son of the principal partner, occupied in leisurely folding and +putting aside a number of things he had been showing to a farmer's +wife, who was just gone. He was an ordinary-looking lad, with little +more than business in his high forehead, fresh-colored, good-humored, +self-satisfied cheeks, and keen hazel eyes. These last kept wandering +from his not very pressing occupation to the other side of the shop, +where stood, behind the opposing counter, a young woman, in attendance +upon the wants of a well-dressed youth in front of it, who had just +made choice of a pair of driving-gloves. His air and carriage were +conventionally those of a gentleman--a gentleman, however, more than +ordinarily desirous of pleasing a young woman behind a counter. She +answered him with politeness, and even friendliness, nor seemed aware +of anything unusual in his attentions. + +"They're splendid gloves," he said, making talk; "but don't you think +it a great price for a pair of gloves, Miss Marston?" + +"It is a good deal of money," she answered, in a sweet, quiet voice, +whose very tone suggested simplicity and straightforwardness; "but they +will last you a long time. Just look at the work, Mr. Helmer. You see +how they are made? It is much more difficult to stitch them like that, +one edge over the other, than to sew the two edges together, as they do +with ladies' gloves. But I'll just ask my father whether he marked them +himself." + +"He did mark those, I know," said young Turnbull, who had been +listening to all that went on, "for I heard my father say they ought to +be sixpence more." + +"Ah, then!" she returned, assentingly, and laid the gloves on the box +before her, the question settled. + +Helmer took them, and began to put them on. + +"They certainly are the only glove where there is much handling of +reins," he said. + +"That is what Mr. Wardour says of them," rejoined Miss Marston. + +"By the by," said Helmer, lowering his voice, "when did you see anybody +from Thornwick?" + +"Their old man was in the town yesterday with the dog-cart." + +"Nobody with him?" + +"Miss Letty. She came in for just two minutes or so." + +"How was she looking?" + +"Very well," answered Miss Marston, with what to Helmer seemed +indifference. + +"Ah!" he said, with a look of knowingness, "you girls don't see each +other with the same eyes as we. I grant Letty is not very tall, and I +grant she has not much of a complexion; but where did you ever see such +eyes?" + +"You must excuse me, Mr. Helmer," returned Mary, with a smile, "if I +don't choose to discuss Letty's merits with you; she is my friend." + +"Where would be the harm?" rejoined Helmer, looking puzzled. "I am not +likely to say anything against her. You know perfectly well I admire +her beyond any woman in the world. I don't care who knows it." + +"Your mother?" suggested Mary, in the tone of one who makes a venture. + +"Ah, come now, Miss Marston! Don't you turn my mother loose upon me. I +shall be of age in a few months, and then my mother may--think as she +pleases. I know, of course, with her notions, she would never consent +to my making love to Letty--" + +"I should think not!" exclaimed Mary. "Who ever thought of such an +absurdity? Not you, surely, Mr. Helmer? What would your mother say to +hear you? I mention her in earnest now." + +"Let mothers mind their own business!" retorted the youth angrily. "I +shall mind mine. My mother ought to know that by this time." + +Mary said no more. She knew Mrs. Helmer was not a mother to deserve her +boy's confidence, any more than to gain it; for she treated him as if +she had made him, and was not satisfied with her work. + +"When are you going to see Letty, Miss Marston?" resumed Helmer, after +a brief pause of angry feeling. + +"Next Sunday evening probably." + +"Take me with you." + +"Take you with me! What are you dreaming of, Mr. Helmer?" + +"I would give my bay mare for a good talk with Letty Lovel," he +returned. + +Mary made no reply. + +"You won't?" he said petulantly, after a vain pause of expectation. + +"Won't what?" rejoined Miss Marston, as if she could not believe him in +earnest. + +"Take me with you on Sunday?" + +"No," she answered quietly, but with sober decision. + +"Where would be the harm?" pleaded the youth, in a tone mingled of +expostulation, entreaty, and mortification. + +"One is not bound to do everything there would be no harm in doing," +answered Miss Marston. "Besides, Mr. Helmer, I don't choose to go out +walking with you of a Sunday evening." + +"Why not?" + +"For one thing, your mother would not like it. You know she would not." + +"Never mind my mother. She's nothing to you. She can't bite you.--Ask +the dentist. Come, come! that's all nonsense. I shall be at the stile +beyond the turnpike-gate all the afternoon--waiting till you come." + +"The moment I see you--anywhere upon the road--that moment I shall turn +back.--Do you think," she added with half-amused indignation, "I would +put up with having all the gossips of Testbridge talk of my going out +on a Sunday evening with a boy like you?" + +Tom Helmer's face flushed. He caught up the gloves, threw the price of +them on the counter, and walked from the shop, without even a good +night. + +"Hullo!" cried George Turnbull, vaulting over the counter, and taking +the place Helmer had just left opposite Mary; "what did you say to the +fellow to send him off like that? If you do hate the business, you +needn't scare the customers, Mary." + +"I don't hate the business, you know quite well, George. And if I did +scare a customer," she added, laughing, as she dropped the money in the +till, "it was not before he had done buying." + +"That may be; but we must look to to-morrow as well as to-day. When is +Mr. Helmer likely to come near us again, after such a wipe as you must +have given him to make him go off like that?" + +"Just to-morrow, George, I fancy," answered Mary. "He won't be able to +bear the thought of having left a bad impression on me, and so he'll +come again to remove it. After all, there's something about him I can't +help liking. I said nothing that ought to have put him out of temper +like that, though; I only called him a boy." + +"Let me tell you, Mary, you could not have called him a worse name." + +"Why, what else is he?" + +"A more offensive word a man could not hear from the lips of a woman," +said George loftily. + +"A man, I dare say! But Mr. Helmer can't be nineteen yet." + +"How can you say so, when he told you himself he would be of age in a +few months? The fellow is older than I am. You'll be calling me a boy +next." + +"What else are you? You at least are not one-and-twenty." + +"And how old do you call yourself, pray, miss?" + +"Three-and-twenty last birthday." + +"A mighty difference indeed!" + +"Not much--only all the difference, it seems, between sense and +absurdity, George." + +"That may be all very true of a fine gentleman, like Helmer, that does +nothing from morning to night but run away from his mother; but you +don't think it applies to me, Mary, I hope!" + +"That's as you behave yourself, George. If you do not make it apply, it +won't apply of itself. But if young women had not more sense than most +of the young men I see in the shop--on both sides of the counter, +George--things would soon be at a fine pass. Nothing better in your +head than in a peacock's!--only that a peacock _has_ the fine feathers +he's so proud of." + +"If it were Mr. Wardour now, Mary, that was spreading his tail for you +to see, you would not complain of that peacock!" + +A vivid rose blossomed instantly in Mary's cheek. Mr. Wardour was not +even an acquaintance of hers. He was cousin and friend to Letty Lovel, +indeed, but she had never spoken to him, except in the shop. + +"It would not be quite out of place if you were to learn a little +respect for your superiors, George," she returned. "Mr. Wardour is not +to be thought of in the same moment with the young men that were in my +mind. Mr. Wardour is not a young man; and he is a gentleman." + +She took the glove-box, and turning placed it on a shelf behind her. + +"Just so!" remarked George, bitterly. "Any man you don't choose to +count a gentleman, you look down upon! What have you got to do with +gentlemen, I should like to know?" + +"To admire one when I see him," answered Mary. "Why shouldn't I? It is +very seldom, and it does me good." + +"Oh, yes!" rejoined George, contemptuously. "You _call_ yourself a +lady, but--" + +"I do nothing of the kind," interrupted Mary, sharply. "I should _like_ +to be a lady; and inside of me, please God, I _will_ be a lady; but I +leave it to other people to call me this or that. It matters little +what any one is _called_." + +"All right," returned George, a little cowed; "I don't mean to +contradict you. Only just tell me why a well-to-do tradesman shouldn't +be a gentleman as well as a small yeoman like Wardour." + +"Why don't you say--as well as a squire, or an earl, or a duke?" said +Mary. + +"There you are, chaffing me again! It's hard enough to have every fool +of a lawyer's clerk, or a doctor's boy, looking down upon a fellow, and +calling him a counter-jumper; but, upon my soul, it's too bad when a +girl in the same shop hasn't a civil word for him, because he isn't +what she counts a gentleman! Isn't my father a gentleman? Answer me +that, Mary." + +It was one of George's few good things that he had a great opinion of +his father, though the grounds of it were hardly such as to enable Mary +to answer his appeal in a way he would have counted satisfactory. She +thought of her own father, and was silent. + +"Everything depends on what a man is in himself, George," she answered. +"Mr. Wardour would be a gentleman all the same if he were a shopkeeper +or a blacksmith." + +"And shouldn't I be as good a gentleman as Mr. Wardour, if I had been +born with an old tumble-down house on my back, and a few acres of land +I could do with as I liked? Come, answer me that." + +"If it be the house and the land that makes the difference, you would, +of course," answered Mary. + +Her tone implied, even to George's rough perceptions, that there was a +good deal more of a difference between them than therein lay. But +common people, whether lords or shopkeepers, are slow to understand +that possession, whether in the shape of birth, or lands, or money, or +intellect, is a small affair in the difference between men. + +"I know you don't think me fit to hold a candle to him," he said. "But +I happen to know, for all he rides such a good horse, he's not above +doing the work of a wretched menial, for he polishes his own +stirrup-irons." + +"I'm very glad to hear it," rejoined Mary. "He must be more of a +gentleman yet than I thought him." + +"Then why should you count him a better gentleman than me?" + +"I'm afraid for one thing, you would go with your stirrup-irons rusty, +rather than clean them yourself, George. But I will tell you one thing +Mr. Wardour would not do if he were a shopkeeper: he would not, like +you, talk one way to the rich, and another way to the poor--all +submission and politeness to the one, and familiarity, even to +rudeness, with the other! If you go on like that, you'll never come +within sight of being a gentleman, George--not if you live to the age +of Methuselah." + +"Thank you, Miss Mary! It's a fine thing to have a lady in the shop! +Shouldn't I just like my father to hear you! I'm blowed if I know how a +fellow is to get on with you! Certain sure I am that it ain't _my_ +fault if we're not friends." + +Mary made no reply. She could not help understanding what George meant, +and she flushed, with honest anger, from brow to chin. But, while her +dark-blue eyes flamed with indignation, her anger was not such as to +render her face less pleasant to look upon. There are as many kinds of +anger as there are of the sunsets with which they ought to end: Mary's +anger had no hate in it. + +I must now hope my readers sufficiently interested in my narrative to +care that I should tell them something of what she was like. Plainly as +I see her, I can not do more for them than that. I can not give a +portrait of her; I can but cast her shadow on my page. It was a dainty +half-length, neither tall nor short, in a plain, well-fitting dress of +black silk, with linen collar and cuffs, that rose above the counter, +standing, in spite of displeasure, calm and motionless. Her hair was +dark, and dressed in the simplest manner, without even a reminder of +the hideous occipital structure then in favor--especially with shop +women, who in general choose for imitation and exorbitant development +whatever is ugliest and least lady-like in the fashion of the hour. It +had a natural wave in it, which broke the too straight lines it would +otherwise have made across a forehead of sweet and composing +proportions. Her features were regular--her nose straight--perhaps a +little thin; the curve of her upper lip carefully drawn, as if with +design to express a certain firmness of modesty; and her chin well +shaped, perhaps a little too sharply defined for her years, and rather +large. Everything about her suggested the repose of order satisfied, of +unconstrained obedience to the laws of harmonious relation. The only +fault honest criticism could have suggested, merely suggested, was the +presence of just a possible _nuance_ of primness. Her boots, at this +moment unseen of any, fitted her feet, as her feet fitted her body. Her +hands were especially good. There are not many ladies, interested in +their own graces, who would not have envied her such seals to her +natural patent of ladyhood. Her speech and manners corresponded with +her person and dress; they were direct and simple, in tone and +inflection, those of one at peace with herself. Neatness was more +notable in her than grace, but grace was not absent; good breeding was +more evident than delicacy, yet delicacy was there; and unity was plain +throughout. + +George went back to his own side of the shop, jumped the counter, put +the cover on the box he had left open with a bang, and shoved it into +its place as if it had been the backboard of a cart, shouting as he did +so to a boy invisible, to make haste and put up the shutters. Mary left +the shop by a door on the inside of the counter, for she and her father +lived in the house; and, as soon as the shop was closed, George went +home to the villa his father had built in the suburbs. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +CUSTOMERS. + + +The next day was Saturday, a busy one at the shop. From the neighboring +villages and farms came customers not a few; and ladies, from the +country-seats around, began to arrive as the hours went on. The whole +strength of the establishment was early called out. Busiest in serving +was the senior partner, Mr. Turnbull. He was a stout, florid man, with +a bald crown, a heavy watch-chain of the best gold festooned across the +wide space between waistcoat-button-hole and pocket, and a large +hemispheroidal carbuncle on a huge fat finger, which yet was his little +one. He was close-shaved, double-chinned, and had cultivated an +ordinary smile to such an extraordinary degree that, to use the common +hyperbole, it reached from ear to ear. By nature he was good-tempered +and genial; but, having devoted every mental as well as physical +endowment to the making of money, what few drops of spiritual water +were in him had to go with the rest to the turning of the mill-wheel +that ground the universe into coin. In his own eyes he was a strong +churchman, but the only sign of it visible to others was the strength +of his contempt for dissenters--which, however, excepting his partner +and Mary, he showed only to church-people; a dissenter's money being, +as he often remarked, when once in his till, as good as the best +churchman's. + +To the receptive eye he was a sight not soon to be forgotten, as he +bent over a piece of goods outspread before a customer, one hand +resting on the stuff, the other on the yard-measure, his chest as +nearly touching the counter as the protesting adjacent parts would +permit, his broad smooth face turned up at right angles, and his mouth, +eloquent even to solemnity on the merits of the article, now hiding, +now disclosing a gulf of white teeth. No sooner was anything admitted +into stock, than he bent his soul to the selling of it, doing +everything that could be done, saying everything he could think of +saying, short of plain lying as to its quality: that he was not guilty +of. To buy well was a care to him, to sell well was a greater, but to +make money, and that as speedily as possible, was his greatest care, +and his whole ambition. + +John Turnbull in his gig, as he drove along the road to the town, and +through the street approached his shop-door, showed to the chance +observer a man who knew himself of importance, a man who might have a +soul somewhere inside that broad waistcoat; as he drew up, threw the +reins to his stable-boy, and descended upon the pavement--as he stepped +down into the shop even, he looked a being in whom son or daughter or +friend might feel some honest pride; but, the moment he was behind the +counter and in front of a customer, he changed to a creature whose +appearance and carriage were painfully contemptible to any beholder who +loved his kind; he had lost the upright bearing of a man, and cringed +like an ape. But I fear it was thus he had gained a portion at least of +his favor with the country-folk, many of whom much preferred his +ministrations to those of his partner. A glance, indeed, from the one +to the other, was enough to reveal which must be the better +salesman--and to some eyes which the better man. + +In the narrow walk of his commerce--behind the counter, I mean--Mr. +Marston stood up tall and straight, lank and lean, seldom bending more +than his long neck in the direction of the counter, but doing +everything needful upon it notwithstanding, from the unusual length of +his arms and his bony hands. His forehead was high and narrow, his face +pale and thin, his hair long and thin, his nose aquiline and thin, his +eyes large, his mouth and chin small. He seldom spoke a syllable more +than was needful, but his words breathed calm respect to every +customer. His conversation with one was commonly all but over as he +laid something for approval or rejection on the counter: he had already +taken every pains to learn the precise nature of the necessity or +desire; and what he then offered he submitted without comment; if the +thing was not judged satisfactory, he removed it and brought another. +Many did not like this mode of service; they would be helped to buy; +unequal to the task of making up their minds, they welcomed any aid +toward it; and therefore preferred Mr. Turnbull, who gave them every +imaginable and unimaginable assistance, groveling before them like a +man whose many gods came to him one after the other to be worshiped; +while Mr. Marston, the moment the thing he presented was on the +counter, shot straight up like a poplar in a sudden calm, his visage +bearing witness that his thought was already far away--in heavenly +places with his wife, or hovering like a perplexed bee over some +difficult passage in the New Testament; Mary could have told which, for +she knew the meaning of every shadow that passed or lingered on his +countenance. + +His partner and his like-minded son despised him, as a matter of +course; his unbusiness-like habits, as they counted them, were the +constantly recurring theme of their scorn; and some of these would +doubtless have brought him the disapprobation of many a business man of +a moral development beyond that of Turnbull; but Mary saw nothing in +them which did not stamp her father the superior of all other men she +knew. + +To mention one thing, which may serve as typical of the man: he not +unfrequently sold things under the price marked by his partner. Against +this breach of fealty to the firm Turnbull never ceased to level his +biggest guns of indignation and remonstrance, though always without +effect. He even lowered himself in his own eyes so far as to quote +Scripture like a canting dissenter, and remind his partner of what came +to a house divided against itself. He did not see that the best thing +for some houses must be to come to pieces. "Well, but, Mr. Turnbull, I +thought it was marked too high," was the other's invariable answer. +"William, you are a fool," his partner would rejoin for the hundredth +time. "Will you never understand that, if we get a little more than the +customary profit upon one thing, we get less upon another? You must +make the thing even, or come to the workhouse." Thereto, for the +hundredth time also, William Marston would reply: "That might hold, I +daresay, Mr. Turnbull--I am not sure--if every customer always bought +an article of each of the two sorts together; but I can't make it +straight with my conscience that one customer should pay too much +because I let another pay too little. Besides, I am not at all sure +that the general scale of profit is not set too high. I fear you and I +will have to part, Mr. Turnbull." But nothing was further from +Turnbull's desire than that he and Marston should part; he could not +keep the business going without his money, not to mention that he never +doubted Marston would straightway open another shop, and, even if he +did not undersell him, take from him all his dissenting customers; for +the junior partner was deacon of a small Baptist church in the town--a +fact which, although like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes of +John Turnbull in his villa, was invaluable in the eyes of John Turnbull +behind his counter. + +Whether William Marston was right or wrong in his ideas about the rite +of baptism--probably he was both--he was certainly right in his +relation to that which alone makes it of any value--that, namely, which +it signifies; buried with his Master, he had died to selfishness, +greed, and trust in the secondary; died to evil, and risen to good--a +new creature. He was just as much a Christian in his shop as in the +chapel, in his bedroom as at the prayer-meeting. + +But the world was not now much temptation to him, and, to tell the +truth, he was getting a good deal tired of the shop. He had to remind +himself, oftener and oftener, that in the mean time it was the work +given him to do, and to take more and more frequently the strengthening +cordial of a glance across the shop at his daughter. Such a glance +passed through the dusky place like summer lightning through a heavy +atmosphere, and came to Mary like a glad prophecy; for it told of a +world within and beyond the world, a region of love and faith, where +struggled no antagonistic desires, no counteracting aims, but unity was +the visible garment of truth. + +The question may well suggest itself to my reader--How could such a man +be so unequally yoked with such another as Turnbull?--To this I reply +that Marston's greatness had yet a certain repressive power upon the +man who despised him, so that he never uttered his worst thoughts or +revealed his worst basenesses in his presence. Marston never thought of +him as my reader must soon think--flattered himself, indeed, that poor +John was gradually improving, coming to see things more and more as he +would have him look on them. Add to this, that they had been in the +business together almost from boyhood, and much will be explained. + +An open carriage, with a pair of showy but ill-matched horses, looking +unfit for country work on the one hand, as for Hyde Park on the other, +drew up at the door; and a visible wave of interest ran from end to end +of the shop, swaying as well those outside as those inside the counter, +for the carriage was well known in Testbridge. It was that of Lady +Margaret Mortimer; she did not herself like the _Margaret_, and signed +only her second name _Alice_ at full length, whence her _friends_ +generally called her to each other Lady Malice. She did not leave the +carriage, but continued to recline motionless in it, at an angle of +forty-five degrees, wrapped in furs, for the day was cloudy and cold, +her pale handsome face looking inexpressibly more indifferent in its +regard of earth and sky and the goings of men, than that of a corpse +whose gaze is only on the inside of the coffin-lid. But the two ladies +who were with her got down. One of them was her daughter, Hesper by +name, who, from the dull, cloudy atmosphere that filled the doorway, +entered the shop like a gleam of sunshine, dusky-golden, followed by a +glowing shadow, in the person of her cousin, Miss Yolland. + +Turnbull hurried to meet them, bowing profoundly, and looking very much +like Issachar between the chairs he carried. But they turned aside to +where Mary stood, and in a few minutes the counter was covered with +various stuffs for some of the smaller articles of ladies' attire. + +The customers were hard to please, for they wanted the best things at +the price of inferior ones, and Mary noted that the desires of the +cousin were farther reaching and more expensive than those of Miss +Mortimer. But, though in this way hard to please, they were not +therefore unpleasant to deal with; and from the moment she looked the +latter in the face, whom she had not seen since she was a girl, Mary +could hardly take her eyes off her. All at once it struck her how well +the unusual, fantastic name her mother had given her suited her; and, +as she gazed, the feeling grew. + +Large, and grandly made, Hesper stood "straight, and steady, and tall," +dusky-fair, and colorless, with the carriage of a young matron. Her +brown hair seemed ever scathed and crinkled afresh by the ethereal +flame that here and there peeped from amid the unwilling volute rolled +back from her creamy forehead in a rebellious coronet. Her eyes were +large and hazel; her nose cast gently upward, answering the carriage of +her head; her mouth decidedly large, but so exquisite in drawing and +finish that the loss of a centimetre of its length would to a lover +have been as the loss of a kingdom; her chin a trifle large, and +grandly lined; for a woman's, her throat was massive, and her arms and +hands were powerful. Her expression was frank, almost brave, her eyes +looking full at the person she addressed. As she gazed, a kind of love +she had never felt before kept swelling in Mary's heart. + +Her companion impressed her very differently. + +Some men, and most women, counted Miss Yolland _strangely_ ugly. But +there were men who exceedingly admired her. Not very slight for her +stature, and above the middle height, she looked small beside Hesper. +Her skin was very dark, with a considerable touch of sallowness; her +eyes, which were large and beautifully shaped, were as black as eyes +could be, with light in the midst of their blackness, and more than a +touch of hardness in the midst of their liquidity; her eyelashes were +singularly long and black, and she seemed conscious of them every time +they rose. She did not _use_ her eyes habitually, but, when she did, +the thrust was sudden and straight. I heard a man once say that a look +from her was like a volley of small-arms. Like Hesper's, her mouth was +large and good, with fine teeth; her chin projected a little too much; +her hands were finer than Hesper's, but bony. Her name was Septimia; +Lady Margaret called her Sepia, and the contraction seemed to so many +suitable that it was ere long generally adopted. She was in mourning, +with a little crape. To the first glance she seemed as unlike Hesper as +she could well be; but, as she stood gently regarding the two, Mary, +gradually, and to her astonishment, became indubitably aware of a +singular likeness between them. Sepia, being a few years older, and in +less flourishing condition, had her features sharper and finer, and by +nature her complexion was darker by shades innumerable; but, if the one +was the evening, the other was the night: Sepia was a diminished and +overshadowed Hesper. Their manner, too, was similar, but Sepia's was +the haughtier, and she had an occasional look of defiance, of which +there appeared nothing in Hesper. When first she came to Durnmelling, +Lady Malice had once alluded to the dependence of her position--but +only once: there came a flash into rather than out of Sepia's eyes that +made any repetition of the insult impossible and Lady Malice wish that +she had left her a wanderer on the face of Europe. + +Sepia was the daughter of a clergyman, an uncle of Lady Malice, whose +sons had all gone to the bad, and whose daughters had all vanished from +society. Shortly before the time at which my narrative begins, one of +the latter, however, namely Sepia, the youngest, had reappeared, a +fragment of the family wreck, floating over the gulf of its +destruction. Nobody knew with any certainty where she had been in the +interim: nobody at Durnmelling knew anything but what she chose to +tell, and that was not much. She said she had been a governess in +Austrian Poland and Russia. Lady Margaret had become reconciled to her +presence, and Hesper attached to her. + +Of the men who, as I have said, admired her, some felt a peculiar +enchantment in what they called her ugliness; others declared her +devilish handsome; and some shrank from her as if with an undefined +dread of perilous entanglement, if she should but catch them looking +her in the face. Among some of them she was known as Lucifer, in +antithesis to Hesper: they meant the Lucifer of darkness, not the +light-bringer of the morning. + +The ladies, on their part, especially Hesper, were much pleased with +Mary. The simplicity of her address and manner, the pains she took to +find the exact thing she wanted, and the modest decision with which she +answered any reference to her, made Hesper even like her. The most +artificially educated of women is yet human, and capable of even more +than liking a fellow-creature as such. When their purchases were ended, +she took her leave with a kind smile, which went on glowing in Mary's +heart long after she had vanished. + +"Home, John," said Lady Margaret, the moment the two ladies were +seated. "I hope you have got _all_ you wanted. We shall be late for +luncheon, I fear. I would not for worlds keep Mr. Redmain waiting.--A +little faster, John, please." + +Hesper's face darkened. Sepia eyed her fixedly, from under the mingling +of ascended lashes and descended brows. The coachman pretended to obey, +but the horses knew very well when he did and when he did not mean them +to go, and took not a step to the minute more: John had regard to the +splendid-looking black horse on the near side, which was weak in the +wind, as well as on one fired pastern, and cared little for the anxiety +of his mistress. To him, horses were the final peak of creation--or if +not the horses, the coachman, whose they are--masters and mistresses +the merest parasitical adjuncts. He got them home in good time for +luncheon, notwithstanding--more to Lady Margaret's than Hesper's +satisfaction. + +Mr. Redmain was a bachelor of fifty, to whom Lady Margaret was +endeavoring to make the family agreeable, in the hope he might take +Hesper off their hands. I need not say he was rich. He was a common +man, with good cold manners, which he offered you like a handle. He was +selfish, capable of picking up a lady's handkerchief, but hardly a +wife's. He was attentive to Hesper; but she scarcely concealed such a +repugnance to him as some feel at sight of strange fishes--being at the +same time afraid of him, which was not surprising, as she could hardly +fail to perceive the fate intended for her. + +"Ain't Miss Mortimer a stunner?" said George Turnbull to Mary, when the +tide of customers had finally ebbed from the shop. + +"I don't exactly know what you mean, George," answered Mary. + +"Oh, of course, I know it ain't fair to ask any girl to admire +another," said George. "But there's no offense to you, Mary. One young +lady can't carry _every_ merit on her back. She'd be too lovely to +live, you know. Miss Mortimer ain't got your waist, nor she ain't got +your 'ands, nor your 'air; and you ain't got her size, nor the sort of +hair she 'as with her." + +He looked up from the piece of leno he was smoothing out, and saw he +was alone in the shop. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE ARBOR AT THORNWICK. + + +The next day was Sunday at last, a day dear to all who do anything like +their duty in the week, whether they go to church or not. For Mary, she +went to the Baptist chapel; it was her custom, rendered holy by the +companionship of her father. But this day it was with more than +ordinary restlessness and lack of interest that she stood, knelt, and +sat, through the routine of observance; for old Mr. Duppa was certainly +duller than usual: how could it be otherwise, when he had been +preparing to spend a mortal hour in descanting on the reasons which +necessitated the separation of all true Baptists from all +brother-believers? The narrow, high-souled little man--for a soul as +well as a forehead can be both high and narrow--was dull that morning +because he spoke out of his narrowness, and not out of his height; and +Mary was better justified in feeling bored than even when George +Turnbull plagued her with his vulgar attentions. When she got out at +last, sedate as she was, she could hardly help skipping along the +street by her father's side. Far better than chapel was their nice +little cold dinner together, in their only sitting-room, redolent of +the multifarious goods piled around it on all the rest of the floor. +Greater yet was the following pleasure--of making her father lie down +on the sofa, and reading him to sleep, after which she would doze a +little herself, and dream a little, in the great chair that had been +her grandmother's. Then they had their tea, and then her father always +went to see the minister before chapel in the evening. + +When he was gone, Mary would put on her pretty straw bonnet, and set +out to visit Letty Lovel at Thornwick. Some of the church-members +thought this habit of taking a walk, instead of going again to the +chapel, very worldly, and did not scruple to let her know their +opinion; but, so long as her father was satisfied with her, Mary did +not care a straw for the world besides. She was too much occupied with +obedience to trouble her head about opinion, either her own or other +people's. Not until a question comes puzzling and troubling us so as to +paralyze the energy of our obedience is there any necessity for its +solution, or any probability of finding a real one. A thousand foolish +_doctrines_ may lie unquestioned in the mind, and never interfere with +the growth or bliss of him who lives in active subordination of his +life to the law of life: obedience will in time exorcise them, like +many another worse devil. + +It had drizzled all the morning from the clouds as well as from the +pulpit, but, just as Mary stepped out of the kitchen-door, the sun +stepped out of the last rain-cloud. She walked quickly from the town, +eager for the fields and the trees, but in some dread of finding Tom +Helmer at the stile; for he was such a fool, she said to herself, that +there was no knowing what he might do, for all she had said; but he had +thought better of it, and she was soon crossing meadows and cornfields +in peace, by a path which, with many a winding, and many an up and +down, was the nearest way to Thornwick. + +The saints of old did well to pray God to lift on them the light of his +countenance: has the Christian of the new time learned of his Master +that the clouds and the sunshine come and go of themselves? If the +sunshine fills the hearts of old men and babes and birds with gladness +and praise, and God never meant it, then are they all idolaters, and +have but a careless Father. Sweet earthy odors rose about Mary from the +wet ground; the rain-drops glittered on the grass and corn-blades and +hedgerows; a soft damp wind breathed rather than blew about the gaps +and gates; with an upward springing, like that of a fountain momently +gathering strength, the larks kept shooting aloft, there, like +music-rockets, to explode in showers of glowing and sparkling song; +while, all the time and over all, the sun as he went down kept shining +in the might of his peace; and the heart of Mary praised her Father in +heaven. + +Where the narrow path ran westward for a little way, so that she could +see nothing for the sun in her eyes, in the middle of a plowed field +she would have run right against a gentleman, had he been as blind as +she; but, his back being to the sun, he saw her perfectly, and stepped +out of her way into the midst of a patch of stiff soil, where the rain +was yet lying between the furrows. She saw him then, and as, lifting +his hat, he stopped again upon the path, she recognized Mr. Wardour. + +"Oh, your nice boots!" she cried, in the childlike distress of a simple +soul discovering itself the cause of catastrophe, for his boots were +smeared all over with yellow clay. + +"It only serves me right," returned Mr. Wardour, with a laugh of +amusement. "I oughtn't to have put on such thin ones at the first smile +of summer." + +Again he lifted his hat, and walked on. + +Mary also pursued her path, genuinely though gently pained that one +should have stepped up to the ankles in mud on her account. As I have +already said, except in the shop she had never before spoken to Mr. +Wardour, and, although he had so simply responded to her exclamation, +he did not even know who she was. + +The friendship which now drew Mary to Thornwick, Godfrey Wardour's +place, was not one of long date. She and Letty Lovel had, it is true, +known each other for years, but only quite of late had their +acquaintance ripened into something better; and it was not without +protestation on the part of Mrs. Wardour, Godfrey's mother, that she +had seen the growth of an intimacy between the two young women. The +society of a shopwoman, she often remarked, was far from suitable for +one who, as the daughter of a professional man, might lay claim to the +position of a gentlewoman. For Letty was the orphan daughter of a +country surgeon, a cousin of Mrs. Wardour, for whom she had had a great +liking while yet they were boy and girl together. At the same time, +however much she would have her consider herself the superior of Mary +Marston, she by no means treated her as her own equal, and Letty could +not help being afraid of her aunt, as she called her. + +The well-meaning woman was in fact possessed by two devils--the one the +stiff-necked devil of pride, the other the condescending devil of +benevolence. She was kind, but she must have credit for it; and Letty, +although the child of a loved cousin, must not presume upon that, or +forget that the wife and mother of long-descended proprietors of +certain acres of land was greatly the superior of any man who lived by +the exercise of the best-educated and most helpful profession. She +counted herself a devout Christian, but her ideas of rank, at +least--therefore certainly not a few others--were absolutely opposed to +the Master's teaching: they who did least for others were her +aristocracy. + +Now, Letty was a simple, true-hearted girl, rather slow, who honestly +tried to understand her aunt's position with regard to her friend. +"Shop-girls," her aunt had said, "are not fitting company for you, +Letty." + +"I do not know any other shop-girls, aunt," Letty replied, with hidden +trembling; "but, if they are not nice, then they are not like Mary. +She's downright good; indeed she is, aunt!--a great deal, ever so much, +better than I am." + +"That may well be," answered Mrs. Wardour, "but it does not make a lady +of her." + +"I am sure," returned Letty, bewildered, "on Sundays you could not tell +the difference between her and any other young lady." + +"Any other well-dressed young woman, my dear, you should say. I believe +shop-girls do call their companions young ladies, but that can not +justify the application of the word. I am scarcely bound to speak of my +cook as a lady because letters come addressed to her as Miss Tozer. If +the word 'lady' should sink at last to common use, as in Italy every +woman is Donna, we must find some other word to ex-press what _used_ to +be meant by it." + +"Is Mrs. Cropper a lady, aunt?" asked Letty, after a pause, in which +her brains, which were not half so muddled as she thought them, had +been busy feeling after firm ground in the morass of social distinction +thus opened under her. + +"She is received as such," replied Mrs. Wardour, but with doubled +stiffness, through which ran a tone of injury. + +"Would you receive her, aunt, if she called upon you?" + +"She has horses and servants, and everything a woman of the world can +desire; but I should feel I was bowing the knee to Mammon were I to ask +her to my house. Yet such is the respect paid to money in these +degenerate days that many a one will court the society of a person like +that, who would think me or your cousin Godfrey unworthy of notice, +because we have no longer a tithe of the property the family once +possessed." + +The lady forgot there is a Rimmon as well as a Mammon. + +"God knows," she went on, "how that woman's husband made his money! But +that is a small matter nowadays, except to old-fashioned people like +myself. Not _how_ but _how much_, is all the question now," she +concluded, flattering herself she had made a good point. + +"Don't think me rude, please, aunt: I am really wishing to +understand--but, if Mrs. Cropper is not a lady, how can Mary Marston +not be one? She is as different from Mrs. Croppor as one woman can be +from another." + +"Because she has not the position in society," replied Mrs. Wardour, +enveloping her nothing in flimsy reiteration and self-contradiction. + +"And Mrs. Cropper has the position?" ventured Letty, with a little +palpitation from fear of offending. + +"Apparently so," answered Mrs. Wardour. But her inquiring pupil did not +feel much enlightened. Letty had not the logic necessary to the +thinking of the thing out; or to the discovery that, like most social +difficulties, hers was merely one of the upper strata of a question +whose foundation lies far too deep for what is called Society to +perceive its very existence. And hence it is no wonder that Society, +abetted by the Church, should go on from generation to generation +talking murderous platitudes about it. + +But, although such was her reasoning beforehand, heart had so far +overcome habit and prejudice with Mrs. Wardour, that, convinced on the +first interview of the high tone and good influence of Mary, she had +gradually come to put herself in the way of seeing her as often as she +came, ostensibly to herself that she might prevent any deterioration of +intercourse; and although she always, on these occasions, played the +grand lady, with a stateliness that seemed to say, "Because of your +individual worth, I condescend, and make an exception, but you must not +imagine I receive your class at Thornwick," she had almost entirely +ceased making remarks upon the said class in Letty's hearing. + +On her part, Letty had by this time grown so intimate with Mary as to +open with her the question upon which her aunt had given her so little +satisfaction; and this same Sunday afternoon, as they sat in the arbor +at the end of the long yew hedge in the old garden, it had come up +again between them; for, set thinking by Letty's bewilderment, Mary had +gone on thinking, and had at length laid hold of the matter, at least +by the end that belonged to _her_. + +"I can not consent, Letty," she said, "to trouble my mind about it as +you do. I can not afford it. Society is neither my master nor my +servant, neither my father nor my sister; and so long as she does not +bar my way to the kingdom of heaven, which is the only society worth +getting into, I feel no right to complain of how she treats me. I have +no claim on her; I do not acknowledge her laws--hardly her existence, +and she has no authority over me. Why should she, how could she, +constituted as she is, receive such as me? The moment she did so, she +would cease to be what she is; and, if all be true that one hears of +her, she does me a kindness in excluding me. What can it matter to me, +Letty, whether they call me a lady or not, so long as Jesus says +_Daughter_ to me? It reminds me of what I heard my father say once to +Mr. Turnbull, when he had been protesting that none but church people +ought to be buried in the churchyards. 'I don't care a straw about it, +Mr. Turnbull,' he said. 'The Master was buried in a garden.'--'Ah, but +you see things are different now,' said Mr. Turnbull.--'I don't hang by +things, but by my Master. It is enough for the disciple that he should +be as his Master,' said my father.--'Besides, you don't think it of any +real consequence yourself, or you would never want to keep your +brothers and sisters out of such nice quiet places!'--Mr. Turnbull gave +his kind of grunt, and said no more." + +After passing Mary, Mr. Wardour did not go very far before he began to +slacken his pace; a moment or two more and he suddenly wheeled round, +and began to walk back toward Thornwick. Two things had combined to +produce this change of purpose--the first, the state of his boots, +which, beginning to dry in the sun and wind as he walked, grew more and +more hideous at the end of his new gray trousers; the other, the +occurring suspicion that the girl must be Letty's new shopkeeping +friend, Miss Marston, on her way to visit her. What a sweet, simple +young woman she was! he thought; and straightway began to argue with +himself that, as his boots were in such evil plight, it would be more +pleasant to spend the evening with Letty and her friend, than to hold +on his way to his own friend's, and spend the evening smoking and +lounging about the stable, or hearing his sister play polkas and +mazurkas all the still Sunday twilight. + +Mary had, of course, upon her arrival, narrated her small adventure, +and the conversation had again turned upon Godfrey just as he was +nearing the house. + +"How handsome your cousin is!" said Mary, with the simplicity natural +to her. + +"Do you think so?" returned Letty. + +"Don't _you_ think so?" rejoined Mary. + +"I have never thought about it," answered Letty. + +"He looks so manly, and has such a straightforward way with him!" said +Mary. + +"What one sees every day, she may feel in a sort of take-for-granted +way, without thinking about it," said Letty. "But, to tell the truth, I +should feel it as impertinent of me to criticise Cousin Godfrey's +person as to pass an opinion on one of the books he reads. I can not +express the reverence I have for Cousin Godfrey." + +"I don't wonder," replied Mary. "There is that about him one could +trust." + +"There is that about him," returned Letty, "makes me afraid of him--I +can not tell why. And yet, though everybody, even his mother, is as +anxious to please him as if he were an emperor, he is the easiest +person to please in the whole house. Not that he tells you he is +pleased; he only smiles; but that is quite enough." + +"But I suppose he talks to you sometimes?" said Mary. + +"Oh, yes--now. He used not; but I think he does now more than to +anybody else. It was a long time before he began, though. Now he is +always giving me something to read. I wish he wouldn't; it frightens me +dreadfully. He always questions me, to know whether I understand what I +read." + +Letty ended with a little cry. Through the one narrow gap in the yew +hedge, near to the arbor, Godfrey had entered the walk, and was coming +toward them. + +He was a well-made man, thirty years of age, rather tall, sun-tanned, +and bearded, with wavy brown hair, and gentle approach. His features +were not regular, but that is of little consequence where there is +unity. His face indicated faculty and feeling, and there was much good +nature, shadowed with memorial suffering, in the eyes which shone so +blue out of the brown. + +Mary rose respectfully as he drew near. + +"What treason were you talking, Letty, that you were so startled at +sight of me?" he said, with a smile. "You were complaining of me as a +hard master, were you not?" + +"No, indeed, Cousin Godfrey!" answered Letty energetically, not without +tremor, and coloring as she spoke. "I was only saying I could not help +being frightened when you asked me questions about what I had been +reading. I am so stupid, you know!" + +"Pardon me, Letty," returned her cousin, "I know nothing of the sort. +Allow me to say you are very far from stupid. Nobody can understand +everything at first sight. But you have not introduced me to your +friend." + +Letty bashfully murmured the names of the two. + +"I guessed as much," said Wardour. "Pray sit down, Miss Marston. For +the sake of your dresses, I will go and change my boots. May I come and +join you after?" + +"Please do, Cousin Godfrey; and bring something to read to us," said +Letty, who wanted her friend to admire her cousin. "It's Sunday, you +know." + +"Why you should be afraid of him, I can't think," said Mary, when his +retreating steps had ceased to sound on the gravel. "He is delightful!" + +"I don't like to look stupid," said Letty. + +"I shouldn't mind how stupid I looked so long as I was learning," +returned Mary. "I wonder you never told me about him!" + +"I couldn't talk about Cousin Godfrey," said Letty; and a pause +followed. + +"How good of him to come to us again!" said Mary. "What will he read to +us?" + +"Most likely something out of a book you never heard of before, and +can't remember the name of when you have heard it--at least that's the +way with me. I wonder if he will talk to you, Mary? I should like to +hear how Cousin Godfrey talks to girls." + +"Why, you know how he talks to you," said Mary. + +"Oh, but I am only Cousin Letty! He can talk anyhow to me." + +"By your own account he talks to you in the best possible way." + +"Yes; I dare say; but--" + +"But what?" + +"I can't help wishing sometimes he would talk a little nonsense. It +would be such a relief. I am sure I should understand better if he +would. I shouldn't be so frightened at him then." + +"The way I generally hear gentlemen talk to girls makes me +ashamed--makes me feel as if I must ask, 'Is it that you are a fool, or +that you take that girl for one?' They never talk so to me." + +Letty sat pulling a jonquil to pieces. She looked up. Her eyes were +full of thought, but she paused a long time before she spoke, and, when +she did, it was only to say: + +"I fear, Mary, I should take any man for a fool who took me for +anything else." + +Letty was a rather small and rather freckled girl, with the daintiest +of rounded figures, a good forehead, and fine clear brown eyes. Her +mouth was not pretty, except when she smiled--and she did not smile +often. When she did, it was not unfrequently with the tears in her +eyes, and then she looked lovely. In her manner there was an +indescribably taking charm, of which it is not easy to give an +impression; but I think it sprang from a constitutional humility, +partly ruined into a painful and haunting sense of inferiority, for +which she imagined herself to blame. Hence there dwelt in her eyes an +appeal which few hearts could resist. When they met another's, they +seemed to say: "I am nobody; but you need not kill me; I am not +pretending to be anybody. I will try to do what you want, but I am not +clever. Only I am sorry for it. Be gentle with me." To Godfrey, at +least, her eyes spoke thus. + +In ten minutes or so he reappeared, far at the other end of the +yew-walk, approaching slowly, with a book, in which he seemed +thoughtfully searching as he came. When they saw him the girls +instinctively moved farther from each other, making large room for him +between them, and when he came up he silently took the place thus +silently assigned him. + +"I am going to try your brains now, Letty," he said, and tapped the +book with a finger. + +"Oh, please don't!" pleaded Letty, as if he had been threatening her +with a small amputation, or the loss of a front tooth. + +"Yes," he persisted; "and not your brains only, Letty, but your heart, +and all that is in you." + +At this even Mary could not help feeling a little frightened; and she +was glad there was no occasion for her to speak. + +With just a word of introduction, Godfrey read Carlyle's translation of +that finest of Jean Paul's dreams in which he sets forth the condition +of a godless universe all at once awakened to the knowledge of the +causelessness of its own existence. Slowly, with due inflection and +emphasis--slowly, but without pause for thought or explanation--he read +to the end, ceased suddenly, and lifted his eyes. + +"There, Letty," he said, "what do you think of that? There's a bit of +Sunday reading for you!" + +Letty was looking altogether perplexed, and not a little frightened. + +"I don't understand a word of it," she answered, gulping back her +tears. He glanced at Mary. She was white as death, her lips quivered, +and from her eyes shot a keen light that seemed to lacerate their blue. + +"It is terrible!" she said. "I never read anything like that." + +"There _is_ nothing like it," he answered. + +"But the author is a Unitarian, is he not?" remarked Mary--for she +heard plenty of theology, if not much Christianity, in her chapel. + +Godfrey looked at her, then at the book for a moment. + +"That may merely seem, from the necessity of the supposition," he +answered; and read again: + +"'Now sank from aloft a noble, high Form, with a look of uneffaceable +sorrow, down to the Altar, and all the Dead cried out, "Christ! is +there no God?" He answered, "There is none!" The whole Shadow of each +then shuddered, not the breast alone; and one after the other all, in +this shuddering, shook into pieces.'--"You see," he went on, "that if +there be no God, Christ can only be the first of men." + +"I understand," said Mary. + +"Do you really then, Mary?" said Letty, looking at her with wondering +admiration. + +"I only meant," answered Mary--"but," she went on, interrupting +herself, "I do think I understand it a little. If Mr. Wardour would be +kind enough to read it through again!" + +"With much pleasure," answered Godfrey, casting on her a glance of +pleased surprise. + +The second reading affected Mary more than the first--because, of +course, she took in more. And this time a glimmer of meaning broke on +the slower mind of Letty: as her cousin read the passage, "Oh, then +came, fearful for the heart, the dead Children who had been awakened in +the Churchyard, into the temple, and cast themselves before the high +Form on the Altar, and said, 'Jesus, have we no Father?' And he +answered, with streaming tears: 'We are all orphans, I and you; we are +without Father!'"--at this point Letty gave her little cry, then bit +her lip, as if she had said something wrong. + +All the time a great bee kept buzzing in and out of the arbor, and Mary +vaguely wondered how it could be so careless. + +"I can't be dead stupid after all, Cousin Godfrey," said Letty, with +broken voice, when once more he ceased, and, as she spoke, she pressed +her hand on her heart, "for something kept going through and through +me; but I can not say yet I understand it.--If you will lend me the +book," she continued, "I will read it over again before I go to bed." + +He shut the volume, handed it to her, and began to talk about something +else. + +Mary rose to go. + +"You will take tea with us, I hope, Miss Marston," said Godfrey. + +But Mary would not. What she had heard was working in her mind with a +powerful fermentation, and she longed to be alone. In the fields, as +she walked, she would come to an understanding with herself. + +She knew almost nothing of the higher literature, and felt like a +dreamer who, in the midst of a well-known and ordinary landscape, comes +without warning upon the mighty cone of a mountain, or the breaking +waters of a boundless ocean. + +"If one could but get hold of such things, what a glorious life it +would be!" she thought. She had looked into a world beyond the present, +and already in the present all things were new. The sun set as she had +never seen him set before; it was only in gray and gold, with scarce a +touch of purple and rose; the wind visited her cheek like a living +thing, and loved her; the skylarks had more than reason in their +jubilation. For the first time she heard the full chord of intellectual +and emotional delight. What a place her chamber would be, if she could +there read such things! How easy would it be then to bear the troubles +of the hour, the vulgar humor of Mr. Turnbull, and the tiresome +attentions of George! Would Mr. Wardour lend her the book? Had he other +books as good? Were there many books to make one's heart go as that one +did? She would save every penny to buy such books, if indeed such +treasures were within her reach! Under the enchantment of her first +literary joy, she walked home like one intoxicated with opium--a being +possessed for the time with the awful imagination of a grander soul, +and reveling in the presence of her loftier kin. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +GODFREY WARDOUR. + + +The property of which Thornwick once formed a part was then large and +important; but it had, by not very slow degrees, generation following +generation of unthrift, dwindled and shrunk and shriveled, until at +last it threatened to disappear from the family altogether, like a +spark upon burnt paper. Then came one into possession who had some +element of salvation in him; Godfrey's father not only held the poor +remnant together, but, unable to add to it, improved it so greatly that +at length, in the midst of the large properties around, it resembled +the diamond that hearts a disk of inferior stones. Doubtless, could he +have used his wife's money, he would have spent it on land; but it was +under trustees for herself and her children, and indeed would not have +gone far in the purchase of English soil. + +Considerably advanced in years before he thought of marrying, he died +while Godfrey, whom he intended bringing up to a profession, was yet a +child; and his widow, carrying out his intention, had educated the boy +with a view to the law. Godfrey, however, had positively declined +entering on the studies special to a career he detested; nor was it +difficult to reconcile his mother to the enforced change of idea, when +she found that his sole desire was to settle down with her, and manage +the two hundred acres his father had left him. He took his place in the +county, therefore, as a yeoman-farmer--none the less a gentleman by +descent, character, and education. But while in genuine culture and +refinement the superior of all the landed proprietors in the +neighborhood, and knowing it, he was the superior of most of them in +this also, that he counted it no derogation from the dignity he valued +to put his hands upon occasion to any piece of work required about the +place. + +His nature was too large, however, and its needs therefore too many, to +allow of his spending his energies on the property; and he did not +brood over such things as, so soon as they become cares, become +despicable. How much time is wasted in what is called thought, but is +merely care--an anxious idling over the fancied probabilities of +result! Of this fault, I say, Godfrey was not guilty--more, however, I +must confess, from healthful drawings in other directions, than from +philosophy or wisdom: he was _a reader_--not in the sense of a man who +derives intensest pleasure from the absorption of intellectual +pabulum--one not necessarily so superior as some imagine to the +_gourmet_, or even the _gourmand_: in his reading Godfrey nourished +certain of the higher tendencies of his nature--read with a constant +reference to his own views of life, and the confirmation, change, or +enlargement of his theories of the same; but neither did he read with +the highest aim of all--the enlargement of reverence, obedience, and +faith; for he had never turned his face full in the direction of +infinite growth--the primal end of a man's being, who is that he may +return to the Father, gathering his truth as he goes. Yet by the simple +instincts of a soul undebased by self-indulgence or low pursuits, he +was drawn ever toward things lofty and good; and life went calmly on, +bearing Godfrey Wardour toward middle age, unruffled either by anxiety +or ambition. + +To the forecasting affection of a mother, the hour when she must yield +the first place both in her son's regards and in the house-affairs +could not but have often presented itself, in doubt and pain--perhaps +dread. Only as year after year passed and Godfrey revealed no tendency +toward marriage, her anxiety changed sides, and she began to fear lest +with Godfrey the ancient family should come to an end. As yet, however, +finding no response to covert suggestion, she had not ventured to speak +openly to him on the subject. All the time, I must add, she had never +thought of Letty either as thwarting or furthering her desires, for in +truth she felt toward her as one on whom Godfrey could never condescend +to look, save with the kindness suitable for one immeasurably below +him. As to what might pass in Letty's mind, Mrs. Wardour had neither +curiosity nor care: else she might possibly have been more considerate +than to fall into the habit of talking to her in such swelling words of +maternal pride that, even if she had not admired him of herself, Letty +could hardly escape coming to regard her cousin Godfrey as the very +first of men. + +It added force to the veneration of both mother and cousin--for it was +nothing less than veneration in either--that there was about Godfrey an +air of the inexplicable, or at least the unknown, and therefore +mysterious. This the elder woman, not without many a pang at her +exclusion from his confidence, attributed, and correctly, to some +passage in his life at the university; to the younger it appeared only +as greatness self-veiled from the ordinary world: to such as she, could +be vouchsafed only an occasional peep into the gulf of his knowledge, +the grandeur of his intellect, and the imperturbability of his courage. + +The passage in Godfrey's life to which I have referred as vaguely +suspected by his mother, I need not present in more than merest +outline: it belongs to my history only as a component part of the soil +whence it springs, and as in some measure necessary to the +understanding of Godfrey's character. In the last year of his college +life he had formed an attachment, the precise nature of which I do not +know. What I do know is, that the bonds of it were rudely broken, and +of the story nothing remained but disappointment and pain, doubt and +distrust. Godfrey had most likely cherished an overweening notion of +the relative value of the love he gave; but being his, I am certain it +was genuine--by that, I mean a love with no small element of the +everlasting in it. The woman who can cast such a love from her is not +likely to meet with such another. But with this one I have nothing to +do. + +It had been well if he had been left with only a wounded heart, but in +that heart lay wounded pride. He hid it carefully, and the keener in +consequence grew the sensitiveness, almost feminine, which no stranger +could have suspected beneath the manner he wore. Under that bronzed +countenance, with its firm-set mouth and powerful jaw--below that clear +blue eye, and that upright easy carriage, lay a faithful heart haunted +by a sense of wrong: he who is not perfect in forgiveness must be +haunted thus; he only is free whose love for the human is so strong +that he can pardon the individual sin; he alone can pray the prayer, +"Forgive us our trespasses," out of a full heart. Forgiveness is the +only cure of wrong. And hand in hand with Sense-of-injury walks ever +the weak sister-demon Self-pity, so dear, so sweet to many--both of +them the children of Philautos, not of Agape. But there was no hate, no +revenge, in Godfrey, and, I repeat, his weakness he kept concealed. It +must have been in his eyes, but eyes are hard to read. For the rest, +his was a strong poetic nature--a nature which half unconsciously +turned ever toward the best, away from the mean judgments of common +men, and with positive loathing from the ways of worldly women. Never +was peace endangered between his mother and him, except when she +chanced to make use of some evil maxim which she thought experience had +taught her, and the look her son cast upon her stung her to the heart, +making her for a moment feel as if she had sinned what the theologians +call the unpardonable sin. When he rose and walked from the room +without a word, she would feel as if abandoned to her wickedness, and +be miserable until she saw him again. Something like a spring-cleaning +would begin and go on in her for some time after, and her eyes would +every now and then steal toward her judge with a glance of awe and +fearful apology. But, however correct Godfrey might be in his judgment +of the worldly, that judgment was less inspired by the harmonies of the +universe than by the discords that had jarred his being and the +poisonous shocks he had received in the encounter of the noble with the +ignoble. There was yet in him a profound need of redemption into the +love of the truth for the truth's sake. He had the fault of thinking +too well of himself--which who has not who thinks of himself at all, +apart from his relation to the holy force of life, within yet beyond +him? It was the almost unconscious, assuredly the undetected, +self-approbation of the ordinarily righteous man, the defect of whose +righteousness makes him regard himself as upright, but the virtue of +whose uprightness will at length disclose to his astonished view how +immeasurably short of rectitude he comes. At the age of thirty, Godfrey +Wardour had not yet become so displeased with himself as to turn +self-roused energy upon betterment; and until then all growth must be +of doubtful result. The point on which the swift-revolving top of his +thinking and feeling turned was as yet his present conscious self, as a +thing that was and would be, not as a thing that had to become. +Naturally the pivot had worn a socket, and such socket is sure to be a +sore. His friends notwithstanding gave him credit for great +imperturbability; but in such willfully undemonstrative men the evil +burrows the more insidiously that it is masked by a constrained +exterior. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +GODFREY AND LETTY. + + +Godfrey, being an Englishman, and with land of his own, could not fail +to be fond of horses. For his own use he kept two--an indulgence +disproportioned to his establishment; for, although precise in his +tastes as to equine toilet, he did not feel justified in the keeping of +a groom for their use only. Hence it came that, now and then, strap and +steel, as well as hide and hoof, would get partially neglected; and his +habits in the use of his horses being fitful--sometimes, it would be +midnight even, when he scoured from his home, seeking the comfort of +desert as well as solitary places--it is not surprising if at times, +going to the stable to saddle one, he should find its gear not in the +spick-and-span condition alone to his mind. It might then well happen +there was no one near to help him, and there be nothing for it but to +put his own hands to the work: he was too just to rouse one who might +be nowise to blame, or send a maid to fetch him from field or barn, +where he might be more importantly engaged. + +One night, meaning to start for a long ride early in the morning, he +had gone to the stable to see how things were; and, soon after, it +happened that Letty, attending to some duty before going to bed, caught +sight of him cleaning his stirrups: from that moment she took upon +herself the silent and unsuspected supervision of the harness-room, +where, when she found any part of the riding-equipments neglected, she +would draw a pair of housemaid's gloves on her pretty hands, and polish +away like a horse-boy. + +Godfrey had begun to remark how long it was since he had found anything +unfit, and to wonder at the improvement somewhere in the establishment, +when, going hastily one morning, some months before the date of my +narrative, into the harness-room to get a saddle, he came upon Letty, +who had imagined him afield with the men: she was energetic upon a +stirrup with a chain-polisher. He started back in amazement, but she +only looked up and smiled. + +"I shall have done in a moment, Cousin Godfrey," she said, and polished +away harder than before. + +"But, Letty! I can't allow you to do things like that. What on earth +put it in your head? Work like that is only for horny hands." + +"Your hands ain't horny, Cousin Godfrey. They may be a little harder +than mine--they wouldn't be much good if they weren't--but they're no +fitter by nature to clean stirrups. Is it for me to sit with mine in my +lap, and yours at this? I know better." + +"Why shouldn't I clean my own harness, Letty, if I like?" said Godfrey, +who could not help feeling pleased as well as annoyed; in this one +moment Letty had come miles nearer him. + +"Oh, surely! if you like, Cousin Godfrey," she answered; "but do you +like?" + +"Better than to see you doing it." + +"But not better than I like to do it; that I am sure of. It is hands +that write poetry that are not fit for work like this." + +"How do you know I write poetry?" asked Godfrey, displeased, for she +touched here a sensitive spot. + +"Oh, don't be angry with me!" she said, letting the stirrup fall on the +floor, and clasping her great wash-leather gloves together; "I couldn't +help seeing it was poetry, for it lay on the table when I went to do +your room." + +"Do my room, Letty! Does my mother--?" + +"She doesn't want to make a fine lady of me, and I shouldn't like it if +she did. I have no head, but I have pretty good hands. Of course, +Cousin Godfrey, I didn't read a word of the poetry. I daredn't do that, +however much I might have wished." + +A childlike simplicity looked out of the clear eyes and sounded in the +swift words of the maiden; and, had Godfrey's heart been as hard as the +stirrup she had dropped, it could not but be touched by her devotion. +He was at the same time not a little puzzled how to carry himself. +Letty had picked up the stirrup, and was again hard at work with it; to +take it from her, and turn her out of the saddle-room, would scarcely +be a proper way of thanking her, scarcely an adequate mode of revealing +his estimate of the condescension of her ladyhood. For, although Letty +did make beds and chose to clean harness, Godfrey was gentleman enough +not to think her less of a lady--for the moment at least--because of +such doings: I will not say he had got so far on in the great doctrine +concerning the washing of hands as to be able to think her _more_ of a +lady for thus cleaning his stirrups. But he did see that to set the +fire-engine of indignant respect for womankind playing on the +individual woman was not the part of the man to whose service she was +humbling herself. He laid his hand on her bent head, and said: + +"I ought to be a knight of the old times, Letty, to have a lady serve +me so." + +"You're just as good, Cousin Godfrey," she rejoined, rubbing away. + +He turned from her, and left her at her work. + +He had taken no real notice of the girl before--had felt next to no +interest in her. Neither did he feel much now, save as owing her +something beyond mere acknowledgment. But was there anything now he +could do for her--anything in her he could help? He did not know. What +she really was, he could not tell. She was a fresh, bright girl--that +he seemed to have just discovered; and, as she sat polishing the +stirrup, her hair shaken about her shoulders, she looked engaging; but +whether she was one he could do anything for that was worth doing, was +hardly the less a question for those discoveries. + +"There must be _something_ in the girl!" he said to himself--then +suddenly reflected that he had never seen a book in her hand, except +her prayer-book; how _was_ he to do anything for a girl like that? For +Godfrey knew no way of doing people good without the intervention of +books. How could he get near one that had no taste for the quintessence +of humanity? How was he to offer her the only help he had, when she +desired no such help? "But," he continued, reflecting further, "she may +have thirsted, may even now be athirst, without knowing that books are +the bottles of the water of life!" Perhaps, if he could make her drink +once, she would drink again. The difficulty was, to find out what sort +of spiritual drink would be most to her taste, and would most entice +her to more. There must be some seeds lying cold and hard in her +uncultured garden; what water would soonest make them grow? Not all the +waters of Damascus will turn mere sand sifted of eternal winds into +fruitful soil; but Letty's soul could not be such. And then literature +has seed to sow as well as water for the seed sown. Letty's foolish +words about the hands that wrote poetry showed a shadow of respect for +poetry--except, indeed, the girl had been but making game of him, which +he was far from ready to believe, and for which, he said to himself, +her face was at the time much too earnest, and her hands much too busy; +he must find out whether she had any instincts, any predilections, in +the matter of poetry! + +Thus pondering, he forgot all about his projected ride, and, going up +to the study he had contrived for himself in the rambling roof of the +ancient house, began looking along the backs of his books, in search of +some suggestion of how to approach Letty; his glance fell on a +beautifully bound volume of verse--a selection of English lyrics, made +with tolerable judgment--which he had bought to give, but the very +color of which, every time his eye flitting along the book-shelves +caught it, threw a faint sickness over his heart, preluding the memory +of old pain and loss: + +"It may as well serve some one," he said, and, taking it down, carried +it with him to the saddle-room. + +Letty was not there, and the perfect order of the place somehow made +him feel she had been gone some time. He went in search of her; she +might be in the dairy. + +That was the very picture of an old-fashioned English +dairy--green-shadowy, dark, dank, and cool--floored with great +irregular slabs, mostly of green serpentine, polished into smooth +hollows by the feet of generations of mistresses and dairy-maids. Its +only light came through a small window shaded with shrubs and ivy, +which stood open, and let in the scents of bud and blossom, weaving a +net of sweetness in the gloom, through which, like a silver thread, +shot the twittering song of a bird, which had inherited the gathered +carelessness and bliss of a long ancestry in God's aviary. + +Godfrey came softly to the door, which he found standing ajar, and +peeped in. There stood Letty, warm and bright in the middle of the +dusky coolness. She had changed her dress since he saw her, and now, in +a pink-rosebud print, with the sleeves tucked above her elbows, was +skimming the cream in a great red-brown earthen pan. He pushed the door +a little, and, at its screech along the uneven floor, Letty's head +turned quickly on her lithe neck, and she saw Godfrey's brown face and +kind blue eyes where she had never seen them before. In his hand glowed +the book: some of the stronger light from behind him fell on it, and it +caught her eyes. + +"Letty," he said, "I have just come upon this book in my library: would +you care to have it?" + +"You don't mean to keep for my own, Cousin Godfrey?" cried Letty, in +sweet, childish fashion, letting the skimmer dive like a coot to the +bottom of the milk-pool, and hastily wiping her hands in her apron. Her +face had flushed rosy with pleasure, and grew rosier and brighter still +as she took the rich morocco-bound thing from Godfrey's hand into her +own. Daintily she peeped within the boards, and the gilding of the +leaves responded in light to her smile. + +"Poetry!" she cried, in a tone of delight. "Is it really for me, Cousin +Godfrey? Do you think I shall be able to understand it?" + +"You can soon settle that question for yourself," answered Godfrey, +with a pleased smile--for he augured well from this reception of his +gift--and turned to leave the dairy. + +"But, Cousin Godfrey--please!" she called after him, "you don't give me +time to thank you." + +"That will do when you are certain you care for it," he returned. + +"I care for it very _much_!" she replied. + +"How can you say that, when you don't know yet whether you will +understand it or not?" he rejoined, and closed the door. + +Letty stood motionless, the book in her hand illuminating the dusk with +gold, and warming its coolness with its crimson boards and silken +linings. One poem after another she read, nor knew how the time passed, +until the voice of her aunt in her ears warned her to finish her +skimming, and carry the jug to the pantry. But already Letty had taken +a little cream off the book also, and already, between the time she +entered and the time she left the dairy, had taken besides a fresh +start in spiritual growth. + +The next day Godfrey took an opportunity of asking her whether she had +found in the book anything she liked. To his disappointment she +mentioned one of the few commonplace things the collection contained--a +last-century production, dull and respectable, which, surely, but for +the glamour of some pleasant association, the editor would never have +included. Happily, however, he bethought himself in time not to tell +her the thing was worthless: such a word, instead of chipping the shell +in which the girl's faculty lay dormant, would have smashed the whole +egg into a miserable albuminous mass. And he was well rewarded; for, +the same day, in the evening, he heard her singing gayly over her work, +and listening discovered that she was singing verse after verse of one +of the best ballads in the whole book. She had chosen with the fancy of +pleasing Godfrey; she sang to please herself. After this discovery he +set himself in earnest to the task of developing her intellectual life, +and, daily almost, grew more interested in the endeavor. His main +object was to make her think; and for the high purpose, chiefly but not +exclusively, he employed verse. + +The main obstacle to success he soon discovered to be Letty's exceeding +distrust of herself. I would not be mistaken to mean that she had too +little confidence in herself; of that no one can have too little. +Self-distrust will only retard, while self-confidence will betray. The +man ignorant in these things will answer me, "But you must have one or +the other." "You must have neither," I reply. "You must follow the +truth, and, in that pursuit, the less one thinks about himself, the +pursuer, the better. Let him so hunger and thirst after the truth that +the dim vision of it occupies all his being, and leaves no time to +think of his hunger and his thirst. Self-forgetfulness in the reaching +out after that which is essential to us is the healthiest of mental +conditions. One has to look to his way, to his deeds, to his +conduct--not to himself. In such losing of the false, or merely +reflected, we find the true self. There is no harm in being stupid, so +long as a man does not think himself clever; no good in being clever, +if a man thinks himself so, for that is a short way to the worst +stupidity. If you think yourself clever, set yourself to do something; +then you will have a chance of humiliation." + +With good faculties, and fine instincts, Letty was always thinking she +must be wrong, just because it was she was in it--a lovely fault, no +doubt, but a fault greatly impeditive to progress, and tormenting to a +teacher. She got on very fairly in spite of it, however; and her +devotion to Godfrey, as she felt herself growing in his sight, +increased almost to a passion. Do not misunderstand me, my reader. If I +say anything grows to a passion, I mean, of course, the passion of that +thing, not of something else. Here I no more mean that her devotion +became what in novels is commonly called love, than, if I said ambition +or avarice had grown to a passion, I should mean those vices had +changed to love. Godfrey Wardour was at least ten years older than +Letty; besides him, she had not a single male relative in this +world--neither had she mother or sister on whom to let out her heart; +while of Mrs. Wardour, who was more severe on her than on any one else, +she was not a little afraid: from these causes it came that Cousin +Godfrey grew and grew in Letty's imagination, until he was to her +everything great and good--her idea of him naturally growing as she +grew herself under his influences. To her he was the heart of wisdom, +the head of knowledge, the arm of strength. + +But her worship was quiet, as the worship of maiden, in whatever kind, +ought to be. She knew nothing of what is called love except as a word, +and from sympathy with the persons in the tales she read. Any remotest +suggestion of its existence in her relation to Godfrey she would have +resented as the most offensive impertinence--an accusation of +impossible irreverence. + +By degrees Godfrey came to understand, but then only in a measure, with +what a self-refusing, impressionable nature he was dealing; and, as he +saw, he became more generous toward her, more gentle and delicate in +his ministration. Of necessity he grew more and more interested in her, +especially after he had made the discovery that the moment she laid +hold of a truth--the moment, that is, when it was no longer another's +idea but her own perception--it began to sprout in her in all +directions of practice. By nature she was not intellectually quick; +but, because such was her character, the ratio of her progress was of +necessity an increasing one. + +If Godfrey had seen in his new relation to Letty a possibility of the +revival of feelings he had supposed for ever extinguished, such a +possibility would have borne to him purely the aspect of danger; at the +mere idea of again falling in love he would have sickened with dismay; +and whether or not he had any dread of such a catastrophe, certain it +is that he behaved to her more as a pedagogue than a cousinly tutor, +insisting on a precision in all she did that might have gone far to +rouse resentment and recoil in the mind of a less childlike woman. Just +as surely, notwithstanding all that, however, did the sweet girl grow +into his heart: it _could_ not be otherwise. The idea of her was making +a nest for itself in his soul--what kind of a nest for long he did not +know, and for long did not think to inquire. Living thus, like an elder +brother with a much younger sister, he was more than satisfied, +refusing, it may be, to regard the probability of intruding change. But +how far any man and woman may have been made capable of loving without +falling in love, can be answered only after question has yielded to +history. In the mean time, Mrs. Wardour, who would have been indignant +at the notion of any equal bond between her idolized son and her +patronized cousin, neither saw, nor heard, nor suspected anything to +rouse uneasiness. + +Things were thus in the old house, when the growing affection of Letty +for Mary Marston took form one day in the request that she would make +Thornwick the goal of her Sunday walk. She repented, it is true, the +moment she had said the words, from dread of her aunt; but they had +been said, and were accepted. Mary went, and the aunt difficulty had +been got over. The friendship of Godfrey also had now run into that of +the girls, and Mary's visits were continued with pleasure to all, and +certainly with no little profit to herself; for, where the higher +nature can not communicate the greater benefit, it will reap it. Her +Sunday visit became to Mary the one foraging expedition of the +week--that which going to church ought to be, and so seldom can be. + +The beginning and main-stay of her spiritual life was, as we have seen, +her father, in whom she believed absolutely. From books and sermons she +had got little good; for in neither kind had the best come nigh her. +She did very nearly her best to obey, but without much perceiving the +splendor of the thing required, or much feeling its might upon her own +eternal nature. She was as yet, in relation to the gospel, much as the +Jews were in relation to their law; they had not yet learned the gospel +of their law, and she was yet only serving the law of the gospel. But +she was making progress, in simple and pure virtue of her obedience. +Show me the person ready to step from any, let it be the narrowest, +sect of Christian Pharisees into a freer and holier air, and I shall +look to find in that person the one of that sect who, in the midst of +its darkness and selfish worldliness, mistaken for holiness, has been +living a life more obedient than the rest. + +And now was sent Godfrey to her aid, a teacher himself far behind his +pupil, inasmuch as he was more occupied with what he was, than what he +had to become: the weakest may be sent to give the strongest saving +help; even the foolish may mediate between the wise and the wiser; and +Godfrey presented Mary to men greater than himself, whom in a short +time she would understand even better than he. Book after book he lent +her--now and then gave her one of the best--introducing her, with no +special intention, to much in the way of religion that was good in the +way of literature as well. Only where he delighted mainly in the +literature, she delighted more in the religion. Some of my readers will +be able to imagine what it must have been to a capable, clear-thinking, +warm-hearted, loving soul like Mary, hitherto in absolute ignorance of +any better religious poetry than the chapel hymn-book afforded her, to +make acquaintance with George Herbert, with Henry Vaughan, with Giles +Fletcher, with Richard Crashaw, with old Mason, not to mention Milton, +and afterward our own Father Newman and Father Faber. + +But it was by no means chiefly upon such that Godfrey led the talk on +the Sunday afternoons. A lover of all truly imaginative literature, his +knowledge of it was large, nor confined to that of his own country, +although that alone was at present available for either of his pupils. +His seclusion from what is called the world had brought him into larger +and closer contact with what is really the world. The breakers upon +reef and shore may be the ocean to some, but he who would know the +ocean indeed must leave them afar, sinking into silence, and sail into +wider and lonelier spaces. Through Godfrey, Mary came to know of a land +never promised, yet open--a land of whose nature even she had never +dreamed--a land of the spirit, flowing with milk and honey--a land of +which the fashionable world knows little more than the dwellers in the +back slums, although it imagines it lying, with the kingdoms of the +earth, at its feet. + +As regards her feeling toward her new friend, this opener of unseen +doors, the greatness of her obligation to him wrought against +presumption and any possible folly. Besides, Mary was one who possessed +power over her own spirit--rare gift, given to none but those who do +something toward the taking of it. She was able in no small measure to +order her own thoughts. Without any theory of self-rule, she yet ruled +her Self. She was not one to slip about in the saddle, or let go the +reins for a kick and a plunge or two. There was the thing that should +be, and the thing that should not be; the thing that was reasonable, +and the thing that was absurd. Add to all this, that she believed she +saw in Mr. Wardour's behavior to his cousin, in the careful gentleness +evident through all the severity of the schoolmaster, the presence of a +deeper feeling, that might one day blossom to the bliss of her +friend--and we need not wonder if Mary's heart remained calm in the +very floods of its gratitude; while the truth she gathered by aid of +the intercourse, enlarging her strength, enlarged likewise the +composure that comes of strength. She did not even trouble herself much +to show Godfrey her gratitude. We may spoil gratitude as we offer it, +by insisting on its recognition. To receive honestly is the best thanks +for a good thing. + +Nor was Godfrey without payment for what he did: the revival of ancient +benefits, a new spring-time of old flowers, and the fresh quickening of +one's own soul, are the spiritual wages of every spiritual service. In +giving, a man receives more than he gives, and the _more_ is in +proportion to the worth of the thing given. + +Mary did not encourage Letty to call at the shop, because the rudeness +of the Turnbulls was certain to break out on her departure, as it did +one day that Godfrey, dismounting at the door, and entering the shop in +quest of something for his mother, naturally shook hands with Mary over +the counter. No remark was made so long as her father was in the shop, +for, with all their professed contempt of him and his ways, the +Turnbulls stood curiously in awe of him: no one could tell what he +might or might not do, seeing they did not in the least understand him; +and there were reasons for avoiding offense. + +But the moment he retired, which he always did earlier than the rest, +the small-arms of the enemy began to go off, causing Mary a burning +cheek and indignant heart. Yet the great desire of Mr. Turnbull was a +match between George and Mary, for that would, whatever might happen, +secure the Marston money to the business. Their evil report Mary did +not carry to her father. She scorned to trouble his lofty nature with +her small annoyances; neither could they long keep down the wellspring +of her own peace, which, deeper than anger could reach, soon began to +rise again fresh in her spirit, fed from that water of life which +underlies all care. In a few moments it had cooled her cheek, stilled +her heart, and washed the wounds of offense. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +TOM HELMER. + + +When Tom Helmer's father died, his mother, who had never been able to +manage him, sent him to school to get rid of him, lamented his absence +till he returned, then writhed and fretted under his presence until +again he went. Never thereafter did those two, mother and son, meet, +whether from a separation of months or of hours, without at once +tumbling into an obstinate difference. When the youth was at home, +their sparring, to call it by a mild name, went on from morning to +night, and sometimes almost from night to morning. Primarily, of +course, the fault lay with the mother; and things would have gone far +worse, had not the youth, along with the self-will of his mother, +inherited his father's good nature. At school he was a great favorite, +and mostly had his own way, both with boys and masters, for, although a +fool, he was a pleasant fool, clever, fond of popularity, and +complaisant with everybody--except always his mother, the merest word +from whom would at once rouse all the rebel in his blood. In person he +was tall and loosely knit, with large joints and extremities. His face +was handsome and vivacious, expressing far more than was in him to +express, and giving ground for expectation such as he had never met. He +was by no means an ill-intentioned fellow, preferred doing well and +acting fairly, and neither at school nor at college had got into any +serious scrape. But he had never found it imperative to reach out after +his own ideal of duty. He had never been worthy the name of student, or +cared much for anything beyond the amusements the universities provide +so liberally, except dabbling in literature. Perhaps his only vice was +self-satisfaction--which few will admit to be a vice; remonstrance +never reached him; to himself he was ever in the right, judging himself +only by his sentiments and vague intents, never by his actions; that +these had little correspondence never struck him; it had never even +struck him that they ought to correspond. In his own eyes he did well +enough, and a good deal better. Gifted not only with fluency of speech, +that crowning glory and ruin of a fool, but with plausibility of tone +and demeanor, a confidence that imposed both on himself and on others, +and a certain dropsical impressionableness of surface which made him +seem and believe himself sympathetic, nobody could well help liking +him, and it took some time to make one accept the disappointment he +caused. + +He was now in his twenty-first year, at home, pretending that nothing +should make him go back to Oxford, and enjoying more than ever the +sport of plaguing his mother. A soul-doctor might have prescribed for +him a course of small-pox, to be followed by intermittent fever, with +nobody to wait upon him but Mrs. Gamp: after that, his mother might +have had a possible chance with him, and he with his mother. But, +unhappily, he had the best of health--supreme blessing in the eyes of +the fool whom it enables to be a worse fool still; and was altogether +the true son of his mother, who consoled herself for her absolute +failure in his moral education with the reflection that she had reared +him sound in wind and limb. Plaguing his mother, amusing himself as +best he could, riding about the country on a good mare, of which he was +proud, he was living in utter idleness, affording occasion for much +wonder that he had never yet disgraced himself. He talked to everybody +who would talk to him, and made acquaintance with anybody on the spur +of the moment's whim. He would sit on a log with a gypsy, and bamboozle +him with lies made for the purpose, then thrash him for not believing +them. He called here and called there, made himself specially agreeable +everywhere, went to every ball and evening party to which he could get +admittance in the neighborhood, and flirted with any girl who would let +him. He meant no harm, neither had done much, and was imagined by most +incapable of doing any. The strange thing to some was that he staid on +in the country, and did not go to London and run up bills for his +mother to pay; but the mare accounted for a good deal; and the fact +that almost immediately on his late return he had seen Letty and fallen +in love with her at first sight, accounted for a good deal more. Not +since then, however, had he yet been able to meet her so as only to +speak to her; for Thornwick was one of the few houses of the middle +class in the neighborhood where he was not encouraged to show himself. +He was constantly, therefore, on the watch for a chance of seeing her, +and every Sunday went to church in that same hope and no other. But +Letty knew nothing of the favor in which she stood with him; for, +although Tom had, as we have heard, confessed to her friend Mary +Marston his admiration of her, Mary had far too much good sense to make +herself his ally in the matter. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +DURNMELLING. + + +In the autumn, Mr. Mortimer of Durnmelling resolved to give a +harvest-home to his tenants, and under the protection of the occasion +to invite also a good many of his neighbors and of the townsfolk of +Testbridge, whom he could not well ask to dinner: there happened to be +a political expediency for something of the sort: America is not the +only country in which ambition opens the door to mean doings on the +part of such as count themselves gentlemen. Not a few on whom Lady +Margaret had never called, and whom she would never in any way +acknowledge again, were invited; nor did the knowledge of what it meant +cause many of them to decline the questionable honor--which fact +carried in it the best justification of which the meanness and insult +were capable. Mrs. Wardour accepted for herself and Letty; but in their +case Lady Margaret did call, and in person give the invitation. Godfrey +positively refused to accompany them. He would not be patronized, he +said; "--and by an inferior," he added to himself. + +Mr. Mortimer was the illiterate son of a literary father who had reaped +both money and fame. The son spent the former, on the strength of the +latter married an earl's daughter, and thereupon began to embody in his +own behavior his ideas of how a nobleman ought to carry himself; +whence, from being only a small, he became an objectionable man, and +failed of being amusing by making himself offensive. He had never +manifested the least approach to neighborliness with Godfrey, although +their houses were almost within a stone's throw of each other. Had +Wardour been an ordinary farmer, of whose presuming on the acquaintance +there could have been no danger, Mortimer would doubtless have behaved +differently; but as Wardour had some pretensions--namely, old family, a +small, though indeed _very_ small, property of his own, a university +education, good horses, and the habits and manners of a gentleman--the +men scarcely even saluted when they met. The Mortimer ladies, indeed, +had more than once remarked--but it was in solemn silence, each to +herself only--how well the man sat, and how easily he handled the +hunter he always rode; but not once until now had so much as a greeting +passed between them and Mrs. Wardour. It was not therefore wonderful +that Godfrey should not choose to accept their invitation. Finding, +however, that his mother was distressed at having to go to the +gathering without him, and far more exercised in her mind than was +needful as to what would be thought of his absence, and what excuse it +would be becoming to make, he resolved to go to London a day or two +before the event, and pay a long-promised visit to a clerical friend. + +The relative situation of the houses--I mean the stone-and-lime +houses--of Durnmelling and Thornwick, was curious; and that they had at +one time formed part of the same property might have suggested itself +to any beholder. Durnmelling was built by an ancestor of Godfrey's, +who, forsaking the old nest for the new, had allowed Thornwick to sink +into a mere farmhouse, in which condition it had afterward become the +sole shelter of the withered fortunes of the Wardours. In the hands of +Godfrey's father, by a continuity of judicious cares, and a succession +of partial resurrections, it had been restored to something like its +original modest dignity. Durnmelling, too, had in part sunk into ruin, +and had been but partially recovered from it; still, it swelled +important beside its antecedent Thornwick. Nothing but a deep ha-ha +separated the two houses, of which the older and smaller occupied the +higher ground. Between it and the ha-ha was nothing but grass--in front +of the house fine enough and well enough kept to be called lawn, had +not Godfrey's pride refused the word. On the lower, the Durnmelling +side of the fence, were trees, shrubbery, and out-houses--the chimney +of one of which, the laundry, gave great offense to Mrs. Wardour, when, +as she said, wind and wash came together. But, although they stood so +near, there was no lawful means of communication between the houses +except the road; and the mile that implied was seldom indeed passed by +any of the unneighborly neighbors. + +The father of Lady Margaret would at one time have purchased Thornwick +at twice its value; but the present owner could not have bought it at +half its worth. He had of late been losing money heavily--whence, in +part, arose that anxiety of Lady Margaret's not to keep Mr. Redmain +fretting for his lunch. + +The house of Durnmelling, new compared with that of Thornwick, was yet, +as I have indicated, old enough to have passed also through +vicissitudes, and a large portion of the original structure had for +many years been nothing better than a ruin. Only a portion of one side +of its huge square was occupied by the family, and the rest of that +side was not habitable. Lady Margaret, of an ancient stock, had +gathered from it only pride, not reverence; therefore, while she valued +the old, she neglected it; and what money she and her husband at one +time spent upon the house, was devoted to addition and ornamentation, +nowise to preservation or restoration. They had enlarged both +dining-room and drawing-rooms to twice their former size, when half the +expense, with a few trees from a certain outlying oak-plantation of +their own, would have given them a room fit for a regal assembly. For, +constituting a portion of the same front in which they lived, lay +roofless, open to every wind that blew, its paved floor now and then in +winter covered with snow--an ancient hall, whose massy south wall was +pierced by three lovely windows, narrow and lofty, with simple, +gracious tracery in their pointed heads. This hall connected the +habitable portion of the house with another part, less ruinous than +itself, but containing only a few rooms in occasional use for household +purposes, or, upon necessity, for quite inferior lodgment. It was a +glorious ruin, of nearly a hundred feet in length, and about half that +in width, the walls entire, and broad enough to walk round upon in +safety. Their top was accessible from a tower, which formed part of the +less ruinous portion, and contained the stair and some small rooms. + +Once, the hall was fair with portraits and armor and arms, with fire +and lights, and state and merriment; now the sculptured chimney lay +open to the weather, and the sweeping winds had made its smooth +hearthstone clean as if fire had never been there. Its floor was +covered with large flags, a little broken: these, in prospect of the +coming entertainment, a few workmen were leveling, patching, replacing. +For the tables were to be set here, and here there was to be dancing +after the meal. + +It was Miss Yolland's idea, and to her was committed the responsibility +of its preparation and adornment for the occasion, in which Hesper gave +her active assistance. With colored blankets, with carpets, with a few +pieces of old tapestry, and a quantity of old curtains, mostly of +chintz, excellent in hues and design, all cunningly arranged for as +much of harmony as could be had, they contrived to clothe the walls to +the height of six or eight feet, and so gave the weather-beaten +skeleton an air of hospitable preparation and respectful reception. + +The day and the hour arrived. It was a hot autumnal afternoon. Borne in +all sorts of vehicles, from a carriage and pair to a taxed cart, the +guests kept coming. As they came, they mostly scattered about the +place. Some loitered on the lawn by the flower-beds and the fountain; +some visited the stables and the home-farm, with its cow-houses and +dairy and piggeries; some the neglected greenhouses, and some the +equally neglected old-fashioned alleys, with their clipped yews and +their moss-grown statues. No one belonging to the house was anywhere +visible to receive them, until the great bell at length summoned them +to the plentiful meal spread in the ruined hall. "The hospitality of +some people has no roof to it," Godfrey said, when he heard of the +preparations. "Ten people will give you a dinner, for one who will +offer you a bed and a breakfast:" + +Then at last their host made his appearance, and took the head of the +table: the ladies, he said, were to have the honor of joining the +company afterward. They were at the time--but this he did not +say--giving another stratum of society a less ponderous, but yet +tolerably substantial, refreshment in the dining-room. + +By the time the eating and drinking were nearly over, the shades of +evening had gathered; but even then some few of the farmers, capable +only of drinking, grumbled at having their potations interrupted for +the dancers. These were presently joined by the company from the house, +and the great hall was crowded. + +Much to her chagrin, Mrs. Wardour had a severe headache, occasioned by +her working half the night at her dress, and was compelled to remain at +home. But she allowed Letty to go without her, which she would not have +done had she not been so anxious to have news of what she could not +lift her head to see: she sent her with an old servant--herself one of +the invited guests--to gather and report. The dancing had begun before +they reached the hall. + +Tom Helmer had arrived among the first, and had joined the tenants in +their feast, faring well, and making friends, such as he knew how to +make, with everybody in his vicinity. When the tables were removed, and +the rest of the company began to come in, he went about searching +anxiously for Letty's sweet face, but it did not appear; and, when she +did arrive, she stole in without his seeing her, and stood mingled with +the crowd about the door. + +It was a pleasant sight that met her eyes. The wide space was gayly +illuminated with colored lamps, disposed on every shelf, and in every +crevice of the walls, some of them gleaming like glow-worms out of mere +holes; while candles in sconces, and lamps on the window-sills and +wherever they could stand, gave a light the more pleasing that it was +not brilliant. Overhead, the night-sky was spangled with clear pulsing +stars, afloat in a limpid blue, vast even to awfulness in the eyes of +such--were any such there?--as say to themselves that to those worlds +also were they born. Outside, it was dark, save where the light +streamed from the great windows far into the night. The moon was not +yet up; she would rise in good time to see the scattering guests to +their homes. + +Tom's heart had been sinking, for he could see Letty nowhere. Now at +last, he had been saying to himself all the day, had come his chance! +and his chance seemed but to mock him. More than any girl he had ever +seen, had Letty moved him--perhaps because she was more unlike his +mother. He knew nothing, it is true, or next to nothing, of her nature; +but that was of little consequence to one who knew nothing, and never +troubled himself to know anything, of his own. Was he doomed never to +come near his idol?--Ah, there she was! Yes; it was she--all but lost +in a humble group near the door! His foolish heart--not foolish in +that--gave a great bound, as if it would leap to her where she stood. +She was dressed in white muslin, from which her white throat rose warm +and soft. Her head was bent forward, and a gentle dissolved smile was +over all her face, as with loveliest eyes she watched eagerly the +motions of the dance, and her ears drank in the music of the yeomanry +band. He seized the first opportunity of getting nearer to her. He had +scarcely spoken to her before, but that did not trouble Tom. Even in a +more ceremonious assembly, that would never have abashed him; and here +there was little form, and much freedom. He had, besides, confidence in +his own carriage and manners--which, indeed, were those of a +gentleman--and knew himself not likely to repel by his approach. + +Mr. Mortimer had opened the dancing by leading out the wife of his +principal tenant, a handsome matron, whose behavior and expression were +such as to give a safe, home-like feeling to the shy and doubtful of +the company. But Tom knew better than injure his chance by +precipitation: he would wait until the dancing was more general, and +the impulse to movement stronger, and then offer himself. He stood +therefore near Letty for some little time, talking to everybody, and +making himself agreeable, as was his wont, all round; then at last, as +if he had just caught sight of her, walked up to her where she stood +flushed and eager, and asked her to favor him with her hand in the next +dance. + +By this time Letty had got familiar with his presence, had recalled her +former meeting with him, had heard his name spoken by not a few who +evidently liked him, and was quite pleased when he asked her to dance +with him. + +In the dance, nothing but commonplaces passed between them; but Tom had +a certain pleasant way of his own in saying the commonest, emptiest +things--an off-hand, glancing, skimming, swallow-like way of brushing +and leaving a thing, as if he "could an' if he would," which made it +seem for the moment as if he had said something: were his companion +capable of discovering the illusion, there was no time; Tom was +instantly away, carrying him or her with him to something else. But +there was better than this--there was poetry, more than one element of +it, in Tom. In the presence of a girl that pleased him, there would +rise in him a poetic atmosphere, full of a rainbow kind of glamour, +which, first possessing himself, passed out from him and called up a +similar atmosphere, a similar glamour, about many of the girls he +talked to. This he could no more help than the grass can help smelling +sweet after the rain. + +Tom was a finely projected, well-built, unfinished, barely furnished +house, with its great central room empty, where the devil, coming and +going at his pleasure, had not yet begun to make any great racket. +There might be endless embryonic evil in him, but Letty was aware of no +repellent atmosphere about him, and did not shrink from his advances. +He pleased her, and why should she not be pleased with him? Was it a +fault to be easily pleased? The truer and sweeter any human self, the +readier is it to be pleased with another self--save, indeed, something +in it grate on the moral sense: that jars through the whole harmonious +hypostasy. To Tom, therefore, Letty responded with smiles and pleasant +words, even grateful to such a fine youth for taking notice of her +small self. + +The sun had set in a bank of cloud, which, as if he had been a lump of +leaven to it, immediately began to swell and rise, and now hung dark +and thick over the still, warm night. Even the farmers were unobservant +of the change: their crops were all in, they had eaten and drunk +heartily, and were merry, looking on or sharing in the multiform +movement, their eyes filled with light and color. + +Suddenly came a torrent-sound in the air, heard of few and heeded by +none, and straight into the hall rushed upon the gay company a deluge +of rain, mingled with large, half-melted hail-stones. In a moment or +two scarce a light was left burning, except those in the holes and +recesses of the walls. The merrymakers scattered like flies--into the +house, into the tower, into the sheds and stables in the court behind, +under the trees in front--anywhere out of the hall, where shelter was +none from the perpendicular, abandoned down-pour. + +At that moment, Letty was dancing with Tom, and her hand happened to be +in his. He clasped it tight, and, as quickly as the crowd and the +confusion of shelter-seeking would permit, led her to the door of the +tower already mentioned. But many had run in the same direction, and +already its lower story and stair were crowded with refugees--the elder +bemoaning the sudden change, and folding tight around them what poor +wraps they were fortunate enough to have retained; the younger merrier +than ever, notwithstanding the cold gusts that now poked their +spirit-arms higher and thither through the openings of the half-ruinous +building: to them even the destruction of their finery was but added +cause of laughter. But a few minutes before, its freshness had been a +keen pleasure to them, brightening their consciousness with a rare +feeling of perfection; now crushed and rumpled, soiled and wet and +torn, it was still fuel to the fire of gayety. But Tom did not stay +among them. He knew the place well; having a turn for scrambling, he +had been all over it many a time. On through the crowd, he led Letty up +the stair to the first floor. Even here were a few couples talking and +laughing in the dark. With a warning, by no means unnecessary, to mind +where they stepped, for the floors were bad, he passed on to the next +stair. + +"Let us stop here, Mr. Helmer," said Letty. "There is plenty of room +here." + +"I want to show you something," answered Tom. "You need not be +frightened. I know every nook of the place." + +"I am not frightened," said Letty, and made no further objection. + +At the top of that stair they entered a straight passage, in the middle +of which was a faint glimmer of light from an oval aperture in the side +of it. Thither Tom led Letty, and told her to look through. She did so. + +Beneath lay the great gulf, wide and deep, of the hall they had just +left. This was the little window, high in its gable, through which, in +far-away times, the lord or lady of the mansion could oversee at will +whatever went on below. + +The rain had ceased as suddenly as it came on, and already lights were +moving about in the darkness of the abyss--one, and another, and +another, was searching for something lost in the hurry of the +scattering. It was a waste and dismal show. Neither of them had read +Dante; but Letty may have thought of the hall of Belshazzar, the night +after the hand-haunted revel, when the Medes had had their will; for +she had but lately read the story. A strange fear came upon her, and +she drew back with a shudder. + +"Are you cold?" said Tom. "Of course you must be, with nothing but that +thin muslin! Shall I run down and get you a shawl?" + +"Oh, no! do not leave me, please. It's not that," answered Letty. "I +don't mind the wind a bit; it's rather pleasant. It's only that the +look of the place makes me miserable, I think. It looks as if no one +had danced there for a hundred years." + +"Neither any one has, I suppose, till to-night," said Tom. "What a fine +place it would be if only it had a roof to it! I can't think how any +one can live beside it and leave it like that!" + +But Tom lived a good deal closer to a worse ruin, and never spent a +thought on it. + +Letty shivered again. + +"I'm quite ashamed of myself," she said, trying to speak cheerfully. "I +can't think why I should feel like this--just as if something dreadful +were watching me! I'll go home, Mr. Helmer.". + +"It will be much the safest thing to do: I fear you have indeed caught +cold," replied Tom, rejoiced at the chance of accompanying her. "I +shall be delighted to see you safe." + +"There is not the least occasion for that, thank you," answered Letty. +"I have an old servant of my aunt's with me--somewhere about the place. +The storm is quite over now: I will go and find her." + +Tom made no objection, but helped her down the dark stair, hoping, +however, the servant might not be found. + +As they went, Letty seemed to herself to be walking in some old dream +of change and desertion. The tower was empty as a monument, not a trace +of the crowd left, which a few minutes before had thronged it. The wind +had risen in earnest now, and was rushing about, like a cold wild +ghost, through every cranny of the desolate place. Had Letty, when she +reached the bottom of the stairs, found herself on the rocks of the +seashore, with the waves dashing up against them, she would only have +said to herself, "I knew I was in a dream!" But the wind having blown +away the hail-cloud, the stars were again shining down into the hall. +One or two forlorn-looking searchers were still there; the rest had +scattered like the gnats. A few were already at home; some were +harnessing their horses to go, nor would wait for the man in the moon +to light his lantern; some were already trudging on foot through the +dark. Hesper and Miss Yolland were talking to two or three friends in +the drawing-room; Lady Margaret was in her boudoir, and Mr. Mortimer +smoking a cigar in his study. + +Nowhere could Letty find Susan. She was in the farmer's kitchen behind. +Tom suspected as much, but was far from hinting the possibility. Letty +found her cloak, which she had left in the hall, soaked with rain, and +thought it prudent to go home at once, nor prosecute her search for +Susan further. She accepted, therefore, Tom's renewed offer of his +company. + +They were just leaving the hall, when a thought came to Letty: the moon +suddenly appearing above the horizon had put it in her head. + +"Oh," she cried, "I know quite a short way home!" and, without waiting +any response from her companion, she turned, and led him in an opposite +direction, round, namely, by the back of the court, into a field. There +she made for a huge oak, which gloomed in the moonlight by the sunk +fence parting the grounds. In the slow strength of its growth, by the +rounding of its bole, and the spreading of its roots, it had so rent +and crumbled the wall as to make through it a little ravine, leading to +the top of the ha-ha. When they reached it, before even Tom saw it, +Letty turned from him, and was up in a moment. At the top she turned to +bid him good night, but there he was, close behind her, insisting on +seeing her safe to the house. + +"Is this the way you always come?" asked Tom. + +"I never was on Durnmelling land before," answered Letty. + +"How did you find the short-cut, then?" he asked. "It certainly does +not look as if it were much used." + +"Of course not," replied Letty. "There is no communication between +Durnmelling and Thornwick now. It was all ours once, though, Cousin +Godfrey says. Did you notice how the great oak sends its biggest arm +over our field?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I often sit there under it, when I want to learn my lesson, and +can't rest in the house; and that's how I know of the crack in the +ha-ha." + +She said it in absolute innocence, but Tom laid it up in his mind. + +"Are you at lessons still?" he said. "Have you a governess?" + +"No," she answered, in a tone of amusement. "But Cousin Godfrey teaches +me many things." + +This made Tom thoughtful; and little more had been said, when they +reached the gate of the yard behind the house, and she would not let +him go a step farther. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE OAK. + + +In the morning, as she narrated the events of the evening, she told her +aunt of the acquaintance she had made, and that he had seen her home. +This information did not please the old lady, as, indeed, without +knowing any reason, Letty had expected. Mrs. Wardour knew all about +Tom's mother, or thought she did, and knew little good; she knew also +that, although her son was a general favorite, her own son had a very +poor opinion of him. On these grounds, and without a thought of +injustice to Letty, she sharply rebuked the poor girl for allowing such +a fellow to pay her any attention, and declared that, if ever she +permitted him so much as to speak to her again, she would do something +which she left in a cloud of vaguest suggestion. + +Letty made no reply. She was hurt. Nor was it any wonder if she judged +this judgment of Tom by the injustice of the judge to herself. It was +of no consequence to her, she said to herself, whether she spoke to him +again or not; but had any one the right to compel another to behave +rudely? Only what did it matter, since there was so little chance of +her ever seeing him again! All day she felt weary and disappointed, +and, after the merrymaking of the night before, the household work was +irksome. But she would soon have got over both weariness and tedium had +her aunt been kind. It is true, she did not again refer to Tom, taking +it for granted that he was done with; but all day she kept driving +Letty from one thing to another, nor was once satisfied with anything +she did, called her even an ungrateful girl, and, before evening, had +rendered her more tired, mortified, and dispirited, than she had ever +been in her life. + +But the tormentor was no demon; she was only doing what all of us have +often done, and ought to be heartily ashamed of: she was only emptying +her fountain of bitter water. Oppressed with the dregs of her headache, +wretched because of her son's absence, who had not been a night from +home for years, annoyed that she had spent time and money in +preparation for nothing, she had allowed the said cistern to fill to +overflowing, and upon Letty it overflowed like a small deluge. Like +some of the rest of us, she never reflected how balefully her evil mood +might operate; and that all things work for good in the end, will not +cover those by whom come the offenses. Another night's rest, it is +true, sent the evil mood to sleep again for a time, but did not +exorcise it; for there are demons that go not out without prayer, and a +bad temper is one of them--a demon as contemptible, mean-spirited, and +unjust, as any in the peerage of hell--much petted, nevertheless, and +excused, by us poor lunatics who are possessed by him. Mrs. Wardour was +a lady, as the ladies of this world go, but a poor lady for the kingdom +of heaven: I should wonder much if she ranked as more than a very +common woman there. + +The next day all was quiet; and a visit paid Mrs. Wardour by a favorite +sister whom she had not seen for months, set Letty at such liberty as +she seldom had. In the afternoon she took the book Godfrey had given +her, in which he had set her one of Milton's smaller poems to study, +and sought the shadow of the Durnmelling oak. + +It was a lovely autumn day, the sun glorious as ever in the memory of +Abraham, or the author of Job, or the builder of the scaled pyramid at +Sakkara. But there was a keenness in the air notwithstanding, which +made Letty feel a little sad without knowing why, as she seated herself +to the task Cousin Godfrey had set her. She, as well as his mother, +heartily wished he were home. She was afraid of him, it is true; but in +how different a way from that in which she was afraid of his mother! +His absence did not make her feel free, and to escape from his mother +was sometimes the whole desire of her day. + +She was trying hard, not altogether successfully, to fix her attention +on her task, when a yellow leaf dropped on the very line she was poring +over. Thinking how soon the trees would be bare once more, she brushed +the leaf away, and resumed her lesson. + + "To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light," + +she had just read once more, when down fell a second tree-leaf on the +book-leaf. Again she brushed it away, and read to the end of the sonnet: + +"Hast gained thy entrance, virgin wise and pure." + +What Letty's thoughts about the sonnet were, I can not tell: how fix +thought indefinite in words defined? But her angel might well have +thought what a weary road she had to walk before she gained that +entrance. But for all of us the road _has_ to be walked, every step, +and the uttermost farthing paid. The gate will open wide to welcome us, +but it will not come to meet us. Neither is it any use to turn aside; +it only makes the road longer and harder. + +Down on the same spot fell the third leaf. Letty looked up. There was a +man in the tree over her head. She started to her feet. At the same +moment, he dropped on the ground beside her, lifting his hat as coolly +as if he had met her on the road. Her heart seemed to stand still with +fright. She stood silent, with white lips parted. + +"I hope I haven't frightened you," said Tom. "Do forgive me," he added, +becoming more aware of the perturbation he had caused her. "You were so +kind to me the other night, I could not help wanting to see you again. +I had no idea the sight of me would terrify you so." + +"You gave me such a start!" gasped Letty, with her hand pressed on her +heart. + +"I was afraid of it," answered Tom; "but what could I do? I was +certain, if you saw me coming, you would run away." + +"Why should you think that?" asked Letty, a faint color rising in her +cheek. + +"Because," answered Tom, "I was sure they would be telling you all +manner of things against me. But there is no harm in me--really, Miss +Lovel--nothing, that is, worth mentioning." + +"I am sure there isn't," said Letty; and then there was a pause. + +"What book are you reading, may I ask?" said Tom. + +Letty had now remembered her aunt's injunctions and threats; but, +partly from a kind of paralysis caused by his coolness, partly from its +being impossible to her nature to be curt with any one with whom she +was not angry, partly from mere lack of presence of mind, not knowing +what to do, yet feeling she ought to run to the house, what should she +do but drop down again on the very spot whence she had been scared! +Instantly Tom threw himself on the grass at her feet, and there lay, +looking up at her with eyes of humble admiration. + +Confused and troubled, she began to turn over the leaves of her book. +She supposed afterward she must have asked him why he stared at her so, +for the next thing she remembered was hearing him say: + +"I can't help it. You are so lovely!" + +"Please don't talk such nonsense to me," she rejoined. "I am not +lovely, and I know it. What is not true can not please anybody." + +She spoke a little angrily now. + +"I speak the truth," said Tom, quietly and earnestly. "Why should you +think I do not?" + +"Because nobody ever said so before." + +"Then it is quite time somebody should say so," returned Tom, changing +his tone. "It may be a painful fact, but even ladies ought to be told +the truth, and learn to bear it. To say you are not lovely would be a +downright lie." + +"I wish you wouldn't talk to me about myself!" said Letty, feeling +confused and improper, but not altogether displeased that it was +possible for such a mistake to be made. "I don't want to hear about +myself. It makes me so uncomfortable! I am sure it isn't right: is it, +now, Mr. Helmer?" + +As she ended, the tears rose in her eyes, partly from unanalyzed +uneasiness at the position in which she found herself and the turn the +talk had taken, partly from the discomfort of conscious disobedience. +But still she did not move. + +"I am very sorry if I have vexed you," said Tom, seeing her evident +trouble. "I can't think how I've done it. I know I didn't mean to; and +I promise you not to say a word of the kind again--if I can help it. +But tell me, Letty," he went on again, changing in tone and look and +manner, and calling her by her name with such simplicity that she never +even noticed it, "do tell me what you are reading, and that will keep +me from _talking_ about you--not from--the other thing, you know." + +"There!" said Letty, almost crossly, handing him her book, and pointing +to the sonnet, as she rose to go. + +Tom took the book, and sprang to his feet. He had never read the poem, +for Milton had not been one of his masters. He stood devouring it. He +was doing his best to lay hold of it quickly, for there Letty stood, +with her hand held out to take the book again, ready upon its +restoration to go at once. Silent and motionless, to all appearance +unhasting, he read and reread. Letty was restless, and growing quite +impatient; but still Tom read, a smile slow-spreading from his eyes +over his face; he was taking possession of the poem, he would have +said. But the shades and kinds and degrees of possession are +innumerable; and not until we downright love a thing, can we _know_ we +understand it, or rightly call it our own; Tom only admired this one; +it was all he was capable of in regard to such at present. Had the whim +for acquainting himself with it seized him in his own study, he would +have satisfied it with a far more superficial interview; but the +presence of the girl, with those eyes fixed on him as he read--his +mind's eye saw them--was for the moment an enlargement of his being, +whose phase to himself was a consciousness of ignorance. + +"It is a beautiful poem," he said at last, quite honestly; and, raising +his eyes, he looked straight in hers. There is hardly a limit to the +knowledge and sympathy a man may have in respect of the finest things, +and yet be a fool. Sympathy is not harmony. A man may be a poet even, +and speak with the tongue of an angel, and yet be a very bad fool. + +"I am sure it must be a beautiful poem," said Letty; "but I have hardly +got a hold of it yet." And she stretched her hand a little farther, as +if to proceed with its appropriation. + +But Tom was not yet prepared to part with the book. He proceeded +instead, in fluent speech and not inappropriate language, to set forth, +not the power of the poem--that he both took and left as a matter of +course--but the beauty of those phrases, and the turns of those +expressions, which particularly pleased him--nor failing to remark +that, according to the strict laws of English verse, there was in it +one bad rhyme. + +That point Letty begged him to explain, thus leading Tom to an +exposition of the laws of rhyme, in which, as far as English was +concerned, he happened to be something of an expert, partly from an +early habit of scribbling in ladies' albums. About these surface +affairs, Godfrey, understanding them better and valuing them more than +Tom, had yet taught Letty nothing, judging it premature to teach +polishing before carving; and hence this little display of knowledge on +the part of Tom impressed Letty more than was adequate--so much, +indeed, that she began to regard him as a sage, and a compeer of her +cousin Godfrey. Question followed question, and answer followed answer, +Letty feeling all the time she _must_ go, yet standing and standing, +like one in a dream, who thinks he can not, and certainly does not +break its spell--for in the act only is the ability and the deed born. +Besides, was she to go away and leave her beautiful book in his hand? +What would Godfrey think if she did? Again and again she stretched out +her own to take it, but, although he saw the motion, he held on to the +book as to his best anchor, hurriedly turned its leaves by fits and +searching for something more to his mind than anything of Milton's. +Suddenly his face brightened. + +"Ah!" he said--and remained a moment silent, reading. "I don't wonder," +he resumed, "at your admiration of Milton. He's very grand, of course, +and very musical, too; but one can't be listening to an organ always. +Not that I prefer merry music; that must be inferior, for the tone of +all the beauty in the world is sad." Much Tom Helmer knew of beauty or +sadness either! but ignorance is no reason with a fool for holding his +tongue. "But there is the violin, now!--that can be as sad as any +organ, without being so ponderous. Hear this, now! This is the violin +after the organ--played as only a master can!" + +With this preamble, he read a song of Shelley's, and read it well, for +he had a good ear for rhythm and cadence, and prided himself on his +reading of poetry. + +Now the path to Letty's heart through her intellect was neither open +nor well trodden; but the song in question was a winged one, and flew +straight thither; there was something in the tone of it that suited the +pitch of her spirit-chamber. And, if Letty's heart was not easily +found, it was the readier to confess itself when found. Her eyes filled +with tears, and through those tears Tom looked large and injured. "He +must be a poet himself to read poetry like that!" she said to herself, +and felt thoroughly assured that her aunt had wronged him greatly. +"Some people scorn poetry like sin," she said again. "I used myself to +think it was only for children, until Cousin Godfrey taught me +differently." + +As thus her thoughts went on interweaving themselves with the music, +all at once the song came to an end. Tom closed the book, handed it to +her, said, "Good morning, Miss Lovel," and ran down the rent in the +ha-ha; and, before Letty could come to herself, she heard the soft +thunder of hoofs on the grass. She ran to the edge, and, looking over, +saw Tom on his bay mare, at full gallop across the field. She watched +him as he neared the hedge and ditch that bounded it, saw him go flying +over, and lost sight of him behind a hazel-copse. Slowly, then, she +turned, and slowly she went back to the house and up to her room, +vaguely aware that a wind had begun to blow in her atmosphere, although +only the sound of it had yet reached her. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +CONFUSION. + + +Then first, and from that moment, Letty's troubles began. Up to this +point neither she herself nor another could array troublous accusation +or uneasy thought against her; and now she began to feel like a very +target, which exists but to receive the piercing of arrows. At first +sight, and if we do not look a long way ahead of what people stupidly +regard as the end when it is only an horizon, it seems hard that so +much we call evil, and so much that is evil, should result from that +unavoidable, blameless, foreordained, preconstituted, and essential +attraction which is the law of nature, that is the will of God, between +man and woman. Even if Letty had fallen in love with Tom at first +sight, who dares have the assurance to blame her? who will dare to say +that Tom was blameworthy in seeking the society and friendship, even +the love, of a woman whom in all sincerity he admired, or for using his +wits to get into her presence, and detain her a little in his company? +Reasons there are, infinitely deeper than any philosopher has yet +fathomed, or is likely to fathom, why a youth such as he--foolish, +indeed, but not foolish in this--and a sweet and blameless girl such as +Letty, should exchange regards of admiration and wonder. That which +thus moves them, and goes on to draw them closer and closer, comes with +them from the very source of their being, and is as reverend as it is +lovely, rooted in all the gentle potencies and sweet glories of +creation, and not unworthily watered with all the tears of agony and +ecstasy shed by lovers since the creation of the world. What it is, I +can not tell; I only know it is _not_ that which the young fool calls +it, still less that which the old sinner thinks it. As to Letty's +disobedience of her aunt's extravagant orders concerning Tom, I must +leave that to the judgment of the just, reminding them that she was +taken by surprise, and that, besides, it was next to impossible to obey +them. But Letty found herself very uncomfortable, because there now was +that to be known of her, the knowledge of which would highly displease +her aunt--for which very reason, if for no other, ought she not to tell +her all? On the other hand, when she recalled how unkindly, how +unjustly her aunt had spoken, when she confessed her new acquaintance, +it became to her a question whether in very deed she _must_ tell her +all that had passed that afternoon. There was no smallest hope of any +recognition of the act, surely more hard than incumbent, but severity +and unreason; _must_ she let the thing out of her hands, and yield +herself a helpless prey--and that for good to none? Concerning Mrs. +Wardour, she reasoned justly: she who is even once unjust can not +complain if the like is expected of her again. + +But, supposing it remained Letty's duty to acquaint her aunt with what +had taken place, and not forgetting that, as one of the old people, I +have to render account of the young that come after me, and must be +careful over their lovely dignities and fair duties, I yet make haste +to assert that the old people, who make it hard for the young people to +do right, may be twice as much to blame as those whom they arraign for +a concealment whose very heart is the dread of their known selfishness, +fierceness, and injustice. If children have to obey their parents or +guardians, those parents and guardians are over them in the name of +God, and they must look to it: if in the name of God they act the +devil, that will not prove a light thing for their answer. The causing +of the little ones to offend hangs a fearful woe about the neck of the +causer. It were a hard, as well as a needless task, seeing there is One +who judges, to set forth how far the child is to blame as toward the +parent, where the parent first of all is utterly wrong, yea out of true +relation, toward the child. Not, therefore, is the child free; +obligation remains--modified, it may be, but how difficult, alas, to +fulfill! And, whether Letty and such as act like her are _excusable_ or +not in keeping attentions paid them a secret, this sorrow for the good +ones of them certainly remains, that, next to a crime, a secret is the +heaviest as well as the most awkward of burdens to carry. It has to be +carried always, and all about. From morning to night it hurts in +tenderest parts, and from night to morning hurts everywhere. At any +expense, let there be openness. Take courage, my child, and speak out. +Dare to speak, I say, and that will give you strength to resist, should +disobedience become a duty. Letty's first false step was here: she said +to herself _I can not_, and did not. She lacked courage--a want in her +case not much to be wondered at, but much to be deplored, for courage +of the true sort is just as needful to the character of a woman as of a +man. Had she spoken, she might have heard true things of Tom, +sufficient so to alter her opinion of him as, at this early stage of +their intercourse, to alter the _set_ of her feelings, which now was +straight for him. It may be such an exercise of courage would have +rendered the troubles that were now to follow unnecessary to her +development. For lack of it, she went about from that time with the +haunting consciousness that she was one who might be found out; that +she was guilty of what would go a good way to justify the hard words +she had so resented. Already the secret had begun to work conscious +woe. She contrived, however, to quiet herself a little with the idea, +rather than the resolve, that, as soon as Godfrey came home, she would +tell him all, confessing, too, that she had not the courage to tell his +mother. She was sure, she said to herself, he would forgive her, would +set her at peace with herself, and be unfair neither to Mr. Helmer nor +to her. In the mean time she would take care--and this was a real +resolve, not a mere act contemplated in the future--not to go where she +might meet him again. Nor was the resolve the less genuine that, with +the very making of it, rose the memory of that delightful hour more +enticing than ever. How beautifully, and with what feeling, he read the +lovely song! With what appreciation had he not expounded Milton's +beautiful poem! Not yet was she capable of bethinking herself that it +was but on this phrase and on that he had dwelt, on this and on that +line and rhythm, enforcing their loveliness of sound and shape; while +the poem, the really important thing, the drift of the whole--it was +her own heart and conscience that revealed that to her, not the +exposition of one who at best could understand it only with his brain. +She kept to her resolve, nevertheless; and, although Tom, leaving his +horse now here now there, to avoid attracting attention, almost every +day visited the oak, he looked in vain for the light of her approach. +Disappointment increased his longing: what would he not have given to +see once more one of those exquisite smiles break out in its perfect +blossom! He kept going and going--haunted the oak, sure of some blessed +chance at last. It was the first time in his life he had followed one +idea for a whole fortnight. + +At length Godfrey came. But, although all the time he was away Letty +had retained and contemplated with tolerable calmness the idea of +making her confession to him, the moment she saw him she felt such +confession impossible. It was a sad discovery to her. Hitherto Godfrey, +and especially of late, had been the chief source of the peace and +interest of her life, that portion of her life, namely, to which all +the rest of it looked as its sky, its overhanging betterness--and now +she felt before him like a culprit: she had done what he might be +displeased with. Nay, would that were all! for she felt like a +hypocrite: she had done that which she could not confess. Again and +again, while Godfrey was away, she had flattered herself that the help +the objectionable Tom had given her with her task would at once +recommend him to Godfrey's favorable regard; but now that she looked in +Godfrey's face, she was aware--she did not know why, but she was aware +it would not be so. Besides, she plainly saw that the same fact would, +almost of necessity, lead him to imagine there had been much more +between them than was the case; and she argued with herself, that, now +there was nothing, now that everything was over, it would be a pity if, +because of what she could not help, and what would never be again, +there should arise anything, however small, of a misunderstanding +between her cousin Godfrey and her. + +The moment Godfrey saw her, he knew that something was the matter; but +there had been that going on in him which put him on a false track for +the explanation. Scarcely had he, on his departure for London, turned +his back on Thornwick, ere he found he was leaving one whom yet he +could not leave behind him. Every hour of his absence he found his +thoughts with the sweet face and ministering hands of his humble pupil. +Therewith, however, it was nowise revealed to him that he was in love +with her. He thought of her only as his younger sister, loving, +clinging, obedient. So dear was she to him, he thought, that he would +rejoice to secure her happiness at any cost to himself. _Any_ cost? he +asked--and reflected. Yes, he answered himself--even the cost of giving +her to a better man. The thing was sure to come, he thought--nor +thought without a keen pang, scarcely eased by the dignity of the +self-denial that would yield her with a smile. But such a crisis was +far away, and there was no necessity for now contemplating it. Indeed, +there was no _certainty_ it would ever arrive; it was only a +possibility. The child was not beautiful, although to him she was +lovely, and, being also penniless, was therefore not likely to attract +attention; while, if her being unfolded under the genial influences he +was doing his best to make powerful upon her, if she grew aware that by +them her life was enlarging and being tenfold enriched, it was possible +she might not be ready to fall in love, and leave Thornwick. He must be +careful, however, he said to himself, quite plainly now, that his +behavior should lead her into no error. He was not afraid she might +fall in love with him; he was not so full of himself as that; but he +recoiled from the idea, as from a humiliation, that she might imagine +him in love with her. It was not merely that he had loved once for all, +and, once deceived and forsaken, would love no more; but it was not for +him, a man of thirty years, to bow beneath the yoke of a girl of +eighteen--a child in everything except outward growth. Not for a moment +would he be imagined by her a courtier for her favor. + +Thus, even in the heart of one so far above ordinary men as Godfrey, +and that in respect of the sweetest of child-maidens, pride had its +evil place; and no good ever comes of pride, for it is the meanest of +mean things, and no one but he who is full of it thinks it grand. For +its sake this wise man was firmly resolved on caution; and so, when at +last they met, it was no more with that _abandon_ of simple pleasure +with which he had been wont to receive her when she came knocking at +the door of his study, bearing clear question or formless perplexity; +and his restraint would of itself have been enough to make Letty, whose +heart was now beating in a very thicket of nerves, at once feel it +impossible to carry out her intent--impossible to confess to him any +more than to his mother; while Godfrey, on his part, perceiving her +manifest shyness and unwonted embarrassment, attributed them altogether +to his own wisely guarded behavior, and, seeing therein no sign of loss +of influence, continued his caution. Thus the pride, which is of man, +mingled with the love, which is of God, and polluted it. From that hour +he began to lord it over the girl; and this change in his behavior +immediately reacted on himself, in the obscure perception that there +might be danger to her in continued freedom of intercourse: he must, +therefore, he concluded, order the way for both; he must take care of +her as well as of himself. But was it consistent with this resolve that +he should, for a whole month, spend every leisure moment in working at +a present for her--a written marvel of neatness and legibility? + +Again, by this meeting askance, as it were, another disintegrating +force was called into operation: the moment Letty knew she could not +tell Godfrey, and that therefore a wall had arisen between him and her, +that moment woke in her the desire, as she had never felt it before, to +see Tom Helmer. She could no longer bear to be shut up in herself; she +must see somebody, get near to somebody, talk to somebody; her secret +would choke her otherwise, would swell and break her heart; and who was +there to think of but Tom--and Mary Marston? + +She had never once gone to the oak again, but she had not altogether +avoided a certain little cobwebbed gable-window in the garret, from +which it was visible; neither had she withheld her hands from cleaning +a pane in that window, that through it she might see the oak; and +there, more than once or twice, now thickening the huge limb, now +spotting the grass beneath it, she had descried a dark object, which +could be nothing else than Tom Helmer on the watch for herself. He must +surely be her friend, she reasoned, or how would he care, day after +day, to climb a tree to look if she were coming--she who was the +veriest nobody in all other eyes but his? It was so good of Tom! She +_would_ call him Tom; everybody else called him Tom, and why shouldn't +she--to herself, when nobody was near? As to Mary Marston, she treated +her like a child! When she told her that she had met Tom at +Durnmelling, and how kind he had been, she looked as grave as if it had +been wicked to be civil to him; and told her in return how he and his +mother were always quarreling: that must be his mother's fault, she was +sure-it could not be Tom's; any one might see that at a glance! His +mother must be something like her aunt! But, after that, how could she +tell Mary any more? It would not be fair to Tom, for, like the rest, +she would certainly begin to abuse him. What harm could come of it? +and, if harm did, how could she help it! If they had been kind to her, +she would have told them everything, but they all frightened her so, +she could not speak. It was not her fault if Tom was the only friend +she had! She _would_ ask his advice; he was sure to advise her just the +right thing. He had read that sonnet about the wise virgin with such +feeling and such force, he _must_ know what a girl ought to do, and how +she ought to behave to those who were unkind and would not trust her. + +Poor Letty! she had no stay, no root in herself yet. Well do I know not +one human being ought, even were it possible, to be enough for himself; +each of us needs God and every human soul he has made, before he has +enough; but we ought each to be able, in the hope of what is one day to +come, to endure for a time, not having enough. Letty was unblamable +that she desired the comfort of humanity around her soul, but I am not +sure that she was quite unblamable in not being fit to walk a few steps +alone, or even to sit still and expect. With all his learning, Godfrey +had not taught her what William Marston had taught Mary; and now her +heart was like a child left alone in a great room. She had not yet +learned that we must each bear his own burden, and so become able to +bear each the burden of the other. Poor friends we are, if we are +capable only of leaning, and able never to support. + +But the moment Letty's heart had thus cried out against Mary, came a +shock, and something else cried out against herself, telling her that +she was not fair to her friend, and that Mary, and no other, was the +proper person to advise with in this emergency of her affairs. She had +no right to turn from her because she was a little afraid of her. +Perhaps Letty was on the point of discovering that to be unable to bear +disapproval was an unworthy weakness. But in her case it came nowise of +the pride which blame stirs to resentment, but altogether of the +self-depreciation which disapproval rouses to yet greater dispiriting. +Praise was to her a precious thing, in part because it made her feel as +if she could go on; blame, a misery, in part because it made her feel +as if all was of no use, she never could do anything right. She had not +yet learned that the right is the right, come of praise or blame what +may. The right will produce more right and be its own reward--in the +end a reward altogether infinite, for God will meet it with what is +deeper than all right, namely, perfect love. But the more Letty +thought, the more she was sure she must tell Mary; and, disapprove as +she might, Mary was a very different object of alarm from either her +aunt or her cousin Godfrey. + +The first afternoon, therefore, on which she thought her aunt could +spare her, she begged leave to go and see Mary. Mrs. Wardour yielded +it, but not very graciously. She had, indeed, granted that Miss Marston +was not like other shop-girls, but she did not favor the growth of the +intimacy, and liked Letty's going to her less than Mary's coming to +Thornwick. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE HEATH AND THE HUT. + + +Letty seldom went into the shop, except to buy, for she knew Mr. +Turnbull would not like it, and Mary did not encourage it; but now her +misery made her bold. Mary saw the trouble in her eyes, and without a +moment's hesitation drew her inside the counter, and thence into the +house, where she led the way to her own room, up stairs and through +passages which were indeed lanes through masses of merchandise, like +those cut through deep-drifted snow. It was shop all over the house, +till they came to the door of Mary's chamber, which, opening from such +surroundings, had upon Letty much the effect of a chapel--and rightly, +for it was a room not unused to having its door shut. It was small, and +plainly but daintily furnished, with no foolish excess of the small +refinements on which girls so often set value, spending large time on +what it would be waste to buy: only they have to kill the weary captive +they know not how to redeem, for he troubles them with his moans. + +"Sit down, Letty dear, and tell me what is the matter," said Mary, +placing her friend in a chintz-covered straw chair, and seating herself +beside her. + +Letty burst into tears, and sat sobbing. + +"Come, dear, tell me all about it," insisted Mary. "If you don't make +haste, they will be calling me." + +Letty could not speak. + +"Then I'll tell you what," said Mary; "you must stop with me to-night, +that we may have time to talk it over. You sit here and amuse yourself +as well as you can till the shop is shut, and then we shall have such a +talk! I will send your tea up here. Beenie will be good to you." + +"Oh, but, indeed, I can't!" sobbed Letty; "my aunt would never forgive +me." + +"You silly child! I never meant to keep you without sending to your +aunt to let her know." + +"She won't let me stop," persisted Letty. + +"We will try her," said Mary, confidently; and, without more ado, left +Letty, and, going to her desk in the shop, wrote a note to Mrs. +Wardour. This she gave to Beenie to send by special messenger to +Thornwick; after which, she told her, she must take up a nice tea to +Miss Lovel in her bedroom. Mary then resumed her place in the shop, +under the frowns and side-glances of Turnbull, and the smile of her +father, pleased at her reappearance from even such a short absence. + +But the return, in an hour or so, of the boy-messenger, whom Beenie had +taken care not to pay beforehand, destroyed the hope of a pleasant +evening; for he brought a note from Mrs. Wardour, absolutely refusing +to allow Letty to spend the night from home: she must return +immediately, so as to get in before dark. + +The rare anger flushed Letty's cheek and flashed from her eyes as she +read; for, in addition to the prime annoyance, her aunt's note was +addressed to her and not to Mary, to whom it did not even allude. Mary +only smiled inwardly at this, but Letty felt deeply hurt, and her +displeasure with her aunt added yet a shade to the dimness of her +judgment. She rose at once. + +"Will you not tell me first what is troubling you, Letty?" said Mary. + +"No, dear, not now," replied Letty, caring a good deal less about the +right ordering of her way than when she entered the house. Why should +she care, she said to herself--but it was her anger speaking in +her--how she behaved, when she was treated so abominably? + +"Then I will come and see you on Sunday," said Mary; "and then we shall +manage to have our talk." + +They kissed and parted--Letty unaware that she had given her friend a +less warm kiss than usual. There can hardly be a plainer proof of the +lowness of our nature, until we have laid hold of the higher nature +that belongs to us by birthright, than this, that even a just anger +tends to make us unjust and unkind: Letty was angry with every person +and thing at Thornwick, and unkind to her best friend, for whose sake +in part she was angry. With glowing cheeks, tear-filled eyes, and +indignant heart she set out on her walk home. + +It was a still evening, with a great cloud rising in the southwest; +from which, as the sun drew near the horizon, a thin veil stretched +over the sky between, and a few drops came scattering. This was in +harmony with Letty's mood. Her soul was clouded, and her heaven was +only a place for the rain to fall from. Annoyance, doubt, her new sense +of constraint, and a wide-reaching, undefined feeling of homelessness, +all wrought together to make her mind a chaos out of which misshapen +things might rise, instead of an ordered world in which gracious and +reasonable shapes appear. For as the place such will be the thoughts +that spring there; when all in us is peace divine, then, and not till +then, shall we think the absolutely reasonable. Alas, that by our +thoughtlessness or unkindness we should so often be the cause of +monster-births, and those even in the minds of the loved! that we +should be, if but for a moment, the demons that deform a fair world +that loves us! Such was Mrs. Wardour, with her worldly wisdom, that day +to Letty. + +About half-way to Thornwick, the path crossed a little heathy common; +and just as Letty left the hedge-guarded field-side, and through a gate +stepped, as it were, afresh out of doors on the open common, the wind +came with a burst, and brought the rain in earnest. It was not yet very +heavy, but heavy enough, with the wind at its back, and she with no +defense but her parasol, to wet her thoroughly before she could reach +any shelter, the nearest being a solitary, decrepit old hawthorn-tree, +about half-way across the common. She bent her head to the blast, and +walked on. She had no desire for shelter. She would like to get wet to +the skin, take a violent cold, go into a consumption, and die in a +fortnight. The wind whistled about her bonnet, dashed the rain-drops +clanging on the drum-tight silk of her parasol, and made of her skirts +fetters and chains. She could hardly get along, and was just going to +take down her parasol, when suddenly, where was neither house nor hedge +nor tree, came a lull. For from behind, over head and parasol, had come +an umbrella, and now came a voice and an audible sigh of pleasure. + +"I little thought when I left home this afternoon," said the voice, +"that I should have such a happiness before night!" + +At the sound of the voice Letty gave a cry, which ran through all the +shapes of alarm, of surprise, of delight; and it was not much of a cry +either. + +"O Tom!" she said, and clasped the arm that held the umbrella. How her +foolish heart bounded! Here was help when she had sought none, and +where least she had hoped for any! Her aunt would have her run from +under the umbrella at once, no doubt, but she would do as she pleased +this time. Here was Tom getting as wet as a spaniel for her sake, and +counting it a happiness! Oh, to have a friend like that--all to +herself! She would not reject such a friend for all the aunts in +creation. Besides, it was her aunt's own fault; if she had let her stay +with Mary, she would not have met Tom. It was not her doing; she would +take what was sent her, and enjoy it! But, at the sound of her own +voice calling him Tom, the blood rushed to her cheeks, and she felt +their glow in the heart of the chill-beating rain. + +"What a night for you to be out in, Letty," responded Tom, taking +instant advantage of the right she had given him. "How lucky it was I +chose the right place to watch in at last! I was sure, if only I +persevered long enough, I should be rewarded." + +"Have you been waiting for me long?" asked Letty, with foolish +acceptance. + +"A fortnight and a day," answered Tom, with a laugh. "But I would wait +a long year for such another chance as this." And he pressed to his +side the hand upon his arm. "Fate is indeed kind to-night." + +"Hardly in the weather," said Letty, fast recovering her spirits. + +"Not?" said Tom, with seeming pretense of indignation. "Let any one but +yourself dare to say a word against the weather of this night, and he +will have me to reckon with. It's the sweetest weather I ever walked +in. I will write a glorious song in praise of showery gusts and bare +commons." + +"Do," said Letty, careful not to say Tom this time, but unwilling to +revert to Mr. Helmer, "and mind you bring in the umbrella." + +"That I will! See if I don't!" answered Tom. + +"And make it real poetry too?" asked Letty, looking archly round the +stick of the umbrella. + +"Thou shalt thyself be the lovely critic, fair maiden!" answered Tom. + +And thus they were already on the footing of somewhere about a two +years' acquaintance--thanks to the smart of ill-usage in Letty's bosom, +the gayety in Tom's, the sudden wild weather, the quiet heath, the +gathering shades, and the umbrella! The wind blew cold, the air was +dank and chill, the west was a low gleam of wet yellow, and the rain +shot stinging in their faces; but Letty cared quite as little for it +all as Tom did, for her heart, growing warm with the comfort of the +friendly presence, felt like a banished soul that has found a world; +and a joy as of endless deliverance pervaded her being. And neither to +her nor to Tom must we deny our sympathy in the pleasure which, walking +over a bog, they drew from the flowers that mantled awful deeps; they +will not sink until they stop, and begin to build their house upon it. +Within that umbrella, hovered, and glided with them, an atmosphere of +bliss and peace and rose-odors. In the midst of storm and coming +darkness, it closed warm and genial around the pair. Tom meditated no +guile, and Letty had no deceit in her. Yet was Tom no true man, or +sweet Letty much of a woman. Neither of them was yet _of the truth._ + +At the other side of the heath, almost upon the path, stood a deserted +hut; door and window were gone, but the roof remained: just as they +neared it, the wind fell, and the rain began to come down in earnest. + +"Let us go in here for a moment," said Tom, "and get our breath for a +new fight." + +Letty said nothing, but Tom felt she was reluctant. + +"Not a soul will pass to-night," he said. "We mustn't get wet to the +skin." + +Letty felt, or fancied, refusal would be more unmaidenly than consent, +and allowed Tom to lead her in. And there, within those dismal walls, +the twilight sinking into a cheerless night of rain, encouraged by the +very dreariness and obscurity of the place, she told Tom the trouble of +mind their interview at the oak was causing her, saying that now it +would be worse than ever, for it was altogether impossible to confess +that she had met him yet again that evening. + +So now, indeed, Letty's foot was in the snare: she had a secret with +Tom. Every time she saw him, liberty had withdrawn a pace. There was no +room for confession now. If a secret held be a burden, a secret shared +is a fetter. But Tom's heart rejoiced within him. + +"Let me see!--How old are you, Letty?" he asked gayly. + +"Eighteen past," she answered. + +"Then you are fit to judge for yourself. You ain't a child, and they +are not your father and mother. What right have they to know everything +you do? I wouldn't let any such nonsense trouble me." + +"But they give me everything, you know--food, and clothes, and all." + +"Ah, just so!" returned Tom. "And what do you do for them?" + +"Nothing." + +"Why! what are you about all day?" + +Letty gave him a brief sketch of her day. + +"And you call that nothing?" exclaimed Tom. "Ain't that enough to pay +for your food and your clothes? Does it want your private affairs to +make up the difference? Or have you to pay for your food and clothes +with your very thoughts?--What pocket-money do they give you?" + +"Pocket-money?" returned Letty, as if she did not quite know what he +meant. + +"Money to do what you like with," explained Tom. + +Letty thought for a moment. + +"Cousin Godfrey gave me a sovereign last Christmas," she answered. "I +have got ten shillings of it yet." + +Tom burst into a merry laugh. + +"Oh, you dear creature!" he cried. "What a sweet slave you make! The +lowest servant on the farm gets wages, and you get none: yet you think +yourself bound to tell them everything, because they give you food and +clothes, and a sovereign last Christmas!" + +Here a gentle displeasure arose in the heart of the girl, hitherto so +contented and grateful. She did not care about money, but she resented +the claim her conscience made for them upon her confidence. She did not +reflect that such claim had never been made by them; nor that the fact +that she felt the claim, proved that she had been treated, in some +measure at least, like a daughter of the house. + +"Why," continued Tom, "it is mere, downright, rank slavery! You are +walking to the sound of your own chains. Of course, you are not to do +anything wrong, but you are not bound not to do anything they may +happen not to like." + +In this style he went on, believing he spoke the truth, and was +teaching her to show a proper spirit. His heart, as well as Godfrey's, +was uplifted, to think he had this lovely creature to direct and +superintend: through her sweet confidence, he had to set her free from +unjust oppression taking advantage of her simplicity. But in very truth +he was giving her just the instruction that goes to make a slave--the +slave in heart, who serves without devotion, and serves unworthily. Yet +in this, and much more such poverty-stricken, swine-husk argument, +Letty seemed to hear a gospel of liberty, and scarcely needed the +following injunctions of Tom, to make a firm resolve not to utter a +word concerning him. To do so would be treacherous to him, and would be +to forfeit the liberty he had taught her! Thus, from the neglect of a +real duty, she became the slave of a false one. + +"If you do," Tom had said, "I shall never see you again: they will set +every one about the place to watch you, like so many cats after one +poor little white mousey, and on the least suspicion, one way or +another, you will be gobbled up, as sure as fate, before you can get to +me to take care of you." + +Letty looked up at him gratefully. + +"But what could you do for me if I did?" she asked. "If my aunt were to +turn me out of the house, your mother would not take me in!" + +Letty was not herself now; she was herself and Tom--by no means a +healthful combination. + +"My mother won't be mistress long," answered Tom. "She will have to do +as I bid her when I am one-and-twenty, and that will be in a few +months." Tom did not know the terms of his father's will. "In the mean +time we must keep quiet, you know. I don't want a row--we have plenty +of row as it is. You may be sure _I_ shall tell no one how I spent the +happiest hour of my life. How little circumstance has to do with +bliss!" he added, with a philosophical sigh. "Here we are in a wretched +hut, roared and rained upon by an equinoctial tempest, and I am in +paradise!" + +"I must go home," said Letty, recalled to a sense of her situation, yet +set trembling with pleasure, by his words. "See, it is getting quite +dark!" + +"Don't be afraid, my white bird," said Tom. "I will see you home. But +surely you are as well here as there anyhow! Who knows when we shall +meet again? Don't be alarmed; I'm not going to ask you to meet me +anywhere; I know your sweet innocence would make you fancy it wrong, +and then you would be unhappy. But that is no reason why I should not +fall in with you when I have the chance. It is very hard that two +people who understand each other can not be friends without other +people shoving in their ugly beaks! Where is the harm to any one if we +choose to have a few minutes' talk together now and then?" + +"Where, indeed?" responded Letty shyly. + +A tall shadow--no shadow either, but the very person of Godfrey +Wardour--passed the opening in the wall of the hut where once had been +a window, and the gloom it cast into the dusk within was awful and +ominous. The moment he saw it, Tom threw himself flat on the clay floor +of the hut. Godfrey stopped at the doorless entrance, and stood on the +threshold, bending his head to clear the lintel as he looked in. +Letty's heart seemed to vanish from her body. A strange feeling shook +her, as if some mysterious transformation were about to pass upon her +whole frame, and she were about to be changed into some one of the +lower animals. The question, where was the harm, late so triumphantly +put, seemed to have no heart in it now. For a moment that had to Letty +the air of an aeon, Godfrey stood peering. + +Not a little to his displeasure, he had heard from his mother of her +refusal to grant Letty's request, and had set out in the hope of +meeting and helping her home, for by that time it had begun to rain, +and looked stormy. + +In the darkness he saw something white, and, as he gazed, it grew to +Letty's face. The strange, scared, ghastly expression of it bewildered +him. + +Letty became aware that Godfrey did not recognize her at first, and the +hope sprung up in her heart that he might not see Tom at all; but she +could not utter a word, and stood returning Godfrey's gaze like one +fascinated with terror. Presently her heart began again to bear witness +in violent piston-strokes. + +"Is it really you, my child?" said Godfrey, in an uncertain voice--for, +if it was indeed she, why did she not speak, and why did she look so +scared at the sight of him? + +"O Cousin Godfrey!" gasped Letty, then first finding a little voice, +"you gave me such a start!" + +"Why should you be so startled at seeing me, Letty?" he returned. "Am I +such a monster of the darkness, then?" + +"You came all at once," replied Letty, gathering courage from the +playfulness of his tone, "and blocked up the door with your shoulders, +so that not a ray of light fell on your face; and how was I to know it +was you, Cousin Godfrey?" + +From a paleness grayer than death, her face was now red as fire; it was +the burning of the lie inside her. She felt all a lie now: there was +the good that Tom had brought her! But the gloom was friendly. With a +resolution new to herself, she went up to Godfrey and said: + +"If you are going to the town, let me walk with you, Cousin Godfrey. It +is getting so dark." + +She felt as if an evil necessity--a thing in which man must not +believe--were driving her. But the poor child was not half so deceitful +inside as the words seemed to her issuing from her lips. It was such a +relief to be assured Godfrey had not seen Tom, that she felt as if she +could forego the sight of Tom for evermore. Her better feelings rushed +back, her old confidence and reverence; and, in the altogether +nebulo-chaotic condition of her mind, she felt as if, in his turn, +Godfrey had just appeared for her deliverance. + +"I am not going to the town, Letty," he answered. "I came to meet you, +and we will go home together. It is no use waiting for the rain to +stop, and about as little to put up an umbrella, I have brought your +waterproof, and we must just take it as it comes." + +The wind was up again, and the next moment Letty, on Godfrey's arm, was +struggling with the same storm she had so lately encountered leaning on +Tom's, while Tom was only too glad to be left alone on the floor of the +dismal hut, whence he did not venture to rise for some time, lest any +the most improbable thing should happen, to bring Mr. Wardour back. He +was as mortally afraid of being discovered as any young thief in a +farmer's orchard. + +He had a dreary walk back to the public house where he had stabled his +horse; but he trudged it cheerfully, brooding with delight on Letty's +beauty, and her lovely confidence in Tom Helmer--a personage whom he +had begun to feel nobody trusted as he deserved. + +"Poor child!" he said to himself--he as well as Godfrey patronized +her--"what a doleful walk home she will have with that stuck-up old +bachelor fellow!" + +Nor, indeed, was it a very comfortable walk home she had, although +Godfrey talked all the way, as well as a head-wind, full of rain, would +permit. A few weeks ago she would have thought the walk and the talk +and everything delightful. But after Tom's airy converse on the same +level with herself, Godfrey's sounded indeed wise--very wise--but dull, +so dull! It is true the suspicion, hardly awake enough to be troublous, +lay somewhere in her, that in Godfrey's talk there was a value of which +in Tom's there was nothing; but then it was not wisdom Letty was in +want of, she thought, but somebody to be kind to her--as kind as she +should like; somebody, though she did not say this even to herself, to +pet her a little, and humor her, and not require too much of her. +Physically, Letty was not in the least lazy, but she did not enjoy +being forced to think much. She could think, and to no very poor +purpose either, but as yet she had no hunger for the possible results +of thought, and how then could she care to think? Seated on the edge of +her bed, weary and wet and self-accused, she recalled, and pondered, +and, after her faculty, compared the two scarce comparable men, until +the voice of her aunt, calling to her to make haste and come to tea, +made her start up, and in haste remove her drenched garments. The old +lady imagined from her delay she was out of temper because she had sent +for her home; but, when she appeared, she was so ready, so attentive, +and so quick to help, that, a little repentant, she said to herself, +"Really the girl is very good-natured!" as if then first she discovered +the fact. But Thornwick could never more to Letty feel like a home! Not +at peace with herself, she could not be in rhythmic relation with her +surroundings. + +The next day, the old manner of life began again; but, alas! it was +only the old manner, it was not the old life; that was gone for ever, +like an old sunset, or an old song, and could not be recalled from the +dead. We may have better, but we can not have the same. God only can +have the same. God grant our new may inwrap our old! Letty labored more +than ever to lay hold of the lessons, to his mind so genial, in hers +bringing forth more labor than fruit, which Godfrey set before her, but +success seemed further from her than ever. She was now all the time +aware of a weight, an oppression, which seemed to belong to the task, +but was in reality her self-dissatisfaction. She was like a poor Hebrew +set to make brick without straw, but the Egyptian that had brought her +into bondage was the feebleness of her own will. Now and then would +come a break--a glow of beauty, a gleam of truth; for a moment she +would forget herself; for a moment a shining pool would flash on the +clouded sea of her life; presently her heart would send up a fresh +mist, the light would fade and vanish, and the sea lie dusky and sad. +Not seldom reproaching herself with having given Tom cause to think +unjustly of her guardians, she would try harder than ever to please her +aunt; and the small personal services she had been in the way of +rendering to Godfrey were now ministered with the care of a devotee. +Not once should he miss a button from a shirt or find a sock +insufficiently darned! But even this conscience of service did not make +her happy. Duty itself could not, where faith was wanting, where the +heart was not at one with those to whom the hands were servants. She +would cry herself to sleep, and rise early to be sad. She resolved at +last, and seemed to gain strength and some peace from the resolve, to +do all in her power to avoid Tom; and certainly not once did she try to +meet him. Not with him, she could resist him. + +Thus it went on. Her aunt saw that something was amiss, and watched +her, without attempt at concealment, which added greatly to Letty's +discomfort. But the only thing her keenness discovered was, that the +girl was forwardly eager to please Godfrey, and the conviction began to +grow that she was indulging the impudent presumption of being in love +with her peerless cousin. Then maternal indignation misled her into the +folly of dropping hints that should put Godfrey on his guard: men were +so easily taken in by designing girls! She did not say much; but she +said a good deal too much for her own ends, when she caused her fancy +to present itself to the mind of Godfrey. + +He had not failed, no one could have failed, to observe the dejection +that had for some time ruled every feature and expression of the girl's +countenance. Again and again he had asked himself whether she might not +be fancying him displeased with her; for he knew well that, becoming +more and more aware of what he counted his danger, he had kept of late +stricter guard than ever over his behavior; but, watching her now with +the misleading light of his mother's lantern, nor quite unwilling, I am +bound to confess, that the thing might be as she implied, he became by +degrees convinced that she was right. + +So far as this, perhaps, the man was pardonable--with a mother to cause +him to err. But, for what followed, punishment was inevitable. He had a +true and strong affection for the girl, but it was an affection as from +conscious high to low; an affection, that is, not unmixed with +patronage--a bad thing--far worse than it can seem to the heart that +indulges it. He still recoiled, therefore, from the idea of such a +leveling of himself as he counted it would be to show her anything like +the love of a lover. All pride is more or less mean, but one pride may +be grander than another, and Godfrey was not herein proud in any grand +way. Good fellow as he was, he thought much too much of himself; and, +unconsciously comparing it with Letty's, altogether overvalued his +worth. Stranger than any bedfellow misery ever acquainted a man withal, +are the heart-fellows he carries about with him. Noble as in many ways +Wardour was, and kind as, to Letty, he thought he always was, he was +not generous toward her; he was not Prince Arthur, "the Knight of +Magnificence." Something may perhaps be allowed on the score of the +early experience because of which he had resolved--pridefully, it is +true--never again to come under the power of a woman; it was unworthy +of any man, he said, to place his peace in a hand which could +thenceforth wring his whole being with agony. But, had he now brought +himself as severely to task as he ought, he would have discovered that +he was making no objection to the little girl's loving him, only he +would not love her in the same way in return; and where was the honor +in that? Doubtless, had he thus examined himself, he would have thought +he meant to take care that the child's love for him should not go too +far--should not endanger her peace; and that, if the thing should give +her trouble, it should be his business to comfort her in it; but +descend he would not--would not _yet_--from his pedestal, to meet the +silly thing on the level ground of humanity, and the relation of the +man and the woman! Something like this, I say, he would have found in +his heart, horrid as it reads. That heart's action was not even, was +not healthy. + +When in London he had ransacked Holywell Street for dainty editions of +so many of his favorite authors as would make quite a little library +for Letty; and on his return, had commissioned a cabinet-maker in +Testbridge to put together a small set of book-shelves, after his own +design, measured and fitted to receive them exactly; these shelves, now +ready, he fastened to her wall one afternoon when she was out of the +way, and filled them with the books. He never doubted that, the moment +she saw them, she would rush to find him; and, when he had done, +retreated, therefore, to his study, there to sit in readiness to +receive her and her gratitude with gentle kindness; when he would +express the hope that she would make real friends of the spirits whose +quintessence he had thus stored to her hand; and would introduce her to +what Milton says in his "Areopagitica" concerning good books. There, +for her sake, then, he sat, in mental state, expectant; but sat in +vain. When they met at tea, then, in the presence of his mother, with +embarrassment and broken utterance, she did thank him. + +"O Cousin Godfrey!" she said, and ceased; then, "It is so much more +than I deserve, I dare hardly thank you." After another pause, with a +shake of her pretty head, as if she would toss aside her hair, or the +tears out of her eyes, "I don't know--I seem to have no right to thank +you; I ought not to have such a splendid present. Indeed, I don't +deserve it. You would not give it me if you knew how naughty I am." + +These broken sentences were by both mother and son altogether +misinterpreted. The mother, now hearing for the first time of Godfrey's +present, was filled with jealousy, and began to revolve thoughts of +dire disquietude: was the hussy actually beginning to gain her point, +and steal from her the heart of her son? Was it in the girl's blood to +wrong her? The father of her had wronged her: she would take care his +daughter should not! She had taken a viper to her bosom! Who was _she_, +to wriggle herself into an old family and property? Had _she_ been born +to such things? She would teach her who she was! When dependents began +to presume, it was time they had a lesson. + +Letty could not bear the sight of the books and their shelves; the very +beauty of the bindings was a reproach to her. From the misery of this +fresh burden, this new stirring of her sense of hypocrisy, she began to +wish herself anywhere out of the house, and away from Thornwick. It was +torture to her to think how she had deceived Cousin Godfrey at the hut; +and throughout the night, across the darkness, she felt, though she +could not see, the books gazing at her, like an embodied conscience, +from the wall of her chamber. Twenty times that night she started from +her sleep, saying, "I will go where they shall never see me"; then rose +with the dawn, and set herself to the hardest work she could find. + +The next day was Sunday, and they all went to church. Letty felt that +Tom was there, too, but she never raised her eyes to glance at him. + +He had been looking out in vain for a sight of her--now from the +oak-tree, now from his bay mare's back, as he haunted the roads about +Thornwick, now from the window of the little public-house where the +path across the fields joined the main road to Testbridge: but not once +had he caught a glimpse of her. + +He had seated himself where he could not fail to see her if she were in +the Thornwick pew. How ill she looked! His heart swelled with +indignation. + +"They are cruel to her," he said; "that is plain. Poor girl, they will +kill her! She is a pearl in the oyster-maw of Thornwick. This will +never do; I _must_ see her somehow!" + +If at this crisis Letty had but had a real friend to strengthen and +advise her, much suffering might have been spared her, for never was +there a more teachable girl. She was, indeed, only too ready to be +advised, too ready to accept for true whatever friendship offered +itself. None but the friend who will strengthen us to stand, is worthy +of the name. Such a friend Mary would have been, but Letty did not yet +know what she needed. The unrest of her conscience made her shrink from +one who was sure to side with that conscience, and help it to trouble +her. It was sympathy Letty longed for, not strength, and therefore she +was afraid of Mary. She came to see her, as she had promised, the +Sunday after that disastrous visit; but the weather was still uncertain +and gusty, and she found both her and Godfrey in the parlor; nor did +Letty give her a chance of speaking to her alone. The poor girl had now +far more on her mind that needed help than then when she went in search +of it, but she would seek it no more from her! For, the more she +thought, the surer she felt that Mary would insist on her making a +disclosure of the whole foolish business to Mrs. Wardour, and would +admit neither her own fear nor her aunt's harshness as reason +sufficient to the contrary. "More than that," thought Letty, "I can't +be sure she wouldn't go, in spite of me, and tell her all about it! and +what would become of me then? I should be worse off a hundred times +than if I had told her myself." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +WILLIAM MARSTON. + + +The clouds were gathering over Mary, too--deep and dark, but of +altogether another kind from those that enveloped Letty: no troubles +are for one moment to be compared with those that come of the +wrongness, even if it be not wickedness, that is our own. Some clouds +rise from stagnant bogs and fens; others from the wide, clean, large +ocean. But either kind, thank God, will serve the angels to come down +by. In the old stories of celestial visitants the clouds do much; and +it is oftenest of all down the misty slope of griefs and pains and +fears, that the most powerful joy slides into the hearts of men and +women and children. Beautiful are the feet of the men of science on the +dust-heaps of the world, but the patient heart will yield a myriad +times greater thanks for the clouds that give foothold to the shining +angels. + +Few people were interested in William Marston. Of those who saw him in +the shop, most turned from him to his jolly partner. But a few there +were who, some by instinct, some from experience, did look for him +behind the counter, and were disappointed if he were absent: most of +them had a repugnance to the over-complaisant Turnbull. Yet Marston was +the one whom the wise world of Testbridge called the hypocrite, and +Turnbull was the plain-spoken, agreeable, honest man of the world, +pretending to be no better either than himself or than other people. +The few friends, however, that Marston bad, loved him as not many are +loved: they knew him, not as he seemed to the careless eye, but as he +was. Never did man do less either to conceal or to manifest himself. He +was all taken up with what he loved, and that was neither himself nor +his business. These friends knew that, when the far-away look was on +him, when his face was paler, and he seemed unaware of person or thing +about him, he was not indifferent to their presence, or careless of +their existence; it was only that his thoughts were out, like heavenly +bees, foraging; a word of direct address brought him back in a moment, +and his soul would return to them with a smile. He stood as one on the +keystone of a bridge, and held communion now with these, now with +those: on this side the river and on that, both companies were his own. + +He was not a man of much education, in the vulgar use of the word; but +he was a good way on in that education, for the sake of which, and for +no other without it, we are here in our consciousness--the education +which, once begun, will, soon or slow, lead knowledge captive, and +teaches nothing that has to be unlearned again, because every flower of +it scatters the seed of one better than itself. The main secret of his +progress, the secret of all wisdom, was, that with him action was the +beginning and end of thought. He was not one of that cloud of false +witnesses, who, calling themselves Christians, take no trouble for the +end for which Christ was born, namely, their salvation from +unrighteousness--a class that may be divided into the insipid and the +offensive, both regardless of obedience, the former indifferent to, the +latter contentious for doctrine. + +It may well seem strange that such a man should have gone into business +with such another as John Turnbull; but the latter had been growing +more and more common, while Marston had been growing more and more +refined. Still from the first it was an unequal yoking of believer with +unbeliever--just as certainly, although not with quite such wretched +results, as would have been the marriage of Mary Marston and George +Turnbull. And it had been a great trial: punishment had not been +spared--with best results in patience and purification; for so are our +false steps turned back to good by the evil to which they lead us. +Turnbull was ready to take every safe advantage to be gained from his +partner's comparative carelessness about money. He drew a larger +proportion of the profits than belonged to his share in the capital, +justifying himself on the ground that he had a much larger family, did +more of the business, and had to keep up the standing of the firm. He +made him pay more than was reasonable for the small part of the house +yielded from storage to the accommodation of him, his daughter, and +their servant, notwithstanding that, if they had not lived there, some +one must have been paid to do so. Far more than this, careless of his +partner's rights, and insensible to his interests, he had for some time +been risking the whole affair by private speculations. After all, +Marston was the safer man of business, even from the worldly point of +view. Alone, it is true, he would hardly have made money, but he would +have got through, and would have left his daughter the means of getting +through also; for he would have left her in possession of her own peace +and the confidence of her friends, which will always prove enough for +those who confess themselves to be strangers and pilgrims on the +earth--those who regard it as a grand staircase they have to climb, not +a plain on which to build their houses and plant their vineyards. + +As to the peculiar doctrines of the sect to which he had joined +himself, right or wrong in themselves, Marston, after having complied +with what seemed to him the letter of the law concerning baptism, gave +himself no further trouble. He had for a long time known--for, by the +power of the life in him, he had gathered from the Scriptures the +finest of the wheat, where so many of every sect, great church and +little church, gather only the husks and chaff--that the only baptism +of any avail is the washing of the fresh birth, and the making new by +that breath of God, which, breathed into man's nostrils, first made of +him a living soul. When a man _knows_ this, potentially he knows all +things. But, _just therefore_, he did not stand high with his sect any +more than with his customers, though--a fact which Marston himself +never suspected--the influence of his position had made them choose him +for a deacon. One evening George had had leave to go home early, +because of a party at _the villa_, as the Turnbulls always called their +house; and, the boy having also for some cause got leave of absence, +Mr. Marston was left to shut the shop himself, Mary, who was in some +respects the stronger of the two, assisting him. When he had put up the +last shutter, he dropped his arms with a weary sigh. Mary, who had been +fastening the bolts inside, met him in the doorway. + +"You look worn out, father," she said. "Come and lie down, and I will +read to you." + +"I will, my dear," he answered. "I don't feel quite myself to-night. +The seasons tell upon me now. I suppose the stuff of my tabernacle is +wearing thin." + +Mary cast an anxious look at him, for, though never a strong man, he +seldom complained. But she said nothing, and, hoping a good cup of tea +would restore him, led the way through the dark shop to the door +communicating with the house. Often as she had passed through it thus, +the picture of it as she saw it that night was the only one almost that +returned to her afterward: a few vague streaks of light, from the +cracks of the shutters, fed the rich, warm gloom of the place; one of +them fell upon a piece of orange-colored cotton stuff, which blazed in +the dark. + +Arrived at their little sitting-room at the top of the stair, she +hastened to shake up the pillows and make the sofa comfortable for him. +He lay down, and she covered him with a rug; then ran to her room for a +book, and read to him while Beenie was getting the tea. She chose a +poem with which Mr. Wardour had made her acquainted almost the last +tune she was at Thornwick--that was several weeks ago now, for plainly +Letty was not so glad to see her as she used to be--it was Milton's +little ode "On Time," written for inscription on a clock--one of the +grandest of small poems. Her father knew next to nothing of literature; +having pondered his New Testament, however, for thirty years, he was +capable of understanding Milton's best--to the childlike mind the best +is always simplest and easiest-not unfrequently the _only_ kind it can +lay hold of. When she ended, he made her read it again, and then again; +not until she had read it six times did he seem content. And every time +she read it, Mary found herself understanding it better. It was +gradually growing very precious. + +Her father had made no remark; but, when she lifted her eyes from the +sixth reading, she saw that his face shone, and, as the last words left +her lips, he took up the line like a refrain, and repeated it after her: + +"'Triumphing over death, and chance, and thee, O Time!' + +"That will do now, Mary, I thank you," he said. "I have got a good hold +of it, I think, and shall be able to comfort myself with it when I wake +in the night. The man must have been very like the apostle Paul." + +He said no more. The tea was brought, and he drank a cup of it, but +could not eat; and, as he could not, neither could Mary. + +"I want a long sleep," he said; and the words went to his child's +heart--she dared not question herself why. When the tea-things were +removed, he called her. + +"Mary," he said, "come here. I want to speak to you." + +She kneeled beside him, + +"Mary," he said again, taking her little hand in his two long, bony +ones, "I love you, my child, to that degree I can not say; and I want +you, I do want you, to be a Christian." + +"So do I, father dear," answered Mary simply, the tears rushing into +her eyes at the thought that perhaps she was not one; "I want me to be +a Christian." + +"Yes, my love," he went on; "but it is not that I do not think you a +Christian; it is that I want you to be a downright real Christian, not +one that is but trying to feel as a Christian ought to feel. I have +lost so much precious time in that way!" + +"Tell me--tell me," cried Mary, clasping her other hand over his. "What +would you have me do?" + +"I will tell you. I am just trying how," he responded. "A Christian is +just one that does what the Lord Jesus tells him. Neither more nor less +than that makes a Christian. It is not even understanding the Lord +Jesus that makes one a Christian. That makes one dear to the Father; +but it is being a Christian, that is, doing what he tells us, that +makes us understand him. Peter says the Holy Spirit is given to them +that obey him: what else is that but just actually, really, doing what +he says--just as if I was to tell you to go and fetch me my Bible, and +you would get up and go? Did you ever do anything, my child, just +because Jesus told you to do it?" + +Mary did not answer immediately. She thought awhile. Then she spoke. + +"Yes, father," she said, "I think so. Two nights ago, George was very +rude to me--I don't mean anything bad, but you know he is very rough." + +"I know it, my child. And you must not think I don't care because I +think it better not to interfere. I am with you all the time." + +"Thank you, father; I know it. Well, when I was going to bed, I was +angry with him still, so it was no wonder I found I could not say my +prayers. Then I remembered how Jesus said we must forgive or we should +not be forgiven. So I forgave him with all my heart, and kindly, too, +and then I found I could pray." + +The father stretched out his arms and drew her to his bosom, murmuring, +"My child! my Christ's child!" After a little he began to talk again. + +"It is a miserable thing to hear those who desire to believe themselves +Christians, talking and talking about this question and that, the +discussion of which is all for strife and nowise for unity--not a +thought among them of the one command of Christ, to love one another. I +fear some are hardly content with not hating those who differ from +them." + +"I am sure, father, I try--and I think I do love everybody that loves +him," said Mary. + +"Well, that is much--not enough though, my child. We must be like +Jesus, and you know that it was while we were yet sinners that Christ +died for us; therefore we must love all men, whether they are +Christians or not." + +"Tell me, then, what you want me to do, father dear. I will do whatever +you tell me." + +"I want you to be just like that to the Lord Christ, Mary. I want you +to look out for his will, and find it, and do it. I want you not only +to do it, though that is the main thing, when you think of it, but to +look for it, that you may do it. I need not say to you that this is not +a thing to be _talked_ about much, for you don't do that. You may think +me very silent, my love; but I do not talk always when I am inclined, +for the fear I might let my feeling out that way, instead of doing +something he wants of me with it. And how repulsive and full of offense +those generally are who talk most! Our strength ought to go into +conduct, not into talk--least of all, into talk about what they call +the doctrines of the gospel. The man who does what God tells him, sits +at his Father's feet, and looks up in his Father's face; and men had +better leave him alone, for he can not greatly mistake his Father, and +certainly will not displease him. Look for the lovely will, my child, +that you may be its servant, its priest, its sister, its queen, its +slave--as Paul calls himself. How that man did glory in his Master!" + +"I will try, father," returned Mary, with a burst of tears. "I do want +to be good. I do want to be one of his slaves, if I may." + +"_May!_ my child? You are bound to be. You have no choice but choose +it. It is what we are made for--freedom, the divine nature, God's life, +a grand, pure, open-eyed existence! It is what Christ died for. You +must not talk about _may;_ it is all _must._" + +Mary had never heard her father talk like this, and, notwithstanding +the endless interest of his words, it frightened her. An instinctive +uneasiness crept up and laid hold of her. The unsealing hand of Death +was opening the mouth of a dumb prophet. + +A pause followed, and he spoke again. + +"I will tell you one thing now that Jesus says: he is unchangeable; +what he says once he says always; and I mention it now, because it may +not be long before you are specially called to mind it. It is this: +_'Let not your heart be troubled.'_" + +"But he said that on one particular occasion, and to his disciples--did +he not?" said Mary, willing, in her dread, to give the conversation a +turn. + +"Ah, Mary!" said her father, with a smile, "_will_ you let the +questioning spirit deafen you to the teaching one? Ask yourself, the +first time you are alone, what the disciples were not to be troubled +about, and why they were not to be troubled about it.--I am tired, and +should like to go to bed." + +He rose, and stood for a moment in front of the fire, winding his old +double-cased silver watch. Mary took from her side the little gold one +he had given her, and, as was her custom, handed it to him to wind for +her. The next moment he had dropped it on the fender. + +"Ah, my child!" he cried, and, stooping, gathered up a dying thing, +whose watchfulness was all over. The glass was broken; the case was +open; it lay in his hand a mangled creature. Mary heard the rush of its +departing life, as the wheels went whirring, and the hands circled +rapidly. + +They stopped motionless. She looked up in her father's face with a +smile. He was looking concerned. + +"I am very sorry, Mary," he said; "but, if it is past repair, I will +get you another.--You don't seem to mind it much!" he added, and smiled +himself. + +"Why should I, father dear?" she replied. "When one's father breaks +one's watch, what is there to say but 'I am very glad it was you did +it'? I shall like the little thing the better for it." + +He kissed her on the forehead. + +"My child, say that to your Father in heaven, when he breaks something +for you. He will do it from love, not from blundering. I don't often +preach to you, my child--do I? but somehow it comes to me to-night." + +"I will remember, father," said Mary; and she did remember. + +She went with him to his bedroom, and saw that everything was right for +him. When she went again, before going to her own, he felt more +comfortable, he said, and expected to have a good night. Relieved, she +left him; but her heart would be heavy. A shapeless sadness seemed +pressing it down; it was being got ready for what it had to bear. + +When she went to his room in the middle of the night, she found him +slumbering peacefully, and went back to her own and slept better. When +she went again in the morning, he lay white, motionless, and without a +breath. + +It was not in Mary's nature to give sudden vent to her feelings. For a +time she was stunned. As if her life had rushed to overtake her +departing parent, and beg a last embrace, she stood gazing motionless. +The sorrow was too huge for entrance. The thing could not be! Not until +she stooped and kissed the pale face, did the stone in her bosom break, +and yield a torrent of grief. But, although she had left her father in +that very spot the night before, already she not only knew but felt +that was not he which lay where she had left him. He was gone, and she +was alone. She tried to pray, but her heart seemed to lie dead in her +bosom, and no prayer would rise from it. It was the time of all times +when, if ever, prayer must be the one reasonable thing--and pray she +could not. In her dull stupor she did not hear Beenie's knock. The old +woman entered, and found her on her knees, with her forehead on one of +the dead hands, while the white face of her master lay looking up to +heaven, as if praying for the living not yet privileged to die. Then +first was the peace of death broken. Beenie gave a loud cry, and turned +and ran, as if to warn the neighbors that Death was loose in the town. +Thereupon, as if Death were a wild beast yet lurking in it, the house +was filled with noise and tumult; the sanctuary of the dead was invaded +by unhallowed presence; and the poor girl, hearing behind her voices +she did not love, raised herself from her knees, and, without lifting +her eyes, crept from the room and away to her own. + +"Follow her, George," said his father, in a loud, eager whisper. +"You've got to comfort her now. That's your business, George. There's +your chance!" + +The last words he called from the bottom of the stair, as George sped +up after her. "Mary! Mary, dear," he called as he ran. + +But Mary had the instinct--it was hardly more--to quicken her pace, and +lock the door of her room the moment she entered. As she turned from +it, her eye fell upon her watch--where it lay, silent and disfigured, +on her dressing-table; and, with the sight, the last words of her +father came back to her. She fell again on her knees with a fresh burst +of weeping, and, while the foolish youth was knocking unheard at her +door, cried, with a strange mixture of agony and comfort, "O my Father +in heaven, give me back William Marston!" Never in his life had she +thought of her father by his name; but death, while it made him dearer +than ever, set him away from her so, that she began to see him in his +larger individuality, as a man before the God of men, a son before the +Father of many sons: Death turns a man's sons and daughters into his +brothers and sisters. And while she kneeled, and, with exhausted heart, +let her brain go on working of itself, as it seemed, came a dreamy +vision of the Saviour with his disciples about him, reasoning with them +that they should not give way to grief. "Let not your heart be +troubled," he seemed to be saying, "although I die, and go out of your +sight. It is all well. Take my word for it." + +She rose, wiped her eyes, looked up, said, "I will try, Lord," and, +going down, called Beenie, and sent her to ask Mr. Turnbull to speak +with her. She knew her father's ideas, and must do her endeavor to have +the funeral as simple as possible. It was a relief to have something, +anything, to do in his name. + +Mr. Turnbull came, and the coarse man was kind. It went not a little +against the grain with him to order what he called a pauper's funeral +for the junior partner in the firm; but, more desirous than ever to +conciliate Mary, he promised all that she wished. + +"Marston was but a poor-spirited fellow," he said to his wife when he +told her; "the thing is a disgrace to the shop, but it's fit enough for +him.--It will be so much money saved," he added in self-consolation, +while his wife turned up her nose, as she always did at any mention of +the shop. + +Mary returned to her father's room, now silent again with the air of +that which is not. She took from the table the old silver watch. It +went on measuring the time by a scale now useless to its owner. She +placed it lovingly in her bosom, and sat down by the bedside. Already, +through love, sorrow, and obedience, she began to find herself drawing +nearer to him than she had ever been before; already she was able to +recall his last words, and strengthen her resolve to keep them. And, +sitting thus, holding vague companionship with the merely mortal, the +presence of that which was not her father, which was like him only to +remind her that it was not he, and which must so soon cease to resemble +him, there sprang, as in the very footprint of Death, yet another +flower of rarest comfort--a strong feeling, namely, of the briefness of +time, and the certainty of the messenger's return to fetch herself. Her +soul did not sink into peace, but a strange peace awoke in her spirit. +She heard the spring of the great clock that measures the years rushing +rapidly down with a feverous whir, and saw the hands that measure the +weeks and months careering around its face; while Death, like one of +the white-robed angels in the tomb of the Lord, sat watching, with +patient smile, for the hour when he should be wanted to go for her. +Thus mingled her broken watch, her father's death, and Jean Paul's +dream; and the fancy might well comfort her. + +I will not linger much more over the crumbling time. It is good for +those who are in it, specially good for those who come out of it +chastened and resolved; but I doubt if any prolonged contemplation of +death is desirable for those whose business it now is to live, and +whose fate it is ere long to die. It is a closing of God's hand upon us +to squeeze some of the bad blood out of us, and, when it relaxes, we +must live the more diligently--not to get ready for death, but to get +more life. I will relate only one thing yet, belonging to this twilight +time. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +MARY'S DREAM. + + +That night, and every night until the dust was laid to the dust, Mary +slept well; and through the days she had great composure; but, when the +funeral was over, came a collapse and a change. The moment it became +necessary to look on the world as unchanged, and resume former +relations with it, then, first, a fuller sense of her lonely desolation +declared itself. When she said good night to Beenie, and went to her +chamber, over that where the loved parent and friend would fall asleep +no more, she felt as if she went walking along to her tomb. + +That night was the first herald of the coming winter, and blew a cold +blast from his horn. All day the wind had been out. Wildly in the +churchyard it had pulled at the long grass, as if it would tear it from +its roots in the graves; it had struck vague sounds, as from a hollow +world, out of the great bell overhead in the huge tower; and it had +beat loud and fierce against the corner-buttresses which went +stretching up out of the earth, like arms to hold steady and fast the +lighthouse of the dead above the sea which held them drowned below; +despairingly had the gray clouds drifted over the sky; and, like white +clouds pinioned below, and shadows that could not escape, the surplice +of the ministering priest and the garments of the mourners had flapped +and fluttered as in captive terror; the only still things were the +coffin and the church--and the soul which had risen above the region of +storms in the might of Him who abolished death. At the time Mary had +noted nothing of these things; now she saw them all, as for the first +time, in minute detail, while slowly she went up the stair and through +the narrowed ways, and heard the same wind that raved alike about the +new grave and the old house, into which latter, for all the bales +banked against the walls, it found many a chink of entrance. The smell +of the linen, of the blue cloth, and of the brown paper--things no +longer to be handled by those tender, faithful hands--was dismal and +strange, and haunted her like things that intruded, things which she +had done with, and which yet would not go away. Everything had gone +dead, as it seemed, had exhaled the soul of it, and retained but the +odor of its mortality. If for a moment a thing looked the same as +before, she wondered vaguely, unconsciously, how it could be. The +passages through the merchandise, left only wide enough for one, seemed +like those she had read of in Egyptian tombs and pyramids: a +sarcophagus ought to be waiting in her chamber. When she opened the +door of it, the bright fire, which Beenie undesired had kindled there, +startled her: the room looked unnatural, _uncanny_, because it was +cheerful. She stood for a moment on the hearth, and in sad, dreamy mood +listened to the howling swoops of the wind, making the house quiver and +shake. Now and then would come a greater gust, and rattle the window as +if in fierce anger at its exclusion, then go shrieking and wailing +through the dark heaven. Mechanically she took her New Testament, and, +seating herself in a low chair by the fire, tried to read; but she +could not fix her thoughts, or get the meaning of a sentence: when she +had read it, there it lay, looking at her just the same, like an +unanswered riddle. + +The region of the senses is the unbelieving part of the human soul; and +out of that now began to rise fumes of doubt and question into Mary's +heart and brain. Death was a fact. The loss, the evanishment, the +ceasing, were incontrovertible--the only incontrovertible things: she +was sure of them: could she be sure of anything else? How could she? +She had not seen Christ rise; she had never looked upon one of the +dead; never heard a voice from the other bank; had received no certain +testimony. These were not her thoughts; she was too weary to think; +they were but the thoughts that steamed up in her, and went floating +about before her; she looked on them calmly, coldly, as they came, and +passed, or remained--saw them with indifference--there they were, and +she could not help it--weariedly, believing none of them, unable to +cope with and dispel them, hardly affected by their presence, save with +a sense of dreariness and loneliness and wretched company. At last she +fell asleep, and in a moment was dreaming diligently. This was her +dream, as nearly as she could recall it, when she came to herself after +waking from it with a cry. + +She was one of a large company at a house where she had never been +before--a beautiful house with a large garden behind. It was a summer +night, and the guests were wandering in and out at will, and through +house and garden, amid lovely things of all colors and odors. The moon +was shining, and the roses were in pale bloom. But she knew nobody, and +wandered alone in the garden, oppressed with something she did not +understand. Every now and then she came on a little group, or met a +party of the guests, as she walked, but none spoke to her, or seemed to +see her, and she spoke to none. + +She found herself at length in an avenue of dark trees, the end of +which was far off. Thither she went walking, the only living thing, +crossing strange shadows from the moon. At the end of it she was in a +place of tombs. Terror and a dismay indescribable seized her; she +turned and fled back to the company of her kind. But for a long time +she sought the house in vain; she could not reach it; the avenue seemed +interminable to her feet returning. At last she was again upon the +lawn, but neither man nor woman was there; and in the house only a +light here and there was burning. Every guest was gone. She entered, +and the servants, soft-footed and silent, were busy carrying away the +vessels of hospitality, and restoring order, as if already they +prepared for another company on the morrow. No one heeded her. She was +out of place, and much unwelcome. She hastened to the door of entrance, +for every moment there was a misery. She reached the hall. A strange, +shadowy porter opened to her, and she stepped out into a wide street. + +That, too, was silent. No carriage rolled along the center, no +footfarer walked on the side. Not a light shone from window or door, +save what they gave back of the yellow light of the moon. She was +lost--lost utterly, with an eternal loss. She knew nothing of the +place, had nowhere to go, nowhere she wanted to go, had not a thought +to tell her what question to ask, if she met a living soul. But living +soul there could be none to meet. She had nor home, nor direction, nor +desire; she knew of nothing that she had lost, nor of anything she +wished to gain; she had nothing left but the sense that she was empty, +that she needed some goal, and had none. She sat down upon a stone +between the wide street and the wide pavement, and saw the moon shining +gray upon the stone houses. It was all deadness. + +Presently, from somewhere in the moonlight, appeared, walking up to +her, where she sat in eternal listlessness, the one only brother she +had ever had. She had lost him years and years before, and now she saw +him; he was there, and she knew him. But not a throb went through her +heart. He came to her side, and she gave him no greeting. "Why should I +heed him?" she said to herself. "He is dead. I am only in a dream. This +is not he; it is but his pitiful phantom that comes wandering hither--a +ghost without a heart, made out of the moonlight. It is nothing. I am +nothing. I am lost. Everything is an empty dream of loss. I know it, +and there is no waking. If there were, surely the sight of him would +give me some shimmer of delight. The old time was but a thicker dream, +and this is truer because more shadowy." And, the form still standing +by her, she felt it was ages away; she was divided from it by a gulf of +very nothingness. Her only life was, that she was lost. Her whole +consciousness was merest, all but abstract, loss. + +Then came the form of her mother, and bent over that of her brother +from behind. "Another ghost of a ghost! another shadow of a phantom!" +she said to herself. "She is nothing to me. If I speak to her, she is +not there. Shall I pour out my soul into the ear of a mist, a fume from +my own brain? Oh, cold creatures, ye are not what ye seem, and I will +none of you!" + +With that, came her father, and stood beside the others, gazing upon +her with still, cold eyes, expressing only a pale quiet. She bowed her +face on her hands, and would not regard him. Even if he were alive, her +heart was past being moved. It was settled into stone. The universe was +sunk in one of the dreams that haunt the sleep of death; and, if these +were ghosts at all, they were ghosts walking in their sleep. + +But the dead, one of them seized one of her hands, and another the +other. They raised her to her feet, and led her along, and her brother +walked before. Thus was she borne away captive of her dead, neither +willing nor unwilling, of life and death equally careless. Through the +moonlight they led her from the city, and over fields, and through +valleys, and across rivers and seas--a long journey; nor did she grow +weary, for there was not life enough in her to be made weary. The dead +never spoke to her, and she never spoke to them. Sometimes it seemed as +if they spoke to each other, but, if it were so, it concerned some +shadowy matter, no more to her than the talk of grasshoppers in the +field, or of beetles that weave their much-involved dances on the face +of the pool. Their voices were even too thin and remote to rouse her to +listen. + +They came at length to a great mountain, and, as they were going up the +mountain, light began to grow, as if the sun were beginning to rise. +But she cared as little for the sun that was to light the day as for +the moon that had lighted the night, and closed her eyes, that she +might cover her soul with her eyelids. + +Of a sudden a great splendor burst upon her, and through her eyelids +she was struck blind--blind with light and not with darkness, for all +was radiance about her. She was like a fish in a sea of light. But she +neither loved the light nor mourned the shadow. + +Then were her ears invaded with a confused murmur, as of the mingling +of all sweet sounds of the earth--of wind and water, of bird and voice, +of string and metal--all afar and indistinct. Next arose about her a +whispering, as of winged insects, talking with human voices; but she +listened to nothing, and heard nothing of what was said: it was all a +tiresome dream, out of which whether she waked or died it mattered not. + +Suddenly she was taken between two hands, and lifted, and seated upon +knees like a child, and she felt that some one was looking at her. Then +came a voice, one that she never heard before, yet with which she was +as familiar as with the sound of the blowing wind. And the voice said, +"Poor child! something has closed the valve between her heart and +mine." With that came a pang of intense pain. But it was her own cry of +speechless delight that woke her from her dream. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE HUMAN SACRIFICE. + + +The same wind that rushed about the funeral of William Marston in the +old churchyard of Testbridge, howled in the roofless hall and ruined +tower of Durnmelling, and dashed against the plate-glass windows of the +dining-room, where the three ladies sat at lunch. Immediately it was +over, Lady Malice rose, saying: + +"Hesper, I want a word with you. Come to my room." + +Hesper obeyed, with calmness, but without a doubt that evil awaited her +there. To that room she had never been summoned for anything she could +call good. And indeed she knew well enough what evil it was that to-day +played the Minotaur. When they reached the boudoir, rightly so called, +for it was more in use for _sulking_ than for anything else, Lady +Margaret, with back as straight as the door she had just closed, led +the way to the fire, and, seating herself, motioned Hesper to a chair. +Hesper again obeyed, looking as unconcerned as if she cared for nothing +in this world or in any other. Would we were all as strong to suppress +hate and fear and anxiety as some ladies are to suppress all show of +them! Such a woman looks to me like an automaton, in which a human +soul, somewhere concealed, tries to play a good game of life, and makes +a sad mess of it. + +"Well, Hesper, what do you think?" said her mother, with a dull attempt +at gayety, which could nowise impose upon the experience of her +daughter. + +"I think nothing, mamma," drawled Hesper. + +"Mr. Redmain has come to the point at last, my dear child." + +"What point, mamma?" + +"He had a private interview with your father this morning." + +"Indeed!" + +"Foolish girl! you think to tease me by pretending indifference!" + +"How can a fact be pretended, mamma? Why should I care what passes in +the study? I was never welcome there. But, if you wish, I will pretend. +What important matter was settled in the study this morning?" + +"Hesper, you provoke me with your affectation!" + +Hesper's eyes began to flash. Otherwise she was still--silent--not a +feature moved. The eyes are more untamable than the tongue. When the +wild beast can not get out at the door, nothing can keep him from the +windows. The eyes flash when the will is yet lord even of the lines of +the mouth. Not a nerve of Hesper's quivered. Though a mere child in the +knowledge that concerned her own being, even the knowledge of what is +commonly called the heart, she was yet a mistress of the art of +self-defense, socially applied, and she would not now put herself at +the disadvantage of taking anything for granted, or accept the clearest +hint for a plain statement. She not merely continued silent, but looked +so utterly void of interest, or desire to speak, that her mother, +recognizing her own child, and quailing before the evil spirit she had +herself sent on to the generations to come, yielded and spoke out. + +"Mr. Redmain has proposed for your hand, Hesper," she said, in a tone +as indifferent in her turn as if she were mentioning the appointment of +a new clergyman to the family living. + +For one moment, and one only, the repose of Hesper's faultless upper +lip gave way; one writhing movement of scorn passed along its curves, +and left them for a moment straightened out--to return presently to a +grander bend than before. In a tone that emulated, and more than +equaled, the indifference of her mother's, she answered: + +"And papa?" + +"Has referred him to you, of course," replied Lady Margaret. + +"Meaning it?" + +"What else? Why not? Is he not a _bon parli?_" + +"Then papa did not mean it?" + +"I do not understand you," elaborated the mother, with a mingled yawn, +which she was far from attempting to suppress, seeing she simulated it. + +"If Mr. Redmain is such a good match in papa's eyes," explained Hesper, +"why does papa refer him to me?" + +"That you may accept him, of course." + +"How much has the man promised to pay for me?" + +"_Hesper!_" + +"I beg your pardon, mamma. I thought you approved of calling things by +their right names!" + +"No girl can do better than follow her mother's example," said Lady +Margaret, with vague sequence. "If _you_ do, Hesper, you will accept +Mr. Redmain." + +Hesper fixed her eyes on her mother, but hers were too cold and clear +to quail before them, let them flash and burn as they pleased. + +"As you did papa?" said Hesper. + +"As I did Mr. Mortimer." + +"That explains a good deal, mamma." + +"We are _your_ parents, anyhow, Hesper." + +"I suppose so. I don't know which to be sorrier for--you or me. Tell +me, mamma: would _you_ marry Mr. Redmain?" + +"That is a foolish question, and ought not to be put. It is one which, +as a married woman, I could not consider without impropriety. Knowing +the duty of a daughter, I did not put the question to _you_. You are +yourself the offspring of duty." + +"If you were in my place, mamma," reattempted Hesper, but her mother +did not allow her to proceed. + +"In any place, in every place, I should do my duty," she said. + +It was not only born in Lady Malice's blood, but from earliest years, +had been impressed on her brain, that her first duty was to her family, +and mainly consisted in getting well out of its way--in going peaceably +through the fire to Moloch, that the rest might have good places in the +Temple of Mammon. In her turn, she had trained her children to the +bewildering conviction that it was duty to do a certain wrong, if it +should be required. That wrong thing was now required of Hesper--a +thing she scorned, hated, shuddered at; she must follow the rest; her +turn to be sacrificed was come; she must henceforth be a living lie. +She could recompense herself as the daughters who have sinned by +yielding generally do when they are mothers, with the sin of +compelling, and thus make the trespass round and full. There is in no +language yet the word invented to fit the vileness of such mothers; +but, as time flows and speech grows, it may be found, and, when it is +found, it will have action retrospective. It is a frightful thing when +ignorance of evil, so much to be desired where it can contribute to +safety, is employed to smooth the way to the unholiest doom, in which +love itself must ruthlessly perish, and those, who on the plea of +virtue were kept ignorant, be perfected in the image of the mothers who +gave them over to destruction. Some, doubtless, of the innocents thus +immolated pass even through hideous fires of marital foulness to come +out the purer and the sweeter; but whither must the stone about the +neck of those that cause the little ones to offend sink those mothers? +What company shall in the end be too low, too foul for them? Like to +like it must always be. + +Hesper was not so ignorant as some girls; she had for some time had one +at her side capable of casting not a little light of the kind that is +darkness. + +"_Duty_, mamma!" she cried, her eyes flaming, and her cheek flushed +with the shame of the thing that was but as yet the merest object in +her thought; "can a woman be born for such things? How _could_ +I--mamma, how could any woman, with an atom of self-respect, consent to +occupy the same--_room_ with Mr. Redmain?" + +"Hesper! I am shocked. _Where_ did you learn to speak, not to say +_think_, of such things? Have I taken such pains--good God! you strike +me dumb! Have I watched my child like a very--angel, as anxious to keep +her mind pure as her body fair, and is _this_ the result?" Upon what +Lady Margaret founded her claim to a result more satisfactory to her +maternal designs, it were hard to say. For one thing, she had known +nothing of what went on in her nursery, positively nothing of the real +character of the women to whom she gave the charge of it; +and--although, I dare say, for worldly women, Hesper's schoolmistresses +were quite respectable--what did her mother, what could she know of the +governesses or of the flock of sheep--all presumably, but how certainly +_all_ white?--into which she had sent her? + +"Is _this_ the result?" said Lady Margaret. + +"Was it your object, then, to keep me innocent, only that I might have +the necessary lessons in wickedness first from my husband?" said +Hesper, with a rudeness for which, if an apology be necessary, I leave +my reader to find it. + +"Hesper, you are vulgar!" said Lady Margaret, with cold indignation, +and an expression of unfeigned disgust. She was, indeed, genuinely +shocked. That a young lady of Hesper's birth and position should talk +like this, actually objecting to a man as her husband because she +recoiled from his wickedness, of which she was not to be supposed to +know, or to be capable of understanding, anything, was a thing unheard +of in her world-a thing unmaidenly in the extreme! What innocent girl +would or could or dared allude to such matters? She had no right to +know an atom about them! + +"You are a married woman, mamma," returned Hesper, "and therefore must +know a great many things I neither know nor wish to know. For anything +I know, you may be ever so much a better woman than I, for having +learned not to mind things that are a horror to me. But there was a +time when you shrunk from them as I do now. I appeal to you as a woman: +for God's sake, save me from marrying that wretch!" + +She spoke in a tone inconsistently calm. + +"Girl! is it possible you dare to call the man, whom your father and I +have chosen for your husband, a wretch!" + +"Is he not a wretch, mamma?" + +"If he were, how should I know it? What has any lady got to do with a +man's secrets?" + +"Not if he wants to marry her daughter?" + +"Certainly not. If he should not be altogether what he ought to be--and +which of us is?--then you will have the honor of reclaiming him. But +men settle down when they marry." + +"And what comes of their wives?" + +"What comes of women. You have your mother before you, Hesper." + +"O mother!" cried Hesper, now at length losing the horrible affectation +of calm which she had been taught to regard as _de rigueur_, "is it +possible that you, so beautiful, so dignified, would send me on to meet +things you dare not tell me--knowing they would turn me sick or mad? +How dares a man like that even desire in his heart to touch an innocent +girl?" + +"Because he is tired of the other sort," said Lady Malice, half +unconsciously, to herself. What she said to her daughter was ten times +worse: the one was merely a fact concerning Redmain; the other revealed +a horrible truth concerning herself. "He will settle three thousand a +year on you, Hesper," she said with a sigh; "and you will find yourself +mistress." + +"I don't doubt it," answered Hesper, in bitter scorn. "Such a man is +incapable of making any woman a wife." + +Hesper meant an awful spiritual fact, of which, with all her ignorance +of human nature, she had yet got a glimpse in her tortured reflections +of late; but her mother's familiarity with evil misinterpreted her +innocence, and caused herself utter dismay. What right had a girl to +think at all for herself in such matters? Those were things that must +be done, not thought of! + + "These things must not be thought + After these ways; so, they will drive us mad." + +Yes, these things are hard to think about--harder yet to write about! +The very persons who would send the white soul into arms whose mere +touch is a dishonor will be the first to cry out with indignation +against that writer as shameless who but utters the truth concerning +the things they mean and do; they fear lest their innocent daughters, +into whose hands his books might chance, by ill luck, to fall, should +learn that it is _their_ business to keep themselves pure.--Ah, sweet +mothers! do not be afraid. You have brought them up so carefully, that +they suspect you no more than they do the well-bred gentlemen you would +have them marry. And have they not your blood in them? That will go +far. Never heed the foolish puritan. Your mothers succeeded with you: +you will succeed with your daughters. + +But it is a shame to speak of those things that are done of you in +secret, and I will forbear. Thank God, the day will come--it may be +thousands of years away--when there shall be no such things for a man +to think of, any more than for a girl to shudder at! There is a +purification in progress, and the kingdom of heaven _will_ come, thanks +to the Man who was holy, harmless, undefined, and separate from +sinners. You have heard a little, probably only a little, about him at +church sometimes. But, when that day comes, what part will you have had +in causing evil to cease from the earth? + +There had been a time in the mother's life when she herself regarded +her approaching marriage, with a man she did not love, as a horror to +which her natural maidenliness--a thing she could not help--had to be +compelled and subjected: of the true maidenliness--that before which +the angels make obeisance, and the lion cowers--she never had had any; +for that must be gained by the pure will yielding itself to the power +of the highest. Hence she had not merely got used to the horror, but in +a measure satisfied with it; never suspecting, because never caring +enough, that she had at the same time, and that not very gradually, +been assimilating to the horror; had lost much of what purity she had +once had, and become herself unclean, body and mind, in the contact +with uncleanness. One thing she did know, and that swallowed up all the +rest--that her husband's affairs were so involved as to threaten +absolute poverty; and what woman of the world would not count damnation +better than that?--while Mr. Redmain was rolling in money. Had she +known everything bad of her daughter's suitor, short of legal crime, +for her this would have covered it all. + +In Hesper's useless explosion the mother did not fail to recognize the +presence of Sepia, without whose knowledge of the bad side of the +world, Hesper, she believed, could not have been awake to so much. But +she was afraid of Sepia. Besides, the thing was so far done; and she +did not think she would work to thwart the marriage. On that point she +would speak to her. + +But it was a doubtful service that Sepia had rendered her cousin--to +rouse her indignation and not her strength; to wake horror without +hinting at remedy; to give knowledge of impending doom, without poorest +suggestion of hope, or vaguest shadow of possible escape. It is one +thing to see things as they are; to be consumed with indignation at the +wrong; to shiver with aversion to the abominable; and quite another to +rouse the will to confront the devil, and resist him until he flee. For +this the whole education of Hesper had tended to unfit her. What she +had been taught--and that in a world rendered possible only by the +self-denial of a God--was to drift with the stream, denying herself +only that divine strength of honest love, which would soonest help her +to breast it. + +For the earth, it is a blessed thing that those who arrogate to +themselves the holy name of society, and to whom so large a portion of +the foolish world willingly yields it, are in reality so few and so +ephemeral. Mere human froth are they, worked up by the churning of the +world-sea--rainbow-tinted froth, lovely thinned water, weaker than the +unstable itself out of which it is blown. Great as their ordinance +seems, it is evanescent as arbitrary: the arbitrary is but the slavish +puffed up--and is gone with the hour. The life of the people is below; +it ferments, and the scum is for ever being skimmed off, and cast--God +knows where. All is scum where will is not. They leave behind them +influences indeed, but few that keep their vitality in shapes of art or +literature. There they go--little sparrows of the human world, +chattering eagerly, darting on every crumb and seed of supposed +advantage! while from behind the great dustman's cart, the huge +tiger-cat of an eternal law is creeping upon them. Is it a spirit of +insult that leads me to such a comparison? Where human beings do not, +will not _will_, let them be ladies gracious as the graces, the +comparison is to the disadvantage of the sparrows. Not time, but +experience will show that, although indeed a simile, this is no +hyperbole. + +"I will leave your father to deal with you, Hesper," said her mother, +and rose. + +Up to this point, Mortimer children had often resisted their mother; +beyond this point, never more than once. + +"No, please, mamma!" returned Hesper, in a tone of expostulation. "I +have spoken my mind, but that is no treason. As my father has referred +Mr. Redmain to me, I would rather deal with him." + +Lady Malice was herself afraid of her husband. There is many a woman, +otherwise courageous enough, who will rather endure the worst and most +degrading, than encounter articulate insult. The mere lack of +conscience gives the scoundrel advantage incalculable over the honest +man; the lack of refinement gives a similar advantage to the cad over +the gentleman; the combination of the two lacks elevates the husband +and father into an autocrat. Hesper was not one her world would have +counted weak; she had physical courage enough; she rode well, and +without fear; she sat calm in the dentist's chair; she would have +fought with knife and pistol against violence to the death; and yet, +rather than encounter the brutality of an evil-begotten race +concentrated in her father, she would yield herself to a defilement +eternally more defiling than that she would both kill and die to escape. + +"Give me a few hours first, mamma," she begged. "Don't let him come to +me just yet. For all your hardness, you feel a little for me--don't +you?" + +"Duty is always hard, my child," said Lady Margaret. She entirely +believed it, and looked on herself as a martyr, a pattern of +self-devotion and womanly virtue. But, had she been certain of escaping +discovery, she would have slipped the koh-i-noor into her belt-pouch, +notwithstanding. Never once in her life had she done or abstained from +doing a thing _because_ that thing was right or was wrong. Such a +person, be she as old and as hard as the hills, is mere putty in the +fingers of Beelzebub. + +Hesper rose and went to her own room. There, for a long hour, she +sat--with the skin of her fair face drawn tight over muscles rigid as +marble--sat without moving, almost without thinking--in a mere hell of +disgusted anticipation. She neither stormed nor wept; her life went +smoldering on; she nerved herself to a brave endurance, instead of a +far braver resistance. + +I fancy Hesper would have been a little shocked if one had called her +an atheist. She went to church most Sundays--when in the country; for, +in the opinion of Lady Margaret, it was not decorous _there_ to omit +the ceremony: where you have influence you ought to set a good +example--of hypocrisy, namely! But, if any one had suggested to Hesper +a certain old-fashioned use of her chamber-door, she would have +inwardly laughed at the absurdity. But, then, you see, her chamber was +no closet, but a large and stately room; and, besides, how, alas! +_could_ the child of Roger and Lady M. Alice Mortimer know that in the +silence was hearing--that in the vacancy was a power waiting to be +sought? Hesper was not much alone, and here was a chance it was a pity +she should lose; but, when she came to herself with a sigh, it was not +to pray, and, when she rose, it was to ring the bell. + +A good many minutes passed before it was answered. She paced the +room--swiftly; she could sit, but she could not walk slowly. With her +hands to her head, she went sweeping up and down. Her maid's knock +arrested her before her toilet-table, with her back to the door. In a +voice of perfect composure, she desired the woman to ask Miss Yolland +to come to her. + +Entering with a slight stoop from the waist, Sepia, with a long, rapid, +yet altogether graceful step, bore down upon Hesper like a fast-sailing +cutter over broad waves, relaxing her speed as she approached her. + +"Here I am, Hesper!" she said. + +"Sepia," said Hesper, "I am sold." + +Miss Yolland gave a little laugh, showing about the half of her +splendid teeth--a laugh to which Hesper was accustomed, but the meaning +of which she did not understand--nor would, without learning a good +deal that were better left unlearned. "To Mr. Redmain, of course!" she +said. + +Hesper nodded. + +"When are you going to be--"--she was about to say "cut up" but there +was a something occasionally visible in Hesper that now and then +checked one of her less graceful coarsenesses. "When is the purchase to +be completed?" she asked, instead. + +"Good Heavens, Sepia! don't be so heartless!" cried Hesper. "Things are +not quite so bad as that! I am not yet in the hell of knowing that. The +day is not fixed for the great red dragon to make a meal of me." + +"I see you were not asleep in church, as I thought, all the time of the +sermon, last Sunday," said Sepia. + +"I did my best, but I could not sleep: every time little Mowbray +mentioned the beast, I thought of Mr. Redmain; and it made me too +miserable to sleep." + +"Poor Hesper!--Well! let us hope that, like the beast in the +fairy-tale, he will turn out a man after all." + +"My heart will break," cried Hesper, throwing herself into a chair. +"Pity me, Sepia; _you_ love me a little." + +A slight shadow darkened yet more Sepia's shadowy brow. + +"Hesper," she said, gravely, "you never told me there was anything of +that sort! Who is it?" + +"Mr. Redmain, of course!--I don't know what you mean, Sepia." + +"You said your heart was breaking: who is it for?" asked Sepia, almost +imperiously, and raising her voice a little. + +"Sepia!" cried Hesper, in bewilderment. + +"Why should your heart be breaking, except you loved somebody?" + +"Because I hate _him_," answered Hesper. + +"Pooh! is that all?" returned Miss Yolland. "If there were anybody you +wanted--then I grant!" + +"Sepia!" said Hesper, almost entreatingly, "I can not bear to be teased +to-day. Do be open with me. You always puzzle me so! I don't understand +you a bit better than the first day you came to us. I have got used to +you--that is all. Tell me--are you my friend, or are you in league with +mamma? I have my doubts. I can't help it, Sepia." + +She looked in her face pitifully. Miss Yolland looked at her calmly, as +if waiting for her to finish. + +"I thought you would--not help me," Hesper went on, "--that no one can +except God--he could strike me dead; but I did think you would feel for +me a little. I hate Mr. Redmain, and I loathe myself. If _you_ laugh at +me, I shall take poison." + +"I wouldn't do that," returned Miss Yolland, quite gravely, and as if +she had already contemplated the alternative; "--that is, not so long +as there was a turn of the game left." + +"The game!" echoed Hesper. "--Playing for love with the devil!--I wish +the game were yours, as you call it!" + +"Mine I'd make it, if I had it to play," returned Sepia. "I wish I were +the other player instead of you, but the man hates me. Some men +do.--Come," she went on, "I will be open with you, Hesper; you don't +hang for thoughts in England. I will tell you what I would do with a +man I hated--that is, if I was compelled to marry him; it would hardly +be fair otherwise, and I have a weakness for fair play.--I would give +him absolute fair play." + +The last three words she spoke with a strange expression of mingled +scorn and jest, then paused, and seemed to have said all she meant to +say. + +"Go on," sighed Hesper; "you amuse me." Her tone expressed anything but +amusement. "What would a woman of your experience do in my place?" + +Sepia fixed a momentary look on Hesper; the words seemed to have stung +her. She knew well enough that, if Lady Malice came to know anything of +her real history, she would have bare time to pack up her small +belongings. She wanted Hesper married, that she might go with her into +the world again; at the same time, she feared her marriage with Mr. +Redmain would hardly favor her wishes. But she could not with prudence +do anything expressly to prevent it; while she might even please Mr. +Redmain a little, if she were supposed to have used influence on his +side. That, however, must not seem to Hesper. Sepia did not yet know in +fact upon what ground she had to build. + +For some time she had been trying to get nearer to Hesper, but--much +like Hesper's experience with her--had found herself strangely baffled, +she could not tell how--the barrier being simply the half innocence, +half ignorance, of Hesper. When minds are not the same, words do not +convey between them. + +She gave a ringing laugh, throwing back her head, and showing all her +fine teeth. + +"You want to know what I would do with a man I hated, as you _say_ you +hate Mr. Redmain?--I would send for him at once--not wait for him to +come to me--and entreat him, _as he loved me_, to deliver me from the +dire necessity of obeying my father. If he were a gentleman, as I hope +he may be, he would manage to get me out of it somehow, and wouldn't +compromise me a hair's breadth. But, that is, _if I were you_. If I +were _myself_ in your circumstances, and hated him as you do, that +would not serve my turn. I would ask him all the same to set me free, +but I would behave myself so that he could not do it. While I begged +him, I mean, I should make him feel that he could not--should make him +absolutely determined to marry me, at any price to him, and at whatever +cost to me. He should say to himself that I did not mean what I +said--as, indeed, for the sake of my revenge, I should not. For that I +would give anything--supposing always, don't you know? that I hated him +as you do Mr. Redmain. He should declare to me it was impossible; that +he would die rather than give up the most precious desire of his +life--and all that rot, you know. I would tell him I hated him--only so +that he should not believe me. I would say to him, 'Release me, Mr. +Redmain, or I will make you repent it. I have given you fair warning. I +have told you I hated you.' He should persist, should marry me, and +then I _would_." + +"Would what?" + +"Do as I said." + +"But what?" + +"Make him repent it." + +With the words, Miss Yolland broke into a second fit of laughter, and, +turning from Hesper, went, with a kind of loitering, strolling pace +toward the door, glancing round more than once, each time with a fresh +bubble rather than ripple in her laughter. Whether it was all +nonsensical merriment, or whether the author of laughter without fun, +Beelzebub himself, was at the moment stirring in her, Hesper could not +have told; as it was, she sat staring after her, unable even to think. +Just as she reached the door, however, she turned quickly, and, with +the smile of a hearty, innocent child, or something very like it, ran +back to Hesper, threw her arms round her, and said: + +"There, now! I've done for you what I could: I have made you forget the +odious man for a moment. I was curious to know whether I could not make +a bride forget her bridegroom. The other thing is too easy." + +"What other thing?" + +"To make a bridegroom forget his bride, of course, you silly +child!--But there I am, off again! when really it is time to be +serious, and come to the only important point in the matter.--In what +shade of purity do you think of ascending the funeral pyre?--In +absolute white?--or rose-tinged?--or cream-colored!--or +gold-suspect?--Eh, happy bride?" + +As she ceased, she turned her head away, pulled out her handkerchief, +and whimpered a little. + +"Sepia!" said Hesper, annoyed, "you are a worse goose than I thought +you! What have _you_ got to cry about? _You_ have not got to marry him!" + +"No; I wish I had!" returned Sepia, wiping her eyes. "Then I shouldn't +lose you. I should take care of that." + +"And am I likely to gain such a friend in Mr. Redmain as to afford the +loss of the only _other_ friend I have?" said Hesper, calmly. + +"Ah, Hesper! a sad experience has taught me differently, The moment you +are married to the man--as married you will be--you all are--bluster as +you may--that moment you will begin to change into a wife--a +domesticated animal, that is--a tame tabby. Unwilling a woman must be +to confess herself only the better half of a low-bred brute, with a +high varnish--or not, as the case may be; and there is nothing left her +to do but set herself to find out the wretch's virtues, or, as he +hasn't got any, to invent for him the least unlikely ones. She wants +for her own sake to believe in him, don't you know? Then she begins to +repent having said hard words of the poor gentleman. The next thing, of +course, will be, that you begin to hate the person, to whom you said +them, and to persuade yourself she drew them out of you; and so you +break off all communication with the obnoxious person; who being, in +the present instance, that black-faced sheep, Sepia Yolland, she is +very sorry beforehand, and hates Mr. Redmain with all her heart; first, +because Hesper Mortimer hates him, and next, but twice as much, because +she is going to love him. It is a great pity _you_ should have him, +Hesper. I wish you would hand him over to me. _I_ shouldn't mind what +he was. I should soon tame him." + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Hesper, with righteous +indignation. "_You would not mind what he was!_" + +Sepia laughed--this time her curious half-laugh. + +"If I did, I wouldn't marry him, Hesper," she said. "Which is +worse--not to mind, and marry him; or to mind, and marry him all the +same? Eh, Cousin Hesper Mortimer?" + +"I _can't_ make you out, Sepia!" said Hesper. "I believe I never shall." + +"Very likely. Give it up?" + +"Quite." + +"The best thing you could do. I can't always make myself out. But, +then, I always give it up directly, and so it does me no harm. But it's +ten times worse to worry your poor little heart to rags about such a +man as that; he's not worth a thought from a grand creature like you. +Where's the use, besides? Would you stand staring at your medicine a +whole day before the time for taking it comes? I wouldn't have my right +leg cut off because that is the side my dog walks on, and dogs go mad! +Slip, cup, and lip--don't you know? The man may be underground long +before the wedding-day: he's anything but sound, they tell me. But it +would be far better soon after it, of course. Think only--a young +widow, rich, and not a straw the worse!" + +"Sepia, I can't for the life of me tell whether you are a Job's +comforter or the devil's advocate." + +"Not the latter, my child; for I want to see you emerge a saint from +the miseries of matrimony. But, whatever you do, Hesper, don't break +your heart, for you will find it hard to mend. I broke mine once, and +have been mad ever since." + +"What is the use of saying that to me, when you know I have to marry +the man?" + +"I never said you were not to marry him; I said you were not to break +your heart. Marriage is nothing so long as you do not make a heart +affair of it; that hurts; and, as you are not in love, there is no +occasion for it at all." + +"Marriage is nothing, Sepia! Is it nothing to be tied to a man--to +_any_ man--for all your life?" + +"That's as you take it. Nobody makes so much of it nowadays as they +used. The clergy themselves, who are at the bottom of all the business, +don't fuss about every trifle in the prayer-book. They sign the +articles, and have done with it--meaning, of course, to break them, if +they stand in their way." + +Hesper rose in anger. + +"How dare you--" she began. + +"Good gracious!" cried Sepia, "you don't imagine I meant anything so +wicked! How could you let such a thing come into your head? I declare +you are quite dangerous to talk to!" + +"It's such a horrible business," said Hesper, "it seems to make one +capable of anything wicked, only to think about it. I would rather not +say another word on the subject." + +A shudder ran through her, as if at the sight of some hideously +offensive object. + +"That would be the best thing," said Sepia, "if it meant not think more +about it. Everything is better for not being thought about. I would do +anything to comfort you, dear. I would marry him for you, if that would +do; but I fear it would scarcely meet the views of Herr Papa. If I +could please the beast as well--and I think I should in time--I would +willingly hand him the purchase-money. But, of course, he would scorn +to touch it, except as the proceeds of the _bona-fide_ sale of his own +flesh and blood." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +UNGENEROUS BENEVOLENCE. + + +As the time went on, and Letty saw nothing more of Tom, she began to +revive a little, and feel as if she were growing safe again. The tide +of temptation was ebbing away; there would be no more deceit; never +again would she place herself in circumstances whence might arise any +necessity for concealment. She began, much too soon, alas! to feel as +if she were newborn; nothing worthy of being called a new birth can +take place anywhere but in the will, and poor Letty's will was not yet +old enough to give birth to anything; it scarcely, indeed, existed. The +past was rapidly receding, that was all, and had begun to look dead, +and as if it wanted only to be buried out of her sight. For what is +done is done, in small faults as well as in murders; and, as nothing +can recall it, or make it not be, where can be the good in thinking +about it?--a reasoning worse than dangerous, before one has left off +being capable of the same thing over again. Still, in the mere absence +of renewed offense, it is well that some shadow of peace should return; +else how should men remember the face of innocence? or how should they +live long enough to learn to repent? But for such breaks, would not +some grow worse at full gallop? + +That the idea of Tom's friendship was very pleasant to her, who can +blame her? He had never said he loved her; he had only said she was +lovely: was she therefore bound to persuade herself he meant nothing at +all? Was it not as much as could be required of her, that, in her +modesty, she took him for no more than a true, kind friend, who would +gladly be of service to her? Ah! if Tom had but been that! If he was +not, he did not know it, which is something to say both for and against +him. It could not be other than pleasant to Letty to have one, in her +eyes so superior, who would talk to her as an equal. It was not that +ever she resented being taught; but she did get tired of lessons only, +beautiful as they were. A kiss from Mrs. Wardour, or a little teasing +from Cousin Godfrey, would have done far more than all his intellectual +labor upon her to lift her feet above such snares as she was now +walking amid. She needed some play--a thing far more important to life +than a great deal of what is called business and acquirement. Many a +matter, over which grown people look important, long-faced, and +consequential, is folly, compared with the merest child's frolic, in +relation to the true affairs of existence. + +All the time, Letty had not in the least neglected her houseduties; +and, again, her readings with her cousin Godfrey, since Tom's apparent +recession, had begun to revive in interest. He grew kinder and kinder +to her, more and more fatherly. + +But the mother, once disquieted, had lost no time in taking measures. +In every direction, secretly, through friends, she was inquiring after +some situation suitable for Letty: she owed it to herself, she said, to +find for the girl the right thing, before sending her from the house. +In the true spirit of benevolent tyranny, she said not a word to Letty +of her design. She had the chronic distemper of concealment, where +Letty had but a feverish attack. Much false surmise might have been +corrected, and much evil avoided, had she put it in Letty's power to +show how gladly she would leave Thornwick. In the mean time the old +lady kept her lynx-eye upon the young people. + +But Godfrey, having caught a certain expression in the said eye, came +to the resolution that thenceforth their schoolroom should be the +common sitting-room. This would aid him in carrying out his resolve of +a cautious and staid demeanor toward his pupil. To preserve his +freedom, he must keep himself thoroughly in hand. Experience had taught +him that, were he once to give way and show his affection, there would +from that moment be an end of teaching and learning. And yet so much +was he drawn to the girl, that, at this very time, he gave her the +manuscript of his own verses to which I have referred--a volume +exquisitely written, and containing, certainly, the outcome of the best +that was in him: he did not tell her that he had copied them all with +such care and neatness, and had the book so lovelily bound, expressly +and only for her eyes.. + +News of something that seemed likely to suit her ideas for Letty at +length came to Mrs. Wardour's ears, whereupon she thought it time to +prepare the girl for the impending change. One day, therefore, as she +herself sat knitting one sock for Godfrey, and Letty darning another, +she opened the matter. + +"I am getting old, Letty," she said, "and you can't be here always. You +are a thoughtless creature, but I suppose you have the sense to see +that?" + +"Yes, indeed, aunt," answered Letty. + +"It is high time you should be thinking," Mrs. Wardour went on, "how +you are to earn your bread. If you left it till I was gone, you would +find it very awkward, for you would have to leave Thornwick at once, +and I don't know who would take you while you were looking out. I must +see you comfortably settled before I go." + +"Yes, aunt." + +"There are not many things you could do." + +"No, aunt; very few. But I should make a better housemaid than most--I +do believe that." + +"I am glad to find you willing to work; but we shall be able, I trust, +to do a little better for you than that. A situation as housemaid would +reflect little credit on my pains for you--would hardly correspond to +the education you have had." + +Mrs. Wardour referred to the fact that Letty was for about a year a +day--boarder at a ladies' school in Testbridge, where no immortal soul, +save that of a genius, which can provide its own sauce, could have +taken the least interest in the chaff and chopped straw that composed +the provender. + +"It is true," her aunt went on, "you might have made a good deal more +of it, if you had cared to do your best; but, such as you are, I trust +we shall find you a very tolerable situation as governess." + +At the word, Letty's heart ran half-way up her throat. A more dreadful +proposal she could not have imagined. She felt, and was, utterly +insufficient for--indeed, incapable of such an office. She felt she +knew nothing: how was she to teach anything? Her heart seemed to grow +gray within her. By nature, from lack of variety of experience, yet +more from daily repression of her natural joyousness, she was +exceptionally apprehensive where anything was required of her. What she +understood, she encountered willingly and bravely; but, the simplest +thing that seemed to involve any element of obscurity, she dreaded like +a dragon in his den. + +"You don't seem to relish the proposal, Letty," said Mrs. Wardour. "I +hope you had not taken it in your head that I meant to leave you +independent. What I have done for you, I have done purely for your +father's sake. I was under no obligation to take the least trouble +about you. But I have more regard to your welfare than I fear you give +me credit for." + +"O aunt! it's only that I'm not fit for being a governess. I shouldn't +a bit mind being dairymaid or housemaid. I would go to such a place +to-morrow, if you liked." + +"Letty, your tastes may be vulgar, but you owe it to your family to +look at least like a lady." + +"But I am not scholar enough for a governess, aunt." + +"That is not my fault. I sent you to a good school. Now, I will find +you a good situation, and you must contrive to keep it." + +"O aunt! let me stay here--just as I am. Call me your dairymaid or your +housemaid. It is all one--I do the work now." + +"Do you mean to reflect on me that I have required menial offices of +you? I have been to you in the place of a mother; and it is for me, not +for you, to make choice of your path in life." + +"Do you want me to go at once?" asked Letty, her heart sinking again, +and her voice trembling with a pathos her aunt quite misunderstood. + +"As soon as I have secured for you a desirable situation--not before," +answered Mrs. Wardour, in a tone generously protective. + +Her affection for the girl had never been deep; and, the moment she +fancied she and her son were drawing toward each other, she became to +her the thawed adder: she wished the adder well, but was she bound to +harbor it after it had begun to bite? There are who never learn to see +anything except in its relation to themselves, nor that relation except +as fancied by themselves; and, this being a withering habit of mind, +they keep growing drier, and older, and smaller, and deader, the longer +they live--thinking less of other people, and more of themselves and +their past experience, all the time as they go on withering. + +But Mrs. Wardour was in some dread of what her son would say when he +came to know what she had been doing; for, when we are not at ease with +ourselves, when conscience keeps moving as if about to speak, then we +dread the disapproval of the lowliest, and Godfrey was the only one +before whom his mother felt any kind of awe. Toward him, therefore, she +kept silence for the present. If she had spoken then, things might have +gone very differently: it might have brought Godfrey to the point of +righteous resolve or of passionate utterance. He could not well have +opposed his mother's design without going further and declaring that, +if Letty would, she should remain where she was, the mistress of the +house. If not the feeling of what was due to her, the dread of the +house without her might well have brought him to this. + +Letty, for her part, believed her cousin Godfrey regarded her with +pity, and showed her kindness from a generous sense of duty; she was a +poor, dull creature for whom her cousin must do what he could: one word +of genuine love from him, one word even of such love as was in him, +would have caused her nature to shoot heavenward and spread out +earthward with a rapidity that would have astonished him; she would +thereby have come into her spiritual property at once, and heaven would +have opened to her--a little way at least--probably to close again for +a time. Now she felt crushed. The idea of undertaking that for which +she knew herself so ill fitted was not merely odious but frightful to +her. She was ready enough to work, but it must be real, not sham work. +She must see and consult Mary! This was quite another affair from Tom! +She would take the first opportunity. In the mean time there was +nothing to be done or said; and with a heavy heart she held her +peace--only longed for her own room, that she might have a cry. To her +comfort the clock struck ten, and all that now lay between her and that +refuge was the usual round of the house with Mrs. Wardour, to see all +safe for the night. That done, they parted, and Letty went slowly and +sadly up the stair. It was a dark prospect before her. At best, she had +to leave the only home she remembered, and go among strangers. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE MOONLIGHT. + + +It was a still, frosty night, with a full moon. When she reached her +chamber, Letty walked mechanically to the window, and there stood, with +the candle in her hand, looking carelessly out, nor taking any pleasure +in the great night. The window looked on an open, grassy yard, where +were a few large ricks of wheat, shining yellow in the cold, far-off +moon. Between the moon and the earth hung a faint mist, which the thin +clouds of her breath seemed to mingle with and augment. There lay her +life--out of doors--dank and dull; all the summer faded from it--all +its atmosphere a growing fog! She would never see Tom again! It was six +weeks since she saw him last! He must have ceased to think of her by +this time! And, if he did think of her again, she would be far off, +nobody knew where. + +Something struck the window with a slight, sharp clang. It was winter, +and there were no moths or other insects flying, What could it be? She +put her face close to the pane, and looked out. There was a man in the +shadow of one of the ricks! He had his hat off, and was beckoning to +her. It could be nobody but Tom! The thought sent to her heart a pang +of mingled pleasure and pain. Clearly he wanted to speak to her! How +gladly she would! but then would come again all the trouble of +conscious deceit: how was she to bear that all over again! Still, if +she was going to be turned out of the house so soon, what would it +matter? If her aunt was going to compel her to be her own mistress, +where was the harm if she began it a few days sooner? What did it +matter anyhow what she did? But she dared not speak to him! Mrs. +Wardour's ears were as sharp as her eyes. The very sound of her own +voice in the moonlight would terrify her. She opened the lattice +softly, and gently shaking her head--she dared not shake it +vigorously--was on the point of closing it again, when, making frantic +signs of entreaty, the man stepped into the moonlight, and it was +plainly Tom. It was too dreadful! He might be seen any moment! She +shook her head again, in a way she meant, and he understood, to mean +she dared not. He fell on his knees and laid his hands together like +one praying. Her heart interpreted the gesture as indicating that he +was in trouble, and that, therefore, he begged her to go to him. With +sudden resolve she nodded acquiescence, and left the window. + +Her room was in a little wing, projecting from the back of the house, +over the kitchen. The servants' rooms were in another part, but Letty +forgot a tiny window in one of them, which looked also upon the ricks. +There was a back stair to the kitchen, and in the kitchen a door to the +farm-yard. She stole down the stair, and opened the door with absolute +noiselessness. In a moment more she had stolen on tiptoe round the +corner, and was creeping like a ghost among the ricks. Not even a +rustle betrayed her as she came up to Tom from behind. He still knelt +where she had left him, looking up to her window, which gleamed like a +dead eye in the moonlight. She stood for a moment, afraid to move, lest +she should startle him, and he should call out, for the slightest noise +about the place would bring Godfrey down. The next moment, however, +Tom, aware of her presence, sprang to his feet, and, turning, bounded +to her, and took her in his arms. Still possessed by the one terror of +making a noise, she did not object even by a contrary motion, and, when +he took her hand to lead her away out of sight of the house, she +yielded at once. + +When they were safe in the field behind the hedge-- + +"Why did you make me come down, Tom?" she whispered, half choked with +fear, looking up in his face, which was radiant in the moonshine. + +"Because I could not bear it one day longer," he answered. "All this +time I have been breaking my heart to get a word with you, and never +seeing you except at church, and there you would never even look at me. +It is cruel of you, Letty. I know you could manage it, if you liked, +well enough. Why should you try me so?" + +"Do speak a little lower, Tom: sound goes so far at night!--I didn't +know you would want to see me like that," she answered, looking up in +his face with a pleased smile. + +"Didn't know!" repeated Tom. "I want nothing else, think of nothing +else, dream of nothing else. Oh, the delight of having you here all +alone to myself at last! You darling Letty!" + +"But I must go directly, Tom. I have no business to be out of the house +at this time of the night. If you hadn't made me think you were in some +trouble, I daredn't have come." + +"And ain't I in trouble enough--trouble that nothing but your coming +could get me out of? To love your very shadow, and not be able to get a +peep even of that, except in church, where all the time of the service +I'm raging inside like a wild beast in a cage--ain't that trouble +enough to make you come to me?" + +Letty's heart leaped up. He loved her, then! Love, real love, was what +it meant! It was paradise! Anything might come that would! She would be +afraid of nothing any more. They might say or do to her what they +pleased--she did not care a straw, if he loved her--really loved her! +And he did! he did! She was going to have him all to her own self, and +nobody was to have any right to meddle with her more! + +"I didn't know you loved me, Tom!" she said, simply, with a little gasp. + +"And I don't know yet whether you love me," returned Tom. + +"Of course, if you love _me_," answered Letty, as if everybody must +give back love for love. + +Tom took her again in his arms, and Letty was in greater bliss than she +had ever dreamed possible. From being a nobody in the world, she might +now queen it to the top of her modest bent; from being looked down on +by everybody, she had the whole earth under her feet; from being +utterly friendless, she had the heart of Tom Helmer for her own! Yet +even then, eluding the barriers of Tom's arms, shot to her heart, sharp +as an arrow, the thought that she was forsaking Cousin Godfrey. She did +not attempt to explain it to herself; she was in too great confusion, +even if she had been capable of the necessary analysis. It came, +probably, of what her aunt had told her concerning her cousin's opinion +of Tom. Often and often since, she had said to herself that, of course, +Cousin Godfrey was mistaken and quite wrong in not liking Tom; she was +sure he would like him if he knew him as she did!--and yet to act +against his opinion, and that never uttered to herself, cost her this +sharp pang, and not a few that followed! To soften it for the moment, +however, came the vaguely, sadly reproachful feeling, that, seeing they +were about to send her out into the world to earn her bread, they had +no more any right to make such demands upon her loyalty to them as +should exclude the closest and only satisfying friend she had--one who +would not turn her away, but wanted to have her for ever. That Godfrey +knew nothing of his mother's design, she did not once suspect. + +"Now, Tom, you have seen me, and spoken to me, and I must go," said +Letty. + +"O Letty!" cried Tom, reproachfully, "now when we understand each +other? Would you leave me in the very moment of my supremest bliss? +That would be mockery, Letty! That is the way my dreams serve me +always. But, surely, you are no dream! Perhaps I _am_ dreaming, and +shall wake to find myself alone! I never was so happy in my life, and +you want to leave me all alone in the midnight, with the moon to +comfort me! Do as you like, Letty!--I won't leave the place till the +morning. I will go back to the rick-yard, and lie under your window all +night." + +The idea of Tom, out on the cold ground, while she was warm in bed, was +too much for Letty's childish heart. Had she known Tom better, she +would not have been afraid: she would have known that he would indeed +do as he had said--so far; that he would lie down under her window, and +there remain, even to the very moment when he began to feel miserable, +and a moment longer, but not more than two; that then he would get up, +and, with a last look, start home for bed. + +"I will stop a little while, Tom," she offered, "if you will promise to +go home as soon as I leave you." + +Tom promised. + +They went wandering along the farm-lanes, and Tom made love to her, as +the phrase is--in his case, alas! a phrase only too correct. I do not +say, or wish understood, that he did not love her--with such love as +lay in the immediate power of his development; but, being a sort of a +poet, such as a man may be who loves the form of beauty, but not the +indwelling power of it, that is, the truth, he _made_ love to +her--fashioned forms of love, and offered them to her; and she accepted +them, and found the words of them very dear and very lovely. For +neither had she got far enough, with all Godfrey's endeavors for her +development, to love aright the ring of the true gold, and therefore +was not able to distinguish the dull sound of the gilt brass Tom +offered her. Poor fellow! it was all he had. But compassion itself can +hardly urge that as a reason for accepting it for genuine. What rubbish +most girls will take for poetry, and with it heap up impassably their +door to the garden of delights! what French polish they will take for +refinement! what merest French gallantry for love! what French +sentiment for passion! what commonest passion they will take for +devotion!--passion that has little to do with their beauty even, still +less with the individuality of it, and nothing at all with their +loveliness! + +In justice to Tom, I must add, however, that he also took not a little +rubbish for poetry, much sentiment for pathos, and all passion for +love. He was no intentional deceiver; he was so self-deceived, that, +being himself a deception, he could be nothing but a deceiver--at once +the most complete and the most pardonable, and perhaps the most +dangerous of deceivers. + +With all his fine talk of love, to which he now gave full flow, it was +characteristic of him that, although he saw Letty without hat or cloak, +just because he was himself warmly clad, he never thought of her being +cold, until the arm he had thrown round her waist felt her shiver. +Thereupon he was kind, and would have insisted that she should go in +and get a shawl, had she not positively refused to go in and come out +again. Then he would have had her put on his coat, that she might be +able to stay a little longer; but she prevailed on him to let her go. +He brought her to the nearest point not within sight of any of the +windows, and, there leaving her, set out at a rapid pace for the inn +where he had put up his mare. + +When Tom was gone, and the bare night, a diffused conscience, all about +her, Letty, with a strange fear at her heart, like one in a churchyard, +with the ghost-hour at hand, and feeling like "a guilty thing +surprised," although she had done nothing wrong in its mere self, stole +back to the door of the kitchen, longing for the shelter of her own +room, as never exile for his fatherland. + +She had left the door an inch ajar, that she might run the less risk of +making a noise in opening it; but ere she reached it, the moon shining +full upon it, she saw plainly, and her heart turned sick when she saw, +that it was closed. Between cold and terror she shuddered from head to +foot, and stood staring. + +Recovering a little, she said to herself some draught must have blown +it to. If so, there was much danger that the noise had been heard; but, +in any case, there was no time to lose. She glided swiftly to it. She +lifted the latch softly--but, horror of horrors! in vain. The door was +locked. She was shut out. She must lie or confess! And what lie would +serve? Poor Letty! And yet, for all her dismay, her terror, her despair +that night, in her innocence, she never once thought of the worst +danger in which she stood! + +The least perilous, where no safe way was left, would now have been to +let the simple truth appear; Letty ought immediately to have knocked at +the door, and, should that have proved unavailing, to have broken her +aunt's window even, to gain hearing and admittance. But that was just +the kind of action of which, truthful as was her nature, poor Letty, +both by constitution and training, was incapable; human opposition, +superior anger, condemnation, she dared not encounter. She sank, more +than half fainting, upon the door-step. + +The moment she came to herself, apprehension changed into active dread, +rushed into uncontrollable terror. She sprang to her feet, and, the +worst thing she could do, fled like the wind after Tom--now, indeed, +she imagined, her only refuge! She knew where he had put up his horse, +and knew he could hardly take any other way than the foot-path to +Testbridge. He could not be more than a few yards ahead of her, she +thought. Presently she heard him whistling, she was sure, as he walked +leisurely along, but she could not see him. The way was mostly between +hedges until it reached the common: there she would catch sight of him, +for, notwithstanding the gauzy mist, the moon gave plenty of light. On +she went swiftly, still fancying at intervals she heard in front of her +his whistle, and even his step on the hard, frozen path. In her eager +anxiety to overtake him, she felt neither the chilling air nor the fear +of the night and the loneliness. Dismay was behind her, and hope before +her. On and on she ran. But when, with now failing breath, she reached +the common, and saw it lie so bare and wide in the moonlight, with the +little hut standing on its edge, like a ghastly lodge to nowhere, with +gaping black holes for door and window, then, indeed, the horror of her +deserted condition and the terrors of the night began to crush their +way into her soul. What might not be lurking in that ruin, ready to +wake at the lightest rustle, and, at sight of a fleeing girl, start out +in pursuit, and catch her by the hair that now streamed behind her! And +there was the hawthorn, so old and grotesquely contorted, always +bringing to her mind a frightful German print at the head of a poem +called "The Haunted Heath," in one of her cousin Godfrey's books! It +was like an old miser, decrepit with age, pursued and unable to run! +Miserable as was her real condition, it was rendered yet more pitiable +by these terrors of the imagination. The distant howl of a dog which +the moon would not let sleep, the muffled low of a cow from a shippen, +and a certain strange sound, coming again and again, which she could +not account for, all turned to things unnatural, therefore frightful. +Faintly, once or twice, she tried to persuade herself that it was only +a horrible dream, from which she would wake in safety; but it would not +do; it was, alas! all too real--hard, killing fact! Anyhow, dream or +fact, there was no turning; on to the end she must go. More frightful +than all possible dangers, most frightful thing of all, was the old +house she had left, standing silent in the mist, holding her room +inside it empty, the candle burning away in the face of the moon! +Across the common she glided like a swift wraith, and again into the +shadow of the hedges. + +There seems to be a hope as well as a courage born of despair: +immortal, yet inconstant children of a death-doomed sire, both were now +departing. If Tom had come this way, she must, she thought, have +overtaken him long before now! But, perhaps, she had fainted outright, +and lain longer than she knew at the kitchen-door; and when she started +to follow him, Tom was already at home! Alas, alas! she was lost +utterly! + +The footpath came to an end, and she was on the high-road. There was +the inn where Tom generally put up! It was silent as the grave. The +clang of a horseshoe striking a stone came through the frosty air from +far along the road. Her heart sank into the depths of the infinite sea +that encircles the soul, and, for the second time that night, Death +passing by gave her an alms of comfort, and she lay insensible on the +border of the same highway along which Tom, on his bay mare, went +singing home. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE MORNING. + + +At Thornwick, Tom had been descried in the yard, by the spying organs +of one of the servants--a woman not very young, and not altogether +innocent of nightly interviews. Through the small window of her closet +she had seen, and having seen she watched--not without hope she might +be herself the object of the male presence, which she recognized as +that of Tom Helmer, whom almost everybody knew. In a few minutes, +however, Letty appeared behind him, and therewith a throb of evil joy +shot through her bosom: what a chance! what a good joke! what a thing +for her to find out Miss Letty; to surprise her naughty secret! to have +her in her power! She would have no choice but tell her everything--and +then what privileges would be hers! and what larks they two would have +together, helping each other! She had not a thought of betraying her: +there would be no fun in that! not the less would she encourage a +little the fear that she might, for it would be as a charm in her bosom +to work her will withal!--To make sure of Letty and her secret, partly +also in pure delight of mischief, and enjoyment of the power to tease, +she stole down stairs, and locked the kitchen door--the bolt of which, +for reasons of her own, she kept well oiled; then sat down in an old +rocking-chair, and waited--I can not say watched, for she fell fast +asleep. Letty lifted the latch almost too softly for her to have heard +had she been awake; but on the door-step Letty, had she been capable of +listening, might have heard her snoring. + +When the young woman awoke in the cold gray of the morning, and came to +herself, compunction seized her. Opening the door softly, she went out +and searched everywhere; then, having discovered no trace of Letty, +left the door unlocked, and went to bed, hoping she might yet find her +way into the house before Mrs. Wardour was down. + +When that lady awoke at the usual hour, and heard no sound of stir, she +put on her dressing-gown, and went, in the anger of a housekeeper, to +Letty's room: there, to her amazement and horror, she saw the bed had +lain all the night expectant. She hurried thence to the room occupied +by the girl who was the cause of the mischief. Roused suddenly by the +voice of her mistress, she got up half awake, and sleepy-headed; and, +assailed by a torrent of questions, answered so, in her confusion, as +to give the initiative to others: before she was well awake, she had +told all she had seen from the window, but nothing of what she had +herself done. Mrs. Wardour hurried to the kitchen, found the door on +the latch, believed everything and much more, went straight to her +son's room, and, in a calm rage, woke him up, and poured into his +unwilling ears a torrent of mingled fact and fiction, wherein floated +side by side with Letty's name every bad adjective she could bring the +lips of propriety to utter. Before he quite came to himself the news +had well-nigh driven him mad. There stood his mother, dashing her cold +hailstorm of contemptuous wrath on the girl he loved, whom he had gone +to bed believing the sweetest creature in creation, and loving himself +more than she dared show! He had been dreaming of her with the utmost +tenderness, when his mother woke him with the news that she had gone in +the night with Tom Helmer, the poorest creature in the neighborhood. + +"For God's sake, mother," he cried, "go away, and let me get up!" + +"What can you do, Godfrey? What is there to be done? Let the jade go to +her ruin!" cried Mrs. Wardour, alarmed in the midst of her wrath. "You +_can_ do nothing now. As she has made her bed, so she must lie." + +Her words were torture to him. He sprang from his bed, and proceeded to +pull on his clothes. Terrified at the wildness of his looks, his mother +fled from the room, but only to watch at the door. + +Scarcely could Godfrey dress himself for agitation; brain and heart +seemed to mingle in chaotic confusion. Anger strove with unbelief, and +indignation at his mother with the sense of bitter wrong from Letty. It +was all incredible and shameful, yet not the less utterly miserable. +The girl whose Idea lay in the innermost chamber of his heart like the +sleeping beauty in her palace! while he loved and ministered to her +outward dream-shape which flitted before the eyes of his sense, in the +hope that at last the Idea would awake, and come forth and inform +it!--he dared not follow the thought! it was madness and suicide! He +had been silently worshiping an angel with wings not yet matured to the +spreading of themselves to the winds of truth; those wings were a +little maimed, and he had been tending them with precious balms, and +odors, and ointments: all at once she had turned into a bat, a +skin-winged creature that flies by night, and had disappeared in the +darkness! Of all possible mockeries, for _her_ to steal out at night to +the embraces of a fool! a wretched, weak-headed, idle fellow, whom +every clown called by his Christian name! an ass that did nothing but +ride the country on a horse too good for him, and quarrel with his +mother from Sunday to Saturday! For such a man she had left him, +Godfrey Wardour! a man who would have lifted her to the height of her +nature! whereas the fool Helmer would sink her to the depth of his own +merest nothingness! The thing was inconceivable! yet it was! He knew +it; they were all the same! Never woman worthy of true man! The poorest +show would take them captive, would draw them from reason! + +He knew _now_ that he loved the girl. Gnashing his teeth with fellest +rage, he caught from the wall his heaviest hunting-whip, rushed +heedless past his mother where she waited on the landing, and out of +the house. + +In common with many, he thought worse of Tom Helmer than he yet +deserved. He was a characterless fool, a trifler, a poetic babbler, a +good-for-nothing good sort of fellow; that was the worst that as yet +was true of him; and better things might with equal truth have been +said of him, had there been any one that loved him enough to know them. + +Godfrey ran to the stable, and to the stall of his fastest horse. As he +threw the saddle over his back, he almost wept in the midst of his +passion at the sight of the bright stirrups. His hands trembled so that +he failed repeatedly in passing the straps through the buckles of the +girths. But the moment he felt the horse under him, he was stronger, +set his head straight for the village of Warrender, where Tom's mother +lived, and went away over everything. His crow-flight led him across +the back of the house of Durnmelling. Hesper, who had not slept well, +and found the early morning even a worse time to live in than the +evening, saw him from her window, going straight as an arrow. The sight +arrested her. She called Sepia, who for a few nights had slept in her +room, to the window. + +"There, now!" she said, "there is a man who looks a man! Good Heavens! +how recklessly he rides! I don't believe Mr. Redmain could keep on a +horse's back if he tried!" Sepia looked, half asleep. Her eyes grew +wider. Her sleepiness vanished. + +"Something is wrong with the proud yeoman!" she said. "He is either mad +or in love, probably both! We shall hear more of this morning's ride, +Hesper, as I hope to die a maid!--That's a man I should like to know +now," she added, carelessly. "There is some go in him! I have a +weakness for the kind of man that _could_ shake the life out of me if I +offended him." + +"Are you so anxious, then, to make a good, submissive wife?" said +Hesper. + +"I should take the very first opportunity of offending him--mortally, +as they call it. It would be worth one's while with a man like that." + +"Why? How? For what good?" + +"Just to see him look. There is nothing on earth so scrumptious as +having a grand burst of passion all to yourself." She drew in her +breath like one in pain. "My God!" she said, "to see it come and go! +the white and the red! the tugging at the hair! the tears and the +oaths, and the cries and the curses! To know that you have the man's +heart-strings stretched on your violin, and that with one dash of your +bow, one tiniest twist of a peg, you can make him shriek!" + +"Sepia!" said Hesper, "I think Darwin must be right, and some of us at +least are come from--" + +"Tiger-cats? or perhaps the Tasmanian devil?" suggested Sepia, with one +of her scornful half-laughs. + +But the same instant she turned white as death, and sat softly down on +the nearest chair. + +"Good Heavens, Sepia! what is the matter? I did not mean it," said +Hesper, remorsefully, thinking she had wounded her, and that she had +broken down in the attempt to conceal the pain. + +"It's not that, Hesper, dear. Nothing you could say would hurt me," +replied Sepia, drawing breath sharply. "It's a pain that comes +sometimes--a sort of picture drawn in pains--something I saw once." + +"A picture?" + +"Oh! well!--picture, or what you will!--Where's the difference, once +it's gone and done with? Yet it will get the better of me now and then +for a moment! Some day, when you are married, and a little more used to +men and their ways, I will tell you. My little cousin is much too +innocent now." + +"But you have not been married, Sepia! What should you know about +disgraceful things?" + +"I will tell you when you are married, and not until then, Hesper. +There's a bribe to make you a good child, and do as you must--that is, +as your father and mother and Mr. Redmain would have you!" + +While they talked, Godfrey, now seen, now vanishing, had become a speck +in the distance. Crossing a wide field, he was now no longer to be +distinguished from the grazing cattle, and so was lost to the eyes of +the ladies. + +By this time he had collected his thoughts a little, and it had grown +plain to him that the last and only thing left for him to do for Letty +was to compel Tom to marry her at once. "My mother will then have half +her own way!" he said to himself bitterly. But, instead of reproaching +himself that he had not drawn the poor girl's heart to his own, and +saved her by letting her know that he loved her, he tried to +congratulate himself on the pride and self-important delay which had +preserved him from yielding his love to one who counted herself of so +little value. He did not reflect that, if the value a woman places upon +herself be the true estimate of her worth, the world is tolerably +provided with utterly inestimable treasures of womankind; yet is it the +meek who shall inherit it; and they who make least of themselves are +those who shall be led up to the dais at last. + +"But the wretch shall marry her at once!" he swore. "Her character is +nothing now but a withered flower in the hands of that woman. Even were +she capable of holding her tongue, by this time a score must have seen +them together." + +Godfrey hardly knew what he was to gain by riding to Warrender, for how +could he expect to find Tom there? and what could any one do with the +mother? Only, where else could he go first to learn anything about him? +Some hint he might there get, suggesting in what direction to seek +them. And he must be doing something, however useless: inaction at such +a moment would be hell itself! + +Arrived at the house--a well-appointed cottage, with out-houses larger +than itself--he gave his horse to a boy to lead up and down, while he +went through the gate and rang the bell in a porch covered with ivy. +The old woman who opened the door said Master Tom was not up yet, but +she would take his message. Returning presently, she asked him to walk +in. He declined the hospitality, and remained in front of the house. + +Tom was no coward, in the ordinary sense of the word: there was in him +a good deal of what goes to the making of a gentleman; but he confessed +to being "in a bit of a funk" when he heard who was below: there was +but one thing it could mean, he thought--that Letty had been found out, +and here was her cousin come to make a row. But what did it matter, so +long as Letty was true to him? The world should know that Wardour nor +Platt--his mother's maiden name!--nor any power on earth should keep +from him the woman of his choice! As soon as he was of age, he would +marry her, in spite of them all. But he could not help being a little +afraid of Godfrey Wardour, for he admired him. + +For Godfrey, he would have rather liked Tom Helmer, had he ever seen +down into the best of him; but Tom's carelessness had so often +misrepresented him, that Godfrey had too huge a contempt for him. And +now the miserable creature had not merely grown dangerous, but had of a +sudden done him the greatest possible hurt! It was all Godfrey could do +to keep his contempt and hate within what he would have called the +bounds of reason, as he waited for "the miserable mongrel." He kept +walking up and down the little lawn, which a high shrubbery protected +from the road, making a futile attempt, as often as he thought of the +policy of it, to look unconcerned, and the next moment striking fierce, +objectless blows with his whip. Catching sight of him from a window on +the stair, Tom was so little reassured by his demeanor, that, crossing +the hall, he chose from the stand a thick oak stick--poor odds against +a hunting-whip in the hands of one like Godfrey, with the steel of ten +years of manhood in him. + +Tom's long legs came doubling carelessly down the two steps from the +door, as, with a gracious wave of the hand, and swinging his cudgel as +if he were just going out for a stroll, he coolly greeted his visitor. +But the other, instead of returning the salutation, stepped quickly up +to him. + +"Mr. Helmer, where is Miss Lovel?" he said, in a low voice. + +Tom turned pale, for a pang of undefined fear shot through him, and his +voice betrayed genuine anxiety as he answered: + +"I do not know. What has happened?" + +Wardour's fingers gripped convulsively his whip-handle, and the word +_liar_ had almost escaped his lips; but, through the darkness of the +tempest raging in him, he yes read truth in Tom's scared face and +trembling words. + +"You were with her last night," he said, grinding it out between his +teeth. + +"I was," answered Tom, looking more scared still. + +"Where is she now?" demanded Godfrey again. + +"I hope to God you know," answered Tom, "for I don't." + +"Where did you leave her?" asked Wardour, in the tone of an avenger +rather than a judge. + +Tom, without a moment's hesitation, described the place with +precision--a spot not more than a hundred yards from the house. + +"What right had you to come sneaking about the place?" hissed Godfrey, +a vain attempt to master an involuntary movement of the muscles of his +face at once clinching and showing his teeth. At the same moment he +raised his whip unconsciously. + +Tom instinctively stepped back, and raised his stick in attitude of +defense. Godfrey burst into a scornful laugh. + +"You fool!" he said; "you need not be afraid; I can see you are +speaking the truth. You dare not tell me a lie!" + +"It is enough," returned Tom with dignity, "that I do not tell lies. I +am not afraid of you, Mr. Wardour. What I dare or dare not do, is +neither for you nor me to say. You are the older and stronger and every +way better man, but that gives you no right to bully me." + +This answer brought Godfrey to a better sense of what became himself, +if not of what Helmer could claim of him. Using positive violence over +himself, he spoke next in a tone calm even to iciness. + +"Mr. Helmer," he said, "I will gladly address you as a gentleman, if +you will show me how it can be the part of a gentleman to go prowling +about his neighbor's property after nightfall." + +"Love acknowledges no law but itself, Mr. Wardour," answered Tom, +inspired by the dignity of his honest affection for Letty. "Miss Lovel +is not your property. I love her, and she loves me. I would do my best +to see her, if Thornwick were the castle of Giant Blunderbore." + +"Why not walk up to the house, like a man, in the daylight, and say you +wanted to see her?" + +"Should I have been welcome, Mr. Wardour?" said Tom, significantly. +"You know very well what my reception would have been; and I know +better than throw difficulties in my own path. To do as you say would +have been to make it next to impossible to see her." + +"Well, we must find her now anyhow; and you must marry her off-hand." + +"Must!" echoed Tom, his eyes flashing, at once with anger at the word +and with pleasure at the proposal. "Must?" he repeated, "when there is +nothing in the world I desire or care for but to marry her? Tell me +what it all means, Mr. Wardour; for, by Heaven! I am utterly in the +dark." + +"It means just this--and I don't know but I am making a fool of myself +to tell you--that the girl was seen in your company late last night, +and has been neither seen nor heard of since." + +"My God!" cried Tom, now first laying hold of the fact; and with the +word he turned and started for the stable. His run, however, broke +down, and with a look of scared bewilderment he came back to Godfrey. + +"Mr. Wardour," he said, "what am I to do? Please advise me. If we raise +a hue and cry, it will set people saying all manner of things, pleasant +neither for you nor for us." + +"That is your business, Mr. Helmer," answered Godfrey, bitterly. "It is +you who have brought this shame on her." + +"You are a cold-hearted man," said Tom. "But there is no shame in the +matter. I will soon make that clear--if only I knew where to go after +her. The thing is to me utterly mysterious: there are neither robbers +nor wild beasts about Thornwick. What _can_ have happened to her?" + +He turned his back on Godfrey for a moment, then, suddenly wheeling, +broke out: + +"I will tell you what it is; I see it all now; she found out that she +had been seen, and was too terrified to go into the house again!--Mr. +Wardour," he continued, with a new look in his eyes, "I have more +reason to be suspicious of you and your mother than you have to suspect +me. Your treatment of Letty has not been of the kindest." + +So Letty had been accusing him of unkindness! Ready as he now was to +hear anything to her disadvantage, it was yet a fresh stab to the heart +of him. Was this the girl for whom, in all honesty and affection, he +had sought to do so much! How could she say he was unkind to her?--and +say it to a fellow like this? It was humiliating, indeed! But he would +not defend himself. Not to Tom, not to his mother, not to any living +soul, would he utter a word even resembling blame of the girl! He, at +least, would carry himself generously! Everything, though she had +plunged his heart in a pitcher of gall, should be done for her sake! +She should go to her lover, and leave blame behind her with him! His +sole care should be that the wind-bag should not collapse and slip out +of it, that he should actually marry her; and, as soon as he had handed +him over to her in safety, he would have done with her and with all +women for ever, except his mother! Not once more would he speak to one +of them in tone of friendship! + +He looked at Tom full in the eyes, and made him no answer. + +"If I don't find Letty this very morning," said Tom, "I shall apply for +a warrant to search your house: my uncle Rendall will give me one." + +Godfrey smiled a smile of scorn, turned from him as a wise man turns +from a fool, and went out of the gate. + +He had just taken his horse from the boy and sent him off, when he saw +a young woman coming hurriedly across the road, from the direction of +Testbridge. Plainly she was on business of pressing import. She came +nearer, and he saw it was Mary Marston. The moment she recognized +Godfrey, she began to run to him; but, when she came near enough to +take notice of his mien, as he stood with his foot in the stirrup, with +no word of greeting or look of reception, and inquiry only in every +feature, her haste suddenly dropped, her flushed face turned pale, and +she stood still, panting. Not a word could she utter, and was but just +able to force a faint smile, with intent to reassure him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THE RESULT. + + +Letty would never perhaps have come to herself in the cold of this +world, under the shifting tent of the winter night, but for an outcast +mongrel dog, which, wandering masterless and hungry, but not selfish, +along the road, came upon her where she lay seemingly lifeless, and, +recognizing with pity his neighbor in misfortune, began at once to give +her--it was all he had that was separable--what help and healing might +lie in a warm, honest tongue. Diligently he set himself to lick her +face and hands. + +By slow degrees her misery returned, and she sat up. Rejoiced at his +success, the dog kept dodging about her, catching a lick here and a +lick there, wherever he saw a spot of bare within his reach. By slow +degrees, next, the knowledge of herself joined on to the knowledge of +her misery, and she knew who it was that was miserable. She threw her +arms round the dog, laid her head on his, and wept. This relieved her a +little: weeping is good, even to such as Alberigo in an ice-pot of +hell. But she was cold to the very marrow, almost too cold to feel it; +and, when she rose, could scarcely put one foot before the other. + +Not once, for all her misery, did she imagine a return to Thornwick. +Without a thought of whither, she moved on, unaware even that it was in +the direction of the town. The dog, delighted to believe that he had +raised up to himself a mistress, followed humbly at her heel: but +always when she stopped, as she did every few paces, ran round in front +of her, and looked up in her face, as much as to say, "Here I am, +mistress! shall I lick again?" If a dog could create, he would make +masters and mistresses. Gladly would she then have fondled him, but +feared the venture; for, it seemed, were she to stoop, she must fall +flat on the road, and never rise more. + +Slowly the two went on, with motion scarce enough to keep the blood +moving in their veins. Had she not been, for all her late depression, +in fine health and strength, Letty could hardly have escaped death from +the cold of that night. For many months after, some portion of every +night she passed in dreaming over again this dreariest wandering; and +in her after life people would be puzzled to think why Mrs. Helmer +looked so angry when any one spoke as if the animals died outright. +But, although she never forgot this part of the terrible night, she +never dreamed of any rescue from it; memory could not join it on to the +next part, for again she lost consciousness, and could recall nothing +between feeling the dog once more licking her face and finding herself +in bed. + +When Beenie opened her kitchen-door in the morning to let in the fresh +air, she found seated on the step, and leaning against the wall, what +she took first for a young woman asleep, and then for the dead body of +one; for, when she gave her a little shake, she fell sideways off the +door-step. Beenie's heart smote her; for during the last hours of her +morning's sleep she had been disturbed by the howling of a dog, +apparently in their own yard, but had paid no further attention to it +than that of repeated mental objurgation: there stood the offender, +looking up at her pitifully--ugly, disreputable, of breed unknown, one +of the _canaille!_ When the girl fell down, he darted at her, licked +her cold face for a moment, then stretching out a long, gaunt neck, +uttered from the depth of his hidebound frame the most melancholy +appeal, not to Beenie, at whom he would not even look again, but to the +open door. But, when Beenie, in whom, as in most of us, curiosity had +the start of service, stooped, and, peering more closely into the face +of the girl, recognized, though uncertainly, a known face, she too +uttered a kind of howl, and straightway raising Letty's head drew her +into the house. It is the mark of an imperfect humanity, that personal +knowledge should spur the sides of hospitable intent: what difference +does our knowing or not knowing make to the fact of human need? The +good Samaritan would never have been mentioned by the mouth of the +True, had he been even an old acquaintance of the "certain man." But it +is thus we learn; and, from loving this one and that, we come to love +all at last, and then is our humanity complete. + +Letty moved not one frozen muscle, and Beenie, growing terrified, flew +up the stair to her mistress. Mary sprang from her bed and hurried +down. There, on the kitchen-floor, in front of the yet fireless grate, +lay the body of Letty Lovel. A hideous dog was sitting on his haunches +at her head. The moment she entered, again the animal stretched out a +long, bony neck, and sent forth a howl that rang penetrative through +the house. It sounded in Mary's ears like the cry of the whole animal +creation over the absence of their Maker. They raised her and carried +her to Mary's room. There they laid her in the still warm bed, and +proceeded to use all possible means for the restoration of heat and the +renewal of circulation. + +Here I am sorry to have to mention that Beenie, returning, +unsuccessful, from their first efforts, to the kitchen, to get hot +water, and finding the dog sitting there motionless, with his face +turned toward the door by which they had carried Letty out, peevish +with disappointment and dread, drove him from the kitchen, and from the +court, into the street where that same day he was seen wildly running +with a pan at his tail, and the next was found lying dead in a bit of +waste ground among stones and shards. God rest all such! + +But, as far as Letty was concerned, happily Beenie was not an old woman +for nothing. With a woman's sympathy, Mary hesitated to run for the +doctor: who could tell what might be involved in so strange an event? +If they could but bring her to, first, and learn something to guide +them! She pushed delay to the very verge of danger. But, soon after, +thanks to Beenie's persistence, indications of success appeared, and +Letty began to breathe. It was then resolved between the nurses that, +for the present, they would keep the affair to themselves, a conclusion +affording much satisfaction to Beenie, in the consciousness that +therein she had the better of the Turnbulls, against whom she cherished +an ever-renewed indignation. + +But, when Mary set herself at length to find out from Letty what had +happened, without which she could not tell what to do next, she found +her mind so far gone that she understood nothing said to her, or, at +least, could return no rational response, although occasionally an +individual word would seem to influence the current of her ideas. She +kept murmuring almost inarticulately; but, to Mary's uneasiness, every +now and then plainly uttered the name _Tom_. What was she to make of +it? In terror lest she should betray her, she must yet do something. +Matters could not have gone wrong so far that nothing could be done to +set them at least a little straight! If only she knew what! A single +false step might do no end of mischief! She must see Tom Helmer: +without betraying Letty, she might get from him some enlightenment. She +knew his open nature, had a better opinion of him than many had, and +was a little nearer the right of him. The doctor must be called; but +she would, if possible, see Tom first. + +It was not more than half an hour's walk to Warrender, and she set out +in haste. She must get back before George Turnbull came to open the +shop. + +When she got near enough to see Mr. Wardour's face, she read in it at +once that he was there from the same cause as herself; but there was no +good omen to be drawn from its expression: she read there not only keen +anxiety and bitter disappointment, but lowering anger; nor was that +absent which she felt to be distrust of herself. The sole +acknowledgment he made of her approach was to withdraw his foot from +the stirrup and stand waiting. + +"You know something," he said, looking cold and hard in her face. + +"About what?" returned Mary, recovering herself; she was careful, for +Letty's sake, to feel her way. + +"I hope to goodness," returned Godfrey, almost fiercely, yet with a +dash of rude indifference, "_you_ are not concerned in +this--business!"--he was about to use a bad adjective, but suppressed +it. + +"I _am_ concerned in it," said Mary, with perfect quietness. + +"You knew what was going on?" cried Wardour. "You knew that fellow +there came prowling about Thornwick like a fox about a hen-roost? By +Heaven! if I had but suspected it--" + +"No, Mr. Wardour," interrupted Mary, already catching a glimpse of +light, "I knew nothing of that." + +"Then what do you mean by saying you are concerned in the matter?" + +Mary thought he was behaving so unlike himself that a shock might be of +service. + +"Only this," she answered, "--that Letty is now lying in my room, +whether dead or alive I am in doubt. She must have spent the night in +the open air--and that without cloak or bonnet." + +"Good God!" cried Godfrey. "And you could leave her like that!" + +"She is attended to," replied Mary, with dignity. "There are worse +evils to be warded than death, else I should not be here; there are +hard judgments and evil tongues.--Will you come and see her, Mr. +Wardour?" + +"No," answered Godfrey, gruffly. + +"Shall I send a note to Mrs. Wardour, then?" + +"I will tell her myself." + +"What would you have me do about her?" + +"I have no concern in the matter, but I suppose you had better send for +a doctor. Talk to that fellow there," he added, pointing with his whip +toward the cottage, and again putting his foot in the stirrup. "Tell +him he has brought her to disgrace--" + +"I don't believe it," interrupted Mary, her face flushing with +indignant shame. But Godfrey went on without heeding her: + +"And get him to marry her off-hand, if you can--for, by God! he _shall_ +marry her, or I will kill him." + +He spoke looking round at her over his shoulder, a scowl on his face, +his foot in the stirrup, one hand twisted in the mane of his horse, and +the other with the whip stretched out as if threatening the universe. +Mary stood white but calm, and made no answer. He swung himself into +the saddle, and rode away. She turned to the gate. + +From behind the shrubbery, Tom had heard all that passed between them, +and, meeting her as she entered, led the way to a side-walk, unseen +from the house. + +"O Miss Marston! what is to be done?" he said. "This is a terrible +business! But I am so glad you have got her, poor girl! I heard all you +said to that brute, Wardour. Thank you, thank you a thousand times, for +taking her part. Indeed, you spoke but the truth for her. Let me tell +you all I know." + +He had not much to tell, however, beyond what Mary knew already. + +"She keeps calling out for you, Mr. Helmer," she said, when he had +ended. + +"I will go with you. Come, come," he answered. + +"You will leave a message for your mother?" + +"Never mind my mother. She's good at finding out for herself." + +"She ought to be told," said Mary; "but I can't stop to argue it with +you. Certainly your first duty is to Letty now. Oh, if people only +wouldn't hide things!" + +"Come along," cried Tom, hurrying before her; "I will soon set +everything right." + +"How shall we manage with the doctor?" said Mary, as they went. "We can +not do without him, for I am sure she is in danger." + +"Oh, no!" said Tom. "She will be all right when she sees me. But we +will take the doctor on our way, and prepare him." + +When they came to the doctor's house, Mary walked on, and Tom told the +doctor he had met Miss Marston on her way to him, and had come instead: +she wanted to let him know that Miss Lovel had come to her quite +unexpected that morning; that she was delirious, and had apparently +wandered from home under an attack of brain-fever, or something of the +sort. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +MARY AND GODFREY. + + +Everything went very tolerably, so far as concerned the world of talk, +in the matter of Letty's misfortunes. Rumors, it is true--and more than +one of them strange enough--did for a time go floating about the +country; but none of them came to the ears of Tom or of Mary, and Letty +was safe from hearing anything; and the engagement between her and Tom +soon became generally known. + +Mrs. Helmer was very angry, and did all she could to make Tom break it +off--it was so much below him! But in nothing could the folly of the +woman have been more apparent than in her fancying, with the experience +of her life before her, that any opposition of hers could be effectual +otherwise than to the confirmation of her son's will. So short-sighted +was she as to originate most of the reports to Letty's disadvantage; +but Tom's behavior, on the other hand, was strong to put them down; for +the man is seldom found so faithful where such reports are facts. + +Mrs. Wardour took care to say nothing unkind of Letty. She was of her +own family; and, besides, not only was Tom a better match than she +could have expected for her, but she was more than satisfied to have +Godfrey's dangerous toy thus drawn away beyond his reach. As soon as +ever the doctor gave his permission, she went to see her; but, +although, dismayed at sight of her suffering face, she did not utter +one unkind word, her visit was so plainly injurious in its effects, +that it was long before Mary would consent to a repetition of it. + +Letty's recovery was very slow. The spring was close at hand before the +bloom began to reappear--and then it was but fitfully--in Letty's +cheek. Neither her gayety nor her usual excess of timorousness +returned. A certain sad seriousness had taken the place of both, and +she seemed to look out from deeper eyes. I can not think that Letty had +begun to perceive that there actually is a Nature shaping us to its own +ends; but I think she had begun to feel that Mary lived in the +conscious presence of such a power. To Tom she behaved very sweetly, +but more like a tender sister than a lover, and Mary began to doubt +whether her heart was altogether Tom's. From mention of approaching +marriage, she turned with a nervous, uneasy haste. Had the insight +which the enforced calmness of suffering sometimes brings opened her +eyes to anything in Tom? The doubt filled Mary with anxiety. She +thought and thought, until--delicate matter as it was to meddle with, +and small encouragement as Godfrey Wardour had given her to expect +sympathy--she yet made up her mind to speak to him on the subject--and +the rather that she was troubled at the unworthiness of his behavior to +Letty: gladly would she have him treat her with the generosity +essential to the idea she had formed of him. + +She went, therefore, one Sunday evening, to Thornwick, and requested to +see Mr. Wardour. + +It was plainly an unwilling interview he granted her, but she was not +thereby deterred from opening her mind to him. + +"I fear, Mr. Wardour," she said, "--I come altogether without +authority--but I fear Letty has been rather hurried in her engagement +with Mr. Helmer. I think she dreads being married--at least so soon." + +"You would have her break it off?" said Godfrey, with cold restraint. + +"No; certainly not," replied Mary; "that would be unjust to Mr. Helmer. +But the thing was so hastened, indeed, hurried, by that unhappy +accident, that she had scarcely time to know her own mind." + +"Miss Marston," answered Godfrey, severely, "it is her own fault--all +and entirely her own fault." + +"But, surely," said Mary, "it will not do for us to insist upon desert. +That is not how we are treated ourselves." + +"Is it not?" returned Godfrey, angrily. "My experience is different. I +am sure my faults have come back upon me pretty sharply.--She _must_ +marry the fellow, or her character is gone." + +"I am unwilling to grant that, Mr. Wardour. It was wrong in her to have +anything to say to Mr. Helmer without your knowledge, and a foolish +thing to meet him as she did; but Letty is a good girl, and you know +country ways are old-fashioned, and in itself there is nothing wicked +in having a talk with a young man after dark." + +"You speak, I dare say, as such things arc regarded in--certain strata +of society," returned Godfrey, coldly; "but such views do not hold in +that to which either of them belongs." + +"It seems to me a pity they should not, then," said Mary. "I know +nothing of such matters, but, surely, young people should have +opportunities of understanding each other. Anyhow, marriage is a heavy +penalty to pay for such an indiscretion. A girl might like a young man +well enough to enjoy a talk with him now and then, and yet find it hard +to marry him." + +"Did you come here to dispute social customs with me, Miss Marston?" +said Godfrey. "I am not prepared, nor, indeed, sufficiently interested, +to discuss them with you." + +"I will come to the point at once," answered Mary; who, although +speaking so collectedly, was much frightened at her own boldness: +Godfrey seemed from his knowledge so far above her, and she owed him so +much.--"Would it not be possible for Letty to return here? Then the +thing might take its natural course, and Tom and she know each other +better before they did what was irrevocable. They are little better +than children now." + +"The thing is absolutely impossible," said Godfrey, and haughtily rose +from his chair like one in authority ending an interview. "But," he +added, "you have been put to great expense for the foolish girl, and, +when she leaves you, I desire you will let me know--" + +"Thank you, Mr. Wardour!" said Mary, who had risen also. "As you have +now given a turn to the conversation which is not in the least +interesting to me, I wish you a good evening." + +With the words, she left the room. He had made her angry at last. She +trembled so that, the instant she was out of sight of the house, she +had to sit down for dread of falling. + +Godfrey remained in the room where she left him, full of indignation. +Ever since that frightful waking, he had brooded over the injury--the +insult, he counted it--which Letty had heaped upon him. A great +tenderness toward her, to himself unknown, and of his own will +unbegotten, remained in his spirit. When he passed the door of her +room, returning from that terrible ride, he locked it, and put the key +in his pocket, and from that day no one entered the chamber. But, had +he loved Letty as purely as he had loved her selfishly, he would have +listened to Mary pleading in her behalf, and would have thought first +about her well-being, not about her character in the eyes of the world. +He would have seen also that, while the breath of the world's opinion +is a mockery in counterpoise with a life of broken interest and the +society of an unworthy husband, the mere fact of his mother's receiving +her again at Thornwick would of itself be enough to reestablish her +position in the face of all gainsayers. But in Godfrey Wardour love and +pride went hand in hand. Not for a moment would he will to love a girl +capable of being interested, if nothing more, in Tom Helmer. It must be +allowed, however, that it would have been a terrible torture to see +Letty about the place, to pass her on the stair, to come upon her in +the garden, to sit with her in the room, and know all the time that it +was the test of Tom's worth and her constancy. Even were she to give up +Tom, satisfied that she did not love him, she could be nothing more to +him, even in the relation in which he had allowed her to think she +stood to him. She had behaved too deceitfully, too heartlessly, too +ungratefully, too _vulgarly_ for that! Yet was his heart torn every +time the vision of the gentle girl rose before "that inward eye," +which, for long, could no more be to him "the bliss of solitude"; when +he saw those hazel depths looking half anxious, half sorrowful in his +face, as, with sadly comic sense of her stupidity, she listened while +he explained or read something he loved. But no; nothing else would do +than act the mere honest guardian, compelling them to marry, no matter +how slight or transient the shadow the man had cast over her reputation! + +Mary returned with a sense of utter failure. + +But before long she came to the conclusion that all was right between +Tom and Letty, and that the cause of her anxiety had lain merely in +Letty's loss of animal spirits. + +Now and then Mary tried to turn Tom's attention a little toward the +duty of religion: Tom received the attempt with gentle amusement and a +little _badinage_. It was all very well for girls! Indeed, he had made +the observation that girls who had no religion were "strong-minded," +and that he could not endure! Like most men, he was so well satisfied +with himself, that he saw no occasion to take trouble to be anything +better than he was. Never suspecting what a noble creature he was meant +to be, he never saw what a poor creature he was. In his own eyes he was +a man any girl might be proud to marry. He had not yet, however, sunk +to the depth of those who, having caught a glimpse of nobility, confess +wretchedness, excuse it, and decline to allow that the noble they see +they are bound to be; or, worse still, perhaps, admit the obligation, +but move no inch to fulfill it. It seems to me that such must one day +make acquaintance with _essential_ misery--a thing of which they have +no conception. + +Day after day Tom passed through Turnbull and Marston's shop to see +Letty. Tom cared for nobody, else he would have gone in by the +kitchen-door, which was the only other entrance to the house; but I do +not know whether it is a pity or not that he did not hear the remarks +which rose like the dust of his passage behind him. In the same little +sitting-room, where for so many years Mary had listened to the slow, +tender wisdom of her father, a clever young man was now making love to +an ignorant girl, whom he did not half understand or half appreciate, +all the time he feeling himself the greater and wiser and more valuable +of the two. He was unaware, however, that he did feel so, for he had +never yet become conscious of any _fact_ concerning himself. + +The whole Turnbull family, from the beginnings of things +self-constituted judges of the two Marstons, were not the less critical +of the daughter, that the father had been taken from her. There was +grumbling in the shop every time she ran up to see Letty, every one +regarding her and speaking of her as a servant neglecting her duty. Yet +all knew well enough that she was co-proprietor of business and stock, +and the elder Turnbull knew besides that, if the lawyer to whose care +William Marston had committed his daughter were at that moment to go +into the affairs of the partnership, he would find that Mary had a much +larger amount of money actually in the business than he. + +Of all matters connected with the business, except those of her own +department, Mary was ignorant. Her father had never neglected his duty, +but he had so far neglected what the world calls a man's interests as +to leave his affairs much too exclusively in the hands of his partner; +he had been too much interested in life itself to look sharply after +anything less than life. He acknowledged no _worldly_ interests at all: +either God cared for his interests or he himself did not. Whether he +might not have been more attentive to the state of his affairs without +danger of deeper loss, I do not care to examine or determine; the +result of his life in the world was a grand success. Now, Mary's +feeling and judgment in regard to _things_ being identical with her +father's, Turnbull, instructed by his greed, both natural and acquired, +argued thus--unconsciously almost, but not the less argued--that what +Mary valued so little, and he valued so much, must, by necessary +deduction, be more his than hers--and _logically_ ought to be +_legally_. So servants begin to steal, arguing that such and such +things are only lying about, and nobody cares for them. + +But Turnbull, knowing that, notwithstanding the reason on his side, it +was not safe to act on such a conclusion, had for some time felt no +little anxiety to secure himself from investigation and possible +disaster by the marriage of Mary to his son George. + +Tom Helmer had now to learn that, by his father's will, made doubtless +under the influence of his mother, he was to have but a small annuity +so long as she lived. Upon this he determined nevertheless to marry, +confident in his literary faculty, which, he never doubted, would soon +raise it to a very sufficient income. Nor did Mary attempt to dissuade +him; for what could be better for a disposition like his than care for +the things of this life, occasioned by the needs of others dependent +upon him! Besides, there seemed to be nothing else now possible for +Letty. So, in the early summer, they were married, no relative present +except Mrs. Wardour, Mrs. Helmer and Godfrey having both declined their +invitation; and no friend, except Mary for bridesmaid, and Mr. Pycroft, +a school and college friend of Tom's, who was now making a bohemian +livelihood in London by writing for the weekly press, as he called +certain journals of no high standing, for groom's man. After the +ceremony, and a breakfast provided by Mary, the young couple took the +train for London. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +MARY IN THE SHOP. + + +More than a year had now passed from the opening of my narrative. It +was full summer again at Testbridge, and things, to the careless eye, +were unchanged, and, to the careless mind, would never change, +although, in fact, nothing was the same, and nothing could continue as +it now was. For were not the earth and the sun a little colder? Had not +the moon crumbled a little? And had not the eternal warmth, unperceived +save of a few, drawn a little nearer--the clock that measures the +eternal day ticked one tick more to the hour when the Son of Man will +come? But the greed and the fawning did go on unchanged, save it were +for the worse, in the shop of Turnbull and Marston, seasoned only with +the heavenly salt of Mary's good ministration. + +She was very lonely. Letty was gone; and the link between Mr. Wardour +and her not only broken, but a gulf of separation in its place. Not the +less remained the good he had given her. No good is ever lost. The +heavenly porter was departed, but had left the door wide. She had seen +him but once since Letty's marriage, and then his salutation was like +that of a dead man in a dream; for in his sore heart he still imagined +her the confidante of Letty's deception. + +But the shadow of her father's absence swallowed all the other shadows. +The air of warmth and peace and conscious safety which had hitherto +surrounded her was gone, and in its place cold, exposure, and +annoyance. Between them her father and she had originated a mutually +protective atmosphere of love; when that failed, the atmosphere of +earthly relation rushed in and enveloped her. The moment of her +father's departure, malign influences, inimical to the very springs of +her life, concentrated themselves upon her: it was the design of John +Turnbull that she should not be comfortable so long as she did not +irrevocably cast in her lot with his family; and, the rest in the shop +being mostly creatures of his own choice, by a sort of implicit +understanding they proceeded to make her uncomfortable. So long as they +confined themselves to silence, neglect, and general exclusion, Mary +heeded little their behavior, for no intercourse with them, beyond that +of external good offices, could be better than indifferent to her; but, +when they advanced to positive interference, her position became indeed +hard to endure. They would, for instance, keep watch on her serving, +and, as soon as the customer was gone, would find open fault with this +or that she had said or done. But even this was comparatively +endurable: when they advanced to the insolence of doing the same in the +presence of the customer, she found it more than she could bear with +even a show of equanimity. She did her best, however; and for some time +things went on without any symptom of approaching crisis. But it was +impossible this should continue; for, had she been capable of endless +endurance, her persecutors would only have gone on to worse. But Mary +was naturally quick-tempered, and the chief trouble they caused her was +the control of her temper; for, although she had early come to +recognize the imperative duty of this branch of self-government, she +was not yet perfect in it. Not every one who can serve unboundedly can +endure patiently; and the more gentle some natures, the more they +resent the rudeness which springs from an opposite nature; absolutely +courteous, they flame at discourtesy, and thus lack of the perfection +to which patience would and must raise them. When Turnbull, in the +narrow space behind the counter, would push his way past her without +other pretense of apology than something like a sneer, she did feel for +a moment as if evil were about to have the victory over her; and when +Mrs. Turnbull came in, which happily was but seldom, she felt as if +from some sepulchre in her mind a very demon sprang to meet her. For +she behaved to her worst of all. She would heave herself in with the +air and look of a vulgar duchess; for, from the height of her small +consciousness, she looked down upon the shop, and never entered it save +as a customer. The daughter of a small country attorney, who, +notwithstanding his unneglected opportunities, had not been too +successful to accept as a husband for his daughter such a tradesman as +John Turnbull, she arrogated position from her idea of her father's +position; and, while bitterly cherishing the feeling that she had +married beneath her, obstinately excluded the fact that therein she had +descended to her husband's level, regarding herself much in the light +of a princess whose disguise takes nothing from her rank. She was like +those ladies who, having set their seal to the death of their first +husbands by marrying again, yet cling to the title they gave them, and +continue to call themselves by their name. + +Mrs. Turnbull never bought a dress at the shop. No one should say of +her, it was easy for a snail to live in a castle! She took pains to let +her precious public know that she went to London to make her purchases. +If she did not mention also that she made them at the warehouses where +her husband was a customer, procuring them at the same price he would +have paid, it was because she saw no occasion. It was indeed only for +some small occasional necessity she ever crossed the threshold of the +place whence came all the money she had to spend. When she did, she +entered it with such airs as she imagined to represent the +consciousness of the scion of a county family: there is one show of +breeding vulgarity seldom assumes--simplicity. No sign of recognition +would pass between her husband and herself: by one stern refusal to +acknowledge his advances, she had from the first taught him that in the +shop they were strangers: he saw the rock of ridicule ahead, and +required no second lesson: when she was present, he never knew it. +George had learned the lesson before he went into the business, and +Mary had never required it. The others behaved to her as to any +customer known to stand upon her dignity, but she made them no return +in politeness; and the way she would order Mary, now there was no +father to offend, would have been amusing enough but for the irritation +its extreme rudeness caused her. She did, however, manage sometimes to +be at once both a little angry and much amused. Small idea had Mrs. +Turnbull of the diversion which on such occasions she afforded the +customers present. + +One day, a short time before her marriage, delayed by the illness of +Mr. Redmain, Miss Mortimer happened to be in the shop, and was being +served by Mary, when Mrs. Turnbull entered. Careless of the customer, +she walked straight up to her as if she saw none, and in a tone that +would be dignified, and was haughty, desired her to bring her a reel of +marking-cotton. Now it had been a principle with Mary's father, and she +had thoroughly learned it, that whatever would be counted a rudeness by +_any_ customer, must be shown to _none_. "If all are equal in the sight +of God," he would say, "how dare I leave a poor woman to serve a rich? +Would I leave one countess to serve another? My business is to sell in +the name of Christ. To respect persons in the shop would be just the +same as to do it in the chapel, and would be to deny him." + +"Excuse me, ma'am," said Mary, "I am waiting on Miss Mortimer," and +went on with what she was about. Mrs. Turnbull flounced away, a little +abashed, not by Mary, but by finding who the customer was, and carried +her commands across the shop. After a moment or two, however, +imagining, in the blindness of her surging anger, that Miss Mortimer +was gone, whereas she had only moved a little farther on to look at +something, she walked up to Mary in a fury. + +"Miss Marston," she said, her voice half choked with rage, "I am at a +loss to understand what you mean by your impertinence." + +"I am sorry you should think me impertinent," answered Mary. "You saw +yourself I was engaged with a customer, and could not attend to you." + +"Your tone was insufferable, miss!" cried the grand lady; but what more +she would have said I can not tell, for just then Miss Mortimer resumed +her place in front of Mary. She had no idea of her position in the +shop, neither suspected who her assailant was, and, fearing the woman's +accusation might do her an injury, felt compelled to interfere. + +"Miss Marston," she said--she had just heard Mrs. Turnbull use her +name--"if you should be called to account by your employer, will you, +please, refer to me? You were perfectly civil both to me and to this--" +she hesitated a perceptible moment, but ended with the word "_lady_," +peculiarly toned. + +"Thank you, ma'am," said Mary, with a smile, "but it is of no +consequence." + +This answer would have almost driven the woman out of her +reason--already, between annoyance with herself and anger with Mary, +her hue was purple: something she called her constitution required a +nightly glass of brandy-and-water--but she was so dumfounded by Miss +Mortimer's defense of Mary, which she looked upon as an assault on +herself, so painfully aware that all hands were arrested and all eyes +fixed on herself, and so mortified with the conviction that her husband +was enjoying her discomfiture, that, with what haughtiness she could +extemporize from consuming offense, she made a sudden vertical +gyration, and walked from the vile place. + +Now, George never lost a chance of recommending himself to Mary by +siding with her--but only after the battle. He came up to her now with +a mean, unpleasant look, intended to represent sympathy, and, +approaching his face to hers, said, confidentially: + +"What made my mother speak to you like that, Mary?" + +"You must ask herself," she answered. + +"There you are, as usual, Mary!" he protested; "you will never let a +fellow take your part!" + +"If you wanted to take my part, you should have done so when there +would have been some good in it." + +"How could I, before Miss Mortimer, you know!" + +"Then why do it now?" + +"Well, you see--it's hard to bear hearing you ill used! What did you +say to Miss Mortimer that angered my mother?" + +His father heard him, and, taking the cue, called out in the rudest +fashion: + +"If you think, Mary, you're going to take liberties with customers +because you've got no one over you, the sooner you find you're mistaken +the better." + +Mary made him no answer. + +On her way to "the villa," Mrs. Turnbull, spurred by spite, had got +hold of the same idea as George, only that she invented where he had +but imagined it; and when her husband came home in the evening fell out +upon him for allowing Mary to be impertinent to his customers, in whom +for the first time she condescended to show an interest: + +"There she was, talking away to that Miss Mortimer as if she was Beenie +in the kitchen! County people won't stand being treated as if one was +just as good as another, I can tell you! She'll be the ruin of the +business, with her fine-lady-airs! Who's she, I should like to know?" + +"I shall speak to her," said the husband. "But," he went on, "I fear +you will no longer approve of marrying her to George, if you think +she's an injury to the business!" + +"You know, as well as I do, that is the readiest way to get her out of +it. Make her marry George, and she will fall into my hands. If I don't +make her repent her impudence then, you may call me the fool you think +me." + +Mary knew well enough what they wanted of her; but of the real cause at +the root of their desire she had no suspicion. Recoiling altogether +from Mr. Turnbull's theories of business, which were in flat +repudiation of the laws of Him who alone understands either man or his +business, she yet had not a doubt of his honesty as the trades and +professions count honesty. Her father had left the money affairs of the +firm to Mr. Turnbull, and she did the same. It was for no other reason +than that her position had become almost intolerable, that she now +began to wonder if she was bound to this mode of life, and whether it +might not be possible to forsake it. + +Greed is the soul's thieving; where there is greed, there can not be +honesty. John Turnbull, it is true, was not only proud of his +reputation for honesty, but prided himself on being an honest man; yet +not the less was he dishonest--and that with a dishonesty such as few +of those called thieves have attained to. + +Like most of his kind, he had been neither so vulgar nor so dishonest +from the first. In the prime of youth he had had what the people about +him called high notions, and counted quixotic fancies. But it was not +their mockery of his tall talk that turned him aside; opposition +invariably confirmed Turnbull. He had never set his face in the right +direction. The seducing influence lay in himself. It was not the truth +he had loved; it was the show of fine sentiment he had enjoyed. The +distinction of holding loftier opinions than his neighbors was the +ground of his advocacy of them. Something of the beauty of the truth he +must have seen--who does not?--else he could not have been thus moved +at all; but he had never denied himself even a whim for the carrying +out of one of his ideas; he had never set himself to be better; and the +whole mountain-chain, therefore, of his notions sank and sank, until at +length their loftiest peak was the maxim, _Honesty is the best +policy_--a maxim which, true enough in fact, will no more make a man +honest than the economic aphorism, _The supply equals the demand_, will +teach him the niceties of social duty. Whoever makes policy the ground +of his honesty will discover more and more exceptions to the rule. The +career, therefore, of Turnbull of the high notions had been a gradual +descent to the level of his present dishonesty and vulgarity; nothing +is so vulgarizing as dishonesty. I do not care to follow the history of +any man downward. Let him who desires to look on such a panorama, +faithfully and thoroughly depicted, read Auerbach's "Diethelm von +Buchenberg." + +Things went a little more quietly in the shop after this for a while: +Turnbull probably was afraid of precipitating matters, and driving Mary +to seek counsel--from which much injury might arise to his condition +and prospects. As if to make amends for past rudeness, he even took +some pains to be polite, putting on something of the manners with which +he favored his "best customers," of all mankind in his eyes the most to +be honored. This, of course, rendered him odious in the eyes of Mary, +and ripened the desire to free herself from circumstances which from +garments seemed to have grown cerements. She was, however, too much her +father's daughter to do anything in haste. + +She might have been less willing to abandon them, had she had any +friends like-minded with herself, but, while they were all kindly +disposed to her, none of the religious associates of her father, who +knew, or might have known her well, approved of her. They spoke of her +generally with a shake of the head, and an unquestioned feeling that +God was not pleased with her. There are few of the so-called religious +who seem able to trust either God or their neighbor in matters that +concern those two and no other. Nor had she had opportunity of making +acquaintance with any who believed and lived like her father, in other +of the Christian communities of the town. But she had her Bible, and, +when that troubled her, as it did not a little sometimes, she had the +Eternal Wisdom to cry to for such wisdom as she could receive; and one +of the things she learned was, that nowhere in the Bible was she called +on to believe in the Bible, but in the living God, in whom is no +darkness, and who alone can give light to understand his own intent. +All her troubles she carried to him. + +It was not always the solitude of her room that Mary sought to get out +of the wind of the world. Her love of nature had been growing stronger, +notably, from her father's death. If the world is God's, every true man +ought to feel at home in it. Something is wrong if the calm of the +summer night does not sink into the heart, for the peace of God is +there embodied. Sometime is wrong in the man to whom the sunrise is not +a divine glory for therein are embodied the truth, the simplicity, the +might of the Maker. When all is true in us, we shall feel the visible +presence of the Watchful and Loving; for the thing that he works is its +sign and symbol, its clothing fact. In the gentle conference of earth +and sky, in the witnessing colors of the west, in the wind that so +gently visited her cheek, in the great burst of a new morning, Mary saw +the sordid affairs of Mammon, to whose worship the shop seemed to +become more and more of a temple, sink to the bottom of things, as the +mud, which, during the day, the feet of the drinking cattle have +stirred, sinks in the silent night to the bottom of the clear pool; and +she saw that the sordid is all in the soul, and not in the shop. The +service of Christ is help. The service of Mammon is greed. + +Letty was no good correspondent: after one letter in which she declared +herself perfectly happy, and another in which she said almost nothing, +her communication ceased. Mrs. Wardour had been in the shop again and +again, but on each occasion had sought the service of another; and +once, indeed, when Mary alone was disengaged, had waited until another +was at liberty. While Letty was in her house, she had been civil, but, +as soon as she was gone, seemed to show that she held her concerned in +the scandal that had befallen Thornwick. Once, as I have said, she met +Godfrey. It was in the fields. He was walking hurriedly, as usual, but +with his head bent, and a gloomy gaze fixed upon nothing visible. He +started when he saw her, took his hat off, and, with his eyes seeming +to look far away beyond her, passed without a word. Yet had she been to +him a true pupil; for, although neither of them knew it, Mary had +learned more from Godfrey than Godfrey was capable of teaching. She had +turned thought and feeling into life, into reality, into creation. They +speak of the _creations_ of the human intellect, of the human +imagination! there is nothing man can do comes half so near the making +of the Maker as the ordering of his way--except one thing: the highest +creation of which man is capable, is to will the will of the Father. +That _has_ in it an element of the purely creative, and then is man +likest God. But simply to do what we ought, is an altogether higher, +diviner, more potent, more creative thing, than to write the grandest +poem, paint the most beautiful picture, carve the mightiest statue, +build the most worshiping temple, dream out the most enchanting +commotion of melody and harmony. If Godfrey could have seen the soul of +the maiden into whose face his discourtesy called the hot blood, he +would have beheld there simply what God made the earth for; as it was, +he saw a shop-girl, to whom in happier circumstances he had shown +kindness, in whom he was now no longer interested. But the sight of his +troubled face called up all the mother in her; a rush of tenderness, +born of gratitude, flooded her heart. He was sad, and she could do +nothing to comfort him! He had been royally good to her, and no return +was in her power. She could not even let him know how she had profited +by his gifts! She could come near him with no ministration! The bond +between them was an eternal one, yet were they separated by a gulf of +unrelation. Not a mountain-range, but a stayless nothingness parted +them. She built many a castle, with walls of gratitude and floors of +service to entertain Godfrey Wardour; but they stood on no foundation +of imagined possibility. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE WEDDING-DRESS. + + +For all her troubles, however, Mary had her pleasures, even in the +shop. It was a delight to receive the friendly greetings of such as had +known and honored her father. She had the pleasure, as real as it was +simple, of pure service, reaping the fruit of the earth in the joy of +the work that was given her to do; there is no true work that does not +carry its reward though there are few that do not drop it and lose it. +She gathered also the pleasure of seeing and talking with people whose +manners and speech were of finer grain and tone than those about her. +When Hesper Mortimer entered the shop, she brought with her delight; +her carriage was like the gait of an ode; her motions were rhythm; and +her speech was music. Her smile was light, and her whole presence an +enchantment to Mary. The reading aloud which Wardour had led her to +practice had taught her much, not only in respect of the delicacies of +speech and utterance, but in the deeper matters of motion, relation, +and harmony. Hesper's clear-cut but not too sharply defined consonants; +her soft but full-bodied vowels; above all, her slow cadences that +hovered on the verge of song, as her walk on the verge of a slow aerial +dance; the carriage of her head, the movements of her lips, her arms, +her hands; the self-possession that seemed the very embodiment of +law--these formed together a whole of inexpressible delight, +inextricably for Mary associated with music and verse: she would hasten +to serve her as if she had been an angel come to do a little earthly +shopping, and return with the next heavenward tide. Hesper, in response +all but unconscious, would be waited on by no other than Mary; and +always between them passed some sweet, gentle nothings, which afforded +Hesper more pleasure than she could have accounted for. + +Her wedding-day was now for the third time fixed, when one morning she +entered the shop to make some purchases. Not happy in the prospect +before her, she was yet inclined to make the best of it so far as +clothes were concerned--the more so, perhaps, that she had seldom yet +been dressed to her satisfaction: she was now brooding over a certain +idea for her wedding-dress, which she had altogether failed in the +attempt to convey to her London _couturiere_; and it had come into her +head to try whether Mary might not grasp her idea, and help her to make +it intelligible. Mary listened and thought, questioned, and desired +explanations--at length, begged she would allow her to ponder the thing +a little: she could hardly at once venture to say anything. Hesper +laughed, and said she was taking a small matter too +seriously--concluding from Mary's hesitation that she had but perplexed +her, and that she could be of no use to her in the difficulty. + +"A small matter? Your wedding-dress!" exclaimed Mary, in a tone of +expostulation. + +Hesper did not laugh again, but gave a little sigh instead, which +struck sadly on Mary's sympathetic heart. She cast a quick look in her +face. Hesper caught the look, and understood it. For one passing moment +she felt as if, amid the poor pleasure of adorning herself for a hated +marriage, she had found a precious thing of which she had once or twice +dreamed, never thought as a possible existence--a friend, namely, to +love her: the next, she saw the absurdity of imagining a friend in a +shop-girl. + +"But I must make up my mind so soon!" she answered. "Madame Crepine +gave me her idea, in answer to mine, but nothing like it, two days ago; +and, as I have not written again, I fear she may be taking her own way +with the thing. I am certain to hate it." + +"I will talk to you about it as early as you please to-morrow, if that +will do," returned Mary. + +She knew nothing about dressmaking beyond what came of a true taste, +and the experience gained in cutting out and making her own garments, +which she had never yet found a dressmaker to do to her mind; and, +indeed, Hesper had been led to ask her advice mainly from observing how +neat the design of her dresses was, and how faithfully they fitted her. +Dress is a sort of freemasonry between girls. + +"But I can not have the horses to-morrow," said Hesper. + +"I might," pondered Mary aloud, after a moment's silence, "walk out to +Durnmelling this evening after the shop is shut. By that time I shall +have been able to think; I find it impossible, with you before me." + +Hesper acknowledged the compliment with a very pleasant smile. If it be +true, as I may not doubt, that women, in dressing, have the fear of +women and not of men before their eyes, then a compliment from some +women must be more acceptable to some than a compliment from any man +but the specially favored. + +"Thank you a thousand times," she drawled, sweetly. "Then I shall +expect you. Ask for my maid. She will take you to my room. Good-by for +the present." + +As soon as she was gone, Mary, her mind's eye full of her figure, her +look, her style, her motion, gave herself to the important question of +the dress conceived by Hesper; and during her dinner-hour contrived to +cut out and fit to her own person the pattern of a garment such as she +supposed intended in the not very lucid description she had given her. +When she was free, she set out with it for Durnmelling. + +It was rather a long walk, the earlier part of it full of sad reminders +of the pleasure with which, greater than ever accompanied her to +church, she went to pay her Sunday visit at Thornwick; but the latter +part, although the places were so near, almost new to her: she had +never been within the gate of Durnmelling, and felt curious to see the +house of which she had so often heard. + +The butler opened the door to her--an elderly man, of conscious dignity +rather than pride, who received the "young person" graciously, and, +leaving her in the entrance-hall, went to find "Miss Mortimer's maid," +he said, though there was but one lady's-maid in the establishment. + +The few moments she had to wait far more than repaid her for the +trouble she had taken: through a side-door she looked into the great +roofless hall, the one grand thing about the house. Its majesty laid +hold upon her, and the shopkeeper's daughter felt the power of the +ancient dignity and ineffaceable beauty far more than any of the family +to which it had for centuries belonged. + +She was standing lost in delight, when a rude voice called to her from +half-way up a stair: + +"You're to come this way, miss." + +With a start, she turned and went. It was a large room to which she was +led. There was no one in it, and she walked to an open window, which +had a wide outlook across the fields. A little to the right, over some +trees, were the chimneys of Thornwick. She almost started to see +them--so near, and yet so far--like the memory of a sweet, sad story. + +"Do you like my prospect?" asked the voice of Hesper behind her. "It is +flat." + +"I like it much, Miss Mortimer," answered Mary, turning quickly with a +bright face. "Flatness has its own beauty. I sometimes feel as if room +was all I wanted; and of that there is so much there! You see over the +tree-tops, too, and that is good--sometimes--don't you think?" + +Miss Mortimer gave no other reply than a gentle stare, which expressed +no curiosity, although she had a vague feeling that Mary's words meant +something. Most girls of her class would hardly have got so far. + +The summer was backward, but the day had been fine and warm, and the +evening was dewy and soft, and full of evasive odor. The window looked +westward, and the setting sun threw long shadows toward the house. A +gentle wind was moving in the tree-tops. The spirit of the evening had +laid hold of Mary. The peace of faithfulness filled the air. The day's +business vanished, molten in the rest of the coming night. Even +Hesper's wedding-dress was gone from her thoughts. She was in her own +world, and ready, for very, quietness of spirit, to go to sleep. But +she had not forgotten the delight of Hesper's presence; it was only +that all relation between them was gone except such as was purely human. + +"This reminds me so of some beautiful verses of Henry Vaughan!" she +said, half dreamily. + +"What do they say?" drawled Hesper. + +Mary repeated as follows: + + "'The frosts are past, the storms are gone, + And backward life at last comes on. + And here in dust and dirt, O here, + The Lilies of His love appear!'" + +"Whose did you say the lines were?" asked Hesper, with merest automatic +response. + +"Henry Vaughan's," answered Mary, with a little spiritual shiver as of +one who had dropped a pearl in the miry way. + +"I never heard of him," rejoined Hesper, with entire indifference. + +For anything she knew, he might be an occasional writer in "The +Belgrave Magazine," or "The Fireside Herald." Ignorance is one of the +many things of which a lady of position is never ashamed; wherein she +is, it may be, more right than most of my readers will be inclined to +allow; for ignorance is not the thing to be ashamed of, but neglect of +knowledge. That a young person in Mary's position should know a certain +thing, was, on the other hand, a reason why a lady in Hesper's position +should not know it! Was it possible a shop-girl should know anything +that Hesper ought to know and did not? It was foolish of Mary, perhaps, +but she had vaguely felt that a beautiful lady like Miss Mortimer, and +with such a name as Hesper, must know all the lovely things she knew, +and many more besides. + +"He lived in the time of the Charleses," she said, with a tremble in +her voice, for she was ashamed to show her knowledge against the +other's ignorance. + +"Ah!" drawled Hesper, with a confused feeling that people who kept +shops read stupid old books that lay about, because they could not +subscribe to a circulating library.--"Are you fond of poetry?" she +added; for the slight, shadowy shyness, into which her venture had +thrown Mary, drew her heart a little, though she hardly knew it, and +inclined her to say something. + +"Yes," answered Mary, who felt like a child questioned by a stranger in +the road; "--when it is good," she added, hesitatingly. + +"What do you mean by good?" asked Hesper--out of her knowledge, Mary +thought, but it was not even out of her ignorance, only out of her +indifference. People must say something, lest life should stop. + +"That is a question difficult to answer," replied Mary. "I have often +asked it of myself, but never got any plain answer." + +"I do not see why you should find any difficulty in it," returned +Hesper, with a shadow of interest. "You know what you mean when you say +to yourself you like this, or you do not like that." + +"How clever she is, too!" thought Mary; but she answered: "I don't +think I ever say anything to myself about the poetry I read--not at the +time, I mean. If I like it, it drowns me; and, if I don't like it, it +is as the Dead Sea to me, in which you know you can't sink, if you try +ever so." + +Hesper saw nothing in the words, and began to fear that Mary was so +stupid as to imagine herself clever; whereupon the fancy she had taken +to her began to sink like water in sand. The two were still on their +feet, near the window--Mary, in her bonnet, with her back to it, and +Hesper, in evening attire, with her face to the sunset, so that the one +was like a darkling worshiper, the other like the radiant goddess. But +the truth was, that Hesper was a mere earthly woman, and Mary a +heavenly messenger to her. Neither of them knew it, but so it was; for +the angels are essentially humble, and Hesper would have condescended +to any angel out of her own class. + +"I think I know good poetry by what it does to me," resumed Mary, +thoughtfully, just as Hesper was about to pass to the business of the +hour. + +"Indeed!" rejoined Hesper, not less puzzled than before, if the word +should be used where there was no effort to understand. Poetry had +never done anything to her, and Mary's words conveyed no shadow of an +idea. + +The tone of her _indeed_ checked Mary. She hesitated a moment, but went +on. + +"Sometimes," she said, "it makes me feel as if my heart were too big +for my body; sometimes as if all the grand things in heaven and earth +were trying to get into me at once; sometimes as if I had discovered +something nobody else knew; sometimes as if--no, not _as if_, for then +I _must_ go and pray to God. But I am trying to tell you what I don't +know how to tell. I am not talking nonsense, I hope, only ashamed of +myself that I can't talk sense.--I will show you what I have been doing +about your dress." + +Far more to Hesper's surprise and admiration than any of her +half-foiled attempts at the utterance of her thoughts, Mary, taking +from her pocket the shape she had prepared, put it on herself, and, +slowly revolving before Hesper, revealed what in her eyes was a +masterpiece. + +"But how clever of you!" she cried.--Her own fingers had not been quite +innocent of the labor of the needle, for money had long been scarce at +Durnmelling, and in the paper shape she recognized the hand of an +artist.--"Why," she continued, "you are nothing less than an +accomplished dressmaker!" + +"That I dare not think myself," returned Mary, "seeing I never had a +lesson." + +"I wish you would make my wedding-dress," said Hesper. + +"I could not venture, even if I had the time," answered Mary. "The +moment I began to cut into the stuff, I should be terrified, and lose +my self-possession. I never made a dress for anybody but myself." + +"You are a little witch!" said Hesper; while Mary, who had roughly +prepared a larger shape, proceeded to fit it to her person. + +She was busy pinning and unpinning, shifting and pinning again, when +suddenly Hesper said: + +"I suppose you know I am going to marry money?" + +"Oh! don't say that. It's too dreadful!" cried Mary, stopping her work, +and looking up in Hesper's face. + +"What! you supposed I was going to marry a man like Mr. Redmain for +love?" rejoined Hesper, with a hard laugh. + +"I can not bear to think of it!" said Mary. "But you do not really mean +it! You are only--making fun of me! Do say you are." + +"Indeed, I am not. I wish I could say I was! It is very horrid, I know, +but where's the good of mincing matters? If I did not call the thing by +its name, the thing would be just the same. You know, people in our +world have to do as they must; they can't pick and choose like you +happy creatures. I dare say, now, you are engaged to a young man you +love with all your heart, one you would rather marry than any other in +the whole universe." + +"Oh, dear, no!" returned Mary, with a smile most plainly fancy-free. "I +am not engaged, nor in the least likely to be." + +"And not in love either?" said Hesper--with such coolness that Mary +looked up in her face to know if she had really said so. + +"No," she replied. + +"No more am I," echoed Hesper; "that is the one good thing in the +business: I sha'n't break my heart, as some girls do. At least, so they +say--I don't believe it: how could a girl be so indecent? It is bad +enough to marry a man: that one can't avoid; but to die of a broken +heart is to be a traitor to your sex. As if women couldn't live without +men!" + +Mary smiled and was silent. She had read a good deal, and thought she +understood such things better than Miss Mortimer. But she caught +herself smiling, and she felt as if she had sinned. For that a young +woman should speak of love and marriage as Miss Mortimer did, was too +horrible to be understood--and she had smiled! She would have been less +shocked with Hesper, however, had she known that she forced an +indifference she could not feel--her last poor rampart of sand against +the sea of horror rising around her. But from her heart she pitied her, +almost as one of the lost. + +"Don't fix your eyes like that," said Hesper, angrily, "or I shall cry. +Look the other way, and listen.--I am marrying money, I tell you--and +for money; therefore, I ought to get the good of it. Mr. Mortimer will +be father enough to see to that! So I shall be able to do what I +please. I have fallen in love with you; and why shouldn't I have you +for my--" + +She paused, hesitating: what was it she was about to propose to the +little lady standing before her? She had been going to say _maid_: what +was it that checked her? The feeling was to herself shapeless and +nameless; but, however some of my readers may smile at the notion of a +girl who served behind a counter being a lady, and however ready Hesper +Mortimer would have been to join them, it was yet a vague sense of the +fact that was now embarrassing her, for she was not half lady enough to +deal with it. In very truth, Mary Marston was already immeasurably more +of a lady than Hesper Mortimer was ever likely to be in this world. +What was the stateliness and pride of the one compared to the fact that +the other would have died in the workhouse or the street rather than +let a man she did not love embrace her--yes, if all her ancestors in +hell had required the sacrifice! To be a martyr to a lie is but false +ladyhood. She only is a lady who witnesses to the truth, come of it +what may. + +"--For my--my companion, or something of the sort," concluded Hesper; +"and then I should be sure of being always dressed to my mind." + +"That _would_ be nice!" responded Mary, thinking only of the kindness +in the speech. + +"Would you really like it?" asked Hesper, in her turn pleased. + +"I should like it very much," replied Mary, not imagining the proposal +had in it a shadow of seriousness. "I wish it were possible." + +"Why not, then? Why shouldn't it be possible? I don't suppose you would +mind using your needle a little?" + +"Not in the least," answered Mary, amused. "Only what would they do in +the shop without me?" + +"They could get somebody else, couldn't they?" + +"Hardly, to take my place. My father was Mr. Turnbull's partner." + +"Oh!" said Hesper, not much instructed. "I thought you had only to give +warning." + +There the matter dropped, and Mary thought no more about it. + +"You will let me keep this pattern?" said Hesper. + +"It was made for you," answered Mary. + +While Hesper was lazily thinking whether that meant she was to pay for +it, Mary made her a pretty obeisance, and bade her good night. Hesper +returned her adieu kindly, but neither shook hands with her nor rang +the bell to have her shown out Mary found her own way, however, and +presently was breathing the fresh air of the twilight fields on her way +home to her piano and her books. + +For some time after she was gone, Hesper was entirely occupied with the +excogitation of certain harmonies of the toilet that must minister +effect to the dress she had now so plainly before her mind's eye; but +by and by the dress began to melt away, and like a dissolving view +disappeared, leaving in its place the form of "that singular +shop-girl." There was nothing striking about her; she made no such +sharp impression on the mind as compelled one to think of her again; +yet always, when one had been long enough in her company to feel the +charm of her individuality, the very quiet of any quiet moment was +enough to bring back the sweetness of Mary's twilight presence. For +this girl, who spent her days behind a counter, was one of the +spiritual forces at work for the conservation and recovery of the +universe. + +Not only had Hesper Mortimer never had a friend worthy of the name, but +no idea of pure friendship had as yet been generated in her. Sepia was +the nearest to her intimacy: how far friendship could have place +between two such I need not inquire; but in her fits of misery Hesper +had no other to go to. Those fits, alas! grew less and less frequent; +for Hesper was on the downward incline; but, when the next came, after +this interview, she found herself haunted, at a little distance, as it +were, by a strange sense of dumb, invisible tending. It did not once +come close to her; it did not once offer her the smallest positive +consolation; the thing was only this, that the essence of Mary's being +was so purely ministration, that her form could not recur to any memory +without bringing with it a dreamy sense of help. Most powerful of all +powers in its holy insinuation is _being_. _To be_ is more powerful +than even _to do_. Action _may_ be hypocrisy, but being is the thing +itself, and is the parent of action. Had anything that Mary said +recurred to Hesper, she would have thought of it only as the poor +sentimentality of a low education. + +But Hesper did not think of Mary's position as low; that would have +been to measure it; and it did not once suggest itself as having any +relation to any life in which she was interested. She saw no difference +of level between Mary and the lawyer who came about her marriage +settlements: they were together beyond her social horizon. In like +manner, moral differences--and that in her own class--were almost +equally beyond recognition. If by neglect of its wings, an eagle should +sink to a dodo, it would then recognize only the laws of dodo life. For +the dodos of humanity, did not one believe in a consuming fire and an +outer darkness, what would be left us but an ever-renewed _alas_! It is +truth and not imperturbability that a man's nature requires of him; it +is help, not the leaving of cards at doors, that will be recognized as +the test; it is love, and no amount of flattery that will prosper; +differences wide as that between a gentleman and a cad will contract to +a hair's breadth in that day; the customs of the trade and the picking +of pockets will go together, with the greater excuse for the greater +need and the less knowledge; liars the most gentleman-like and the most +rowdy will go as liars; the first shall be last, and the last first. + +Hesper's day drew on. She had many things to think about--things very +different from any that concerned Mary Marston. She was married; found +life in London somewhat absorbing; and forgot Mary. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +MR. REDMAIN. + + +A life of comparatively innocent gayety could not be attractive to Mr. +Redmain, but at first he accompanied his wife everywhere. No one knew +better than he that not an atom of love had mingled with her motives in +marrying him; but for a time he seemed bent on showing her that she +needed not have been so averse to him. Whether this was indeed his +design or not, I imagine he enjoyed the admiration she roused: for why +should not a man take pride in the possession of a fine woman as well +as in that of a fine horse? To be sure, Mrs. Redmain was not quite in +the same way, nor quite so much his, as his horses were, and might one +day be a good deal less his than she was now; but in the mean time she +was, I fancy, a pleasant break in the gathering monotony of his +existence. As he got more accustomed to the sight of her in a crowd, +however, and at the same time to her not very interesting company in +private, when she took not the smallest pains to please him, he +gradually lapsed into his former ways, and soon came to spend his +evenings in company that made him forget his wife. He had loved her in +a sort of a way, better left undefined, and had also, almost from the +first, hated her a little; for, following her cousin's advice, she had +appealed to him to save her, and, when he evaded her prayer, had +addressed him in certain terms too appropriate to be agreeable, and too +forcible to be forgotten. His hatred, however, if that be not much too +strong a name, was neither virulent nor hot, for it had no inverted +love to feed and embitter it. It was more a thing of his head than his +heart, revealing itself mainly in short, acrid speeches, meant to be +clever, and indubitably disagreeable. Nor did Hesper prove an unworthy +antagonist in their encounters of polite Billingsgate: what she lacked +in experience she made up in breeding. The common remark, generally +false, about no love being lost, was in their case true enough, for +there never had been any between them to lose. The withered rose-leaves +have their sweetness yet, but what of the rotted peony? It was +generally when Redmain had been longer than usual without seeing his +wife that he said the worst things to her, as if spite had grown in +absence; but that he should then be capable of saying such things as he +did say, could be understood only by those who knew the man and his +history. + +Ferdinand Goldberg Redmain--parents with mean surroundings often give +grand names to their children--was the son of an intellectually gifted +laborer, who, rising first to be boss of a gang, began to take portions +of contracts, and arrived at last, through one lucky venture after +another, at having his estimate accepted and the contract given him for +a rather large affair. The result was that, through his minute +knowledge of details, his faculty for getting work out of his laborers, +a toughness of heart and will that enabled him to screw wages to the +lowest mark, and the judicious employment of inferior material, the +contract paid him much too well for any good to come out of it. From +that time, what he called his life was a continuous course of what he +called success, and he died one of the richest dirt-beetles of the age, +bequeathing great wealth to his son, and leaving a reputation for +substantial worth behind him; hardly leaving it, I fancy, for surely he +found it waiting him where he went. He had been guilty of a thousand +meannesses, oppressions, rapacities, and some quiet rogueries, but none +of them worse than those of many a man whose ultimate failure has been +the sole cause of his excommunication by the society which all the time +knew well enough what he was. Often had he been held up by would-be +teachers as a pattern to aspiring youth of what might be achieved by +unwavering attention to _the main chance_, combined with unassailable +honesty: from his experience they would once more prove to a gaping +world the truth of the maxim, the highest intelligible to a base soul, +that "honesty is the best policy." With his money he left to his son +the seeds of a varied meanness, which bore weeds enough, but curiously, +neither avarice nor, within the bounds of a modest prudence, any +unwillingness to part with money--a fact which will probably appear the +stranger when I have told the following anecdote concerning a brother +of the father, of whom few indeed mentioned in my narrative ever heard. + +This man was a joiner, or working cabinet-maker, or something of the +sort. Having one day been set by his master to repair for an old lady +an escritoire which had been in her possession for a long time, he came +to her house in the evening with a five-pound note of a country bank, +which he had found in a secret drawer of the same, handing it to her +with the remark that he had always found honesty the best policy. She +gave him half a sovereign, and he took his leave well satisfied. _He +had been first to make inquiry, and had learned that the bank stopped +payment many years ago._ I can not help wondering, curious in the +statistics of honesty, how many of my readers will be more amused than +disgusted with the story. It is a great thing to come of decent people, +and Ferdinand Goldberg Redmain must not be judged like one who, of +honorable parentage, whether noble or peasant, takes himself across to +the shady side of the road. Much had been against Redmain. I do not +know of what sort his mother was, but from certain embryonic virtues in +him, which could hardly have been his father's, I should think she must +have been better than her husband. She died, however, while he was a +mere child; and his father married, some said did not _marry_ again. +The boy was sent to a certain public school, which at that time, +whatever it may or may not be now, was simply a hot-bed of the lowest +vices, and in devil-matters Redmain was an apt pupil. There is fresh +help for the world every time a youth starts clean upon manhood's race; +his very being is a hope of cleansing: this one started as foul as +youth could well be, and had not yet begun to repent. His character was +well known to his associates, for he was no hypocrite, and Hosper's +father knew it perfectly, and was therefore worse than he. Had Redmain +had a daughter, he would never have given her to a man like himself. +But, then, Mortimer was so poor, and Redmain was so _very_ rich! Alas +for the man who degrades his poverty by worshiping wealth! there is no +abyss in hell too deep for him to find its bottom. + +Mr. Redmain had no profession, and knew nothing of business beyond what +was necessary for understanding whether his factor or steward, or +whatever he called him, was doing well with his money--to that he gave +heed. Also, wiser than many, he took some little care not to spend at +full speed what life he had. With this view he laid down and observed +certain rules in the ordering of his pleasures, which enabled him to +keep ahead of the vice-constable for some time longer than would +otherwise have been the case. But he is one who can never finally be +outrun, and now, as Mr. Redmain was approaching the end of middle age, +he heard plainly enough the approach of the wool-footed avenger behind +him. Horrible was the inevitable to him, as horrible as to any; but it +had not yet looked frightful enough to arrest his downward rush. In his +better conditions--physical, I mean--whether he had any better moral +conditions, I can not tell--he would laugh and say, "_Gather the roses +while you may_"--heaven and earth! what roses!--but, in his worse, he +maledicted everything, and was horribly afraid of hell. When in +tolerable health, he laughed at the notion of such an out-of-the-way +place, repudiating its very existence, and, calling in all the +arguments urged by good men against the idea of an eternity of aimless +suffering, used them against the idea of any punishment after death. +Himself a bad man, he reasoned that God was too good to punish sin; +himself a proud man, he reasoned that God was too high to take heed of +him. He forgot the best argument he could have adduced--namely, that +the punishment he had had in this life had done him no good; from which +he might have been glad to argue that none would, and therefore none +would be tried. But I suppose his mother believed there was a hell, for +at such times, when from weariness he was less of an evil beast than +usual, the old-fashioned horror would inevitably raise its dinosaurian +head afresh above the slime of his consciousness; and then even his +wife, could she have seen how the soul of the man shuddered and +recoiled, would have let his brutality pass unheeded, though it was +then at its worst, his temper at such times being altogether furious. +There was no grace in him when he was ill, nor at any time, beyond a +certain cold grace of manner, which he kept for ceremony, or where he +wanted to please. + +Happily, Mr. Redmain had one intellectual passion, which, poor thing as +it was, and in its motive, most of its aspects, and almost all its +tendencies, evil exceedingly, yet did something to delay that +corruption of his being which, at the same time, it powerfully aided to +complete: it was for the understanding and analysis of human evil--not +in the abstract, but alive and operative. For the appeasement of this +passion, he must render intelligible to himself, and that on his own +exclusive theory of human vileness, the aims and workings of every +fresh specimen of what he called human nature that seemed bad enough, +or was peculiar enough to interest him. In this region of darkness he +ranged like a discoverer--prowled rather, like an unclean beast of +prey--ever and always on the outlook for the false and foul; +acknowledging, it is true, that he was no better himself, but +arrogating on that ground a correctness of judgment beyond the reach of +such as, desiring to be better, were unwilling to believe in the utter +badness of anything human. Like a lover, he would watch for the +appearance of the vile motive, the self-interest, that "must be," _he +knew_, at the heart of this or that deed or proceeding of apparent +benevolence or generosity. Often, alas! the thing was provable; and, +where he did not find, he was quick to invent; and, where he failed in +finding or inventing, he not the less believed the bad motive was +there, and followed the slightest seeming trail of the cunning demon +only the more eagerly. What a smile was his when he heard, which truly +he was not in the way to hear often, the praise of some good deed, or +an ascription of high end to some endeavor of one of the vile race to +which he belonged! Do those who abuse their kind actually believe they +are of it? Do they hold themselves exceptions? Do they never reflect +that it must be because such is their own nature, whether their +accusation be true or false, that they know how to attribute such +motives to their fellows? Or is it that, actually and immediately +rejoicing in iniquity, they delight in believing it universal? + +Quiet as a panther, Redmain was, I say, always in pursuit, if not of +something sensual for himself, then of something evil in another. He +would sit at his club, silent and watching, day after day, night after +night, waiting for the chance that should cast light on some idea of +detection, on some doubt, bewilderment, or conjecture. He would ask the +farthest-off questions: who could tell what might send him into the +track of discovery? He would give to the talk the strangest turns, +laying trap after trap to ensnare the most miserable of facts, elevated +into a desirable secret only by his hope to learn through it something +equally valueless beyond it. Especially he delighted in discovering, or +flattering himself he had discovered, the hollow full of dead men's +bones under the flowery lawn of seeming goodness. Nor as yet had he, so +far as he knew, or at least was prepared to allow, ever failed. And +this he called the study of human nature, and quoted Pope. Truly, next +to God, the proper study of mankind is man; but how shall a man that +knows only the evil in himself, nor sees it hateful, read the +thousandfold-compounded heart of his neighbor? To rake over the +contents of an ash-pit, is not to study geology. There were motives in +Redmain's own being, which he was not merely incapable of +understanding, but incapable of seeing, incapable of suspecting. + +The game had for him all the pleasure of keenest speculation; nor that +alone, for, in the supposed discovery of the evil of another, he felt +himself vaguely righteous. + +One more point in his character I may not in fairness omit: he had +naturally a strong sense of justice; and, if he exercised it but little +in some of the relations of his life, he was none the less keenly alive +to his own claims on its score; for chiefly he cried out for fair play +on behalf of those who were wicked in similar fashion to himself. But, +in truth, no one dealt so hardly with Redmain as his own conscience at +such times when suffering and fear had awaked it. + +So much for a portrait-sketch of the man to whom Mortimer had sold his +daughter--such was the man whom Hesper, entirely aware that none could +compel her to marry against her will, had, partly from fear of her +father, partly from moral laziness, partly from reverence for the +Moloch of society, whose priestess was her mother, vowed to love, +honor, and obey! In justice to her, it must be remembered, however, +that she did not and could not know of him what her father knew. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +MRS. REDMAIN. + + +In the autumn the Redmains went to Durnmelling: why they did so, I +should find it hard to say. If, when a child, Hesper loved either of +her parents, the experiences of later years had so heaped that filial +affection with the fallen leaves of dead hopes and vanished dreams, +that there was now nothing in her heart recognizable to herself as love +to father or mother. She always behaved to them, of course, with +perfect propriety; never refused any small request; never showed +resentment when blamed--never felt any, for she did not care enough to +be angry or sorry that father or mother should disapprove. + +On the other hand, Lady Margaret saw great improvement in her daughter. +To the maternal eye, jealous for perfection, Hesper's carriage was at +length satisfactory. It was cold, and the same to her mother as to +every one else, but the mother did not find it too cold. It was +haughty, even repellent, but by no means in the mother's eyes +repulsive. Her voice came from her in well-balanced sentences, sounding +as if they had been secretly constructed for extempore use, like the +points of a parliamentary orator. "Marriage has done everything for +her!" said Lady Malice to herself with a dignified chuckle, and +dismissed the last shadowy remnant of maternal regret for her part in +the transaction of her marriage. + +She never saw herself in the wrong, and never gave herself the least +trouble to be in the right. She was in good health, ate, and liked to +eat; drank her glass of champagne, and would have drunk a second, but +for her complexion, and that it sometimes made her feel ill, which was +the only thing, after marrying Mr. Redmain, she ever felt degrading. Of +her own worth she had never had a doubt, and she had none yet: how was +she to generate one, courted wherever she went, both for her own beauty +and her husband's wealth? + +To her father she was as stiff and proud as if she had been a maiden +aunt, bent on destroying what expectations from her he might be +cherishing. Who will blame her? He had done her all the ill he could, +and by his own deed she was beyond his reach. Nor can I see that the +debt she owed him for being her father was of the heaviest. + +Her husband was again out of health--certain attacks to which he was +subject were now coming more frequently. I do not imagine his wife +offered many prayers for his restoration. Indeed, she never prayed for +the thing she desired; and, while he and she occupied separate rooms, +the one solitary thing she now regarded as a privilege, how _could_ she +pray for his recovery? + +Greatly contrary to Mr. Redmain's unexpressed desire, Miss Yolland had +been installed as Hesper's cousin-companion. After the marriage, she +ventured to unfold a little, as she had promised, but what there was +yet of womanhood in Hesper had shrunk from further acquaintance with +the dimly shadowed mysteries of Sepia's story; and Sepia, than whom +none more sensitive to change of atmosphere, had instantly closed +again; and now not unfrequently looked and spoke like one feeling her +way. The only life-principle she had, so far as I know, was to get from +the moment the greatest possible enjoyment that would leave the way +clear for more to follow. She had not been in his house a week before +Mr. Redmain hated her. He was something given to hating people who came +near him, and she came much too near. She was by no means so different +in character as to be repulsive to him; neither was she so much alike +as to be tiresome; their designs could not well clash, for she was a +woman and he was a man; if she had not been his wife's friend, they +might, perhaps, have got on together better than well; but the two were +such as must either be hand in glove or hate each other. There had not, +however, been the least approach to rupture between them. Mr. Redmain, +indeed, took no trouble to avoid such a catastrophe, but Sepia was far +too wise to allow even the dawn of such a risk. When he was ill, he +was, if possible, more rude to her than to every one else, but she did +not seem to mind it a straw. Perhaps she knew something of the ways of +such _gentlemen_ as lose their manners the moment they are ailing, and +seem to consider a headache or an attack of indigestion excuse +sufficient for behaving like the cad they scorn. It was not long, +however, before he began to take in her a very real interest, though +not of a sort it would have made her comfortable with him to know. + +Every time Mr. Redmain had an attack, the baldness on the top of his +head widened, and the skin of his face tightened on his small, neat +features; his long arms looked longer; his formerly flat back rounded +yet a little; and his temper grew yet more curiously spiteful. Long +after he had begun to recover, he was by no means an agreeable +companion. Nevertheless, as if at last, though late in the day, she +must begin to teach her daughter the duty of a married woman, from the +moment he arrived, taken ill on the way, Lady Malice, regardless of the +brusqueness with which he treated her from the first, devoted herself +to him with an attention she had never shown her husband. She was the +only one who manifested any appearance of affection for him, and the +only one of the family for whom, in return, he came to show the least +consideration. Rough he was, even to her, but never, except when in +absolute pain, rude as to everybody in the house besides. At times, one +might have almost thought he stood in some little awe of her. Every +night, after his man was gone, she would visit him to see that he was +left comfortable, would tuck him up as his mother might have done, and +satisfy herself that the night-light was shaded from his eyes. With her +own hands she always arranged his breakfast on the tray, nor never +omitted taking him a basin of soup before he got up; and, whatever he +may have concluded concerning her motives, he gave no sign of imagining +them other than generous. Perhaps the part in him which had never had +the opportunity of behaving ill to his mother, and so had not choked up +its channels with wrong, remained, in middle age and illness, capable +of receiving kindness. + +Hesper saw the relation between them, but without the least pleasure or +the least curiosity. She seemed to care for nothing--except the keeping +of her back straight. What could it be, inside that lovely form, that +gave itself pleasure to be, were a difficult question indeed. The bear +as he lies in his winter nest, sucking his paw, has no doubt his +rudimentary theories of life, and those will coincide with a desire for +its continuance; but whether what either the lady or the bear counts +the good of life, be really that which makes either desire its +continuance, is another question. Mere life without suffering seems +enough for most people, but I do not think it could go on so for ever. +I can not help fancying that, but for death, utter dreariness would at +length master the healthiest in whom the true life has not begun to +shine. But so satisfying is the mere earthly existence to some at +present, that this remark must sound to them bare insanity. + +Partly out of compliment to Mr. Redmain, the Mortimers had scarcely a +visitor; for he would not come out of his room when he knew there was a +stranger in the house. Fond of company of a certain kind when he was +well, he could not endure an unknown face when he was ill. He told Lady +Malice that at such times a stranger always looked a devil to him. +Hence the time was dull for everybody--dullest, perhaps, for Sepia, +who, as well as Redmain, had a few things that required forgetting. It +was no wonder, then, that Hesper, after a fort-night of it, should +think once more of the young woman in the draper's shop of Testbridge. +One morning, in consequence, she ordered her brougham, and drove to the +town. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE MENIAL. + + +Things had been going nowise really better with Mary, though there was +now more lull and less storm around her. The position was becoming less +and less endurable to her, and she had as yet no glimmer of a way out +of it. Breath of genial air never blew in the shop, except when this +and that customer entered it. But how dear the dull old chapel had +grown! Not that she heard anything more to her mind, or that she paid +any more attention to what was said; but the memory of her father +filled the place, and when the Bible was read, or some favorite hymn +sung, he seemed to her actually present. And might not love, she +thought, even love to her, be strong enough to bring him from the +gracious freedom of the new life, back to the house of bondage, to +share it for an hour with his daughter? + +When Hesper entered, she was disappointed to see Mary so much changed. +But when, at sight of her, the pale face brightened, and a faint, rosy +flush overspread it from brow to chin, Mary was herself again as Hesper +had known her; and the radiance of her own presence, reflected from +Mary, cast a reflex of sunshine into the February of Hesper's heart: +had Mary known how long it was since such a smile had lighted the face +she so much admired, hers would have flushed with a profounder +pleasure. Hesper was human after all, though her humanity was only +molluscous as yet, and it is not in the power of humanity in any stage +of development to hold itself indifferent to the pleasure of being +loved. Also, poor as is the feeling comparatively, it is yet a reflex +of love itself--the shine of the sun in a rain-pool. + +She walked up to Mary, holding out her hand. + +"O ma'am, I am so glad to see you!" exclaimed Mary, forgetting her +manners in her love. + +"I, too, am glad," drawled Hesper, genuinely, though with +condescension. "I hope you are well. I can not say you look so." + +"I am pretty well, thank you, ma'am," answered Mary, flushing afresh: +not much anxiety was anywhere expressed about her health now, except by +Beenie, who mourned over the loss of her plumpness, and told her if she +did not eat she would soon follow her poor father. + +"Come and have a drive with me," said Hesper, moved by a sudden +impulse: through some hidden motion of sympathy, she felt, as she +looked at her, that the place was stuffy. "It will do you good," she +went on. "You are too much indoors.--And the ceiling is low," she +added, looking up. + +"It is very kind of you," replied Mary, "but--I don't think I could +quite manage it to-day." + +She looked round as she spoke. There were not many customers; but for +conscience sake she was trying hard to give as little ground for +offense as possible. + +"Why not?--If I were to ask Mr.--" + +"If you really wish it, ma'am, I will venture to go for half an hour. +There is no occasion to speak to Mr. Turnbull. Besides, it is almost +dinner-time." + +"Do, then. I am sure you will eat a better dinner for having had a +little fresh air first. It is a lovely morning. We will drive to the +Roman camp on the top of Clover-down." + +"I shall be ready in two minutes," said Mary, and ran from the shop. + +As she passed along the outside of his counter coming back, she stopped +and told Mr. Turnbull where she was going. Instead of answering her, he +turned himself toward Mrs. Redmain, and went through a series of bows +and smiles recognizant of favor, which she did not choose to see. She +turned and walked from the shop, got into the brougham, and made room +for Mary at her side. + +But, although the drive was a lovely one, and the view from either +window delightful, and to Mary it was like getting out of a tomb to +leave the shop in the middle of the day, she saw little of the sweet +country on any side, so much occupied was she with Hesper. Ere they +stopped again at the shop-door, the two young women were nearer being +friends than Hesper had ever been with any one. The sleepy heart in her +was not yet dead, but capable still of the pleasure of showing sweet +condescension and gentle patronage to one who admired her, and was +herself agreeable. To herself she justified her kindness to Mary with +the remark that _the young woman deserved encouragement_--whatever that +might mean--_because she was so anxious to improve herself!_--a duty +Hesper could recognize in another. + +As they went, Mary told her something of her miserable relations with +the Turnbulls; and, as they returned, Hesper actually--this time with +perfect seriousness--proposed that she should give up business, and +live with her. + +Nor was this the ridiculous thing it may at first sight appear to not a +few of my readers. It arose from what was almost the first movement in +the direction of genuine friendship Hesper had ever felt. She had been +familiar in her time with a good many, but familiarity is not +friendship, and may or may not exist along with it. Some, who would +scorn the idea of a _friendship_ with such as Mary, will be familiar +enough with maids as selfish as themselves, and part from +them--no--part _with_ them, the next day, or the next hour, with never +a twinge of regret. Of this, Hesper was as capable as any; but +friendship is its own justification, and she felt no horror at the new +motion of her heart. At the same time she did not recognize it as +friendship, and, had she suspected Mary of regarding their possible +relation in that light, she would have dismissed her pride, perhaps +contempt. Nevertheless the sorely whelmed divine thing in her had +uttered a feeble sigh of incipient longing after the real; Mary had +begun to draw out the love in her; while her conventional judgment +justified the proposed extraordinary proceeding with the argument of +the endless advantages to result from having in the house, devoted to +her wishes, a young woman with an absolute genius for dressmaking; one +capable not only of originating in that foremost of arts, but, no +doubt, with a little experience, of carrying out also with her own +hands the ideas of her mistress. No more would she have to send for the +dressmaker on every smallest necessity! No more must she postpone +confidence in her appearance, that was, in herself, until Sepia, +dressed, should be at leisure to look her over! Never yet had she found +herself the best dressed in a room: now there would be hope! + +Nothing, however, was clear in her mind as to the position she would +have Mary occupy. She had a vague feeling that one like her ought not +to be expected to undertake things befitting such women as her maid +Folter; for between Mary and Folter there was, she saw, less room for +comparison than between Folter and a naked Hottentot. She was +incapable, at the same time, of seeing that, in the eyes of certain +courtiers of a high kingdom, not much known to the world of fashion, +but not the less judges of the beautiful, there was a far greater +difference between Mary and herself than between herself and her maid, +or between her maid and the Hottentot. For, while the said beholders +could hardly have been astonished at Hesper's marrying Mr. Redmain, +there would, had Mary done such a thing, have been dismay and a hanging +of the head before the face of her Father in heaven. + +"Come and live with me, Miss Marston," said Hesper; but it was with a +laugh, and that light touch of the tongue which suggests but a flying +fancy spoken but for the sake of the preposterous; while Mary, not +forgetting she had heard the same thing once before, heard it with a +smile, and had no rejoinder ready; whereupon Hesper, who was, in +reality, feeling her way, ventured a little more seriousness. + +"I should never ask you to do anything you would not like," she said. + +"I don't think you could," answered Mary. "There are more things I +should like to do for you than you would think to ask.--In fact," she +added, looking round with a loving smile, "I don't know what I +shouldn't like to do for you." + +"My meaning was, that, as a thing of course, I should never ask you to +do anything menial," explained Hesper, venturing a little further +still, and now speaking in a tone perfectly matter-of-fact. + +"I don't know what you intend by _menial_," returned Mary. + +Hesper thought it not unnatural she should not be familiar with the +word, and proceeded to explain it as well as she could. That seeming +ignorance may be the consequence of more knowledge, she had yet to +learn. + +"_Menial_, don't you know?" she said, "is what you give servants to do." + +But therewith she remembered that Mary's help in certain things wherein +her maid's incapacity was harrowing, was one of the hopes she mainly +cherished in making her proposal: that definition of _menial_ would +hardly do. + +"I mean--I mean," she resumed, with a little embarrassment, a rare +thing with her, "--things like--like--cleaning one's shoes, don't you +know?--or brushing your hair." + +Mary burst out laughing. + +"Let me come to you to-morrow morning," she said, "and I will brush +your hair that you will want me to come again the next day. You +beautiful creature! whose hands would not be honored to handle such +stuff as that?" + +As she spoke, she took in her fingers a little stray drift from the +masses of golden twilight that crowned one of the loveliest temples in +which the Holy Ghost had not yet come to dwell. + +"If cleaning your shoes be menial, brushing your hair must be royal," +she added. + +Hesper's heart was touched; and if at the same time her _self_ was +flattered, the flattery was mingled with its best antidote--love. + +"Do you really mean," she said, "you would not mind doing such things +for me?--Of course I should not be exacting." + +She laughed again, afraid of showing herself too much in earnest before +she was sure of Mary. + +"You would not ask me to do anything _menial_?" said Mary, archly. + +"I dare not promise," said Hesper, in tone responsive. "How could I +help it, if I saw you longing to do what I was longing to have you do?" +she added, growing more and more natural. + +"I would no more mind cleaning your boots than my own," said Mary. + +"But I should not like to clean my own boots," rejoined Hesper. + +"No more should I, except it had to be done. Even then I would much +rather not," returned Mary, "for cleaning my own would not interest me. +To clean yours would. Still I would rather not, for the time might be +put to better use--except always it were necessary, and then, of +course, it couldn't. But as to anything degrading in it, I scorn the +idea. I heard my father once say that, to look down on those who have +to do such things may be to despise them for just the one honorable +thing about them.--Shall I tell you what I understand by the word +_menial_? You know it has come to have a disagreeable taste about it, +though at first it only meant, as you say, something that fell to the +duty of attendants." + +"Do tell me," answered Hesper, with careless permission. + +"I did not find it out myself," said Mary. "My father taught me. He was +a wise as well as a good man, Mrs. Redmain." + +"Oh!" said Hesper, with the ordinary indifference of fashionable people +to what an inferior may imagine worth telling them. + +"He said," persisted Mary, notwithstanding, "that it is menial to +undertake anything you think beneath you for the sake of money; and +still more menial, having undertaken it, not to do it as well as +possible." + +"That would make out a good deal more of the menial in the world than +is commonly supposed," laughed Hesper. "I wonder who would do anything +for you if you didn't pay them--one way or another!" + +"I've taken my father's shoes out of Beenie's hands many a time," said +Mary, "and finished them myself, just for the pleasure of making them +shine for _him_." + +"Re-a-ally!" drawled Hesper, and set out for the conclusion that after +all it was no such great compliment the young woman had paid her in +wanting to brush her hair. Evidently she had a taste for low +things!--was naturally menial!--would do as much for her own father as +for a lady like her! But the light in Mary's eyes checked her. + +"Any service done without love, whatever it be," resumed Mary, "is +slavery--neither more nor less. It can not be anything else. So, you +see, most slaves are made slaves by themselves; and that is what makes +me doubtful whether I ought to go on serving in the shop; for, as far +as the Turnbulls are concerned, I have no pleasure in it; I am only +helping them to make money, not doing them any good." + +"Why do you not give it up at once then?" asked Hesper. + +"Because I like serving the customers. They were my father's customers; +and I have learned so much from having to wait on them!" + +"Well, now," said Hesper, with a rush for the goal, "if you will come +to me, I will make you comfortable; and you shall do just as much or as +little as you please." + +"What will your maid think?" suggested Mary. "If I am to do what I +please, she will soon find me trespassing on her domain." + +"I never trouble myself about what my servants think," said Hesper. + +"But it might hurt her, you know--to be paid to do a thing and then not +allowed to do it." + +"She may take herself away, then. I had not thought of parting with +her, but I should not be at all sorry if she went. She would be no loss +to me." + +"Why should you keep her, then?" + +"Because one is just as good--and as bad as another. She knows my ways, +and I prefer not having to break in a new one. It is a bore to have to +say how you like everything done." + +"But you are speaking now as if you meant it," said Mary, waking up to +the fact that Hesper's tone was of business, and she no longer seemed +half playing with the proposal. "_Do_ you mean you want me to come and +live with you?" + +"Indeed, I do," answered Hesper, emphatically. "You shall have a room +close to my bedroom, and there you shall do as you like all day long; +and, when I want you, I dare say you will come." + +"Fast enough," said Mary, cheerily, as if all was settled. In contrast +with her present surroundings, the prospect was more than attractive. +"--But would you let me have my piano?" she asked, with sudden +apprehension. + +"You shall have my grand piano always when I am out, which will be +every night in the season, I dare say. That will give you plenty of +practice; and you will be able to have the best of lessons. And think +of the concerts and oratorios you will go to!" + +As she spoke, the carriage drew up at the door of the shop, and Mary +took her leave. Hesper accepted her acknowledgments in the proper style +of a benefactress, and returned her good-by kindly. But not yet did she +shake hands with her. + +Some of my readers may wonder that Mary should for a moment dream of +giving up what they would call her independence; for was she not on her +own ground in the shop of which she was a proprietor? and was the +change proposed, by whatever name it might be called, anything other +than _service_? But they are outside it, and Mary was in it, and knew +how little such an independence was worth the name. Almost everything +about the shop had altered in its aspect to her. The very air she +breathed in it seemed slavish. Nor was the change in her. The whole +thing was growing more and more sordid, for now--save for her part--the +one spirit ruled it entirely. + +The work had therefore more or less grown a drudgery to her. The spirit +of gain was in full blast, and whoever did not trim his sails to it was +in danger of finding it rough weather. No longer could she, without +offense, and consequent disturbance of spirit, arrange her attendance +as she pleased, or have the same time for reading as before. She could +encounter black looks, but she could not well live with them; and how +was she to continue the servant of such ends as were now exclusively +acknowledged in the place? The proposal of Mrs. Redmain stood in +advantageous contrast to this treadmill-work. In her house she would be +called only to the ministrations of love, and would have plenty of time +for books and music, with a thousand means of growth unapproachable in +Testbridge. All the slavery lay in the shop, all the freedom in the +personal service. But she strove hard to suppress anxiety, for she saw +that, of all poverty-stricken contradictions, a Christian with little +faith is the worst. + +The chief attraction to her, however, was simply Hesper herself. She +had fallen in love with her--I hardly know how otherwise to describe +the current with which her being set toward her. Few hearts are capable +of loving as she loved. It was not merely that she saw in Hesper a +grand creature, and lovely to look upon, or that one so much her +superior in position showed such a liking for herself; she saw in her +one she could help, one at least who sorely needed help, for she seemed +to know nothing of what made life worth having--one who had done, and +must yet be capable of doing, things degrading to the humanity of +womanhood. Without the hope of helping in the highest sense, Mary could +not have taken up her abode in such a house as Mrs. Redmain's. No +outward service of any kind, even to the sick, was to her service +enough to _choose_; were it laid upon her, she would hasten to it; for +necessity is the push, gentle or strong, as the man is more or less +obedient, by which God sends him into the path he would have him take. +But to help to the birth of a beautiful Psyche, enveloped all in the +gummy cerecloths of its chrysalis, not yet aware, even, that it must +get out of them, and spread great wings to the sunny wind of God--that +was a thing for which the holiest of saints might well take a servant's +place--the thing for which the Lord of life had done it before him. To +help out such a lovely sister--how Hesper would have drawn herself up +at the word! it is mine, not Mary's--as she would be when no longer +holden of death, but her real self, the self God meant her to be when +he began making her, would indeed be a thing worth having lived for! +Between the ordinarily benevolent woman and Mary Marston, there was +about as great a difference as between the fashionable church-goer and +Catherine of Siena. She would be Hesper's servant that she might gain +Hesper. I would not have her therefore wondered at as a marvel of +humility. She was simply a young woman who believed that the man called +Jesus Christ is a real person, such as those represent him who profess +to have known him; and she therefore believed the man himself--believed +that, when he said a thing, he entirely meant it, knowing it to be +true; believed, therefore, that she had no choice but do as he told +her. That man was the servant of all; therefore, to regard any honest +service as degrading would be, she saw, to deny Christ, to call the +life of creation's hero a disgrace. Nor was he the first servant; he +did not of himself choose his life; the Father gave it him to +live--sent him to be a servant, because he, the Father, is the first +and greatest servant of all. He gives it to one to serve as the rich +can, to another as the poor must. The only disgrace, whether of the +counting-house, the shop, or the family, is to think the service +degrading. If it be such, why not sit down and starve rather than do +it? No man has a right to disgrace himself. Starve, I say; the world +will lose nothing in you, for you are its disgrace, who count service +degrading. You are much too grand people for what your Maker requires +of you, and does himself, and yet you do it after a fashion, because +you like to eat and go warm. You would take rank in the kingdom of +hell, not the kingdom of heaven. But obedient love, learned by the +meanest Abigail, will make of her an angel of ministration, such a one +as he who came to Peter in the prison, at whose touch the fetters fell +from the limbs of the apostle. + +"What forced, overdriven, Utopian stuff! A kingdom always coming, and +never come! I hold by what _is._ This solid, plowable earth will serve +my turn. My business is what I can find in the oyster." + +I hear you, friend. Your answer will come whence you do not look for +it. For some, their only answer will be the coming of that which they +deny; and the _Presence_ will be a very different thing to those who +desire it and those who do not. In the mean time, if we are not yet +able to serve like God from pure love, let us do it because it is his +way; so shall we come to do it from pure love also. + +The very next morning, as she called it--that is, at four o'clock in +the afternoon--Hesper again entered the shop, and, to the surprise and +annoyance of the master of it, was taken by Mary through the counter +and into the house. "What a false impression," thought the great man, +"will it give of the way _we_ live, to see the Marstons' shabby parlor +in a warehouse!" But he would have been more astonished and more +annoyed still, had the deafening masses of soft goods that filled the +house permitted him to hear through them what passed between the two. +Before they came down, Mary had accepted a position in Mrs. Redmain's +house, if that may be called a position which was so undefined; and +Hesper had promised that she would not mention the matter. For Mary +judged Mr. Turnbull would be too glad to get rid of her to mind how +brief the notice she gave him, and she would rather not undergo the +remarks that were sure to be made in contempt of her scheme. She +counted it only fair, however, to let him know that she intended giving +up her place behind the counter, hinting that, as she meant to leave +when it suited her without further warning, it would be well to look +out at once for one to take her place. + +As to her money in the business, she scarcely thought of it, and said +nothing about it, believing it as safe as in the bank. It was in the +power of a dishonest man who prided himself on his honesty--the worst +kind of rogue in the creation; but she had not yet learned to think of +him as a dishonest man--only as a greedy one--and the money had been +there ever since she had heard of money. Mr. Turnbull was so astonished +by her communication that, not seeing at once how the change was likely +to affect him, he held his peace--with the cunning pretense that his +silence arose from anger. His first feeling was of pleasure, but the +man of business must take care how he shows himself pleased. On +reflection, he continued pleased; for, as they did not seem likely to +succeed in securing Mary in the way they had wished, the next best +thing certainly would be to get rid of her. Perhaps, indeed, it was the +very best thing; for it would be easy to get George a wife more +suitable to the position of his family than a little canting dissenter, +and her money would be in their hands all the same; while, once clear +of her haunting cat-eyes, ready to pounce upon whatever her soft-headed +father had taught her was wicked, he could do twice the business. But, +while he continued pleased, he continued careful not to show his +satisfaction, for she would then go smelling about for the cause! +During three whole days, therefore, he never spoke to her. On the +fourth, he spoke as if nothing had ever been amiss between them, and +showed some interest in her further intentions. But Mary, in the +straightforward manner peculiar to herself, told him she preferred not +speaking of them at present; whereupon the cunning man concluded that +she wanted a place in another shop, and was on the outlook--prepared to +leave the moment one should turn up. + +She asked him one day whether he had yet found a person to take her +place. + +"Time enough for that," he answered. "You're not gone yet." + +"As you please, Mr. Turnbull," said Mary. "It was merely that I should +be sorry to leave you without sufficient help in the shop." + +"And _I_ should be sorry," rejoined Turnbull, "that Miss Marston should +fancy herself indispensable to the business she turned her back upon." + +From that moment, the restraint he had for the last week or two laid +upon himself thus broken through, he never spoke to her except with +such rudeness that she no longer ventured to address him even on +shop-business; and all the people in the place, George included, +following the example so plainly set them, she felt, when, at last, in +the month of November, a letter from Hesper heralded the hour of her +deliverance, that to take any formal leave would be but to expose +herself to indignity. She therefore merely told Turnbull, one evening +as he left the shop, that she would not be there in the morning, and +was gone from Testbridge before it was opened the next day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +MRS. REDMAIN'S DRAWING-ROOM. + + +A few years ago, a London drawing-room was seldom beautiful; but size +is always something, and, if Mrs. Redmain's had not harmony, it had +gilding--a regular upholsterer's drawing-room it was, on which about as +much taste had been expended as on the fattening of a prize-pig. +Happily there is as little need as temptation to give any description +of it, with its sheets of glass and steel, its lace curtains, +crude-colored walls and floor and couches, and glittering chandeliers +of a thousand prisms. Everybody knows the kind of room--a huddle of the +chimera ambition wallowing in the chaos of the commonplace--no +miniature world of harmonious abiding. The only interesting thing in it +was, that on all sides were doors, which must lead out of it, and might +lead to a better place. + +It was about eleven o'clock of a November morning--more like one in +March. There might be a thick fog before the evening, but now the sun +was shining like a brilliant lump of ice--so inimical to heat, +apparently, that a servant had just dropped the venetian blind of one +of the windows to shut his basilisk-gaze from the sickening fire, which +was now rapidly recovering. Betwixt the cold sun and the hard earth, a +dust-befogged wind, plainly borrowed from March, was sweeping the +street. + +Mr. and Mrs. Redmain had returned to town thus early because their +country-place was in Cornwall, and there Mr. Redmain was too far from +his physician. He was now considerably better, however, and had begun +to go about again, for the weather did not yet affect him much. He was +now in his study, as it was called, where he generally had his +breakfast alone. Mrs. Redmain always had hers in bed, as often with a +new novel as she could, of which her maid cut the leaves, and skimmed +the cream. But now she was descending the stair, straight as a Greek +goddess, and about as cold as the marble she is made of--mentally +rigid, morally imperturbable, and vacant of countenance to a degree +hardly equaled by the most ordinary of goddesses. She entered the +drawing-room with a slow, careless, yet stately step, which belonged to +her, I can not say by nature, for it was not natural, but by ancestry. +She walked to the chimney, seated herself in a low, soft, shiny chair +almost on the hearth-rug, and gazed listlessly into the fire. In a +minute she rose and rang the bell. + +"Send my maid, and shut the door," she said. + +The woman came. + +"Has Miss Yolland left her room yet?" she asked. + +"No, ma'am." + +"Let her know I am in the drawing-room." + +This said, she resumed her fire-gazing. + +There was not much to see in the fire, for the fire is but a reflector, +and there was not much behind the eyes that looked into it for that +fire to reflect. Hesper was no dreamer--the more was the pity, for +dreams are often the stuff out of which actions are made. Had she been +a truer woman, she might have been a dreamer, but where was the space +for dreaming in a life like hers, without heaven, therefore without +horizon, with so much room for desiring, and so little room for hope? +The buz that greeted her entrance of a drawing-room, was the chief joy +she knew; to inhabit her well-dressed body in the presence of other +well-dressed bodies, her highest notion of existence. And even upon +these hung ever as an abating fog the consciousness of having a +husband. I can not say she was tired of marriage, for she had loathed +her marriage from the first, and had not found it at all better than +her expectation: she had been too ignorant to forebode half its horrors. + +Education she had had but little that was worth the name, for she had +never been set growing; and now, although well endowed by nature, she +was gradually becoming stupid. People who have plenty of money, and +neither hope nor aspiration, must become stupid, except indeed they +hate, and then for a time the devil in them will make them a sort of +clever. + +Miss Yolland came undulating. No kiss, no greeting whatever passed +between the ladies. Sepia began at once to rearrange a few hot-house +flowers on the mantel-piece, looking herself much like some dark flower +painted in an old missal. + +"This day twelve months!" said Hesper. + +"I know," returned Sepia. + +"If one could die without pain, and there was nothing to come after!" +said Hesper. "What a tiresome dream it is!" + +"Dream, or nightmare, or what you will, you had better get all you can +out of it before you break it," said Sepia. + +"You seem to think it worth keeping!" yawned Hesper. + +Sepia smiled, with her face to the glass, in which she saw the face of +her cousin with her eyes on the fire; but she made no answer. Hesper +went on. + +"Ah!" she said, "your story is not mine. You are free; I am a slave. +You are alive; I am in my coffin." + +"That's marriage," said Sepia, dryly. + +"It would not matter much," continued Hesper, "if you could have your +coffin to yourself; but when you have to share it--ugh!" + +"If I were you, then," said Sepia, "I would not lie still; I would get +up and bite--I mean, be a vampire." + +Hesper did not answer. Sepia turned from the mirror, looked at her, and +burst into a laugh--at least, the sound she made had all the elements +of a laugh--except the merriment. + +"Now really, Hesper, you ought to be ashamed of yourself," she cried. +"You to put on the pelican and the sparrow, with all the world before +you, and all the men in it at your feet!" + +"A pack of fools!" remarked Hesper, with a calmness which in itself was +scorn. "I don't deny it--but amusing fools--you must allow that!" + +"They don't amuse me." + +"That's your fault: you won't be amused. The more foolish they are, the +more amusing I find them." + +"I am sick of it all. Nothing amuses me. How can it, when there is +nothing behind it? You can't live on amusement. It is the froth on +water an inch deep, and then the mud!" + +"I declare, misery makes a poetess of you! But as to the mud, I don't +mind a little mud. It is only dirt, and has its part in the inevitable +peck, I hope." + +"_I_ don't mind mud so long as you can keep out of it. But when one is +over head and ears in it, I should like to know what life is worth," +said Hesper, heedless that the mud was of her own making. "I declare, +Sepia," she went on, drawling the declaration, "if I were to be asked +whether I would go on or not--" + +"You would ask a little time to make up your mind, Hesper, I fancy," +suggested Sepia, for Hesper had paused. As she did not reply, Sepia +resumed. + +"Which is your favorite poison, Hesper?" she said. + +"When I choose, it will be to use," replied Hesper. + +"Rhyming, at last!" said Sepia. + +But Hesper would not laugh, and her perfect calmness checked the +laughter which would have been Sepia's natural response: she was +careful not to go too far. + +"Do you know, Hesper," she said, with seriousness, "what is the matter +with you?" + +"Tolerably well," answered Hesper. + +"You do not--let me tell you. You are nothing but a baby yet. You have +no heart." + +"If you mean that I have never been in love, you are right. But you +talk foolishly; for you know that love is no more within my reach than +if I were the corpse I feel." + +Sepia pressed her lips together, and nodded knowingly; then, after a +moment's pause, said: + +"When your hour is come, you will understand. Every woman's hour comes, +one time or another--whether she will or not." + +"Sepia, if you think that, because I hate my husband, I would allow +another man to make love to me, you do not know me yet." + +"I know you very well; you do not know yourself, Hesper; you do not +know the heart of a woman--because your own has never come awake yet." + +"God forbid it ever should, then--so long as--as the man I hate is +alive!" + +Sepia laughed. + +"A good prayer," she said; "for who can tell what you might do to him!" + +"Sepia, I sometimes think you are a devil." + +"And I sometimes think you are a saint." + +"What do you take me for the other times?" + +"A hypocrite. What do _you_ take _me_ for the other times?" + +"No hypocrite," answered Hesper. + +With a light, mocking laugh, Sepia turned away, and left the room. + +Hesper did not move. If stillness indicates thought, then Hesper was +thinking; and surely of late she had suffered what might have waked +something like thought in what would then have been something like a +mind: all the machinery of thought was there--sorely clogged, and +rusty; but for a woman to hate her husband is hardly enough to make a +thinking creature of her. True as it was, there was no little +affectation in her saying what she did about the worthlessness of her +life. She was plump and fresh; her eye was clear, her hand firm and +cool; suffering would have to go a good deal deeper before it touched +in her the issues of life, or the love of it. What set her talking so, +was in great part the _ennui_ of endeavor after enjoyment, and the +reaction from success in the pursuit. Her low moods were, however, far +more frequent than, even with such fatigue and reaction to explain +them, belonged to her years, her health, or her temperament. + +The fire grew hot. Hesper thought of her complexion, and pushed her +chair back. Then she rose, and, having taken a hand-screen from the +chimney-piece, was fanning herself with it, when the door opened, and a +servant asked if she were at home to Mr. Helmer. She hesitated a +moment: what an unearthly hour for a caller! + +"Show him up," she answered: anything was better than her own company. + +Tom Helmer entered--much the same--a little paler and thinner. He made +his approach with a certain loose grace natural to him, and seated +himself on the chair, at some distance from her own, to which Mrs. +Redmain motioned him. + +Tom seldom failed of pleasing. He was well dressed, and not too much; +and, to the natural confidence of his shallow character, added the +assurance born of a certain small degree of success in his profession, +which he took for the pledge of approaching supremacy. He carried +himself better than he used, and his legs therefore did not look so +long. His hair continued to curl soft and silky about his head, for he +protested against the fashionable convict-style. His hat was new, and +he bore it in front of him like a ready apology. + +It was to no presentableness of person, however, any more than to +previous acquaintance, that Tom now owed his admittance. True, he had +been to Durnmelling not unfrequently, but that was in the other world +of the country, and even there Hesper had taken no interest in the +self-satisfied though not ill-bred youth who went galloping about the +country, showing off to rustic girls. It was merely, as I have said, +that she could no longer endure a _tete-a-tete_ with one she knew so +little as herself, and whose acquaintance she was so little desirous of +cultivating. + +Tom had been to a small party at the house a few evenings before, +brought thither by the well-known leader of a certain literary clique, +who, in return for homage, not seldom, took younger aspirants under a +wing destined never to be itself more than half-fledged. It was, +notwithstanding, broad enough already so to cover Tom with its shadow +that under it he was able to creep into several houses of a sort of +distinction, and among them into Mrs. Redmain's. + +Nothing of less potency than the presumption attendant on +self-satisfaction could have emboldened him to call thus early, and +that in the hope not merely of finding Mrs. Redmain at home, but of +finding her alone; and, with the not unusual reward of unworthy daring, +he had succeeded. He was ambitious of making himself acceptable to +ladies of social influence, and of being known to stand well with such. +In the case of Mrs. Redmain he was the more anxious, because she had +not received him on any footing of former acquaintance. + +At the gathering to which I have referred, a certain song was sung by a +lady, not without previous manoeuvre on the part of Tom, with which +Mrs. Redmain had languidly expressed herself pleased; that song he had +now brought her--for, concerning words and music both, he might have +said with Touchstone, "An ill-favored thing, but mine own." He did not +quote Touchstone because he believed both words and music +superexcellent, the former being in truth not quite bad, and the latter +nearly as good. Appreciation was the very hunger of Tom's small life, +and here was a chance! + +"I ought to apologize," he said, airily, "and I will, if you will allow +me." + +Mrs. Redmain said nothing, only waited with her eyes. They were calm, +reposeful eyes, not fixed, scarcely lying upon Tom. It was chilling, +but he was not easily chilled when self was in the question--as it +generally was with Tom. He felt, however, that he must talk or be lost. + +"I have taken the liberty," he said, "of bringing you the song I had +the pleasure--a greater pleasure than you will readily imagine--of +hearing you admire the other evening." + +"I forget," said Hesper. + +"I would not have ventured," continued Tom, "had it not happened that +both air and words were my own." + +"Ah!--indeed!--I did not know you were a poet, Mr.--" + +She had forgotten his name. + +"That or nothing," answered Tom, boldly. + +"And a musician, too?" + +"At your service, Mrs. Redmain." + +"I don't happen to want a poet at present--or a musician either," she +said, with just enough of a smile to turn the rudeness into what Tom +accepted as a flattering familiarity. + +"Nor am I in want of a place," he replied, with spirit; "a bird can +sing on any branch. Will you allow me to sing this song on yours? Mrs. +Downport scarcely gave the expression I could have desired.--May I read +the voices before I sing them?" + +Without either intimacy or encouragement, Tom was capable of offering +to read his own verses! Such fools self-partisanship makes of us. + +Mrs. Redmain was, for her, not a little amused with the young man; he +was not just like every other that came to the house. + +"I should li-i-ike," she said. + +Tom laid himself back a little in his chair, with the sheet of music in +his hand, closed his eyes, and repeated as follows--he knew all his own +verses by heart: + + "Lovely lady, sweet disdain! + Prithee keep thy Love at home; + Bind him with a tressed chain; + Do not let the mischief roam. + + "In the jewel-cave, thine eye, + In the tangles of thy hair, + It is well the imp should lie-- + There his home, his heaven is there. + + "But for pity's sake, forbid + Beauty's wasp at me to fly; + Sure the child should not be chid, + And his mother standing by. + + "For if once the villain came + To my house, too well I know + He would set it all aflame-- + To the winds its ashes blow. + + "Prithee keep thy Love at home; + Net him up or he will start; + And if once the mischief roam, + Straight he'll wing him to my heart." + +What there might be in verse like this to touch with faintest emotion, +let him say who cultivates art for art's sake. Doubtless there is that +in rhythm and rhyme and cadence which will touch the pericardium when +the heart itself is not to be reached by divinest harmony; but, whether +such women as Hesper feel this touch or only admire a song as they +admire the church-prayers and Shakespeare, or whether, imagining in it +some _tour de force_ of which they are themselves incapable, they +therefore look upon it as a mighty thing, I am at a loss to determine. +All I know is that a gleam as from some far-off mirror of admiration +did certainly, to Tom's great satisfaction, appear on Hesper's +countenance. As, however, she said nothing, he, to waive aside a +threatening awkwardness, lightly subjoined: + +"Queen Anne is all the rage now, you see." + +Mrs. Redmain knew that Queen-Anne houses were in fashion, and was even +able to recognize one by its flush window-frames, while she had felt +something odd, which might be old-fashioned, in the song; between the +two, she was led to the conclusion that the fashion of Queen Anne's +time had been revived in the making of verses also. + +"Can you, then, make a song to any pattern you please?" she asked. + +"I fancy so," answered Tom, indifferently, as if it were nothing to him +to do whatever he chose to attempt. And in fact he could imitate almost +anything--and well, too--the easier that he had nothing of his own +pressing for utterance; for he had yet made no response to the first +demand made on every man, the only demand for originality made on any +man--that he should order his own way aright. + +"How clever you must be!" drawled Hesper; and, notwithstanding the +tone, the words were pleasant in the ears of goose Tom. He rose, opened +the piano, and, with not a little cheap facility, began to accompany a +sweet tenor voice in the song he had just read. + +The door opened, and Mr. Redmain came in. He gave a glance at Tom as he +sang, and went up to his wife where she still sat, with her face to the +fire, and her back to the piano. + +"New singing-master, eh?" he said. + +"No," answered his wife. + +"Who the deuce is he?" + +"I forget his name," replied Hesper, in the tone of one bored by +question. "He used to come to Durnmelling." + +"That is no reason why he should not have a name to him." + +Hesper did not reply. Tom went on playing. The moment he struck the +last chord, she called to him in a clear, soft, cold voice: + +"Will you tell Mr. Redmain your name? I happen to have forgotten it." + +Tom picked up his hat, rose, came forward, and, mentioning his name, +held out his hand. + +"I don't know you," said Mr. Redmain, touching his palm with two +fingers that felt like small fishes. + +"It is of no consequence," said his wife; "Mr. Aylmer is an old +acquaintance of our family." + +"Only you don't quite remember his name!" + +"It is not my _friends'_ names only I have an unhappy trick of +forgetting. I often forget yours, Mr. Redmain!" + +"My _good_ name, you must mean." + +"I never heard that." + +Neither had raised the voice, or spoken with the least apparent anger. + +Mr. Redmain gave a grin instead of a retort. He appreciated her +sharpness too much to get one ready in time. Turning away, he left the +room with a quiet, steady step, taking his grin with him: it had drawn +the clear, scanty skin yet tighter on his face, and remained fixed; so +that he vanished with something of the look of a hairless tiger. + +The moment he disappeared, Tom's gaze, which had been fascinated, +sought Hesper. Her lips were shaping the word _brute!_--Tom heard it +with his eyes; her eyes were flashing, and her face was flushed. But +the same instant, in a voice perfectly calm-- + +"Is there anything else you would like to sing, Mr. Helmer?" she said. +"Or--" Here she ceased, with the slightest possible choking--it was +only of anger--in the throat. + +Tom's was a sympathetic nature, especially where a pretty woman was in +question. He forgot entirely that she had given quite as good, or as +bad, as she received, and was hastening to say something foolish, +imagining he had looked upon the sorrows of a lovely and unhappy wife +and was almost in her confidence, when Sepia entered the room, with a +dark glow that flashed into dusky radiance at sight of the handsome +Tom. She had noted him on the night of the party, and remembered having +seen him at the merrymaking in the old hall of Durnmelling, but he had +not been introduced to her. A minute more, and they were sitting +together in a bay-window, blazing away at each other like two +corvettes, though their cartridges were often blank enough, while +Hesper, never heeding them, kept her place by the chimney, her gaze +transferred from the fire to the novel she had sent for from her +bedroom. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +MARY'S RECEPTION. + + +In the afternoon of the same day, now dreary enough, with the +dreariness naturally belonging to the dreariest month of the year, Mary +arrived in the city preferred to all cities by those who live in it, +but the most uninviting, I should imagine, to a stranger, of all cities +on the face of the earth. Cold seemed to have taken to itself a visible +form in the thin, gray fog that filled the huge station from the +platform to the glass roof. The latter had vanished, indistinguishable +from sky invisible, and from the brooding darkness, in which the lamps +innumerable served only to make spots of thinness. It was a mist, not a +November fog, properly so called; but every breath breathed by every +porter, as he ran along by the side of the slowly halting train, was +adding to its mass, which seemed to Mary to grow in bulk and density as +she gazed. Her quiet, simple, decided manner at once secured her +attention, and she was among the first who had their boxes on cabs and +were driving away. + +But the drive seemed interminable, and she had grown anxious and again +calmed herself many times, before it came to an end. The house at which +the cab drew up was large, and looked as dreary as large, but scarcely +drearier than any other house in London on that same night of November. +The cabman rang the bell, but it was not until they had waited a time +altogether unreasonable that the door at length opened, and a lofty, +well-built footman in livery appeared framed in it. + +Mary got out, and, going up the steps, said she hoped the driver had +brought her to the right house: it was Mrs. Redmain's she wanted. + +"Mrs. Redmain is not at home, miss," answered the man. "I didn't hear +as how she was expecting of any one," he added, with a glance at the +boxes, formlessly visible on the cab, through the now thicker darkness. + +"She is expecting me, I know," returned Mary; "but of course she would +not stay at home to receive me," she remarked, with a smile. + +"Oh!" returned the man, in a peculiar tone, and adding, "I'll see," +went away, leaving her on the top of the steps, with the cabman behind +her, at the bottom of them, waiting orders to get her boxes down. + +"It don't appear as you was overwelcome, miss!" he remarked: with his +comrades on the stand he passed for a wit; "--leastways, it don't seem +as your sheets was quite done hairing." + +"It's all right," said Mary, cheerfully. + +She was not ready to imagine her dignity in danger, therefore did not +provoke assault upon it by anxiety for its safety. + +"I'm sorry to hear it, miss," the man rejoined. + +"Why?" she asked. + +"'Cause I should ha' liked to ha' taken _you_ farther." + +"But why?" said Mary, the second time, not understanding him, and not +unwilling to cover the awkwardness of that slow minute of waiting. + +"Because it gives a poor man with a whole family o' prowocations +some'at of a chance, to 'ave a affable young lady like you, miss, +behind him in his cab, once a year, or thereabouts. It's not by no +means as I'd have you go farther and fare worse, which it's a sayin' as +I've heerd said, miss. So, if you're sure o' the place, I may as well +be a-gettin' down of _your_ boxes." + +So saying, he got on the cab, and proceeded to unfasten the chain that +secured the luggage. + +"Wait a bit, cabbie. Don't you be in sech a 'urry as if you was a +'ansom, now," cried the footman, reappearing at the farther end of the +hall. "I should be sorry if there was a mistake, and you wasn't man +enough to put your boxes up again without assistance." Then, turning to +Mary, "Mrs. Perkin says, miss--that's the housekeeper, miss," he went +on, "--that, if as you're the young woman from the country--and I'm +sure I beg your pardon if I make a mistake--it ain't my fault, +miss--Mrs. Perkin says she did hear Mrs. Redmain make mention of one, +but she didn't have any instructions concerning her.--But, as there you +are," he continued more familiarly, gathering courage from Mary's +nodded assent, "you can put your boxes in the hall, and sit down, she +says, till Mrs. R. comes 'ome." + +"Do you think she will be long?" asked Mary. + +"Well, that's what no fellow can't say, seein' its a new play as she's +gone to. They call it Doomsday, an' there's no tellin' when parties is +likely to come 'ome from that," said the man, with a grin of +satisfaction at his own wit. + +Was London such a happy place that everybody in it was given to joking, +thought Mary. + +"'Ere, mister! gi' me a 'and wi' this 'ere luggage," cried the cabman, +finding the box he was getting down too much for him. "Yah wouldn't see +me break my back, an' my poor 'orse standin' there a lookin' on--would +ye now?" + +"Why don't you bring a man with you?" objected the footman, as he +descended the steps notwithstanding, to give the required assistance. +"I ain't paid as a crane.--By Juppiter! what a weight the new party's +boxes is!" + +"Only that one," said Mary, apologetically. "It is full of books. The +other is not half so heavy." + +"Oh, it ain't the weight, miss!" returned the footman, who had not +intended she should hear the remark. "I believe Mr. Cabman and myself +will prove equal to the occasion." + +With that the book-box came down a great bump on the pavement, and +presently both were in the hall, the one on the top of the other. Mary +paid the cabman, who asked not a penny more than his fare; he departed +with thanks; the facetious footman closed the door, told her to take a +seat, and went away full of laughter, to report that the young person +had brought a large library with her to enliven the dullness of her new +situation. + +Mrs. Perkin smiled crookedly, and, in a tone of pleasant reproof, +desired her laughter-compressing inferior not to forget his manners. + +"Please, ma'am, am I to leave the young woman sittin' up there all by +herself in the cold?" he asked, straightening himself up. "She do look +a rayther superior sort of young person," he added, "and the 'all-stove +is dead out." + +"For the present, Castle," replied Mrs. Perkin. + +She judged it wise to let the young woman have a lesson at once in +subjection and inferiority. + +Mrs. Perkin was a rather tall, rather thin, quite straight, and very +dark-complexioned woman. She always threw her head back on one side and +her chin out on the other when she spoke, and had about her a great +deal of the authoritative, which she mingled with such consideration +toward her subordinates as to secure their obedience to her, while she +cultivated antagonism to her mistress. She had had a better education +than most persons of her class, but was morally not an atom their +superior in consequence. She never went into a new place but with the +feeling that she was of more importance by far than her untried +mistress, and the worthier person of the two. She entered her service, +therefore, as one whose work it was to take care of herself against a +woman whose mistress she ought to have been, had Providence but started +her with her natural rights. At the same time, she would have been +_almost_ as much offended by a hint that she was not a Christian, as +she would have been by a doubt whether she was a lady. For, indeed, she +was both, if a great opinion of herself constituted the latter, and a +great opinion of going to church constituted the former. + +She had not been taken into Hesper's confidence with regard to Mary, +had discovered that "a young person" was expected, but had learned +nothing of what her position in the house was to be. She welcomed, +therefore, this opportunity both of teaching Mrs. Redmain--she never +called her her _mistress_, while severely she insisted on the other +servants' speaking of her so--the propriety of taking counsel with her +housekeeper and of letting the young person know in time that Mrs. +Perkin was in reality her mistress. + +The relation of the upper servants of the house to their employers was +more like that of the managers of an hotel to their guests. The butler, +the lady's-maid, and Mr. Redmain's body-servant, who had been with him +before his marriage, and was supposed to be deep in his master's +confidence, ate with the housekeeper in her room, waited upon by the +livery and maid-servants, except the second cook: the first cook only +came to superintend the cooking of the dinner, and went away after. To +all these Mrs. Perkin was careful to be just; and, if she was precise +even to severity with them, she was herself obedient to the system she +had established--the main feature of which was punctuality. She not +only regarded punctuality as the foremost of virtues, but, in righteous +moral sequence, made it the first of her duties; and the benefit +everybody reaped. For nothing oils the household wheels so well as this +same punctuality. In a family, love, if it be strong, genuine, and +patent, will make up for anything; but, where there is no family and no +love, the loss of punctuality will soon turn a house into the mere +pouch of a social _inferno_. Here the master and mistress came and +went, regardless of each other, and of all household polity; but their +meals were ready for them to the minute, when they chose to be there to +eat them; the carriage came round like one of the puppets on the +Strasburg clock; the house was quiet as a hospital; the bells were +answered--all except the door-bell outside of calling hours--with +swiftness; you could not soil your fingers anywhere--not even if the +sweep had been that same morning; the manners of the servants--_when +serving_--were unexceptionable; but the house was scarcely more of a +home than one of the huge hotels characteristic of the age. + +In the hall of it sat Mary for the space of an hour, not exactly +learning the lesson Mrs. Perkin had intended to teach her, but learning +more than one thing Mrs. Perkin was not yet capable of learning. I can +not say she was comfortable, for she was both cold and hungry; but she +was far from miserable. She had no small gift of patience, and had +taught herself to look upon the less troubles of life as on a bad +dream. There are children, though not yet many, capable, through faith +in their parents, of learning not a little by their experience, and +Mary was one of such; from the first she received her father's lessons +like one whose business it was to learn them, and had thereby come to +learn where he had himself learned. Hence she was not one to say _our +Father in heaven_, and act as if there were no such Father, or as if he +cared but little for his children. She was even foolish enough to +believe that that Father both knew and cared that she was hungry and +cold and wearily uncomfortable; and thence she was weak enough to take +the hunger and cold and discomfort as mere passing trifles, which could +not last a moment longer than they ought. From her sore-tried endeavors +after patience, had grown the power of active waiting--and a genuinely +waiting child is one of the loveliest sights the earth has to show. + +This was not the reception she had pictured to herself, as the train +came rushing from Testbridge to London; she had not, indeed, imagined a +warm one, but she had not expected to be forgotten--for so she +interpreted her abandonment in the hall, which seemed to grow colder +every minute. She saw no means of reminding the household of her +neglected presence, and indeed would rather have remained where she was +till the morning than encounter the growing familiarity of the man who +had admitted her. She did think once--if Mrs. Redmain were to hear of +her reception, how she would resent it! and would have found it +difficult to believe how far people like her are from troubling +themselves about the behavior of their servants to other people; for +they have no idea of an obligation to rule their own house, neither +seem to have a notion of being accountable for what goes on in it. + +She had grown very weary, and began to long for a floor on which she +might stretch herself; there was not a sound in the house but the +ticking of a clock somewhere; and she was now wondering whether +everybody had gone to bed, when she heard a step approaching, and +presently Castle, who was the only man at home, stood up before her, +and, with the ease of perfect self-satisfaction, and as if there was +nothing in the neglect of her but the custom of the house to cool +people well in the hall before admitting them to its penetralia, said, +"Step this way--miss"; the last word added after a pause of pretended +hesitation, for the man had taken his cue from the housekeeper. + +Mary rose, and followed him to the basement story, into a comfortable +room, where sat Mrs. Perkin, embroidering large sunflowers on a piece +of coarse stuff. She was _artistic_, and despised the whole style of +the house. + +"You may sit down," she said, and pointed to a chair near the door. + +Mary, not a little amused, for all her discomfort, did as she was +permitted, and awaited what should come next. + +"What part of the country are you from?" asked Mrs. Perkin, with her +usual diagonal upward toss of the chin, but without lifting her eyes +from her work. + +"From Testbridge," answered Mary. + +"The servants in this house are in the habit of saying _ma'am_ to their +superiors: it is required of them," remarked Mrs. Perkin. But, although +her tone was one of rebuke, she said the words lightly, tossed the last +of them off, indeed, almost playfully, as if the lesson was meant for +one who could hardly have been expected to know better. "And what place +did you apply for in the house?" she went on to ask. + +"I can hardly say, ma'am," answered Mary, avoiding both inflection and +emphasis, and by her compliance satisfying Mrs. Perkin that she had +been right in requiring the _kotou_. "It is not usual for young persons +to be engaged without knowing for what purpose." + +"I suppose not, ma'am." + +"What wages were you to have?" next inquired Mrs. Perkin, gradually +assuming a more decided drawl as she became more assured of her +position with the stranger. She would gladly get some light on the +affair. "You need not object to mentioning them," she went on, for she +imagined Mary hesitated, whereas she was only a little troubled to keep +from laughing; "I always pay the wages myself." + +"There was nothing said about wages, ma'am," answered Mary. + +"Indeed! Neither work nor wages specified? Excuse me if I say it seems +rather peculiar.--We must be content to wait a little, then--until we +learn what Mrs. Redmain expected of you, _and whether or not you are +capable of it_. We can go no further now." + +"Certainly not, ma'am," assented Mary. + +"Can you use your needle?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Have you done any embroidery?" + +"I understand it a little, but I am not particularly fond of it." + +"You mistake: I did not ask you whether you were fond of it," said Mrs. +Perkin; "I asked you if you had ever done any"; and she smiled +severely, but ludicrously, for a diagonal smile is apt to have a comic +effect. "Here!--take off your gloves," she continued, "and let me see +you do one of these loose-worked sunflowers. They are the fashion now, +though. I dare say, you will not be able to see the beauty of them." + +"Please, ma'am," returned Mary, "if you will excuse me, I would rather +go to my room. I have had a long journey, and am very tired." + +"There is no room yours.--I have had no character with you.--Nothing +can be done til Mrs. Redman comes home, and she and I have had a little +talk about you. But you can go to the housemaid's--the second +housemaid's room, I mean--and make yourself tidy. There is a spare bed +in it, I believe, which you can have for the night; only mind you don't +keep the girl awake talking to her, or she will be late in the morning, +and that I never put up with. I think you will do. You seem willing to +learn, and that is half the battle." + +Therewith Mrs. Perkin, believing she had laid in awe the foundation of +a rightful authority over the young person, gave her a nod of +dismissal, which she intended to be friendly. + +"Please, ma'am," said Mary, "could I have one of my boxes taken up +stairs?" + +"Certainly not. I can not have two movings of them; I must take care of +my men. And your boxes, I understand, are heavy, quite absurdly so. It +would _look_ better in a young person not to have so much to carry +about with her." + +"I have but two boxes, ma'am," said Mary. + +"Full of _books_, I am told." + +"One of them only." + +"You must do your best without them to-night. When I have made up my +mind what is to be done with you, I shall let you have the one with +your clothes; the other shall be put away in the box-room. I give my +people what books I think fit. For light reading, the 'Fireside Herald' +is quite enough for the room.--There--good night!" + +Mary courtesied, and left her. At the door she glanced this way and +that to find some indication to guide her steps. A door was open at the +end of a passage, and from the odor that met her, it seemed likely to +be that of the kitchen. She approached, and peeped in. + +"Who is that?" cried a voice irate. + +It was the voice of the second cook, who was there supreme except when +the _chef_ was present. Mary stepped in, and the woman advanced to meet +her. + +"May I ask to what I am indebted for the honner of this unexpected +visit?" said the second cook, whose head its overcharge of +self-importance jerked hither and thither upon her neck, as she seized +the opportunity of turning to her own use a sentence she had just read +in the "Fireside Herald" which had taken her fancy--spoken by Lady +Blanche Rivington Delaware to a detested lover disinclined to be +dismissed. + +"Would you please tell me where to find the second house-maid," said +Mary. "Mrs. Perkin has sent me to her room." + +"Why don't Mrs. Perkin show you the way, then?" returned the woman. +"There ain't nobody else in the house as I knows on fit to send to the +top o' them stairs with you. A nice way Jemim' 'ill be in when _she_ +comes 'ome, to find a stranger in her room!" + +The same instant, however, the woman bethought herself that, if what +she had said in her haste were reported, it would be as much as her +place was worth; and at once thereupon she assumed a more complaisant +tone. Casting a look at her saucepans, as if to warn them concerning +their behavior in her absence, she turned again to Mary, saying: + +"I believe I better show you the way myself. It's easier to take you +than find a girl to do it. Them hussies is never where they oughto be! +_You_ follow _me_." + +She led the way along two passages, and up a back staircase of +stone--up and up, till Mary, unused to such heights, began to be aware +of knees. Plainly at last in the regions of the roof, she thought her +hill Difficulty surmounted, but the cook turned a sharp corner, and +Mary following found herself once more at the foot of a stair--very +narrow and steep, leading up to one of those old-fashioned roof-turrets +which had begun to appear in the new houses of that part of London. + +"Are you taking me to the clouds, cook?" she said, willing to be +cheerful, and to acknowledge her obligation for laborious guidance. + +"Not yet a bit, I hope," answered the cook; "we'll get there soon +enough, anyhow--excep' you belong to them peculiars as wants to be +saints afore their time. If that's your sort, don't you come here; for +a wickeder 'ouse, or an 'ouse as you got to work harder in o' Sundays, +no one won't easily find in this here west end." + +With these words she panted up the last few steps, immediately at the +top of which was the room sought. It was a very small one, scarcely +more than holding the two beds. Having lighted the gas, the cook left +her; and Mary, noting that one of the beds was not made up, was glad to +throw herself upon it. Covering herself with her cloak, her +traveling-rug, and the woolen counterpane, she was soon fast asleep. + +She was roused by a cry, half of terror, half of surprise. There stood +the second housemaid, who, having been told nothing of her room-fellow, +stared and gasped. + +"I am sorry to have startled you," said Mary, who had half risen, +leaning on her elbow. "They ought to have told you there was a stranger +in your room." + +The girl was not long from the country, and, in the midst of the worst +vulgarity in the world, namely, among the servants of the selfish, her +manners had not yet ceased to be simple. For a moment, however, she +seemed capable only of panting, and pressing her hand on her heart. + +"I am very sorry," said Mary, again; "but you see I won't hurt you! I +don't look dangerous, do I?" + +"No, miss," answered the girl, with an hysterical laugh. "I been to the +play, and there was a man in it was a thief, you know, miss!" And with +that she burst out crying. + +It was some time before Mary got her quieted, but, when she did, the +girl was quite reasonable. She deplored that the bed was not made up, +and would willingly have yielded hers; she was sorry she had not a +clean night-gown to offer her--"not that it would be fit for the likes +of _you_, miss!"--and showed herself full of friendly ministration. +Mary being now without her traveling-cloak, Jemima judged from her +dress she must be some grand visitor's maid, vastly her superior in the +social scale: if she had taken her for an inferior, she would +doubtless, like most, have had some airs handy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +HER POSITION. + + +Mary seemed to have but just got to sleep again, when she was startled +awake by the violent ringing of a bell, almost at her ear. + +"Oh, you needn't trouble yet a long while, miss!" said the girl, who +was already dressing. "I've got ever so many fires to light, ere +there'll be a thought of you!" + +Mary lay down again, and once more fell fast asleep. + +She was waked the third time by the girl telling her that breakfast was +ready; whereupon she rose, and made herself as tidy as she could, while +Jemima _cleaned herself up a bit,_ and was not a little improved in the +process. + +"I thought," she said, "as Mrs. Perkin would 'a' as't you to your first +meal with her; but she told me, when I as't what were to be done with +you, as how you must go to the room, and eat your breakfast with the +rest of us." + +"As Mrs. Perkin pleases," said Mary. + +She had before this come to understand the word of her Master, that not +what enters into a man defiles him, but only what comes out of him; +hence, that no man's dignity is affected by what another does to him, +but only by what he does, or would like to do, himself. + +She did, however, feel a little shy on entering "the room," where all +the livery and most of the women servants were already seated at +breakfast. Two of the men, with a word to each other, made room for her +between them, and laughed; but she took no notice, and seated herself +at the bottom of the table with her companion. Everything was as clean +and tidy as heart could wish, and Mary was glad enough to make a good +meal. + +For a few minutes there was loud talking--from a general impulse to +show off before the stranger; then fell a silence, as if some feeling +of doubt had got among them. The least affected by it was the footman +who had opened the door to her: he had witnessed her reception by Mrs. +Perkin. Addressing her boldly, he expressed a hope that she was not too +much fatigued by her journey. Mary thanked him in her own natural, +straightforward way, and the consequence was, that, when he spoke to +her next, he spoke like a gentleman--in the tone natural to him, that +is, and in the language of the parlor, without any mock-politeness. +And, although the way they talked among themselves made Mary feel as if +she were in a strange country, with strange modes, not of living +merely, but of feeling and of regarding, she received not the smallest +annoyance during the rest of the meal--which did not last long: Mrs. +Perkin took care of that. + +For an hour or more, after the rest had scattered to their respective +duties, she was left alone. Then Mrs. Perkin sent for her. + +When she entered her room, she found her occupied with the cook, and +was allowed to stand unnoticed. + +"When shall I be able to see Mrs. Redmain, ma'am?" she asked, when the +cook at length turned to go. + +"Wait," rejoined Mrs. Perkin, with a quiet dignity, well copied, "until +you are addressed, young woman."--Then first casting a glance at her, +and perhaps perceiving on her countenance a glimmer of the amusement +Mary felt, she began to gather a more correct suspicion of the sort of +being she might possibly be, and hastily added, "Pray, take a seat." + +The idea of making a blunder was unendurable to Mrs. Perkin, and she +was most unwilling to believe she had done so; but, even if she had, to +show that she knew it would only be to render it the more difficult to +recover her pride of place. An involuntary twinkle about the corners of +Mary's mouth made her hasten to answer her question. + +"I am sorry," she said, "that I can give you no prospect of an +interview with Mrs. Redmain before three o'clock. She will very likely +not be out of her room before one.--I suppose you saw her at +Durnmelling?" + +"Yes, ma'am," answered Mary, "--and at Testbridge." + +It kept growing on the housekeeper that she had made a mistake--though +to what extent she sought in vain to determine. + +"You will find it rather wearisome waiting," she said next; "--would +you not like to help me with my work?" + +Already she had the sunflowers under her creative hands. + +"I should be very glad--if I can do it well enough to please you, +ma'am," answered Mary. "But," she added, "would you kindly see that +Mrs. Redmain is told, as soon as she wakes, that I am here?" + +"Oblige me by ringing the bell," said Mrs. Perkin.--"Send Mrs. Folter +here."' + +A rather cross-looking, red-faced, thin woman appeared, whom she +requested to let her mistress know, as soon as was proper, that there +was a young person in the house who said she had come from Testbridge +by appointment to see her. + +"Yes, ma'am," said Folter, with a supercilious yet familiar nod to +Mary; "I'll take care she knows." + +Mary passed what would have been a dreary morning to one dependent on +her company. It was quite three o'clock when she was at length summoned +to Mrs. Redmain's boudoir. Folter, who was her guide thither, lingered, +in the soft closing of the door, long enough to learn that her mistress +received the young person with a kiss--almost as much to Mary's +surprise as Folter's annoyance, which annoyance partly to relieve, +partly to pass on to Mrs. Perkin, whose reception of Mary she had +learned, Folter hastened to report the fact, and succeeded thereby in +occasioning no small uneasiness in the bosom of the housekeeper, who +was almost as much afraid of her mistress as the other servants were of +herself. Some time she spent in expectant trepidation, but gradually, +as nothing came of it, calmed her fears, and concluded that her +behavior to Mary had been quite correct, seeing the girl had made it no +ground of complaint. + +But, although Hesper, being at the moment in tolerable spirits, in +reaction from her depression of the day before, received Mary with a +kiss, she did not ask her a question about her journey, or as to how +she had spent the night. She was there, and looking all right, and that +was enough. On the other hand, she did proceed to have her at once +properly settled. + +The little room appointed her looked upon a small court or yard, and +was dark, but otherwise very comfortable. As soon as she was left to +herself, she opened her boxes, put her things away in drawers and +wardrobe, arranged her books within easy reach of the low chair Hesper +had sent for from the drawing-room for her, and sat down to read a +little, brood a little, and build a few castles in the air, more lovely +than evanescent: no other house is so like its builder as this sort of +castle. + +About eight o'clock, Folter summoned her to go to Mrs. Redmain. By this +time she was tired: she was accustomed to tea in the afternoon, and +since her dinner with the housekeeper she had had nothing. + +She found Mrs. Redmain dressed for the evening. As soon as Mary +entered, she dismissed Folter. + +"I am going out to dinner," she said. "Are you quite comfortable?" + +"I am rather cold, and should like some tea," said Mary. + +"My poor girl! have you had no tea?" said Hesper, with some concern, +and more annoyance. "You are looking quite pale, I see! When did you +have anything to eat?" + +"I had a good dinner at one o'clock," replied Mary, with a rather weary +smile. + +"This is dreadful!" said Hesper. "What can the servants be about!" + +"And, please, may I have a little fire?" begged Mary. + +"Certainly," replied Hesper, knitting her brows with a look of slight +anguish. "Is it possible you have been sitting all day without one? Why +did you not ring the bell?" She took one of her hands. "You are +frozen!" she said. + +"Oh, no!" answered Mary; "I am far from that. You see nobody knows yet +what to do with me.--You hardly know yourself," she added, with a merry +look. "But, if you wouldn't mind telling Mrs. Perkin where you wish me +to have my meals, that would put it all right, I think." + +"Very well," said Hesper, in a tone that for her was sharp. "Will you +ring the bell?" + +She sent for the housekeeper, who presently appeared--lank and tall, +with her head on one side like a lamp-post in distress, but calm and +prepared--a dumb fortress, with a live garrison. + +"I wish you, Mrs. Perkin, to arrange with Miss Marston about her meals." + +"Yes, ma'am," answered Mrs. Perkin, with sedatest utterance. + +"Mrs. Perkin," said Mary, "I don't want to be troublesome; tell me what +will suit you best." + +But Mrs. Perkin did not even look at her; standing straight as a rush, +she kept her eyes on her mistress. + +"Do you desire, ma'am, that Miss Marston should have her meals in the +housekeeper's room?" she asked. + +"That must be as Miss Marston pleases," answered Hesper. "If she prefer +them in her own, you will see they are properly sent up." + +"Very well, ma'am!--Then I wait Miss Marston's orders," said Mrs. +Perkin, and turned to leave the room. But, when her mistress spoke +again, she turned again and stood. It was Mary, however, whom Hesper +addressed. + +"Mary," she said, apparently foreboding worse from the tone of the +housekeeper's obedience than from her occurred neglect, "when I am +alone, you shall take your meals with me; and when I have any one with +me, Mrs. Perkin will see that they are sent to your room. We will +settle it so." + +"Thank you," said Mary. + +"Very well, ma'am," said Mrs. Perkin. + +"Send Miss Marston some tea directly," said Hesper. + +Scarcely was Mrs. Perkin gone when the brougham was announced. Mary +returned to her room, and in a little while tea, with thin bread and +butter in limited quantity, was brought her. But it was brought by +Jemima, whose face wore a cheerful smile over the tray she carried: +she, at least, did not grudge Mary her superior place in the household. + +"Do you think, Jemima," asked Mary, "you could manage to answer my bell +when I ring?" + +"I should only be too glad, miss; it would be nothing but a pleasure to +me; and I'd jump to it if I was in the way; but if I was up stairs, +which this house ain't a place to hear bells in, sure I am nobody would +let me know as you was a-ringin'; and if you was to think as how I was +giving of myself airs, like some people not far out of this square, I +should be both sorry and ashamed--an' that's more'n I'd say for my +place to Mrs. Perkin, miss." + +"You needn't be afraid of that, Jemima," returned Mary. "If you don't +answer when I ring, I shall know, as well as if you told me, that you +either don't hear or can't come at the moment. I sha'n't be exacting." + +"Don't you be afeared to ring, miss; I'll answer your bell as often as +I hear it." + +"Could you bring me a loaf? I have had nothing since Mrs. Perkin's +dinner; and this bread and butter is rather too delicately cut," said +Mary. + +"Laws, miss, you must be nigh clemmed!" said the girl; and, hastening +away, she soon returned with a loaf, and butter, and a pot of marmalade +sent by the cook, who was only too glad to open a safety-valve to her +pleasure at the discomfiture of Mrs. Perkin. + +"When would you like your breakfast, miss?" asked Jemima, as she +removed the tea-things. + +"Any time convenient," replied Mary. + +"It's much the same to me, miss, so it's not before there's bilin' +water. You'll have it in bed, miss?" + +"No, thank you. I never do." + +"You'd better, miss." + +"I could not think of it." + +"It makes no more trouble--less, miss, than if I had to get it when the +room-breakfast was on. I've got to get the things together anyhow; and +why shouldn't you have it as well as Mrs. Perkin, or that ill-tempered +cockatoo, Mrs. Folter? You're a lady, and that's more'n can be said for +either of them--justly, that is." + +"You don't mean," said Mary, surprised out of her discretion, "that the +housekeeper and the lady's-maid have breakfast in bed?" + +"It's every blessed mornin' as I've got to take it up to 'em, miss, +upon my word of honor, with a soft-biled egg, or a box o' sardines, +new-opened, or a slice o' breakfast bacon, streaky. An' I do _not_ +think as it belongs proper to my place; only you see, miss, the +kitchen-maid has got to do it for the cook, an' if I don't, who is +there? It's not them would let the scullery-maid come near them in +their beds." + +"Does Mrs. Perkin know that the cook and the lady's-maid have it as +well as herself?" + +"Not she, miss; she'd soon make their coffee too 'ot! She's the only +lady down stairs--she is! No more don't Mrs. Folter know as the cook +has hers, only, if she did, it wouldn't make no differ, for she daren't +tell. And cook, to be sure, it ain't her breakfast, only a cup o' tea +an' a bit o' toast, to get her heart up first." + +"Well," said Mary, "I certainly shall not add another to the breakfasts +in bed. But I must trouble you all the same to bring it me here. I will +make my bed, and do out the room myself, if you will come and finish it +off for me." + +"Oh, no, indeed, miss, you mustn't do that! Think what they'd say of +you down stairs! They'd despise you downright!" + +"I shall do it, Jemima. If they were servants of the right sort, I +should like to have their good opinion, and they would think all the +more of me for doing my share; as it is, I should count it a disgrace +to care a straw, what they thought. We must do our work, and not mind +what people say." + +"Yes, miss, that's what my mother used to say to my father, when he +wouldn't be reasonable. But I must go, miss, or I shall catch it for +gossiping with you--that's what _she'll_ call it." + +When Jemima was gone, Mary fell a-thinking afresh. It was all very +well, she said to herself, to talk about doing her work, but here she +was with scarce a shadow of an idea what her work was! Had _any_ work +been given her to do in this house? Had she presumed in +coming--anticipated the guidance of Providence, and was she therefore +now where she had no right to be? She could not tell; but, anyhow, here +she was, and no one could be anywhere without the fact involving its +own duty. Even if she had put herself there, and was to blame for being +there, that did not free her from the obligations of the position, and +she was willing to do whatever should _now_ be given her to do. God was +not a hard master; if she had made a mistake, he would pardon her, and +either give her work here, where she found herself, or send her +elsewhere. I need not say that thinking was not all her care; for she +thought in the presence of Him who, because he is always setting our +wrong things right, is called God our Saviour. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +MR. AND MRS. HELMER + + +The next morning, Mary set out to find Letty, from whom, as I have +said, she had heard but twice since her marriage. Mary had written +again about a month ago, but had had no reply. The sad fact was, that, +ever since she left Testbridge, Letty, for a long time, without knowing +it, had been going down hill. There have been many whose earnestness +has vanished with the presence of those whose influence awoke it. +Letty's better self seemed to have remained behind with Mary; and not +even if he had been as good as she thought him, could Tom himself have +made up to her for the loss of such a friend. + +But Letty had not found marriage at all the grand thing she had +expected. With the faithfulness of a woman, however, she attributed her +disappointment to something inherent in marriage, nowise affecting the +man whom marriage had made her husband. + +That he might be near the center to which what little work he did +gravitated, Tom had taken a lodging in a noisy street, as unlike all +that Letty had been accustomed to as anything London, except in its +viler parts, could afford. Never a green thing was to be looked upon in +any direction. Not a sweet sound was to be heard. + +The sun, at this time of the year, was seldom to be seen in London +anywhere; and in Lydgate Street, even when there was no fog, it was but +askance, and for a brief portion of the day, that he shone upon that +side where stood their dusty windows. And then the noise!--a ceaseless +torrent of sounds, of stony sounds, of iron sounds, of grinding sounds, +of clashing sounds, of yells and cries--of all deafening and unpoetic +discords! Letty had not much poetry in her, and needed what could be +had from the outside so much the more. It is the people of a land +without springs that must have cisterns. It is the poetic people +without poetry that pant and pine for the country. When such get hold +of a poet, they expect him to talk poetry, or, at least, to talk about +poetry! I fancy poets do not read much poetry, and except to their +peers do not often care to talk about it. But to one like Letty, +however little she may understand or even be aware of the need, the +poetic is as necessary as rain in summer; while, to one so little +skilled in the finding of it, there was none visible, audible, or +perceptible about her--except, indeed, what, of poorest sort for her +uses, she might discover bottled in some circulating library: there was +one--blessed proximity!--within ten minutes' walk of her. + +Once a week or so, some weeks oftener, Tom would take her to the play, +and that was, indeed, a happiness--not because of the pleasure of the +play only or chiefly, though that was great, but in the main because +she had Tom beside her all the time, and mixed up Tom with the play, +and the play with Tom. + +Alas! Tom was not half so dependent upon her, neither derived half so +much pleasure from her company. Some of his evenings every week he +spent at houses where those who received him had not the faintest idea +whether he had a wife or not, and cared as little, for it would have +made no difference: they would not have invited her. Small, silly, +conceited Tom, regarding himself as a somebody, was more than content +to be asked to such people's houses. He thought he went as a lion, +whereas it was merely as a jackal: so great is the love of some for +wild beasts in general, that they even think something of jackals. He +was aware of no insult to himself in asking him whether as a lion or +any other wild beast, nor of any to his wife and himself together in +not asking her with him. While she sat in her dreary lodging, dingily +clad and lonely, Tom, dressed in the height of the fashion, would be +strolling about grand rooms, now exchanging a flying shot of +recognition, now pausing to pay a compliment to this lady on her +singing, to that on her verses, to a third, where he dared, on her +dress; for good-natured Tom was profuse of compliments, not without a +degree and kind of honesty in them; now singing one of his own songs to +the accompaniment of some gracious goddess, now accompanying the same +or some other gracious goddess as she sang--for Tom could do that well +enough for people without a conscience in their music; now in the +corner of a conservatory, now in a cozy little third room behind a back +drawing-room, talking nonsense with some lady foolish enough to be +amused with his folly. Tom meant no harm and did not do much--was only +a human butterfly, amusing himself with other creatures of a day, who +have no notion that death can not kill them, or they might perhaps be +more miserable than they are. They think, if they think at all, that it +is life, strong in them, that makes them forget death; whereas, in +truth, it is death, strong in them, that makes them forget life. Like a +hummingbird, all sparkle and flash, Tom flitted through the tropical +delights of such society as his "uncommon good luck" had gained him +admission to, forming many an evanescent friendship, and taking many a +graceful liberty for which his pleasant looks, confident manners, and +free carriage were his indemnity--for Tom seemed to have been born to +show what a nice sort of a person a fool, well put together, may +be--with his high-bred air, and his ready replies, for he had also a +little of that social element, once highly valued, now less +countenanced, and rare--I mean wit. + +He had, indeed, plenty of all sorts of brains; but no amount of talent +could reveal to him the reason or the meaning of the fact that wedded +life was less interesting than courtship; for the former, the reason +lay in himself, and of himself proper he knew, as I have said, next to +nothing; while the latter, the meaning of the fact, is profound as +eternity. He had no notion that, when he married, his life was thereby, +in a lofty and blessed sense, forfeit; that, to save his wife's life, +he must yield his own, she doing the same for him--for God himself can +save no other way. But the notion of any saving, or the need of it, was +far from Tom; nor had Letty, for her part, any thought of it either, +except from the tyranny of her aunt. Not the less, in truth, did they +both want saving--very much saving--before life could be to either of +them a good thing. It is only its inborn possibility of and divine +tendency toward blossoming that constitute life a good thing. Life's +blossom is its salvation, its redemption, the justification of its +existence--and is a thing far off with most of us. For Tom, his highest +notion of life was to be recognized by the world for that which he had +chosen as his idea of himself--to have the reviews allow him a poet, +not grudgingly, nor with abatement of any sort, but recognizing him as +the genius he must contrive to believe himself, or "perish in" his +"self-contempt." Then would he live and die in the blessed assurance +that his name would be for over on the lips and in the hearts of that +idol of fools they call _posterity_-divinity as vague as the old gray +Fate, and less noble, inasmuch as it is but the supposed concave whence +is to rebound the man's own opinion of himself. + +While jewelly Tom was idling away time which yet could hardly be called +precious, his little brown wife, as I have said, sat at home--such home +as a lodging can be for a wife whose husband finds his interest mainly +outside of it--inquired after by nobody, thought of by nobody, hardly +even taken up by her own poor, weary self; now trying in vain after +interest in the feeble trash she was reading; now getting into the +story for the last half of a chapter, to find herself, when the scene +changed at the next, as far out and away and lost as ever; now dropping +the book on her knee, to sit musing--if, indeed, such poor mental +vagaries as hers can be called even musing!--ignorant what was the +matter with her, hardly knowing that anything was the matter, and yet +pining morally, spiritually, and psychically; now wondering when Tom +would be home; now trying to congratulate herself on his being such a +favorite, and thinking what an honor it was to a poor country girl like +her to be the wife of a man so much courted by the best society--for +she never doubted that the people to whose houses Tom went desired his +company from admiration of his writings. She had not an idea that never +a soul of them or of their guests cared a straw about what he +wrote--except, indeed, here and there, a young lady in her first +season, who thought it a grand thing to know an author, as poor Letty +thought it a grand thing to be the wife of one. Hail to the coming time +when, those who write books outnumbering those who do not, a man will +be thought no more of because he can write than because he can sit a +horse or brew beer! In that happy time the true writer will be neither +an atom the more regarded nor disregarded; he will only be less +troubled with birthday books, requests for autographs, and such-like +irritating attentions. From that time, also, it may be, the number of +writers will begin to diminish; for then, it is to be hoped, men will +begin to see that it is better to do the inferior thing well than the +superior thing after a middling fashion. The man who would not rather +be a good shoemaker than a middling author would be no honor to the +shoemakers, and can hardly be any to the authors. I have the comfort +that in this all authors will agree with me, for which of us is now +able to see himself _middling_? Honorable above all honor that +authorship can give is he who can. + +It was through some of his old college friends that Tom had thus easily +stepped into the literary profession. They were young men with money +and friends to back them, who, having taken to literature as soon as +they chipped the university shell, were already in the full swing of +periodical production, when Tom, to quote two rather contradictory +utterances of his mother, ruined his own prospects and made Letty's +fortune by marrying her. I can not say, however, that they had found +him remunerative employment. The best they had done for him was to +bring him into such a half sort of connection with a certain weekly +paper that now and then he got something printed in it, and now and +then, with the joke of acknowledging an obligation irremunerable, the +editor would hand him what he called an honorarium, but what in reality +was a five-pound note. When such an event occurred, Tom would feel his +bosom swell with the imagined dignity of supporting a family by +literary labor, and, forgetful of the sparseness of his mother's doles, +who delighted to make the young couple feel the bitterness of +dependence, would immediately, on the strength of it, invite his +friends to supper--not at the lodging where Letty sat lonely, but at +some tavern frequented by people of the craft. It was at such times, +and in the company of men certainly not better than himself, that Tom's +hopes were brightest, and his confidence greatest: therefore such +seasons were those of his highest bliss. Especially, when his sensitive +but poor imagination was stimulated from the nerve-side of the brain, +was Tom in his glory; and it was not the "few glasses of champagne," of +which he talked so airily, that had all the honor of crowning him king +of fate and poet of the world. Long after midnight, upon such and many +other occasions, would he and his companions sit laughing and jesting +and drinking, some saying witty things, and all of them foolish things +and worse; inventing stories apropos of the foibles of friends, and +relating anecdotes which grew more and more irreverent to God and women +as the night advanced, and the wine gained power, and the shame-faced +angels of their true selves, made in the image of God, withdrew into +the dark; until at last, between night and morning, Tom would reel +gracefully home, using all the power of his will--the best use to which +it ever was put--to subdue the drunkenness of which, even in its +embrace, he had the lingering honor to be ashamed, that he might face +his wife with the appearance of the gentleman he was anxious she should +continue to consider him. + +It was an unhappy thing for Tom that his mother, having persuaded her +dying husband, "for Tom's sake," to leave the money in her power, +should not now have carried her tyranny further, and refused him money +altogether. He would then have been compelled to work harder, and to +use what he made in procuring the necessaries of life. There might have +been some hope for him then. As it was, his profession was the mere +grasping after the honor of a workman without the doing of the work; +while the little he gained by it was, at the same time, more than +enough to foster the self-deception that he did something in the world. +With the money he gave her, which was never more than a part of what +his mother sent him, Letty had much ado to make both ends meet; and, +while he ran in debt to his tailor and bootmaker, she never had +anything new to wear. She did sometimes wish he would take her out with +him a little oftener of an evening; for sometimes she felt so lonely as +to be quite unable to amuse herself: her resources were not many in her +position, and fewer still in herself; but she always reflected that he +could not afford it, and it was long ere she began to have any doubt or +uneasiness about him--long before she began even to imagine it might be +well if he spent his evenings with her, or, at least, in other ways and +other company than he did. When first such a thought presented itself, +she banished it as a disgrace to herself and an insult to him. But it +was no wonder if she found marriage dull, poor child!--after such +expectations, too, from her Tom! + +What a pity it seems to our purblind eyes that so many girls should be +married before they are women! The woman comes at length, and finds she +is forestalled--that the prostrate and mutilated Dagon of a girl's +divinity is all that is left her to do the best with she can! But, +thank God, in the faithfully accepted and encountered responsibility, +the woman must at length become aware that she has under her feet an +ascending stair by which to climb to the woman of the divine ideal. + +There was at present, however, nothing to be called thought in the mind +of Letty. She had even lost much of what faculty of thinking had been +developed in her by the care of Cousin Godfrey. That had speedily +followed the decay of the aspiration kindled in her by Mary. Her whole +life now--as much of it, that is, as was awake--was Tom, and only Tom. +Her whole day was but the continuous and little varied hope of his +presence. Most of the time she had a book in her hands, but ever again +book and hands would sink into her lap, and she would sit staring +before her at nothing. She was not unhappy, she was only not happy. At +first it was a speechless delight to have as many novels as she +pleased, and she thought Tom the very prince of bounty in not merely +permitting her to read them, but bringing them to her, one after the +other, sometimes two at once, in spendthrift profusion. The first thing +that made her aware she was not quite happy was the discovery that +novels were losing their charm, that they were not sufficient to make +her day pass, that they were only dessert, and she had no dinner. When +it came to difficulty in going on with a new one long enough to get +interested in it, she sighed heavily, and began to think that perhaps +life was rather a dreary thing--at least considerably diluted with the +unsatisfactory. How many of my readers feel the same! How few of them +will recognize that the state of things would indeed be desperate were +it otherwise! How many would go on and on being only butterflies, but +for life's dismay! And who would choose to be a butterfly, even if life +and summer and the flowers were to last for ever! + +"I would," I fancy this and that reader saying. + +"Then," I answer, "the only argument you are equal to, is the fact that +life nor summer nor the flowers do last for ever." + +"I suppose I am made a butterfly," do you say? "seeing I prefer to be +one." + +"Ah! do you say so, indeed? Then you begin to excuse yourself, and what +does that mean? It means that you are no butterfly, for a +butterfly--no, nor an angel in heaven--could never begin excusing the +law of its existence. Butterfly-brother, the hail will be upon you." + +I may not then pity Letty that she had to discover that novels taken +alone serve one much as sweetmeats _ad libitum_ do children, nor that +she had to prove that life has in it that spiritual quinine, precious +because bitter, whose part it is to wake the higher hunger. + +Tom talked of himself as on the staff of "The Firefly"--such was the +name of the newspaper whose editor sometimes paid him--a weekly of +great pretense, which took upon itself the mystery of things, as if it +were God's spy. It was popular in a way, chiefly in fashionable +circles. As regarded the opinions it promulgated, I never heard one, +who understood the particular question at any time handled, say it was +correct. Its writers were mostly young men, and their passion was to +say clever things. If a friend's book came in their way, it was treated +worse or better than that of a stranger, but with impartial disregard +for truth in either case; yet many were the authors who would go up +endless back stairs to secure from that paper a flattering criticism, +and then be as proud of it as if it had been the genuine and unsought +utterance of a true man's conviction; and many were the men, +immeasurably the superiors of the reviewers, and in a general way +acquainted with their character, who would accept as conclusive upon +the merits of a book the opinions they gave, nor ever question a mode +of quotation by which a book was made to show itself whatever the +reviewer chose to call it. A scandalous rumor of any kind, especially +from the region styled "high life," often false, and always incorrect, +was the delight both of the paper and of its readers; and the interest +it thus awoke, united to the fear it thus caused, was mainly what +procured for such as were known to be employed upon it the _entree_ of +houses where, if they had had a private existence only, their faces +would never have been seen. But, to do Tom justice, he wrote nothing of +this sort: he was neither ill-natured nor experienced enough for that +department; what he did write was clever, shallow sketches of that same +society into whose charmed precincts he was but so lately a comer that +much was to him interesting which had long ceased to be observed by +eyes turned horny with the glare of the world's footlights; and, while +these sketches pleased the young people especially, even their jaded +elders enjoyed the sparkling reflex of what they called life, as seen +by an outsider; for they were thereby enabled to feel for a moment a +slight interest in themselves objectively, along with a galvanized +sense of existence as the producers of history. These sketches did more +for the paper than the editor was willing to know or acknowledge. + +But "The Firefly" produced also a little art on its own account--not +always very original, but, at least, not a sucking of life from the +labor of others, as is most of that parasitic thing miscalled +criticism. In this branch Tom had a share, in the shape of verse. A +ready faculty was his, but one seldom roused by immediate interest, and +never by insight. It was not things themselves, but the reflection of +things in the art of others, that moved him to produce. Coleridge, I +think, says of Dryden, that he took fire with the running of his own +wheels: so did Tom; but it was the running of the wheels of others that +set his wheels running. He was like some young preachers who spend a +part of the Saturday in reading this or that author, in order to _get +up_ the mental condition favorable to preaching on the Sunday. He was +really fond of poetry; delighted in the study of its external elements +for the sake of his craft; possessed not only a good but cultivated ear +for verse, which is a rare thing out of the craft; had true pleasure in +a fine phrase, in a strong or brilliant word; last and chief, had a +special faculty for imitation; from which gifts, graces, and +acquirements, it came, that he could write almost in any style that +moved him--so far, at least, as to remind one who knew it, of that +style; and that every now and then appeared verses of his in "The +Firefly." + +As often as this took place, Letty was in the third heaven of delight. +For was not Tom's poetry unquestionably superior to anything else the +age could produce? was the poetry Cousin Godfrey made her read once to +be compared to Tom's? and was not Tom her own husband? Happy woman she! + +But, by the time at which my narrative has arrived, the first mist of a +coming fog had begun to gather faintly dim in her heart. When Tom would +come home happy, but talk perplexingly; when he would drop asleep in +the middle of a story she could make nothing of; when he would burst +out and go on laughing, and refuse to explain the motive--how was she +to avoid the conclusion forced upon her, that he had taken too much +strong drink? and, when she noted that this condition reappeared at +shorter and shorter intervals, might she not well begin to be +frightened, and to feel, what she dared not allow, that she was being +gradually left alone--that Tom had struck into a diverging path, and +they were slowing parting miles from each other? + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +MARY AND LETTY. + + +When her landlady announced a visitor, Letty, not having yet one friend +in London, could not think who it should be. When Mary entered, she +sprang to her feet and stood staring: what with being so much in the +house, and seeing so few people, the poor girl had, I think, grown a +little stupid. But, when the fact of Mary's presence cleared itself to +her, she rushed forward with a cry, fell into her arms, and burst out +weeping. Mary held her fast until she had a little come to herself, +then, pushing her gently away to the length of her arms, looked at her. + +She was not a sight to make one happy. She was no longer the plump, +fresh girl that used to go singing about; nor was she merely thin and +pale, she looked unhealthy. Things could not be going well with her. +Had her dress been only disordered, that might have been accidental, +but it looked neglected--was not merely dingy, but plainly shabby, and, +to Mary's country eyes, appeared on the wrong side of clean. Presently, +as those eyes got accustomed to the miserable light, they spied in the +skirt of her gown a perfunctory darn, revealing but too evidently that +to Letty there no longer seemed occasion for being particular. The +sadness of it all sunk to Mary's heart: Letty had not found marriage a +grand affair! + +But Mary had not come into the world to be sad or to help another to be +sad. Sorrowful we may often have to be, but to indulge in sorrow is +either not to know or to deny God our Saviour. True, her heart ached +for Letty; and the ache immediately laid itself as close to Letty's +ache as it could lie; but that was only the advance-guard of her army +of salvation, the light cavalry of sympathy: the next division was +help; and behind that lay patience, and strength, and hope, and faith, +and joy. This last, modern teachers, having failed to regard it as a +virtue, may well decline to regard as a duty; but he is a poor +Christian indeed in whom joy has not at least a growing share, and Mary +was not a poor Christian--at least, for the time she had been learning, +and as Christians go in the present aeon of their history. Her whole +nature drew itself together, confronting the destroyer, whatever he +might be, in possession of Letty. How to help she could not yet tell, +but sympathy was already at its work. + +"You are not looking your best, Letty," she said, clasping her again in +her arms. + +With a little choking, Letty assured her she was quite well, only +rather overcome with the pleasure of seeing her so unexpectedly. + +"How is Mr. Helmer?" asked Mary. + +"Quite well--and very busy," answered Letty--a little hurriedly, Mary +thought. "--But," she added, in a tone of disappointment, "you always +used to call him Tom!" + +"Oh!" answered Mary, with a smile, "one must be careful how one takes +liberties with married people. A certain mysterious change seems to +pass over some of them; they are not the same somehow, and you have to +make your acquaintance with them all over again from the beginning." + +"I shouldn't think such people's acquaintance worth making over again," +said Letty. + +"How can you tell what it may be worth?" said Mary, "--they are so +different from what they were? Their friendship may now be one that +won't change so easily." + +"Ah! don't be hard on me, Mary. I have never ceased to love you." + +"I am _so_ glad!" answered Mary. "People don't generally take much to +me--at least, not to come _near_ me. But you can _be_ friends without +_having_ friends," she added, with a sententiousness she had inherited. + +"I don't quite understand you," said Letty, sadly; "but, then, I never +could quite, you know. Tom finds me very stupid." + +These words strengthened Mary's suspicion, from the first a +probability, that all was not going well between the two; but she +shrunk from any approach to confidences with _one_ of a married pair. +To have such, she felt instinctively, would be a breach of unity, +except, indeed, that were already, and irreparably, broken. To +encourage in any married friend the placing of a confidence that +excludes the other, is to encourage that friend's self-degradation. But +neither was this a fault to which Letty could have been tempted; she +loved her Tom too much for it: with all her feebleness, there was in +Letty not a little of childlike greatness, born of faith. + +But, although Mary would make Letty tell nothing, she was not the less +anxious to discover, that she might, if possible, help. She would +observe: side-lights often reveal more than direct illumination. It +might be for Letty, and not for Mrs. Redmain, she had been sent. He who +made time in time would show. + +"Are you going to be long in London, Mary?" asked Letty. + +"Oh, a long time!" answered Mary, with a loving glance. + +Letty's eyes fell, and she looked troubled. + +"I am so sorry, Mary," she said, "that I can not ask you to come here! +We have only these two rooms, and--and--you see--Mrs. Helmer is not +very liberal to Tom, and--because they--don't get on together very +well--as I suppose everybody knows--Tom won't--he won't consent +to--to--" + +"You little goose!" cried Mary; "you don't think I would come down on +you like a devouring dragon, without even letting you know, and finding +whether it would suit you!--I have got a situation in London." + +"A situation!" echoed Letty. "What can you mean, Mary? You haven't left +your own shop, and gone into somebody else's?" + +"No, not exactly that," replied Mary, laughing; "but I have no doubt +most people would think that by far the more prudent thing to have +done." + +"Then I don't," said Letty, with a little flash of her old enthusiasm. +"Whatever you do, Mary, I am sure will always be the best." + +"I am glad I have so much of your good opinion, Letty; but I am not +sure I shall have it still, when I have told you what I have done. +Indeed, I am not quite sure myself that I have done wisely; but, if I +have made a mistake, it is from having listened to love more than to +prudence." + +"What!" cried Letty; "you're married, Mary?" + +And here a strange thing, yet the commonest in the world, appeared; had +her own marriage proved to Letty the most blessed of fates, she could +not have shown more delight at the idea of Mary's. I think men find +women a little incomprehensible in this matter of their friends' +marriage: in their largerheartedness, I presume, women are able to hope +for their friends, even when they have lost all hope for themselves. + +"No," replied Mary, amused at having thus misled her. "It is neither so +bad nor so good as that. But I was far from comfortable in the shop +without my father, and kept thinking how to find a life, more suitable +for me. It was not plain to me that my lot was cast there any longer, +and one has no right to choose difficulty; for, even if difficulty be +the right thing for you, the difficulty you choose can't be the right +difficulty. Those that are given to choosing, my father said, are given +to regretting. Then it happened that I fell in love--not with a +gentleman--don't look like that, Letty--but with a lady; and, as the +lady took a small fancy to me at the same time, and wanted to have me +about her, here I am." + +"But, surely, that is not a situation fit for one like you, Mary!" +cried Letty, almost in consternation; for, notwithstanding her +opposition to her aunt's judgment in the individual case of her friend, +Letty's own judgments, where she had any, were mostly of this world. "I +suppose you are a kind of--of--companion to your lady-friend?" + +"Or a kind of lady's-maid, or a kind of dressmaker, or a kind of humble +friend--something like a dog, perhaps--only not to be quite so much +loved and petted; In truth, Letty, I do not know what I am, or what I +am going to be; but I shall find out before long, and where's the use +of knowing, any more than anything else before it's wanted?" + +"You take my breath away, Mary! The thing doesn't seem at all like you! +It's not consistent!--Mary Marston in a menial position! I can't get a +hold of it!" + +"You remind me," said Mary, laughing, "of what my father said to Mr. +Turnbull once. They were nearer quarreling then than ever I saw them. +You remember my father's way, Letty--how he would say a thing too +quietly even to smile with it? I can't tell you what a delight it is to +me to talk to anybody that knew him!--Mr. Turnbull imagined he did not +know what he was about, for the thoughts my father was thinking could +not have lived a moment in Mr. Turnbull. 'You see, John Turnbull,' my +father said, 'no man can look so inconsistent as one whose principles +are not understood; for hardly in anything will that man do as his +friend must have thought he would.'--I suppose you think, Letty," Mary +went on, with a merry air, "that, for the sake of consistency, I should +never do anything but sell behind a counter?" + +"In that case," said Letty, "I ought to have married a milkman, for a +dairy is the only thing I understand. I can't help Tom ever so +little!--But I suppose it wouldn't be possible for two to write poetry +together, even if they were husband and wife, and both of them clever!" + +"Something like it has been tried, I believe," answered Mary, "but not +with much success. I suppose, when a man sets himself to make anything, +he must have it all his own way, or he can't do it." + +"I suppose that's it. I know Tom is very angry with the editor when he +wants to alter anything he has written. I'm sure Tom's right, too. You +can't think how much better Tom's way always is!--He makes that quite +clear, even to poor, stupid me. But then, you know, Tom's a genius; +that's one thing there's _no_ doubt of!--But you haven't told me yet +where you are." + +"You remember Miss Mortimer, of Durnmelling?" + +"Quite well, of course." + +"She is Mrs. Redmain now: I am with her." + +"You don't mean it! Why, Tom knows her very well! He has been several +times to parties at her house." + +"And not you, too?" asked Mary. + +"Oh, dear, no!" answered Letty, laughing, superior at Mary's ignorance. +"It's not the fashion in London, at least for distinguished persons +like my Tom, to take their wives to parties." + +"Are there no ladies at those parties, then?" + +"Oh, yes!" replied Letty, smiling again at Mary's ignorance of the +world, "the grandest of ladies--duchesses and all. You don't know what +a favorite Tom is in the highest circles!" + +Now Mary could believe almost anything bearing on Tom's being a +favorite, for she herself liked him a great deal more than she approved +of him; but she could not see the sense of his going to parties without +his wife, neither could she see that the _height_ of the circle in +which he was a favorite made any difference. She had old-fashioned +notions of a man and his wife being one flesh, and felt a breach of the +law where they were separated, whatever the custom--reason there could +be none. But Letty seemed much too satisfied to give her any light on +the matter. Did it seem to her so natural that she could not understand +Mary's difficulty? She could not help suspecting, however, that there +might be something in this recurrence of a separation absolute as +death--for was it not a passing of one into a region where the other +could not follow?--to account for the change in her.--The same moment, +as if Letty divined what was passing in Mary's thought, and were not +altogether content with the thing herself, but would gladly justify +what she could not explain, she added, in the tone of an unanswerable +argument: + +"Besides, Mary, how could I get a dress fit to wear at such parties? +You wouldn't have me go and look like a beggar! That would be to +disgrace Tom. Everybody in London judges everybody by the clothes she +wears. You should hear Tom's descriptions of the ladies' dresses when +he comes home!" + +Mary was on the verge of crying out indignantly, "Then, if he can't +take you, why doesn't he stop at home with you?" but she bethought +herself in time to hold her peace. She settled it with herself, +however, that Tom must have less heart or yet more muddled brains than +she had thought. + +"So, then," reverted Letty, as if willing to turn definitively from the +subject, "you are actually living with the beautiful Mrs. Redmain! What +a lucky girl you are! You will see no end of grand people! You will see +my Tom sometimes--when I can't!" she added, with a sigh that went to +Mary's heart. + +"Poor thing!" she said to herself, "it isn't anything much out of the +way she wants--only a little more of a foolish husband's company!" + +It was no wonder that Tom found Letty dull, for he had just as little +of his own in him as she, and thought he had a great store--which is +what sends a man most swiftly along the road to that final poverty in +which even that which he has shall be taken from him. + +Mary did not stay so long with Letty as both would have liked, for she +did not yet know enough of Hesper's ways. When she got home, she +learned that she had a headache, and had not yet made her appearance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE EVENING STAR. + + +Notwithstanding her headache, however, Mrs. Redmain was going in the +evening to a small fancy-ball, meant for a sort of rehearsal to a great +one when the season should arrive. The part and costume she had chosen +were the suggestion of her own name: she would represent the Evening +Star, clothed in the early twilight; and neither was she unfit for the +part, nor was the dress she had designed altogether unsuitable either +to herself or to the part. But she had sufficient confidence neither in +herself nor her maid to forestall a desire for Mary's opinion. After +luncheon, therefore, she sent for Miss Marston to her bedroom. + +Mary found her half dressed, Folter in attendance, a great heap of pink +lying on the bed. + +"Sit down, Mary," said Hesper, pointing to a chair; "I want your +advice. But I must first explain. Where I am going this evening, nobody +is to be herself except me. I am not to be Mrs. Redmain, though, but +Hesper. You know what Hesper means?" + +Mary said she knew, and waited--a little anxious; for sideways in her +eyes glowed the pink of the chosen Hesperian clouds, and, if she should +not like it, what could be done at that late hour. + +"There is my dress," continued the Evening Star, with a glance of her +eyes, for Folter was busied with her hair; "I want to know your opinion +of it." Folter gave a toss of her head that seemed to say, "Have not +_I_ spoken?" but what it really did mean, how should other mortal know? +for the main obstructions to understanding are profundity and +shallowness, and the latter is far the more perplexing of the two. + +"I should like to see it on first," said Mary: she was in doubt whether +the color--bright, to suggest the brightest of sunset-clouds--would +suit Hesper's complexion. Then, again, she had always associated the +name _Hesper_ with a later, a solemnly lovely period of twilight, +having little in common with the color so voluminous in the background. + +Hesper had a good deal of appreciative faculty, and knew therefore when +she liked and when she did not like a thing; but she had very little +originative faculty--so little that, when anything was wrong, she could +do next to nothing to set it right. There was small originality in +taking a suggestion for her part from her name, and less in the idea, +following by concatenation, of adopting for her costume sunset colors +upon a flimsy material, which might more than hint at clouds. She had +herself, with the assistance of Sepia and Folter, made choice of the +particular pink; but, although it continued altogether delightful in +the eyes of her maid, it had, upon nearer and pro-longed acquaintance, +become doubtful in hers; and she now waited, with no little anxiety, +the judgment of Mary, who sat silently thinking. + +"Have you nothing to say?" she asked, at length, impatiently. + +"Please, ma'am," replied Mary, "I must think, if I am to be of any use. +I am doing my best, but you must let me be quiet." + +Half annoyed, half pleased, Hesper was silent, and Mary went on +thinking. All was still, save for the slight noises Folter made, as, +like a machine, she went on heartlessly brushing her mistress's hair, +which kept emitting little crackles, as of dissatisfaction with her +handling. Mary would now take a good gaze at the lovely creature, now +abstract herself from the visible, and try to call up the vision of her +as the real Hesper, not a Hesper dressed up--a process which had in it +hope for the lady, but not much for the dress upon the bed. At last +Folter had done her part. + +"I suppose you _must_ see it on!" said Hesper, and she rose up. + +Folter jerked herself to the bed, took the dress, arranged it on her +arms, got up on a chair, dropped it over her mistress's head, got down, +and, having pulled it this way and that for a while, fastened it here, +undone it there, and fastened it again, several times, exclaimed, in a +tone whose confidence was meant to forestall the critical impertinence +she dreaded: + +"There, ma'am! If you don't look the loveliest woman in the room, I +shall never trust my eyes again." + +Mary held her peace, for the commonplace style of the dress but added +to her dissatisfaction with the color. It was all puffed and bubbled +and blown about, here and there and everywhere, so that the form of the +woman was lost in the frolic shapelessness of the cloud. The whole, if +whole it could be called, was a miserable attempt at combining fancy +and fashion, and, in result, an ugly nothing. + +"I see you don't like it!" said Hesper, with a mingling of displeasure +and dismay. "I wish you had come a few days sooner! It is much too late +to do anything now. I might just as well have gone without showing it +to you!--Here, Folter!" + +With a look almost of disgust, she began to pull off the dress, in +which, a few hours later, she would yet make the attempt to enchant an +assembly. + +"O ma'am!" cried Mary, "I wish you had told me yesterday. There would +have been time then.--And I don't know," she added, seeing disgust +change to mortification on Hesper's countenance, "but something might +be done yet." + +"Oh, indeed!" dropped from Folter's lips with an indescribable +expression. + +"What can be done?" said Hesper, angrily. "There can be no time for +anything." + +"If only we had the stuff!" said Mary. "That shade doesn't suit your +complexion. It ought to be much, much darker--in fact, a different +color altogether." + +Folter was furious, but restrained herself sufficiently to preserve +some calmness of tone, although her face turned almost blue with the +effort, as she said: + +"Miss Marston is not long from the country, ma'am, and don't know +what's suitable to a London drawing-room." + +Her mistress was too dejected to snub her impertinence. + +"What color were you thinking of, Miss Marston?" Hesper asked, with a +stiffness that would have been more in place had Mary volunteered the +opinion she had been asked to give. She was out of temper with Mary +from feeling certain she was right, and believing there was no remedy. + +"I could not describe it," answered Mary. "And, indeed, the color I +have in my mind may not be to be had. I have seen it somewhere, but, +whether in a stuff or only in nature, I can not at this moment be +certain." + +"Where's the good of talking like that--excuse me, ma'am--it's more +than I can bear--when the ball comes off in a few hours?" cried Folter, +ending with eyes of murder on Mary. + +"If you would allow me, ma'am," said Mary, "I should like much to try +whether I could not find something that would suit you and your idea +too. However well you might look in that, you would owe it no thanks. +The worst is, I know nothing of the London shops." + +"I should think not!" remarked Folter, with emphasis. + +"I would send you in the brougham, if I thought it was of any use," +said Hesper. "Folter could take you to the proper places." + +"Folter would be of no use to me," said Mary. "If your coachman knows +the best shops, that will be enough." + +"But there's no time to make up anything," objected Hesper, +despondingly, not the less with a glimmer of hope in her heart. + +"Not like that," answered Mary; "but there is much there as unnecessary +as it is ugly. If Folter is good at her needle--" + +"I won't take up a single stitch. It would be mere waste of labor," +cried Folter. + +"Then, please, ma'am," said Mary, "let Folter have that dress ready, +and, if I don't succeed, you have something to wear." + +"I hate it. I won't go if you don't find me another." + +"Some people may like it, though I don't," said Mary. + +"Not a doubt of that!" said Folter. + +"Ring the bell," said her mistress. + +The woman obeyed, and the moment afterward repented she had not given +warning on the spot, instead. The brougham was ordered immediately, and +in a few minutes Mary was standing at a counter in a large shop, +looking at various stuffs, of which the young man waiting on her soon +perceived she knew the qualities and capabilities better than he. + +She had set her heart on carrying out Hesper's idea, but in better +fashion; and after great pains taken, and no little trouble given, left +the shop well satisfied with her success. And now for the greater +difficulty! + +She drove straight to Letty's lodging, and, there dismissing the +brougham, presented herself, with a great parcel in her arms, for the +second time that day, at the door of her room, as unexpected as the +first, and even more to the joy of her solitary friend. + +She knew that Letty was good at her needle. And Letty was, indeed, even +now, by fits, fond of using it; and on several occasions, when her +supply of novels had for a day run short, had asked a dressmaker who +lived above to let her help her for an hour or two: before Mary had +finished her story, she was untying the parcel, and preparing to +receive her instructions. Nor had they been at work many minutes, when +Letty bethought her of calling in the help of the said dressmaker; so +that presently there were three of them busy as bees--one with genius, +one with experience, and all with facility. The notions of the first +were quickly taken up by the other two, and, the design of the dress +being simplicity itself, Mary got all done she wanted in shorter time +than she had thought possible. The landlady sent for a cab, and Mary +was home with the improbability in more than time for Mrs. Redmain's +toilet. It was with some triumph, tempered with some trepidation, that +she carried it to her room. + +There Folter was in the act of persuading her mistress of the necessity +of beginning to dress: Miss Marston, she said, knew nothing of what she +had undertaken; and, even if she arrived in time, it would be with +something too ridiculous for any lady to appear in--when Mary entered, +and was received with a cry of delight from Hesper; in proportion to +whose increasing disgust for the pink robe, was her pleasure when she +caught sight of Mary's colors, as she undid the parcel: when she lifted +the dress on her arm for a first effect, she was enraptured with +it--aerial in texture, of the hue of a smoky rose, deep, and cloudy +with overlying folds, yet diaphanous, a darkness dilute with red. + +Silent as a torture-maiden, and as grim, Folter approached to try the +filmy thing, scornfully confident that the first sight of it on would +prove it unwearable. But Mary judged her scarcely in a mood to be +trusted with anything so ethereal; and begged therefore that, as the +dress had, of necessity, been in many places little more than run +together, and she knew its weak points, she might, for that evening, be +allowed the privilege of dressing Mrs. Redmain. Hesper gladly +consented; Folter left the room; Mary, now at her ease, took her place; +and presently, more to Hesper's pleasure than Mary's surprise, for she +had made and fixed in her mind the results of minute observation before +she went, it was found that the dress fitted quite sufficiently well, +and, having confined it round the waist with a cincture of thin pale +gold, she advanced to her chief anxiety--the head-dress. + +For this she had chosen such a doubtful green as the sky appears +through yellowish smoke--a sad, lovely color--the fair past clouded +with the present--youth not forgotten, but filmed with age. They were +all colors of the evening, as it strives to keep its hold of the +heavens, with the night pressing upon it from behind. In front, above +the lunar forehead, among the coronal masses, darkly fair, she fixed a +diamond star, and over it wound the smoky green like a turbaned vapor, +wind-ruffled, through which the diamonds gleamed faintly by fits. Not +once would she, while at her work, allow Hesper to look, and the +self-willed lady had been submissive in her hands as a child of the +chosen; but the moment she had succeeded--for her expectations were +more than realized--she led her to the cheval-glass. Hesper gazed for +an instant, then, turning, threw her arms about Mary, and kissed her. + +"I don't believe you're a human creature at all!" she cried. "You are a +fairy godmother, come to look after your poor Cinderella, the sport of +stupid lady's-maids and dressmakers!" + +The door opened, and Folter entered. + +"If you please, ma'am, I wish to leave this day month," she said, +quietly. + +"Then," answered her mistress, with equal calmness, "oblige me by going +at once to Mrs. Perkin, and telling her that I desire her to pay you a +month's wages, and let you leave the house to-morrow morning.--You +won't mind helping me to dress till I get another maid--will you, +Mary?" she added; and Folter left the room, chagrined at her inability +to cause annoyance. + +"I do not see why you should have another maid so long as I am with +you, ma'am," said Mary. "It should not need many days' apprenticeship +to make one woman able to dress another." + +"Not when she is like you, Mary," said Hesper. "It is well the wretch +has done my hair for to-night, though! That will be the main +difficulty." + +"It will not be a great one," said Mary, "if you will allow me to undo +it when you come home." + +"I begin almost to believe in a special providence," said Hesper. "What +a blessed thing for me that you came to drive away that woman! She has +been getting worse and worse." + +"If I have driven her away," answered Mary, "I am bound to supply her +place." + +As they talked, she was giving her final touches of arrangement to the +head-dress--with which she found it least easy to satisfy herself. It +swept round from behind in a misty cloak, the two colors mingling with +and gently obscuring each other; while, between them, the palest memory +of light, in the golden cincture, helped to bring out the somber +richness, the delicate darkness of the whole. + +Searching now again Hesper's jewel-case, Mary found a fine bracelet of +the true, the Oriental topaz, the old chrysolite--of that clear yellow +of the sunset-sky that looks like the 'scaped spirit of miser-smothered +gold: this she clasped upon one arm; and when she had fastened a pair +of some ancient Mortimer's garnet buckles in her shoes, which she had +insisted should be black, and taken off all the rings that Hesper had +just put on, except a certain glorious sapphire, she led her again to +the mirror; and, if there Hesper was far more pleased with herself than +was reasonable or lovely, my reader needs not therefore fear a sermon +from the text, "Beauty is only skin-deep," for that text is out of the +devil's Bible. No Baal or Astarte is the maker of beauty, but the same +who made the seven stars and Orion, and His works are past finding out. +If only the woman herself and her worshipers knew how deep it is! But +the woman's share in her own beauty may be infinitely less than +skin-deep; and there is but one greater fool than the man who worships +that beauty--the woman who prides herself upon it, as if she were the +fashioner and not the thing fashioned. + +But poor Hesper had much excuse, though no justification. She had had +many of the disadvantages and scarce one of the benefits of poverty. +She had heard constantly from childhood the most worldly and greedy +talk, the commonest expression of abject dependence on the favors of +Mammon, and thus had from the first been in preparation for _marrying +money_. She had been taught no other way of doing her part to procure +the things of which the Father knows we have need. She had never earned +a dinner; had never done or thought of doing a day's work--of offering +the world anything for the sake of which the world might offer her a +shilling to do it again; she had never dreamed of being of any use, +even to herself; she had learned to long for money, but had never been +hungry, never been cold: she had sometimes felt shabby. Out of it all +she had brought but the knowledge that this matter of beauty, with +which, by some blessed chance, she was endowed, was worth much precious +money in the world's market--worth all the dresses she could ever +desire, worth jewels and horses and servants, adoration and +adulation--everything, in fact, the world calls fine, and the devil +offers to those who, unscared by his inherent ugliness, will fall down +and worship him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +A SCOLDING. + + +The Evening Star found herself a success--that is, much followed by the +men and much complimented by the women. Her triumph, however, did not +culminate until the next appearance of "The Firefly," containing a song +"To the Evening Star," which _everybody_ knew to stand for Mrs. +Redmain. The chaos of the uninitiated, indeed, exoteric and despicable, +remained in ignorance, nor dreamed that the verses meant anybody of +note; to them they seemed but the calf-sigh of some young writer so +deep in his first devotion that he jumbled up his lady-love, Hesper, +and Aphrodite, in the same poetic bundle--of which he left the +string-ends hanging a little loose, while, upon the whole, it remained +a not altogether unsightly bit of prentice-work. Tom had not been at +the party, but had gathered fire enough from what he heard of Hesper's +appearance there to write the verses. Here they are, as nearly as I can +recall them. They are in themselves not worth writing out for the +printers, but, in their surroundings, they serve to show Tom, and are +the last with which I shall trouble the readers of this narrative. + +"TO THE EVENING STAR. + + "From the buried sunlight springing, + Through flame-darkened, rosy loud, + Native sea-hues with thee bringing, + In the sky thou reignest proud! + + "Who is like thee, lordly lady, + Star-choragus of the night! + Color worships, fainting fady, + Night grows darker with delight! + + "Dusky-radiant, far, and somber, + In the coolness of thy state, + From my eyelids chasing slumber, + Thou dost smile upon my fate; + + "Calmly shinest; not a whisper + Of my songs can reach thine ear; + What is it to thee, O Hesper, + That a heart should long or fear?" + +Tom did not care to show Letty this poem--not that there was anything +more in his mind than an artistic admiration of Hesper, and a desire to +make himself agreeable in her eyes; but, when Letty, having read it, +betrayed no shadow of annoyance with its folly, he was a little +relieved. The fact was, the simple creature took it as a pardon to +herself. + +"I am glad you have forgiven me, Tom," she said. + +"What do you mean?" asked Tom. + +"For working for Mrs. Redmain with _your_ hands," she said, and, +breaking into a little laugh, caught his cheeks between those same +hands, and reaching up gave him a kiss that made him ashamed of +himself--a little, that is, and for the moment, that is: Tom was used +to being this or that a little for the moment. + +For this same dress, which Tom had thus glorified in song, had been the +cause of bitter tears to Letty. He came home _too late_ the day of +Mary's visit, but the next morning she told him all about both the +first and the second surprise she had had--not, however, with much +success in interesting the lordly youth. + +"And then," she went on, "what do you think we were doing all the +afternoon, Tom?" + +"How should I know?" said Tom, indifferently. + +"We were working hard at a dress--a dress for a fancy-ball!" + +"A fancy-ball, Letty? What do you mean? You going to a fancy-ball!" + +"Me!" cried Letty, with merry laugh; "no, not quite me. Who do you +think it was for?" + +"How should I know?" said Tom again, but not quite so indifferently; he +was prepared to be annoyed. + +"For Mrs. Redmain!" said Letty, triumphantly, clapping her hands with +delight at what she thought the fun of the thing, for was not Mrs. +Redmain Tom's friend?--then stooping a little--it was an unconscious, +pretty trick she had--and holding them out, palm pressed to palm, with +the fingers toward his face. + +"Letty," said Tom, frowning--and the frown deepened and deepened; for +had he not from the first, if in nothing else, taken trouble to +instruct her in what became the wife of Thomas Helmer, Esq.?--"Letty, +this won't do!" + +Letty was frightened, but tried to think he was only pretending to be +displeased. + +"Ah! don't frighten me, Tom," she said, with her merry hands now +changed to pleading ones, though their position and attitude remained +the same. + +But he caught them by the wrists in both of his, and held them tight. + +"Letty," he said once more, and with increased severity, "this won't +do. I tell you, it won't do." + +"What won't do, Tom?" she returned, growing white. "There's no harm +done." + +"Yes, there is," said Tom, with solemnity; "there _is_ harm done, when +_my_ wife goes and does like that. What would people say of _me,_ if +they were to come to know--God forbid they should!--that your husband +was talking all the evening to ladies at whose dresses his wife had +been working all the afternoon!--You don't know what you are doing, +Letty. What do you suppose the ladies would think if they were to hear +of it?" + +Poor, foolish Tom, ignorant in his folly, did not know how little those +grand ladies would have cared if his wife had been a char-woman: the +eyes of such are not discerning of fine social distinctions in women +who are not of their set, neither are the family relations of the +bohemians they invite of the smallest consequence to them. + +"But, Tom," pleaded his wife, "such a grand lady as that! one you go +and read your poetry to! What harm can there be in your poor little +wife helping to make a dress for a lady like that?" + +"I tell you, Letty, I don't choose _my_ wife to do such a thing for the +greatest lady in the land! Good Heavens! if it _were_ to come to the +ears of the staff! It would be the ruin of me! I should never hold up +my head again!" + +By this time Letty's head was hanging low, like a flower half broken +from its stem, and two big tears were slowly rolling down her cheeks. +But there was a gleam of satisfaction in her heart notwithstanding. Tom +thought so much of his little wife that he would not have her work for +the greatest lady in the land! She did not see that it was not pride in +her, but pride in himself, that made him indignant at the idea. It was +not "my _wife,"_ but "_my_ wife" with Tom. She looked again up timidly +in his face, and said, her voice trembling, and her cheeks wet, for she +could not wipe away the tears, because Tom still held her hands as one +might those of a naughty child: + +"But, Tom! I don't exactly see how you can make so much of it, when you +don't think me--when you know I am not fit to go among such people." + +To this Tom had no reply at hand: he was not yet far enough down the +devil's turnpike to be able to tell his wife that he had spoken the +truth--that he did not think her fit for such company; that he would be +ashamed of her in it; that she had no style; that, instead of carrying +herself as if she knew herself somebody--as good as anybody there, +indeed, being the wife of Tom Helmer--she had the meek look of one who +knew herself nobody, and did not know her husband to be anybody. He did +not think how little he had done to give the unassuming creature that +quiet confidence which a woman ought to gather from the assurance of +her husband's satisfaction in her, and the consciousness of being, in +dress and everything else, pleasing in his eyes, therefore of occupying +the only place in the world she desires to have. But he did think that +Letty's next question might naturally be, "Why do you not take me with +you?" No doubt he could have answered, no one had ever asked her; but +then she might rejoin, had he ever put it in any one's way to ask her? +It might even occur to her to in-quire whether he had told Mrs. Redmain +that he had a wife! and he had heart enough left to imagine it might +mortally hurt her to find he lived a life so utterly apart from +hers--that she had so little of the relations though all the rights of +wifehood. It was no wonder, therefore, if he was more than willing to +change the subject. He let the poor, imprisoned hands drop so abruptly +that, in their abandonment, they fell straight from her shoulders to +her sides. + +"Well, well, child!" he said; "put on your bonnet, and we shall be in +time for the first piece at the Lyceum." + +Letty flew, and was ready in five minutes. She could dress the more +quickly that she was delayed by little doubt as to what she had better +wear: she had scarcely a choice. Tom, looking after his own comforts, +left her to look after her necessities; and she, having a conscience, +and not much spirit, went even shabbier than she yet needed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +SEPIA. + + +As naturally as if she had been born to that very duty and no other, +Mary slid into the office of lady's-maid to Mrs. Redmain, feeling in +it, although for reasons very different, no more degradation than her +mistress saw in it. If Hesper was occasionally a little rude to her, +Mary was not one to _accept_ a rudeness--that is, to wrap it up in +resentment, and put it away safe in the pocket of memory. She could not +help feeling things of the kind--sometimes with indignation and anger; +but she made haste to send them from her, and shut the doors against +them. She knew herself a far more blessed creature than Hesper, and +felt the obligation, from the Master himself, of so enduring as to keep +every channel of service open between Hesper and her. To Hesper, the +change from the vulgar service of Folter to the ministration of Mary +was like passing from a shallow purgatory to a gentle paradise. Mary's +service was full of live and near presence, as that of dew or summer +wind; Folter handled her as if she were dressing a doll, Mary as if she +were dressing a baby; her hands were deft as an angel's, her feet as +noiseless as swift. And to have Mary near was not only to have a +ministering spirit at hand, but to have a good atmosphere all +around--an air, a heaven, out of which good things must momently come. +Few could be closely associated with her and not become aware at least +of the capacity of being better, if not of the desire to be better. + +In the matter of immediate result, it was a transition from decoration +to dress. If in any sense Hesper was well dressed before, she was in +every sense well dressed now--dressed so, that is, as to reveal the +nature, the analogies, and the associations of her beauty: no manner of +dressing can make a woman look more beautiful than she is, though many +a mode may make her look less so. + +There was one in the house, however, who was not pleased at the change +from Folter to Mary: Sepia found herself in consequence less necessary +to Hesper. Hitherto Hesper had never been satisfied without Sepia's +opinion and final approval in that weightiest of affairs, the matter of +dress; but she found in Mary such a faculty as rendered appeal to Sepia +unnecessary; for she not only satisfied her idea of herself, and how +she would choose to look, but showed her taste as much surer than +Sepia's as Sepia's was readier than Hesper's own. Sepia was equal to +the dressing of herself--she never blundered there; but there was +little dependence to be placed upon her in dressing another. She cared +for herself, not for another; and to dress another, love is +needful--love, the only true artist--love, the only opener of eyes. She +cared nothing to minister to the comfort or beautification of her +cousin, and her displeasure did not arise from the jealousy that is +born of affection. So far as Hesper's self was concerned, Sepia did not +care a straw whether she was well or ill dressed; but, if the link +between them of dress was severed, what other so strong would be left? +And to find herself in any way a less object in Hesper's eyes, would be +to find herself on the inclined plane of loss, and probable ruin. + +Another, though a smaller, point was, that hitherto she had generally +been able so to dress Hesper as to make of her more or less a foil to +herself. My reader may remember that there was between Hesper and +Sepia, if not a resemblance, yet a relation of appearance, like, +vaguely, that between the twilight and the night; seen in certain +positions and circumstances, the one would recall the other; and it was +therefore a matter of no small consequence to Sepia that the relation +of her dress to Hesper's should be such as to give herself any +advantage to be derived in it from the relation of their looks. This +was far more difficult, of course, when she had no longer a voice in +the matter of Hesper's dress, and when the loving skill of the new maid +presented her rival to her individual best. Mary would have been glad +to help her as well, but Sepia drew back as from a hostile nature, and +they made no approximation. This was more loss to Sepia than she knew, +for Mary would have assisted her in doing the best when she had no +money, a condition which often made it the more trying that she had now +so little influence over her cousin's adornment. To dress was a far +more difficult, though not more important, affair with Sepia than with +Hesper, for she had nothing of her own, and from, her cousin no fixed +allowance. Any arrangement of the kind had been impossible at +Durnmelling, where there was no money; and here, where it would have +been easy enough, she judged it better to give no hint in its +direction, although plainly it had never suggested itself to Hesper. +There was nothing of the money-mean in her, any more than in her +husband. They were of course, as became people of fashion, regular and +unwearied attendants of the church of Mammon, ordering all their +judgments and ways in accordance with the precepts there delivered; but +they were none of Mammon's priests or pew-openers, money-grubs, or +accumulators. They gave liberally where they gave, and scraped no +inferior to spend either on themselves or their charities. They had +plenty, it is true; but so have many who withhold more than is meet, +and take the ewe-lamb to add to their flock. For one thing, they had no +time for that sort of wickedness, and took no interest in it. So +Hesper, although it had not come into her mind to give her the ease of +a stated allowance, behaved generously to Sepia--when she thought of +it; but she did not love her enough to be love-watchful, and seldom +thought how her money must be going, or questioned whether she might +not at the moment be in want of more. There are many who will give +freely, who do not care to understand need and anticipate want. Hence +at times Sepia's purse would be long empty before the giving-thought +would wake in the mind of Hesper. When it woke, it was gracious and +free. + + +Had Sepia ventured to run up bills with the tradespeople, Hesper would +have taken it as a thing of course, and settled them with her own. But +Sepia had a certain politic pride in spending only what was given her; +also she saw or thought she saw serious reason for avoiding all +appearances of taking liberties; from the first of Mr. Redmain's visits +to Durnmelling, she had been aware, with an instinct keen in respect of +its objects, though blind as to its own nature, that he did not like +her, and soon satisfied herself that any overt attempt to please him +would but ripen his dislike to repugnance; and her dread was that he +might make it a condition with Mr. Mortimer that Hesper's intimacy with +her should cease; whereas, if once they were married, the husband's +disfavor would, she believed, only strengthen the wife's predilection. +Having so far gained her end, it remained, however, almost as desirable +as before that she should do nothing to fix or increase his +dislike--nay, that, if within the possible, she should become pleasing +to him. Did not even hate turn sometimes to its mighty opposite? But +she understood so little of the man with whom she had to deal that her +calculations were ill-founded. + +She was right in believing that Mr. Redmain disliked her, but she was +wrong in imagining that he had therefore any objection to her being for +the present in the house. He certainly did not relish the idea of her +continuing to be his wife's inseparable companion, but there would be +time enough to get rid of her after he had found her out. For she had +not long been one of his _family,_ before he knew, with insight +unerring, that she had to be found out, and was therefore an +interesting subject for the exercise of his faculty of moral analysis. +He was certain her history was composed mainly of secrets. As yet, +however, he had discovered nothing. + +I must just remind my reader of the intellectual passion I have already +mentioned as characterizing Mr. Redmain's mental constitution. His +faults and vices were by no means peculiar; but the bent to which I +refer, certainly no virtue, and springing originally from predominant +evil, was in no small degree peculiar, especially in the degree to +which, derived as it was from his father, he had in his own being +developed it. Most men, he judged with himself, were such fools as well +as rogues, that there was not the least occasion to ask what they were +after: they did but turn themselves inside out before you! But, on the +other hand, there were not a few who took pains, more or less +successful, to conceal their game of life; and such it was the delight +of his being to lay bare to his own eyes-not to those of other people; +that, he said, would be to spoil his game! Men were his library, he +said-his history, his novels, his sermons, his philosophy, his poetry, +his whole literature--and he did not like to have his books thumbed by +other people. Human nature, in its countless aspects, was all about +him, he said, every mask crying to him to take it off. Unhappily, it +was but the morbid anatomy of human nature he cared to study. For all +his abuse of it, he did not yet recognize it as morbid, but took it as +normal, and the best to be had. No doubt, he therein judged and +condemned himself, but that he never thought of--nor, perceived, would +it have been a point of any consequence to him. + +From the first, he saw through Mr. Mortimer, and all belonging to him, +except Miss Yolland: she soon began to puzzle--and, so far, to please +him, though, as I have said, he did not like her. Had he been a younger +man, she would have captivated him; as it was, she would have repelled +him entirely, but that she offered him a good subject. He said to +himself that she was a bad lot, but what sort of a bad lot was not so +clear as to make her devoid of interest to him; he must discover how +she played her life-game; she had a history, and he would fain know it. +As I have said, however, so far it had come to nothing, for, upon the +surface, Sepia showed herself merely like any other worldly girl who +knows "on which side her bread is buttered." + +The moment he had found, or believed he had found, what there was to +know about her, he was sure to hate her heartily. For some time after +his marriage, he appeared at his wife's parties oftener than he +otherwise would have done, just for the sake of having an eye upon +Sepia; but had seen nothing, nor the shadow of anything--until one +night, by the merest chance, happening to enter his wife's +drawing-room, he caught a peculiar glance between Sepia and a young +man--not very young--who had just entered, and whom he had not seen +before. + +To not a few it seemed strange that, with her unquestioned powers of +fascination, she had not yet married; but London is not the only place +in which poverty is as repellent as beauty is attractive. At the same +time it must be confessed there was something about her which made not +a few men shy of her. Some found that, if her eyes drew them within a +certain distance, there they began to repel them, they could not tell +why. Others felt strangely uncomfortable in her presence from the +first. Not only much that a person has done, but much of what a person +is capable of, is, I suspect, written on the bodily presence; and, +although no human eye is capable of reading more than here and there a +scattered hint of the twilight of history, which is the aurora of +prophecy, the soul may yet shudder with an instinctive foreboding it +can not explain, and feel the presence, without recognizing the nature, +of the hostile. + +Sepia's eyes were her great power. She knew the laws of mortar-practice +in that kind as well as any officer of engineers those of projectiles. +There was something about her engines which it were vain to attempt to +describe. Their lightest glance was a thing not to be trifled with, and +their gaze a thing hardly to be withstood. Sustained and without hurt +defied, it could hardly be by man of woman born. They were large, but +no fool would be taken with mere size. They were as dark as ever eyes +of woman, but our older poets delighted in eyes as gray as glass: +certainly not in their darkness lay their peculiar witchery. They were +grandly proportioned, neither almond-shaped nor round, neither +prominent nor deep-set; but even shape by itself is not much. If I go +on to say they were luminous, plainly there the danger begins. Sepia's +eyes, I confess, were not lords of the deepest light--for she was not +true; but neither was theirs a surface light, generated of merely +physical causes: through them, concentrating her will upon their +utterance, she could establish a psychical contact with _almost_ any +man she chose. Their power was an evil, selfish shadow of original, +universal love. By them she could produce at once, in the man on whom +she turned their play, a sense as it were of some primordial, fatal +affinity between her and him--of an aboriginal understanding, the rare +possession of but a few of the pairs made male and female. Into those +eyes she would call up her soul, and there make it sit, flashing light, +in gleams and sparkles, shoots and coruscations--not from great, black +pupils alone--to whose size there were who said the suicidal belladonna +lent its aid--but from great, dark irids as well--nay, from eyeballs, +eyelashes, and eyelids, as from spiritual catapult or culverin, would +she dart the lightnings of her present soul, invading with influence as +irresistible as subtile the soul of the man she chose to assail, who, +thenceforward, for a season, if he were such as she took him for, +scarce had choice but be her slave. She seldom exerted their full +force, however, without some further motive than mere desire to +captivate. There are women who fly their falcons at any game, little +birds and all; but Sepia did not so waste herself: her quarry must be +worth her hunt: she must either love him or need him. _Love!_ did I +say? Alas! if ever holy word was put to unholy use, _love_ is that +word! When Diana goes to hell, her name changes to Hecate, but love +among the devils is called love still! + +In more than one other country, whatever might be the cause, Sepia had +found _the men_ less shy of her than here; and she had almost begun to +think her style was not generally pleasing to English eyes. Whether +this had anything to do with the fact that now in London she began to +amuse herself with Tom Helmer, I can not say with certainty; but almost +if not quite the first time they met, that morning, namely, when first +he called, and they sat in the bay-window of the drawing-room in +Glammis Square, she brought her eyes to play upon him; and, although he +addressed "The Firefly" poem to Hesper in the hope of pleasing her, it +was for the sake of Sepia chiefly that he desired the door of her house +to be an open one to him. Whether at that time she knew he was a +married man, it is hardly necessary to inquire, seeing it would have +made no difference whatever to one like her, whose design was only to +amuse herself with the youth, and possibly to make of him a screen. She +went so far, however, as to allow him, when there was opportunity, to +draw her into quiet corners, and even to linger when the other guests +were gone, and he had had his full share of champagne. Once, indeed, +they remained together so long in the little conservatory, lighted only +by an alabaster lamp, pale as the moon in the dawning, that she had to +unbolt the door to let him out. This did not take place without coming +to the knowledge of both Mr. and Mrs. Redmain; but the former was only +afraid there was nothing in it, and was far from any wish to control +her; and Sepia herself was the in-formant of the latter. To her she +would make game of her foolish admirer, telling how, on this and that +occasion, it was all she could do to get rid of him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +HONOR. + + +Having now gained a partial insight into Letty's new position, Mary +pondered what she could do to make life more of life to her. Not many +knew better than she that the only true way to help a human heart is to +lift it up; but she knew also that every kind of loving aid tends more +or less to that uplifting; and that, if we can not do the great thing, +we must be ready to do the small: if we do not help in little things, +how shall we be judged fit to help in greater? We must help where we +can, that we may help where we can not. The first and the only thing +she could for a time think of, was, to secure for Letty, if possible, a +share in her husband's pleasures. + +Quietly, yet swiftly, a certain peaceful familiarity had established +itself between Hesper and Mary, to which the perfect balance of the +latter and her sense of the only true foundation of her position +contributed far more than the undefined partiality of the former. The +possibility of such a conversation as I am now going to set down was +one of the results. + +"Do you like Mr. Helmer, ma'am?" asked Mary one morning, as she was +brushing her hair. + +"Very well. How do you know anything of him?" + +"Not many people within ten miles of Testbridge do not know Mr. +Helmer," answered Mary. + +"Yes, yes, I remember," said Hesper. "He used to ride about on a +long-legged horse, and talked to anybody that would listen to him. But +there was always something pleasing about him, and he is much improved. +Do you know, he is considered really very clever?" + +"I am not surprised," rejoined Mary. "He used to be rather foolish, and +that is a sign of cleverness--at least, many clever people are foolish, +I think." + +"You can't have had much opportunity for making the observation, Mary!" + +"Clever people think as much of themselves in the country as they do in +London, and that is what makes them foolish," returned Mary. "But I +used to think Mr. Helmer had very good points, and was worth doing +something for--if one only knew what." + +"He does not seem to want anything done for him," said Hesper. + +"I know one thing _you_ could do for him, and it would be no trouble," +said Mary. + +"I will do anything for anybody that is no trouble," answered Hesper. +"I should like to know something that is no trouble." + +"It is only, the next time you ask him, to ask his wife," said Mary. + +"He is married, then?" returned Hesper with indifference. "Is the woman +presentable? Some shopkeeper's daughter, I suppose!" + +Mary laughed. "You don't imagine the son of a lawyer would be likely to +marry a shopkeeper's daughter!" she said. + +"Why not?" returned Hesper, with a look of non-intelligence. + +"Because a professional man is so far above a tradesman." + +"Oh!" said Hesper. "--But he should have told me if he wanted to bring +his wife with him. I don't care who she is, so long as she dresses +decently and holds her tongue. What are you laughing at, Mary?" + +Hesper called it laughing, but Mary was only smiling. + +"I can't help being amused," answered Mary, "that you should think it +such an out-of-the-way thing to be a shopkeeper's daughter, and here am +I all the time, feeling quite comfortable, and proud of the shopkeeper +whose daughter I am." + +"Oh! I beg your pardon," exclaimed Hesper, growing hot for, I almost +believe, the first time in her life, and therein, I fear, showing a +drop of bad blood from somewhere, probably her father's side of the +creation; for not even the sense of having hurt the feelings of an +inferior can make the thoroughbred woman of the world aware of the +least discomfort; and here was Hesper, not only feeling like a woman of +God's making, but actually showing it!--"How cruel of me!" she went on. +"But, you see, I never think of you--when I am talking to you--as--as +one of that class!" + +Mary laughed outright this time: she was amused, and thought it better +to show it, for that would show also she was not hurt. Hesper, however, +put it down to insensibility. + +"Surely, dear Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, "you can not think the class to +which I belong in itself so objectionable that it is rude to refer to +it in my hearing!" + +"I am very sorry," repeated Hesper, but in a tone of some offense: it +was one thing to confess a fault; another to be regarded as actually +guilty of the fault. "Nothing was further from my intention than to +offend you. I have not a doubt that shopkeepers are a most respectable +class in their way--" + +"Excuse me, dear Mrs. Redmain," said Mary again, "but you quite mistake +me. I am not in the least offended. I don't care what you think of the +class. There are a great many shopkeepers who are anything but +respectable--as bad, indeed, as any of the nobility." + +"I was not thinking of morals," answered Hesper. "In that, I dare say, +all classes are pretty much alike. But, of course, there are +differences." + +"Perhaps one of them is, that, in our class, we make respectability +more a question of the individual than you do in yours." + +"That may be very true," returned Hesper. "So long as a man behaves +himself, we ask no questions." + +"Will you let me tell you how the thing looks to me?" said Mary. + +"Certainly. You do not suppose I care for the opinions of the people +about me! I, too, have my way of looking at things." + +So said Hesper; yet it was just the opinions of the people about her +that ruled all those of her actions that could be said to be ruled at +all. No one boasts of freedom except the willing slave--the man so +utterly a slave that he feels nothing irksome in his fetters. Yet, +perhaps, but for the opinions of those about her, Hesper would have +been worse than she was. + +"Am I right, then, in thinking," began Mary, "that people of your class +care only that a man should wear the look of a gentleman, and carry +himself like one?--that, whether his appearance be a reality or a mask, +you do not care, so long as no mask is removed in your company?--that +he may be the lowest of men, but, so long as other people receive him, +you will, too, counting him good enough?" + + +Hesper held her peace. She had by this time learned some facts +concerning the man she had married which, beside Mary's question, were +embarrassing. + +"It is interesting," she said at length, "to know how the different +classes in a country regard each other." But she spoke wearily: it was +interesting in the abstract, not interesting to her. + +"The way to try a man," said Mary, "would be to turn him the other way, +as I saw the gentleman who is taking your portrait do yesterday trying +a square--change his position quite, I mean, and mark how far he +continued to look a true man. He would show something of his real self +then, I think. Make a nobleman a shopkeeper, for instance, and see what +kind of a shopkeeper he made. If he showed himself just as honorable +when a shopkeeper as he had seemed when a nobleman, there would be good +reason for counting him an honorable man." + +"What odd fancies you have, Mary!" said Hesper, yawning. + +"I know my father would have been as honorable as a nobleman as he was +when a shopkeeper," persisted Mary. + +"That I can well believe--he was your father," said Hesper, kindly, +meaning what she said, too, so far as her poor understanding of the +honorable reached. + +"Would you mind telling me," asked Mary, "how you would define the +difference between a nobleman and a shopkeeper?" + +Hesper thought a little. The question to her was a stupid one. She had +never had interest enough in humanity to care a straw what any +shopkeeper ever thought or felt. Such people inhabited a region so far +below her as to be practically out of her sight. They were not of her +kind. It had never occurred to her that life must look to them much as +it looked to her; that, like Shylock, they had feelings, and would +bleed if cut with a knife. But, although she was not interested, she +peered about sleepily for an answer. Her thoughts, in a lazy fashion, +tumbled in her, like waves without wind--which, indeed, was all the +sort of thinking she knew. At last, with the decision of conscious +superiority, and the judicial air afforded by the precision of +utterance belonging to her class--a precision so strangely conjoined +with the lack of truth and logic both--she said, in a tone that gave to +the merest puerility the consequence of a judgment between contending +sages: + +"The difference is, that the nobleman is born to ease and dignity and +affluence, and the--shopkeeper to buy and sell for his living." + +"Many a nobleman," suggested Mary, "buys and sells without the +necessity of making a living." + +"That is the difference," said Hesper. + +"Then the nobleman buys and sells to make money, and the shopkeeper to +make a living?" + +"Yes," granted Hesper, lazily. + +"Which is the nobler end--to live, or to make money?" But this question +was too far beyond Hesper. She did not even choose to hear it. + +"And," she said, resuming her definition instead, "the nobleman deals +with great things, the shopkeeper with small." + +"When things are finally settled," said Mary--"Gracious, Mary!" cried +Hesper, "what do you mean? Are not things settled for good this many a +century? I am afraid I have been harboring an awful radical!--a--what +do they call it?--a communist!" + +She would have turned the whole matter out of doors, for she was tired +of it. + +"Things hardly look as if they were going to remain just as they are at +this precise moment," said Mary. "How could they, when, from the very +making of the world, they have been going on changing and changing, +hardly ever even seeming to standstill?" + +"You frighten me, Mary! You will do something terrible in my house, and +I shall get the blame of it!" said Hesper, laughing. + +But she did in truth feel a little uncomfortable. The shadow of dismay, +a formless apprehension overclouded her. Mary's words recalled +sentiments which at home she had heard alluded to with horror; and, +however little parents may be loved or respected by their children, +their opinions will yet settle, and, until they are driven out by +better or worse, will cling. + +"When I tell you what I was really thinking of, you will not be alarmed +at my opinions," said Mary, not laughing now, but smiling a deep, sweet +smile; "I do not believe there ever will be any settlement of things +but one; they can not and must not stop changing, until the kingdom of +heaven is come. Into that they must change, and rest." + +"You are leaving politics for religion now, Mary. That is the one fault +I have to find with you--you won't keep things in their own places! You +are always mixing them up--like that Mrs.--what's her name?--who will +mix religion and love in her novels, though everybody tells her they +have nothing to do with each other! It is so irreverent!" + +"Is it irreverent to believe that God rules the world he made, and that +he is bringing things to his own mind in it?" + +"You can't persuade me religion means turning things upside down." + +"It means that a good deal more than people think. Did not our Lord say +that many that are first shall be last, and the last first?" + +"What has that to do with this nineteenth century?" + +"Perhaps that the honorable shopkeeper and the mean nobleman will one +day change places." + +"Oh," thought Hesper, "that is why the lower classes take so to +religion!" But what she said was: "Oh, yes, I dare say! But everything +then will be so different that it won't signify. When we are all +angels, nobody will care who is first, and who is last. I'm sure, for +one, it won't be anything to me." + +Hesper was a tolerable attendant at church--I will not say whether high +or low church, because I should be supposed to care. + +"In the kingdom of heaven," answered Mary, "things will always look +what they are. My father used to say people will grow their own dresses +there, as surely as a leopard his spots. He had to do with dresses, you +know. There, not only will an honorable man look honorable, but a mean +or less honorable man must look what he is." + +"There will be nobody mean there." + +"Then a good many won't be there who are called honorable here." + +"I have no doubt there will be a good deal of allowance made for some +people," said Hesper. "Society makes such demands!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +THE INVITATION. + + +When Letty received Mrs. Redmain's card, inviting her with her husband +to an evening party, it raised in her a bewildered flutter--of +pleasure, of fear, of pride, of shyness, of dismay: how dared she show +her face in such a grand assembly? She would not know a bit how to +behave herself! But it was impossible, for she had no dress fit to go +anywhere! What would Tom say if she looked a dowdy? He would be ashamed +of her, and she dared not think what might come of it! + +But close upon the postman came Mary, and a long talk followed. Letty +was full of trembling delight, but Mary was not a little anxious with +herself how Tom would take it. + +The first matter, however, was Letty's dress. She had no money, and +seemed afraid to ask for any. The distance between her and her husband +had been widening. + +Their council of ways and means lasted a good while, including many +digressions. At last, though unwillingly, Letty accepted Mary's +proposal that a certain dress, her best indeed, though she did not say +so, which she had scarcely worn, and was not likely to miss, should be +made to fit Letty. It was a lovely black silk, the best her father had +been able to choose for her the last time he was in London. A little +pang did shoot through her heart at the thought of parting with it, but +she had too much of that father in her not to know that the greatest +honor that can be shown any _thing_, is to make it serve a _person_; +that the dearest gift of love, withheld from human necessity, is handed +over to the moth and the rust. But little idea had Letty, much as she +appreciated her kindness, what a sacrifice Mary was making for her that +she might look her own sweet self, and worthy of her renowned Tom! + +When Tom came home that night, however, the look of the world and all +that is in it changed speedily for Letty, and terribly. He arrived in +great good humor--somebody had been praising his verses, and the joy of +the praise overflowed on his wife. But when, pleased as any little girl +with the prospect of a party and a new frock, she told him, with +gleeful gratitude, of the invitation and the heavenly kindness which +had rendered it possible for her to accept it, the countenance of the +great man changed. He rejected the idea of her going with him to any +gathering of his grand friends--objected most of all to her going to +Mrs. Redmain's. Alas! he had begun to allow to himself that he had +married in too great haste--and beneath him. Wherever he went, his wife +could be no credit to him, and her presence would take from him all +sense of liberty! Not choosing, however, to acknowledge either of these +objections, and not willing, besides, to appear selfish in the eyes of +the woman who had given herself to him, he was only too glad to put all +upon another, to him equally genuine ground. Controlling his irritation +for the moment, he set forth with lordly kindness the absolute +impossibility of accepting such an offer as Mary's. Could she for a +moment imagine, he said, that he would degrade himself by taking his +wife out in a dress that was not her own? + +Here Letty interrupted him. + +"Mary has given me the dress," she sobbed, "--for my very own." + +"A second-hand dress! A dress that has been worn!" cried Tom. "How +could you dream of insulting me so? The thing is absolutely impossible. +Why, Letty, just think!--There should I be, going about as if the house +were my own, and there would be my wife in the next room, or perhaps at +my elbow, dressed in the finery of the lady's-maid of the house! It +won't bear thinking of! I declare it makes me so ashamed, as I lie +here, that I feel my face quite hot in the dark! To have to reason +about such a thing--with my own wife, too!" + +"It's not finery," sobbed Letty, laying hold of the one fact within her +reach; "it's a beautiful black silk." + +"It matters not a straw what it is," persisted Tom, adding humbug to +cruelty. "You would be nothing but a sham!--A live dishonesty! A +jackdaw in peacock's feathers!--I am sorry, Letty, your own sense of +truth and uprightness should not prevent even the passing desire to act +such a lie. Your fine dress would be just a fine fib--yourself would be +but a walking fib. I have been taking too much for granted with you: I +must bring you no more novels. A volume or two of Carlyle is what _you_ +want." + +This was too much. To lose her novels and her new dress together, and +be threatened with nasty moral medicine--for she had never read a word +of Carlyle beyond his translation of that dream of Richter's, and +imagined him dry as a sand-pit--was bad enough, but to be so reproved +by her husband was more than she could bear. If she was a silly and +ignorant creature, she had the heart of a woman-child; and that +precious thing in the sight of God, wounded and bruised by the husband +in whom lay all her pride, went on beating laboriously for him only. +She did not blame him. Anything was better than that. The dear, simple +soul had a horror of rebuke. It would break hedges and climb stone +walls to get out of the path of judgment--ten times more eagerly if her +husband were the judge. She wept and wailed like a sick child, until at +length the hard heart of selfish Tom was touched, and he sought, after +the fashion of a foolish mother, to read the inconsolable a lesson of +wisdom. But the truer a heart, the harder it is to console with the +false. By and by, however, sleep, the truest of things, did for her +what even the blandishments of her husband could not. + +When she woke in the morning, he was gone: he had thought of an +emendation in a poem that had been set up the day before, and made +haste to the office, lest it should be printed without the precious +betterment. + +Mary came before noon, and found sadness where she had left joy. When +she had heard as much as Letty thought proper to tell her, she was +filled with indignation, and her first thought was to compass the +tyrant's own exclusion from the paradise whose gates he closed against +his wife. But second thoughts are sometimes best, and she saw the next +moment not only that punishment did not belong to her, but that the +weight of such would fall on Letty. The sole thing she could think of +to comfort her was, to ask her to spend the same evening with her in +her room. The proposal brightened Letty up at once: some time or other +in the course of the evening she would, she fancied, see, or at least +catch a glimpse of Tom in his glory! + +The evening came, and with beating heart Letty went up the back stairs +to Mary's room. She was dressing her mistress, but did not keep her +waiting long. She had provided tea beforehand, and, when Mrs. Redmain +had gone down, the two friends had a pleasant while together. Mary took +Letty to Mrs. Redmain's room while she put away her things, and there +showed her many splendors, which, moving no envy in her simple heart, +yet made her sad, thinking of Tom. As she passed to the drawing-room, +Sepia looked in, and saw them together. + +But, as the company kept arriving, Letty grew very restless. She could +not talk of anything for two minutes together, but kept creeping out of +the room and half-way down the stair, to look over the banister-rail, +and have a bird's-eye peep of a portion of the great landing, where +indeed she caught many a glimpse of beauty and state, but never a +glimpse of her Tom. Alas! she could not even imagine herself near him. +What she saw made her feel as if her idol were miles away, and she +could never draw nigh him again. How should the familiar associate of +such splendid creatures care a pin's point for his humdrum wife? + +Worn out at last, and thoroughly disappointed, she wanted to go home. +It was then past midnight. Mary went with her, and saw her safe in bed +before she left her. + +As she went up to her room on her return, she saw, through the door by +which the gardener entered the conservatory, Sepia standing there, and +Tom, with flushed face, talking to her eagerly. + +Letty cried herself to sleep, and dreamed that Tom had disowned her +before a great company of grand ladies, who mocked her from their sight. + +Tom came home while she slept, and in the morning was cross and +miserable--in part, because he had been so abominably selfish to her. +But the moment that, half frightened, half hopeful, she told him where +she was the night before, he broke into the worst anger he had ever yet +shown her. His shameful pride could not brook the idea that, where he +was a guest, his wife was entertained by one of the domestics! + +"How dare you be guilty of such a disgraceful thing!" he cried. + +"Oh, don't, Tom--dear Tom!" pleaded Letty in terror. "It was you I +wanted to see--not the great people, Tom! I don't care if I never see +one of them again." + +"Why should you ever see one of them again, I should like to know! What +are they to you, or you to them?" + +"But you know I was asked to go, Tom!" + +"You're not such a fool as to fancy they cared about you! Everybody +knows they are the most heartless set of people in the world!" + +"Then why do you go, Tom?" said Letty, innocently. + +"That's quite another thing! A man has to cultivate connections his +wife need not know anything about. It is one of the necessities laid on +my position." + +Letty supposed it all truer than it was either intelligible or +pleasant, and said no more, but let poor, self-abused, fine-fellow Tom +scold and argue and reason away till he was tired. She was not sullen, +but bewildered and worn out. He got up, and left her without a word. + +Even at the risk of hurt to his dignity, of which there was no danger +from the presence of his sweet, modest little wife in the best of +company, it had been well for Tom to have allowed Letty the pleasure +within her reach; for that night Sepia's artillery played on him +ruthlessly. It may have been merely for her amusement--time, you see, +moves so slowly with such as have no necessities they must themselves +supply, and recognize no duties they must perform: without those two +main pillars of life, necessity and duty, how shall the temple stand, +when the huge, weary Samson comes tugging at it? The wonder is, there +is not a great deal more wickedness in the world. For listlessness and +boredness and nothing-to-do-ness are the best of soils for the breeding +of the worms that never stop gnawing. Anyhow, Sepia had flashed on Tom, +the tinder of Tom's heart had responded, and, any day when Sepia chose, +she might blow up a wicked as well as foolish flame; nor, if it should +suit her purpose, was Sepia one to hesitate in the use of the fire-fan. +All the way home, her eyes haunted him, and it is a more dreadful thing +than most are aware to be haunted by anything, good or bad, except the +being who is our life. And those eyes, though not good, were beautiful. +Evil, it is true, has neither part nor lot in beauty; it is absolutely +hostile to it, and will at last destroy it utterly; but the process is +a long one, so long that many imagine badness and beauty vitally +associable. Tom yielded to the haunting, and it was in part the fault +of those eyes that he used such hard words to his wife in the morning. +Wives have not seldom to suffer sorely for discomforts and wrongs in +their husbands of which they know nothing. But the thing will be set +right one day, and in a better fashion than if all the woman's-rights' +committees in the world had their will of the matter. + +About this time, from the top, left-hand corner of the last page of +"The Firefly," it appeared that Twilight had given place to Night; for +the first of many verses began to show themselves, in which Twilight, +or Hesper, or Vesper, or the Evening Star, was no more once mentioned, +but only and al-ways Nox, or Hecate, or the dark Diana. _Tenebrious_ +was a great word with Tom about this time. He was very fond, also, of +the word _interlunar_. I will not trouble my reader with any specimen +of the outcome of Tom's new inspiration, partly for this reason, that +the verses not unfrequently came so near being good, nay, sometimes +were really so good, that I do not choose to set them down where they +would be treated with a mockery they do not in themselves deserve. He +did not direct his wife's attention to them, nor did he compose them at +home or at the office. Mostly he wrote them between acts at the +theatre, or in any public place where something in which he was not +interested was going on. + +Of all that read them, and here was a Nemesis awful in justice, there +was not one less moved by them than she who had inspired them. She saw +in them, it is true, a reflex of her own power--and that pleased, but +it did not move her. She took the devotion and pocketed it, as a greedy +boy might an orange or bull's-eye. The verses in which Tom delighted +were but the merest noise in the ears of the lady to whom of all he +would have had them acceptable. One momentary revelation as to how she +regarded them would have been enough to release him from his foolish +enthrallment. Indignation, chagrin, and mortification would have soon +been the death of such poor love as Tom's. + +Mary and Sepia were on terms of politeness--of readiness to help on the +one side, and condescension upon the other. Sepia would have +condescended to the Mother Mary. The pure human was an idea beyond her, +as beyond most people. They have not enough _religion_ toward God to +know there is such a thing as religion toward their neighbor. But Sepia +never made an enemy-if she could help it. She could not afford the +luxury of hating--openly, at least. But I imagine she would have hated +Mary heartily could she have seen the way she regarded her--the look of +pitiful love, of compassionate and waiting helpfulness which her soul +would now and then cast upon her. Of all things she would have resented +pity; and she took Mary's readiness to help for servility--and +naturally, seeing in herself willingness came from nothing else, though +she called it prudence and necessity, and knew no shame because of it. +Her children justify the heavenly wisdom, but the worldly wisdom +justifies her children. Mary could not but feel how Sepia regarded her +service, but service, to be true, must be divine, that is, to the just +and the unjust, like the sun and the rain. + +Between Sepia and Mr. Redmain continued a distance too great for either +difference or misunderstanding. They met with a cold good morning, and +parted without any good night. Their few words were polite, and their +demeanor was civil. At the breakfast-table, Sepia would silently pass +things to Mr. Redmain; Mr. Redmain would thank her, but never trouble +himself to do as much for her. His attentions, indeed, were seldom +wasted at home; but he was not often rude to anybody save his wife and +his man, except when he was ill. + +It was a long time before he began to feel any interest in Mary. He +knew nothing of her save as a nice-looking maid his wife had +got--rather a prim-looking puss, he would have said, had he had +occasion to describe her. What Mary knew of him was merely the +reflection of him in the mind of his wife; but, the first time she saw +him, she felt she would rather not have to speak to him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +A STRAY SOUND. + + +Mary went to see Letty as often as she could, and that was not seldom; +but she had scarcely a chance of seeing Tom; either he was not up, or +had gone--to the office, Letty supposed: she had no more idea of where +the office was, or of the other localities haunted by Tom, than he +himself had of what spirit he was of. + +One day, when Mary could not help remarking upon her pale, weary looks, +Letty burst into tears, and confided to her a secret of which she was +not the less proud that it caused her anxiety and fear. As soon as she +began to talk about it, the joy of its hope began to predominate, and +before Mary left her she might have seemed to a stranger the most +blessed little creature in the world. The greatness of her delight made +Mary sad for her. To any thoughtful heart it must be sad to think what +a little time the joy of so many mothers lasts--not because their +babies die, but because they live; but Mary's mournfulness was caused +by the fear that the splendid dawn of mother-hope would soon be +swallowed in dismal clouds of father-fault. For mothers and for wives +there is no redemption, no unchaining of love, save by the coming of +the kingdom--_in themselves_. Oh! why do not mothers, sore-hearted +mothers at least, if none else on the face of the earth, rush to the +feet of the Son of Mary? + +Yet every birth is but another link in the golden chain by which the +world shall be lifted to the feet of God. It is only by the birth of +new children, ever fresh material for the creative Spirit of the Son of +Man to work upon, that the world can finally be redeemed. Letty had no +_ideas_ about children, only the usual instincts of appropriation and +indulgence; Mary had a few, for she recalled with delight some of her +father's ways with herself. Him she knew as, next to God, the source of +her life, so well had he fulfilled that first duty of all parents--the +transmission of life. About such things she tried to talk to Letty, but +soon perceived that not a particle of her thought found its way into +Letty's mind: she cared nothing for any duty concerned--only for the +joy of being a mother. + +She grew paler yet and thinner; dark hollows came about her eyes; she +was parting with life to give it to her child; she lost the girlish +gayety Tom used to admire, and the something more lovely that was +taking its place he was not capable of seeing. He gave her less and +less of his company. His countenance did not shine on her; in her heart +she grew aware that she feared him, and, ever as she shrunk, he +withdrew. Had it not now been for Mary, she would likely have died. She +did all for her that friend could. As often as she seemed able, she +would take her for a drive, or on the river, that the wind, like a +sensible presence of God, might blow upon her, and give her fresh life +to take home with her. So little progress did she make with Hesper, +that she could not help thinking it must have been for Letty's sake she +was allowed to go to London. + +Mr. and Mrs. Redmain went again to Durnmelling, but Mary begged Hesper +to leave her behind. She told her the reason, without mentioning the +name of the friend she desired to tend. Hesper shrugged her shoulders, +as much as to say she wondered at her taste; but she did not believe +that was in reality the cause of her wish, and, setting herself to find +another, concluded she did not choose to show herself at Testbridge in +her new position, and, afraid of losing if she opposed her, let her +have her way. Nor, indeed, was she so necessary to her at Durnmelling, +where there were few visitors, and comparatively little dressing was +required: for the mere routine of such ordinary days, Jemima was +enough, who, now and then called by Mary to her aid, had proved herself +handy and capable, and had learned much. So, all through the hottest of +the late summer and autumn weather, Mary remained in London, where +every pavement seemed like the floor of a baker's oven, and, for all +the life with which the city swarmed, the little winds that wandered +through it seemed to have lost their vitality. How she longed for the +common and the fields and the woods, where the very essence of life +seemed to dwell in the atmosphere even when stillest, and the joy that +came pouring from the throats of the birds seemed to flow first from +her own soul into them! The very streets and lanes of Testbridge looked +like paradise to Mary in Lon-don. But she never wished herself in the +shop again, although almost every night she dreamed of the glad old +time when her father was in it with her, and when, although they might +not speak from morning to night, their souls kept talking across crowd +and counters, and each was always aware of the other's supporting +presence. + +Longing, however, is not necessarily pain--it may, indeed, be intensest +bliss; and, if Mary longed for the freedom of the country, it was not +to be miserable that she could not have it. Her mere thought of it was +to her a greater delight than the presence of all its joys is to many +who desire them the most. That such things, and the possibility of such +sensations from them, should be in the world, was enough to make Mary +jubilant. But, then, she was at peace with her conscience, and had her +heart full of loving duty. Besides, an active patience is a heavenly +power. Mary could not only walk along a pavement dry and lifeless as +the Sahara, enjoying the summer that brooded all about and beyond the +city, but she bore the re-freshment of blowing winds and running waters +into Letty's hot room, with the clanging street in front, and the +little yard behind, where, from a cord stretched across between the +walls, hung a few pieces of ill-washed linen, motionless in the glare, +two plump sparrows picking up crumbs in their shadow--into this live +death Mary would carry a tone of breeze, and sailing cloud, and swaying +tree-top. In her the life was so concentrated and active that she was +capable of communicating life--the highest of human endowments. + +One evening, as Letty was telling her how the dressmaker up stairs had +been for some time unwell, and Mary was feeling reproachful that she +had not told her before, that she might have seen what she could do for +her, they became aware, it seemed gradually, of one softest, sweetest, +faintest music-tone coming from somewhere--but not seeming sufficiently +of this world to disclose whence. Mary went to the window: there was +nothing capable of music within sight. It came again; and +intermittingly came and came. For some time they would hear nothing at +all, and then again the most delicate of tones would creep into their +ears, bringing with it more, it seemed to Mary in the surprise of its +sweetness, than she could have believed single tone capable of +carrying. Once or twice a few consecutive sounds made a division +strangely sweet; and then again, for a time, nothing would reach them +but a note here and a note there of what she was fain to imagine a +wonderful melody. The visitation lasted for about an hour, then ceased. +Letty went to bed, and all night long dreamed she heard the angels +calling her. She woke weeping that her time was come so early, while as +yet she had tasted so little of the pleasure of life. But the truth +was, she had as yet, poor child, got so little of the _good_ of life, +that it was not at all time for her to go. + +When her hour drew near, Tom condescended--unwillingly, I am sorry to +say, for he did not take the trouble to understand her feelings--to +leave word where he might be found if he should be wanted. Even this +assuagement of her fears Letty had to plead for; Mary's being so much +with her was to him reason, and he made it excuse, for absence; he had +begun to dread Mary. Nor, when at length he was sent for, was he in any +great haste; all was well over ere he arrived. But he was a little +touched when, drawing his face down to hers, she feebly whispered, +"He's as like to you, Tom, as ever small thing was to great!" She saw +the slight emotion, and fell asleep comforted. + +It was night when she woke. Mary was sitting by her. + +"O Mary!" she cried, "the angels have been calling me again. Did you +hear them?" + +"No," answered Mary, a little coldly, for, if ever she was inclined to +be hard, it was toward self-sentiment. "Why do you think the angels +should call you? Do you suppose them very desirous of your company?" + +"They do call people," returned Letty, almost crying; "and I don't know +why they mightn't call me. I'm not such a very wicked person!" + +Mary's heart smote her; she was refusing Letty the time God was giving +her! She could not wake her up, and, while God was waking her, she was +impatient! + +"I heard the call, too, Letty," she said; "but it was not the angels. +It was the same instrument we heard the other night. Who can there be +in the house to play like that? It was clearer this time. I thought I +could listen to it a whole year." + +"Why didn't you wake me?" said Letty. + +"Because the more you sleep the better. And the doctor says I mustn't +let you talk. I will get you something, and then you must go to sleep +again." + +Tom did not appear any more that night; and, if they had wanted him +now, they would not have known where to find him. He was about nothing +very bad--only supping with some friends--such friends as he did not +even care to tell that he had a son. + +He was ashamed of being in London at this time of the year, and, but +that he had not money enough to go anywhere except to his mother's, he +would have gone, and left Letty to shift for herself. + +With his child he was pleased, and would not seldom take him for a few +moments; but, when he cried, he was cross with him, and showed himself +the unreasonable baby of the two. + +The angels did not want Letty just yet, and she slowly recovered. + +For Mary it was a peaceful time. She was able to read a good deal, and, +although there were no books in Mr. Redmain's house, she generally +succeeded in getting such as she wanted. She was able also to practice +as much as she pleased, for now the grand piano was entirely at her +service, and she took the opportunity of having a lesson every day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +THE MUSICIAN. + + +One evening, soon after the baby's arrival, as Mary sat with him in her +lap, the sweet tones they had heard twice before came creeping into her +ears so gently that she seemed to be aware of their presence only after +they had been for some time coming and going: she laid the baby down, +and, stealing from the room, listened on the landing. Certainly the +sounds were born in the house, but whether they came from below or +above she could not tell. Going first down the stair, and then up, she +soon satisfied herself that they came from above, and thereupon +ventured a little farther up the stair. + +She had already been to see the dressmaker, whom she had come to know +through the making of Hesper's twilight robe of cloud, had found her +far from well, and had done what she could for her. But she was in no +want, and of more than ordinary independence--a Yorkshire woman, about +forty years of age, delicate, but of great patience and courage; a +plain, fair, freckled woman, with a belief in religion rather than in +God. Very strict, therefore, in her observances, she thought a great +deal more of the Sabbath than of man, a great deal more of the Bible +than of the truth, and ten times more of her creed than of the will of +God; and, had she heard any one utter such words as I have just +written, would have said he was an atheist. She was a worthy creature, +notwithstanding, only very unpleasant if one happened to step on the +toes of a pet ignorance. Mary soon discovered that there was no profit +in talking with her on the subjects she loved most: plainly she knew +little about them, except at second hand--that is, through the forms of +other minds than her own. Such people seem intended for the special +furtherance of the saints in patience; being utterly unassailable by +reason, they are especially trying to those who desire to stand on +brotherly terms with all men, and so are the more sensitive to the +rudeness that always goes with moral stupidity; intellectual stupidity +may coexist with the loveliness of an angel. It is one of the blessed +hopes of the world to come, that there will be none such in it. But why +so many words? I say to myself, Will one of such as I mean recognize +his portrait in my sketch? Many such have I met in my young days, and +in my old days I find they swarm still. I could wish that all such had +to earn their own bread like Ann Byron: had she been rich, she would +have been unbearable. Women like her, when they are well to do, walk +with a manly stride, make the tails of their dresses go like the screw +of a steamer behind them, and are not unfrequently Scotch. + +As Mary went up, the music ceased; but, hoping Miss Byrom would be able +to enlighten her concerning its source, she continued her ascent, and +knocked at her door. A voice, rather wooden, yet not without character, +invited her to enter. + +Ann sat near the window, for, although it was quite dusk, a little use +might yet be made of the lingering ghost of the daylight. Almost all +Mary could see of her was the reflection from the round eyes of a pair +of horn spectacles. + +"How do you do, Miss Byrom?" she said. + +"Not at all well," answered Ann, almost in a tone of offense. + +"Is there nothing I can do for you?" asked Mary. + +"We are to owe no man anything but love, the apostle tells us." + +"You must owe a good deal of that, then," said Mary, one part vexed, +and two parts amused, "for you don't seem to pay much of it." + +She was just beginning to be sorry for what she had said when she was +startled by a sound, very like a little laugh, which seemed to come +from behind her. She turned quickly, but, before she could see anything +through the darkness, the softest of violin-tones thrilled the air +close beside her, and then she saw, seated on the corner of Ann's bed, +the figure of a man--young or old, she could not tell. How could he +have kept so still! His bow was wandering slowly about over the strings +of his violin; but presently, having overcome, as it seemed, with the +help of his instrument, his inclination to laugh, he ceased, and all +was still. + +"I came," said Mary, turning again to Ann, "hoping you might be able to +tell me where the sweet sounds came from which we have heard now two or +three times; but I had no idea there was any one in the room besides +yourself.--They come at intervals a great deal too long," she added, +turning toward the figure in the darkness. + +"I am afraid my ear is out sometimes," said the man, mistaking her +remark. "I think it comes of the anvil." + +The voice was manly, though gentle, and gave an impression of utter +directness and simplicity. It was Mary's turn, however, not to +understand, and she made no answer. + +"I am very sorry," the musician went on, "if I annoyed you, miss." + +Mary was hastening to assure him that the fact was quite the other way, +when Ann prevented her. + +"I told you so!" she said; "_you_ make an idol of your foolish +plaything, but other people take it only for the nuisance it is." + +"Indeed, you never were more mistaken," said Mary. "Both Mrs. Helmer +and myself are charmed with the little that reaches us. It is, indeed, +seldom one hears tones of such purity." + +The player responded with a sigh of pleasure. + +"Now there you are, miss," cried Ann, "a-flattering of his folly till +not a word I say will be of the smallest use!" + +"If your words are not wise," said Mary, with suppressed indignation, +"the less he heeds them the better." + +"It ain't wise, to my judgment, miss, to make a man think himself +something when he is nothing. It's quite enough a man should deceive +his own self, without another to come and help him." + +"To speak the truth is not to deceive," replied Mary. "I have some +knowledge of music, and I say only what is true." + +"What good can it be spending his time scraping horsehair athort +catgut?" + +"They must fancy some good in it up in heaven," said Mary, "or they +wouldn't have so much of it there." + +"There ain't no fiddles in heaven," said Ann, with indignation; +"they've nothing there but harps and trumpets." Mary turned to the man, +who had not said a word. + +"Would you mind coming down with me," she said, "and playing a little, +very softly, to my friend? She has a little baby, and is not strong. It +would do her good." + +"She'd better read her Bible," said Ann, who, finding she could no +longer see, was lighting a candle. + +"She does read her Bible," returned Mary; "and a little music would, +perhaps, help her to read it to better purpose." + +"There, Ann!" cried the player. + +The woman replied with a scornful grunt. + +"Two fools don't make a wise man, for all the franchise," she said. + +But Mary had once more turned toward the musician, and in the light of +the candle was met by a pair of black eyes, keen yet soft, looking out +from tinder an overhanging ridge of forehead. The rest of the face was +in shadow, but she could see by the whiteness, through a beard that +clouded all the lower part of it, that he was smiling to himself: Mary +had said what pleased him, and his eyes sought her face, and seemed to +rest on it with a kind of trust, and a look as if he was ready to do +whatever she might ask of him. + +"You will come?" said Mary. + +"Yes, miss, with all my heart," he replied, and flashed a full smile +that rested upon Ann, and seemed to say he knew her not so hard as she +looked. + +Rising, he tucked his violin under his arm, and showed himself ready to +follow. + +"Good night, Miss Byrom," said Mary. + +"Good night, miss," returned Ann, grimly. "I'm sorry for you both, +miss. But, until the spirit is poured out from on high, it's nothing +but a stumbling in the dark." + +This last utterance was a reflection rather than a remark. + +Mary made no reply. She did not care to have the last word; nor did she +fancy her cause lost when she had not at hand the answer that befitted +folly. She ran down the stair, and at the bottom stood waiting her new +acquaintance, who descended more slowly, careful not to make a noise. + +She could now see, by the gaslight that burned on the landing, a little +more of what the man was. He was powerfully built, rather over middle +height, and about the age of thirty. His complexion was dark, and the +hand that held the bow looked grimy. He bore himself well, but a little +stiffly, with a care over his violin like that of a man carrying a +baby. He was decidedly handsome, in a rugged way--mouth and chin but +hinted through a thick beard of darkest brown. + +"Come this way," said Mary, leading him into Letty's parlor. "I will +tell my friend you are come. Her room, you see, opens off this, and she +will hear you delightfully. Pray, take a seat." + +"Thank you, miss," said the man, but remained standing. + +"I have caught the bird, Letty," said Mary, loud enough for him to +hear; "and he is come to sing a little to you--if you feel strong +enough for it." + +"It will do me good," said Letty. "How kind of him!" + +The man, having heard, was already tuning his violin when Mary came +from the bedroom, and sat down on the sofa. The instant he had got it +to his mind, he turned, and, going to the farthest corner of the room, +closed his eyes tight, and began to play. + +But how shall I describe that playing? how convey an idea of it, +however remote? I fear it is nothing less than presumption in me, so +great is my ignorance, to attempt the thing. But would it be right, for +dread of bringing shame upon me through failure, to leave my readers +without any notion of it at all? On the other hand, I shall, at least, +have the merit of daring to fail--a merit of which I could well be +ambitious. + +If, then, my reader will imagine some music-loving sylph attempting to +guide the wind among the strings of an Aeolian harp, every now and then +for a moment succeeding, and then again for a while the wind having its +own way, he will gain, I think, something like a dream-notion of the +man's playing. Mary tried hard to get hold of some clew to the +combinations and sequences, but the motive of them she could not find. +Whatever their source, there was, either in the composition itself or +in his mode of playing, not a little of the inartistic, that is, the +lawless. Yet every now and then would come a passage of exquisite +melody, owing much, however, no doubt, to the marvelous delicacy of the +player's tones, and the utterly tender expression with which he +produced them. But ever as she thought to get some insight into the +movement of the man's mind, still would she be swept away on the storm +of some change, seeming of mood incongruous. + +At length came a little pause. He wiped his forehead with a blue cotton +handkerchief, and seemed ready to begin again. Mary interrupted him +with the question: + +"Will you please tell me whose music you have been playing?" + +He opened his eyes, which had remained closed even while he stood +motionless, and, with a smile sweeter than any she had ever seen on +such a strong face, answered: + +"It's nobody's, miss." + +"Do you mean you have been extemporizing all this time?" + +"I don't know exactly what that means." + +"You must have learned it from notes?" + +"I couldn't read them if I had any to read," he answered. + +"Then what an ear and what a memory you must have! How often have you +heard it?" + +"Just as often as I've played it, and no oftener. Not being able to +read, and seldom hearing any music I care for, I'm forced to be content +with what runs out at my fingers when I shut my eyes. It all comes of +shutting my eyes. I couldn't play a thing but for shutting my eyes. +It's a wonderful deal that comes of shutting your eyes! Did you never +try it, miss?" + +Mary was so astonished both by what he said and the simplicity with +which he said it, having clearly no notion that he was uttering +anything strange, that she was silent, and the man, after a moment's +retuning, began again to play. Then did Mary gather all her listening +powers, and brace her attention to the tightest--but at first with no +better success. And, indeed, that was not the way to understand. It +seems to me, at least, in my great ignorance, that one can not +understand music unless he is humble toward it, and consents, if need +be, not to understand. When one is quiescent, submissive, opens the +ears of the mind, and demands of them nothing more than the +hearing--when the rising waters of question retire to their bed, and +individuality is still, then the dews and rains of music, finding the +way clear for them, soak and sink through the sands of the mind, down, +far down, below the thinking-place, down to the region of music, which +is the hidden workshop of the soul, the place where lies ready the +divine material for man to go making withal. + +Weary at last with vain effort, she ceased to endeavor, and in a little +while was herself being molded by the music unconsciously received to +the further understanding of it. It wrought in her mind pictures, not +thoughts. It is possible, however, my later knowledge may affect my +description of what Mary then saw with her mind's eye. + +First there was a crowd in slow, then rapid movement. Arose cries and +entreaties. Came hurried motions, disruption, and running feet. A pause +followed. Then woke a lively melody, changing to the prayer of some +soul too grateful to find words. Next came a bar or two of what seemed +calm, lovely speech, then a few slowly delivered chords, and all was +still. + +She came to herself, and then first knew that, like sleep, the music +had seized her unawares, and she had been understanding, or at least +enjoying, without knowing it. The man was approaching her from his dark +corner. His face was shining, but plainly he did not intend more music, +for his violin was already under his arm. He made her a little awkward +bow--not much more than a nod, and turned to the door. He had it half +open, and not yet could Mary speak. For Letty, she was fast asleep. + +From the top of the stair came the voice of Ann, screaming: + +"Here's your hat, Joe. I knew you'd be going when you played that. +You'd have forgotten it, I know!" + +Mary heard the hat come tumbling down the stair. + +"Thank you, Ann," returned Joe. "Yes, I'm going. The ladies don't care +much for my music. Nobody does but myself. But, then, it's good for +me." The last two sentences were spoken in soliloquy, but Mary heard +them, for he stood with the handle of the door in his hand. He closed +it, picked up his hat, and went softly down the stair. + +The spell was broken, and Mary darted to the door. But, just as she +opened it, the outer door closed behind the strange musician, and she +had not even learned his name. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +A CHANGE. + + +As soon as Letty had strength enough to attend to her baby without +help, Mary, to the surprise of her mistress, and the destruction of her +theory concerning her stay in London, presented herself at Durnmelling, +found that she was more welcome than looked for, and the same hour +resumed her duties about Hesper. + +It was with curiously mingled feelings that she gazed from her window +on the chimneys of Thornwick. How much had come to her since first, in +the summer-seat at the end of the yew-hedge, Mr. Wardour opened to her +the door of literature! It was now autumn, and the woods, to get young +again, were dying their yearly death. For the moment she felt as if +she, too, had begun to grow old. Ministration had tired her a +little--but, oh! how different its weariness from that which came of +labor amid obstruction and insult! Her heart beat a little slower, +perhaps, but she could now be sad without losing a jot of hope. Nay, +rather, the least approach of sadness would begin at once to wake her +hope. She regretted nothing that had come, nothing that had gone. She +believed more and more that not anything worth having is ever lost; +that even the most evanescent shades of feeling are safe for those who +grow after their true nature, toward that for which they were made--in +other and higher words, after the will of God. + +But she did for a moment taste some bitterness in her cup, when, one +day, on the footpath of Testbridge, near the place where, that +memorable Sunday, she met Mr. Wardour, she met him again, and, looking +at her, and plainly recognizing her, he passed without salutation. Like +a sudden wave the blood rose to her face, and then sank to the deeps of +her heart; and from somewhere came the conviction that one day the +destiny of Godfrey Wardour would be in her hands: he had done more for +her than any but her father; and, when that day was come, he should not +find her fail him! + +She was then on her way to the shop. She did not at all relish entering +it, but, as she had a large money-interest in the business; she ought +at least, she said to herself, to pay the place a visit. When she went +in, Turnbull did not at first recognize her, and, taking her for a +customer, blossomed into repulsive suavity. The change that came over +his countenance, when he knew her, was a shadow of such mingled and +conflicting shades that she felt there was something peculiar in it +which she must attempt to analyze. It remained hardly a moment to +encounter question, but was almost immediately replaced with a +politeness evidently false. Then, first, she began to be aware of +distrusting the man. + +Asking a few questions about the business, to which he gave answers +most satisfactory, she kept casting her eyes about the shop, unable to +account for the impression the look of it made upon her. Either her +eyes had formed for themselves another scale, and could no more rightly +judge between past and present, or the aspect of the place was +different, and not so satisfactory. Was there less in it? she asked +herself--or was it only not so well kept as when she left it? She could +not tell. Neither could she understand the profound but distant +consideration with which Mr. Turnbull endeavored to behave to her, +treating her like a stranger to whom he must, against his inclination, +manifest all possible respect, while he did not invite her even to call +at _the villa._ She bought a pair of gloves of the young woman who +seemed to occupy her place, paid for them, and left the shop without +speaking to any one else. All the time, George was standing behind the +opposite counter, staring at her; but, much to her relief, he showed no +other sign of recognition. + +Before she went to find Beenie, who was still at Testbridge, in a +cottage of her own, she felt she must think over these things, and +come, if possible, to some conclusion about them. She left the town, +therefore, and walked homeward. + +What did it all mean? She knew very well they must look down on her ten +times more than ever, because of the _menial_ position in which she had +placed herself, sinking thereby beyond all pretense to be regarded as +their equal. But, if that was what the man's behavior meant, why was he +so studiously--not so much polite as respectful? That did not use to be +Mr. Turnbull's way where he looked down upon one. And, then, what did +the shadow preceding this behavior mean? Was there not in it something +more than annoyance at the sight of her? It was with an effort he +dismissed it! She had never seen that look upon him! + +Then there was the impression the shop made on her! Was there anything +in that? Somehow it certainly seemed to have a shabby look! Was it +possible anything was wrong or going wrong with the concern? Her father +had always spoken with great respect of Mr. Turnbull's business +faculties, but she knew he had never troubled himself to, look into the +books or know how they stood with the bank. She knew also that Mr. +Turnbull was greedy after money, and that his wife was ambitious, and +hated the business. But, if he wanted to be out of it, would he not +naturally keep it up to the best, at least in appearance, that he might +part with his share in it to the better advantage? + +She turned, and, walking back to the town, sought Beenie. + +The old woman being naturally a gossip, Mary was hardly seated before +she began to pour out the talk of the town, in which came presently +certain rumors concerning Mr. Turnbull--mainly hints at speculation and +loss. + +The result was that Mary went from Beenie to the lawyer in whose care +her father had left his affairs. He was an old man, and had been ill; +had no suspicion of anything being wrong, but would look into the +matter at once. She went home, and troubled herself no more. + +She had been at Durnmelling but a few days, when Mr. Redmain, wishing +to see how things were on his estate in Cornwall, and making up his +mind to run down, carelessly asked his wife if she would accompany him: +it would be only for a few days, he said; but a breeze or two from the +Atlantic would improve her complexion. This was gracious; but he was +always more polite in the company of Lady Margaret, who continued to +show him the kindness no one else dared or was inclined to do. For some +years he had suffered increasingly from recurrent attacks of the +disease to which I have already referred; and, whatever might be the +motive of his mother-in-law's behavior, certainly, in those attacks, it +was a comfort to him to be near her. On such occasions in London, his +sole attendant was his man Mewks. + +Mary was delighted to see more of her country. She had traveled very +little, but was capable of gathering ten times more from a journey to +Cornwall than most travelers from one through Switzerland itself. The +place to which they went was lonely and lovely, and Mary, for the first +few days, enjoyed it unspeakably. + +But then, suddenly, as was not unusual, Mr. Redmain was taken ill. For +some reason or other, he had sent his man to London, and the only other +they had with them, besides the coachman, was useless in such a need, +while the housekeeper who lived at the place was nearly decrepit; so +that of the household Mary alone was capable of fit attendance in the +sickroom. Hesper shrunk, almost with horror, certainly with disgust, +from the idea of having anything to do with her husband as an invalid. +When she had the choice of her company, she said, she would not choose +his. Mewks was sent for at once, but did not arrive before the patient +had had some experience of Mary's tendance; nor, after he came, was she +altogether without opportunity of ministering to him. The attack was a +long and severe one, delaying for many weeks their return to London, +where Mr. Redmain declared he must be, at any risk, before the end of +November. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +LYDGATE STEET. + + +Letty's whole life was now gathered about her boy, and she thought +little, comparatively, about Tom. And Tom thought so little about her +that he did not perceive the difference. When he came home, he was +always in a hurry to be gone again. He had always something important +to do, but it never showed itself to Letty in the shape of money. He +gave her a little now and then, of course, and she made it go +incredibly far, but it was ever with more of a grudge that he gave it. +The influence over him of Sepia was scarcely less now that she was +gone; but, if she cared for him at all, it was mainly that, being now +not a little stale-hearted, his devotion reminded her pleasurably of a +time when other passions than those of self-preservation were strongest +in her; and her favor even now tended only to the increase of Tom's +growing disappointment, for, like Macbeth, he had begun already to +consider life but a poor affair. Across the cloud of this death +gleamed, certainly, the flashing of Sepia's eyes, or the softly +infolding dawn of her smile, but only, the next hour, nay, the next +moment, to leave all darker than before. Precious is the favor of any +true, good woman, be she what else she may; but what is the favor of +one without heart or faith or self-giving? Yet is there testimony only +too strong and terrible to the demoniacal power, enslaving and +absorbing as the arms of the kraken, of an evil woman over an +imaginative youth. Possibly, did he know beforehand her nature, he +would not love her, but, knowing it only too late, he loves and curses; +calls her the worst of names, yet can not or will not tear himself +free; after a fashion he still calls love, he loves the demon, and +hates her thralldom. Happily Tom had not reached this depth of +perdition; Sepia was prudent for herself, and knew, none better, what +she was about, so far as the near future was concerned, therefore held +him at arm's length, where Tom basked in a light that was of hell--for +what is a hell, or a woman like Sepia, but an inverted creation? His +nature, in consequence, was in all directions dissolving. He drank more +and more strong drink, fitting fuel to such his passion, and Sepia +liked to see him approach with his eyes blazing. There are not many +women like her; she is a rare type--but not, therefore, to be passed +over in silence. It is little consolation that the man-eating tiger is +a rare animal, if one of them be actually on the path; and to the +philosopher a possibility is a fact. But the true value of the study of +abnormal development is that, in the deepest sense, such development is +not abnormal at all, but the perfected result of the laws that avenge +law-breach. It is in and through such that we get glimpses, down the +gulf of a moral volcano, to the infernal possibilities of the +human--the lawless rot of that which, in its _attainable_ idea, is +nothing less than divine, imagined, foreseen, cherished, and labored +for, by the Father of the human. Such inverted possibility, the +infernal possibility, I mean, lies latent in every one of us, and, +except we stir ourselves up to the right, will gradually, from a +possibility, become an energy. The wise man dares not yield to a +temptation, were it only for the terror that, if he do, he will yield +the more readily again. The commonplace critic, who recognizes life +solely upon his own conscious level, mocks equally at the ideal and its +antipode, incapable of recognizing the art of Shakespeare himself as +true to the human nature that will not be human. + +I have said that Letty did her best with what money Tom gave her; but +when she came to find that he had not paid the lodging for two months; +that the payment of various things he had told her to order and he +would see to had been neglected, and that the tradespeople were getting +persistent in their applications; that, when she told him anything of +the sort, he treated it at one time as a matter of no consequence which +he would speedily set right, at another as behavior of the creditor +hugely impertinent, which he would punish by making him wait his +time--her heart at length sank within her, and she felt there was no +bulwark between her and a sea of troubles; she felt as if she lay +already in the depths of a debtor's jail. Therefore, sparing as she had +been from the first, she was more sparing than ever. Not only would she +buy nothing for which she could not pay down, having often in +consequence to go without proper food, but, even when she had a little +in hand, would live like an anchorite. She grew very thin; and, +in-deed, if she had not been of the healthiest, could not have stood +her own treatment many weeks. + +Her baby soon began to show suffering, but this did not make her alter +her way, or drive her to appeal to Tom. She was ignorant of the +simplest things a mother needs to know, and never imagined her +abstinence could hurt her baby. So long as she went on nursing him, it +was all the same, she thought. He cried so much, that Tom made it a +reason with himself, and indeed gave it as one to Letty, for not coming +home at night: the child would not let him sleep; and how was he to do +his work if he had not his night's rest? It mattered little with +semi-mechanical professions like medicine or the law, but how was a man +to write articles such as he wrote, not to mention poetry, except he +had the repose necessary to the redintegration of his exhausted brain? +The baby went on crying, and the mother's heart was torn. The woman of +the house said he must be already cutting his teeth, and recommended +some devilish sirup. Letty bought a bottle with the next money she got, +and thought it did him good-because, lessening his appetite, it +lessened his crying, and also made him sleep more than he ought. + +At last one night Tom came home very much the worse of drink, and in +maudlin affection insisted on taking the baby from its cradle. The baby +shrieked. Tom was angry with the weakling, rated him soundly for +ingratitude to "the author of his being," and shook him roughly to +teach him the good manners of the world he had come to. + +Thereat in Letty sprang up the mother, erect and fierce. She darted to +Tom, snatched the child from his arms, and turned to carry him to the +inner room. But, as the mother rose in Letty, the devil rose in Tom. If +what followed was not the doing of the real Tom, it was the doing of +the devil to whom the real Tom had opened the door. With one stride he +overtook his wife, and mother and child lay together on the floor. I +must say for him that, even in his drunkenness, he did not strike his +wife as he would have struck a man; it was an open-handed blow he gave +her, what, in familiar language, is called a box on the ear, but for +days she carried the record of it on her cheek in five red finger-marks. + +When he saw her on the floor, Tom's bedazed mind came to itself; he +knew what he had done, and was sobered. But, alas! even then he thought +more of the wrong he had done to himself as a gentleman than of the +grievous wound he had given his wife's heart. He took the baby, who had +ceased to cry as soon as he was in his mother's arms, and laid him on +the rug, then lifted the bitterly weeping Letty, placed her on the +sofa, and knelt beside her--not humbly to entreat her pardon, but, as +was his wont, to justify himself by proving that all the blame was +hers, and that she had wronged him greatly in driving him to do such a +thing. This for apology poor Letty, never having had from him fuller +acknowledgment of wrong, was fain to accept. She turned on the sofa, +threw her arms about his neck, kissed him, and clung to him with an +utter forgiveness. But all it did for Tom was to restore him his good +opinion of himself, and enable him to go on feeling as much of a +gentleman as before. + +Reconciled, they turned to the baby. He was pale, his eyes were closed, +and they could not tell whether he breathed. In a horrible fright, Tom +ran for the doctor. Before he returned with him, the child had come to, +and the doctor could discover no injury from the fall they told him he +had had. At the same time, he said he was not properly nourished, and +must have better food. + +This was a fresh difficulty to Letty; it was a call for more outlay. +And now their landlady, who had throughout been very kind, was in +trouble about her own rent, and began to press for part at least of +theirs. Letty's heart seemed to labor under a stone. She forgot that +there was a thing called joy. So sad she looked that the good woman, +full of pity, assured her that, come what might, she should not be +turned out, but at the worst would only have to go a story higher, to +inferior rooms. The rent should wait, she said, until better days. But +this kindness relieved Letty only a little, for the rent past and the +rent to come hung upon her like a cloak of lead. + +Nor was even debt the worst that now oppressed her. For, possibly from +the fall, but more from the prolonged want of suitable nourishment and +wise treatment, after that terrible night, the baby grew worse. Many +were the tears the sleepless mother shed over the sallow face and +wasted limbs of her slumbering treasure--her one antidote to countless +sorrows; and many were the foolish means she tried to restore his +sinking vitality. + +Mary had written to her, and she had written to Mary; but she had said +nothing of the straits to which she was reduced; that would have been +to bring blame upon Tom. But Mary, with her fine human instinct, felt +that things must be going worse with her than before; and, when she +found that her return was indefinitely postponed by Mr. Redmain's +illness, she ventured at last in her anxiety upon a daring measure: she +wrote to Mr. Wardour, telling him she had reason to fear things were +not going well with Letty Helmer, and suggesting, in the gentlest way, +whether it might not now be time to let bygones be bygones, and make +some inquiry concerning her. + +To this letter Godfrey returned no answer. For all her denial, he had +never ceased to believe that Mary had been Letty's accomplice +throughout that miserable affair; and the very name--the Letty and the +Helmer--stung him to the quick. He took it, therefore, as a piece of +utter presumption in Mary to write to him about Letty, and that in the +tone, as he interpreted it, of one reading him a lesson of duty. But, +while he was thus indignant with Mary, he was also vexed with Letty +that she should not herself have written to him if she was in any need, +forgetting that he had never hinted at any door of communication open +between him and her. His heart quivered at the thought that she might +be in distress; he had known for certain, he said, the fool would bring +her to misery! For himself, the thought of Letty was an ever-open +wound--with an ever-present pain, now dull and aching, now keen and +stinging. The agony of her desertion, he said, would never cease +gnawing at his heart until it was laid in the grave; like most heathen +Christians, he thought of death as the end of all the joys, sorrows, +and interests generally of this life. But, while thus he brooded, a +fierce and evil joy awoke in him at the thought that now at last the +expected hour had come when he would heap coals of fire on her head. He +was still fool enough to think of her as having forsaken him, although +he had never given her ground for believing, and she had never had +conceit enough to imagine, that he cared the least for her person. If +he could but let her have a glimmer of what she had lost in losing him! +She knew what she had gained in Tom Helmer. + +He passed a troubled night, dreamed painfully, and started awake to +renewed pain. Before morning he had made up his mind to take the first +train to London. But he thought far more of being her deliverer than of +bringing her deliverance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + +GODFREY AND LETTY. + + +It was a sad, gloomy, kindless November night, when Godfrey arrived in +London. The wind was cold, the pavements were cold, the houses seemed +to be not only cold but feeling it. The very dust that blow in his face +was cold. Now cold is a powerful ally of the commonplace, and +imagination therefore was not very busy in the bosom of Godfrey Wardour +as he went to find Letty Helmer, which was just as well, in the +circumstances. He was cool to the very heart when he walked up to the +door indicated by Mary, and rung the bell: Mrs. Helmer was at home: +would he walk up stairs? + +It was not a house of ceremonies; he was shown up and up and into the +room where she sat, without a word carried before to prepare her for +his visit. It was so dark that he could see nothing but the figure of +one at work by a table, on which stood a single candle. There was but a +spark of fire in the dreary grate, and Letty was colder than any one +could know, for she was at the moment making down the last woolly +garment she had, in the vain hope of warming her baby. + +She looked up. She had thought it was the landlady, and had waited for +her to speak. She gazed for a moment in bewilderment, saw who it was, +and jumped up half frightened, half ready to go wild with joy. All the +memories of Godfrey rushed in a confused heap upon her, and overwhelmed +her. She ran to him, and the same moment was in his arms, with her head +on his shoulder, weeping tears of such gladness as she had not known +since the first week of her marriage. + +Neither spoke for some time; Letty could not because she was crying, +and Godfrey would not because he did not want to cry. Those few moments +were pure, simple happiness to both of them; to Letty, because she had +loved him from childhood, and hoped that all was to be as of old +between them; to Godfrey, because, for the moment, he had forgotten +himself, and had neither thought of injury nor hope of love, +remembering only the old days and the Letty that used to be. It may +seem strange that, having never once embraced her all the time they +lived together, he should do so now; but Letty's love would any time +have responded to the least show of affection, and when, at the sight +of his face, into which memory had called up all his tenderness, she +rushed into his arms, how could he help kissing her? The pity was that +he had not kissed her long before. Or was it a pity? I think not. + +But the embrace could not be a long one. Godfrey was the first to relax +its strain, and Letty responded with an instant collapse; for instantly +she feared she had done it all, and disgusted Godfrey. But he led her +gently to the sofa, and sat down beside her on the hard old slippery +horsehair. Then first he perceived what a change had passed upon her. +Pale was she, and thin, and sad, with such big eyes, and the bone +tightening the skin upon her forehead! He felt as if she were a +spectre-Letty, not the Letty he had loved. Glancing up, she caught his +troubled gaze. + +"I am not ill, Cousin Godfrey," she said. "Do not look at me so, or I +shall cry again. You know you never liked to see me cry." + +"My poor girl!" said Godfrey, in a voice which, if he had not kept it +lower than natural, would have broken, "you are suffering." + +"Oh, no, I'm not," replied Letty, with a pitiful effort at the +cheerful; "I am only so glad to see you again, Cousin Godfrey." + +She sat on the edge of the sofa, and had put her open hands, palm to +palm, between her knees, in a childish way, looking like one chidden, +who did not deserve it, but was ready to endure. For a moment Godfrey +sat gazing at her, with troubled heart and troubled looks, then between +his teeth muttered, "Damn the rascal!" + +Letty sat straight up, and turned upon him eyes of appeal, scared, yet +ready to defend. Her hands were now clinched, one on each side of her; +she was poking the little fists into the squab of the sofa. + +"Cousin Godfrey!" she cried, "if you mean Tom, you must not, you must +not. I will go away if you speak a word against him. I will; I will.--I +_must,_ you know!" + +Godfrey made no reply--neither apologized nor sought to cover. + +"Why, child!" he said at last, "you are half starved!" + +The pity and tenderness of both word and tone were too much for her. +She had not been at all pitying herself, but such an utterance from the +man she loved like an elder brother so wrought upon her enfeebled +condition that she broke into a cry. She strove to suppress her +emotion; she fought with it; in her agony she would have rushed from +the room, had not Godfrey caught her, drawn her down beside him, and +kept her there. "You shall not leave me!" he said, in that voice Letty +had always been used to obey. "Who has a right to know how things go +with you, if I have not? Come, you must tell me all about it." + +"I have nothing to tell, Cousin Godfrey," she replied with some +calmness, for Godfrey's decision had enabled her to conquer herself, +"except that baby is ill, and looks as if he would never get better, +and it is like to break my heart. Oh, he is such a darling, Cousin +Godfrey!" + +"Let me see him," said Godfrey, in his heart detesting the child--the +visible sign that another was nearer to Letty than he. + +She jumped up, almost ran into the next room, and, coming back with her +little one, laid him in Godfrey's arms. The moment he felt the weight +of the little, sad-looking, sleeping thing, he grew human toward him, +and saw in him Letty and not Tom. + +"Good God! the child is starving, too," he exclaimed. + +"Oh, no, Cousin Godfrey!" cried Letty; "he is not starving. He had a +fresh-laid egg for breakfast this morning, and some arrowroot for +dinner, and some bread and milk for tea--" + +"London milk!" said Godfrey. + +"Well, it is not like the milk in the dairy at Thornwick," admitted +Letty. "If he had milk like that, he would soon be well!" + +But Godfrey dared not say, "Bring him to Thornwick": he knew his mother +too well for that! + +"When were you anywhere in the country?" he asked. In a negative kind +of way he was still nursing the baby. + +"Not since we were married," she answered, sadly. "You see, poor Tom +can't afford it." + +Now Godfrey happened to have heard, "from the best authority," that +Tom's mother was far from illiberal to him. + +"Mrs. Helmer allows him so much a year--does she not?" he said. + +"I know he gets money from her, but it can't be much," she answered. + +Godfrey's suspicions against Tom increased every moment. He must learn +the truth. He would have it, if by an even cruel experiment! He sat a +moment silent--then said, with assumed cheerfulness: + +"Well, Letty, I suppose, for the sake of old times, you will give me +some dinner?" + +Then, indeed, her courage gave way. She turned from him, laid her head +on the end of the sofa, and sobbed so that the room seemed to shake +with the convulsions of her grief. "Letty," said Godfrey, laying his +hand on her head, "it is no use any more trying to hide the truth. I +don't want any dinner; in fact, I dined long ago. But you would not be +open with me, and I was forced to find out for myself: you have not +enough to eat, and you know it. I will not say a word about who is to +blame--for anything I know, it may be no one--I am sure it is not you. +But this must not go on! See, I have brought you a little pocket-book. +I will call again tomorrow, and you will tell me then how you like it." + +He laid the pocket-book on the table. There was ten times as much in it +as ever Letty had had at once. But she never knew what was in it. She +rose with instant resolve. All the woman in her waked at once. She felt +that a moment was come when she must be resolute, or lose her hold on +life. + +"Cousin Godfrey," she said, in a tone he scarcely recognized as +hers--it frightened him as if it came from a sepulchre--"if you do not +take that purse away, I will throw it in the fire without opening it! +If my husband can not give me enough to eat, I can starve as well as +another. If you loved Tom, it would be different, but you hate him, and +I will have nothing from you. Take it away, Cousin Godfrey." + +Mortified, hurt, miserable, Godfrey took the purse, and, without a +word, walked from the room. Somewhere down in his secret heart was +dawning an idea of Letty beyond anything he used to think of her, but +in the mean time he was only blindly aware that his heart had been shot +through and through. Nor was this the time for him to reflect that, +under his training, Letty, even if he had married her, would never have +grown to such dignity. + +It was, indeed, only in that moment she had become capable of the +action. She had been growing as none, not Mary, still less herself, +knew, under the heavy snows of affliction, and this was her first +blossom. Not many of my readers will mistake me, I trust. Had it been +in Letty pride that refused help from such an old friend, that pride I +should count no blossom, but one of the meanest rags that ever +fluttered to scare the birds. But the dignity of her refusal was in +this--that she would accept nothing in which her husband had and could +have no human, that is, no spiritual share. She had married him because +she loved him, and she would hold by him wherever that might lead her: +not wittingly would she allow the finest edge, even of ancient +kindness, to come between her Tom and herself! To accept from her +cousin Godfrey the help her husband ought to provide her, would be to +let him, however innocently, step into his place! There was no +reasoning in her resolve: it was allied to that spiritual insight +which, in simple natures, and in proportion to their simplicity, +approaches or amounts to prophecy. As the presence of death will +sometimes change even an ordinary man to a prophet, in times of sore +need the childlike nature may well receive a vision sufficing to direct +the doubtful step. Letty felt that the taking of that money would be +the opening of a gulf to divide her and Tom for ever. + +The moment Godfrey was out of the room she cast herself on the floor, +and sobbed as if her heart must break. But her sobs were tearless. And, +oh, agony of agonies! unsought came the conviction, and she could not +send it away--to this had sunk her lofty idea of her Tom!--that he +would have had her take the money! More than once or twice, in the +ill-humors that followed a forced hilarity, he had forgotten his claims +to being a gentleman so far as--not exactly to reproach her with having +brought him to poverty--but to remind her that, if she was poor, she +was no poorer than she had been when dependent on the charity of a +distant relation! + +The baby began to cry. She rose and took him from the sofa where +Godfrey had laid him when he was getting out the pocket-book, held him +fast to her bosom, as if by laying their two aching lives together they +might both be healed, and, rocking him to and fro, said to herself, for +the first time, that her trouble was greater than she could bear. "O +baby! baby! baby!" she cried, and her tears streamed on the little wan +face. But, as she sat with him in her arms, the blessed sleep came, and +the storm sank to a calm. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + +RELIEF. + + +It was dark, utterly dark, when she woke. For a minute she could not +remember where she was. The candle had burned out: it must be late. The +baby was on her lap--still, very still. One faint gleam of satisfaction +crossed her "during dark" at the thought that he slept so peacefully, +hidden from the gloom which, somehow, appeared to be all the same gloom +outside and inside of her. In that gloom she sat alone. + +Suddenly a prayer was in her heart. It was moving there as of itself. +It had come there by no calling of it thither, by no conscious will of +hers. "O God," she cried, "I am desolate!--Is there no help for me?" +And therewith she knew that she had prayed, and knew that never in her +life had she prayed before. + +She started to her feet in an agony: a horrible fear had taken +possession of her. With one arm she held the child fast to her bosom, +with the other hand searched in vain to find a match. And still, as she +searched, the baby seemed to grow heavier upon her arm, and the fear +sickened more and more at her heart. + +At last she had light! and the face of the child came out of the +darkness. But the child himself had gone away into it. The Unspeakable +had come while she slept--had come and gone, and taken her child with +him. What was left of him was no more good to kiss than the last doll +of her childhood! + +When Tom came home, there was his wife on the floor as if dead, and a +little way from her the child, dead indeed, and cold with death. He +lifted Letty and carried her to the bed, amazed to find how light she +was: it was long since he had had her thus in his arms. Then he laid +her dead baby by her side, and ran to rouse the doctor. He came, and +pronounced the child quite dead--from lack of nutrition, he said. To +see Tom, no one could have helped contrasting his dress and appearance +with the look and surroundings of his wife; but no one would have been +ready to lay blame on him; and, as for himself, he was not in the least +awake to the fact of his guilt. + +The doctor gave the landlady, who had responded at once to Tom's call, +full directions for the care of the bereaved mother; Tom handed her the +little money he had in his pocket, and she promised to do her best. And +she did it; for she was one of those, not a few, who, knowing nothing +of religion toward God, are yet full of religion toward their fellows, +and with the Son of Man that goes a long way. As soon as it was light, +Tom went to see about the burying of his baby. + +He betook himself first to the editor of "The Firefly," but had to wait +a long time for his arrival at the office. He told him his baby was +dead, and he wanted money. It was forthcoming at once; for literary +men, like all other artists, are in general as ready to help each other +as the very poor themselves. There is less generosity, I think, among +business-men than in any other class. The more honor to the exceptions! + +"But," said the editor, who had noted the dry, burning palm, and saw +the glazed, fiery eye of Tom, "my dear fellow, you ought to be in bed +yourself. It's no use taking on about the poor little kid: _you_ +couldn't help it. Go home to your wife, and tell her she's got you to +nurse; and, if she's in any fix, tell her to come to me." + +Tom went home, but did not give his wife the message. She lay all but +insensible, never asked for anything, or refused anything that was +offered her, never said a word about her baby, or about Tom, or seemed +to be more than when she lay in her mother's lap. Her baby was buried, +and she knew nothing of it. Not until nine days were over did she begin +to revive. + +For the first few days, Tom, moved with undefined remorse, tried to +take a part in nursing her. She took things from him, as she did from +the landlady, without heed or recognition. Just once, opening suddenly +her eyes wide upon him, she uttered a feeble wail of "_Baby!_" and, +turning her head, did not look at him again. Then, first, Tom's +conscience gave him a sharp sting. + +He was far from well. The careless and in many respects dissolute life +he had been leading had more than begun to tell on a constitution by no +means strong, but he had never become aware of his weakness nor had +ever felt really ill until now. + +But that sting, although the first sharp one, was not his first warning +of a waking conscience. Ever since he took his place at his wife's +bedside, he had been fighting off the conviction that he was a brute. +He would not, he could not believe it. What! Tom Helmer, the fine, +indubitable fellow! such as he had always known himself!--he to cower +before his own consciousness as a man unworthy, and greatly to be +despised! The chaos was come again! And, verily, chaos was there, but +not by any means newly come. And, moreover, when chaos begins to be +conscious of itself, then is the dawn of an ordered world at hand. Nay, +the creation of it is already begun, and the pangs of the waking +conscience are the prophecy of the new birth. + +With that pitiful cry of his wife after her lost child, disbelief in +himself got within the lines of his defense; he could do no more, and +began to loathe that conscious self which had hitherto been his pride. + +Whatever the effect of illness may be upon the temper of some, it is +most certainly an ally of the conscience. All pains, indeed, and all +sorrows, all demons, yea, and all sins themselves under the suffering +care of the highest minister, are but the ministers of truth and +righteousness. I never came to know the condition of such as seemed +exceptionally afflicted but I seemed to see reason for their +affliction, either in exceptional faultiness of character or the +greatness of the good it was doing them. + +But conscience reacts on the body--for sickness until it is obeyed, for +health thereafter. The moment conscience spoke thus plainly to Tom, the +little that was left of his physical endurance gave way, his illness +got the upper hand, and he took to his bed--all he could have for bed, +that is--namely, the sofa in the sitting-room, widened out with chairs, +and a mattress over all. There he lay, and their landlady had enough to +do. Not that either of her patients was exacting; they were both too +ill and miserable for that. It is the self-pitiful, self-coddling +invalid that is exacting. Such, I suspect, require something sharper +still. + +Tom groaned and tossed, and cursed himself, and soon passed into +delirium. Straightway his visions, animate with shame and confusion of +soul, were more distressing than even his ready tongue could have told. +Dead babies and ghastly women pursued him everywhere. His fever +increased. The cries of terror and dismay that he uttered reached the +ears of his wife, and were the first thing that roused her from her +lethargy. She rose from her bed, and, just able to crawl, began to do +what she could for him. If she could but get near enough to him, the +husband would yet be dearer than any child. She had him carried to the +bed, and thereafter took on the sofa what rest there was for her. To +and fro between bed and sofa she crept, let the landlady say what she +might, gave him all the food he could be got to take, cooled his +burning hands and head, and cried over him because she could not take +him on her lap like the baby that was gone. Once or twice, in a quieter +interval, he looked at her pitifully, and seemed about to speak; but +the back-surging fever carried far away the word of love for which she +listened so eagerly. The doctor came daily, but Tom grew worse, and +Letty could not get well. + + + + +CHAPTER XL. + +GODFREY AND SEPIA. + + +When the Redmains went to Cornwall, Sepia was left at Durnmelling, in +the expectation of joining them in London within a fortnight at latest. +The illness of Mr. Redmain, however, caused her stay to be prolonged, +and she was worn out with _ennui_. The self she was so careful over was +not by any means good company: not seldom during her life had she found +herself capable of almost anything to get rid of it, short of suicide +or repentance. This autumn, at Durnmelling, she would even, +occasionally, with that object, when the weather was fine, go for a +solitary walk--a thing, I need not say, she hated in itself, though now +it was her forlorn hope, in the poor possibility of falling in with +some distraction. But the hope was not altogether a vague one; for was +there not a man somewhere underneath those chimneys she saw over the +roof of the laundry? She had never spoken to him, but Hesper and she +had often talked about him, and often watched him ride--never man more +to her mind. In her wanderings she had come upon the breach in the +ha-ha, and, clambering up, found herself on the forbidden ground of a +neighbor whom the family did not visit. To no such folly would Sepia be +a victim. + +The analysis of such a nature as hers, with her story to set it forth, +would require a book to itself, and I must happily content myself with +but a fact here and there in her history. + +In one of her rambles on his ground she had her desire, and met Godfrey +Wardour. He lifted his hat, and she stopped and addressed him by way of +apology. + +"I am afraid you think me very rude, Mr. Wardour," she said. "I know I +am trespassing, but this field of yours is higher than the ground about +Durnmelling, and seems to take pounds off the weight of the atmosphere." + +For all he had gone through, Godfrey was not yet less than courteous to +ladies. He assured Miss Yolland that Thornwick was as much at her +service as if it were a part of Durnmelling. "Though, indeed," he +added, with a smile, "it would be more correct to say, 'as if +Durnmelling were a part of Thornwick'--for that was the real state of +the case once upon a time." + +The statement interested or seemed to interest Miss Yolland, giving +rise to many questions; and a long conversation ensued. Suddenly she +woke, or seemed to wake, to the consciousness that she had forgotten +herself and the proprieties together: hastily, and to all appearance +with some confusion, she wished him a good morning; but she was not too +much confused to thank him again for the permission he had given her to +walk on his ground. + +It was not by any intention on the part of Godfrey that they met +several times after this; but they always had a little conversation +before they parted; nor did Sepia find any difficulty in getting him +sufficiently within their range to make him feel the power of her eyes. +She was too prudent, however, to bring to bear upon any man all at once +the full play of her mesmeric battery; and things had got no further +when she went to London--a week or two before the return of the +Redmains, ostensibly to get things in some special readiness for +Hesper; but that this may have been a pretense appears possible from +the fact that Mary came from Cornwall on the same mission a few days +later. + +I have just mentioned an acquaintance of Sepia's, who attracted the +notice and roused the peculiar interest of Mr. Redmain, because of a +look he saw pass betwixt them. This man spoke both English and French +with a foreign accent, and gave himself out as a Georgian--Count +Galofta, he called himself: I believe he was a prince in Paris. At this +time he was in London, and, during the ten days that Sepia was alone, +came to see her several times--called early in the forenoon first, the +next day in the evening, when they went together to the opera, and once +came and staid late. Whether from her dark complexion making her look +older than she was, or from the subduing air which her experience had +given her, or merely from the fact that she belonged to nobody much, +Miss Yolland seemed to have _carte blanche_ to do as she pleased, and +come and go when and where she liked, as one knowing well enough how to +take care of herself. + +Mary, arriving unexpectedly at the house in Glammis Square, met him in +the hall as she entered: he had just taken leave of Sepia, who was +going up the stair at the moment. Mary had never seen him before, but +something about him caused her to look at him again as he passed. + +Somehow, Tom also had discovered Sepia's return, and had gone to see +her more than once. + +When Mr. and Mrs. Redmain arrived, there was so much to be done for +Hesper's wardrobe that, for some days, Mary found it impossible to go +and see Letty. Her mistress seemed harder to please than usual, and +more doubtful of humor than ever before. This may have arisen--but I +doubt it--from the fact that, having gone to church the Sunday before +they left, she had there heard a different sort of sermon from any she +had heard in her life before: sermons have something to do with the +history of the world, however many of them may be no better than a +withered leaf in the blast. + +The morning after her arrival, Hesper, happening to find herself in +want of Mary's immediate help, instead of calling her as she generally +did, opened the door between their rooms, and saw Mary on her knees by +her bedside. Now, Hesper had heard of saying prayers--night and morning +both--and, when a child, had been expected, and indeed compelled, to +say her prayers; but to be found on one's knees in the middle of the +day looked to her a thing exceedingly odd. Mary, in truth, was not much +in the way of kneeling at such a time: she had to pray much too often +to kneel always, and God was too near her, wherever she happened to be, +for the fancy that she must seek him in any particular place; but so it +happened now. She rose, a little startled rather than troubled, and +followed her mistress into her room. + +"I am sorry to have disturbed you, Mary," said Hesper, herself a little +annoyed, it is not quite easy to say why; "but people do not generally +say their prayers in the middle of the day." + +"I say mine when I need to say them," answered Mary, a little cross +that Hesper should take any notice. She would rather the thing had not +occurred, and it was worse to have to talk about it. + +"For my part, I don't see any good in being righteous overmuch," said +Hesper. + +I wonder if there was another saying in the Bible she would have been +so ready to quote! + +"I don't know what that means," returned Mary. "I believe it is +somewhere in the Bible, but I am sure Jesus never said it, for he tells +us to be righteous as our Father in heaven is righteous." + +"But the thing is impossible," said Hesper. "How is one with such +claims on her as I have, to attend to these things? Society has claims: +no one denies that." + +"And has God none?" asked Mary. + +"Many people think now there is no God at all," returned Hesper, with +an almost petulant expression. + +"If there is no God, that settles the question," answered Mary. "But, +if there should be one, how then?" + +"Then I am sure he would never be hard on one like me. I do just like +other people. One must do as people do. If there is one thing that must +be avoided more than another, it is peculiarity. How ridiculous it +would be of any one to set herself against society!" + +"Then you think the Judge will be satisfied if you say, 'Lord, I had so +many names in my visiting-book, and so many invitations I could not +refuse, that it was impossible for me to attend to those things'?" + +"I don't see that I'm at all worse than other people," persisted +Hesper. "I can't go and pretend to be sorry for sins I should commit +again the next time there was a necessity. I don't see what I've got to +repent of." + +Nothing had been said about repentance: here, I imagine, the sermon may +have come in. + +"Then, of course, you can't repent," said Mary. + +Hesper recovered herself a little. + +"I am glad you see the thing as I do," she said. + +"I don't see it at all as you do, ma'am," answered Mary, gently. + +"Why!" exclaimed Hesper, taken by surprise, "what have I got to repent +of?" + +"Do you really want me to say what I think?" asked Mary. + +"Of course, I do," returned Hesper, getting angry, and at the same time +uneasy: she knew Mary's freedom of speech upon occasion, but felt that +to draw back would be to yield the point. "What have I done to be +ashamed of, pray?" + +Some ladies are ready to plume themselves upon not having been guilty +of certain great crimes. Some thieves, I dare say, console themselves +that they have never committed murder. + +"If I had married a man I did not love," answered Mary, "I should be +more ashamed of myself than I can tell." + +"That is the way of looking at such things in the class you belong to, +I dare say," rejoined Hesper; "but with us it is quite different. There +is no necessity laid upon _you. Our_ position obliges us." + +"But what if God should not see it as you do?" + +"If that is all you have got to bring against me!--" said Hesper, with +a forced laugh. + +"But that is not all," replied Mary. "When you married, you promised +many things, not one of which you have ever done." + +"Really, Mary, this is intolerable!" cried Hesper. + +"I am only doing what you asked me, ma'am," said Mary. "And I have said +nothing that every one about Mr. Redmain does not know as well as I do." + +Hesper wished heartily she had never challenged Mary's judgment. + +"But," she resumed, more quietly, "how could you, how could any one, +how could God himself, hard as he is, ask me to fulfill the part of a +loving wife to a man like Mr. Redmain?--There is no use mincing matters +with _you,_ Mary." + +"But you promised," persisted Mary. "It belongs, besides, to the very +idea of marriage." + +"There are a thousand promises made every day which nobody is expected +to keep. It is the custom, the way of the world! How many of the +clergy, now, believe the things they put their names to?" + +"They must answer for themselves. We are not clergymen, but women, who +ought never to say a thing except we mean it, and, when we have said +it, to stick to it." + +"But just look around you, and see how many there are in precisely the +same position! Will you dare to say they are all going to be lost +because they do not behave like angels to their brutes of husbands?" + +"I say, they have got to repent of behaving to their husbands as their +husbands behave to them." + +"And what if they don't?" + +Mary paused a little. + +"Do you expect to go to heaven, ma'am?" she asked + +"I hope so." + +"Do you think you will like it?" + +"I must say, I think it will be rather dull." + +"Then, to use your own word, you must be very like lost anyway. There +does not seem to be a right place for you anywhere, and that is very +like being lost--is it not?" + +Hesper laughed. + +"I am pretty comfortable where I am," she said. + +"Husband and all!" thought Mary, but she did not say that. What she did +say was: + +"But you know you can't stay here. God is not going to keep up this way +of things for you; can you ask it, seeing you don't care a straw what +he wants of you? But I have sometimes thought, What if hell be just a +place where God gives everybody everything she wants, and lets +everybody do whatever she likes, without once coming nigh to interfere! +What a hell that would be! For God's presence in the very being, and +nothing else, is bliss. That, then, would be altogether the opposite of +heaven, and very much the opposite of this world. Such a hell would go +on, I suppose, till every one had learned to hate every one else in the +same world with her." + +This was beyond Hesper, and she paid no attention to it. + +"You can never, in your sober senses, Mary," she said, "mean that God +requires of me to do things for Mr. Redmain that the servants can do a +great deal better! That would be ridiculous--not to mention that I +oughtn't and couldn't and wouldn't do them for any man!" + +"Many a woman," said Mary, with a solemnity in her tone which she did +not intend to appear there, "has done many more trying things for +persons of whom she knew nothing." + +"I dare say! But such women go in for being saints, and that is not my +line. I was not made for that." + +"You were made for that, and far more," said Mary. + +"There are such women, I know," persisted Hesper; "but I do not know +how they find it possible." + +"I can tell you how they find it possible. They love every human being +just because he is human. Your husband might be a demon from the way +you behave to him." + +"I suppose _you_ find it agreeable to wait upon him: he is civil to +you, I dare say!" + +"Not very," replied Mary, with a smile; "but the person who can not +bear with a sick man or a baby is not fit to be a woman." + +"You may go to your own room," said Hesper. + +For the first time, a feeling of dislike to Mary awoke in the bosom of +her mistress--very naturally, _all_ my readers will allow. The next few +days she scarcely spoke to her, sending directions for her work through +Sepia, who discharged the office with dignity. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. + +THE HELPER. + + +At length one morning, when she believed Mrs. Redmain would not rise +before noon, Mary felt she must go and see Letty. She did not find her +in the quarters where she had left her, but a story higher, in a mean +room, sitting with her hands in her lap. She did not lift her eyes when +Mary entered: where hope is dead, curiosity dies. Not until she had +come quite near did she raise her head, and then she seemed to know +nothing of her. When she did recognize her, she held out her hand in a +mechanical way, as if they were two specters met in a miserable dream, +in which they were nothing to each other, and neither could do, or +cared to do, anything for the other. + +"My poor Letty!" cried Mary, greatly shocked, "what has come to you? +Are you not glad to see me? Has anything happened to Tom?" + +She broke into a low, childish wail, and for a time that was all Mary +heard. Presently, however, she became aware of a feeble moaning in the +adjoining chamber, the sound of a human sea in trouble--mixed with a +wandering babble, which to Letty was but as the voice of her own +despair, and to Mary was a cry for help. She abandoned the attempt to +draw anything from Letty, and went into the next room, the door of +which stood wide. There lay Tom, but so changed that Mary took a moment +to be certain it was he. Going softly to him, she laid her hand on his +head. It was burning. He opened his eyes, but she saw their sense was +gone. She went back to Letty, and, sitting down beside her, put her arm +about her, and said: + +"Why didn't you send for me, Letty? I would have come to you at once. I +will come now, to-night, and help you to nurse him. Where is the baby?" + +Letty gave a shriek, and, starting from her chair, walked wildly about +the room, wringing her hands. Mary went after her, and taking her in +her arms, said: + +"Letty, dear, has God taken your baby?" + +Letty gave her a lack-luster look. + +"Then," said Mary, "he is not far away, for we are all in God's arms." + +But what is the use of the most sovereign of medicines while they stand +on the sick man's table? What is the mightiest of truths so long as it +is not believed? The spiritually sick still mocks at the medicine +offered; he will not know its cure. Mary saw that, for any comfort to +Letty, God was nowhere. It went to her very heart. Death and desolation +and the enemy were in possession. She turned to go, that she might +return able to begin her contest with ruin. Letty saw that she was +going, and imagined her offended and abandoning her to her misery. She +flew to her, stretching out her arms like a child, but was so feeble +that she tripped and fell. Mary lifted her, and laid her wailing on her +couch. + +"Letty," said Mary, "you didn't think I was going to leave you! But I +must go for an hour, perhaps two, to make arrangements for staying with +you till Tom is over the worst." + +Then Letty clasped her hands in her old, beseeching way, and looked up +with a faint show of comfort. + +"Be courageous, Letty," said Mary. "I shall be back as soon as ever I +can. God has sent me to you." + +She drove straight home, and heard that Mrs. Redmain was annoyed that +she had gone out. + +"I offered to dress her," said Jemima; "and she knows I can quite well; +but she would not get up till you came, and made me fetch her a book. +So there she is, a-waiting for you!" + +"I am sorry," said Mary; "but I had to go, and she was fast asleep." + +When she entered her room, Hesper gave her a cold glance over the top +of her novel, and went on with her reading. Mary proceeded to get her +things ready for dressing. But by this time she had got interested in +the story. + +"I shall not get up yet," she said. + +"Then, please, ma'am," replied Mary, "would you mind letting Jemima +dress you? I want to go out again, and should be glad if you could do +without me for some days. My friend's baby is dead, and both she and +her husband are very ill." + +Hesper threw down her book, and her eyes flamed. + +"What do you mean by using me so, Miss Marston?" she said. + +"I am very sorry to put you to inconvenience," answered Mary; "but the +husband seems dying, and the wife is scarcely able to crawl." + +"I have nothing to do with it," interrupted Hesper. "When you made it +necessary for me to part with my maid, you undertook to perform her +duties. I did not engage you as a sick-nurse for other people." + +"'No, ma'am," replied Mary; "but this is an extreme case, and I can not +believe you will object to my going." + +"I do object. How, pray, is the world to go on, if this kind of thing +be permitted! I may be going out to dinner, or to the opera to-night, +for anything you know, and who is there to dress me? No; on principle, +and for the sake of example, I will not let you go." + +"I thought," said Mary, not a little disappointed in Hesper, "I did not +stand to you quite in the relation of an ordinary servant." + +"Certainly you do not: I look for a little more devotion from you than +from a common, ungrateful creature who thinks only of herself. But you +are all alike." + +More and more distressed to find one she had loved so long show herself +so selfish, Mary's indignation had almost got the better of her. But a +little heightening of her color was all the show it made. + +"Indeed, it is quite necessary, ma'am," she persisted, "that I should +go." + +"The law has fortunately made provision against such behavior," said +Hesper. "You can not leave without giving me a month's notice." + +"The understanding on which I came to you was very different," said +Mary, sadly. + +"It was; but, since then, you consented to become my maid." + +"It is ungenerous to take advantage of that," returned Mary, growing +angry again. + +"I have to protect myself and the world in general from the +consequences that must follow were such lawless behavior allowed to +pass." + +Hesper spoke with calm severity, and Mary, making up her mind, answered +now with almost equal calmness. + +"The law was made for both sides, ma'am; and, as you bring the law to +me, I will take refuge in the law. It is, I believe, a month's warning +or a month's wages; and, as I have never had any wages, I imagine I am +at liberty to go. Good-by, ma'am." + +Hesper made her no answer, and Mary left the room. She went to her own, +stuffed her immediate necessities into a bag, let herself out of the +house, called a cab, and, with a great lump in her throat, drove to the +help of Letty. + +First she had a talk with the landlady, and learned all she could tell. +Then she went up, and began to make things as comfortable as she could: +all was in sad disorder and neglect. + +With the mere inauguration of cleanliness, and the first dawn of coming +order, the courage of Letty began to revive a little. The impossibility +of doing all that ought to be done, had, in her miserable weakness, so +depressed her that she had not done even as much as she could--except +where Tom was immediately concerned: there she had not failed of her +utmost. + +Mary next went to the doctor to get instructions, and then to buy what +things were most wanted. And now she almost wished Mrs. Redmain had +paid her for her services, for she must write to Mr. Turnbull for +money, and that she disliked. But by the very next post she received, +inclosed in a business memorandum in George's writing, the check for +fifty pounds she had requested. + +She did not dare write to Tom's mother, because she was certain, were +she to come up, her presence would only add to the misery, and take +away half the probability of his recovery and of Letty's, too. In the +case of both, nourishment was the main thing; and to the fit providing +and the administering of it she bent her energy. + +For a day or two, she felt at times as if she could hardly get through +what she had undertaken; but she soon learned to drop asleep at any +moment, and wake immediately when she was wanted; and thereafter her +strength was by no means so sorely tried. + +Under her skillful nursing--skillful, not from experience, but simply +from her faith, whence came both conscience of and capacity for doing +what the doctor told her--things went well. It is from their want of +this faith, and their consequent arrogance and conceit, that the ladies +who aspire to help in hospitals give the doctors so much trouble: they +have not yet learned _obedience,_ the only path to any good, the one +essential to the saving of the world. One who can not obey is the +merest slave--essentially and in himself a slave. The crisis of Tom's +fever was at length favorably passed, but the result remained doubtful. +By late hours and strong drink, he had done not a little to weaken a +constitution, in itself, as I have said, far from strong; while the +unrest of what is commonly and foolishly called a bad conscience, with +misery over the death of his child and the conduct which had disgraced +him in his own eyes and ruined his wife's happiness, combined to retard +his recovery. + +While he was yet delirious, and grief and shame and consternation +operated at will on his poetic nature, the things he kept saying over +and over were very pitiful; but they would have sounded more miserable +by much in the ears of one who did not look so far ahead as Mary. She, +trained to regard all things in their true import, was rejoiced to find +him loathing his former self, and beyond the present suffering saw the +gladness at hand for the sorrowful man, the repenting sinner. Had she +been mother or sister to him, she could hardly have waited on him with +more devotion or tenderness. + +One day, as his wife was doing some little thing for him, he took her +hand in his feeble grasp, and pressing it to his face, wet with the +tears of reviving manhood, said: + +"We might have been happy together, Letty, if I had but known how much +you were worth, and how little I was worth myself!--Oh me! oh me!" + +He burst into an incontrollable wail that tortured Letty with its +likeness to the crying of her baby. + +"Tom! my own darling Tom!" she cried, "when you speak as if I belonged +to you, it makes me as happy as a queen. When you are better, you will +be happy, too, dear. Mary says you will." + +"O Letty!" he sobbed--"the baby!" + +"The baby's all right, Mary says; and, some day, she says, he will run +into your arms, and know you for his father." + +"And I shall be ashamed to look at him!" said Tom. + +An hour or so after, he woke from a short sleep, and his eyes sought +Letty's watching face. + +"I have seen baby," he said, "and he has forgiven me. I dare say it was +only a dream," he added, "but somehow it makes me happier. At least, I +know how the thing might be." + +"It was true, whether it was but a dream or something more," said Mary, +who happened to be by. + +"Thank you, Mary," he returned. "You and Letty have saved me from what +I dare not think of! I could die happy now--if it weren't for one +thing." + +"What is that?" asked Mary. + +"I am ashamed to say," he replied, "but I ought to say it and bear the +shame, for the man who does shamefully ought to be ashamed. It is that, +when I am in my grave--or somewhere else, for I know Mary does not like +people to talk about being in their graves--you say it is heathenish, +don't you, Mary?--when I am where they can't find me, then, it is +horrid to think that people up here will have a hold on me and a right +over me still, because of debts I shall never be able to pay them." + +"Don't be too sure of that, Tom," said Mary, cheerfully. "I think you +will pay them yet.--But I have heard it said," she went on, "that a man +in debt never tells the truth about his debts--as if he had only the +face to make them, not to talk about them: can you make a clean breast +of it, Tom?" + +"I don't exactly know what they are; but I always did mean to pay them, +and I have some idea about them. I don't think they would come to more +than a hundred pounds." + +"Your mother would not hesitate to pay that for you?" said Mary. + +"I know she wouldn't; but, then, I'm thinking of Letty." + +He paused, and Mary waited. + +"You know, when I am gone," he resumed, "there will be nothing for her +but to go to my mother; and it breaks my heart to think of it. Every +sin of mine she will lay to her charge; and how am I to lie still in my +grave--oh, I beg your pardon, Mary." + +"I will pay your debts, Tom, and gladly," said Mary, "if they don't +come to much more than you say--than you think, I mean." + +"But, don't you see, Mary, that would be only a shifting of my debt +from them to you? Except for Letty, it would not make the thing any +better." + +"What!" said Mary, "is there no difference between owing a thing to one +who loves you and one who does not? to one who would always be wishing +you had paid him and one who is glad to have even the poor bond of a +debt between you and her? All of us who are sorry for our sins are +brothers and sisters." + +"O Mary!" said Tom. + +"But I will tell you what will be better: let your mother pay your +debts, and I will look after Letty. I will care for her like my own +sister, Tom." + +"Then I shall die happy," said Tom; and from that day began to recover. + +Many who would pay money to keep a man alive or to deliver him from +pain would pay nothing to take a killing load off the shoulders of his +mind. Hunger they can pity--not mental misery. + +Tom would not hear of his mother being written to. + +"I have done Letty wrong enough already," he said, "without subjecting +her to the cruel tongue of my mother. I have conscience enough left not +to have anybody else abuse her." + +"But, Tom," expostulated Mary, "if you want to be good, one of your +first duties is to be reconciled to your mother." + +"I am very sorry things are all wrong between us, Mary," said Tom. +"But, if you want her to come here, you don't know what you are talking +about. She must have everything her own way, or storm from morning to +night. I would gladly make it up with her, but live with her, or die +with her, I could _not_. To make either possible, you must convert her, +too. When you have done that, I will invite her at once." + +"Never mind me, Tom," said Letty. "So long as you love me, I don't care +what even your mother thinks of me. I will do everything I can to make +her comfortable, and satisfied with me." + +"Wait till I am better, anyhow, Letty; for I solemnly assure you I +haven't a chance if my mother comes. I will tell you what, Mary: I +promise you, if I get better, I will do what is possible to be a son to +my mother; and for the present I will dictate a letter, if you will +write it, bidding her good-by, and asking her pardon for everything I +have done wrong by her, which you will please send if I should die. I +can not and I will not promise more." + +He was excited and exhausted, and Mary dared not say another word. Nor +truly did she at the moment see what more could be said. Where all +relation has been perverted, things can not be set right by force. +Perhaps all we can do sometimes is to be willing and wait. + +The letter was dictated and written--a lovely one, Mary thought--and it +made her weep as she wrote it. Tom signed it with his own hand. Mary +folded, sealed, addressed it, and laid it away in her desk. + +The same evening Tom said to Letty, putting his thin, long hand in +hers-- + +"Mary thinks we shall know each other there, Letty." + +"Tom!" interrupted Letty, "don't talk like that; I _can't_ bear it. If +you do, I shall die before you." + +"All I wanted to say," persisted Tom, "was, that I should sit all day +looking out for you, Letty." + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + +THE LEPER. + + +The faint, sweet, luminous jar of bow and string, as betwixt them they +tore the silky air into a dying sound, came hovering--neither could +have said whether it was in the soul only, or there and in the outer +world too. + +"What _is_ that?" said Tom. + +"Mary!" Letty called into the other room, "there is our friend with the +violin again! Don't you think Tom would like to hear him?" + +"Yes, I do," answered Mary. + +"Then would you mind asking him to come and play a little to us? It +would do Tom good, I do think." Mary went up the one stair--all that +now divided them, and found the musician with his sister--his +half-sister she was. + +"I thought we should have you in upon us!" said Ann. "Joe thinks he can +play so as nobody can hear him; and I was fool enough to let him try. I +am sorry." + +"I am glad," rejoined Mary, "and am come to ask him down stairs; for +Mrs. Helmer and I think it will do her husband good to hear him. He is +very fond of music." + +"Much help music will be to him, poor young man!" said Ann, scornfully. + +"Wouldn't you give a sick man a flower, even if it only made him a +little happier for a moment with its scent and its loveliness?" asked +Mary. + +"No, I wouldn't. It would only be to help the deceitful heart to be +more desperately wicked." + +I will not continue the conversation, although they did a little +longer. Ann's father had been a preacher among the followers of +Whitefield, and Ann was a follower of her father. She laid hold upon +the garment of a hard master, a tyrannical God. Happy he who has +learned the gospel according to Jesus, as reported by John--that God is +light, and in him is no darkness at all! Happy he who finds God his +refuge from all the lies that are told for him, and in his name! But it +is love that saves, and not opinion that damns; and let the Master +himself deal with the weeds in his garden as with the tares in his +field. + +"I read my Bible a good deal," said Mary, at last, "but I never found +one of those things you say in it." + +"That's because you were never taught to look for them," said Ann. + +"Very likely," returned Mary. "In the mean time I prefer the +violin--that is, with one like your brother to play it." + +She turned to the door, and Joseph Jasper, who had not spoken a word, +rose and followed her. As soon as they were outside, Mary turned to +him, and begged he would play the same piece with which he had ended on +the former occasion. + +"I thought you did not care for it! I am so glad!" he said. + +"I care for it very much," replied Mary, "and have often thought of it +since. But you left in such haste! before I could find words to thank +you!" + +"You mean the ten lepers, don't you?" he said. "But of course you do. I +always end off with them." + +"Is that how you call it?" returned Mary. "Then you have given me the +key to it, and I shall understand it much better this time, I hope." + +"That is what I call it," said Joseph, "--to myself, I mean, not to +Ann. She would count it blasphemy. God has made so many things that she +thinks must not be mentioned in his hearing!" + +When they entered the room, Joseph, casting a quick look round it, made +at once for the darkest corner. Three swift strides took him there; +and, without more preamble than if he had come upon a public platform +to play, he closed his eyes and began. + +And now at last Mary understood at least this specimen of his strange +music, and was able to fill up the blanks in the impression it formerly +made upon her. Alas, that my helpless ignorance should continue to make +it impossible for me to describe it! + +A movement even and rather slow, full of unexpected chords, wonderful +to Mary, who did not know that such things could be made on the violin, +brought before her mind's eye the man who knew all about everything, +and loved a child more than a sage, walking in the hot day upon the +border be-tween Galilee and Samaria. Sounds arose which she interpreted +as the stir of village life, the crying and calling of domestic +animals, and of busy housewives at their duties, carried on half out of +doors, in the homeliness of country custom. Presently the instrument +began to tell the gathering of a crowd, with bee-like hum, and the +crossing of voice with voice--but, at a distance, the sounds confused +and obscure. Swiftly then they seemed to rush together, to blend and +lose themselves in the unity of an imploring melody, in which she heard +the words, uttered afar, with uplifted hands and voices, drawing nearer +and nearer as often repeated, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." Then +came a brief pause, and then what, to her now fully roused imagination, +seemed the voice of the Master, saying, "Go show yourselves unto the +priests." Then followed the slow, half-unwilling, not hopeful march of +timeless feet; then a clang as of something broken, then a silence as +of sunrise, then air and liberty--long-drawn notes divided with quick, +hurried ones; then the trampling of many feet, going farther and +farther--merrily, with dance and song; once more a sudden pause--and a +melody in which she read the awe-struck joyous return of one. Steadily +yet eagerly the feet drew nigh, the melody growing at once in awe and +jubilation, as the man came nearer and nearer to him whose word had +made him clean, until at last she saw him fall on his face before him, +and heard his soul rushing forth in a strain of adoring thanks, which +seemed to end only because it was choked in tears. + +The violin ceased, but, as if its soul had passed from the instrument +into his, the musician himself took up the strain, and in a mellow +tenor voice, with a mingling of air and recitative, and an expression +which to Mary was entrancing, sang the words, "And he was a Samaritan." + +At the sound of his own voice, he seemed to wake up, hung his head for +a moment, as if ashamed of having shown his emotion, tucked his +instrument under his arm, and walked from the room, without a word +spoken on either side. Nor, while he played, had Mary once seen the +face of the man; her soul sat only in the porch of her ears, and not +once looked from the windows of her eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + +MARY AND MR. REDMAIN. + + +A few rudiments of righteousness lurked, in their original +undevelopment, but still in a measure active, in the being of Mr. +Redmain: there had been in the soul of his mother, I suspect, a strain +of generosity, and she had left a mark of it upon him, and it was the +best thing about him. But in action these rudiments took an evil shape. + +Preferring inferior company, and full of that suspicion which puts the +last edge upon what the world calls knowledge of human nature, he +thought no man his equal in penetrating the arena of motive, and +reading actions in the light of motive; and, that the fundamental +principle of all motive was self-interest, he assumed to be beyond +dispute. With this candle, not that of the Lord, he searched the dark +places of the soul; but, where the soul was light, his candle could +show him nothing--served only to blind him yet further, if possible, to +what was there present. And, because he did not seek the good, never +yet in all his life had he come near enough to a righteous man to +recognize that in something or other that man was different from +himself. As for women--there was his wife--of whom he was willing to +think as well as she would let him! And she, firmly did he believe, was +an angel beside Sepia!--of whom, bad as she was, it is quite possible +he thought yet worse than she deserved: alas for the woman who is not +good, and falls under the judgment of a bad man!--the good woman he can +no more hurt than the serpent can bite the adamant. He believed he knew +Sepia's self, although he did not yet know her history; and he scorned +her the more that he was not a hair better himself. He had regard +enough for his wife, and what virtue his penetration conceded her, to +hate their intimacy; and ever since his marriage had been scheming how +to get rid of Sepia--only, however, through finding her out: he must +unmask her: there would be no satisfaction in getting rid of her +without his wife's convinced acquiescence. He had been, therefore, +almost all the time more or less on the watch to uncover the wickedness +he felt sure lay at no great depth beneath her surface; and in the mean +time, and for the sake of this end, he lived on terms of decent +domiciliation with her. She had no suspicion how thin was the crust +between her and the lava. + +In Cornwall, he began at length to puzzle himself about Mary. Of course +she was just like the rest! but he did not at once succeed in fitting +what he saw to what he entirely believed of her. She remained, like +Sepia, a riddle to be solved. He was not so ignorant as his wife +concerning the relations of the different classes, and he felt certain +there must be some reason, of course a discreditable one, for her +leaving her former, and taking her present, position. The attack he had +in Cornwall afforded him unexpected opportunity of making her out, as +he called it. + +Upon this occasion it was also that Mary first ventured to expostulate +with her mistress on her neglect of her husband. She heard her +patiently; and the same day, going to his room, paid him some small +attention--handed him his medicine, I believe, but clumsily, because +ungraciously. The next moment, one of his fits of pain coming on, he +broke into such a torrent of cursing as swept her in stately dignity +from the room. She would not go near him again. + +"Brought up as you have been, Mary," she said, "you can not enter into +the feelings of one in my position, to whom the very tone even of +coarse language is unspeakably odious. It makes me sick with disgust. +Coarseness is what no lady can endure. I beg you will not mention Mr. +Redmain to me again." + +"Dear Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, "ugly as such language is, there are +many things worse. It seems to me worse that a wife should not go near +her husband when he is suffering than that he should in his pain speak +bad words." + +She had been on the point of saying that a thin skin was not purity, +but bethought herself in time. + +"You are scarcely in a position to lay down the law for me, Mary," said +Hesper. "We will, if you please, drop the subject." + +Mary's words were overheard, as was a good deal in the house more than +was reckoned on, and reached Mr. Redmain, whom they perplexed: what +could the young woman hope from taking his part? + +One morning, after the arrival of Mewks, his man, Mary heard Mr. +Redmain calling him in a tone which betrayed that he had been calling +for some time: the house was an old one, and the bells were neither in +good trim, nor was his in a convenient position. She thought first to +find Mewks, but pity rose in her heart. She ran to Mr. Redmain's door, +which stood half open, and showed herself. + +"Can _I_ not do something for you, sir?" she said. + +"Yes, you can. Go and tell that lumbering idiot to come to me +instantly. No! here, you!--there's a good girl!--Oh, damn!--Just give +me your hand, and help me to turn an inch or two." + +Change of posture relieved him a little. "Thank you," he said. "That is +better. Wait a few moments, will you--till the rascal comes?" + +Mary stood back, a little behind him, thinking not to annoy him with +the sight of her. + +"What are you doing there?" he cried. "I like to see what people are +about in my room. Come in front here, and let me look at you." + +Mary obeyed, and with a smile took the position he pointed out to her. +Immediately followed another agony of pain, in which he looked beset +with demons, whom he not feared but hated. Mary hurried to him, and, in +the compassion which she inherited long back of Eve, took his hand, the +fingers of which were twisting themselves into shapes like tree-roots. +With a hoarse roar, he dashed hers from him, as if it had been a +serpent. She returned to her place, and stood. + +"What did you mean by that?" he said, when he came to himself. "Do you +want to make a fool of me?" + +Mary did not understand him, and made no reply. Another fit came. This +time she kept her distance. + +"Come here," he howled; "take my head in your hands." + +She obeyed. + +"Damned nice hands you've got!" he gasped; "much nicer than your +mistress's." + +Mary took no notice. Gently she withdrew her hands, for the fit was +over. + +"I see! that's the way of you!" he said, as she stepped back. "But come +now, tell me how it is that a nice, well-behaved, handsome girl like +you, should leave a position where, they tell me, you were your own +mistress, and take a cursed place as lady's maid to my wife." + +"It was because I liked Mrs. Redmain so much," answered Mary. "But, +indeed, I was not very comfortable where I was." + +"What the devil did you see to like in her? I never saw anything!" + +"She is so beautiful!" said Mary. + +"Is she! ho! ho!" he laughed. "What is that to another woman! You are +new to the trade, my girl, if you think that will go down! One woman +taking to another because 'she's so beautiful'! Ha! ha! ha!" + +He repeated Mary's words with an indescribable contempt, and his laugh +was insulting to a degree; but it went off in a cry of suffering. + +"Hypocrisy mustn't be too barefaced," he resumed, when again his +torture abated. "I didn't make you stop to amuse me! It's little of +that this beastly world has got for me! Come, a better reason for +waiting on my wife?" + +"That she was kind to me," said Mary, "may be a better reason, but it +is not a truer." + +"It's more than ever she was to me! What wages does she give you?" + +"We have not spoken about that yet, sir." + +"You haven't had any?" + +"I haven't wanted any yet." + +"Then what the deuce ever made you come to this house?" + +"I hoped to be of some service to Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, growing +troubled. + +"And you ain't of any? Is that why you don't want wages?" + +"No, sir. That is not the reason." + +"Then what _is_ the reason? Come! Trust me. I will be much better to +you than your mistress. Out with it! I knew there was something!" + +"I would rather not talk more about it," said Mary, knowing that her +feeling in relation to Hesper would be altogether incredible, and the +notion of it ridiculous to him. + +"You needn't mind telling _me_! I know all about such things.--Look +here! Give me that pocket-book on the table." + +Mary brought him the pocket-book. He opened it, and, taking from it +some notes, held them out to her. + +"If your mistress won't pay you your wages, I will. There! take that. +You're quite welcome. What matter which pays you? It all comes out of +the same stocking-foot." + +"I don't know yet," answered Mary, "whether I shall accept wages from +Mrs. Redmain. Something might happen to make it impossible; or, if I +had taken money, to make me regret it." + +"I like that! There you keep a hold on her!" said Mr. Redmain, in a +confidential tone, while in his heart he was more puzzled than ever. +"There's no occasion, though, for all that," he went on, "to go without +your money when you can have it and she be nothing the wiser. +There--take it. I will swear you any oath you like not to tell my +stingy wife." + +"She is not stingy," said Mary; "and, if I don't take wages from her, I +certainly shall not from any one else.--Besides," she added, "it would +be dishonest." + +"Oh! that's the dodge!" said Mr. Redmain to himself; but aloud, "Where +would be the dishonesty, when the money is mine to do with as I please?" + +"Where the dishonesty, sir!" exclaimed Mary, astounded. "To take wages +from you, and pretend to Mrs. Redmain I was going without!" + +"Ha! ha! The first time, no doubt, you ever pretended anything!" + +"It would be," said Mary, "so far as I can, at the moment, remember." + +"Go along," cried Mr. Redmain, losing, or pretending to lose, patience +with her; "you are too unscrupulous a liar for me to deal with." + +Mary turned and left the room. As she went, his keen glance caught the +expression of her countenance, and noted the indignant red that flushed +her cheeks, and the lightning of wronged innocence in her eyes. + +"I ought not to have said it," he remarked to himself. + +He did not for a moment fancy she had spoken the truth; but the look of +her went to a deeper place in him than he knew even the existence of. + +"Hey! stop," he cried, as she was disappearing. "Come back, will you?" + +"I will find Mr. Mewks," she answered, and went. + +After this, Mary naturally dreaded conference with Mr. Redmain; and he, +thinking she must have time to get over the offense he had given her, +made for the present no fresh attempt to come, by her own aid, at a +bird's-eye view of her character and scheme of life. His curiosity, +however, being in no degree assuaged concerning the odd human animal +whose spoor he had for the moment failed to track, he meditated how +best to renew the attempt in London. Not small, therefore, was his +annoyance to find, a few days after his arrival, that she was no longer +in the house. He questioned his wife as to the cause of her absence, +and told her she was utterly heartless in refusing her leave to go and +nurse her friend; whereupon Hesper, neither from desire to do right nor +from regard to her husband's opinion, but because she either saw or +fancied she saw that, now Mary did not dress her, she no longer caused +the same sensation on entering a room, resolved to write to her--as if +taking it for granted she had meant to return as soon as she was able. +And to prick the sides of this intent came another spur, as will be +seen from the letter she wrote: + +"Dear Mary, can you tell me what is become of my large sapphire ring? I +have never seen it since you brought my case up with you from Cornwall. +I have been looking for it all the morning, but in vain. You _must_ +have it. I shall be lost without it, for you know it has not its equal +for color and brilliance. I do not believe you intended for a moment to +keep it, but only to punish me for thinking I could do without you. If +so, you have your revenge, for I find I can not do without either of +you--you or the ring--so you will not carry the joke further than I can +bear. If you can not come at once, write and tell me it is safe, and I +shall love you more than ever. I am dying to see you again. Yours +faithfully, H. R." + +By this time, Letty was much better, and Tom no longer required such +continuous attention; Mary, therefore, betook herself at once to Mr. +Redmain's. Hesper was out shopping, and Mary went to her own room to +wait for her, where she was glad of the opportunity of getting at some +of the things she had left behind her. + +"While she was looking for what she wanted, Sepia entered, and was, or +pretended to be, astonished to see her. In a strange, sarcastic tone: + +"Ah, you there!" she said. "I hope you will find it." + +"If you mean the ring, that is not likely, Miss Yolland," Mary answered. + +Sepia was silent a moment or two, then said: + +"How is your cousin?" + +"I have no cousin," replied Mary. + +"The person, I mean, you have been staying with?" + +"Better, thank you." + +"Almost a pity, is it not--if there should come trouble about this +ring?" + +"I do not understand you. The ring will, of course, be found," returned +Mary. + +"In any case the blame will come on you: it was in your charge." + +"The ring was in the case when I left." + +"You will have to prove that." + +"I remember quite well." + +"That no one will question." + +Beginning at last to understand her insinuations, Mary was so angry +that she dared not speak. + +"But it will hardly go to clear you," Sepia went on. "Don't imagine I +mean you have taken it; I am only warning you how the matter will look, +that you may be prepared. Mr. Redmain is one to believe the worst +things of the best people." + +"I am obliged to you," said Mary, "but I am not anxious." + +"It is necessary you should know also," continued Sepia, "that there is +some suspicion attaching to a female friend of yours as well, a young +woman who used to visit you--the wife of the other, it is supposed. She +was here, I remember, one night there was a party; I saw you together +in my cousin's bedroom. She had just dressed and gone down." + +"I remember," said Mary. "It was Mrs. Helmer." + +"Well?" + +"It is very unfortunate, certainly; but the truth must be told: a few +days before you left, one of the servants, hearing some one in the +house in the middle of the night, got up and went down, but only in +time to hear the front door open and shut. In the morning a hat was +found in the drawing-room, with the name _Thomas Helmer_ in it: that is +the name of your friend's husband, I believe?" + +"I am aware Mr. Helmer was a frequent visitor," said Mary, trying to +keep cool for what was to come. + +This that Sepia told her was true enough, though she was not accurate +as to the time of its occurrence. I will relate briefly how it came +about. + +Upon a certain evening, a few days before Mary's return from Cornwall, +Tom would have gone to see Miss Yolland had he not known that she meant +to go to the play with a Mr. Emmet, a cousin of the Redmains. Before +the hour arrived, however, Count Galofta called, and Sepia went out +with him, telling the man who opened the door to ask Mr. Emmet to wait. +The man was rather deaf, and did not catch with certainty the name she +gave. Mr. Emmet did not appear, and it was late before Sepia returned. + +Tom, jealous even to hatred, spent the greater part of his evening in a +tavern on the borders of the city--in gloomy solitude, drinking +brandy-and-water, and building castles of the most foolish type--for +castles are as different as the men that build them. Through all the +rooms of them glided the form of Sepia, his evil genius. He grew more +and more excited as he built, and as he drank. He rose at last, paid +his bill, and, a little suspicious of his equilibrium, stalked into the +street. There, almost unconsciously, he turned and walked westward. It +was getting late; before long the theatres would be emptying: he might +have a peep of Sepia as she came out!--but where was the good when that +fellow was with her! "But," thought Tom, growing more and more daring +as in an adventurous dream, "why should I not go to the house, and see +her after he has left her at the door?" + +He went to the house and rang the bell. The man came, and said +immediately that Miss Yolland was out, but had desired him to ask Mr. +Helmer to wait; whereupon Tom walked in, and up the stair to the +drawing-room, thence into a second and a third drawing-room, and from +the last into the conservatory. The man went down and finished his +second, pint of ale. From the conservatory, Tom, finding himself in +danger of havoc among the flower-pots, turned back into the third room, +threw himself on a couch, and fell fast asleep. + +He woke in the middle of the night in pitch darkness; and it was some +time before he could remember where he was. When he did, he recognized +that he was in an awkward predicament. But he knew the house well, and +would make the attempt to get out undiscovered. It was foolish, but Tom +was foolish. Feeling his way, he knocked down a small table with a +great crash of china, and, losing his equanimity, rushed for the stair. +Happily the hall lamp was still alight, and he found no trouble with +bolts or lock: the door was not any way secured. + +The first breath of the cold night-air brought with it such a gush of +joy as he had rarely experienced; and he trod the silent streets with +something of the pleasure of an escaped criminal, until, alas! the +wind, at the first turning, let him know that he had left his hat +behind him! He felt as if he had committed a murder, and left his +card-case with the body. A vague terror grew upon him as he hurried +along. Justice seemed following on his track. He had found the door on +the latch: if anything was missing, how should he explain the presence +of his hat without his own? The devil of the brandy he had drunk was +gone out of him, and only the gray ashes of its evil fire were left in +his sick brain, but it had helped first to kindle another fire, which +was now beginning to glow unsuspected--that of a fever whose fuel had +been slowly gathering for some time. + +He opened the door with his pass-key, and hurried up the stair, his +long legs taking three steps at a time. Never before had he felt as if +he were fleeing to a refuge when going home to his wife. + +He opened the door of the sitting-room--and there on the floor lay +Letty and little Tom, as I have already told. + +"Why have I heard nothing of this before?" said Mary. + +"I am not aware of any right you have to know what happens in this +house." + +"Not from you, of course, Miss Yolland--perhaps not from Mrs. Redmain; +but the servants talk of most things, and I have not heard a word--" + +"How could you," interrupted Sepia, "when you were not in the +house?--And, so long as nothing was missed, the thing was of no +consequence," she added. "Now it is different." + +This confused Mary a little. She stopped to consider. One thing was +clear--that, if the ring was not lost till after she left--and of so +much she was sure--it could not be Tom that had taken it, for he was +then ill in bed. Something to this effect she managed to say. + +"I told you already," returned Sepia, "that I had no suspicion of +him--at least, I desire to have none, but you may be required to prove +all you say; and it is as well to let you understand--though there is +no reason why _I_ should take the trouble--that your going to those +very people at the time, and their proving to be friends of yours, adds +to the difficulty." + +"How?" asked Mary. + +"I am not on the jury," replied Sepia, with indifference. + +The scope of her remarks seemed to Mary intended to show that any +suspicion of her would only be natural. For the moment the idea amused +her. But Sepia's way of talking about Tom, whatever she meant by it, +was disgraceful! + +"I am astonished you should seem so indifferent," she said, "if the +character of a gentleman with whom you have been so intimate is so +seriously threatened as you would imply. I know he has been to see you +more than once while Mr. and Mrs. Redmain were not yet returned." + +Sepia's countenance changed; an evil fire glowed in her eyes, and she +looked at Mary as if she would search her to the bone. The poorer the +character, the more precious the repute! + +"The foolish fellow," she returned, with a smile of contempt, "chose to +fall in love with me!--A married man, too!" + +"If you understood that, how did he come to be here so often?" asked +Mary, looking her in the face. + +But Sepia knew better than declare war a moment before it was +unavoidable. + +"Have I not just told you," she said, in a haughty tone, "that the man +was in love with me?" + +"And have you not just told me he was a married man? Could he have come +to the house so often without at least your permission?" + +Mary was actually taking the upper hand with her! Sepia felt it with +scarcely repressive rage. + +"He deserved the punishment," she replied, with calmness. + +"You do not seem to have thought of his wife!" + +"Certainly not. She never gave me offense." + +"Is offense the only ground for casting a regard on a fellow-creature?" + +"Why should I think of her?" + +"Because she was your neighbor, and you were doing her a wrong." + +"Once for all, Marston," cried Sepia, overcome at last, "this kind of +thing will not do with me. I may not be a saint, but I have honesty +enough to know the genuine thing from humbug. You have thrown dust in a +good many eyes in this house, but _none_ in mine." + +By this time Mary had got her temper quite in hand, taking a lesson +from the serpent, who will often keep his when the dove loses hers. She +hardly knew what fear was, for she had in her something a little +stronger than what generally goes by the name of faith. She was +therefore able to see that she ought, if possible, to learn Sepia's +object in talking thus to her. + +"Why do you say all this to me?" she asked, quietly. "I can not flatter +myself it is from friendship." + +"Certainly not. But the motive may be worthy, for all that. You are not +the only one involved. People who would pass for better than their +neighbors will never believe any good purpose in one who does not +choose to talk their slang." + +Sepia had repressed her rage, and through it looked aggrieved. "She +confesses to a purpose," said Mary to herself, and waited. + +"They are not all villains who are not saints," Sepia went on. "--This +man's wife is your friend?" + +"She is." + +"Well, the man himself is my friend--in a sort of a sense." A strange +shiver went through Mary, and seemed to make her angry. Sepia went on: + +"I confess I allowed the poor boy--he is little more--to talk foolishly +to me. I was amused at first, but perhaps I have not quite escaped +unhurt; and, as a woman, you must understand that, when a woman has +once felt in that way, if but for a moment, she would at least +be--sorry--" Here her voice faltered, and she did not finish the +sentence, but began afresh: "What I want of you is, through his wife, +or any way you think best, to let the poor fellow know he had better +slip away--to France, say--and stop there till the thing blow over." + +"But why should you imagine he has had anything to do with the matter? +The ring will be found, and then the hat will not signify." + +"Well," replied Sepia, putting on an air of openness, and for that sake +an air of familiarity, "I see I must tell you the whole truth. I never +did for a moment believe Mr. Helmer had anything to do with the +business, though, when you put me out of temper, I pretended to believe +it, and that you were in it as well: that was mere irritation. But +there is sure to be trouble; for my cousin is miserable about her +sapphire, which she values more than anything she has; and, if it is +not found, the affair will be put into the hands of the police, and +then what will become of poor Mr. Helmer, be he as innocent as you and +I believe him! Even if the judge should declare that he leaves the +court without a blot on his character, Newgate mud is sure to stick, +and he will be half looked upon as a thief for the rest of his days: +the world is so unjust. Nor is that all; for they will put you in the +witness-box, and make you confess the man an old friend of yours from +the same part of the country; whereupon the counsel for the prosecution +will not fail to hint that you ought to be standing beside the accused. +Believe me, Mary, that, if Mr. Helmer is taken up for this, you will +not come out of it clean." + +"Still you explain nothing," said Mary. "You would not have me believe +it is for my sake you are giving yourself all this trouble?" + +"No. But I thought you would see where I was leading you. For--and now +for the _whole_ truth--although nothing can touch the character of one +in my position, it would be worse than awkward for me to be spoken of +in connection with the poor fellow's visits to the house: _my_ honesty +would not be called in question as yours would, but what is dear to me +as my honesty might--nay, it certainly would. You see now why I came to +you!--You must go to his wife, or, better still, to Mr. Helmer himself, +and tell him what I have been saying to you. He will at once see the +necessity of disappearing for a while." + +Mary had listened attentively. She could not help fearing that +something worse than unpleasant might be at hand; but she did not +believe in Sepia, and in no case could consent that Tom should +compromise himself. Danger of this kind must be met, not avoided. +Still, whatever could be done ought to be done to protect him, +especially in his present critical state. A breath of such a suspicion +as this reaching him might be the death of him, and of Letty, too. + +"I will think over what you have said," she answered; "but I can not +give him the advice you wish me. What I shall do I can not say--the +thing has come upon me with such a shock." + +"You have no choice that I see," said Sepia. "It is either what I +propose or ruin. I give you fair warning that I will stick at nothing +where my reputation is concerned. You and yours shall be trod in the +dirt before I allow a spot on my character!" + +To Mary's relief they were here interrupted by the hurried entrance of +Mrs. Redmain. She almost ran up to her, and took her by both hands. + +"You dear creature! You have brought me my ring!" she cried. + +Mary shook her head with a little sigh. + +"But you have come to tell me where it is?" + +"Alas! no, dear Mrs. Redmain!" said Mary. + +"Then you must find it," she said, and turned away with an +ominous-looking frown. "I will do all I can to help you find it." + +"Oh, you _must_ find it! My jewel-case was in your charge." + +"But there has been time to lose everything in it, the one after the +other, since I gave it up. The sapphire ring was there, I know, when I +went." + +"That can not be. You gave me the box, and I put it away myself, and, +the next time I looked in it, it was not there." + +"I wish I had asked you to open it when I gave it you," said Mary. + +"I wish you had," said Hesper. "But the ring must be found, or I shall +send for the police." + +"I will not make matters worse, Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, with as much +calmness as she could assume, and much was needed, "by pointing out +what your words imply. If you really mean what you say, it is I who +must insist on the police being sent for." + +"I am sure, Mary," said Sepia, speaking for the first time since +Hesper's entrance, "that your mistress has no intention of accusing +you." + +"Of course not," said Hesper; "only, what am I to do? I must have my +ring. Why did you come, if you had nothing to tell me about it?" + +"How could I stay away when you were in trouble? Have you searched +everywhere?" + +"Everywhere I can think of." + +"Would you like me to help you look? I feel certain it will be found." + +"No, thank you. I am sick of looking." + +"Shall I go, then?--What would you like me to do?" + +"Go to your room, and wait till I send for you." + +"I must not be long away from my invalids," said Mary, as cheerfully as +she could. + +"Oh, indeed! I thought you had come back to your work!" + +"I did not understand from your letter you wished that, ma'am--though, +indeed, I could not have come just yet in any case." + +"Then you mean to go, and leave things just as they are?" + +"I am afraid there is no help for it. If I could do anything-. But I +will call again to-morrow, and every day till the ring is found, if you +like." + +"Thank you," said Hesper, dryly; "I don't think that would be of much +use." + +"I will call anyhow," returned Mary, "and inquire whether you would +like to see me.--I will go to my room now, and while I wait will get +some things I want." + +"As you please," said Hesper. + +Scarcely was Mary in her room, however, when she heard the door, which +had the trick of falling-to of itself, closed and locked, and knew that +she was a prisoner. For one moment a frenzy of anger overcame her; the +next, she remembered where her life was hid, knew that nothing could +touch her, and was calm. While she took from her drawers the things she +wanted, and put them in her hand-bag, she heard the door unlocked, but, +as no one entered, she sat down to wait what would next arrive. + +Mrs. Redmain, as soon as she was aware of her loss, had gone in her +distress to tell her husband, whose gift the ring had been. Unlike his +usual self, he had showed interest in the affair. She attributed this +to the value of the jewel, and the fact that he had himself chosen it: +he was rather, and thought himself very, knowing in stones; and the +sapphire was in truth a most rare one: but it was for quite other +reasons that Mr. Redmain cared about its loss: it would, he hoped, like +the famous carbuncle, cast a light all round it. + +He was as yet by no means well, and had not been from the house since +his return. + +The moment Mary was out of the room, Hesper rose. + +"I should be a fool to let her leave the house," she said. + +"Hesper, you will do nothing but mischief," cried Sepia. + +Hesper paid no attention, but, going after Mary, locked the door of her +room, and, running to her husband's, told him she had made her a +prisoner. + +No sooner was she in her husband's room than Sepia hastened to unlock +Mary's door; but, just as she did so, she heard some one on the stair +above, and retreated without going in. She would then have turned the +key again, but now she heard steps on the stair below, and once more +withdrew. + +Mary heard a knock at her door. Mewks entered. He brought a request +from his master that she would go to his room. + +She rose and went, taking her bag with her. + +"You may go now, Mrs. Redmain," said her husband when Mary entered. +"Get out, Mewks," he added; and both lady and valet disappeared. + +"So!" he said, with a grin of pleasure. "Here's a pretty business! You +may sit down, though. You haven't got the ring in that bag there?" + +"Nor anywhere else, sir," answered Mary. "Shall I shake it out on the +floor?--or on the sofa would be better." + +"Nonsense! You don't imagine me such a fool as to suppose, if you had +it, you would carry it about in your bag!" + +"You don't believe I have it, sir--do you?" she returned, in a tone of +appeal. + +"How am I to know what to believe? There is something dubious about +you--you have yourself all but admitted that: how am I to know that +robbery mayn't be your little dodge? All that rubbish you talked down +at Lychford about honesty, and taking no wages, and loving your +mistress, and all that rot, looks devilish like something off the +square! That ring, now, the stone of it alone, is worth seven hundred +pounds: one might let pretty good wages go for a chance like that!" + +Mary looked him in the face, and made him no answer. He spied a danger: +if he irritated her, he would get nothing out of her! + +"My girl," he said, changing his tone, "I believe you know nothing +about the ring; I was only teasing you." + +Mary could not help a sigh of relief, and her eyes fell, for she felt +them beginning to fill. She could not have believed that the judgment +of such a man would ever be of consequence to her. But the unity of the +race is a thing that can not be broken. + +Now, although Mr. Redmain was by no means so sure of her innocence as +he had pretended, he did at least wish and hope to find her +innocent--from no regard for her, but because there was another he +would be more glad to find concerned in the ugly affair. + +"Mrs. Redmain," he went on, "would have me hand you over to the police; +but I won't. You may go home when you please, and you need fear +nothing." + +He had the house where the Helmers lodged already watched, and knew +this much, that some one was ill there, and that the doctor came almost +every day. + +"I certainly shall fear nothing," said Mary, not quite trusting him; +"my fate is in God's hands." + +"We know all about that," said Mr. Redmain; "I'm up to most dodges. But +look here, my girl: it wouldn't be prudent in me, lest there should be +such a personage as you have just mentioned, to be hard upon any of my +fellow-creatures: I am one day pretty sure to be in misfortune myself. +You mightn't think it of me, but I am not quite a heathen, and do +reflect a little at times. You may be as wicked as myself, or as good +as Joseph, for anything I know or care, for, as I say, it ain't my +business to judge you. Tell me now what you are up to, and I will make +it the better for you." + +Mary had been trying hard to get at what he was "up to," but found +herself quite bewildered. + +"I am sorry, sir," she faltered, "but I haven't the slightest idea what +you mean." + +"Then you go home," he said. "I will send for you when I want you." + +The moment she was out of the room, he rang his bell violently. Mewks +appeared. + +"Go after that young woman--do you hear? You know her--Miss--damn it, +what's her name?--Harland or Cranston, or--oh, hang it! you know well +enough, you rascal!" + +"Do you mean Miss Marston, sir?" + +"Of course I do! Why didn't you say so before? Go after her, I tell +you; and make haste. If she goes straight home--you know where--come +back as soon as she's inside the door." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Damn you, go, or you'll lose sight of her!" + +"I'm a-listenin' after the street-door, sir. It ain't gone yet. There +it is now!" + +And with the word he left the room. + +Mary was too much absorbed in her own thoughts to note that she was +followed by a man with the collar of his great-coat up to his eyes, and +a woolen comforter round his face. She walked on steadily for home, +scarce seeing the people that passed her. It was clear to Mewks that +she had not a suspicion of being kept in sight. He saw her in at her +own door, and went back to his master. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + +JOSEPH JASPER. + + +Another fact Mewks carried to his master--namely, that, as Mary came +near the door of the house, she was met by "a rough-looking man," who +came walking slowly along, as if he had been going up and down waiting +for her. He made her an awkward bow as she drew near, and she stopped +and had a long conversation with him--such at least it seemed to Mewks, +annoyed that he could hear nothing of it, and fearful of attracting +their attention--after which the man went away, and Mary went into the +house. This report made his master grin, for, through the description +Mewks gave, he suspected a thief disguised as a workman; but, his hopes +being against the supposition, he dwelt the less upon it. + +The man who stopped Mary, and whom, indeed, she would have stopped, was +Joseph Jasper, the blacksmith. That he was rough in appearance, no one +who knew him would have wished himself able to deny, and one less like +a thief would have been hard to find. His hands were very rough and +ingrained with black; his fingers were long, but chopped off square at +the points, and had no resemblance to the long, tapering fingers of an +artist or pickpocket. His clothes were of corduroy, not very grimy, +because of the huge apron of thick leather he wore at his work, but +they looked none the better that he had topped them with his tall +Sunday hat. His complexion was a mixture of brown and browner; his +black eyebrows hung far over the blackest of eyes, the brightest +flashing of which was never seen, because all the time he played he +kept them closed tight. His face wore its natural clothing--a mustache +thick and well-shaped, and a beard not too large, of a color that +looked like black burned brown. His hair was black and curled all over +his head. His whole appearance was that of a workman; a careless glance +could never have suspected him a poet-musician; as little could even +such a glance have failed to see in him an honest man. He was +powerfully built, over the middle height, but not tall. He spoke very +fair old-fashioned English, with the Yorkshire tone and turn. His walk +was rather plodding, and his movements slow and stiff; but in communion +with his violin they were free enough, and the more delicate for the +strength that was in them; at the anvil they were as supple as +powerful. On his face dwelt an expression that was not to be read by +the indifferent--a waiting in the midst of work, as of a man to whom +the sense of the temporary was always present, but present with the +constant reminder that, just therefore, work must be as good as work +can be that things may last their due time. + +The following was the conversation concerning the purport of which +Mewks was left to what conjecture was possible to a serving-man of his +stamp. + +Mary held out her hand to Jasper, and it disappeared in his. He held it +for a moment with a great but gentle grasp, and, as he let it go, said: + +"I took the liberty of watching for you, miss. I wanted to ask a favor +of you. It seemed to me you would take no offense." + +"You might be sure of that," Mary answered. "You have a right to +anything I can do for you." + +He fixed his gaze on her for a moment, as if he did not understand her. +"That's where it is," he said: "I've _done_ nothing for your people. +It's all very well to go playing and playing, but that's not doing +anything; and, if _he_ had done nothing, there would ha' been no +fiddling. You understand me, miss, I know: work comes before music, and +makes the soul of it; it's not the music that makes the doing. I'm a +poor hand at saying without my fiddle, miss: you'll excuse me." + +Mary's heart was throbbing. She had not heard a word like this--not +since her father went to what people call the "long home"--as if a home +could be too long! What do we want but an endless home?--only it is not +the grave! She felt as if the spirit of her father had descended on the +strange workman, and had sent him to her. She looked at him with +shining eyes, and did not speak. He resumed, as fearing he had not +conveyed his thought. + +"What I think I mean is, miss, that, if the working of miracles in his +name wouldn't do it, it's not likely playing the fiddle will." + +"Oh, I understand you so well!" said Mary, in a voice hardly her own, +"--so well! It makes me happy to hear you! Tell me what I can do for +you." + +"The poor gentleman in there must want all the help you can give him, +and more. There must be something left, surely, for a man to do. He +must want lifting at times, for instance, and that's not fit for either +of you ladies." + +"Thank you," said Mary, heartily. "I will mention it to Mrs. Helmer, +and I am sure she will be very glad of your help sometimes." + +"Couldn't you ask her now, miss? I should like to know at what hour I +might call. But perhaps the best way would be to walk about here in the +evening, after my day's work is over, and then you could run down any +time, and look out: that would be enough; I should be there. Saturday +nights I could just as well be there all night." + +To Tom and Letty it seemed not a little peculiar that a man so much a +stranger should be ready to walk about the street in order to be at +hand with help for them; but Mary was only delighted, not surprised, +for what the man had said to her made the thing not merely +intelligible, but absolutely reasonable. + +Joseph was not, however, allowed to wander the street. The arrangement +made was, that, as soon as his work was over, he should come and see +whether there was anything he could do for them. And he never came but +there was plenty to do. He took a lodging close by, that he might be +with them earlier, and stay later; and, when nothing else was wanted of +him, he was always ready to discourse on his violin. Sometimes Tom +enjoyed his music much, though he found no little fault with his mode +of playing, for Tom knew something about everything, and could render +many a reason; at other times, he preferred having Mary read to him. + +On one of these latter occasions, Mary, occupied in cooking something +for the invalid, asked Joseph to read for her. He consented, but read +very badly--as if he had no understanding of the words, but, on the +other hand, stopping every few lines, apparently to think and master +what he had read. This was not good reading anyway, least of all for an +invalid who required the soothing of half-thought, molten and diluted +in sweet, even, monotonous sound, and it was long before Mary asked him +again. + +Many things showed that he had had little education, and therefore +probably the more might be made of him. Mary saw that he must be what +men call a genius, for his external history had been, by his own +showing, of an altogether commonplace type. + +His father, who was a blacksmith before him, and a local preacher, had +married a second time, and Joseph was the only child of the second +marriage. His father had brought him up to his own trade, and, after +his death, Joseph came to work in London, whither his sister had +preceded him. He was now thirty, and had from the first been saving +what he could of his wages in the hope of one day having a smithy of +his own, and his time more at his ordering. + +Mary saw too that in his violin he possessed a grand fundamental +undeveloped education; he was like a man going about the world with a +ten-thousand-pound-note in his pocket, and not many sixpences to pay +his way with. But there was another education working in him far +deeper, and already more developed, than that which divine music even +was giving him; this also Mary thoroughly recognized; this it was in +him that chiefly attracted her; and the man himself knew it as +underlying all his consciousness. + +Though he could ill read aloud, he could read well for his inward +nourishment; he could write tolerably, and, if he could not spell, that +mattered a straw, and no more; he had never read a play of +Shakespeare--had never seen a play; knew nothing of grammar or +geography--or of history, except the one history comprising all. He +knew nothing of science; but he could shoe a horse as well as any man +in the three Ridings, and make his violin talk about things far beyond +the ken of most men of science. + +So much of a change had passed upon Tom in his illness, that Mary saw +it not unreasonable to try upon him now and then a poem of her favorite +singer. Occasionally, of course, the feeling was altogether beyond him, +but even then he would sometimes enter into the literary merit of the +utterance. + +"I had no idea there were such gems in George Herbert, Mary!" he said +once. "I declare, some of them are even in their structure finer than +many things that have nothing in them to admire except the structure." + +"That is not to be wondered at," replied Mary. + +"No," said Joseph; "it is not to be wondered at; for it's clear to me +the old gentleman plied a good bow. I can see that plain enough." + +"Tell us how you see it," said Mary, more interested than she would +have liked to show. + +"Easily," he answered. "There was one poem"--he pronounced it +_pome_--"you read just now--" + +"Which? which?" interrupted Mary, eagerly. + +"That I can not tell you; but, all the time you were reading it, I +heard the gentleman--Mr. George Herbert, you call him--playing the tune +to it." + +"If you heard him so well," ventured Mary, "you could, I fancy, play +the tune over again to us." + +"I think I could," he answered, and, rising, went for his instrument, +which he always brought, and hung on an old nail in the wall the moment +he came in. + +He played a few bars of a prelude, as if to get himself into harmony +with the recollection of what he had heard the master play, and then +began a lively melody, in which he seemed as usual to pour out his +soul. Long before he reached the end of it, Mary had reached the poem. + +"This is the one you mean, is it not?" she said, as soon as he had +finished--and read it again. + +In his turn he did not speak till she had ended. + +"That's it, miss," he said then; "I can't mistake it; for, the minute +you began, there was the old gentleman again with his fiddle." + +"And you know now what it says, don't you?" asked Mary. + +"I heard nothing but the old gentleman," answered the musician. + +Mary turned to Tom. + +"Would you mind if I tried to show Mr. Jasper what I see in the poem? +He can't get a hold of it himself for the master's violin in his ears; +it won't let him think about it." + +"I should like myself to hear what you have got to say about it, Mary! +Go on," said Tom. + +Mary had now for a long time been a student of George Herbert; and +anything of a similar life-experience goes infinitely further, to make +one understand another, than any amount of learning or art. Therefore, +better than many a poet, Mary was able to set forth the scope and +design of this one. Herself at the heart of the secret from which came +all his utterance, she could fit herself into most of the convolutions +of the shell of his expression, and was hence able also to make others +perceive in his verse not a little of what they were of themselves +unable to see. + +"We shall have you lecturing at the Royal Institution yet, Mary," said +Tom; "only it will be long before its members care for that sort of +antique." + +Tom's insight had always been ahead of his character, and of late he +had been growing. People do grow very fast in bed sometimes. Also he +had in him plenty of material, to which a childlike desire now began to +give shapes and sequences. + +The musician's remark consisted in taking his violin, and once more +giving his idea of the "old gentleman's" music, but this time with a +richer expression and fuller harmonies. Mary had every reason to be +satisfied with her experiment. From that time she talked a good deal +more about her favorite writers, and interested both the critical taste +of Tom and the artistic instinct of the blacksmith. + +But Joseph's playing had great faults: how could it be otherwise?--and +to Mary great seemed the pity that genius should not be made perfect in +faculty, that it should not have that redemption of its body for which +unwittingly it groaned. And the man was one of those childlike natures +which may indeed go a long time without discovering this or that +external fault in themselves, patent to the eye of many an inferior +onlooker--for the simple soul is the last to see its own outside--but, +once they become aware of it, begin that moment to set the thing right. +At the same time he had not enough of knowledge to render it easy to +show him by words wherein any fault consisted--the nature, the being of +the fault, that is--what it simply was; but Mary felt confident that, +the moment he saw a need, he would obey its law. + +She had taken for herself the rooms below, formerly occupied by the +Helmers, with the hope of seeing them before long reinstated in them; +and there she had a piano, the best she could afford to hire: with its +aid she hoped to do something toward the breaking of the invisible +bonds that tied the wings of Jasper's genius. + +His great fault lay in his time. Dare I suggest that he contented +himself with measuring it to his inner ear, and let his fingers, like +horses which he knew he had safe in hand, play what pranks they +pleased? A reader may, I think, be measuring verse correctly to +himself, and yet make of it nothing but rugged prose to his hearers. +Perhaps this may be how severe masters of quantity in the abstract are +so careless of it in the concrete--in the audible, namely, where alone +it is of value. Shall I analogize yet a little further, and suggest the +many who admire righteousness and work iniquity; who say, "Lord, Lord," +and seldom or never obey? Anyhow, a man may have a good enough ear, +with which he holds all the time a secret understanding, and from +carelessness offend grievously the ears he ought to please; and it was +thus with Joseph Jasper. + +Mary was too wise to hurry anything. One evening when he came as usual, +and she knew he was not at the moment wanted, she asked him to take a +seat while she played something to him. But she was not a little +disappointed in the reception he gave her offering--a delicate morsel +from Beethoven. She tried something else, but with no better result. He +showed little interest: he was not a man capable of showing where +nothing was, for he never meant to show anything; his expression was +only the ripple of the unconscious pool to the sway and swirl of the +fishes below. It seemed as if he had only a narrow entrance for the +admission of music into his understanding--but a large outlet for the +spring that rose within him, and was, therefore, a somewhat remarkable +exception to the common run of mortals: in such, the capacity for +reception far exceeds the capability of production. His dominant +thoughts were in musical form, and easily found their expression in +music; but, mainly no doubt from want of practice in reception, and +experience of variety in embodiment, the forms in which others gave +themselves utterance could not with corresponding readiness find their +way to the sympathetic place in him. But pride or repulsion had no +share in this defect. The man was open and inspired, and stupid as a +child. + +The next time she made the attempt to open this channel between them, +something she played did find him, and for a few minutes he seemed lost +in listening. + +"How nice it would be," she said, "if we could play together sometimes!" + +"Do you mean both at once, miss?" he asked. + +"Yes--you on your violin, and I on the piano." + +"That could hardly be, I'm afraid, miss," he answered; "for, you see, I +don't know always--not exactly--what I'm going to play; and if I don't +know, and you don't know, how are we to keep together?" + +"Nobody can play your own things but yourself, of course--that is, +until you are able to write them down; but, if you would learn +something, we could play that together." + +"I don't know how to learn. I've heard tell of the notes and all that, +but I don't know how to work them." + +"You have heard the choir in the church--all keeping with the organ," +said Mary. + +"Scarcely since I was a child--and not very often then--though my +mother took me sometimes. But I was always wanting to get out again, +and gave no heed." + +"Do you never go to church now?" + +"No, miss--not for long. Time's too precious to waste." + +"How do you spend it, then?" + +"As soon as I've had my breakfast--that's on a Sunday, I mean--I get up +and lock my door, and set myself to have a day of it. Then I read the +next thing where I stopped last--whether it be a chapter or a +verse--till I get the sense of it--if I can't get that, it's no manner +of use to me; and I generally know when I've got it by finding the bow +in one hand and the fiddle in the other. Then, with the two together, I +go stirring and stirring about at the story, and the music keeps coming +and coming; and when it stops, which it does sometimes all at once, +then I go back to the book." + +"But you don't go on like that all day, do you?" said Mary. + +"I generally go on till I'm hungry, and then I go out for something to +eat. My landlady won't get me any dinner. Then I come back and begin +again." + +"Will you let me teach you to read music?" said Mary, more and more +delighted with him, and desirous of contributing to his growth--the one +great service of the universe. + +"If you would, miss, perhaps then I might be able to learn. You see, I +never was like other people. Mother was the only one that didn't take +me for an innocent. She used to talk big things about me, and the rest +used to laugh at her. She gave me her large Testament when she was +dying, but, if it hadn't been for Ann, I should never have been able to +read it well enough to understand it. And now Ann tells me I'm a +heathen and worship my fiddle, because I don't go to chapel with her; +but it do seem such a waste of good time. I'll go to church, though, +miss, if you tell me it's the right thing to do; only it's hard to work +all the week, and be weary all the Sunday. I should only be longing for +my fiddle all the time. You don't think, miss, that a great person like +God cares whether we pray to him in a room or in a church?" + +"No, I don't," answered Mary. "For my own part, I find I can pray best +at home." + +"So can I," said Joseph, with solemn fervor. "Indeed, miss, I can't +pray at all sometimes till I get my fiddle under my chin, and then it +says the prayers for me till I grow able to pray myself. And sometimes, +when I seem to have got to the outside of prayer, and my soul is +hungrier than ever, only I can't tell what I want, all at once I'm at +my fiddle again, and it's praying for me. And then sometimes it seems +as if I lost myself altogether, and God took me, for I'm nowhere and +everywhere all at once." + +Mary thought of the "groanings that can not be uttered." Perhaps that +is just what music is meant for--to say the things that have no shape, +therefore can have no words, yet are intensely alive--the unembodied +children of thought, the eternal child. Certainly the musician can +groan the better with the aid of his violin. Surely this man's +instrument was the gift of God to him. All God's gifts are a giving of +himself. The Spirit can better dwell in a violin than in an ark or in +the mightiest of temples. + +But there was another side to the thing, and Mary felt bound to present +it. + +"But, you know, Mr. Jasper," she said, "when many violins play +together, each taking a part in relation to all the rest, a much +grander music is the result than any single instrument could produce." + +"I've heard tell of such things, miss, but I've never heard them." He +had never been to concert or oratorio, any more than the play. + +"Then you shall hear them," said Mary, her heart filling with delight +at the thought. "--But what if there should be some way in which the +prayers of all souls may blend like many violins? We are all brothers +and sisters, you know--and what if the gathering together in church be +one way of making up a concert of souls?--Imagine one mighty prayer, +made up of all the desires of all the hearts God ever made, breaking +like a huge wave against the foot of his throne!" + +"There would be some force in a wave like that, miss!" said Joseph. +"But answer me one question: Ain't it Christ that teaches men to pray?" + +"Surely," answered Mary. "He taught them with his mouth when he was on +the earth; and now he teaches them with his mind." + +"Then, miss, I will tell you why it seems to me that churches can't be +the places to tune the fiddles for that kind of consort--and that's +just why I more than don't care to go into one of them: I never heard a +sermon that didn't seem to be taking my Christ from me, and burying him +where I should never find him any more. For the somebody the clergy +talk about is not only nowise like my Christ, but nowise like a live +man at all. It always seemed to me more like a guy they had dressed up +and called by his name than the man I read about in my mother's big +Testament." + +"How my father would have delighted in this man!" said Mary to herself. + +"You see, miss," Jasper resumed, "I can't help knowing something about +these matters, because I was brought up in it all, my father being a +local preacher, and a very good man. Perhaps, if I had been as clever +as Sister Ann, I might be thinking now just as she does; but it seems +to me a man that is born stupid has much to be thankful for: he can't +take in things before his heart's ready for believing them, and so they +don't get spoiled, like a child's book before he is able to read it. +All that I heard when I went with my father to his preachings was to me +no more than one of the chapters full of names in the Book of +Chronicles--though I do remember once hearing a Wesleyan clergyman say +that he had got great spiritual benefit from those chapters. I wasn't +even frightened at the awful things my father said about hell, and the +certainty of our going there if we didn't lay hold upon the Saviour; +for, all the time, he showed but such a ghost or cloud of a man that he +called the Saviour as it wasn't possible to lay hold upon. Not that I +reasoned about it that way then; I only felt no interest in the affair; +and my conscience said nothing about it. But after my father and mother +were gone, and I was at work away from all my old friends--well, I +needn't trouble you with what it was that set me a-thinking--it was +only a great disappointment, such as I suppose most young fellows have +to go through--I shouldn't wonder," he added with a smile, "if that was +what you ladies are sent into this world for--to take the conceit out +of the likes of us, and give us something to think about. What came of +it was, that I began to read my mother's big Testament in earnest, and +then my conscience began to speak. Here was a man that said he was +God's son, and sent by him to look after us, and we must do what he +told us or we should never be able to see our Father in heaven! That's +what I made out of it, miss. And my conscience said to me, that I must +do as he said, seeing he had taken all that trouble, and come down to +look after us. If he spoke the truth, and nobody could listen to him +without being sure of that, there was nothing left but just to do the +thing he said. So I set about getting a hold of anything he did say, +and trying to do it. And then it was that I first began to be able to +play on the fiddle, though I had been muddling away at it for a long +time before. I knew I could play then, because I understood what it +said to me, and got help out of it. I don't really mean that, you know, +miss; for I know well enough that the fiddle in itself is nothing, and +nothing is anything but the way God takes to teach us. And that's how I +came to know you, miss." + +"How do you mean that?" asked Mary. + +"I used to be that frightened of Sister Ann that, after I came to +London, I wouldn't have gone near her, but that I thought Jesus Christ +would have me go; and, if I hadn't gone to see her, I should never have +seen you. When I went to see her, I took my fiddle with me to take care +of me; and, when she would be going on at me, I would just give my +fiddle a squeeze under my arm, and that gave me patience." + +"But we heard you playing to her, you know." + +"That was because I always forgot myself while she was talking. The +first time, I remember, it was from misery--what she was saying sounded +so wicked, making God out not fit for any honest man to believe in. I +began to play without knowing it, and it couldn't have been very loud, +for she went on about the devil picking up the good seed sown in the +heart. Off I went into that, and there I saw no end of birds with long +necks and short legs gobbling up the corn. But, a little way off, there +was the long beautiful stalks growing strong and high, waving in God's +wind; and the birds did not go near them." + +Mary drew a long breath, and said to herself: + +"The man is a poet!"--"You're not afraid of your sister now?" she said +to him. + +"Not a bit," he answered. "Since I knew you, I feel as if we had in a +sort of a way changed places, and she was a little girl that must be +humored and made the best of. When she scolds, I laugh, and try to make +a bit of fun with her. But she's always so sure she's right, that you +wonder how the world got made before she was up." + +They parted with the understanding that, when he came next, she should +give him his first lesson in reading music. With herself Mary made +merry at the idea of teaching the man of genius his letters. + +But, when once, through trying to play with her one of his own pieces +which she had learned from hearing him play it, he had discovered how +imperative it was to keep good time, he set himself to the task with a +determination that would have made anything of him that he was only +half as fit to become as a musician. + +When, however, in a short time, he was able to learn from notes, he +grew so delighted with some of the music Mary got for him, entering +into every nicety of severest law, and finding therein a better liberty +than that of improvisation, that he ceased for long to play anything of +his own, and Mary became mortally afraid lest, in developing the +performer, she had ruined the composer. + +"How can I go playing such loose, skinny things," he would say, "when +here are such perfect shapes all ready to my hand!" + +But Mary said to herself that, if these were shapes, his were odors. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. + +THE SAPPHIRE. + + +One morning, as Mary sat at her piano, Mewks was shown into the room. +He brought the request from his master that she would go to him; he +wanted particularly to see her. She did not much like it, neither did +she hesitate. + +She was shown into the room Mr. Redmain called his study, which +communicated by a dressing-room with his bedroom. He was seated, +evidently waiting for her. + +"Ah, Miss Marston!" he said; "I have a piece of good news for you--so +good that I thought I should like to give it you myself." + +"You are very kind, sir," Mary answered. + +"There!" he went on, holding out what she saw at once was the lost ring. + +"I am so glad!" she said, and took it in her hand. "Where was it found?" + +"There's the point!" he returned. "That is just why I sent for you! Can +you suggest any explanation of the fact that it was found, after all, +in a corner of my wife's jewel-box? Who searched the box last?" + +"I do not know, sir." + +"Did you search it?" + +"No, sir. I offered to help Mrs. Redmain to look for the ring, but she +said it was no use. Who found it, sir?" + +"I will tell you who found it, if you will tell me who put it there." + +"I don't know what you mean, sir. It must have been there all the time." + +"That's the point again! Mrs. Redmain swears it was not, and could not +have been, there when she looked for it. It is not like a small thing, +you see. There is something mysterious about it." + +He looked hard at Mary. + +Now, Mary had very much admired the ring, as any one must who had an +eye for stones; and had often looked at it--into the heart of +it--almost loving it; and while they were talking now, she kept gazing +at it. When Mr. Redmain ended, she stood silent. In her silence, her +attention concentrated itself upon the sapphire. She stood long, +looking closely at it, moving it about a little, and changing the +direction of the light; and, while her gaze was on the ring, Mr. +Redmain's gaze was on her, watching her with equal attention. At last, +with a sigh, as if she waked from a reverie, she laid the ring on the +table. But Mr. Redmain still stared in her face. + +"Now what is it you've got in your head?" he said at last. "I have been +watching you think for three minutes and a half, I do believe. Come, +out with it!" + +"Hardly _think_, sir," answered Mary. "I was only plaguing myself +between my recollection of the stone and the actual look of it. It is +so annoying to find what seemed a clear recollection prove a deceitful +one! It may appear a presumptuous thing to say, but my recollection +seems of a finer color." + +While she spoke, she had again taken the ring, and was looking at it. +Mr. Redmain snatched it from her hand. + +"The devil!" he cried. "You haven't the face to hint that the stone has +been changed?" + +Mary laughed. + +"Such a thing never came into my head, sir; but now that you have put +it there, I could almost believe it." + +"Go along with you!" he cried, casting at her a strange look which she +could not understand, and the same moment pulling the bell hard. + +That done, he began to examine the ring intently, as Mary had been +doing, and did not speak a word. Mewks came. + +"Show Miss Marston out," said his master; "and tell my coachman to +bring the hansom round directly." + +"For Miss Marston?" inquired Mewks, who had learned not a little +cunning in the service. + +"No!" roared Mr. Redmain; and Mewks darted from the room, followed more +leisurely by Mary. + +"I don't know what's come to master!" ventured Mewks, as he led the way +down the stair. + +But Mary took no notice, and left the house. + +For about a week she heard nothing. + +In the meantime Mr. Redmain had been prosecuting certain inquiries he +had some time ago begun, and another quite new one besides. He was +acquainted with many people of many different sorts, and had been to +jewelers and pawnbrokers, gamblers and lodging-house keepers, and had +learned some things to his purpose. + +Once more Mary received from him a summons, and once more, considerably +against her liking, obeyed. She was less disinclined to go this time, +however, for she felt not a little curious about the ring. + +"I want you to come back to the house," he said, abruptly, the moment +she entered his room. + +For such a request Mary was not prepared. Even since the ring was +found, so long a time had passed that she never expected to hear from +the house again. But Tom was now so much better, and Letty so much like +her former self, that, if Mrs. Redmain had asked her, she might perhaps +have consented. + +"Mr. Redmain," she answered, "you must see that I can not do so at your +desire." + +"Oh, rubbish! humbug!" he returned, with annoyance. "Don't fancy I am +asking you to go fiddle-faddling about my wife again: I don't see how +you _can_ do that, after the way she has used you! But I have reasons +for wanting to have you within call. Go to Mrs. Perkin. I won't take a +refusal." + +"I can not do it, Mr. Redmain," said Mary; "the thing is impossible." +And she turned to leave the room. + +"Stop, stop!" cried Mr. Redmain, and jumped from his chair to prevent +her. + +He would not have succeeded had not Mewks met her in the doorway full +in the face. She had to draw back to avoid him, and the man, perceiving +at once how things were, closed the door the moment he entered, and +stood with his back against it. + +"He's in the drawing-room, sir," said Mewks. + +A scarcely perceptible sign of question was made by the master, and +answered in kind by the man. + +"Show him here directly," said Mr. Redmain. Then turning to Mary, "Go +out that way, Miss Marston, if you will go," he said, and pointed to +the dressing-room. + +Mary, without a suspicion, obeyed; but, just as she discovered that the +door into the bedroom beyond was locked, she heard the door behind her +locked also. She turned, and knocked. + +"Stay where you are," said Mr. Redmain, in a low but imperative voice. +"I can not let you out till this gentleman is gone. You must hear what +passes: I want you for a witness." + +Bewildered and annoyed, Mary stood motionless in the middle of the +room, and presently heard a man, whose voice seemed not quite strange +to her, greet Mr. Redmain like an old friend. The latter made a slight +apology for having sent for him to his study--claiming the privilege, +he said, of an invalid, who could not for a time have the pleasure of +meeting him either at the club or at his wife's parties. The visitor +answered agreeably, with a touch of merriment that seemed to indicate a +soul at ease with itself and with the world. + +But here Mary all at once came to herself, and was aware that she was +in quite a false position. She withdrew therefore to the farthest +corner, sat down, closed her ears with the palms of her hands, and +waited. + +She had sat thus for a long time, not weary, but occupied with such +thoughts as could hardly for a century or two cross the horizon line of +such a soul as Mr. Redmain's, even if he were at once to repent, when +she heard a loud voice calling her name from a distance. She raised her +head, and saw the white, skin-drawn face of Mr. Redmain grinning at her +from the open door. When he spoke again, his words sounded like +thunder, for she had removed her hands from her ears. + +"I fancy you've had a dose of it!" he said. + +As he spoke, she rose to her feet, her countenance illumined both with +righteous anger and the tender shine of prayer. Her look went to what +he had of a heart, and the slightest possible color rose to his face. + +"Gone a step too far, damn it!" he murmured to himself. "There's no +knowing one woman by another!" + +"I see!" he said; "it's been a trifle too much for you, and I don't +wonder! You needn't believe a word I said about myself. It was all hum +to make the villain show his game." + +"I have not heard a word, Mr. Redmain," she said with indignation. + +"Oh, you needn't trouble yourself!" he returned. "I meant you to hear +it all. What did I put you there for, but to get your oath to what I +drew from the fellow? A fine thing if your pretended squeamishness ruin +my plot! What do you think of yourself, hey?--But I don't believe it." + +He looked at her keenly, expecting a response, but Mary made him none. +For some moments he regarded her curiously, then turned away into the +study, saying: + +"Come along. By Jove! I'm ashamed to say it, but I half begin to +believe in you. I did think I was past being taken in, but it seems +possible for once again. Of course, you will return to Mrs. Redmain now +that all is cleared up." + +"It is impossible," Mary answered. "I can not live in a house where the +lady mistrusts and the gentleman insults me." + +She left the room, and Mr. Redmain did not try to prevent her. As she +left the house she burst into tears; and the fact Mewks carried to his +master. + +The man was the more careful to report everything about Mary, that +there was one in the house of whom he never reported anything, but to +whom, on the contrary, he told everything he thought she would care to +know. Till Sepia came, he had been conventionally faithful--faithful +with the faith of a lackey, that is--but she had found no difficulty in +making of him, in respect of her, a spy upon his master. + +I will now relate what passed while Mary sat deaf in the corner. + +Mr. Redmain asked his visitor what he would have, as if, although it +was quite early, he must, as a matter of course, stand in need of +refreshment. He made choice of brandy and soda-water, and the bell was +rung. A good deal of conversation followed about a disputed point in a +late game of cards at one of the clubs. + +The talk then veered in another direction--that of personal adventure, +so guided by Mr. Redmain. He told extravagant stories about himself and +his doings, in particular various _ruses_ by which he had contrived to +lay his hands on money. And whatever he told, his guest capped, +narrating trick upon trick to which on different occasions he had had +recourse. At all of them Mr. Redmain laughed heartily, and applauded +their cleverness extravagantly, though some of them were downright +swindling. + +At last Mr. Redmain told how he had once got money out of a lady. I do +not believe there was a word of truth in it. But it was capped by the +other with a narrative that seemed specially pleasing to the listener. +In the midst of a burst of laughter, he rose and rang the bell. Count +Galofta thought it was to order something more in the way of +"refreshment," and was not a little surprised when he heard his host +desire the man to request the favor of Miss Yolland's presence. But the +Count had not studied non-expression in vain, and had brought it to a +degree of perfection not easily disturbed. Casting a glance at him as +he gave the message, Mr. Redmain could read nothing; but this was in +itself suspicious to him--and justly, for the man ought to have been +surprised at such a close to the conversation they had been having. + +Sepia had been told that Galofta was in the study, and therefore +received the summons thither--a thing that had never happened +before--with the greater alarm. She made, consequently, what +preparation she could against surprise. Thoroughly capable of managing +her features, her anxiety was sufficient nevertheless to deprive her of +power over her complexion, and she entered the room with the pallor +peculiar to the dark-skinned. Having greeted the Count with the +greatest composure, she turned to Mr. Redmain with question in her eyes. + +"Count Galofta," said Mr. Redmain in reply, "has just been telling me a +curious story of how a certain rascal got possession of a valuable +jewel from a lady with whom he pretended to be in love, and I thought +the opportunity a good one for showing you a strange discovery I have +made with regard to the sapphire Mrs. Redmain missed for so long. Very +odd tricks are played with gems--such gems, that is, as are of value +enough to make it worth a rogue's while." + +So saying, he took the ring from one drawer, and from another a bottle, +from which he poured something into a crystal cup. Then he took a file, +and, looking at Galofta, in whose well-drilled features he believed he +read something that was not mere curiosity, said, "I am going to show +you something very curious," and began to file asunder that part of the +ring which immediately clasped the sapphire, the setting of which was +open. + +"What a pity!" cried Sepia; "you are destroying the ring! What will +Cousin Hesper say?" + +Mr. Redmain filed away, heedless; then with the help of a pair of +pincers freed the stone, and held it up in his hand. + +"You see this?" he said. + +"A splendid sapphire!" answered Count Galofta, taking it in his +fingers, but, as Mr. Redmain saw, not looking at it closely. + +"I have always heard it called a splendid stone," said Sepia, whose +complexion, though not her features, passed through several changes +while all this was going on: she was anxious. + +Nor did her inquisitor fail to surprise the uneasy glances she threw, +furtively though involuntarily, in the face of the Count--who never +once looked in hers: tolerably sure of himself, he was not sure of her. + +"That ring, when I bought it--the stone of it," said Mr. Redmain, "was +a star sapphire, and worth seven hundred pounds; now, the whole affair +is worth about ten." + +As he spoke, he threw the stone into the cup, let it lie a few moments, +and took it out again; when, almost with a touch, he divided it in two, +the one a mere scale. + +"There!" he said, holding out the thin part on the tip of a finger, +"that is a slice of sapphire; and there!" holding out the rest of the +seeming stone, "that is glass." + +"What a shame!" cried Sepia. + +"Of course," said the Count, "you will prosecute the jeweler." + +"I will not prosecute the jeweler," answered Mr. Redmain; "but I have +taken some trouble to find out who changed the stones." + +With that he threw both the bits of blue into a drawer, and the +contents of the cup into the fire. A great flame flew up the chimney, +and, as if struck at the sight of it, he stood gazing for a moment +after it had vanished. + +When he turned, the Count was gone, as he had expected, and Sepia stood +with eyes full of anger and fear. Her face was set and colorless, and +strange to look upon. + +"Very odd--ain't it?" said Mr. Redmain, and, opening the door of his +dressing-room, called out: + +"Miss Marston!" + +When he turned, Sepia too was gone. + +I would not have my reader take Sepia for an accomplice in the robbery. +Even Mr. Redmain did not believe that: she was much too prudent! His +idea was, that she had been wearing the ring--Hesper did not mind what +she wore of hers--and that (I need not give his conjecture in detail), +with or without her knowledge, the fellow had got hold of it and +carried it away, then brought it back, treating the thing as a joke, +when she was only too glad to restore it to the jewel-case, hoping the +loss of it would then pass for an oversight on the part of Hesper. If +he was right in this theory of the affair, then the Count had certainly +a hold upon her, and she dared not or would not expose him! He had +before discovered that, about the time when the ring disappeared, the +Count had had losses, and was supposed unable to meet them, but had +suddenly showed himself again "flush of money," and from that time had +had an extraordinary run of luck. + +When he went out of the door of Mr. Redmain's study, he vanished from +the house and from London. Turning the first corner he came to, and the +next and the next, he stepped into a mews, the court of which seemed +empty, and slipped behind the gate. He wore a new hat, and was clean +shaved except his upper lip. Presently a man came out of the mews in a +Scotch cap and a full beard. + +What had become of him Mr. Redmain did not care. He had no desire to +punish him. It was enough he had found him out, proved his suspicion +correct, and obtained evidence against Sepia. He did not at once make +up his mind how he would act on this last; while he lived, it did not +matter so much; and he had besides a certain pleasure in watching his +victim. But Hesper, free, rich, and beautiful, and far from wise, with +Sepia for counselor, was not an idea to be contemplated with +equanimity. Still he shrank from the outcry and scandal of sending her +away; for certainly his wife, if it were but to oppose him, would +refuse to believe a word against her cousin. + +For the present, therefore, the thing seemed to blow over. Mr. Redmain, +who had pleasure in behaving handsomely so far as money was concerned, +bought his wife the best sapphire he could find, and, for once, really +pleased her. + +But Sepia knew that Mr. Redmain had now to himself justified his +dislike of her; and, as he said nothing, she was the more certain he +meant something. She lived, therefore, in constant dread of his sudden +vengeance, against which she could take no precaution, for she had not +even a conjecture as to what form it might assume. From that hour she +was never at peace in his presence, and hardly out of it; from every +possible _tete-a-tete_ with him she fled as from a judgment. + +Nor was it a small addition to her misery that she imagined Mary +cognizant of Mr. Redmain's opinion and intention with regard to her, +and holding the worst possible opinion of her. For, whatever had passed +first between the Count and Mr. Redmain, she did not doubt Mary had +heard, and was prepared to bring against her when the determined moment +should arrive. How much the Count might or might not have said, she +could not tell; but, seeing their common enemy had permitted him to +escape, she more than dreaded he had sold her secret for his own +impunity, and had laid upon her a burden of lies as well. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + +REPARATION. + + +With all Mr. Redmain's faults, there was a certain love of justice in +the man; only, as is the case with most of us, it had ten times the +reference to the action of other people that it had to his own: I mean, +he made far greater demand for justice upon other people than upon +himself; and was much more indignant at any shortcoming of theirs which +crossed any desire or purpose of his than he was anxious in his own +person to fulfill justice when that fulfillment in its turn would cross +any wish he cherished. Badly as he had himself behaved to Mary, he was +now furious with his wife for having treated her so heartlessly that +she could not return to her service; for he began to think she might be +one to depend upon, and to desire her alliance in the matter of ousting +Sepia from the confidence of his wife. + +However indifferent a woman may be to the opinion of her husband, he +can nevertheless in general manage to make her uncomfortable enough if +he chooses; and Mr. Redmain did choose now, in the event of her +opposition to his wishes: when he set himself to do a thing, he hated +defeat even more than he loved success. + +The moment Mary was out of the study, he walked into his wife's +boudoir, and shut the door behind him. His presence there was enough to +make her angry, but she took no notice of it. + +"I understand, Mrs. Redmain," he began, "that you wish to bring the +fate of Sodom upon the house." + +"I do not know what you mean," she answered, scarcely raising her eyes +from her novel--and spoke the truth, for she knew next to nothing of +the Bible, while the Old Testament was all the literature Mr. Redmain +was "up in." + +"You have turned out of it the only just person in it, and we shall all +be in hell soon!" + +"How dare you come to my room with such horrid language!" + +"You'll hear worse before long, if you keep on at this rate. My +language is not so bad as your actions. If you don't have that girl +back, and in double-quick time, too, I shall know how to make you!" + +"You have taught me to believe you capable of anything." + +"You shall at least find me capable of a good deal. Do you imagine, +madam, I have found you a hair worse than I expected?" + +"I never took the trouble to imagine anything about you." + +"Then I need not ask you whether I married you to please you or to +please myself?" + +"You need not. You can best answer that question yourself." + +"Then we understand each other." + +"We do not, Mr. Redmain; and, if this occurs again, I shall go to +Durnmelling." + +She spoke with a vague idea that he also stood in some awe of the +father and mother whose dread, however well she hid it, she would +never, while she lived, succeed in shaking off. But to the husband it +was a rare delight to speak with conscious rectitude in the moral +chastisement of his wife. He burst into a loud and almost merry laugh. + +"Happy they will be to see you there, madam! Why, you goose, if I send +a telegram before you, they won't so much as open the door to you! They +know better which side their bread is buttered." + +Hesper started up in a rage. This was too much--and the more too much, +that she believed it would be as he said. + +"Mr. Redmain, if you do not leave the room, I will." + +"Oh, don't!" he cried, in a tone of pretended alarm. His pleasure was +great, for he had succeeded in stinging the impenetrable. "You really +ought to consider before you utter such an awful threat! I will go +myself a thousand times rather!--But will you not feel the want of +pocket-money when you come to pay a rough cabman? The check I gave you +yesterday will not last you long." + +"The money is my own, Mr. Redmain." + +"But you have not yet opened a banking-account in your own name." + +"I suppose you have a meaning, Mr. Redmain; but I am not in the habit +of using cabs." + +"Then you had better get into the habit; for I swear to you, madam, if +you don't fetch that girl home within the week, I will, next Monday, +discharge your coachman, and send every horse in the stable to +Tattersall's! Good morning." + +She had no doubt he would do as he said; she knew Mr. Redmain would +just enjoy selling her horses. But she could not at once give in. I say +"_could_ not," because hers was the weak will that can hardly bring +itself to do what it knows it must, and is continually mistaken for the +strong will that defies and endures. She had a week to think about it, +and she would see! + +During the interval, he took care not once to refer to his threat, for +that would but weaken the impression of it, he knew. + +On the Sunday, after service, she knocked at his door, and, being +admitted, bade him good morning, but with no very gracious air--as, +indeed, he would have been the last to expect. + +"We have had a sermon on the forgiveness of injuries, Mr. Redmain," she +said. + +"By Jove!" interrupted her husband, "it would have been more to the +purpose if I, or poor Mary Marston, had had it; for I swear you put our +souls in peril!" + +"The ring was no common one, Mr. Redmain; and the young woman had, by +leaving the house, placed herself in a false position: every one +suspected her as much as I did. Besides, she lost her temper, and +talked about forgiving _me_, when I was in despair about my ring!" + +"And what, pray, was your foolish ring compared to the girl's +character?" + +"A foolish ring, indeed!--Yes, it was foolish to let you ever have the +right to give it me! But, as to her character, that of persons in her +position is in constant peril. They have to lay their account with +that, and must get used to it. How was I to know? We can not read each +other's hearts." + +"Not where there is no heart in the reader." + +Hesper's face flushed, but she did her best not to lose her temper. Not +that it would have been any great loss if she had, for there is as much +difference in the values of tempers as in those who lose them. She said +nothing, and her husband resumed: + +"So you came to forgive me?" he said. + +"And Marston," she answered. + +"Well, I will accept the condescension--that is, if the terms of it are +to my mind." + +"I will make no terms. Marston may return when she pleases." + +"You must write and ask her." + +"Of course, Mr. Redmain. It would hardly be suitable that _you_ should +ask her." + +"You must write so as to make it possible to accept your offer." + +"I am not deceitful, Mr. Redmain." + +"You are not. A man must be fair, even to his wife." + +"I will show you the letter I write." + +"If you please." + +She had to show him half a score ere he was satisfied, declaring he +would do it himself, if she could not make a better job of it. + +At length one was dispatched, received, and answered: Mary would not +return. She had lost all hope of being of any true service to Mrs. +Redmain, and she knew that, with Tom and Letty, she was really of use +for the present. Mrs. Redmain carried the letter, with ill-concealed +triumph, to her husband; nor did he conceal his annoyance. + +"You must have behaved to her very cruelly," he said. "But you have +done your best now--short of a Christian apology, which it would be +folly to demand of you. I fear we have seen the last of her."--"And +there was I," he said to himself, "for the first time in my life, +actually beginning to fancy I had perhaps thrown salt upon the tail of +that rare bird, an honest woman! The devil has had quite as much to do +with my history as with my character! Perhaps that will be taken into +the account one day." + +But Mary lay awake at night, and thought of many things she might have +said and done better when she was with Hesper, and would gladly have +given herself another chance; but she could no longer flatter herself +she would ever be of any real good to her. She believed there was more +hope of Mr. Redmain even. For had she not once, for one brief moment, +seen him look a trifle ashamed of himself? while Hesper was and +remained, so far as she could judge, altogether satisfied with herself. +Equal to her own demands upon herself, there was nothing in her to +begin with--no soil to work upon. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. + +ANOTHER CHANGE. + + +For some time Tom made progress toward health, and was able to read a +good part of the day. Most evenings he asked Joseph to play to him for +a while; he was fond of music, and fonder still of criticism--upon +anything. When he had done with Joseph, or when he did not want him, +Mary was always ready to give the latter a lesson; and, had he been a +less gifted man than he was, he could not have failed to make progress +with such a teacher. + +The large-hearted, delicate-souled woman felt nothing strange in the +presence of the workingman, but, on the contrary, was comfortably aware +of a being like her own, less privileged but more gifted, whose +nearness was strength. And no teacher, not to say no woman, could have +failed to be pleased at the thorough painstaking with which he followed +the slightest of her hints, and the delight his flushed face would +reveal when she praised the success he had achieved. + +It was not long before he began to write some of the things that came +into his mind. For the period of quiescence as to production, which +followed the initiation of more orderly study, was, after all, but of +short duration, and the return tide of musical utterance was stronger +than ever. Mary's delight was great when first he brought her one of +his compositions very fairly written out--after which others followed +with a rapidity that astonished her. They enabled her also to +understand the man better and better; for to have a thing to brood over +which we are capable of understanding must be more to us than even the +master's playing of it. She could not be sure this or that was correct, +according to the sweet inexorability of musical ordainment, but the +more she pondered them, the more she felt that the man was original, +that the material was there, and the law at hand, that he brought his +music from the only bottomless well of utterance, the truth, namely, by +which alone the soul most glorious in gladness, or any other the +stupidest of souls, can live. + +To the first he brought her she contrived to put a poor little faulty +accompaniment; and when she played his air to him so accompanied, his +delight was touching, and not a little amusing. Plainly he thought the +accompaniment a triumph of human faculty, and beyond anything he could +ever develop. Never pupil was more humble, never pupil more obedient; +thinking nothing of himself or of anything he had done or could do, his +path was open to the swiftest and highest growth. It matters little +where a man may be at this moment; the point is whether he is growing. +The next point will be, whether he is growing at the ratio given him. +The key to the whole thing is _obedience_, and nothing else. + +What the gift of such an instructor was to Joseph, my reader may be +requested to imagine. He was like a man seated on the grass outside the +heavenly gate, from which, slow-opening every evening as the sun went +down, came an angel to teach, and teach, until he too should be fit to +enter in: an hour would arrive when she would no longer have to come +out to him where he sat. Under such an influence all that was gentlest +and sweetest in his nature might well develop with rapidity, and every +accidental roughness--and in him there was no other--by swift degrees +vanish from both speech and manners. The angels do not want tailors to +make their clothes: their habits come out of themselves. But we are +often too hard upon our fellows; for many of those in the higher ranks +of life--no, no, I mean of society--whose insolence wakens ours, as +growl wakes growl in the forest, are not yet so far removed from the +savage--I mean in their personal history--as some in the lowest ranks. +When a nobleman mistakes the love of right in another for a hatred of +refinement, he can not be far from mistaking insolence for good +manners. Of such a nobility, good Lord, deliver us from all envy! + +As to falling in love with a lady like Mary, such a thing was as far +from Jasper's consciousness as if she had been a duchess. She belonged +to another world from his, a world which his world worshiped, waiting. +He might miss her even to death; her absence might, for him, darken the +universe as if the sun had withdrawn his brightness; but who thinks of +falling in love with the sun, or dreams of climbing nearer to his +radiance? + +The day will one day come--or what of the long-promised kingdom of +heaven?--when a woman, instead of spending anxious thought on the +adornment of her own outward person, will seek with might the adornment +of the inward soul of another, and will make that her crown of +rejoicing. Nay, are there none such even now? The day will come when a +man, rather than build a great house for the overflow of a mighty +hospitality, will give himself, in the personal labor of outgoing love, +to build spiritual houses like St. Paul--a higher art than any of man's +invention. O my brother, what were it not for thee to have a hand in +making thy brother beautiful! + +Be not indignant, my reader: not for a moment did I imagine thee +capable of such a mean calling! It is left to a certain school of weak +enthusiasts, who believe that such growth, such embellishment, such +creation, is all God cares about; these enthusiasts can not indeed see, +so blind have they become with their fixed idea, how God could care for +anything else. They actually believe that the very Son of the +life-making God lived and died for that, and for nothing else. That +such men and women are fools, is and has been so widely believed, that, +to men of the stamp of my indignant reader, it has become a fact! But +the end alone will reveal the beginning. Such a fool was Prometheus, +with the vulture at his heart--but greater than Jupiter with his gods +around him. + +There soon came a change, however, and the lessons ceased altogether. + +Tom had come down to his old quarters, and, in the arrogance of +convalescence, had presumed on his imagined strength, and so caught +cold. An alarming relapse was the consequence, and there was no more +playing; for now his condition began to draw to a change, of which, for +some time, none of them had even thought, the patient had seemed so +certainly recovering. The cold settled on his lungs, and he sank +rapidly. + +Joseph, whose violin was useless now, was not the less in attendance. +Every evening, when his work was over, he came knocking gently at the +door of the parlor, and never left until Tom was settled for the night. +The most silently helpful, undemonstrative being he was, that doctor +could desire to wait upon patient. When it was his turn to watch, he +never closed an eye, but at daybreak--for it was now spring--would +rouse Mary, and go off straight to his work, nor taste food until the +hour for the mid-day meal arrived. + +Tom speedily became aware that his days were numbered--phrase of +unbelief, for are they not numbered from the beginning? Are our hairs +numbered, and our days forgotten--till death gives a hint to the +doctor? He was sorry for his past life, and thoroughly ashamed of much +of it, saying in all honesty he would rather die than fall for one +solitary week into the old ways--not that he wished to die, for, with +the confidence of youth, he did not believe he could fall into the old +ways again. For my part, I think he was taken away to have a little +more of that care and nursing which neither his mother nor his wife had +been woman enough to give the great baby. After all, he had not been +one of the worst of babies. + +Is it strange that one so used to bad company and bad ways should have +so altered, in so short a time, and without any great struggle? The +assurance of death at the door, and a wholesome shame of things that +are past, may, I think, lead up to such a swift change, even in a much +worse man than Tom. For there is the Life itself, all-surrounding, and +ever pressing in upon the human soul, wherever that soul will afford a +chink of entrance; and Tom had not yet sealed up all his doors. + +When he lay there dead--for what excuse could we have for foolish +lamentation, if we did not speak of the loved as _lying dead?_--Letty +had him already enshrined in her heart as the best of husbands--as her +own Tom, who had never said a hard word to her--as the cleverest as +well as kindest of men who had written poetry that would never die +while the English language was spoken. Nor did "The Firefly" spare its +dole of homage to the memory of one of its gayest writers. Indeed, all +about its office had loved him, each after his faculty. Even the boy +cried when he heard he was gone, for to him too he had always given a +kind word, coming and going. A certain little runnel of verse flowed no +more through the pages of "The Firefly," and in a month there was not +the shadow of Tom upon his age. But the print of him was deep in the +heart of Letty, and not shallow in the affection of Mary; nor were such +as these, insignificant records for any one to leave behind him, as +records go. Happy was he to have left behind him any love, especially +such a love as Letty bore him! For what is the loudest praise of +posterity to the quietest love of one's own generation? For his mother, +her memory was mostly in her temper. She had never understood her +wayward child, just because she had given him her waywardness, and not +parted with it herself, so that between them the two made havoc of +love. But she who gives her child all he desires, in the hope of thus +binding his love to herself, no less than she who thwarts him in +everything, may rest assured of the neglect she has richly earned. When +she heard of his death, she howled and cursed her fate, and the woman, +meaning poor Letty, who had parted her and her Tom, swearing she would +never set eyes upon her, never let her touch a farthing of Tom's money. +She would not hear of paying his debts until Mary told her she then +would, upon which the fear of public disapprobation wrought for right +if not righteousness. + +But what was Mary to do now with Letty? She was little more than a baby +yet, not silly from youth, but young from silliness. Children must +learn to walk, but not by being turned out alone in Cheapside. + +She was relieved from some perplexity for the present, however, by the +arrival of a letter from Mrs. Wardour to Letty, written in a tone of +stiffly condescendent compassion--not so unpleasant to Letty as to her +friend, because from childhood she had been used to the nature that +produced it, and had her mind full of a vast, undefined notion of the +superiority of the writer. It may be a question whether those who fill +our inexperienced minds with false notions of their greatness, do us +thereby more harm or good; certainly when one comes to understand with +what an arrogance and self-assertion they have done so, putting into us +as reverence that which in them is conceit, one is ready to be scornful +more than enough; but, rather than have a child question such claims, I +would have him respect the meanest soul that ever demanded respect; the +first shall be last in good time, and the power of revering come forth +uninjured; whereas a child judging his elders has already withered the +blossom of his being. + +But Mrs. Wardour's letter was kind-perhaps a little repentant; it is +hard to say, for ten persons will repent of a sin for one who will +confess it--I do not mean to the priest--that may be an easy matter, +but to the only one who has a claim to the confession, namely, the +person wronged. Yet such confession is in truth far more needful to the +wronger than to the wronged; it is a small thing to be wronged, but a +horrible thing to wrong. + +The letter contained a poverty-stricken expression of sympathy, and an +invitation to spend the summer months with them at her old home. It +might, the letter said, prove but a dull place to her after the gayety +to which she had of late been accustomed, but it might not the less +suit her present sad situation, and possibly uncertain prospects. + +Letty's heart felt one little throb of gladness at the thought of being +again at Thornwick, and in peace. With all the probable unpleasant +accompaniments of the visit, nowhere else, she thought, could she feel +the same sense of shelter as where her childhood had passed. Mary also +was pleased; for, although Letty might not be comfortable, the visit +would end, and by that time she might know what could be devised best +for her comfort and well-being. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. + +DISSOLUTION. + + +It was now Mary's turn to feel that she was, for the first time in her +life, about to be cut adrift--adrift, that is, as a world is adrift, on +the surest of paths, though without eyes to see. For ten days or so, +she could form no idea of what she was likely or would like to do next. +But, when we are in such perplexity, may not the fact be accepted as +showing that decision is not required of us--perhaps just because our +way is at the moment being made straight for us? + +Joseph called once or twice, but, for Letty's sake, they had no music. +As they met so seldom now, Mary, anxious to serve him as she could, +offered him the loan of some of her favorite books. He accepted it with +a gladness that surprised her, for she did not know how much he had of +late been reading. + +One day she received an unexpected visit--from Mr. Brett, her lawyer. +He had been searching into the affairs of the shop, and had discovered +enough to make him uneasy, and indeed fill him with self-reproach that +he had not done so with more thoroughness immediately on her father's +death. He had come to tell her all he knew, and talk the matter over +with her, that they might agree what proceedings should be taken. + +I will not weary myself or my readers with business detail, for which +kind of thing I have no great aptitude, and a good deal of +incapacitating ignorance; but content myself with the briefest +statement of the condition in which Mr. Brett found the affairs of Mr. +Turnbull. + +He had been speculating in several companies, making haste to be rich, +and had periled and lost what he had saved of the profits of the +business, and all of Mary's as well that had not been elsewhere +secured. He had even trenched on the original capital of the firm, by +postponing the payment of moneys due, and allowing the stock to run +down and to deteriorate, and things out of fashion to accumulate, so +that the business had perceptibly fallen off. But what displeased Mary +more than anything was, that he had used money of her father's to +speculate with in more than one public-house; and she knew that, if in +her father's lifetime he had so used even his own, it would have been +enough to make him insist on dissolving partnership. + +It was impossible to allow her money to remain any longer in the power +of such a man, and she gave authority to Mr. Brett to make the +necessary arrangements for putting an end to business relations between +them. + +It was a somewhat complicated, therefore tedious business; and things +looked worse the further they were searched into. Unable to varnish the +facts to the experience of a professional eye, Mr. Turnbull wrote Mary +a letter almost cringing in its tone, begging her to remember the years +her father and he had been as brothers; how she had grown up in the +shop, and had been to him, until misunderstandings arose, into the +causes of which he could not now enter, in the place of a daughter; and +insisting that her withdrawal from it had had no small share in the +ruin of the business. For these considerations, and, more than all, for +the memory of her father, he entreated her to leave things as they +were, to trust him to see after the interests of the daughter of his +old friend, and not insist upon measures which must end in a forced +sale, in the shutting up of the shop of Turnbull and Marston, and the +disgracing of her father's name along with his. + +Mary replied that she was acting by the advice of her father's lawyer, +and with the regard she owed her father's memory, in severing all +connection with a man in whom she no longer had confidence; and +insisted that the business must be wound up as soon as possible. + +She instructed Mr. Brett, at the same time, that, if it could be +managed, she would prefer getting the shop, even at considerable loss, +into her own hands, with what stock might be in it, when she would +attempt to conduct the business on principles her father would have +approved, whereby she did not doubt of soon restoring it to repute. +While she had no intention, she said, of selling so _well_ as Mr. +Turnbull would fain have done, she believed she would soon be able to +buy to just as good advantage as he. It would be necessary, however, to +keep her desire a secret, else Mr. Turnbull would be certain to +frustrate it. + +Mr. Brett approved of her plan, for he knew she was much respected, and +had many friends. Mr. Turnbull would be glad, he said, to give up the +whole to escape prosecution--that at least was how Mary interpreted his +somewhat technical statement of affairs between them. + +The swindler wrote again, begging for an interview--which she declined, +except in the presence of her lawyer. + +She made up her mind that she would not go near Testbridge till +everything was settled, and the keys of the shop in Mr. Brett's hands; +and remained, therefore, where she was--with Letty, who to keep her +company delayed her departure as long as she could without giving +offense at Thornwick. + +A few days before Letty was at last compelled to leave, Jasper called, +and heard about as much as they knew themselves of their plans. When +Mary said to him she would miss her pupil, he smiled in a sort of +abstracted way, as if not quite apprehending what she said, which +seemed to Mary a little odd, his manners in essentials being those of a +gentleman, as judged by one a little more than a lady; for there is an +unnamed degree higher than the ordinary _lady_. So Mary was left +alone--more alone than she had ever been in her life. But she did not +feel lonely, for the best of reasons--that she never fancied herself +alone, but knew that she was not. Also she had books at her command, +being one of the few who can read; and there were picture-galleries to +go to, and music-lessons to be had. Of these last she crowded in as +many as her master could be persuaded to give her--for it would be +long, she knew, before she was able to have such again. + +Joseph Jasper never came near her. She could not imagine why, and was +disappointed and puzzled. To know that Ann Byrom was in the house was +not a great comfort to her--she regarded so much that Mary loved as of +earth and not of heaven. God's world even she despised, because men +called it nature, and spoke of its influences. But Mary did go up to +see her now and then. Very different she seemed from the time when +first they were at work together over Hesper's twilight dress! Ever +since Mary had made the acquaintance of her brother, she seemed to have +changed toward her. Perhaps she was jealous; perhaps she believed Mary +was confirming him in his bad ways. Just where they were all three of +one mind--just _there_ her rudimentary therefore self-sufficient +religion shut them out from her sympathy and fellowship. + +Alone, and with her time at her command, Mary was more inclined than +she had ever been, except for her father's company, to go to church. +The second Sunday after Letty left her, she went to the one nearest, +and in the congregation thought she saw Joseph. A week before, she +would have waited for him as he came out, but, now that he seemed to +avoid her, she would not, and went home neither comforted by the sermon +nor comfortable with herself. For the parson, instead of recognizing, +through all defects of the actual, the pattern after which God had made +man, would fain have him remade after the pattern of the middle-age +monk--a being far superior, no doubt, to the most of his +contemporaries, but as far from the beauty of the perfect man as the +mule is from that of the horse; and she was annoyed with herself that +she was annoyed with Joseph. It was the middle of summer before the +affairs of the firm were wound up, and the shop in the hands of the +London man whom Mr. Brett had employed in the purchase. + +Lawyer as he was, however, Mr. Brett had not been sharp enough for +Turnbull. The very next day, a shop in the same street, that had been +to let for some time, displayed above its now open door the sign, _John +Turnbull, late_--then a very small of--_Turnbull and Marston;_ +whereupon Mr. Brett saw the oversight of which he had been guilty. +There was nothing in the shop when it was opened, but that Turnbull +utilized for advertisement: he had so arranged, that within an hour the +goods began to arrive, and kept arriving, by every train, for days and +days after, while all the time he made public show of himself, fussing +about, the most triumphant man in the town. It made people talk, and if +not always as he would have liked to hear them talk, yet it was talk, +and, in the matter of advertisement, that is the main thing. + +When it was told Mary, it gave her not the smallest uneasiness. She +only saw what had several times seemed on the point of arriving in her +father's lifetime. She would not have moved a finger to prevent it. Let +the two principles meet, with what result God pleased! + +Whether he had suspected her design, and had determined to challenge +her before the public, I can not tell; but his wife's aversion to +shopkeeping was so great, that one who knew what sort of scene passed +because of it between them, would have expected that, but for some very +strong reason, he would have been glad enough to retire from that mode +of gaining a livelihood. As it was, things appeared to go on with them +just as before. They still inhabited the villa, the wife scornful of +her surroundings, and the husband driving a good horse to his shop +every morning. How he managed it all, nobody knew but himself, and +whether he succeeded or not was a matter of small interest to any +except his own family and his creditors. He was a man nowise beloved, +although there was something about him that carried simple people with +him--for his ends, not theirs. To those who alluded to the change, he +represented it as entirely his own doing, to be rid of the interference +of Miss Marston in matters of which she knew nothing. He knew well that +a confident lie has all the look of truth, and, while fact and +falsehood were disputing together in men's mouths, he would be selling +his drapery. The country people were flattered by the confidence he +seemed to put in them by this explanation, and those who liked him +before sought the new shop as they had frequented the old one. + +Unlike most men, not to say lawyers, Mr. Brett was fully recognizant to +Mary of his oversight, and was not a little relieved to be assured she +would not have had the thing otherwise: she would gladly meet Mr. +Turnbull in a fair field--not that she would in the least acknowledge +or think of him as a rival; she would simply carry out her own ideas of +right, without regard to him or any measures he might take; the result +should be as God willed. Mr. Brett shook his head: he knew her father +of old, and saw the daughter prepared to go beyond the father. Theirs +were principles that did not come within the range of his practice! He +said to himself and his wife that the world could not go on for a +twelvemonth if such ways were to become universal: whether by the world +he meant his own profession, I will not inquire. Certainly he did not +make the reflection that the new ways are intended to throw out the old +ways; and the worst argument against any way is that the world can not +go on so; for that is just what is wanted--that the world should not go +on so. Mr. Brett nevertheless admired not only Mary's pluck, but the +business faculty which every moment she manifested: there is a holy way +of doing business, and, little as business men may think it, that is +the standard by which they must be tried; for their judge in business +affairs is not their own trade or profession, but the man who came to +convince the world concerning right and wrong and the choice between +them; or, in the older speech-to reprove the world of sin, and of +righteousness, and of judgment. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. + +THORNWICK. + + +It was almost with bewilderment that Mrs. Helmer revisited Thornwick. +The near past seemed to have vanished like a dream that leaves a sorrow +behind it, and the far past to take its place. She had never been +accustomed to reflect on her own feelings; things came, were welcome or +unwelcome, proved better or worse than she had anticipated, passed +away, and were mostly forgotten. With plenty of faculty, Letty had not +yet emerged from the chrysalid condition; she lived much as one in a +dream, with whose dream mingle sounds and glimmers from the waking +world. Very few of us are awake, very few even alive in true, availing +sense. "Pooh! what stuff!" says the sleeper, and will say it until the +waking begins to come. + +On the threshold of her old home, then, Letty found her old self +awaiting her; she crossed it, and was once more just Letty, a Letty +wrapped in the garments of sorrow, and with a heaviness at the heart, +but far from such a miserable Letty as during the last of her former +life there. Little joy had been hers since the terrible night when she +fled from its closed doors; and now that she returned, she could take +up everything where she had left it, except the gladness. But peace is +better than gladness, and she was on the way to find that. + +Mrs. Wardour, who, for all her severity, was not without a good-sized +heart, and whoso conscience had spoken to her in regard of Letty far +oftener than any torture would have made her allow, was touched with +compassion at sight of her worn and sad look; and, granting to herself +that the poor thing had been punished enough, even for her want of +respect to the house of Thornwick, broke down a little, though with +well-preserved dignity, and took the wandering ewe-lamb to her bosom. +Letty, loving and forgiving always, nestled in it for a moment, and in +her own room quietly wept a long time. When she came out, Mrs. Wardour +pleased herself with the fancy that her eyes were red with the tears of +repentance; but Letty never dreamed of repenting, for that would have +been to deny Tom, to cut off her married life, throw it from her, and +never more see Tom. + +By degrees, rapid yet easy, she slid into all her old ways; took again +the charge of the dairy as if she had never left it; attended to the +linen; darned the stockings; and in everything but her pale, thin face, +and heavy, exhausted heart, was the young Letty again. She even went to +the harness-room to look to Cousin Godfrey's stirrups and bits; but +finding, morning after morning for a whole week, that they had not once +been neglected, dismissed the care-not without satisfaction. + +Mrs. Wardour continued kind to her; but every now and then would allow +a tone as of remembered naughtiness to be sub-audible in speech or +request. Letty, even in her own heart, never resented it. She had been +so used to it in the old days, that it seemed only natural. And then +her aunt considered her health in the kindest way. Now that Letty had +known some of the troubles of marriage, she felt more sympathy with +her, did not look down upon her from quite such a height, and to Letty +this was strangely delightful. Oh, what a dry, hard, cold world this +would grow to, but for the blessing of its many sicknesses! + +When Godfrey saw her moving about the house as in former days, but +changed, like one of the ghosts of his saddest dreams, a new love began +to rise out of the buried seed of the old. In vain he reasoned with +himself, in vain he resisted. The image of Letty, with its trusting +eyes fixed on him so "solemn sad," and its watching looks full of +ministration, haunted him, and was too much for him. She was never the +sort of woman he could have fancied himself falling in love with; he +did in fact say to himself that she was only _almost_ a lady-but at the +word his heart rebuked him for a traitor to love and its holy laws. +Neither in person was she at all his ideal. A woman like Hesper, +uplifted and strong, broad-fronted and fearless, large-limbed, and full +of latent life, was more of the ideal he could have written poetry +about. But we are deeper than we know. Who is capable of knowing his +own ideal? The ideal of a man's self is hid in the bosom of God, and +may lie ages away from his knowledge; and his ideal of woman is the +ideal belonging to this unknown self: the ideal only can bring forth an +ideal. He can not, therefore, know his own ideal of woman; it is, +nevertheless--so I presume--this his own unknown ideal that makes a man +choose against his choice. Gladly would Godfrey now have taken Letty to +his arms. It was no longer anything that from boyhood he had vowed +rather to die unmarried, and let the land go to a stranger, than marry +a widow. He had to recall every restraining fact of his and her +position to prevent him from now precipitating that which he had before +too long delayed. But the gulf of the grave and the jealousy of a +mother were between them; for, if he were again to rouse her +suspicions, she would certainly get rid of Letty, as she had before +intended, so depriving her of a home, and him of opportunity. He kept, +therefore, out of Letty's way as much as he could, went more about the +farm, and took long rides. + +Nothing was further from Letty than any merest suspicion of the sort of +regard Godfrey cherished for her. There was in her nothing of the +self-sentimental. Her poet was gone from her, but she did not therefore +take to poetry; nay, what poetry she had learned to like was no longer +anything to her, now her singing bird had flown to the land of song. To +her, Tom was the greatest, the one poet of the age; he had been +hers--was hers still, for did he not die telling her that he would go +on watching till she came to him? He had loved her, she knew; he had +learned to love her better before he died. She must be patient; the day +would come when she should be a Psyche, as he had told her, and soar +aloft in search of her mate. The sense of wifehood had grown one with +her consciousness. It mingled with all her prayers, both in chamber and +in church. As she went about the house, she was dreaming of her Tom--an +angel in heaven, she said to herself, but none the less her husband, +and waiting for her. If she did not read poetry, she read her New +Testament; and if she understood it only in a childish fashion, she +obeyed it in a child-like one, whence the way of all wisdom lay open +before her. It is not where one is, but in what direction he is going. +Before her, too, was her little boy--borne in his father's arms, she +pictured him, and hearing from him of the mother who was coming to them +by and by, when God had made her good enough to rejoin them! + +But, while she continued thus simple, Godfrey could not fail to see how +much more of a woman she had grown: he was not yet capable of seeing +that she would--could never hare got so far with him, even if he had +married her. + +Love and marriage are of the Father's most powerful means for the +making of his foolish little ones into sons and daughters. But so +unlike in many cases are the immediate consequences to those desired +and expected, that it is hard for not a few to believe that he is +anywhere looking after their fate--caring about them at all. And the +doubt would be a reasonable one, if the end of things was marriage. But +the end is life--that we become the children of God; after which, all +things can and will go their grand, natural course; the heart of the +Father will be content for his children, and the hearts of the children +will be content in their Father. + +Godfrey indulged one great and serious mistake in reference to Letty, +namely, that, having learned the character of Tom through the saddest +of personal experience, she must have come to think of him as he did, +and must have dismissed from her heart every remnant of love for him. +Of course, he would not hint at such a thing, he said to himself, nor +would she for a moment allow it, but nothing else could be the state of +her mind! He did not know that in a woman's love there is more of the +specially divine element than in a man's--namely, the original, the +unmediated. The first of God's love is not founded upon any merit, +rests only on being and need, and the worth that is yet unborn. + +The Redmains were again at Durnmelling--had been for some weeks; and +Sepia had taken care that she and Godfrey should meet--on the footpath +to Testbridge, in the field accessible by the breach in the ha-ha--here +and there and anywhere suitable for a little detention and talk that +should seem accidental, and be out of sight. Nor was Godfrey the man to +be insensible to the influence of such a woman, brought to bear at +close quarters. A man less vulnerable--I hate the word, but it is the +right one with Sepia concerned, for she was, in truth, an enemy--might +perhaps have yielded room to the suspicion that these meetings were not +all so accidental as they appeared, and as Sepia treated them; but no +glimmer of such a thought passed through the mind of Godfrey. He knew +nothing of all that my readers know to Sepia's disadvantage, and her +eyes were enough to subdue most men from the first--for a time at +least. Had it not been for the return of Letty, she would by this time +have had him her slave: nothing but slavery could it ever be to love a +woman like her, who gave no love in return, only exercised power. But +although he was always glad to meet her, and his heart had begun to +beat a little faster at sight of her approach, the glamour of her +presence was nearly destroyed by the arrival of Letty; and Sepia was +more than sharp enough to perceive a difference in the expression of +his eyes the next time she met him. At the very first glance she +suspected some hostile influence at work--intentionally hostile, for +persons with a consciousness like Sepia's are always imagining enemies. +And as the two worst enemies she could have were the truth and a woman, +she was alternately jealous and terrified: the truth and a woman +together, she had not yet begun to fear; that would, indeed, be too +much! + +She soon found there was a young woman at Thornwick, who had but just +arrived; and ere long she learned who she was--one, indeed, who had +already a shadowy existence in her life--was it possible the shadow +should be now taking solidity, and threatening to foil her? Not once +did it occur to her that, were it so, there would be retribution in it. +She had heard of Tom's death through "The Firefly," which had a kind, +extravagant article about him, but she had not once thought of his +widow--and there she was, a hedge across the path she wanted to go! If +the house of Durnmelling had but been one story higher, that she might +see all round Thornwick! + +For some time now, as I have already more than hinted, Sepia had been +fashioning a man to her thrall--Mewks, namely, the body-servant of Mr. +Redmain. It was a very gradual process she had adopted, and it had been +the more successful. It had got so far with him that whatever Sepia +showed the least wish to understand, Mewks would take endless trouble +to learn for her. The rest of the servants, both at Durnmelling and in +London, were none of them very friendly with her--least of all Jemima, +who was now with her mistress as lady's-maid, the accomplished +attendant whom Hesper had procured in place of Mary being away for a +holiday. + +The more Sepia realized, or thought she realized, the position she was +in, the more desirous was she to get out of it, and the only feasible +and safe way, in her eyes, was marriage: there was nothing between that +and a return to what she counted slavery. Rather than lift again such a +hideous load of irksomeness, she would find her way out of a world in +which it was not possible, she said, to be both good and comfortable: +she had, in truth, tried only the latter. But if she could, she +thought, secure for a husband this gentleman-yeoman, she might hold up +her head with the best. Even if Galofta should reappear, she would know +then how to meet him: with a friend or two, such as she had never had +yet, she could do what she pleased! It was hard work to get on quite +alone--or with people who cared only for themselves! She must have some +love on her side! some one who cared for _her_! + +From all she could learn, there was nothing that amounted even to +ordinary friendship between Mr. Wardour and the young widow. She was in +the family but as a distant poor relation--"Much as I am myself!" +thought Sepia, with a bitter laugh that even in her own eyes she should +be comparable to a poor creature like Letty. The fact, however, +remained that Godfrey was a little altered toward her: she must have +been telling him something against her--something she had heard from +that detestable little hypocrite who was turned away on suspicion of +theft! Yes--that was how Sepia talked _to herself_ about Mary. + +One morning, Letty, finding she had an hour's leisure, for her aunt did +not pursue her as of old time, wandered out to the oak on the edge of +the ha-ha, so memorable with the shadowy presence of her Tom. She had +not been seated under it many minutes before Godfrey caught sight of +her from his horse's back: knowing his mother was gone to Testbridge, +he yielded to an urgent longing, took his horse to the stable, and +crossed the grass to where she sat. + +Letty was thinking of Tom--what else was there of her own to +do?--thinking like a child, looking up into the cloud-flecked sky, and +thinking Tom was somewhere there, though she could not see him: she +must be good and patient, that she might go up to him, as he could not +come down to her--if he could, he would have come long ago! All the +enchantment of the first days of her love had come back upon the young +widow; all the ill that had crept in between had failed from out her +memory, as the false notes in music melt in the air that carries the +true ones across ravine and river, meadow and grove, to the listening +ear. Letty lived in a dream of her husband--in heaven, "yet not from +her"--such a dream of bliss and hope as in itself went far to make up +for all her sorrows. + +She was sitting with her back toward the tree and her face to +Thornwick, and yet she did not see Godfrey till he was within a few +yards of her. She smiled, expecting his kind greeting, but was startled +to hear from behind her instead the voice of a lady greeting him. She +turned her head involuntarily: there was the head of Sepia rising above +the breach in the ha-ha, and Godfrey had turned aside and run to give +her his hand. + +Now Letty knew Sepia by sight, from the evening she had spent at the +old hall; more of her she knew nothing. From the mind of Tom, in his +illness, her baleful influence had vanished like an evil dream, and +Mary had not thought it necessary to let him know how falsely, +contemptuously, and contemptibly, she had behaved toward him. Letty, +therefore, had no feeling toward Sepia but one of admiration for her +grace and beauty, which she could appreciate the more that they were so +different from her own. + +"Thank you," said Sepia, holding fast by Godfrey's hand, and coming up +with a little pant. "What a lovely day it is for your haymaking! How +can you afford the time to play knight-errant to a distressed damsel?" + +"The hay is nearly independent of my presence," replied Godfrey. "Sun +and wind have done their parts too well for my being of much use." + +"Take me with you to see how they are getting on. I am as fond of hay +as Bottom in his translation." + +She had learned Godfrey's love of literature, and knew that one +quotation may stand for much knowledge. + +"I will, with pleasure," said Godfrey, perhaps a little consoled in the +midst of his disappointment; and they walked away, neither taking +notice of Letty. + +"I did not know," she said to herself, "that the two houses had come +together at last! What a handsome couple they make!" + +What passed between them is scarcely worthy of record. It is enough to +say that Sepia found her companion distrait, and he felt her a little +invasive. In a short while they came back together, and Sepia saw Letty +under the great bough of the Durnmelling oak. Godfrey handed her down +the rent, careful himself not to invade Durnmelling with a single foot. +She ran home, and up to a certain window with her opera-glass. But the +branches and foliage of the huge oak would have concealed pairs and +pairs of lovers. + +Godfrey turned toward Letty. She had not stirred. + +"What a beautiful creature Miss Yolland is!" she said, looking up with +a smile of welcome, and a calmness that prevented the slightest +suspicion of a flattering jealousy. + +"I was coming to _you_," returned Godfrey. "I never saw her till her +head came up over the ha-ha.--Yes, she is beautiful--at least, she has +good eyes." + +"They are splendid! What a wife she would make for you, Cousin Godfrey! +I should like to see such a two." + +Letty was beyond the faintest suggestion of coquetry. Her words drove a +sting to the heart of Godfrey. He turned pale. But not a word would he +have spoken then, had not Letty in her innocence gone on to torture +him. She sprang from the ground. + +"Are you ill, Cousin Godfrey?" she cried in alarm, and with that sweet +tremor of the voice that shows the heart is near. "You are quite +white!--Oh, dear! I've said something I oughtn't to have said! What can +it be? Do forgive me, Cousin Godfrey." In her childlike anxiety she +would have thrown her arms round his neck, but her hands only reached +his shoulders. He drew back: such was the nature of the man that every +sting tasted of offense. But he mastered himself, and in his turn, +alarmed at the idea of having possibly hurt her, caught her hands in +his. As they stood regarding each other with troubled eyes, the +embankment of his prudence gave way, and the stored passion broke out. + +"You don't _mean_ you would like to see me married, Letty?" he groaned. + +"Yes, indeed, I do, Cousin Godfrey! You would make such a lovely +husband!" + +"Ah! I thought as much! I knew you never cared for me, Letty!" + +He dropped her hands, and turned half aside, like a figure warped with +fire. + +"I care for you more than anybody in the world--except, perhaps, Mary," +said Letty: truthfulness was a part of her. + +"And I care for you more than all the world!--more than very being--it +is worthless without you. O Letty! your eyes haunt me night and day! I +love you with my whole soul." + +"How kind of you, Cousin Godfrey!" faltered Letty, trembling, and not +knowing what she said. She was very frightened, but hardly knew why, +for the idea of Godfrey in love with her was all but inconceivable. +Nevertheless, its approach was terrible. Like a fascinated bird she +could not take her eyes off his face. Her knees began to fail her; it +was all she could do to stand. But Godfrey was full of himself, and had +not the most shadowy suspicion of how she felt. He took her emotion for +a favorable sign, and stupidly went on: + +"Letty, I can't help it! I know I oughtn't to speak to you like +this--so soon, but I can't keep quiet any longer. I love you more than +the universe and its Maker. A thousand times rather would I cease to +live, than live without you to love me. I have loved you for years and +years--longer than I know. I was loving you with heart and soul and +brain and eyes when you went away and left me." + +"Cousin Godfrey!" shrieked Letty, "don't you know I belong to Tom?" + +And she dropped like one lifeless on the grass at his feet. + +Godfrey felt as if suddenly damned; and his hell was death. He stood +gazing on the white face. The world, heaven, God, and nature were dead, +and that was the soul of it all, dead before him! But such death is +never born of love. This agony was but the fog of disappointed +self-love; and out of it suddenly rose what seemed a new power to live, +but one from a lower world: it was all a wretched dream, out of which +he was no more to issue, in which he must go on for ever, dreaming, yet +acting as one wide awake! Mechanically he stooped and lifted the +death-defying lover in his arms, and carried her to the house. He felt +no thrill as he held the treasure to his heart. It was the merest +material contact. He bore her to the room where his mother sat, laid +her on the sofa, said he had found her under the oak-tree--and went to +his study, away in the roof. On a chair in the middle of the floor he +sat, like a man bereft of all. Nothing came between him and suicide but +an infinite scorn. A slow rage devoured his heart. Here he was, a man +who knew his own worth, his faithfulness, his unchangeableness, cast +over the wall of the universe, into the waste places, among the broken +shards of ruin! If there was a God--and the rage in his heart declared +his being--why did he make him? To make him for such a misery was pure +injustice, was willful cruelty! Henceforward he would live above what +God or woman could do to him! He rose and went to the hay-field, whence +he did not return till after midnight. + +He did not sleep, but he came to a resolution. In the morning he told +his mother that he wanted a change; now that the hay was safe, he would +have a run, he hardly knew where--possibly on the Continent; she must +not be uneasy if she did not hear from him for a week or two; perhaps +he would have a look at the pyramids. The old lady was filled with +dismay; but scarcely had she begun to expostulate when she saw in his +eyes that something was seriously amiss, and held her peace--she had +had to learn that with both father and son. Godfrey went, and courted +distraction. Ten years before, he would have brooded: that he would not +do now: the thing was not worth it! His pride was strong as ever, and +both helped him to get over his suffering, and prevented him from +gaining the good of it. He intrenched himself in his pride. No one +should say he had not had his will! He was a strong man, and was going +to prove it to himself afresh! + +Thus thought Godfrey; but he is in reality a weak man who must have +recourse to pride to carry him through. Only, if a man has not love +enough to make a hero of him, what is he to do? + +He was away a month, and came back in seeming health and spirits. But +it was no small relief to him to find on his arrival that Letty was no +longer at Thornwick. + +She had gone through a sore time. To have made Godfrey unhappy, made +her miserable; but how was she to help it? She belonged to Tom! Not +once did she entertain the thought of ceasing to be Tom's. She did not +even say to herself, what would Tom do if she forgot and forsook +him--and for what he could not help! for having left her because death +took him away! But what was she to do? She must not remain where she +was. No more must she tell his mother why she went. + +She wrote to Mary, and told her she could not stay much longer. They +were very kind, she said, but she must be gone before Godfrey came back. + +Mary suspected the truth. The fact that Letty did not give her any +reason was almost enough. The supposition also rendered intelligible +the strange mixture of misery and hardness in Godfrey's behavior at the +time of Letty's old mishap. She answered, begging her to keep her mind +easy about the future, and her friend informed of whatever concerned +her. + +This much from Mary was enough to set Letty at comparative ease. She +began to recover strength, and was able to write a letter to Godfrey, +to leave where he would find it, in his study. + +It was a lovely letter--the utterance of a simple, childlike +spirit--with much in it, too, I confess, that was but prettily +childish. She poured out on Godfrey the affection of a womanchild. She +told him what a reverence and love he had been to her always; told him, +too, that it would change her love into fear, perhaps something worse, +if he tried to make her forget Tom. She told him he was much too grand +for her to dare love him in that way, but she could look up to him like +an angel--only he must not come between her and Tom. Nothing could be +plainer, simpler, honester, or stronger, than the way the little woman +wrote her mind to the great man. Had he been worthy of her, he might +even yet, with her help, have got above his passion in a grand way, and +been a great man indeed. But, as so many do, he only sat upon himself, +kept himself down, and sank far below his passion. + +When he went to his study the day after his return, he saw the letter. +His heart leaped like a wild thing in a trap at sight of the +ill-shaped, childish writing; but--will my lady reader believe it?--the +first thought that shot through it was--"She shall find it too late! I +am not one to be left and taken at will!" When he read it, however, it +was with a curling lip of scorn at the childishness of the creature to +whom he had offered the heart of Godfrey Wardour. Instead of admiring +the lovely devotion of the girl-widow to her boy-husband, he scorned +himself for having dreamed of a creature who could not only love a fool +like Tom Helmer, but go on loving him after he was dead, and that even +when Godfrey Wardour had condescended to let her know he loved her. It +was thus the devil befooled him. Perhaps the worst devil a man can be +posessed withal, is himself. In mere madness, the man is beside +himself; but in this case he is inside himself; the presiding, +indwelling, inspiring sprit of him is himself, and that is the hardest +of all to cast out. Godfrey rose form the reading of that letter +_cured,_ as he called it. But it was a cure that left the wound open as +a door to the entrance of evil things. He tore the letter into a +thousand pieces, and throw them into the empty grate--not even showed +it the respect of burning it with fire. + +Mary had got her affairs settled, and was again in the old place, the +hallowed temple of so many holy memories. I do not forget it was a shop +I call a temple. In that shop God had been worshiped with holiest +worship--that is, obedience--and would be again. Neither do I forget +that the devil had been worshiped there too--in what temple is he not? +He has fallen like lightning from heaven, but has not yet been cast out +of the earth. In that shop, however, he would be worshiped no more for +a season. + +At once she wrote to Letty, saying the room which had been hers was at +her service as soon as she pleased to occupy it: she would take her +father's. + +Letty breathed a deep breath of redemption, and made haste to accept +the offer. But to let Mrs. Wardour know her resolve was a severe strain +on her courage. + +I will not give the conversation that followed her announcement that +she was going to visit Mary Marston. Her aunt met it with scorn and +indignation. Ingratitude, laziness, love of low company, all the old +words of offense she threw afresh in her face. But Letty could not help +being pleased to find that her aunt's storm no longer swamped her boat. +When she began, however, to abuse Mary, calling her a low creature, who +actually gave up an independent position to put herself at the beck and +call of a fine lady, Letty grew angry. + +"I must not sit and hear you call Mary names, aunt," she said. "When +you cast me out, she stood by me. You do not understand her. She is the +only friend I ever had-except Tom." + +"You dare, you thankless hussy, to say such a thing in the house where +you've been clothed and fed and sheltered for so many years! You're the +child of your father with a vengeance! Get out of my sight!" + +"Aunt--" said Letty, rising. + +"No aunt of yours!" interrupted the wrathful woman. + +"Mrs. Wardour," said Letty, with dignity, "you have been my benefactor, +but hardly my friend: Mary has taught me the difference. I owe you more +than you will ever give me the chance of repaying you. But what +friendship could have stood for an hour the hard words you have been in +the way of giving me, as far back as I can remember! Hard words take +all the sweetness from shelter. Mary is the only Christian _I_ have +ever known." + +"So we are all pagans, except your low-lived lady's-maid! Upon my word!" + +"She makes me feel, often, often," said Letty, bursting into tears, "as +if I were with Jesus himself--as if he must be in the room somewhere." + +So saying, she left her, and went to put up her things. Mrs. Wardour +locked the door of the room where she sat, and refused to see or speak +to her again. Letty went away, and walked to Testbridge. + +"Godfrey will do something to make her understand," she said to +herself, weeping as she walked. + +Whether Godfrey ever did, I can not tell. + + + + +CHAPTER L. + +WILLIAM AND MARY MARSTON. + + +The same day on which Turnbull opened his new shop, a man was seen on a +ladder painting out the sign above the old one. But the paint took time +to dry. + +The same day, also, Mary returned to Testbridge, and, going in by the +kitchen-door, went up to her father's room, of which and of her own she +had kept the keys--to the indignation of Turnbull, who declared he did +not know how to get on without them for storage. But, for all his +bluster, he was afraid of Mary, and did not dare touch anything she had +left. + +That night she spent alone in the house. But she could not sleep. She +got up and went down to the shop. It was a bright, moonlit night, and +all the house, even where the moon could not enter, was full of glimmer +and gleam, except the shop. There she lighted a candle, sat down on a +pile of goods, and gave herself up to memories of the past. Back and +back went her thoughts as far as she could send them. God was +everywhere in all the story; and the clearer she saw him there the +surer she was that she would find him as she went on. She was neither +sad nor fearful. The dead hours of the night came, that valley of the +shadow of death where faith seems to grow weary and sleep, and all the +things of the shadow wake up and come out and say, "Here we are, and +there is nothing but us and our kind in the universe!" They woke up and +came out upon Mary now, but she fought them off. Either there is +mighty, triumphant life at the root and apex of all things, or life is +not--and whence, then, the power of dreaming horrors? It is life +alone--life imperfect--that can fear; death can not fear. Even the +terror that walketh by night is a proof that I live, and that it shall +not prevail against me. And to Mary, besides her heavenly Father, her +William Marston seemed near all the time. Whereever she turned she saw +the signs of him, and she pleased herself to think that perhaps he was +there to welcome her. But it would not have made her the least sad to +know for certain that he was far off, and would never come near her +again in this world. She knew that, spite of time and space, she was +and must be near him so long as she loved and did the truth. She knew +there is no bond so strong, none so close, none so lasting as the +truth. In God alone, who is the truth, can creatures meet. + +The place was left in sad confusion and dirt, and she did not a little +that night to restore order at least. But at length she was tired, and +went up to her room. + +On the first landing there was a window to the street. She stopped and +looked out, candle in hand, but drew back with a start: on the opposite +side of the way stood a man, looking up, she thought, at the house! She +hastened to her room, and to bed. If God was not watching, no waking +was of use; and if God was watching, she might sleep in peace. She did +sleep, and woke refreshed. + +Her first care in the morning was to write to Letty--with the result I +have set down. The next thing she did was to go and ask Beenie to give +her some breakfast. The old woman was delighted to see her, and ready +to lock her door at once and go back to her old quarters. They returned +together, while Testbridge was yet but half awake. + +Many things had to be done before the shop could be opened. Beenie went +after charwomen, and soon a great bustle of cleaning arose. But the +door was kept shut, and the front windows. + +In the afternoon Letty came fresh from misery into more than +counterbalancing joy. She took but time to put off her bonnet and +shawl, and was presently at work helping Mary, cheerful as hope and a +good conscience could make her. + +Mary was in no hurry to open the shop. There was "stock to be taken," +many things had to be rearranged, and not a few things to be added, +before she could begin with comfort; and she must see to it all +herself, for she was determined to engage no assistant until she could +give her orders without hesitation. + +She was soon satisfied that she could not do better than make a +proposal to Letty which she had for some time contemplated--namely, +that she should take up her permanent abode with her, and help her in +the shop. Letty was charmed, nor ever thought of the annoyance it would +be to her aunt. Mary had thought of that, but saw that, for Letty to +allow the prejudices of her aunt to influence her, would be to order +her life not by the law of that God whose Son was a workingman, but +after the whim and folly of an ill-educated old woman. A new spring of +life seemed to bubble up in Letty the moment Mary mentioned the matter; +and in serving she soon proved herself one after Mary's own heart. +Letty's day was henceforth without a care, and her rest was sweet to +her. Many customers were even more pleased with her than with Mary. +Before long, Mary, besides her salary, gave her a small share in the +business. + +Mrs. Wardour carried her custom to the Turnbulls. + +When the paint was dry which obliterated the old sign, people saw the +now one begin with an _M_., and the sign-writer went on until there +stood in full, _Mary Marston_. Mr. Brett hinted he would rather have +seen it without the Christian name; but Mary insisted she would do and +be nothing she would not hold just that name to; and on the sign her +own name, neither more nor less, should stand. She would have liked, +she said, to make it _William and Mary Marston_; for the business was +to go on exactly as her father had taught her; the spirit of her father +should never be out of the place; and if she failed, of which she had +no fear, she would fail trying to carry out his ideas-but people were +too dull to understand, and she therefore set the sign so in her heart +only. + +Her old friends soon began to come about her again, and it was not many +weeks before she saw fit to go to London to add to her stock. + +The evening of her return, as she and Letty sat over a late tea, a +silence fell, during which Letty had a brooding fit. + +"I wonder how Cousin Godfrey is getting on?" she said at last, and +smiled sadly. + +"How do you mean _getting on_?" asked Mary. + +"I was wondering whether Miss Yolland and he--" + +Mary started from her seat, white as the table-cloth. + +"Letty!" she said, in a voice of utter dismay, "you don't mean that +woman is--is making friends with _him_?" + +"I saw them together more than once, and they seemed--well, on very +good terms." + +"Then it is all over with him!" cried Mary, in despair. "O Letty! what +_is_ to be done? Why didn't you tell me before? He'll be madly in love +with her by this time! They always are." + +"But where's the harm, Mary? She's a very handsome lady, and of a good +family." + +"We're all of good enough family," said Mary, a little petulantly. "But +that Miss Yolland--Letty--that Miss Yolland--she's a bad woman, Letty." + +"I never heard you say such a hard word of anybody before, Mary! It +frightens me to hear you." + +"It's a true word of her, Letty." + +"How can you be so sure?" + +Mary was silent. There was that about Letty that made the maiden shrink +from telling the married woman what she knew. Besides, in so far as Tom +had been concerned, she could not bring herself, even without +mentioning his name, to talk of him to his wife: there was no evil to +be prevented and no good to be done by it. If Letty was ever to know +those passages in his life, she must hear them first in high places, +and from the lips of the repentant man himself! + +"I can not tell you, Letty," she said. "You know the two bonds of +friendship are the right of silence and the duty of speech. I dare say +you have some things which, truly as I know you love me, you neither +wish nor feel at liberty to tell me." + +Letty thought of what had so lately passed between her and her cousin +Godfrey, and felt almost guilty. She never thought of one of the many +things Tom had done or said that had cut her to the heart; those had no +longer any existence. They were swallowed in the gulf of forgetful +love--dismissed even as God casts the sins of his children behind his +back: behind God's back is just nowhere. She did not answer, and again +there was silence for a time, during which Mary kept walking about the +room, her hands clasped behind her, the fingers interlaced, and twisted +with a strain almost fierce. + +"There's no time! there's no time!" she cried at length. "How are we to +find out? And if we knew all about it, what could we do? O Letty! what +_am_ I to do?" + +"Anyhow, Mary dear, _you_ can't be to blame! One would think you +fancied yourself accountable for Cousin Godfrey!" + +"I _am_ accountable for him. He has done more for me than any man but +my father; and I know what he does not know, and what the ignorance of +will be his ruin. I know that one of the best men in the world"--so in +her agony she called him--"is in danger of being married by one of the +worst women; and I can't bear it--I can't bear it!" + +"But what can you do, Mary?" + +"That's what I want to know," returned Mary, with irritation. "What +_am_ I to do? What _am_ I to do?" + +"If he's in love with her, he wouldn't believe a word any one--even +you--told him against her." + +"That is true, I suppose; but it won't clear me. I must do something." + +She threw herself on the couch with a groan. + +"It's horrid!" she cried, and buried her face in the pillow. + +All this time Letty had been so bewildered by Mary's agitation, and the +cause of it was to her so vague, that apprehension for her cousin did +not wake. But when Mary was silent, then came the thought that, if she +had not so repulsed him--but she could not help it, and would not think +in that direction. + +Mary started from the couch, and began again to pace the room, wringing +her hands, and walking up and down like a wild beast in its cage. It +was so unlike her to be thus seriously discomposed, that Letty began to +be frightened. She sat silent and looked at her. Then spoke the spirit +of truth in the scholar, for the teacher was too troubled to hear. She +rose, and going up to Mary from behind, put her arm round her, and +whispered in her ear: + +"Mary, why don't you ask Jesus?" + +Mary stopped short, and looked at Letty. But she was not thinking about +her; she was questioning herself: why had she not done as Letty said? +Something was wrong with her: that was clear, if nothing else was! She +threw herself again on the couch, and Letty saw her body heaving with +her sobs. Then Letty was more frightened, and feared she had done +wrong. Was it her part to remind Mary of what she knew so much better +than she? + +"But, then, I was only referring her to herself!" she thought. + +A few minutes, and Mary rose. Her face was wet and white, but +perplexity had vanished from it, and resolution had taken its place. +She threw her arms round Letty, and kissed her, and held her face +against hers. Letty had never seen in her such an expression of emotion +and tenderness. + +"I have found out, Letty, dear," she said. "Thank you, thank you, +Letty! You are a true sister." + +"What have you found out, Mary?" + +"I have found out why I did not go at once to ask Him what I ought to +do. It was just because I was afraid of what he would tell me to do." + +And with that the tears ran down her cheeks afresh. + +"Then you know now what to do?" asked Letty. + +"Yes," answered Mary, and sat down. + + + + +CHAPTER LI. + +A HARD TASK. + + +The next morning, leaving the shop to Letty, Mary set out immediately +after breakfast to go to Thornwick. But the duty she had there to +perform was so distasteful, that she felt her very limbs refuse the +office required of them. They trembled so under her that she could +scarcely walk. She sent, therefore, to the neighboring inn for a fly. +All the way, as she went, she was hoping she might be spared an +encounter with Mrs. Wardour; but the old lady heard the fly, saw her +get out, and, imagining she had brought Letty back in some fresh +trouble, hastened to prevent either of them from entering the house. +The door stood open, and they met on the broad step. + +"Good morning, Mrs. Wardour," said Mary, trying to speak without +betraying emotion. + +"Good morning, Miss Marston," returned Mrs. Wardour, grimly. + +"Is Mr. Wardour at home?" asked Mary. + +"What is your business with _him_?" rejoined the mother. + +"Yes; it is with him," returned Mary, as if she had mistaken her +question, and there had been a point of exclamation after the _What_. + +"About that hussy?" + +"I do not know whom you call by the name," replied Mary, who would have +been glad indeed to find a fellow-protector of Godfrey in his mother. + +"You know well enough whom I mean. Whom should it be, but Letty Lovel!" + +"My business has nothing to do with her," answered Mary. + +"Whom has it to do with, then?" + +"With Mr. Wardour." + +"What is it?" + +"Only Mr. Wardour himself must hear it. It is his business, not mine." + +"I will have nothing to do with it." + +"I have no desire to give you the least trouble about it," rejoined +Mary. + +"You can't see Mr. Wardour. He's not one to be at the beck and call of +every silly woman that wants him." + +"Then I will write, and tell him I called, but you would not allow me +to see him." + +"I will give him a message, if you like." + +"Then tell him what I have just said. I am going home to write to him. +Good morning." + +She was getting into the fly again, when Mrs. Wardour, reflecting that +it must needs be something of consequence that brought her there so +early in a fly, and made her show such a determined front to so great a +personage as herself, spoke again. + +"I will tell him you are here; but you must not blame me if he does not +choose to see you. We don't feel you have behaved well about that girl." + +"Letty is my friend. I have behaved to her as if she were my sister." + +"You had no business to behave to her as if she were your sister. You +had no right to tempt her down to your level." + +"Is it degradation to earn one's own living?" + +"You had nothing to do with her. She would have done very well if you +had but let her alone." + +"Excuse me, ma'am, but I have _some_ right in Letty. I am sorry to have +to assert it, but she would have been dead long ago if I had behaved to +her as you would have me." + +"That was all her own fault." + +"I will not talk with you about it: you do not know the circumstances +to which I refer. I request to see Mr. Wardour. I have no time to waste +in useless altercation." + +Mary was angry, and it did her good; it made her fitter to face the +harder task before her. + +That moment they heard the step of Godfrey approaching through a long +passage in the rear. His mother went into the parlor, leaving the door, +which was close to where Mary stood, ajar. Godfrey, reaching the hall, +saw Mary, and came up to her with a formal bow, and a face flushed with +displeasure. + +"May I speak to you alone, Mr. Wardour?" said Mary. "Can you not say +what you have to say here?" + +"It is impossible." + +"Then I am curious to know--" + +"Let your curiosity plead for me, then." + +With a sigh of impatience he yielded, and led the way to the +drawing-room, which was at the other end of the hall. Mary turned and +shut the door he left open. + +"Why all this mystery, Miss Marston?" he said. "I am not aware of +anything between you and me that can require secrecy." + +He spoke with unconcealed scorn. + +"When I have made my communication, you will at least allow secrecy to +have been necessary." + +"Some objects may require it!" said Wardour, in a tone itself an insult. + +"Mr. Wardour," returned Mary, "I am here for your sake, not my own. May +I beg you will not render a painful duty yet more difficult?" + +"May _I_ beg, then, that you will be as brief as possible? I am more +than doubtful whether what you have to say will seem to me of so much +consequence as you suppose." + +"I shall be very glad to find it so." + +"I can not give you more than ten minutes." Mary looked at her watch. + +"You have lately become acquainted with Miss Yolland, I am told," she +began. + +"Whew!" whistled Godfrey, yet hardly as if he were surprised. + +"I have been compelled to know a good deal of that lady." + +"As lady's-maid in her family, I believe." + +"Yes," said Mary--then changing her tone after a slight pause, went on: +"Mr. Wardour, I owe you more than I can ever thank you for. I strongly +desire to fulfill the obligation your goodness has laid upon me, though +I can never discharge it. For the sake of that obligation--for your +sake, I am risking much--namely, your opinion of me." + +He made a gesture of impatience. + +"I _know_ Miss Yolland to be a woman without principle. I know it by +the testimony of my own eyes, and from her own confession. She is +capable of playing a cold-hearted, cruel game for her own ends. Be +persuaded to consult Mr. Redmain before you commit yourself. Ask him if +Miss Yolland is fit to be the wife of an honest man." + +There was nothing in Godfrey's countenance but growing rage. Turning to +the door, Mary would have gone without another word. + +"Stay!" cried Godfrey, in a voice of suppressed fury. "Do not dare to +go until I have told you that you are a vile slanderer. I knew +something of what I had to expect, but you should never have entered +this room had I known how far your effrontery could carry you. Listen +to me: if anything more than the character of your statement had been +necessary to satisfy me of the falsehood of every word of it, you have +given it me in your reference to Mr. Redmain--a man whose life has +rendered him unfit for the acquaintance, not to say the confidence of +any decent woman. This is a plot--for what final object, God +knows--between you and him! I should be doing my duty were I to expose +you both to the public scorn you deserve." + +"Now I am clear!" said Mary to herself, but aloud, and stood erect, +with glowing face and eyes of indignation: "Then why not do your duty, +Mr. Wardour? I should be glad of anything that would open your eyes. +But Miss Yolland will never give Mr. Redmain such an opportunity. Nor +does he desire it, for he might have had it long ago, by the criminal +prosecution of a friend of hers. For my part, I should be sorry to see +her brought to public shame." + +"Leave the house!" said Godfrey through his teeth, and almost under his +breath. + +"I am sorry it is so hard to distinguish between truth and falsehood," +said Mary, as she went to the door. + +She walked out, got into the fly, and drove home; went into the shop, +and served the rest of the morning; but in the afternoon was obliged to +lie down, and did not appear again for three days. + +The reception she had met with did not much surprise her: plainly Sepia +had been before her. She had pretended to make Godfrey her confidant, +had invented, dressed, and poured out injuries to him, and so blocked +up the way to all testimony unfavorable to her. Was there ever man in +more pitiable position? + +It added to Godfrey's rage that he had not a doubt Mary knew what had +passed between Letty and him. That, he reasoned, was at the root of it +all: she wanted to bring them together yet: it would be a fine thing +for her to have her bosom-friend mistress of Thornwick! What a cursed +thing he should ever have been civil to her! And what a cursed fool he +was ever to have cared a straw for such a low-minded creature as that +Letty! Thank Heaven, he was cured of that! + +Cured?--He had fallen away from love--that was all the cure! + +Like the knight of the Red Cross, he was punished for abandoning Una, +by falling in love with Duessa. His rage against Letty, just because of +her faithfulness, had cast him an easy prey into the arms of the +clinging Sepia. + +And now what more could Mary do? Just one thing was left: Mr. Redmain +could satisfy Mr. Wardour of the fact he would not hear from her!--so, +at least, thought Mary yet. If Mr. Redmain would take the trouble to +speak to him, Mr. Wardour must be convinced! However true might be what +Mr. Wardour had said about Mr. Redmain, fact remained fact about Sepia! + +She sat down and wrote the following letter: + +"Sir: I hardly know how to address you without seeming to take a +liberty; at the same time I can not help hoping you trust me enough to +believe that I would not venture such a request as I am about to make, +without good reason. Should you kindly judge me not to presume, and +should you be well enough in health, which I fear may not be the case, +would you mind coming to see me here in my shop? I think you must know +it--it used to be Turnbull and Marston--the Marston was my father. You +will see my name over the door. Any hour from morning to night will do +for me; only please let it be as soon as you can make it convenient. + + "I am, sir, + "Your humble and grateful servant, + "MARY MARSTON" + +"What the deuce is she grateful to me for?" grumbled Mr. Redmain when +he read it. "I never did anything for her! By Jove, the gypsy herself +wouldn't let me! I vow she's got more brains of her own than any +half-dozen women I ever had to do with before!" + +The least thing bearing the look of plot, or intrigue, or secret to be +discovered or heard, was enough for Mr. Redmain. What he had of pride +was not of the same sort as Wardour's: it made no pretense to dignity, +and was less antagonistic, so long at least as there was no talk of +good motive or righteous purpose. Far from being offended with Mary's +request, he got up at once, though indeed he was rather unwell and +dreading an attack, ordered his brougham, and drove to Testbridge. +There, careful of secrecy, he went to several shops, and bought +something at each, but pretended not to find the thing he wanted. + +He then said he would lunch at the inn, told his coachman to put up, +and, while his meal was getting ready, went to Mary's shop, which was +but a few doors off. There he asked for a certain outlandish stuff, and +insisted on looking over a bale not yet unpacked. Mary understood him, +and, whispering Letty to take him to the parlor, followed a minute +after. + +As soon as she entered-- + +"Come, now, what's it all about?" he said. + +Mary began at once to tell him, as directly as she could, that she was +under obligation to Mr. Wardour of Thornwick, and that she had reason +to fear Miss Yolland was trying to get a hold of him--"And you know +what that would be for any man!" she said. + +"No, by Jove! I don't," he answered. "What would it be?" + +"Utter ruin," replied Mary. "Then go and tell him so, if you want to +save him." + +"I have told him. But he does not like me, and won't believe me." + +"Then let him take his own course, and be ruined." + +"But I have just told you, sir, I am under obligation to him--great +obligation!" + +"Oh! I see! you want him yourself!--Well, as you wish it, I would +rather you should have him than that she-devil. But come, now, you must +be open with me." + +"I am. I will be." + +"You say so, of course. Women do.--But you confess you want him +yourself?" + +Mary saw it would be the worst possible policy to be angry with him, +especially as she had given him the trouble to come to her, and she +must not lose this her last chance. + +"I do not want him," she answered, with a smile; "and, if I did, he +would never look at one in my position. He would as soon think of +marrying the daughter of one of his laborers--and quite right, too--for +the one might just be as good as the other." + +"Well, now, that's a pity. I would have done a good deal for _you_--I +don't know why, for you're a little humbug if ever there was one! But, +if you don't care about the fellow, I don't see why I should take the +trouble. Confess--you're a little bit in love with him--ain't you, now? +Confess to that, and I will do what I can." + +"I can't confess to a lie. I owe Mr. Wardour a debt of gratitude--that +is all--but no light thing, you will allow, sir!" + +"I don't know; I never tried its weight. Anyhow, I should make haste to +be rid of it." + +"I have sought to make him this return, but he only fancies me a +calumniator. Miss Yolland has been beforehand with me." + +"Then, by Jove! I don't see but you're quits with him. If he behaves +like that to you, don't you see, it wipes it all out? Upon my soul! I +don't see why you should trouble your head about him. Let him take his +way, and go to--Sepia." + +"But, sir, what a dreadful thing it would be, knowing what she is, to +let a man like him throw himself away on her!" + +"I don't see it. I've no doubt he's just as bad as she is. We all are; +we're all the same. And, if he weren't, it would be the better joke. +Besides, you oughtn't to keep up a grudge, don't you know; you ought to +let the--the _woman_ have a chance. If he marries her--and that must be +her game this time--she'll grow decent, and be respectable ever after, +you may be sure--go to church, as you would have her, and all +that--never miss a Sunday, I'll lay you a thousand." + +"He's of a good old family!" said Mary, foolishly, thinking that would +weigh with him. + +"Good old fiddlestick! Damned old worn-out broom-end! _She's_ of a good +old family--quite good enough for his, you may take your oath! Why, my +girl! the thing's not worth burning your fingers with. You've brought +me here on a goose-errand. I'll go and have my lunch." + +He rose. + +"I'm sorry to have vexed you, sir," said Mary, greatly disappointed. + +"Never mind.--I'm horribly sold," he said, with a tight grin. "I +thought you must have some good thing in hand to make it worth your +while to send for me." + +"Then I must try something else," reflected Mary aloud. + +"I wouldn't advise you. The man's only the surer to hate you and stick +to her. Let him alone. If he's a stuck-up fellow like that, it will +take him down a bit--when the truth comes out, that is, as come out it +must. There's one good thing in it, my wife'll get rid of her. But I +don't know! there's an enemy, as the Bible says, that sticketh closer +than a brother. And they'll be next door when Durnmelling is mine! But +I can sell it." + +"If he _should_ come to you, will you tell him the truth?" + +"I don't know that. It might spoil my own little game." + +"Will you let him think me a liar and slanderer?" + +"No, by Jove! I won't do that. I don't promise to tell him all the +truth, or even that what I do tell him shall be exactly true; but I +won't let him think ill of my little puritan; that would spoil _your_ +game. Ta, ta!" + +He went out, with his curious grin, amused, and enjoying the idea of a +proud fellow like that being taken in with Sepia. + +"I hope devoutly he'll marry her!" he said to himself as he went to his +luncheon. "Then I shall hold a rod over them both, and perhaps buy that +miserable little Thornwick. Mortimer would give the skin off his back +for it." + +The thing that ought to be done had to be done, and Mary had done +it--alas! to no purpose for the end desired: what was left her to do +further? She could think of nothing. Sepia, like a moral hyena, must +range her night. She went to bed, and dreamed she was pursued by a +crowd, hooting after her, and calling her all the terrible names of +those who spread evil reports. She woke in misery, and slept no more. + + + + +CHAPTER LII. + +A SUMMONS. + + +One hot Saturday afternoon, in the sleepiest time of the day, when +nothing was doing; and nobody in the shop, except a poor boy who had +come begging for some string to help him fly his kite, though for the +last month wind had been more scarce than string, Jemima came in from +Durnmelling, and, greeting Mary with the warmth of the friendship that +had always been true between them, gave her a letter. + +"Whom is this from?" asked Mary, with the usual human waste of inquiry, +seeing she held the surest answer in her hand. + +"Mr. Mewks gave it me," said Jemima. "He didn't say whom it was from." + +Mary made haste to open it: she had an instinctive distrust of +everything that passed through Mewks's hands, and greatly feared that, +much as his master trusted him, he was not true to him. She found the +following note from Mr. Redmain: + +"DEAR MISS MARSTON: Come and see me as soon as you can; I have +something to talk to you about. Send word by the bearer when I may look +for you. I am not well. + +"Yours truly, + +"F. G. REDMAIN." + +Mary went to her desk and wrote a reply, saying she would be with him +the next morning about eleven o'clock. She would have gone that same +night, she said, but, as it was Saturday, she could not, because of +country customers, close in time to go so far. + +"Give it into Mr. Redmain's own hand, if you can, Jemima," she said. + +"I will try; but I doubt if I can, miss," answered the girl. + +"Between ourselves, Jemima," said Mary, "I do not trust that man Mewks." + +"Nobody does, miss, except the master and Miss Yolland." + +"Then," thought Mary, "the thing is worse than I had supposed." + +"I'll do what I can, miss," Jemima went on. "But he's so sharp!--Mr. +Mewks, I mean." + +After she was gone, Mary wished she had given her a verbal message; +that she might have insisted on delivering in person. + +Jemima, with circumspection, managed to reach Mr. Redmain's room +unencountered, but just as she knocked at the door, Mewks came behind +her from somewhere, and snatching the letter out of her hand, for she +carried it ready to justify her entrance to the first glance of her +irritable master, pushed her rudely away, and immediately went in. But +as he did so he put the letter in his pocket. + +"Who took the note?" asked his master. + +"The girl at the lodge, sir." + +"Is she not come back yet?" + +"No, sir, not yet. She'll be in a minute, though. I saw her coming up +the avenue." + +"Go and bring her here." + +"Yes, sir." + +Mewks went, and in two minutes returned with the letter, and the +message that Miss Marston hadn't time to direct it. + +"You damned rascal! I told you to bring the messenger here." + +"She ran the whole way, sir, and not being very strong, was that tired, +that, the moment she got in, the poor thing dropped in a dead faint. +They ain't got her to yet." + +His master gave him one look straight in the eyes, then opened the +letter, and read it. + +"Miss Marston will call here tomorrow morning," he said; "see that +_she_ is shown up at once--here, to my sitting-room. I hope I am +explicit." + +When the man was gone, Mr. Redmain nodded his head three times, and +grinned the skin tight as a drum-head over his cheek-bones. + +"There isn't a damned soul of them to be trusted!" he said to himself, +and sat silently thoughtful. + +Perhaps he was thinking how often he had come short of the hope placed +in him; times of reflection arrive to most men; and a threatened attack +of the illness he believed must one day carry him off, might well have +disposed him to think. + +In the evening he was worse. + +By midnight he was in agony, and Lady Margaret was up with him all +night. In the morning came a lull, and Lady Margaret went to bed. His +wife had not come near him. But Sepia might have been seen, more than +once or twice, hovering about his door. + +Both she and Mewks thought, after such a night, he must have forgotten +his appointment with Mary. + +When he had had some chocolate, he fell into a doze. But his sleep was +far from profound. Often he woke and again dozed off. + +The clock in the dressing-room struck eleven. + +"Show Miss Marston up the moment she arrives," he said--and his voice +was almost like that of a man in health. + +"Yes, sir," replied the startled Mewks, and felt he must obey. + +So Mary was at once shown to the chamber of the sick man. + +To her surprise (for Mewks had given her no warning), he was in bed, +and looking as ill as ever she had seen him. His small head was like a +skull covered with parchment. He made the slightest of signs to her to +come nearer--and again. She went close to the bed. Mewks sat down at +the foot of it, out of sight. It was a great four-post-bed, with +curtains. + +"I'm glad you're come," he said, with a feeble grin, all he had for a +smile. "I want to have a little talk with you. But I can't while that +brute is sitting there. I have been suffering horribly. Look at me, and +tell me if you think I am going to die--not that I take your opinion +for worth anything. That's not what I wanted you for, though. I wasn't +so ill then. But I want you the more to talk to now. _You_ have a bit +of a heart, even for people that don't deserve it--at least I'm going +to believe you have; and, if I am wrong, I almost think I would rather +not know it till I'm dead and gone!--Good God! where shall I be then?" + +I have already said that, whether in consequence of remnants of +mother-teaching or from the movements of a conscience that had more +vitality than any of his so-called friends would have credited it with, +Mr. Redmain, as often as his sufferings reached a certain point, was +subject to fits of terror--horrible anguish it sometimes amounted +to--at the thought of hell. This, of course, was silly, seeing hell is +out of fashion in far wider circles than that of Mayfair; but denial +does not alter fact, and not always fear. Mr. Redmain laughed when he +was well, and shook when he was suffering. In vain he argued with +himself that what he held by when in health was much more likely to be +true than a dread which might be but the suggestion of the disease that +was slowly gnawing him to death: as often as the sickness returned, he +received the suggestion afresh, whatever might be its source, and +trembled as before. In vain he accused himself of cowardice--the thing +was there--_in him_--nothing could drive it out. And, verily, even a +madman may be wiser than the prudent of this world; and the courage of +not a few would forsake them if they dared but look the danger in the +face. I pity the poor ostrich, and must I admire the man of whose kind +he is the type, or take him in any sense for a man of courage? Wait +till the thing stares you in the face, and then, whether you be brave +man or coward, you will at all events care little about courage or +cowardice. The nearer a man is to being a true man, the sooner will +conscience of wrong make a coward of him; and herein Redmain had a +far-off kindred with the just. After the night he had passed, he was +now in one of his terror-fits; and this much may be said for his good +sense--that, if there was anywhere a hell for the use of anybody, he +was justified in anticipating a free entrance. + +"Mewks!" he called, suddenly, and his tone was loud and angry. + +Mewks was by his bedside instantly. + +"Get out with you! If I find you in this room again, without having +been called, I will kill you! I am strong enough for that, even without +this pain. They won't hang a dying man, and where I am going they will +rather like it." + +Mewks vanished. + +"You need not mind, my girl," he went on, to Mary. "Everybody knows I +am ill--very ill. Sit down there, on the foot of the bed, only take +care you don't shake it, and let me talk to you. People, you know, say +nowadays there ain't any hell--or perhaps none to speak of?" + +"I should think the former more likely than the latter," said Mary. + +"You don't believe there is any? I _am_ glad of that! for you are a +good girl, and ought to know." + +"You mistake me, sir. How can I imagine there is no hell, when _he_ +said there was?" + +"Who's _he_?" + +"The man who knows all about it, and means to put a stop to it some +day." + +"Oh, yes; I see! Hm!--But I don't for the life of me see what a fellow +is to make of it all--don't you know? Those parsons! They will have it +there's no way out of it but theirs, and I never could see a handle +anywhere to that door!" + +"_I_ don't see what the parsons have got to do with it, or, at least, +what you have got to do with the parsons. If a thing is true, you have +as much to do with it as any parson in England; if it is not true, +neither you nor they have anything to do with it." + +"But, I tell you, if it be all as true as--as--that we are all sinners, +I don't know what to do with it!" + +"It seems to me a simple thing. _That_ man as much as said he knew all +about it, and came to find men that were lost, and take them home." + +"He can't well find one more lost than I am! But how am I to believe +it? How can it be true? It's ages since he was here, if ever he was at +all, and there hasn't been a sign of him ever since, all the time!" + +"There you may be quite wrong. I think I could find you some who +believe him just as near them now as ever he was to his own +brothers--believe that he hears them when they speak to him, and heeds +what they say." + +"That's bosh. You would have me believe against the evidence of my +senses!" + +"You must have strange senses, Mr. Redmain, that give you evidence +where they can't possibly know anything! If that man spoke the truth +when he was in the world, he is near us now; if he is not near us, +there is an end of it all." + +"The nearer he is, the worse for me!" sighed Mr. Redmain. + +"The nearer he is, the better for the worst man that ever breathed." + +"That's queer doctrine! Mind you, I don't say it mayn't be all right. +But it does seem a cowardly thing to go asking him to save you, after +you've been all your life doing what ought to damn you--if there be a +hell, mind you, that is." + +"But think," said Mary, "if that should be your only chance of being +able to make up for the mischief you have done? No punishment you can +have will do anything for that. No suffering of yours will do anything +for those you have made suffer. But it is so much harder to leave the +old way than to go on and let things take their chance!" + +"There may be something in what you say; but still I can't see it +anything better than sneaking, to do a world of mischief, and then +slink away into heaven, leaving all the poor wretches to look after +themselves." + +"I don't think Jesus Christ is worse pleased with you for feeling like +that," said Mary. + +"Eh? What? What's that you say?--Jesus Christ worse pleased with me? +That's a good one! As if he ever thought about a fellow like me!" + +"If he did not, you would not be thinking about him just this minute, I +suspect. There's no sense in it, if he does not think about you. He +said himself he didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to +repentance." + +"I wish I could repent." + +"You can, if you will." + +"I can't make myself sorry for what's gone and done with." + +"No; it wants him to do that. But you can turn from your old ways, and +ask him to take you for a pupil. Aren't you willing to learn, if he be +willing to teach you?" + +"I don't know. It's all so dull and stupid! I never could bear going to +church." + +"It's not one bit like that! It's like going to your mother, and saying +you're going to try to be a good boy, and not vex her any more." + +"I see. It's all right, I dare say! But I've had as much of it as I can +stand! You see, I'm not used to such things. You go away, and send +Mewks. Don't be far off, though, and mind you don't go home without +letting me know. There! Go along." + +She had just reached the door, when he called her again. + +"I say! Mind whom you trust in this house. There's no harm in Mrs. +Redmain; she only grows stupid directly she don't like a thing. But +that Miss Yolland!--that woman's the devil. I know more about her than +you or any one else. I can't bear her to be about Hesper; but, if I +told her the half I know, she would not believe the half of that. I +shall find a way, though. But I am forgetting! you know her as well as +I do--that is, you would, if you were wicked enough to understand. I +will tell you one of these days what, I am going to do. There! don't +say a word. I want no advice on _such_ things. Go along, and send +Mewks." + +With all his suspicion of the man, Mr. Redmain did not suspect _how_ +false Mewks was: he did not know that Miss Yolland had bewitched him +for the sake of having an ally in the enemy's camp. All he could +hear--and the dressing-room door was handy--the fellow duly reported to +her. Already, instructed by her fears, she had almost divined what Mr. +Redmain meant to do. + +Mary went and sat on the lowest step of the stair just outside the room. + +"What are you doing there?" said Lady Margaret, coming from the +corridor. + +"Mr. Redmain will not have me go yet, my lady," answered Mary, rising. +"I must wait first till he sends for me." + +Lady Margaret swept past her, murmuring, "Most peculiar!" Mary sat down +again. + +In about an hour, Mewks came and said his master wanted her. + +He was very ill, and could not talk, but he would not let her go. He +made her sit where he could see her, and now and then stretched out his +hand to her. Even in his pain he showed a quieter spirit. "Something +may be working--who can tell!" thought Mary. + +It was late in the afternoon when at length he sought further +conversation. + +"I have been thinking, Mary," he said, "that if I do wake up in hell +when I die, no matter how much I deserve it, nobody will be the better +for it, and I shall be all the worse." + +He spoke with coolness, but it was by a powerful effort: he had waked +from a frightful dream, drenched from head to foot. Coward? No. He had +reason to fear. + +"Whereas," rejoined Mary, taking up his clew, "everybody will be the +better if you keep out of it--everybody," she repeated, "--God, and +Jesus Christ, and all their people." + +"How do you make that out?" he asked. "God has more to do than look +after such as me." + +"You think he has so many worlds to look to--thousands of them only +making? But why does he care about his worlds? Is it not because they +are the schools of his souls? And why should he care for the souls? Is +it not because he is making them children--his own children to +understand him and be happy with his happiness?" + +"I can't say I care for his happiness. I want my own. And yet I don't +know any that's worth the worry of it. No; I would rather be put out +like a candle." + +"That's because you have been a disobedient child, taking your own way, +and turning God's good things to evil. You don't know what a splendid +thing life is. You actually and truly don't know, never experienced in +your being the very thing you were made for." + +"My father had no business to leave me so much money." + +"You had no business to misuse it." + +"I didn't _quite_ know what _I_ was doing." + +"You do now." + +Then came a pause. + +"You think God hears prayer--do you?" + +"I do." + +"Then I wish you would ask him to let me off--I mean, to let me die +right out when I do die. What's the good of making a body miserable?" + +"That, I am sure it would be of no use to pray for. He certainly will +not throw away a thing he has made, because that thing may be foolish +enough to prefer the dust-hole to a cabinet." + +"Wouldn't you do it now, if I asked you?" + +"I would not. I would leave you in God's hands rather than inside the +gate of heaven." + +"I don't understand you. And you wouldn't say so if you cared for me! +Only, why should you care for me?" + +"I would give my life for you." + +"Come, now! I don't believe that." + +"Why, I couldn't be a Christian if I wouldn't!" + +"You are getting absurd!" he cried. But he did not look exactly as if +he thought it. + +"Absurd!" repeated Mary. "Isn't that what makes _him_ our Saviour? How +could I be his disciple, if I wouldn't do as he did?" + +"You are saying a good deal!" + +"Can't you see that I have no choice?" + +"_I_ wouldn't do that for anybody under the sun!" + +"You are not his disciple. You have not been going about with him." + +"And you have?" + +"Yes--for many years. Besides, I can not help thinking there is one for +whom you would do it." + +"If you mean my wife, you never were more mistaken. I would do nothing +of the sort." + +"I did not mean your wife. I mean Jesus Christ." + +"Oh, I dare say! Well, perhaps; if I knew him as you do, and if I were +quite sure he wanted it done for him." + +"He does want it done for him--always and every day--not for his own +sake, though it does make him very glad. To give up your way for his is +to die for him; and, when any one will do that, then he is able to do +everything for him; for then, and not till then, he gets such a hold of +him that he can lift him up, and set him down beside himself. That's +how my father used to teach me, and now I see it for myself to be true." + +"It's all very grand, no doubt; but it ain't nowhere, you know. It's +all in your own head, and nowhere else. You don't, you _can't_ +positively believe all that!" + +"So much, at least, that I live in the strength and hope it gives me, +and order my ways according to it." + +"Why didn't you teach my wife so?" + +"I tried, but she didn't care to think. I could not get any further +with her. She has had no trouble yet to make her listen." + +"By Jove! I should have thought marrying a fellow like me might have +been trouble enough to make a saint of her." + +It was impossible to fix him to any line of thought, and Mary did not +attempt it. To move the child in him was more than all argument. + +A pause followed. "I don't love God," he said. + +"I dare say not," replied Mary. "How should you, when you don't know +him?" + +"Then what's to be done? I can't very well show myself where I hate the +master of the house!" + +"If you knew him, you would love him." + +"You are judging by yourself. But there is as much difference between +you and me as between light and darkness." + +"Not quite that," replied Mary, with one of those smiles that used to +make her father feel as if she were that moment come fresh from God to +him. "If you knew Jesus Christ, you could not help loving him, and to +love him is to love God." + +"You wear me out! Will you never come to the point? _Know Jesus +Christ!_ How am I to go back two thousand years?" + +"What he was then he is now," answered Mary. "And you may even know him +better than they did at the time who saw him; for it was not until they +understood him better, by his being taken from them, that they wrote +down his life." + +"I suppose you mean I must read the New Testament?" said Mr. Redmain, +pettishly. + +"Of course!" answered Mary, a little surprised; for she was unaware how +few have a notion what the New Testament is, or is meant for. + +"Then why didn't you say so at first? There I have you! That's just +where I learn that I must be damned for ever!" + +"I don't mean the Epistles. Those you can't understand--yet." + +"I'm glad you don't mean _them._ I hate them." + +"I don't wonder. You have never seen a single shine of what they are; +and what most people think them is hardly the least like them. What I +want you to read is the life and death of the son of man, the master of +men." + +"I can't read. I should only make myself twice as ill. I won't try." + +"But I will read to you, if you will let me." + +"How comes it you are such a theologian? A woman is not expected to +know about that sort of thing." + +"I am no theologian. There just comes one of the cases in which those +who call themselves his followers do not believe what the Master said: +he said God hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed +them to babes. I had a father who was child enough to know them, and I +was child enough to believe him, and so grew able to understand them +for myself. The whole secret is to do the thing the Master tells you: +then you will understand what he tells you. The opinion of the wisest +man, if he does not do the things he reads, is not worth a rush. He may +be partly right, but you have no reason to trust him." + +"Well, you shall be my chaplain. To-morrow, if I'm able to listen, you +shall see what you can make of the old sinner." + +Mary did not waste words: where would have been the use of pulling up +the poor spiritual clodpole at every lumbering step, at any word +inconsistent with the holy manners of the high countries? Once get him +to court, and the power of the presence would subdue him, and make him +over again from the beginning, without which absolute renewal the best +observance of religious etiquette is worse than worthless. Many good +people are such sticklers for the proprieties! For myself, I take +joyous refuge with the grand, simple, every-day humanity of the man I +find in the story--the man with the heart like that of my father and my +mother and my brothers and sisters. If I may but see and help to show +him a little as he lived to show himself, and not as church talk and +church ways and church ceremonies and church theories and church plans +of salvation and church worldliness generally have obscured him for +hundreds of years, and will yet obscure him for hundreds more! + +Toward evening, when she had just rendered him one of the many +attentions he required, and which there was no one that day but herself +to render, for he would scarcely allow Mewks to enter the room, he said +to her: + +"Thank you; you are very good to me. I shall remember you. Not that I +think I'm going to die just yet; I've often been as bad as this, and +got quite well again. Besides, I want to show that I have turned over a +new leaf. Don't you think God will give me one more chance, now that I +really mean it? I never did before." + +"God can tell whether you mean it without that," she answered, not +daring to encourage him where she knew nothing. "But you said you would +remember me, Mr. Redmain: I hope you didn't mean in your will." + +"I did mean in my will," he answered, but in a tone of displeasure. "I +must say, however, I should have preferred you had not _shown_ quite +such an anxiety about it. I sha'n't be in my coffin to-morrow; and I'm +not in the way of forgetting things." + +"I _beg_ you," returned Mary, flushing, "to do nothing of the sort. I +have plenty of money, and don't care about more. I would much rather +not have any from you." + +"But think how much good you might do with it!" said Mr. Redmain, +satirically. "--It was come by honestly--so far as I know." + +"Money can't do half the good people think. It is stubborn stuff to +turn to any good. And in this case it would be directly against good." + +"Nobody has a right to refuse what comes honestly in his way. There's +no end to the good that may be done with money--to judge, at least, by +the harm I've done with mine," said Mr. Redmain, this time with +seriousness. + +"It is not in it," persisted Mary. "If it had been, our Lord would have +used it, and he never did." + +"Oh, but he was all an exception!" + +"On the contrary, he is the only man who is no exception. We are the +exceptions. Every one but him is more or less out of the straight. Do +you not see?--he is the very one we must all come to be the same as, or +perish! No, Mr. Redmain! don't leave me any money, or I shall be +altogether bewildered what to do with it. Mrs. Redmain would not take +it from me. Miss Yolland might, but I dared not give it to her. And for +societies, I have small faith in them." + +"Well, well! I'll think about it," said Mr. Redmain, who had now got so +far on the way of life as to be capable of believing that when Mary +said a thing she meant it, though he was quite incapable of +understanding the true relations of money. Few indeed are the +Christians capable of that! The most of them are just where Peter was, +when, the moment after the Lord had honored him as the first to +recognize him as the Messiah, he took upon him to object altogether to +his Master's way of working salvation in the earth. The Roman emperors +took up Peter's plan, and the devil has been in the church ever +since--Peter's Satan, whom the Master told to get behind him. They are +poor prophets, and no martyrs, who honor money as an element of any +importance in the salvation of the world. Hunger itself does +incomparably more to make Christ's kingdom come than ever money did, or +ever will do while time lasts. Of course money has its part, for +everything has; and whoever has money is bound to use it as best he +knows; but his best is generally an attempt to do saint-work by +devil-proxy. + +"I can't think where on earth-you got such a sackful of extravagant +notions!" Mr. Redmain added. + +"I told you before, sir, I had a father who set me thinking!" answered +Mary. + +"I wish I had had a father like yours," he rejoined. + +"There are not many such to be had." + +"I fear mine wasn't just what he ought to be, though he can't have been +such a rascal as his son: he hadn't time; he had his money to make." + +"He had the temptation to make it, and you have the temptation to spend +it: which is the more dangerous, I don't know. Each has led to many +crimes." + +"Oh, as to crimes--I don't know about that! It depends on what you call +crimes." + +"It doesn't matter whether men call a deed a crime or a fault; the +thing is how God regards it, for that is the only truth about it. What +the world thinks, goes for nothing, because it is never right. It would +be worse in me to do some things the world counts perfectly honorable, +than it would be for this man to commit a burglary, or that a murder. I +mean my guilt might be greater in committing a respectable sin, than +theirs in committing a disreputable one." + +Had Mary known anything of science, she might have said that, in morals +as in chemistry, the qualitative analysis is easy, but the quantitative +another affair. + +The latter part of this conversation, Sepia listening heard, and +misunderstood utterly. + +All the rest of the day Mary was with Mr. Redmain, mostly by his +bedside, sitting in silent watchfulness when he was unable to talk with +her. Nobody entered the room except Mewks, who, when he did, seemed to +watch everything, and try to hear everything, and once Lady Margaret. +When she saw Mary seated by the bed, though she must have known well +enough she was there, she drew herself up with grand English +repellence, and looked scandalized. Mary rose, and was about to retire. +But Mr. Redmain motioned her to sit still. + +"This is my spiritual adviser, Lady Margaret," he said. + +Her ladyship cast a second look on Mary, such as few but her could +cast, and left the room. + +On into the gloom of the evening Mary sat. No one brought her anything +to eat or drink, and Mr. Redmain was too much taken up with himself, +soul and body, to think of her. She was now past hunger, and growing +faint, when, through the settled darkness, the words came to her from +the bed: + +"I should like to have you near me when I am dying, Mary." + +The voice was a softer than she had yet heard from Mr. Redmain, and its +tone went to her heart. + +"I will certainly be with you, if God please," she answered. + +"There is no fear of God," returned Mr. Redmain; "it's the devil will +try to keep you away. But never you heed what any one may do or say to +prevent you. Do your very best to be with me. By that time I may not be +having my own way any more. Be sure, the first moment they can get the +better of me, they will. And you mustn't place confidence in a single +soul in this house. I don't say my wife would play me false so long as +I was able to swear at her, but I wouldn't trust her one moment longer. +You come and be with me in spite of the whole posse of them." + +"I will try, Mr. Redmain," she answered, faintly. "But indeed you must +let me go now, else I may be unable to come to-morrow." + +"What's the matter?" he asked hurriedly, half lifting his head with a +look of alarm. "There's no knowing," he went on, muttering to himself, +"what may happen in this cursed house." + +"Nothing," replied Mary, "but that I have not had anything to eat since +I left home. I feel rather faint." + +"They've given you nothing to eat!" cried Mr. Redmain, but in a tone +that seemed rather of satisfaction than displeasure. "Ring--no, don't." + +"Indeed, I would rather not have anything now till I get home," said +Mary. "I don't feel inclined to eat where I am not welcome." + +"Right! right! right!" said Mr. Redmain. "Stick to that. Never eat +where you are not welcome. Go home directly. Only say when you will +come to-morrow." + +"I can't very well during the day," answered Mary. "There is so much to +be done, and I have so little help. But, if you should want me, I would +rather shut up the shop than not come." + +"There is no need for that! Indeed, I would much rather have you in the +evening. The first of the night is worst of all. It's then the devils +are out.--Look here," he added, after a short pause, during which Mary, +for as unfit as she felt, hesitated to leave him, "--being in business, +you've got a lawyer, I suppose?" + +"Yes," she answered. + +"Then you go to him to-night the first thing, and tell him to come to +me to-morrow, about noon. Tell him I am ill, and in bed, and +particularly want to see him; and he mustn't let anything they say keep +him from me, not even if they tell him I am dead." + +"I will," said Mary, and, stroking the thin hand that lay outside the +counterpane, turned and left him. + +"Don't tell any one you are gone," he called after her, with a voice +far from feeble. "I don't want any of their damned company." + + + + +CHAPTER LIII. + +A FRIEND IN NEED. + + +Mary left the house, and saw no one on her way. But it was better, she +said to herself, that he should lie there untended, than be waited on +by unloving hands. + +The night was very dark. There was no moon, and the stars were hidden +by thick clouds. She must walk all the way to Testbridge. She felt +weak, but the fresh air was reviving. She did not know the way so +familiarly as that between Thornwick and the town, but she would enter +the latter before arriving at the common. + +She had not gone far when the moon rose, and from behind the clouds +diminished the darkness a little. The first part of her journey lay +along a narrow lane, with a small ditch, a rising bank, and a hedge on +each side. About the middle of the lane was a farmyard, and a little +way farther a cottage. Soon after passing the gate of the farmyard, she +thought she heard steps behind her, seemingly soft and swift, and +naturally felt a little apprehension; but her thoughts flew to the one +hiding-place for thoughts and hearts and lives, and she felt no terror. +At the same time something moved her to quicken her pace. As she drew +near the common, she heard the steps more plainly, still soft and +swift, and almost wished she had sought refuge in the cottage she had +just passed--only it bore no very good character in the neighborhood. +When she reached the spot where the paths united, feeling a little at +home, she stopped to listen. Behind her were the footsteps plain +enough! The same moment the clouds thinned about the moon, and a pale +light came filtering through upon the common in front of her. She cast +one look over her shoulder, saw something turn a corner in the lane, +and sped on again. She would have run, but there was no place of refuge +now nearer than the corner of the turnpike-road, and she knew her +breath would fail her long before that. How lonely and shelterless the +common looked! The soft, swift steps came nearer and nearer. + +Was that music she heard? She dared not stop to listen. But +immediately, thereupon, was poured forth on the dim air such a stream +of pearly sounds as if all the necklaces of some heavenly choir of +woman-angels were broken, and the beads came pelting down in a cataract +of hurtless hail. From no source could they come save the bow and +violin of Joseph Jasper! Where could he be? She was so rejoiced to know +that he must be somewhere near, that, for very delight of unsecured +safety, she held her peace, and had almost stopped. But she ran on +again. She was now nigh the ruined hut with which my narrative has made +the reader acquainted. In the mean time the moon had been growing out +of the clouds, clearer and clearer. The hut came in sight. But the look +of it was somehow altered--with an undefinable change, such as might +appear on a familiar object in a dream; and leaning against the side of +the door stood a figure she could not mistake for another than her +musician. Absorbed in his music, he did not see her. She called out, +"Joseph! Joseph!" He started, threw his bow from him, tucked his violin +under his arm, and bounded to meet her. She tried to stop, and the same +moment to look behind her. The consequence was that she fell--but safe +in the smith's arms. That instant appeared a man running. He half +stopped, and, turning from the path, took to the common. Jasper handed +his violin to Mary, and darted after him. The chase did not last a +minute; the man was nearly spent. Joseph seized him by the wrist, saw +something glitter in his other hand, and turned sick. The fellow had +stabbed him. With indignation, as if it were a snake that had bit him, +the blacksmith flung from him the hand he held. The man gave a cry, +staggered, recovered himself, and ran. Joseph would have followed +again, but fell, and for a minute or two lost consciousness. When he +came to himself, Mary was binding up his arm. + +"What a fool I am!" he said, trying to get up, but yielding at once to +Mary's prevention. "Ain't it ridic'lous now, miss, that a man of my +size, and ready to work a sledge with any smith in Yorkshire, should +turn sick for a little bit of a job with a knife? But my father was +just the same, and he was a stronger man than I'm like to be, I fancy." + +"It is no such wonder as you think," said Mary; "you have lost a good +deal of blood." + +Her voice faltered. She had been greatly alarmed--and the more that she +had not light enough to get the edges of the wound properly together. + +"You've stopped it--ain't you, miss?" + +"I think so." + +"Then I'll be after the fellow." + +"No, no; you must not attempt it. You must lie still awhile. But I +don't understand it at all! That cottage used to be a mere hovel, +without door or window! It can't be you live in it?" + +"Ay, that I do! and it's not a bad place either," answered Joseph. +"That's what I went to Yorkshire to get my money for. It's mine--bought +and paid for." + +"But what made you think of coming here?" + +"Let's go into the smithy--house I won't presume to call it," said +Joseph, "though it has a lean-to for the smith--and I'll tell you +everything about it. But really, miss, you oughtn't to be out like this +after dark. There's too many vagabonds about." + +With but little need of the help Mary yet gave him, Joseph got up, and +led her to what was now a respectable little smithy, with forge and +bellows and anvil and bucket. Opening a door where had been none, he +brought a chair, and making her sit down, began to blow the covered +fire on the hearth, where he had not long before "boiled his kettle" +for his tea. Then closing the door, he lighted a candle, and Mary +looking about her could scarcely believe the change that had come upon +the miserable vacuity. Joseph sat down upon his anvil, and begged to +know where she had just been, and how far she had run from the rascal. +When he had learned something of the peculiar relations in which Mary +stood to the family at Durnmelling, he began to think there might have +been something more in the pursuit than a chance ruffianly assault, and +the greater were his regrets that he had not secured the miscreant. + +"Anyhow, miss," he said, "you'll never come from there alone in the +dark again!" + +"I understand you, Joseph," answered Mary, "for I know you would not +have me leave doing what I can for the poor man up there, because of a +little danger in the way." + +"No, that I wouldn't, miss. That would be as much as to say you would +do the will of God when the devil would let you. What I mean is, that +here am I--your slave, or servant, or soldier, or whatever you may +please to call me, ready at your word." + +"I must not take you from your work, you know, Joseph." + +"Work's not everything, miss," he answered; "and it's seldom so +pressing but that--except I be shoeing a horse--I can leave it when I +choose. Any time you want to go anywhere, don't forget as you've got +enemies about, and just send for me. You won't have long to wait till I +come. But I am main sorry the rascal didn't have something to keep him +in mind of his manners." + +Part of this conversation, and a good deal more, passed on their way to +Testbridge, whither, as soon as Joseph seemed all right, Mary, who had +forgotten her hunger and faintness, insisted on setting out at once. In +her turn she questioned Joseph, and learned that, as soon as he knew +she was going to settle at Testbridge, he started off to find if +possible a place in the neighborhood humble enough to be within his +reach, and near enough for the hope of seeing her sometimes, and having +what help she might please to give him. The explanation afforded Mary +more pleasure than she cared to show. She had a real friend near +her--one ready to help her on her own ground--one who understood her +because he understood the things she loved! He told her that already he +had work enough to keep him going; that the horses he once shod were +always brought to him again; that he was at no expense such as in a +town; and that he had plenty of time both for his violin and his books. + +When they came to the suburbs, she sent him home, and went straight to +Mr. Brett with Mr. Redmain's message. He undertook to be at Durnmelling +at the time appointed, and to let nothing prevent him from seeing his +new client. + + + + +CHAPTER LIV. + +THE NEXT NIGHT. + + +Mr. Bratt found no difficulty in the way of the interview, for Mr. +Redmain had given Mewks instructions he dared not disobey: his master +had often ailed, and recovered again, and he must not venture too far! +As soon as he had shown the visitor into the room he was dismissed, but +not before he had satisfied himself that he was a lawyer. He carried +the news at once to Sepia, and it wrought no little anxiety in the +house. There was a will already in existence, and no ground for +thinking a change in it boded anything good. Mr. Mortimer never deigned +to share his thoughts, anxieties, or hopes with any of his people; but +the ladies met in deep consultation, although of course there was +nothing to be done. The only operative result was that it let Sepia +know how, though for reasons somewhat different, her anxiety was shared +by the others: unlike theirs, her sole desire was--_not_ to be +mentioned in the will: that could only be for the sake of leaving her a +substantial curse! Mr. Redmain's utter silence, after, as she well +knew, having gathered damning facts to her discredit, had long +convinced her he was but biding his time. Certain she was he would not +depart this life without leaving his opinion of her and the proofs of +its justice behind him, carrying weight as the affidavit of a dying +man. Also she knew Hesper well enough to be certain that, however she +might delight in opposition to the desire of her husband, she would for +the sake of no one carry that opposition to a point where it became +injurious to her interests. Sepia's one thought therefore was: could +not something be done to prevent the making of another will, or the +leaving of any fresh document behind him? What he might already have +done, she could nowise help; what he might yet do, it would be well to +prevent. Once more, therefore, she impressed upon Mewks, and that in +the names of Mrs. Redmain and Lady Margaret, as well as in her own +person, the absolute necessity of learning as much as possible of what +might pass between his master and the lawyer. + +Mewks was driven to the end of his wits, and they were not a few, to +find excuses for going into the room, and for delaying to go out again, +while with all his ears he listened. But both client and lawyer were +almost too careful for him; and he had learned positively nothing when +the latter rose to depart. He instantly left the room, with the door a +trifle ajar, and listening intently, heard his master say that Mr. +Brett must come again the next morning; that he felt better, and would +think over the suggestions he had made; and that he must leave the +memoranda within his reach, on the table by his bedside. Ere the lawyer +issued, Mewks was on his way with all this to his tempter. + +Sepia concluded there had been some difference of opinion between Mr. +Redmain and his adviser, and hoped that nothing had been finally +settled. Was there any way to prevent the lawyer from seeing him again? +Could she by any means get a peep at the memoranda mentioned? She dared +not suggest the thing to Hesper or Lady Malice--of all people they were +those in relation to whom she feared their possible contents--and she +dared not show herself in Mr. Redmain's room. Was Mewks to be trusted +to the point of such danger as grew in her thought? + +The day wore on. Toward evening he had a dreadful attack. Any other man +would have sent before now for what medical assistance the town could +afford him, but Mr. Redmain hated having a stranger about him, and, as +he knew how to treat himself, it was only when very ill that he would +send for his own doctor to the country, fearing that otherwise he might +give him up as a patient, such visits, however well remunerated, being +seriously inconvenient to a man with a large London practice. But now +Lady Margaret took upon herself to send a telegram. + +An hour before her usual time for closing the shop, Mary set out for +Durnmelling; and, at the appointed spot on the way, found her squire of +low degree in waiting. At first sight, however, and although she was +looking out for him, she did not certainly recognize him. I would not +have my reader imagine Joseph one of those fools who delight in +appearing something else than they are; but while every workman ought +to look a workman, it ought not to be by looking less of a man, or of a +_gentleman_ in the true sense; and Joseph, having, out of respect to +her who would honor him with her company, dressed himself in a new suit +of unpretending gray, with a wide-awake hat, looked at first sight more +like a country gentleman having a stroll over his farm, than a man +whose hands were hard with the labors of the forge. He took off his hat +as she approached--if not with ease, yet with the clumsy grace peculiar +to him; for, unlike many whose manners are unobjectionable, he had in +his something that might be called his own. But the best of it was, +that he knew nothing about his manners, beyond the desire to give honor +where honor was due. + +He walked with her to the door of the house; for they had agreed that, +from whatever quarter had come the pursuit, and whatever might have +been its object, it would be well to show that she was attended. They +had also arranged at what hour, and at what spot close at hand, he was +to be waiting to accompany her home. But, although he said nothing +about it, Joseph was determined not to leave the place until she +rejoined him. + +It was nearly dark when he left her; and when he had wandered up and +down the avenue awhile, it seemed dark enough to return to the house, +and reconnoiter a little. + +He had already made the acquaintance of the farmer who occupied a +portion of the great square, behind the part where the family lived: he +had had several of his horses to shoe, and had not only given +satisfaction by the way in which he shod them, but had interested their +owner with descriptions of more than one rare mode of shoeing to which +he had given attention; he was, therefore, the less shy of being +discovered about the place. + +From the back he found his way into the roofless hall, and there paced +quietly up and down, measuring the floor, and guessing at the height +and thickness of the walls, and the sort of roof they had borne. He +noted that the wall of the house rose higher than those of the ruin +with which it was in contact; and that there was a window in it just +over one of those walls. Thinking whether it had been there when the +roof was on, he saw through it the flickering of a fire, and wondered +whether it could be the window of Mr. Redmain's room. + +Mary, having resolved not to give any notice of her arrival, if she +could get in without it, and finding the hall-door on the latch, +entered quietly, and walked straight to Mr. Redmain's bedroom. When she +opened the door of it, Mewks came hurriedly to meet her, as if he would +have made her go out again, but she scarcely looked at him, and +advanced to the bed. Mr. Redmain was just waking from the sleep into +which he had fallen after a severe paroxysm. + +"Ah, there you are!" he said, smiling her a feeble welcome. "I am glad +you are come. I have been looking out for you. I am very ill. If it +comes again to-night, I think it will make an end of me." + +She sat down by the bedside. He lay quite still for some time, +breathing like one very weary. Then he seemed to grow easier, and said, +with much gentleness: + +"Can't you talk to me?" + +"Would you like me to read to you?" she asked. + +"No," he answered; "I can't bear the light; it makes my head furious." + +"Shall I talk to you about my father?" she asked. + +"I don't believe in fathers," he replied. "They're always after some +notion of their own. It's not their children they care about." + +"That may be true of some fathers," answered Mary; "but it is not the +least true of mine." + +"Where is he? Why don't you bring him to see me, if he is such a good +man? He might be able to do something for me." + +"There is none but your own father can do anything for you," said Mary. +"My father is gone home to him, but if he were here, he would only tell +you about _him_." + +There was a moment's silence. + +"Why don't you talk?" said Mr. Redmain, crossly. "What's the good of +sitting there saying nothing! How am I to forget that the pain will be +here again, if you don't say a word to help me?" + +Mary lifted up her heart, and prayed for something to say to the sad +human soul that had never known the Father. But she could think of +nothing to talk about except the death of William Marston. So she began +with the dropping of her watch, and, telling whatever seemed at the +moment fit to tell, ended with the dream she had the night of his +funeral. By that time the hidden fountain was flowing in her soul, and +she was able to speak straight out of it. + +"I can not tell you, sir," she said, closing the story of her dream, +"what a feeling it was! The joy of it was beyond all expression." + +"You're not surely going to offer me a dream in proof of anything!" +muttered the sick man. + +"Yes," answered Mary--"in proof of what it can prove. The joy of a +child over a new toy, or a colored sweetmeat, shows of what bliss the +human soul is made capable." + +"Oh, capable, I dare say!" + +"And more than that," Mary went on, adding instead of replying, "no one +ever felt such gladness without believing in it. There must be +somewhere the justification of such gladness. There must be the father +of it somewhere." + +"Well! I don't like to say, after your kindness in coming here to take +care of me, that you talk the worst rubbish I ever heard; but just tell +me of what use is it all to me, in the state I am in! What I want is to +be free of pain, and have some pleasure in life--not to be told about a +father." + +"But what if the father you don't want is determined you shall not have +what you do want? What if your desire is not worth keeping you alive +for? And what if he is ready to help your smallest effort to be the +thing he wants you to be--and in the end to give you your heart's +desire?" + +"It sounds very fine, but it's all so thin, so up in the clouds! It +don't seem to have a leg to stand upon. Why, if that were true, +everybody would be good! There would be none but saints in the world! +What's in it, I'm sure I don't know." + +"It will take ages to know what is in it; but, if you should die now, +you will be glad to find, on the other side, that you have made a +beginning. For my part, if I had everything my soul could desire, +except God with me, I could but pray that he would come to me, or not +let me live a moment longer; for it would be but the life of a devil." + +"What do you mean by a devil?" + +"A power that lives against its life," said Mary. + +Mr. Redmain answered nothing. He did not perceive an atom of sense in +the words. They gave him not a glimmer. Neither will they to many of my +readers; while not a few will think they see all that is in them, and +see nothing. + +He was silent for a long time--whether he waked or slept she could not +tell. + +The annoyance was great in the home conclave when Mewks brought the +next piece of news--namely, that there was that designing Marston in +the master's room again, and however she got into the house he was sure +_he_ didn't know. + +"All the same thing over again, miss!--hard at it a-tryin' to convert +'im!--And where's the use, you know, miss? If a man like my master's to +be converted and get off, I don't for my part see where's the good o' +keepin' up a devil." + +"I am quite of your opinion, Mewks," said Sepia. + +But in her heart she was ill at ease. + +All day long she had been haunted with an ever-recurring temptation, +which, instead of dismissing it, she kept like a dog in a string. +Different kinds of evil affect people differently. Ten thousand will do +a dishonest thing, who would indignantly reject the dishonest thing +favored by another ten thousand. They are not sufficiently used to its +ugly face not to dislike it, though it may not be quite so ugly as +their _protege_. A man will feel grandly honest against the +dishonesties of another trade than his, and be eager to justify those +of his own. Here was Sepia, who did not care the dust of a butterfly's +wing for causing any amount of family misery, who would without a pang +have sacrificed the genuine reputation of an innocent man to save her +own false one--shuddering at an idea as yet bodiless in her brain--an +idea which, however, she did not dismiss, and so grew able to endure! + +I have kept this woman--so far as personal acquaintance with her is +concerned--in the background of my history. For one thing, I am not +fond of _post-mortem_ examinations; in other words, I do not like +searching the decompositions of moral carrion. Analysis of such is, +like the use of reagents on dirt, at least unpleasant. Nor was any true +end to be furthered by a more vivid presentation of her. Nosology is a +science doomed, thank God, to perish! Health alone will at last fill +the earth. Or, if there should be always the ailing to help, a man will +help them by being sound himself, not by knowing the ins and outs of +disease. Diagnosis is not therapy. + +Sepia was unnatural--as every one is unnatural who does not set his +face in the direction of the true Nature; but she had gone further in +the opposite direction than many people have yet reached. At the same +time, whoever has not faced about is on the way to a capacity for worse +things than even our enemies would believe of us. + +Her very existence seemed to her now at stake. If by his dying act Mr. +Redmain should drive her from under Hesper's roof, what was to become +of her! Durnmelling, too, would then be as certainly closed against +her, and she would be compelled to take a situation, and teach music, +which she hated, and French and German, which gave her no pleasure +apart from certain strata of their literature, to insolent girls whom +she would be constantly wishing to strangle, or stupid little boys who +would bore her to death. Her very soul sickened at the thought--as well +it might; for to have to do such service with such a heart as hers, +must indeed be torment. All hope of marrying Godfrey Wardour would be +gone, of course. Did he but remain uncertain as to the truth or +falsehood of a third part of what Mr. Redmain would record against her, +he would never meet her again! + +Since the commencement of this last attack of Mr. Redmain's malady, she +had scarcely slept; and now what Mewks reported rendered her nigh +crazy. For some time she had been generally awake half the night, and +all the last night she had been wandering here and there about the +house, not unfrequently couched where she could hear every motion in +Mr. Redmain's room. Haunted by fear, she in turn haunted her fear. She +could not keep from staring down the throat of the pit. She was a slave +of the morrow, the undefined, awful morrow, ever about to bring forth +no one knows what. That morrow could she but forestall! + +If any should think that anxiety and watching must have so wrought on +Sepia that she came to be no longer accountable for her actions, I will +not oppose the kind conclusion. For my own part, until I shall have +seen a man absolutely one with the source of his being, I do not +believe I shall ever have seen a man absolutely sane. What many would +point to as plainest proofs of sanity, I should regard as surest signs +of the contrary. + +A sign of my own insanity is it? + +Your insanity may be worse than mine, for you are aware of none, and I +with mine do battle. I believe all insanity has moral as well as +physical roots. But enough of this. There are questions we can afford +to leave. + +Sepia had got very thin during these trying days. Her great eyes were +larger yet, and filled with a troubled anxiety. Not paleness, for of +that her complexion was incapable, but a dull pallor possessed her +cheek. If one had met her as she roamed the house that night, he might +well have taken her for some naughty ancestor, whose troubled +conscience, not yet able to shake off the madness of some evil deed, +made her wander still about the place where she had committed it. + +She believed in no supreme power who cares that right should be done in +his worlds. Here, it may be, some of my unbelieving acquaintances, +foreseeing a lurid something on the horizon of my story, will be +indignant that the capacity for crime should be thus associated with +the denial of a Live Good. But it remains a mere fact that it is easier +for a man to commit a crime when he does not fear a willed retribution. +Tell me there is no merit in being prevented by fear; I answer, the +talk is not of merit. As the world is, that is, as the race of men at +present is, it is just as well that the man who has no merit, and never +dreamed of any, should yet be a little hindered from cutting his +neighbor's throat at his evil pleasure.--No; I do not mean hindered by +a lie--I mean hindered by the poorest apprehension of the grandest +truth. + +Of those who do not believe, some have never had a noble picture of God +presented to them; but whether their phantasm is of a mean God because +they refuse him, or they refuse him because their phantasm of him is +mean, who can tell? Anyhow, mean notions must come of meanness, and, +uncharitable as it may appear, I can not but think there is a moral +root to all chosen unbelief. But let God himself judge his own. + +With Sepia, what was _best_ meant what was best for her, and _best for +her_ meant _most after her liking_. + +She had in her time heard a good deal about _euthanasia_, and had taken +her share in advocating it. I do not assume this to be anything +additional against her; one who does not believe in God, may in such an +advocacy indulge a humanity pitiful over the irremediable ills of the +race; and, being what she was, she was no worse necessarily for +advocating that than for advocating cremation, which she +did--occasionally, I must confess, a little coarsely. But the notion of +_euthanasia_ might well work for evil in a mind that had not a thought +for the case any more than for the betterment of humanity, or indeed +for anything but its own consciousness of pleasure or comfort. +Opinions, like drugs, work differently on different constitutions. +Hence the man is foolish who goes scattering vague notions regardless +of the soil on which they may fall. + +She was used to asking the question, What's the good? but always in +respect of something she wanted out of her way. + +"What's the good of an hour or two more if you're not enjoying it?" she +said to herself again and again that Monday. "What's the good of living +when life is pain--or fear of death, from which no fear can save you?" +But the question had no reference to her own life: she was judging for +another--and for another not for his sake, or from his point of view, +but for her own sake, and from where she stood. + +All the day she wandered about the house, such thoughts as these in her +heart, and in her pocket a bottle of that concentrated which Mr. +Redmain was taking much diluted for medicine. But she _hoped not to +have to use it_. If only Mr. Redmain would yield the conflict, and +depart without another interview with the lawyer! + +But if he would not, and two drops from the said bottle, not taken by +herself, but by another, would save her, all her life to come, from +endless anxiety and grinding care, from weariness and disgust, and +indeed from want; nor that alone, but save likewise that other from an +hour, or two hours, or perhaps a week, or possibly two weeks, or--who +could tell?--it might be a month of pain and moaning and weariness, +would it not be well?--must it not be more than well? + +She had not learned to fear temptation; she feared poverty, dependence, +humiliation, labor, _ennui_, misery. The thought of the life that must +follow and wrap her round in the case of the dreaded disclosure was +unendurable; the thought of the suggested frustration was not _so_ +unendurable--was not absolutely unendurable--was to be borne--might be +permitted to come--to return--was cogitated--now with imagined +resistance, now with reluctant and partial acceptance, now with faint +resolve, and now with determined resolution--now with the beaded drops +pouring from the forehead, and now with a cold, scornful smile of +triumphant foil and success. + +Was she so very exceptionally bad, however? You who hate your brother +or your sister--you do not think yourself at all bad! But you are a +murderer, and she was only a murderer. You do not feel wicked? How do +you know she did? Besides, you hate, and she did not hate; she only +wanted to take care of herself. Lady Macbeth did not hate Duncan; she +only wanted to give her husband his crown. You only hate your brother; +you would not, you say, do him any harm; and I believe you would not do +him mere bodily harm; but, were things changed, so that hate-action +became absolutely safe, I should have no confidence what you might not +come to do. No one can tell what wreck a gust of passion upon a sea of +hate may work. There are men a man might well kill, if he were anything +less than ready to die for them. The difference between the man that +hates and the man that kills may be nowhere but in the courage. These +are _grewsome_ thinkings: let us leave them--but hating with them. + +All the afternoon Sepia hovered about Mr. Rcdmain's door, down upon +Mewks every moment he appeared. Her head ached; she could hardly +breathe. Rest she could not. Once when Mewks, coming from the room, +told her his master was asleep, she crept in, and, softly approaching +the head of the bed, looked at him from behind, then stole out again. + +"He seems dying, Mewks," she said. + +"Oh, no, miss! I've often seen him as bad. He's better." + +"Who's that whispering?" murmured the patient, angrily, though half +asleep. + +Mewks went in, and answered: + +"Only me and Jemima, sir." + +"Where's Miss Marston?" + +"She's not come yet, sir." + +"I want to go to sleep again. You must wake me the moment she comes." + +"Yes, sir." + +Mewks went back to Sepia. + +"His voice is much altered," she said. + +"He most always speaks like that now, miss, when he wakes--very +different from I used to know him! He'd always swear bad when he woke; +but Miss Marston do seem t' 'ave got a good deal of that out of him. +Anyhow, this last two days he's scarce swore enough to make it feel +home-like." + +"It's death has got it out of him," said Sepia. "I don't think he can +last the night through. Fetch me at once if--And don't let that Marston +into the room again, whatever you do." + +She spoke with the utmost emphasis, plainly clinching instructions +previously given, then went slowly up the stair to her own room. Surely +he would die to-night, and she would not be led into temptation! She +would then have but to get a hold of the paper! What a hateful and +unjust thing it was that her life should be in the power of that man--a +miserable creature, himself hanging between life and death!--that such +as he should be able to determine her fate, and say whether she was to +be comfortable or miserable all the rest of a life that was to outlast +his so many years! It was absurd to talk of a Providence! She must be +her own providence! + +She stole again down the stair. Her cousin was in her own room safe +with a novel, and there was Mewks fast asleep in an easy-chair in the +study, with the doors of the dressing-room and chamber ajar! She crept +into the sick-room. There was the tumbler with the medicine! and her +fingers were on the vial in her pocket. The dying man slept. + +She drew near the table by the bed. He stirred as if about to awake. +Her limbs, her brain seemed to rebel against her will.--But what folly +it was! the man was not for this world a day longer; what could it +matter whether he left it a few hours earlier or later? The drops on +his brow rose from the pit of his agony; every breath was a torture; it +were mercy to help him across the verge; if to more life, he would owe +her thanks; if to endless rest, he would never accuse her. + +She took the vial from her pocket. A hand was on the lock of the door! +She turned and fled through the dressing-room and study, waking Mewks +as she passed. He, hurrying into the chamber, saw Mary already entered. + +When Sepia learned who it was that had scared her, she felt she could +kill her with less compunction than Mr. Redmain. She hated her far +worse. + +"You _must_ get the viper out of-the house, Mewks," she said. "It is +all your fault she got into the room." + +"I'm sure I'm willing enough," he answered, "--even if it wasn't you as +as't me, miss! But what am I to do? She's that brazen, you wouldn' +believe, miss! It wouldn' be becomin' to tell you what I think that +young woman fit to do." + +"I don't doubt it," responded Sepia. "But surely," she went on, "the +next time he has an attack, and he's certain to have one soon, you will +be able to get her hustled out!" + +"No, miss--least of all just then. She'll make that a pretense for not +going a yard from the bed--as if me that's been about him so many years +didn't know what ought to be done with him in his paroxes of pain +better than the likes of her! Of all things I do loathe a row, +miss--and the talk of it after; and sure I am that without a row we +don't get her out of that room. The only way is to be quiet, and seem +to trust her, and watch for the chance of her going out--then shut her +out, and keep her out." + +"I believe you are right," returned Sepia, almost with a hope that no +such opportunity might arrive, but at the same time growing more +determined to take advantage of it if it should. + +Hence partly it came that Mary met with no interruption to her watching +and ministering. Mewks kept coming and going--watching her, and +awaiting his opportunity. Mr. Redmain scarcely heeded him, only once +and again saying in sudden anger, "What can that idiot be about? He +might know by this time I'm not likely to want _him_ so long as _you_ +are in the room!" + +And said Mary to herself: "Who knows what good the mere presence of one +who trusts may be to him, even if he shouldn't seem to take much of +what she says! Perhaps he may think of some of it after he is dead--who +knows?" Patiently she sat and waited, full of help that would have +flowed in a torrent, but which she felt only trickle from her heart +like a stream that is lost on the face of the rock down which it flows. + +All at once she bethought herself, and looked at her watch: Joseph had +been waiting for her more than an hour, and would not, she knew, if he +stopped all night, go away without her! And for her, she could not +forsake the poor man her presence seemed to comfort! He was now lying +very still: she would slip out and send Joseph away, and be back before +the patient or any one else should miss her! + +She went softly from the room, and glided down the stairs, and out of +the house, seeing no one--but not unseen: hardly was she from the room, +when the door of it was closed and locked behind her, and hardly from +the house, when the house-door also was closed and locked behind her. +But she heard nothing, and ran, without the least foreboding of mishap, +to the corner where Joseph was to meet her. + +There he was, waiting as patiently as if the hour had not yet come. + +"I can't leave him, Joseph. My heart won't let me," she said. "I can +not go back before the morning. I will look in upon you as I pass." + +So saying, and without giving him time to answer, she bade him good +night, and ran back to the house, hoping to get in as before without +being seen. But to her dismay she found the door already fast, and +concluded the hour had arrived when the house was shut up for the +night. She rang the bell, but there was no answer--for there was Mewks +himself standing close behind the door, grinning like his master an +evil grin. As she knocked and rang in vain, the fact flashed upon her +that she was intentionally excluded. She turned away, overwhelmed with +a momentary despair. What was she to do? There stood Joseph! She ran +back to him, and told him they had shut her out. + +"It makes me miserable," she went on, "to think of the poor man calling +me, and me nowhere to answer. The worst of it is, I seem the only +person he has any faith in, and what I have been telling him about the +father of us all, whose love never changes, will seem only the idler +tale, when he finds I am gone, and nowhere to be found--as they're sure +to tell him. There's no saying what lies they mayn't tell him about my +going! Rather than go, I will sit on the door-step all night, just to +be able to tell him in the morning that I never went home." + +"Why have they done it, do you think? asked Joseph. + +"I dare hardly allow myself to conjecture," answered Mary. "None of +them like me but Jemima--not even Mrs. Redmain now, I am afraid; for +you see I never got any of the good done her I wanted, and, till +something of that was done, she could not know how I felt toward her. I +shouldn't a bit wonder if they fancy I have a design on his money--as +if anybody fit to call herself a woman would condescend to such a +thing! But when a woman would marry for money, she may well think as +badly of another woman." + +"This is a serious affair," said Joseph. "To have a dying man believe +you false to him would be dreadful! We must find some way in. Let us go +to the kitchen-door." + +"If Jemima happened to be near, then, perhaps!" rejoined Mary; "but if +they want to keep me out, you may be sure Mewks has taken care of one +door as well as another. He knows I'm not so easy to keep out." + +"If you did get in," said Joseph, speaking in a whisper as they went, +"would you feel quite safe after this?" + +"I have no fear. I dare say they would lock me up somewhere if they +could, before I got to Mr. Redmain's room: once in, they would not dare +touch me." + +"I shall not go out of hearing so long as you are in that house," said +Joseph, with decision. "Not until I have you out again do I leave the +premises. If anything should make you feel uncomfortable, you cry out, +miss, and I'll make a noise at the door that everybody at Thornwick +over there shall hear me." + +"It is a large house, Joseph: one might call in many a part of it, and +never be heard out of doors. I don't think you could hear me from Mr. +Redmain's room," said Mary, with a little laugh, for she was amused as +well as pleased at the protection Joseph would give her; "it is up two +flights, and he chose it himself for the sake of being quiet when he +was ill." + +As she spoke, they reached the door they sought--the most likely of all +to be still open: it was fast and dark as if it had not been unbolted +for years. One or two more entrances they tried, but with no better +success. + +"Come this way," whispered Joseph. "I know a place where we shall at +least be out of their sight, and where we can plan at our leisure." + +He led her to the back entrance to the old hall. Alas! even that was +closed. + +"This _is_ disappointing," he said; "for, if we were only in there, I +think something might be done." + +"I believe I know a way," said Mary, and led him to a place near, used +for a wood-shed. + +At the top of a great heap of sticks and fagots was an opening in the +wall, that had once been a window, or perhaps a door. + +"That, I know, is the wall of the tower," she said; "and there can be +no difficulty in getting through there. Once in, it will be easy to +reach the hall--that is, if the door of the tower is not locked." + +In an instant Joseph was at the top of the heap, and through the +opening, hanging on, and feeling with his feet. He found footing at no +great distance, and presently Mary was beside him. They descended +softly, and found the door into the hall wide open. + +"Can you tell me what window is that," whispered Joseph, "just above +the top of the wall?" + +"I can not," answered Mary. "I never could go about this house as I did +about Mr. Redmain's; my lady always looked so fierce if she saw me +trying to understand the place. But why do you ask?" + +"You see the flickering of a fire? Could it be Mr. Redmain's room?" + +"I can not tell. I do not think it. That has no window in this +direction, so far as I know. But I could not be certain." + +"Think how the stairs turn as you go up, and how the passages go to the +room. Think in what direction you look every corner you turn. Then you +will know better whether or not it might be." + +Mary was silent, and thought. In her mind she followed every turn she +had to take from the moment she entered the house till she got to the +door of Mr. Redmain's room, and then thought how the windows lay when +she entered it. Her conclusion was that one side of the room must be +against the hall, but she could remember no window in it. + +"But," she added, "I never was in that room when I was here before, +and, the twice I have now been in it, I was too much occupied to take +much notice of things about me. Two windows, I know, look down into a +quiet little corner of the courtyard, where there is an old pump +covered with ivy. I remember no other." + +"Is there any way of getting on to the top of that wall from this +tower?" asked Joseph. + +"Certainly there is. People often walk round the top of those walls. +They are more than thick enough for that." + +"Are you able to do it?" + +"Yes, quite. I have been round them more than once. But I don't like +the idea of looking in at a window." + +"No more do I, miss; but you must remember, if it is his room, it will +only be your eyes going where the whole of you has a right to be; and, +if it should not be that room, they have driven you to it: such a +necessity will justify it." + +"You must be right," answered Mary, and, turning, led the way up the +stair of the tower, and through a gap in the wall out upon the top of +the great walls. + +It was a sultry night. A storm was brooding between heaven and earth. +The moon was not yet up, and it was so dark that they had to feel their +way along the wall, glad of the protection of a fence of thick ivy on +the outer side. Looking down into the court on the one hand, and across +the hall to the lawn on the other, they saw no living thing in the +light from various windows, and there was little danger of being +discovered. In the gable was only the one window for which they were +making. Mary went first, as better knowing the path, also as having the +better right to look in. Through the window, as she went, she could see +the flicker, but not the fire. All at once came a great blaze. It +lasted but a moment--long enough, however, to let them see plainly into +a small closet, the door of which was partly open. + +"That is the room, I do believe," whispered Mary. "There is a closet, +but I never was in it." + +"If only the window be not bolted!" returned Joseph. + +The same instant Mary heard the voice of Mr. Redmain call in a tone of +annoyance--"Mary! Mary Marston! I want you. Who is that in the +room?--Damn you! who are you?" + +"Let me pass you," said Joseph, and, making her hold to the ivy, here +spread on to the gable, he got between Mary and the window. The blaze +was gone, and the fire was at its old flicker. The window was not +bolted. He lifted the sash. A moment and he was in. The next, Mary was +beside him. + +Something, known to her only as an impulse, induced Mary to go softly +to the door of the closet, and peep into the room. She saw Hesper, as +she thought, standing--sidewise to the closet--by a chest of drawers +invisible from the bed. A candle stood on the farther side of her. She +held in one hand the tumbler from which, repeatedly that evening, Mary +had given the patient his medicine: into this she was pouring, with an +appearance of care, something from a small dark bottle. + +With a sudden suspicion of foul play, Mary glided swiftly into the +room, and on to where she stood. It was Sepia! She started with a +smothered shriek, turned white, and almost dropped the bottle; then, +seeing who it was, recovered herself. But such a look as she cast on +Mary! such a fire of hate as throbbed out of those great black eyes! +Mary thought for a moment she would dart at her. But she turned away, +and walked swiftly to the door. Joseph, however, peeping in behind +Mary, had caught a glimpse of the bottle and tumbler, also of Sepia's +face. Seeing her now retiring with the bottle in her hand, he sprang +after her, and, thanks to the fact that she had locked the door, was in +time to snatch it from her. She turned like a wild beast, and a +terrible oath came hissing as from a feline throat. When, however, she +saw, not Mary, but the unknown figure of a powerful man, she turned +again to the door and fled. Joseph shut and locked it, and went back to +the closet. Mary drew near the bed. + +"Where have you been all this time?" asked the patient, querulously; +"and who was that went out of the room just now? What's all the hurry +about?" + +Anxious he should be neither frightened nor annoyed, Mary replied to +the first part of his question only. + +"I had to go and tell a friend, who was waiting for me, that I +shouldn't be home to-night. But here I am now, and I will not leave you +again." + +"How did the door come to be locked? And who was that went out of the +room?" + +While he was thus questioning, Joseph crept softly out of the window; +and all the rest of the night he lay on the top of the wall under it. + +"It was Miss Yolland," answered Mary. + +"What business had she in my room?" + +"She shall not enter it again while I am here." + +"Don't let Mewks in either," he rejoined. "I heard the door unlock and +lock again: what did it mean?" + +"Wait till to-morrow. Perhaps we shall find out then." + +He was silent a little. + +"I must get out of this house, Mary," he sighed at length. + +"When the doctor comes, we shall see," said Mary. + +"What! is the doctor coming? I am glad of that. Who sent for him?" + +"I don't know; I only heard he was coming." + +"But your lawyer, Mary--what's his name?--will be here first: we'll +talk the thing over with him, and take his advice. I feel better, and +shall go to sleep again." + +All night long Mary sat by him and watched. Not a step, so far as she +knew, came near the door; certainly not a hand was laid upon the lock. +Mr. Redmain slept soundly, and in the morning was beyond a doubt better. + +But Mary could not think of leaving him until Mr. Brett came. At Mr. +Redmain's request she rang the bell. Mewks made his appearance, with +the face of a ghost. His master told him to bring his breakfast. + +"And see, Mewks," he added, in a tone of gentleness that terrified the +man, so unaccustomed was he to such from the mouth of his master--"see +that there is enough for Miss Marston as well. She has had nothing all +night. Don't let my lady have any trouble with it.--Stop," he cried, as +Mewks was going, "I won't have you touch it either; I am fastidious +this morning. Tell the young woman they call Jemima to come here to +Miss Marston." + +Mewks slunk away. Jemima came, and Mr. Redmain ordered her to get +breakfast for himself and Mary. It was done speedily, and Mary remained +in the sick-chamber until the lawyer arrived. + + + + +CHAPTER LV. + +DISAPPEARANCE. + + +"I am afraid I must ask you to leave us now, Miss Marston," said Mr. +Brett, seated with pen, ink, and paper, to receive his new client's +instructions. + +"No," said Mr. Redmain; "she must stay where she is. I fancy something +happened last night which she has got to tell us about." + +"Ah! What was that?" asked Mr. Brett, facing round on her. + +Mary began her story with the incident of her having been pursued by +some one, and rescued by the blacksmith, whom she told her listeners +she had known in London. Then she narrated all that had happened the +night before, from first to last, not forgetting the flame that lighted +the closet as they approached the window. + +"Just let me see those memoranda," said Mr. Brett to Mr. Redmain, +rising, and looking for the paper where he had left it the day before. + +"It was of that paper I was this moment thinking," answered Mr. Redmain. + +"It is not here!" said Mr. Brett. + +"I thought as much! The fool! There was a thousand pounds there for +her! I didn't want to drive her to despair: a dying man must mind what +he is about. Ring the bell and see what Mewks has to say to it." + +Mewks came, in evident anxiety. + +I will not record his examination. Mr. Brett took it for granted he had +deliberately and intentionally shut out Mary, and Mewks did not attempt +to deny it, protesting he believed she was boring his master. The grin +on that master's face at hearing this was not very pleasant to behold. +When examined as to the missing paper, he swore by all that was holy he +knew nothing about it. + +Mr. Brett next requested the presence of Miss Yolland. She was nowhere +to be found. The place was searched throughout, but there was no trace +of her. + +When the doctor arrived, the bottle Joseph had taken from her was +examined, and its contents discovered. + +Lady Malice was grievously hurt at the examination she found had been +going on. + +"Have I not nursed you like my own brother, Mr. Redmain?" she said. + +"You may be glad you have escaped a coroner's inquest in your house, +Lady Margaret!" said Mr. Brett. + +"For me," said Mr. Redmain, "I have not many days left me, but somehow +a fellow does like to have his own!" + +Hesper sought Mary, and kissed her with some appearance of gratitude. +She saw what a horrible suspicion, perhaps even accusation, she had +saved her from. The behavior and disappearance of Sepia seemed to give +her little trouble. + +Mr. Brett got enough out of Mewks to show the necessity of his +dismissal, and the doctor sent from London a man fit to take his place. + +Almost every evening, until he left Durnmelling, Mary went to see Mr. +Redmain. She read to him, and tried to teach him, as one might an +unchildlike child. And something did seem to be getting into, or waking +up in, him. The man had never before in the least submitted; but now it +looked as if the watching spirit of life were feeling through the +dust-heap of his evil judgments, low thoughts, and bad life, to find +the thing that spirit had made, lying buried somewhere in the frightful +tumulus: when the two met and joined, then would the man be saved; God +and he would be together. Sometimes he would utter the strangest +things--such as if all the old evil modes of thinking and feeling were +in full operation again; and sometimes for days Mary would not have an +idea what was going on in him. When suffering, he would occasionally +break into fierce and evil language, then be suddenly silent. God and +Satan were striving for the man, and victory would be with him with +whom the man should side. + +For some time it remained doubtful whether this attack was not, after +all, going to be the last: the doctor himself was doubtful, and, having +no reason to think his death would be a great grief in the house, did +not hesitate much to express his doubt. And, indeed, it caused no +gloom. For there was little love in the attentions the Mortimers paid +him; and in what other hope could Hesper have married, than that one +day she would be free, with a freedom informed with power, the power of +money! But to the mother's suggestions as to possible changes in the +future, the daughter never responded: she had no thought of plans in +common with her. + +Strange rumors came abroad. Godfrey Wardour heard something of them, +and laughed them to scorn. There was a conspiracy in that house to ruin +the character of the loveliest woman in creation! But when a week after +week passed, and he heard nothing of or from her, he became anxious, +and at last lowered his pride so far as to call on Mary, under the +pretense of buying something in the shop. + +His troubled look filled her with sympathy, but she could not help +being glad afresh that he had escaped the snares laid for him. He +looked at her searchingly, and at last murmured a request that she +would allow him to have a little conversation with her. + +She led the way to her parlor, closed the door, and asked him to take a +seat. But Godfrey was too proud or too agitated to sit. + +"You will be surprised to see me on such an errand, Miss Marston!" he +said. + +"I do not yet know your errand," replied Mary; "but I may not be so +much surprised as you think." + +"Do not imagine," said Godfrey, stiffly, "that I believe a word of the +contemptible reports in circulation. I come only to ask you to tell me +the real nature of the accusations brought against Miss Yolland: your +name is, of course, coupled with them." + +"Mr. Wardour," said Mary, "if I thought you would believe what I told +yon, I would willingly do as you ask me. As it is, allow me to refer +you to Mr. Brett, the lawyer, whom I dare say you know." + +Happily, the character of Mr. Brett was well known in Testbridge and +all the country round; and from him Godfrey Wardour learned what sent +him traveling on the Continent again--not in the hope of finding Sepia. +What became of her, none of her family ever learned. + +Some time after, it came out that the same night on which the presence +of Joseph rescued Mary from her pursuer, a man speaking with a foreign +accent went to one of the surgeons in Testbridge to have his shoulder +set, which he said had been dislocated by a fall. When Joseph heard it, +he smiled, and thought he knew what it meant. + +Hesper was no sooner in London, than she wrote to Mary, inviting her to +go and visit her. But Mary answered she could no more leave home, and +must content herself with the hope of seeing Mrs. Redmain when she came +to Durnmelling. + +So long as her husband lived, the time for that did not again arrive; +but when Mary went to London, she always called on her, and generally +saw Mr. Redmain. But they never had any more talk about the things Mary +loved most. That he continued to think of those things, she had one +ground of hoping, namely, the kindness with which he invariably +received her, and the altogether gentler manner he wore as often and as +long as she saw him. Whether the change was caused by something better +than physical decay, who knows save him who can use even decay for +redemption? He lived two years more, and died rather suddenly. After +his death, and that of her father, which followed soon, Hesper went +again to Durnmelling, and behaved better to her mother than before. +Mary sometimes saw her, and a flicker of genuine friendship began to +appear on Hesper's part. + +Mr. Turnbull was soon driving what he called a roaring trade. He bought +and sold a great deal more than Mary, but she had business sufficient +to employ her days, and leave her nights free, and bring her and Letty +enough to live on as comfortably as they desired--with not a little +over, to use, when occasion was, for others, and something to lay by +for the time of lengthening shadows. + +Turnbull seemed to hare taken a lesson from his late narrow escape, for +he gave up the worst of his speculations, and confined himself to +"_genuine business-principles_"--the more contentedly that, all Marston +folly swept from his path, he was free to his own interpretation of the +phrase. He grew a rich man, and died happy--so his friends said, and +said as they saw. Mrs. Turnbull left Testbridge, and went to live in a +small county-town where she was unknown. There she was regarded as the +widow of an officer in her Majesty's service, and, as there was no one +within a couple of hundred miles to support an assertion to the +contrary, she did not think it worth her while to make one: was not the +supposed brevet a truer index to her consciousness of herself than the +actual ticket by ill luck attached to her--Widow of a linen-draper? + +George carried on the business; and, when Mary and he happened to pass +in the street, they nodded to each other. + +Letty was diligent in business, but it never got into her heart. She +continued to be much liked, and in the shop was delightful. If she ever +had another offer of marriage, the fact remained unknown. She lived to +be a sweet, gracious little old lady--and often forgot that she was a +widow, but never that she was a wife. All the days of her appointed +time she waited till her change should come, and she should find her +Tom on the other side, looking out for her, as he had said he would. +Her mother-in-law could not help dying; but she never "forgave" +her--for what, nobody knew. + +After a year or so, Mrs. Wardour began to take a little notice of her +again; but she never asked her to Thornwick until she found herself +dying. Perhaps she then remembered a certain petition in the Lord's +prayer. But will it not be rather a dreadful thing for some people if +they are forgiven as they forgive? + +Old Mr. Duppa died, and a young man came to minister to his +congregation who thought the baptism of the spirit of more importance +than the most correct of opinions concerning even the baptizing spirit. +From him Mary found she could learn, and would be much to blame if she +did not learn. From him Letty also heard what increased her desire to +be worth something before she went to rejoin Tom. + +Joseph Jasper became once more Mary's pupil. She was now no more +content with her little cottage piano, but had an instrument of quite +another capacity on which to accompany the violin of the blacksmith. + +To him trade came in steadily, and before long he had to build a larger +shoeing-shed. From a wide neighborhood horses were brought him to be +shod, cart-wheels to be tired, axles to be mended, plowshares to be +sharpened, and all sorts of odd jobs to be done. He soon found it +necessary to make arrangement with a carpenter and wheelwright to work +on his premises. Before two years were over, he was what people call a +flourishing man, and laying by a little money. + +"But," he said to Mary, "I can't go on like this, you know, miss. I +don't want money. It must be meant to do something with, and I must +find out what that something is." + + + + +CHAPTER LVI. + +A CATASTROPHE. + + +One winter evening, as soon as his work was over for the day, Joseph +locked the door of his smithy, washed himself well, put on clean +clothes, and, taking his violin, set out for Testbridge: Mary was +expecting him to tea. It was the afternoon of a holiday, and she had +closed early. + +Was there ever a happier man than Joseph that night as he strode along +the footpath? A day of invigorating and manly toil behind him, folded +up in the sense of work accomplished; a clear sky overhead, beginning +to breed stars; the pale amber hope of to-morrow's sunrise low down in +the west; a frosty air around him, challenging to the surface the glow +of the forge which his day's labor had stored in his body; his heart +and brain at rest with his father in heaven; his precious violin under +his arm; before him the welcoming parlor, where two sweet women waited +his coming, one of them the brightest angel, in or out of heaven, to +him; and the prospect of a long evening of torrent-music between +them--who, I repeat, could have been more blessed, heart, and soul, and +body, than Joseph Jasper? His being was like an all-sided lens +concentrating all joys in the one heart of his consciousness. God only +knows how blessed he could make us if we would but let him! He pressed +his violin-case to his heart, as if it were a living thing that could +know that he loved it. + +Before he reached the town, the stars were out, and the last of the +sunset had faded away. Earth was gone, and heaven was all. Joseph was +now a reader, and read geology and astronomy: "I've got to do with them +all!" he said to himself, looking up. "There lie the fields of my +future, when this chain of gravity is unbound from my feet! Blessed am +I here now, my God, and blessed shall I be there then." + +When he reached the suburbs, the light of homes was shining through +curtains of all colors. "Every nest has its own birds," said Joseph; +"every heart its own joys!" Just then, he was in no mood to think of +the sorrows. But the sorrows are sickly things and die, while the joys +are strong divine children, and shall live for evermore. + +When he reached the streets, all the shops he passed were closed, +except the beer-shops and the chemists'. "The nettle and the dock!" +said Joseph. + +When he reached Mary's shop, he turned into the court to the +kitchen-door. "Through the kitchen to the parlor!" he said. "Through +the smithy to the presence-chamber! O my God--through the mud of me, up +to thy righteousness!" + +He was in a mood for music--was he not? One might imagine the violin +under his arm was possessed by an angel, and, ignoring his ears, was +playing straight into his heart! + +Beenie let him in, and took him up to the parlor. Mary came half-way to +meet him. The pressure as of heaven's atmosphere fell around him, +calming and elevating. He stepped across the floor, still, stately, and +free. He laid down his violin, and seated himself where Mary told him, +in her father's arm-chair by the fire. Gentle nothings with a down of +rainbows were talked until tea was over, and then without a word they +set to their music--Mary and Joseph, with their own hearts and Letty +for their audience. + +They had not gone far on the way to fairyland, however, when Beenie +called Letty from the room, to speak to a friend and customer, who had +come from the country on a sudden necessity for something from the +shop. Letty, finding herself not quite equal to the emergency, came in +her turn to call Mary: she went as quietly as if she were leaving a +tiresome visitor. The music was broken, and Joseph left alone with the +dumb instruments. + +But in his hands solitude and a violin were sure to marry in music. He +began to play, forgot himself utterly, and, when the customer had gone +away satisfied, and the ladies returned to the parlor, there he stood +with his eyes closed, playing on, nor knowing they were beside him. +They sat down, and listened in silence. + +Mary had not listened long before she found herself strangely moved. +Her heart seemed to swell up into her throat, and it was all she could +do to keep from weeping. A little longer and she was compelled to +yield, and the silent tears flowed freely. Letty, too, was +overcome--more than ever she had been by music. She was not so open to +its influences as Mary, but her eyes were full, and she sat thinking of +her Tom, far in the regions that are none the less true that we can not +see them. + +A mood had taken shape in the mind of the blacksmith, and wandered from +its home, seeking another country. It is not the ghosts of evil deeds +that alone take shape, and go forth to wander the earth. Let but a mood +be strong enough, and the soul, clothing itself in that mood as with a +garment, can walk abroad and haunt the world. Thus, in a garment of +mood whose color and texture was music, did the soul of Joseph Jasper +that evening, like a homeless ghost, come knocking at the door of Mary +Marston. It was the very being of the man, praying for admittance, even +as little Abel might have crept up to the gate from which his mother +had been driven, and, seeing nothing of the angel with the flaming +sword, knocked and knocked, entreating to be let in, pleading that all +was not right with the world in which he found himself. And there Mary +saw Joseph stand, thinking himself alone with his violin; and the +violin was his mediator with her, and was pleading and pleading for the +admittance of its master. It prayed, it wept, it implored. It cried +aloud that eternity was very long, and like a great palace without a +quiet room. "Gorgeous is the glory," it sang; "white are the garments, +and lovely are the faces of the holy; they look upon me gently and +sweetly, but pitifully, for they know that I am alone--yet not alone, +for I love. Oh, rather a thousand-fold let me love and be alone, than +be content and joyous with them all, free of this pang which tells me +of a bliss yet more complete, fulfilling the gladness of heaven!" + +All the time Joseph knew nothing of where his soul was; for he thought +Mary was in the shop, and beyond the hearing of his pleader. Nor was +this exactly the shape the thing took to the consciousness of the +musician. He seemed to himself to be standing alone in a starry and +moonlit night, among roses, and sweet-peas, and apple-blossoms--for the +soul cares little for the seasons, and will make its own month out of +many. On the bough of an apple-tree, in the fair moonlight, sat a +nightingale, swaying to and fro like one mad with the wine of his own +music, singing as if he wanted to break his heart and have done, for +the delight was too much for mortal creature to endure. And the song of +the bird grew the prayer of a man in the brain and heart of the +musician, and thence burst, through the open fountain of the violin, +and worked what it could work, in the world of forces. "I love thee! I +love thee! I love thee!" cried the violin; and the worship was entreaty +that knew not itself. On and on it went, ever beginning ere it ended, +as if it could never come to a close; and the two sat listening as if +they cared but to hear, and would listen for ever--listening as if, +when the sound ceased, all would be at an end, and chaos come again. + +Ah, do not blame, thou who lovest God, and fearest the love of the +human! Hast thou yet to learn that the love of the human is love, is +divine, is but a lower form of a part of the love of God? When thou +lovest man, or woman, or child, yea, or even dog, aright, then wilt +thou no longer need that I tell thee how God and his Christ would not +be content with each other alone in the glories even of the eternal +original love, because they could create more love. For that more love, +together they suffered and patiently waited. He that loveth not his +brother whom he hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen? + +A sob, like a bird new-born, burst from Mary's bosom. It broke the +enchantment in which Joseph was bound. That enchantment had possessed +him, usurping as it were the throne of his life, and displacing it; +when it ceased, he was not his own master. He started--to conscious +confusion only, neither knowing where he was nor what he did. His limbs +for the moment were hardly his own. How it happened he never could +tell, but he brought down his violin with a crash against the piano, +then somehow stumbled and all but fell. In the act of recovering +himself, he heard the neck of his instrument part from the body with a +tearing, discordant cry, like the sound of the ruin of a living world. +He stood up, understanding now, holding in his hand his dead music, and +regarding it with a smile sad as a winter sunset gleaming over a grave. +But Mary darted to him, threw her arms round him, laid her head on his +bosom, and burst into tears. Tenderly he laid his broken violin on the +piano, and, like one receiving a gift straight from the hand of the +Godhead, folded his arms around the woman--enough, if music itself had +been blotted from his universe! His violin was broken, but his being +was made whole! his treasure taken--type of his self, and a woman given +him instead! + +"It's just like him!" he murmured. + +He was thinking of him who, when a man was brought him to be delivered +from a poor palsy, forgave him his sins. + + + + +CHAPTER LVII. + +THE END OF THE BEGINNING. + + +Joseph Jasper and Mary Marston were married the next summer. Mary did +not leave her shop, nor did Joseph leave his forge. Mary was proud of +her husband, not merely because he was a musician, but because he was a +blacksmith. For, with the true taste of a right woman, she honored the +manhood that could do hard work. The day will come, and may I do +something to help it hither, when the youth of our country will +recognize that, taken in itself, it is a more manly, and therefore in +the old true sense a more _gentle_ thing, to follow a good handicraft, +if it make the hands black as a coal, than to spend the day in keeping +books, and making up accounts, though therein the hands should remain +white--or red, as the case may be. Not but that, from a higher point of +view still, all work, set by God, and done divinely, is of equal honor; +but, where there is a choice, I would gladly see boy of mine choose +rather to be a blacksmith, or a watchmaker, or a bookbinder, than a +clerk. Production, making, is a higher thing in the scale of reality, +than any mere transmission, such as buying and selling. It is, besides, +easier to do honest work than to buy and sell honestly. The more honor, +of course, to those who are honest under the greater difficulty! But +the man who knows how needful the prayer, "Lead us not into +temptation," knows that he must not be tempted into temptation even by +the glory of duty under difficulty. In humility we must choose the +easiest, as we must hold our faces unflinchingly to the hardest, even +to the seeming impossible, when it is given us to do. + +I must show the blacksmith and the shopkeeper once more--two years +after marriage--time long enough to have made common people as common +to each other as the weed by the roadside; but these are not common to +each other yet, and never will be. They will never complain of being +_desillusionnes_, for they have never been illuded. They look up each +to the other still, because they were right in looking up each to the +other from the first. Each was, and therefore each is and will be, real. + + ".... The man is honest." + "Therefore he will be, Timon." + + +It was a lovely morning in summer. The sun was but a little way above +the horizon, and the dew-drops seemed to have come scattering from him +as he shook his locks when he rose. The foolish larks were up, of +course, for they fancied, come what might of winter and rough weather, +the universe founded in eternal joy, and themselves endowed with the +best of all rights to be glad, for there was the gladness inside, and +struggling to get outside of them. And out it was coming in a divine +profusion! How many baskets would not have been wanted to gather up the +lordly waste of those scattered songs! in all the trees, in all the +flowers, in every grass-blade, and every weed, the sun was warming and +coaxing and soothing life into higher life. And in those two on the +path through the fields from Testbridge, the same sun, light from the +father of lights, was nourishing highest life of all--that for the sake +of which the Lord came, that he might set it growing in hearts of whose +existence it was the very root. + +Joseph and Mary were taking their walk together before the day's work +should begin. Those who have a good conscience, and are not at odds +with their work, can take their pleasure any time--as well before their +work as after it. Only where the work of the day is a burden grievous +to be borne, is there cause to fear being unfitted for duty by +antecedent pleasure. But the joy of the sunrise would linger about Mary +all the day long in the gloomy shop; and for Joseph, he had but to lift +his head to see the sun hastening on to the softer and yet more hopeful +splendors of the evening. The wife, who had not to begin so early, was +walking with her husband, as was her custom, even when the weather was +not of the best, to see him fairly started on his day's work. It was +with something very like pride, yet surely nothing evil, that she would +watch the quick blows of his brawny arm, as he beat the cold iron on +the anvil till it was all aglow like the sun that lighted the +world--then stuck it into the middle of his coals, and blew softly with +his bellows till the flame on the altar of his work-offering was awake +and keen. The sun might shine or forbear, the wind might blow or be +still, the path might be crisp with frost or soft with mire, but the +lighting of her husband's forge-fire, Mary, without some forceful +reason, never omitted to turn by her presence into a holy ceremony. It +was to her the "Come let us worship and bow down" of the daily service +of God-given labor. That done, she would kiss him, and leave him: she +had her own work to do. Filled with prayer she would walk steadily back +the well-known way to the shop, where, all day long, ministering with +gracious service to the wants of her people, she would know the evening +and its service drawing nearer and nearer, when Joseph would come, and +the delights of heaven would begin afresh at home, in music, and verse, +and trustful talk. Every day was a life, and every evening a blessed +death--type of that larger evening rounding our day with larger hope. +But many Christians are such awful pagans that they will hardly believe +it possible a young loving pair should think of that evening, except +with misery and by rare compulsion! + +That morning, as they went, they talked--thus, or something like this: + +"O Mary!" said Joseph, "hear the larks! They are all saying: 'Jo-seph! +Jo-seph! Hearkentome, Joseph! Whatwouldyouhavebeenbutfor Ma-ry, +Jo-seph?' That's what they keep on singing, singing in the ears of my +heart, Mary!" + +"You would have been a true man, Joseph, whatever the larks may say." + +"A solitary melody, praising without an upholding harmony, at best, +Mary!" + +"And what should I have been, Joseph? An inarticulate harmony--sweetly +mumbling, with never a thread of soaring song!" + +A pause followed. + +"I shall be rather shy of your father, Mary," said Joseph. "Perhaps he +won't be content with me." + +"Even if you weren't what you are, my father would love you because I +love you. But I know my father as well as I know you; and I know you +are just the man it must make him happy afresh, even in heaven, to +think of his Mary marrying. You two can hardly be of two minds in +anything!" + +"That was a curious speech of Letty's yesterday! You heard her say, did +you not, that, if everybody was to be so very good in heaven, she was +afraid it would be rather dull?" + +"We mustn't make too much of what Letty says, either when she's merry +or when she's miserable. She speaks both times only out of half-way +down." + +"Yes, yes! I wasn't meaning to find any fault with her; I was only +wishing to hear what you would say. For nobody can make a story without +somebody wicked enough to set things wrong in it, and then all the work +lies in setting them right again, and, as soon as they are set right, +then the story stops." + +"There's no thing of the sort in music, Joseph, and that makes one +happy enough." + +"Yes, there is, Mary. There's strife and difference and compensation +and atonement and reconciliation." + +"But there's nothing wicked." + +"No, that there is not." + +"Well!" said Mary, "perhaps it may only be because we know so little +about good, that it seems to us not enough. We know only the beginnings +and the fightings, and so write and talk only about them. For my part, +I don't feel that strife of any sort is necessary to make me enjoy +life; of all things it is what makes me miserable. I grant you that +effort and struggle add immeasurably to the enjoyment of life, but +those I look upon as labor, not strife. There may be whole worlds for +us to help bring into order and obedience. And I suspect there must be +no end of work in which is strife enough--and that of a kind hard to +bear. There must be millions of spirits in prison that want preaching +to; and whoever goes among them will have that which is behind of the +afflictions of Christ to fill up. Anyhow there will be plenty to do, +and that's the main thing. Seeing we are made in the image of God, and +he is always working, we could not be happy without work." + +"Do you think we shall get into any company we like up there?" said +Joseph. "I must think a minute. When I want to understand, I find +myself listening for what my father would say. Yes, I think I know what +he would say to that: 'Yes; but not till you are fit for it; and then +the difficulty would be to keep out of it. For all that is fit must +come to pass in the land of fitnesses--that is, the land where all is +just as it ought to be.'--That's how I could fancy I heard my father +answer you." + +"With that answer I am well content," said Joseph.--"But you don't want +to die, do you, Mary?" + +"No; I want to live. And I've got such a blessed plenty of life while +waiting for more, that I am quite content to wait. But I do wonder that +some people I know, should cling to what they call life as they do. It +is not that they are comfortable, for they are constantly complaining +of their sufferings; neither is it from submission to the will of God, +for to hear them talk you must think they imagine themselves hardly +dealt with; they profess to believe the Gospel, and that it is their +only consolation; and yet they speak of death as the one paramount +evil. In the utmost weariness, they yet seem incapable of understanding +the apostle's desire to depart and be with Christ, or of imagining that +to be with him can be at all so good as remaining where they are. One +is driven to ask whether they can be Christians any further than +anxiety to secure whatever the profession may be worth to them will +make them such." + +"Don't you think, though," said Joseph, "that some people have a trick +of putting on their clothes wrong side out, and so making themselves +appear less respectable than they are? There was my sister Ann: she +used to go on scolding at people for not believing, all the time she +said they could not believe till God made them--if she had said +_except_ God made them, I should have been with her there!--and then +talking about God so, that I don't see how, even if they could, any one +would have believed in such a monster as she made of him; and then, if +you objected to believe in such a God, she would tell you it was all +from the depravity of your own heart you could not believe in him; and +yet this sister Ann of mine, I know, once went for months without +enough to eat--without more than just kept body and soul together, that +she might feed the children of a neighbor, of whom she knew next to +nothing, when their father lay ill of a fever, and could not provide +for them. And she didn't look for any thanks neither, except it was +from that same God she would have to be a tyrant from the +beginning--one who would calmly behold the unspeakable misery of +creatures whom he had compelled to exist, whom he would not permit to +cease, and for whom he would do a good deal, but not all that he could. +Such people, I think, are nearly as unfair to themselves as they are to +God." + +"You're right, Joseph," said Mary. "If we won't take the testimony of +such against God, neither must we take it against themselves. Only, why +is it they are always so certain they are in the right?" + +"For the perfecting of the saints," suggested Joseph, with a curious +smile. + +"Perhaps," answered Mary. "Anyhow, we may get that good out of them, +whether they be here for the purpose or not. I remember Mr. Turnbull +once accusing my father of irreverence, because he spoke about God in +the shop. Said my father, 'Our Lord called the old temple his father's +house and a den of thieves in the same breath.' Mr. Turnbull saw +nothing but nonsense in the answer. Said my father then, 'You will +allow that God is everywhere?' 'Of course,' replied Mr. Turnbull. +'Except in this shop, I suppose you mean?' said my father. 'No, I +don't. That's just why I wouldn't have you do it.' 'Then you wouldn't +have me think about him either?' 'Well! there's a time for everything.' +Then said my father, very solemnly, 'I came from God, and I'm going +back to God, and I won't have any gaps of death in the middle of my +life.' And that was nothing to Mr. Turnbull either." + +To one in ten of my readers it may be something. + +Just ere they came in sight of the smithy, they saw a lady and +gentleman on horseback flying across the common. + +"There go Mrs. Redmain and Mr. Wardour!" said Joseph. "They're to be +married next month, they say. Well, it's a handsome couple they'll +make! And the two properties together'll make a fine estate!" + +"I hope she'll learn to like the books he does," said Mary. "I never +could get her to listen to anything for more than three minutes." + +Though Joseph generally dropped work long before Mary shut the shop, +she yet not unfrequently contrived to meet him on his way home; and +Joseph always kept looking out for her as he walked. + +That very evening they were gradually nearing each other--the one from +the smithy, the other from the shop--with another pair between them, +however, going toward Testbridge--Godfrey Wardour and Hesper Redmain. + +"How strange," said Hesper, "that after all its chances and breakings, +old Thornwick should be joined up again at last!" + +Partly by a death in the family, partly through the securities her +husband had taken on the property, partly by the will of her father, +the whole of Durnmelling now belonged to Hesper. + +"It is strange," answered Godfrey, with an involuntary sigh. + +Hesper turned and looked at him. + +It was not merely sadness she saw on his face. There was something +there almost like humility, though Hesper was not able to read it as +such. He lifted his head, and did not avoid her gaze. + +"You are wondering, Hesper," he said, "that I do not respond with more +pleasure. To tell you the truth, I have come through so much that I am +almost afraid to expect the fruition of any good. Please do not +imagine, you beautiful creature! it is of the property I am thinking. +In your presence that would be impossible. Nor, indeed, have I begun to +think of it. I shall, one day, come to care for it, I do not +doubt--that is, when once I have you safe; but I keep looking for the +next slip that is to come--between my lip and this full cup of +hap-piness. I have told you all, Hesper, and I thank you that you do +not despise me. But it may well make me solemn and fearful, to think, +after all the waves and billows that have gone over me, such a splendor +should be mine!--But, do you really love me, Hesper--or am I walking in +my sleep? I had thought, 'Surely now at last I shall never love +again!'--and instead of that, here I am loving, as I never loved +before!--and doubting whether I ever did love before!" + +"I never loved before," said Hesper. "Surely to love must be a good +thing, when it has made you so good! I am a poor creature beside you, +Godfrey, but I am glad to think whatever I know of love you have taught +me. It is only I who have to be ashamed!" + +"That is all your goodness!" interrupted Godfrey. "Yet, at this moment, +I can not quite be sorry for some things I ought to be sorry for: but +for them I should not be at your side now--happier than I dare allow +myself to feel. I dare hardly think of those things, lest I should be +glad I had done wrong." + +"There are things I am compelled to know of myself, Godfrey, which I +shall never speak to you about, for even to think of them by your side +would blast all my joy. How plainly Mary used to tell me what I was! I +scorned her words! It seemed, then, too late to repent. And now I am +repenting! I little thought ever to give in like this! But of one thing +I am sure--that, if I had known you, not all the terrors of my father +would have made me marry the man." + +Was this all the feeling she had for her dead husband? Although Godfrey +could hardly at the moment feel regret she had not loved him, it yet +made him shiver to hear her speak of him thus. In the perfected +grandeur of her external womanhood, she seemed to him the very ideal of +his imagination, and he felt at moments the proudest man in the great +world; but at night he would lie in torture, brooding over the horrors +a woman such as she must have encountered, to whom those mysteries of +our nature, which the true heart clothes in abundant honor, had been +first presented in the distortions of a devilish caricature. There had +been a time in Godfrey's life when, had she stood before him in all her +splendor, he would have turned from her, because of her history, with a +sad disgust. Was he less pure now? He was more pure, for he was +humbler. When those terrible thoughts would come, and the darkness +about him grow billowy with black flame, "God help me," he would cry, +"to make the buffeted angel forget the past!" + +They had talked of Mary more than once, and Godfrey, in part through +what Hesper told him of her, had come to see that he was unjust to her. +I do not mean he had come to know the depth and extent of his +injustice--that would imply a full understanding of Mary herself, which +was yet far beyond him. A thousand things had to grow, a thousand +things to shift and shake themselves together in Godfrey's mind, before +he could begin to understand one who cared only for the highest. + +Godfrey and Hesper made a glorious pair to look at--but would theirs be +a happy union?--Happy, I dare say--and not too happy. He who sees to +our affairs will see that the _too_ is not in them. There were fine +elements in both, and, if indeed they loved, and now I think, from very +necessity of their two hearts, they must have loved, then all would, by +degrees, by slow degrees, most likely, come right with them. + +If they had been born again both, before they began, so to start fresh, +then like two children hand in hand they might have run in through the +gates into the city. But what is love, what is loss, what defilement +even, what are pains, and hopes, and disappointments, what sorrow, and +death, and all the ills that flesh is heir to, but means to this very +end, to this waking of the soul to seek the home of our being--the life +eternal? Verily we must be born from above, and be good children, or +become, even to our self-loving selves, a scorn, a hissing, and an +endless reproach. + +If they had had but Mary to talk to them! But they did not want her: +she was a good sort of creature, who, with all her disagreeableness, +meant them well, and whom they had misjudged a little and made cry! +They had no suspicion that she was one of the lights of the world--one +of the wells of truth, whose springs are fed by the rains on the +eternal hills. + +Turning a clump of furze-bushes on the common, they met Mary. She +stepped from the path. Mr. Wardour took off his hat. Then Mary knew +that his wrath was past, and she was glad. + +They stopped. "Well, Mary," said Hesper, holding out her hand, and +speaking in a tone from which both haughtiness and condescension had +vanished, "where are you going?" + +"To meet my husband," answered Mary. "I see him coming." + +With a deep, loving look at Hesper, and a bow and a smile to Godfrey, +she left them, and hastened to meet her working-man. + +Behind Godfrey Wardour and Hesper Redmain walked Joseph Jasper and Mary +Marston, a procession of love toward a far-off, eternal goal. But which +of them was to be first in the kingdom of heaven, Mary or Joseph or +Hesper or Godfrey, is not to be told: they had yet a long way to walk, +and there are first that shall be last, and last that shall be first. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mary Marston, by George MacDonald + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY MARSTON *** + +***** This file should be named 8201.txt or 8201.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/8/2/0/8201/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks, Juliet +Sutherland and the DP Team + + +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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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Mary Marston + +Author: George MacDonald + +Release Date: June, 2005 [EBook #8201] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on July 1, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY MARSTON *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks, +Juliet Sutherland and the DP Team + + + + +MARY MARSTON + +A NOVEL. + +BY + +GEORGE MACDONALD + +AUTHOR OF "ANNALS OF A QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD," "ROBERT FALCONER," +ETC., ETC. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + I.-THE SHOP + II.-CUSTOMERS + III.-THE ARBOR AT THORNWICK + IV.-GODFREY WARDOUR + V.-GODFREY AND LETTY + VI.-TOM HELMER + VII.-DURNMELLING + VIII.-THE OAK + IX.-CONFUSION + X.-THE HEATH AND THE HUT + XI.-WILLIAM MARSTON + XII.-MARY'S DREAM + XIII.-THE HUMAN SACRIFICE + XIV.-UNGENEROUS BENEVOLENCE + XV.-THE MOONLIGHT + XVI.-THE MORNING + XVII.-THE RESULT + XVIII.-MARY AND GODFREY + XIX.-MARY IN THE SHOP + XX.-THE WEDDING-DRESS + XXI.-MR. REDMAIN + XXII.-MRS. REDMAIN + XXIII.-THE MENIAL + XXIV.-MRS. REDMAIN'S DRAWING-ROOM + XXV.-MARY'S RECEPTION + XXVI.-HER POSITION + XXVII.-MR. AND MRS. HELMER + XXVIII.-MARY AND LETTY + XXIX.-THE EVENING STAR + XXX.-A SCOLDING + XXXI.-SEPIA + XXXII.-HONOR + XXXIII.-TUB INVITATION + XXXIV.-A STRAY SOUND + XXXV.-THE MUSICIAN + XXXVI.-A CHANGE + XXXVII.-LYDGATE STREET + XXXVIII.-GODFREY AND LETTY + XXXIX.-RELIEF + XL.-GODFREY AND SEPIA + XLI-THE HELPER + XLII-THE LEPER + XLIII.-MARY AND MR. REDMAIN + XLIV.-JOSEPH JASPER + XLV.-THE SAPPHIRE + XLVL-REPARATION + XLVII.-ANOTHER CHANGE + XLVIIL-DISSOLUTION + XLIX.-THORNWICK + L.-WILLIAM AND MARY MARSTON + LI.-A HARD TASK + LII.-A SUMMONS + LIII.-A FRIEND IN NEED + LIV.-THE NEXT NIGHT + LV.-DISAPPEARANCE + LVI.-A CATASTROPHE + LVII.-THE END OF THE BEGINNING + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE SHOP + + +It was an evening early in May. The sun was low, and the street +was mottled with the shadows of its paving-stones--smooth enough, +but far from evenly set. The sky was clear, except for a few +clouds in the west, hardly visible in the dazzle of the huge +light, which lay among them like a liquid that had broken its +vessel, and was pouring over the fragments. The street was almost +empty, and the air was chill. The spring was busy, and the summer +was at hand; but the wind was blowing from the north. + +The street was not a common one; there was interest, that is +feature, in the shadowy front of almost each of its old houses. +Not a few of them wore, indeed, something like a human +expression, the look of having both known and suffered. From many +a porch, and many a latticed oriel, a long shadow stretched +eastward, like a death flag streaming in a wind unfelt of the +body--or a fluttering leaf, ready to yield, and flit away, and +add one more to the mound of blackness gathering on the horizon's +edge. It was the main street of an old country town, dwindled by +the rise of larger and more prosperous places, but holding and +exercising a charm none of them would ever gain. + +Some of the oldest of its houses, most of them with more than one +projecting story, stood about the middle of the street. The +central and oldest of these was a draper's shop. The windows of +the ground-floor encroached a little on the pavement, to which +they descended very close, for the floor of the shop was lower +than the street. But, although they had glass on three oriel +sides, they were little used for the advertising of the stores +within. A few ribbons and gay handkerchiefs, mostly of cotton, +for the eyes of the country people on market-days, formed the +chief part of their humble show. The door was wide and very low, +the upper half of it of glass--old, and bottle-colored; and its +threshold was a deep step down into the shop. As a place for +purchases it might not to some eyes look promising, but both the +ladies and the housekeepers of Testbridge knew that rarely could +they do better in London itself than at the shop of Turnbull and +Marston, whether variety, quality, or price, was the point in +consideration. And, whatever the first impression concerning it, +the moment the eyes of a stranger began to grow accustomed to its +gloom, the evident size and plenitude of the shop might well +suggest a large hope. It was low, indeed, and the walls could +therefore accommodate few shelves; but the ceiling was therefore +so near as to be itself available for stowage by means of well- +contrived slides and shelves attached to the great beams crossing +it in several directions. During the shop-day, many an article, +light as lace, and heavy as broadcloth, was taken from overhead +to lay upon the counter. The shop had a special reputation for +all kinds of linen goods, from cambric handkerchiefs to towels, +and from table-napkins to sheets; but almost everything was to be +found in it, from Manchester moleskins for the navy's trousers, +to Genoa velvet for the dowager's gown, and from Horrocks's +prints to Lyons silks. It had been enlarged at the back, by +building beyond the original plan, and that part of it was a +little higher, and a little better lighted than the front; but +the whole place was still dark enough to have awaked the envy of +any swindling London shopkeeper. Its owners, however, had so long +enjoyed the confidence of the neighborhood, that faith readily +took the place of sight with their customers--so far at least as +quality was concerned; and seldom, except in a question of color +or shade, was an article carried to the door to be confronted +with the day. It had been just such a shop, untouched of even +legendary change, as far back as the memory of the sexton +reached; and he, because of his age and his occupation, was the +chief authority in the local history of the place. + +As, on this evening, there were few people in the street, so were +there few in the shop, and it was on the point of being closed: +they were not particular there to a good many minutes either way. +Behind the counter, on the left hand, stood a youth of about +twenty, young George Turnbull, the son of the principal partner, +occupied in leisurely folding and putting aside a number of +things he had been showing to a farmer's wife, who was just gone. +He was an ordinary-looking lad, with little more than business in +his high forehead, fresh-colored, good-humored, self-satisfied +cheeks, and keen hazel eyes. These last kept wandering from his +not very pressing occupation to the other side of the shop, where +stood, behind the opposing counter, a young woman, in attendance +upon the wants of a well-dressed youth in front of it, who had +just made choice of a pair of driving-gloves. His air and +carriage were conventionally those of a gentleman--a gentleman, +however, more than ordinarily desirous of pleasing a young woman +behind a counter. She answered him with politeness, and even +friendliness, nor seemed aware of anything unusual in his +attentions. + +"They're splendid gloves," he said, making talk; "but don't you +think it a great price for a pair of gloves, Miss Marston?" + +"It is a good deal of money," she answered, in a sweet, quiet +voice, whose very tone suggested simplicity and +straightforwardness; "but they will last you a long time. Just +look at the work, Mr. Helmer. You see how they are made? It is +much more difficult to stitch them like that, one edge over the +other, than to sew the two edges together, as they do with +ladies' gloves. But I'll just ask my father whether he marked +them himself." + +"He did mark those, I know," said young Turnbull, who had been +listening to all that went on, "for I heard my father say they +ought to be sixpence more." + +"Ah, then!" she returned, assentingly, and laid the gloves on the +box before her, the question settled. + +Helmer took them, and began to put them on. + +"They certainly are the only glove where there is much handling +of reins," he said. + +"That is what Mr. Wardour says of them," rejoined Miss Marston. + +"By the by," said Helmer, lowering his voice, "when did you see +anybody from Thornwick?" + +"Their old man was in the town yesterday with the dog-cart." + +"Nobody with him?" + +"Miss Letty. She came in for just two minutes or so." + +"How was she looking?" + +"Very well," answered Miss Marston, with what to Helmer seemed +indifference. + +"Ah!" he said, with a look of knowingness, "you girls don't see +each other with the same eyes as we. I grant Letty is not very +tall, and I grant she has not much of a complexion; but where did +you ever see such eyes?" + +"You must excuse me, Mr. Helmer," returned Mary, with a smile, +"if I don't choose to discuss Letty's merits with you; she is my +friend." + +"Where would be the harm?" rejoined Helmer, looking puzzled. "I +am not likely to say anything against her. You know perfectly +well I admire her beyond any woman in the world. I don't care who +knows it." + +"Your mother?" suggested Mary, in the tone of one who makes a +venture. + +"Ah, come now, Miss Marston! Don't you turn my mother loose upon +me. I shall be of age in a few months, and then my mother may-- +think as she pleases. I know, of course, with her notions, she +would never consent to my making love to Letty--" + +"I should think not!" exclaimed Mary. "Who ever thought of such +an absurdity? Not you, surely, Mr. Helmer? What would your mother +say to hear you? I mention her in earnest now." + +"Let mothers mind their own business!" retorted the youth +angrily. "I shall mind mine. My mother ought to know that by this +time." + +Mary said no more. She knew Mrs. Helmer was not a mother to +deserve her boy's confidence, any more than to gain it; for she +treated him as if she had made him, and was not satisfied with +her work. + +"When are you going to see Letty, Miss Marston?" resumed Helmer, +after a brief pause of angry feeling. + +"Next Sunday evening probably." + +"Take me with you." + +"Take you with me! What are you dreaming of, Mr. Helmer?" + +"I would give my bay mare for a good talk with Letty Lovel," he +returned. + +Mary made no reply. + +"You won't?" he said petulantly, after a vain pause of +expectation. + +"Won't what?" rejoined Miss Marston, as if she could not believe +him in earnest. + +"Take me with you on Sunday?" + +"No," she answered quietly, but with sober decision. + +"Where would be the harm?" pleaded the youth, in a tone mingled +of expostulation, entreaty, and mortification. + +"One is not bound to do everything there would be no harm in +doing," answered Miss Marston. "Besides, Mr. Helmer, I don't +choose to go out walking with you of a Sunday evening." + +"Why not?" + +"For one thing, your mother would not like it. You know she would +not." + +"Never mind my mother. She's nothing to you. She can't bite you. +--Ask the dentist. Come, come! that's all nonsense. I shall be at +the stile beyond the turnpike-gate all the afternoon--waiting +till you come." + +"The moment I see you--anywhere upon the road--that moment I +shall turn back.--Do you think," she added with half-amused +indignation, "I would put up with having all the gossips of +Testbridge talk of my going out on a Sunday evening with a boy +like you?" + +Tom Helmer's face flushed. He caught up the gloves, threw the +price of them on the counter, and walked from the shop, without +even a good night. + +"Hullo!" cried George Turnbull, vaulting over the counter, and +taking the place Helmer had just left opposite Mary; "what did +you say to the fellow to send him off like that? If you do hate +the business, you needn't scare the customers, Mary." + +"I don't hate the business, you know quite well, George. And if I +did scare a customer," she added, laughing, as she dropped the +money in the till, "it was not before he had done buying." + +"That may be; but we must look to to-morrow as well as to-day. +When is Mr. Helmer likely to come near us again, after such a +wipe as you must have given him to make him go off like that?" + +"Just to-morrow, George, I fancy," answered Mary. "He won't be +able to bear the thought of having left a bad impression on me, +and so he'll come again to remove it. After all, there's +something about him I can't help liking. I said nothing that +ought to have put him out of temper like that, though; I only +called him a boy." + +"Let me tell you, Mary, you could not have called him a worse +name." + +"Why, what else is he?" + +"A more offensive word a man could not hear from the lips of a +woman," said George loftily. + +"A man, I dare say! But Mr. Helmer can't be nineteen yet." + +"How can you say so, when he told you himself he would be of age +in a few months? The fellow is older than I am. You'll be calling +me a boy next." + +"What else are you? You at least are not one-and-twenty." + +"And how old do you call yourself, pray, miss?" + +"Three-and-twenty last birthday." + +"A mighty difference indeed!" + +"Not much--only all the difference, it seems, between sense and +absurdity, George." + +"That may be all very true of a fine gentleman, like Helmer, that +does nothing from morning to night but run away from his mother; +but you don't think it applies to me, Mary, I hope!" + +"That's as you behave yourself, George. If you do not make it +apply, it won't apply of itself. But if young women had not more +sense than most of the young men I see in the shop--on both sides +of the counter, George--things would soon be at a fine pass. +Nothing better in your head than in a peacock's!--only that a +peacock _has_ the fine feathers he's so proud of." + +"If it were Mr. Wardour now, Mary, that was spreading his tail +for you to see, you would not complain of that peacock!" + +A vivid rose blossomed instantly in Mary's cheek. Mr. Wardour was +not even an acquaintance of hers. He was cousin and friend to +Letty Lovel, indeed, but she had never spoken to him, except in +the shop. + +"It would not be quite out of place if you were to learn a little +respect for your superiors, George," she returned. "Mr. Wardour +is not to be thought of in the same moment with the young men +that were in my mind. Mr. Wardour is not a young man; and he is a +gentleman." + +She took the glove-box, and turning placed it on a shelf behind +her. + +"Just so!" remarked George, bitterly. "Any man you don't choose +to count a gentleman, you look down upon! What have you got to do +with gentlemen, I should like to know?" + +"To admire one when I see him," answered Mary. "Why shouldn't I? +It is very seldom, and it does me good." + +"Oh, yes!" rejoined George, contemptuously. "You _call_ +yourself a lady, but--" + +"I do nothing of the kind," interrupted Mary, sharply. "I should +_like_ to be a lady; and inside of me, please God, I +_will_ be a lady; but I leave it to other people to call me +this or that. It matters little what any one is _called_." + +"All right," returned George, a little cowed; "I don't mean to +contradict you. Only just tell me why a well-to-do tradesman +shouldn't be a gentleman as well as a small yeoman like Wardour." + +"Why don't you say--as well as a squire, or an earl, or a duke?" +said Mary. + +"There you are, chaffing me again! It's hard enough to have every +fool of a lawyer's clerk, or a doctor's boy, looking down upon a +fellow, and calling him a counter-jumper; but, upon my soul, it's +too bad when a girl in the same shop hasn't a civil word for him, +because he isn't what she counts a gentleman! Isn't my father a +gentleman? Answer me that, Mary." + +It was one of George's few good things that he had a great +opinion of his father, though the grounds of it were hardly such +as to enable Mary to answer his appeal in a way he would have +counted satisfactory. She thought of her own father, and was +silent. + +"Everything depends on what a man is in himself, George," she +answered. "Mr. Wardour would be a gentleman all the same if he +were a shopkeeper or a blacksmith." + +"And shouldn't I be as good a gentleman as Mr. Wardour, if I had +been born with an old tumble-down house on my back, and a few +acres of land I could do with as I liked? Come, answer me that." + +"If it be the house and the land that makes the difference, you +would, of course," answered Mary. + +Her tone implied, even to George's rough perceptions, that there +was a good deal more of a difference between them than therein +lay. But common people, whether lords or shopkeepers, are slow to +understand that possession, whether in the shape of birth, or +lands, or money, or intellect, is a small affair in the +difference between men. + +"I know you don't think me fit to hold a candle to him," he said. +"But I happen to know, for all he rides such a good horse, he's +not above doing the work of a wretched menial, for he polishes +his own stirrup-irons." + +"I'm very glad to hear it," rejoined Mary. "He must be more of a +gentleman yet than I thought him." + +"Then why should you count him a better gentleman than me?" + +"I'm afraid for one thing, you would go with your stirrup-irons +rusty, rather than clean them yourself, George. But I will tell +you one thing Mr. Wardour would not do if he were a shopkeeper: +he would not, like you, talk one way to the rich, and another way +to the poor--all submission and politeness to the one, and +familiarity, even to rudeness, with the other! If you go on like +that, you'll never come within sight of being a gentleman, +George--not if you live to the age of Methuselah." + +"Thank you, Miss Mary! It's a fine thing to have a lady in the +shop! Shouldn't I just like my father to hear you! I'm blowed if +I know how a fellow is to get on with you! Certain sure I am that +it ain't _my_ fault if we're not friends." + +Mary made no reply. She could not help understanding what George +meant, and she flushed, with honest anger, from brow to chin. +But, while her dark-blue eyes flamed with indignation, her anger +was not such as to render her face less pleasant to look upon. +There are as many kinds of anger as there are of the sunsets with +which they ought to end: Mary's anger had no hate in it. + +I must now hope my readers sufficiently interested in my +narrative to care that I should tell them something of what she +was like. Plainly as I see her, I can not do more for them than +that. I can not give a portrait of her; I can but cast her shadow +on my page. It was a dainty half-length, neither tall nor short, +in a plain, well-fitting dress of black silk, with linen collar +and cuffs, that rose above the counter, standing, in spite of +displeasure, calm and motionless. Her hair was dark, and dressed +in the simplest manner, without even a reminder of the hideous +occipital structure then in favor--especially with shop women, +who in general choose for imitation and exorbitant development +whatever is ugliest and least lady-like in the fashion of the +hour. It had a natural wave in it, which broke the too straight +lines it would otherwise have made across a forehead of sweet and +composing proportions. Her features were regular--her nose +straight--perhaps a little thin; the curve of her upper lip +carefully drawn, as if with design to express a certain firmness +of modesty; and her chin well shaped, perhaps a little too +sharply defined for her years, and rather large. Everything about +her suggested the repose of order satisfied, of unconstrained +obedience to the laws of harmonious relation. The only fault +honest criticism could have suggested, merely suggested, was the +presence of just a possible _nuance_ of primness. Her boots, +at this moment unseen of any, fitted her feet, as her feet fitted +her body. Her hands were especially good. There are not many +ladies, interested in their own graces, who would not have envied +her such seals to her natural patent of ladyhood. Her speech and +manners corresponded with her person and dress; they were direct +and simple, in tone and inflection, those of one at peace with +herself. Neatness was more notable in her than grace, but grace +was not absent; good breeding was more evident than delicacy, yet +delicacy was there; and unity was plain throughout. + +George went back to his own side of the shop, jumped the +counter, put the cover on the box he had left open with a bang, +and shoved it into its place as if it had been the backboard of a +cart, shouting as he did so to a boy invisible, to make haste and +put up the shutters. Mary left the shop by a door on the inside +of the counter, for she and her father lived in the house; and, +as soon as the shop was closed, George went home to the villa his +father had built in the suburbs. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +CUSTOMERS. + + +The next day was Saturday, a busy one at the shop. From the +neighboring villages and farms came customers not a few; and +ladies, from the country-seats around, began to arrive as the +hours went on. The whole strength of the establishment was early +called out. Busiest in serving was the senior partner, Mr. +Turnbull. He was a stout, florid man, with a bald crown, a heavy +watch-chain of the best gold festooned across the wide space +between waistcoat-button-hole and pocket, and a large +hemispheroidal carbuncle on a huge fat finger, which yet was his +little one. He was close-shaved, double-chinned, and had +cultivated an ordinary smile to such an extraordinary degree +that, to use the common hyperbole, it reached from ear to ear. By +nature he was good-tempered and genial; but, having devoted every +mental as well as physical endowment to the making of money, what +few drops of spiritual water were in him had to go with the rest +to the turning of the mill-wheel that ground the universe into +coin. In his own eyes he was a strong churchman, but the only +sign of it visible to others was the strength of his contempt for +dissenters--which, however, excepting his partner and Mary, he +showed only to church-people; a dissenter's money being, as he +often remarked, when once in his till, as good as the best +churchman's. + +To the receptive eye he was a sight not soon to be forgotten, as +he bent over a piece of goods outspread before a customer, one +hand resting on the stuff, the other on the yard-measure, his +chest as nearly touching the counter as the protesting adjacent +parts would permit, his broad smooth face turned up at right +angles, and his mouth, eloquent even to solemnity on the merits +of the article, now hiding, now disclosing a gulf of white teeth. +No sooner was anything admitted into stock, than he bent his soul +to the selling of it, doing everything that could be done, saying +everything he could think of saying, short of plain lying as to +its quality: that he was not guilty of. To buy well was a care to +him, to sell well was a greater, but to make money, and that as +speedily as possible, was his greatest care, and his whole +ambition. + +John Turnbull in his gig, as he drove along the road to the town, +and through the street approached his shop-door, showed to the +chance observer a man who knew himself of importance, a man who +might have a soul somewhere inside that broad waistcoat; as he +drew up, threw the reins to his stable-boy, and descended upon +the pavement--as he stepped down into the shop even, he looked a +being in whom son or daughter or friend might feel some honest +pride; but, the moment he was behind the counter and in front of +a customer, he changed to a creature whose appearance and +carriage were painfully contemptible to any beholder who loved +his kind; he had lost the upright bearing of a man, and cringed +like an ape. But I fear it was thus he had gained a portion at +least of his favor with the country-folk, many of whom much +preferred his ministrations to those of his partner. A glance, +indeed, from the one to the other, was enough to reveal which +must be the better salesman--and to some eyes which the better +man. + +In the narrow walk of his commerce--behind the counter, I mean-- +Mr. Marston stood up tall and straight, lank and lean, seldom +bending more than his long neck in the direction of the counter, +but doing everything needful upon it notwithstanding, from the +unusual length of his arms and his bony hands. His forehead was +high and narrow, his face pale and thin, his hair long and thin, +his nose aquiline and thin, his eyes large, his mouth and chin +small. He seldom spoke a syllable more than was needful, but his +words breathed calm respect to every customer. His conversation +with one was commonly all but over as he laid something for +approval or rejection on the counter: he had already taken every +pains to learn the precise nature of the necessity or desire; and +what he then offered he submitted without comment; if the thing +was not judged satisfactory, he removed it and brought another. +Many did not like this mode of service; they would be helped to +buy; unequal to the task of making up their minds, they welcomed +any aid toward it; and therefore preferred Mr. Turnbull, who gave +them every imaginable and unimaginable assistance, groveling +before them like a man whose many gods came to him one after the +other to be worshiped; while Mr. Marston, the moment the thing he +presented was on the counter, shot straight up like a poplar in a +sudden calm, his visage bearing witness that his thought was +already far away--in heavenly places with his wife, or hovering +like a perplexed bee over some difficult passage in the New +Testament; Mary could have told which, for she knew the meaning +of every shadow that passed or lingered on his countenance. + +His partner and his like-minded son despised him, as a matter of +course; his unbusiness-like habits, as they counted them, were +the constantly recurring theme of their scorn; and some of these +would doubtless have brought him the disapprobation of many a +business man of a moral development beyond that of Turnbull; but +Mary saw nothing in them which did not stamp her father the +superior of all other men she knew. + +To mention one thing, which may serve as typical of the man: he +not unfrequently sold things under the price marked by his +partner. Against this breach of fealty to the firm Turnbull never +ceased to level his biggest guns of indignation and remonstrance, +though always without effect. He even lowered himself in his own +eyes so far as to quote Scripture like a canting dissenter, and +remind his partner of what came to a house divided against +itself. He did not see that the best thing for some houses must +be to come to pieces. "Well, but, Mr. Turnbull, I thought it was +marked too high," was the other's invariable answer. "William, +you are a fool," his partner would rejoin for the hundredth time. +"Will you never understand that, if we get a little more than the +customary profit upon one thing, we get less upon another? You +must make the thing even, or come to the workhouse." Thereto, for +the hundredth time also, William Marston would reply: "That might +hold, I daresay, Mr. Turnbull--I am not sure--if every customer +always bought an article of each of the two sorts together; but I +can't make it straight with my conscience that one customer +should pay too much because I let another pay too little. +Besides, I am not at all sure that the general scale of profit is +not set too high. I fear you and I will have to part, Mr. +Turnbull." But nothing was further from Turnbull's desire than +that he and Marston should part; he could not keep the business +going without his money, not to mention that he never doubted +Marston would straightway open another shop, and, even if he did +not undersell him, take from him all his dissenting customers; +for the junior partner was deacon of a small Baptist church in +the town--a fact which, although like vinegar to the teeth and +smoke to the eyes of John Turnbull in his villa, was invaluable +in the eyes of John Turnbull behind his counter. + +Whether William Marston was right or wrong in his ideas about the +rite of baptism--probably he was both--he was certainly right in +his relation to that which alone makes it of any value--that, +namely, which it signifies; buried with his Master, he had died +to selfishness, greed, and trust in the secondary; died to evil, +and risen to good--a new creature. He was just as much a +Christian in his shop as in the chapel, in his bedroom as at the +prayer-meeting. + +But the world was not now much temptation to him, and, to tell +the truth, he was getting a good deal tired of the shop. He had +to remind himself, oftener and oftener, that in the mean time it +was the work given him to do, and to take more and more +frequently the strengthening cordial of a glance across the shop +at his daughter. Such a glance passed through the dusky place +like summer lightning through a heavy atmosphere, and came to +Mary like a glad prophecy; for it told of a world within and +beyond the world, a region of love and faith, where struggled no +antagonistic desires, no counteracting aims, but unity was the +visible garment of truth. + +The question may well suggest itself to my reader--How could such +a man be so unequally yoked with such another as Turnbull?--To +this I reply that Marston's greatness had yet a certain +repressive power upon the man who despised him, so that he never +uttered his worst thoughts or revealed his worst basenesses in +his presence. Marston never thought of him as my reader must soon +think--flattered himself, indeed, that poor John was gradually +improving, coming to see things more and more as he would have +him look on them. Add to this, that they had been in the business +together almost from boyhood, and much will be explained. + +An open carriage, with a pair of showy but ill-matched horses, +looking unfit for country work on the one hand, as for Hyde Park +on the other, drew up at the door; and a visible wave of interest +ran from end to end of the shop, swaying as well those outside as +those inside the counter, for the carriage was well known in +Testbridge. It was that of Lady Margaret Mortimer; she did not +herself like the _Margaret_, and signed only her second name +_Alice_ at full length, whence her _friends_ generally +called her to each other Lady Malice. She did not leave the +carriage, but continued to recline motionless in it, at an angle +of forty-five degrees, wrapped in furs, for the day was cloudy +and cold, her pale handsome face looking inexpressibly more +indifferent in its regard of earth and sky and the goings of men, +than that of a corpse whose gaze is only on the inside of the +coffin-lid. But the two ladies who were with her got down. One of +them was her daughter, Hesper by name, who, from the dull, cloudy +atmosphere that filled the doorway, entered the shop like a gleam +of sunshine, dusky-golden, followed by a glowing shadow, in the +person of her cousin, Miss Yolland. + +Turnbull hurried to meet them, bowing profoundly, and looking +very much like Issachar between the chairs he carried. But they +turned aside to where Mary stood, and in a few minutes the +counter was covered with various stuffs for some of the smaller +articles of ladies' attire. + +The customers were hard to please, for they wanted the best +things at the price of inferior ones, and Mary noted that the +desires of the cousin were farther reaching and more expensive +than those of Miss Mortimer. But, though in this way hard to +please, they were not therefore unpleasant to deal with; and from +the moment she looked the latter in the face, whom she had not +seen since she was a girl, Mary could hardly take her eyes off +her. All at once it struck her how well the unusual, fantastic +name her mother had given her suited her; and, as she gazed, the +feeling grew. + +Large, and grandly made, Hesper stood "straight, and steady, and +tall," dusky-fair, and colorless, with the carriage of a young +matron. Her brown hair seemed ever scathed and crinkled afresh by +the ethereal flame that here and there peeped from amid the +unwilling volute rolled back from her creamy forehead in a +rebellious coronet. Her eyes were large and hazel; her nose cast +gently upward, answering the carriage of her head; her mouth +decidedly large, but so exquisite in drawing and finish that the +loss of a centimetre of its length would to a lover have been as +the loss of a kingdom; her chin a trifle large, and grandly +lined; for a woman's, her throat was massive, and her arms and +hands were powerful. Her expression was frank, almost brave, her +eyes looking full at the person she addressed. As she gazed, a +kind of love she had never felt before kept swelling in Mary's +heart. + +Her companion impressed her very differently. + +Some men, and most women, counted Miss Yolland _strangely_ +ugly. But there were men who exceedingly admired her. Not very +slight for her stature, and above the middle height, she looked +small beside Hesper. Her skin was very dark, with a considerable +touch of sallowness; her eyes, which were large and beautifully +shaped, were as black as eyes could be, with light in the midst +of their blackness, and more than a touch of hardness in the +midst of their liquidity; her eyelashes were singularly long and +black, and she seemed conscious of them every time they rose. She +did not _use_ her eyes habitually, but, when she did, the +thrust was sudden and straight. I heard a man once say that a +look from her was like a volley of small-arms. Like Hesper's, her +mouth was large and good, with fine teeth; her chin projected a +little too much; her hands were finer than Hesper's, but bony. +Her name was Septimia; Lady Margaret called her Sepia, and the +contraction seemed to so many suitable that it was ere long +generally adopted. She was in mourning, with a little crape. To +the first glance she seemed as unlike Hesper as she could well +be; but, as she stood gently regarding the two, Mary, gradually, +and to her astonishment, became indubitably aware of a singular +likeness between them. Sepia, being a few years older, and in +less flourishing condition, had her features sharper and finer, +and by nature her complexion was darker by shades innumerable; +but, if the one was the evening, the other was the night: Sepia +was a diminished and overshadowed Hesper. Their manner, too, was +similar, but Sepia's was the haughtier, and she had an occasional +look of defiance, of which there appeared nothing in Hesper. When +first she came to Durnmelling, Lady Malice had once alluded to +the dependence of her position--but only once: there came a flash +into rather than out of Sepia's eyes that made any repetition of +the insult impossible and Lady Malice wish that she had left her +a wanderer on the face of Europe. + +Sepia was the daughter of a clergyman, an uncle of Lady Malice, +whose sons had all gone to the bad, and whose daughters had all +vanished from society. Shortly before the time at which my +narrative begins, one of the latter, however, namely Sepia, the +youngest, had reappeared, a fragment of the family wreck, +floating over the gulf of its destruction. Nobody knew with any +certainty where she had been in the interim: nobody at +Durnmelling knew anything but what she chose to tell, and that +was not much. She said she had been a governess in Austrian +Poland and Russia. Lady Margaret had become reconciled to her +presence, and Hesper attached to her. + +Of the men who, as I have said, admired her, some felt a peculiar +enchantment in what they called her ugliness; others declared her +devilish handsome; and some shrank from her as if with an +undefined dread of perilous entanglement, if she should but catch +them looking her in the face. Among some of them she was known as +Lucifer, in antithesis to Hesper: they meant the Lucifer of +darkness, not the light-bringer of the morning. + +The ladies, on their part, especially Hesper, were much pleased +with Mary. The simplicity of her address and manner, the pains +she took to find the exact thing she wanted, and the modest +decision with which she answered any reference to her, made +Hesper even like her. The most artificially educated of women is +yet human, and capable of even more than liking a fellow-creature +as such. When their purchases were ended, she took her leave with +a kind smile, which went on glowing in Mary's heart long after +she had vanished. + +"Home, John," said Lady Margaret, the moment the two ladies were +seated. "I hope you have got _all_ you wanted. We shall be +late for luncheon, I fear. I would not for worlds keep Mr. +Redmain waiting.--A little faster, John, please." + +Hesper's face darkened. Sepia eyed her fixedly, from under the +mingling of ascended lashes and descended brows. The coachman +pretended to obey, but the horses knew very well when he did and +when he did not mean them to go, and took not a step to the +minute more: John had regard to the splendid-looking black horse +on the near side, which was weak in the wind, as well as on one +fired pastern, and cared little for the anxiety of his mistress. +To him, horses were the final peak of creation--or if not the +horses, the coachman, whose they are--masters and mistresses the +merest parasitical adjuncts. He got them home in good time for +luncheon, notwithstanding--more to Lady Margaret's than Hesper's +satisfaction. + +Mr. Redmain was a bachelor of fifty, to whom Lady Margaret was +endeavoring to make the family agreeable, in the hope he might +take Hesper off their hands. I need not say he was rich. He was a +common man, with good cold manners, which he offered you like a +handle. He was selfish, capable of picking up a lady's +handkerchief, but hardly a wife's. He was attentive to Hesper; +but she scarcely concealed such a repugnance to him as some feel +at sight of strange fishes--being at the same time afraid of him, +which was not surprising, as she could hardly fail to perceive +the fate intended for her. + +"Ain't Miss Mortimer a stunner?" said George Turnbull to Mary, +when the tide of customers had finally ebbed from the shop. + +"I don't exactly know what you mean, George," answered Mary. + +"Oh, of course, I know it ain't fair to ask any girl to admire +another," said George. "But there's no offense to you, Mary. One +young lady can't carry _every_ merit on her back. She'd be +too lovely to live, you know. Miss Mortimer ain't got your waist, +nor she ain't got your 'ands, nor your 'air; and you ain't got +her size, nor the sort of hair she 'as with her." + +He looked up from the piece of leno he was smoothing out, and saw +he was alone in the shop. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE ARBOR AT THORNWICK. + + +The next day was Sunday at last, a day dear to all who do +anything like their duty in the week, whether they go to church +or not. For Mary, she went to the Baptist chapel; it was her +custom, rendered holy by the companionship of her father. But +this day it was with more than ordinary restlessness and lack of +interest that she stood, knelt, and sat, through the routine of +observance; for old Mr. Duppa was certainly duller than usual: +how could it be otherwise, when he had been preparing to spend a +mortal hour in descanting on the reasons which necessitated the +separation of all true Baptists from all brother-believers? The +narrow, high-souled little man--for a soul as well as a forehead +can be both high and narrow--was dull that morning because he +spoke out of his narrowness, and not out of his height; and Mary +was better justified in feeling bored than even when George +Turnbull plagued her with his vulgar attentions. When she got out +at last, sedate as she was, she could hardly help skipping along +the street by her father's side. Far better than chapel was their +nice little cold dinner together, in their only sitting-room, +redolent of the multifarious goods piled around it on all the +rest of the floor. Greater yet was the following pleasure--of +making her father lie down on the sofa, and reading him to sleep, +after which she would doze a little herself, and dream a little, +in the great chair that had been her grandmother's. Then they had +their tea, and then her father always went to see the minister +before chapel in the evening. + +When he was gone, Mary would put on her pretty straw bonnet, and +set out to visit Letty Lovel at Thornwick. Some of the church- +members thought this habit of taking a walk, instead of going +again to the chapel, very worldly, and did not scruple to let her +know their opinion; but, so long as her father was satisfied with +her, Mary did not care a straw for the world besides. She was too +much occupied with obedience to trouble her head about opinion, +either her own or other people's. Not until a question comes +puzzling and troubling us so as to paralyze the energy of our +obedience is there any necessity for its solution, or any +probability of finding a real one. A thousand foolish +_doctrines_ may lie unquestioned in the mind, and never +interfere with the growth or bliss of him who lives in active +subordination of his life to the law of life: obedience will in +time exorcise them, like many another worse devil. + +It had drizzled all the morning from the clouds as well as from +the pulpit, but, just as Mary stepped out of the kitchen-door, +the sun stepped out of the last rain-cloud. She walked quickly +from the town, eager for the fields and the trees, but in some +dread of finding Tom Helmer at the stile; for he was such a fool, +she said to herself, that there was no knowing what he might do, +for all she had said; but he had thought better of it, and she +was soon crossing meadows and cornfields in peace, by a path +which, with many a winding, and many an up and down, was the +nearest way to Thornwick. + +The saints of old did well to pray God to lift on them the light +of his countenance: has the Christian of the new time learned of +his Master that the clouds and the sunshine come and go of +themselves? If the sunshine fills the hearts of old men and babes +and birds with gladness and praise, and God never meant it, then +are they all idolaters, and have but a careless Father. Sweet +earthy odors rose about Mary from the wet ground; the rain-drops +glittered on the grass and corn-blades and hedgerows; a soft damp +wind breathed rather than blew about the gaps and gates; with an +upward springing, like that of a fountain momently gathering +strength, the larks kept shooting aloft, there, like music- +rockets, to explode in showers of glowing and sparkling song; +while, all the time and over all, the sun as he went down kept +shining in the might of his peace; and the heart of Mary praised +her Father in heaven. + +Where the narrow path ran westward for a little way, so that she +could see nothing for the sun in her eyes, in the middle of a +plowed field she would have run right against a gentleman, had he +been as blind as she; but, his back being to the sun, he saw her +perfectly, and stepped out of her way into the midst of a patch +of stiff soil, where the rain was yet lying between the furrows. +She saw him then, and as, lifting his hat, he stopped again upon +the path, she recognized Mr. Wardour. + +"Oh, your nice boots!" she cried, in the childlike distress of a +simple soul discovering itself the cause of catastrophe, for his +boots were smeared all over with yellow clay. + +"It only serves me right," returned Mr. Wardour, with a laugh of +amusement. "I oughtn't to have put on such thin ones at the first +smile of summer." + +Again he lifted his hat, and walked on. + +Mary also pursued her path, genuinely though gently pained that +one should have stepped up to the ankles in mud on her account. +As I have already said, except in the shop she had never before +spoken to Mr. Wardour, and, although he had so simply responded +to her exclamation, he did not even know who she was. + +The friendship which now drew Mary to Thornwick, Godfrey +Wardour's place, was not one of long date. She and Letty Lovel +had, it is true, known each other for years, but only quite of +late had their acquaintance ripened into something better; and it +was not without protestation on the part of Mrs. Wardour, +Godfrey's mother, that she had seen the growth of an intimacy +between the two young women. The society of a shopwoman, she +often remarked, was far from suitable for one who, as the +daughter of a professional man, might lay claim to the position +of a gentlewoman. For Letty was the orphan daughter of a country +surgeon, a cousin of Mrs. Wardour, for whom she had had a great +liking while yet they were boy and girl together. At the same +time, however much she would have her consider herself the +superior of Mary Marston, she by no means treated her as her own +equal, and Letty could not help being afraid of her aunt, as she +called her. + +The well-meaning woman was in fact possessed by two devils--the +one the stiff-necked devil of pride, the other the condescending +devil of benevolence. She was kind, but she must have credit for +it; and Letty, although the child of a loved cousin, must not +presume upon that, or forget that the wife and mother of long- +descended proprietors of certain acres of land was greatly the +superior of any man who lived by the exercise of the best- +educated and most helpful profession. She counted herself a +devout Christian, but her ideas of rank, at least--therefore +certainly not a few others--were absolutely opposed to the +Master's teaching: they who did least for others were her +aristocracy. + +Now, Letty was a simple, true-hearted girl, rather slow, who +honestly tried to understand her aunt's position with regard to +her friend. "Shop-girls," her aunt had said, "are not fitting +company for you, Letty." + +"I do not know any other shop-girls, aunt," Letty replied, with +hidden trembling; "but, if they are not nice, then they are not +like Mary. She's downright good; indeed she is, aunt!--a great +deal, ever so much, better than I am." + +"That may well be," answered Mrs. Wardour, "but it does not make +a lady of her." + +"I am sure," returned Letty, bewildered, "on Sundays you could +not tell the difference between her and any other young lady." + +"Any other well-dressed young woman, my dear, you should say. I +believe shop-girls do call their companions young ladies, but +that can not justify the application of the word. I am scarcely +bound to speak of my cook as a lady because letters come +addressed to her as Miss Tozer. If the word 'lady' should sink at +last to common use, as in Italy every woman is Donna, we must +find some other word to ex-press what _used_ to be meant by +it." + +"Is Mrs. Cropper a lady, aunt?" asked Letty, after a pause, in +which her brains, which were not half so muddled as she thought +them, had been busy feeling after firm ground in the morass of +social distinction thus opened under her. + +"She is received as such," replied Mrs. Wardour, but with doubled +stiffness, through which ran a tone of injury. + +"Would you receive her, aunt, if she called upon you?" + +"She has horses and servants, and everything a woman of the world +can desire; but I should feel I was bowing the knee to Mammon +were I to ask her to my house. Yet such is the respect paid to +money in these degenerate days that many a one will court the +society of a person like that, who would think me or your cousin +Godfrey unworthy of notice, because we have no longer a tithe of +the property the family once possessed." + +The lady forgot there is a Rimmon as well as a Mammon. + +"God knows," she went on, "how that woman's husband made his +money! But that is a small matter nowadays, except to old- +fashioned people like myself. Not _how_ but _how much_, +is all the question now," she concluded, flattering herself she +had made a good point. + +"Don't think me rude, please, aunt: I am really wishing to +understand--but, if Mrs. Cropper is not a lady, how can Mary +Marston not be one? She is as different from Mrs. Croppor as one +woman can be from another." + +"Because she has not the position in society," replied Mrs. +Wardour, enveloping her nothing in flimsy reiteration and self- +contradiction. + +"And Mrs. Cropper has the position?" ventured Letty, with a +little palpitation from fear of offending. + +"Apparently so," answered Mrs. Wardour. But her inquiring pupil +did not feel much enlightened. Letty had not the logic necessary +to the thinking of the thing out; or to the discovery that, like +most social difficulties, hers was merely one of the upper strata +of a question whose foundation lies far too deep for what is +called Society to perceive its very existence. And hence it is no +wonder that Society, abetted by the Church, should go on from +generation to generation talking murderous platitudes about it. + +But, although such was her reasoning beforehand, heart had so far +overcome habit and prejudice with Mrs. Wardour, that, convinced +on the first interview of the high tone and good influence of +Mary, she had gradually come to put herself in the way of seeing +her as often as she came, ostensibly to herself that she might +prevent any deterioration of intercourse; and although she +always, on these occasions, played the grand lady, with a +stateliness that seemed to say, "Because of your individual +worth, I condescend, and make an exception, but you must not +imagine I receive your class at Thornwick," she had almost +entirely ceased making remarks upon the said class in Letty's +hearing. + +On her part, Letty had by this time grown so intimate with Mary +as to open with her the question upon which her aunt had given +her so little satisfaction; and this same Sunday afternoon, as +they sat in the arbor at the end of the long yew hedge in the old +garden, it had come up again between them; for, set thinking by +Letty's bewilderment, Mary had gone on thinking, and had at +length laid hold of the matter, at least by the end that belonged +to _her_. + +"I can not consent, Letty," she said, "to trouble my mind about +it as you do. I can not afford it. Society is neither my master +nor my servant, neither my father nor my sister; and so long as +she does not bar my way to the kingdom of heaven, which is the +only society worth getting into, I feel no right to complain of +how she treats me. I have no claim on her; I do not acknowledge +her laws--hardly her existence, and she has no authority over me. +Why should she, how could she, constituted as she is, receive +such as me? The moment she did so, she would cease to be what she +is; and, if all be true that one hears of her, she does me a +kindness in excluding me. What can it matter to me, Letty, +whether they call me a lady or not, so long as Jesus says +_Daughter_ to me? It reminds me of what I heard my father +say once to Mr. Turnbull, when he had been protesting that none +but church people ought to be buried in the churchyards. 'I don't +care a straw about it, Mr. Turnbull,' he said. 'The Master was +buried in a garden.'--'Ah, but you see things are different now,' +said Mr. Turnbull.--'I don't hang by things, but by my Master. It +is enough for the disciple that he should be as his Master,' said +my father.--'Besides, you don't think it of any real consequence +yourself, or you would never want to keep your brothers and +sisters out of such nice quiet places!'--Mr. Turnbull gave his +kind of grunt, and said no more." + +After passing Mary, Mr. Wardour did not go very far before he +began to slacken his pace; a moment or two more and he suddenly +wheeled round, and began to walk back toward Thornwick. Two +things had combined to produce this change of purpose--the first, +the state of his boots, which, beginning to dry in the sun and +wind as he walked, grew more and more hideous at the end of his +new gray trousers; the other, the occurring suspicion that the +girl must be Letty's new shopkeeping friend, Miss Marston, on her +way to visit her. What a sweet, simple young woman she was! he +thought; and straightway began to argue with himself that, as his +boots were in such evil plight, it would be more pleasant to +spend the evening with Letty and her friend, than to hold on his +way to his own friend's, and spend the evening smoking and +lounging about the stable, or hearing his sister play polkas and +mazurkas all the still Sunday twilight. + +Mary had, of course, upon her arrival, narrated her small +adventure, and the conversation had again turned upon Godfrey +just as he was nearing the house. + +"How handsome your cousin is!" said Mary, with the simplicity +natural to her. + +"Do you think so?" returned Letty. + +"Don't _you_ think so?" rejoined Mary. + +"I have never thought about it," answered Letty. + +"He looks so manly, and has such a straightforward way with him!" +said Mary. + +"What one sees every day, she may feel in a sort of take-for- +granted way, without thinking about it," said Letty. "But, to +tell the truth, I should feel it as impertinent of me to +criticise Cousin Godfrey's person as to pass an opinion on one of +the books he reads. I can not express the reverence I have for +Cousin Godfrey." + +"I don't wonder," replied Mary. "There is that about him one +could trust." + +"There is that about him," returned Letty, "makes me afraid of +him--I can not tell why. And yet, though everybody, even his +mother, is as anxious to please him as if he were an emperor, he +is the easiest person to please in the whole house. Not that he +tells you he is pleased; he only smiles; but that is quite +enough." + +"But I suppose he talks to you sometimes?" said Mary. + +"Oh, yes--now. He used not; but I think he does now more than to +anybody else. It was a long time before he began, though. Now he +is always giving me something to read. I wish he wouldn't; it +frightens me dreadfully. He always questions me, to know whether +I understand what I read." + +Letty ended with a little cry. Through the one narrow gap in the +yew hedge, near to the arbor, Godfrey had entered the walk, and +was coming toward them. + +He was a well-made man, thirty years of age, rather tall, sun- +tanned, and bearded, with wavy brown hair, and gentle approach. +His features were not regular, but that is of little consequence +where there is unity. His face indicated faculty and feeling, and +there was much good nature, shadowed with memorial suffering, in +the eyes which shone so blue out of the brown. + +Mary rose respectfully as he drew near. + +"What treason were you talking, Letty, that you were so startled +at sight of me?" he said, with a smile. "You were complaining of +me as a hard master, were you not?" + +"No, indeed, Cousin Godfrey!" answered Letty energetically, not +without tremor, and coloring as she spoke. "I was only saying I +could not help being frightened when you asked me questions about +what I had been reading. I am so stupid, you know!" + +"Pardon me, Letty," returned her cousin, "I know nothing of the +sort. Allow me to say you are very far from stupid. Nobody can +understand everything at first sight. But you have not introduced +me to your friend." + +Letty bashfully murmured the names of the two. + +"I guessed as much," said Wardour. "Pray sit down, Miss Marston. +For the sake of your dresses, I will go and change my boots. May +I come and join you after?" + +"Please do, Cousin Godfrey; and bring something to read to us," +said Letty, who wanted her friend to admire her cousin. "It's +Sunday, you know." + +"Why you should be afraid of him, I can't think," said Mary, when +his retreating steps had ceased to sound on the gravel. "He is +delightful!" + +"I don't like to look stupid," said Letty. + +"I shouldn't mind how stupid I looked so long as I was learning," +returned Mary. "I wonder you never told me about him!" + +"I couldn't talk about Cousin Godfrey," said Letty; and a pause +followed. + +"How good of him to come to us again!" said Mary. "What will he +read to us?" + +"Most likely something out of a book you never heard of before, +and can't remember the name of when you have heard it--at least +that's the way with me. I wonder if he will talk to you, Mary? I +should like to hear how Cousin Godfrey talks to girls." + +"Why, you know how he talks to you," said Mary. + +"Oh, but I am only Cousin Letty! He can talk anyhow to me." + +"By your own account he talks to you in the best possible way." + +"Yes; I dare say; but--" + +"But what?" + +"I can't help wishing sometimes he would talk a little nonsense. +It would be such a relief. I am sure I should understand better +if he would. I shouldn't be so frightened at him then." + +"The way I generally hear gentlemen talk to girls makes me +ashamed--makes me feel as if I must ask, 'Is it that you are a +fool, or that you take that girl for one?' They never talk so to +me." + +Letty sat pulling a jonquil to pieces. She looked up. Her eyes +were full of thought, but she paused a long time before she +spoke, and, when she did, it was only to say: + +"I fear, Mary, I should take any man for a fool who took me for +anything else." + +Letty was a rather small and rather freckled girl, with the +daintiest of rounded figures, a good forehead, and fine clear +brown eyes. Her mouth was not pretty, except when she smiled--and +she did not smile often. When she did, it was not unfrequently +with the tears in her eyes, and then she looked lovely. In her +manner there was an indescribably taking charm, of which it is +not easy to give an impression; but I think it sprang from a +constitutional humility, partly ruined into a painful and +haunting sense of inferiority, for which she imagined herself to +blame. Hence there dwelt in her eyes an appeal which few hearts +could resist. When they met another's, they seemed to say: "I am +nobody; but you need not kill me; I am not pretending to be +anybody. I will try to do what you want, but I am not clever. +Only I am sorry for it. Be gentle with me." To Godfrey, at least, +her eyes spoke thus. + +In ten minutes or so he reappeared, far at the other end of the +yew-walk, approaching slowly, with a book, in which he seemed +thoughtfully searching as he came. When they saw him the girls +instinctively moved farther from each other, making large room +for him between them, and when he came up he silently took the +place thus silently assigned him. + +"I am going to try your brains now, Letty," he said, and tapped +the book with a finger. + +"Oh, please don't!" pleaded Letty, as if he had been threatening +her with a small amputation, or the loss of a front tooth. + +"Yes," he persisted; "and not your brains only, Letty, but your +heart, and all that is in you." + +At this even Mary could not help feeling a little frightened; and +she was glad there was no occasion for her to speak. + +With just a word of introduction, Godfrey read Carlyle's +translation of that finest of Jean Paul's dreams in which he sets +forth the condition of a godless universe all at once awakened to +the knowledge of the causelessness of its own existence. Slowly, +with due inflection and emphasis--slowly, but without pause for +thought or explanation--he read to the end, ceased suddenly, and +lifted his eyes. + +"There, Letty," he said, "what do you think of that? There's a +bit of Sunday reading for you!" + +Letty was looking altogether perplexed, and not a little +frightened. + +"I don't understand a word of it," she answered, gulping back her +tears. He glanced at Mary. She was white as death, her lips +quivered, and from her eyes shot a keen light that seemed to +lacerate their blue. + +"It is terrible!" she said. "I never read anything like that." + +"There _is_ nothing like it," he answered. + +"But the author is a Unitarian, is he not?" remarked Mary--for +she heard plenty of theology, if not much Christianity, in her +chapel. + +Godfrey looked at her, then at the book for a moment. + +"That may merely seem, from the necessity of the supposition," he +answered; and read again: + +"'Now sank from aloft a noble, high Form, with a look of +uneffaceable sorrow, down to the Altar, and all the Dead cried +out, "Christ! is there no God?" He answered, "There is none!" The +whole Shadow of each then shuddered, not the breast alone; and +one after the other all, in this shuddering, shook into pieces.' +--"You see," he went on, "that if there be no God, Christ can only +be the first of men." + +"I understand," said Mary. + +"Do you really then, Mary?" said Letty, looking at her with +wondering admiration. + +"I only meant," answered Mary--"but," she went on, interrupting +herself, "I do think I understand it a little. If Mr. Wardour +would be kind enough to read it through again!" + +"With much pleasure," answered Godfrey, casting on her a glance +of pleased surprise. + +The second reading affected Mary more than the first--because, of +course, she took in more. And this time a glimmer of meaning +broke on the slower mind of Letty: as her cousin read the +passage, "Oh, then came, fearful for the heart, the dead Children +who had been awakened in the Churchyard, into the temple, and +cast themselves before the high Form on the Altar, and said, +'Jesus, have we no Father?' And he answered, with streaming +tears: 'We are all orphans, I and you; we are without Father!'"-- +at this point Letty gave her little cry, then bit her lip, as if +she had said something wrong. + +All the time a great bee kept buzzing in and out of the arbor, +and Mary vaguely wondered how it could be so careless. + +"I can't be dead stupid after all, Cousin Godfrey," said Letty, +with broken voice, when once more he ceased, and, as she spoke, +she pressed her hand on her heart, "for something kept going +through and through me; but I can not say yet I understand it.-- +If you will lend me the book," she continued, "I will read it +over again before I go to bed." + +He shut the volume, handed it to her, and began to talk about +something else. + +Mary rose to go. + +"You will take tea with us, I hope, Miss Marston," said Godfrey. + +But Mary would not. What she had heard was working in her mind +with a powerful fermentation, and she longed to be alone. In the +fields, as she walked, she would come to an understanding with +herself. + +She knew almost nothing of the higher literature, and felt like a +dreamer who, in the midst of a well-known and ordinary landscape, +comes without warning upon the mighty cone of a mountain, or the +breaking waters of a boundless ocean. + +"If one could but get hold of such things, what a glorious life +it would be!" she thought. She had looked into a world beyond the +present, and already in the present all things were new. The sun +set as she had never seen him set before; it was only in gray and +gold, with scarce a touch of purple and rose; the wind visited +her cheek like a living thing, and loved her; the skylarks had +more than reason in their jubilation. For the first time she +heard the full chord of intellectual and emotional delight. What +a place her chamber would be, if she could there read such +things! How easy would it be then to bear the troubles of the +hour, the vulgar humor of Mr. Turnbull, and the tiresome +attentions of George! Would Mr. Wardour lend her the book? Had he +other books as good? Were there many books to make one's heart go +as that one did? She would save every penny to buy such books, if +indeed such treasures were within her reach! Under the +enchantment of her first literary joy, she walked home like one +intoxicated with opium--a being possessed for the time with the +awful imagination of a grander soul, and reveling in the presence +of her loftier kin. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +GODFREY WARDOUR. + + +The property of which Thornwick once formed a part was then large +and important; but it had, by not very slow degrees, generation +following generation of unthrift, dwindled and shrunk and +shriveled, until at last it threatened to disappear from the +family altogether, like a spark upon burnt paper. Then came one +into possession who had some element of salvation in him; +Godfrey's father not only held the poor remnant together, but, +unable to add to it, improved it so greatly that at length, in +the midst of the large properties around, it resembled the +diamond that hearts a disk of inferior stones. Doubtless, could +he have used his wife's money, he would have spent it on land; +but it was under trustees for herself and her children, and +indeed would not have gone far in the purchase of English soil. + +Considerably advanced in years before he thought of marrying, he +died while Godfrey, whom he intended bringing up to a profession, +was yet a child; and his widow, carrying out his intention, had +educated the boy with a view to the law. Godfrey, however, had +positively declined entering on the studies special to a career +he detested; nor was it difficult to reconcile his mother to the +enforced change of idea, when she found that his sole desire was +to settle down with her, and manage the two hundred acres his +father had left him. He took his place in the county, therefore, +as a yeoman-farmer--none the less a gentleman by descent, +character, and education. But while in genuine culture and +refinement the superior of all the landed proprietors in the +neighborhood, and knowing it, he was the superior of most of them +in this also, that he counted it no derogation from the dignity +he valued to put his hands upon occasion to any piece of work +required about the place. + +His nature was too large, however, and its needs therefore too +many, to allow of his spending his energies on the property; and +he did not brood over such things as, so soon as they become +cares, become despicable. How much time is wasted in what is +called thought, but is merely care--an anxious idling over the +fancied probabilities of result! Of this fault, I say, Godfrey +was not guilty--more, however, I must confess, from healthful +drawings in other directions, than from philosophy or wisdom: he +was _a reader_--not in the sense of a man who derives +intensest pleasure from the absorption of intellectual pabulum-- +one not necessarily so superior as some imagine to the +_gourmet_, or even the _gourmand_: in his reading Godfrey +nourished certain of the higher tendencies of his nature-- +read with a constant reference to his own views of life, and the +confirmation, change, or enlargement of his theories of the same; +but neither did he read with the highest aim of all--the +enlargement of reverence, obedience, and faith; for he had never +turned his face full in the direction of infinite growth--the +primal end of a man's being, who is that he may return to the +Father, gathering his truth as he goes. Yet by the simple +instincts of a soul undebased by self-indulgence or low pursuits, +he was drawn ever toward things lofty and good; and life went +calmly on, bearing Godfrey Wardour toward middle age, unruffled +either by anxiety or ambition. + +To the forecasting affection of a mother, the hour when she must +yield the first place both in her son's regards and in the house- +affairs could not but have often presented itself, in doubt and +pain--perhaps dread. Only as year after year passed and Godfrey +revealed no tendency toward marriage, her anxiety changed sides, +and she began to fear lest with Godfrey the ancient family should +come to an end. As yet, however, finding no response to covert +suggestion, she had not ventured to speak openly to him on the +subject. All the time, I must add, she had never thought of Letty +either as thwarting or furthering her desires, for in truth she +felt toward her as one on whom Godfrey could never condescend to +look, save with the kindness suitable for one immeasurably below +him. As to what might pass in Letty's mind, Mrs. Wardour had +neither curiosity nor care: else she might possibly have been +more considerate than to fall into the habit of talking to her in +such swelling words of maternal pride that, even if she had not +admired him of herself, Letty could hardly escape coming to +regard her cousin Godfrey as the very first of men. + +It added force to the veneration of both mother and cousin--for +it was nothing less than veneration in either--that there was +about Godfrey an air of the inexplicable, or at least the +unknown, and therefore mysterious. This the elder woman, not +without many a pang at her exclusion from his confidence, +attributed, and correctly, to some passage in his life at the +university; to the younger it appeared only as greatness self- +veiled from the ordinary world: to such as she, could be +vouchsafed only an occasional peep into the gulf of his +knowledge, the grandeur of his intellect, and the +imperturbability of his courage. + +The passage in Godfrey's life to which I have referred as vaguely +suspected by his mother, I need not present in more than merest +outline: it belongs to my history only as a component part of the +soil whence it springs, and as in some measure necessary to the +understanding of Godfrey's character. In the last year of his +college life he had formed an attachment, the precise nature of +which I do not know. What I do know is, that the bonds of it were +rudely broken, and of the story nothing remained but +disappointment and pain, doubt and distrust. Godfrey had most +likely cherished an overweening notion of the relative value of +the love he gave; but being his, I am certain it was genuine--by +that, I mean a love with no small element of the everlasting in +it. The woman who can cast such a love from her is not likely to +meet with such another. But with this one I have nothing to do. + +It had been well if he had been left with only a wounded heart, +but in that heart lay wounded pride. He hid it carefully, and the +keener in consequence grew the sensitiveness, almost feminine, +which no stranger could have suspected beneath the manner he +wore. Under that bronzed countenance, with its firm-set mouth and +powerful jaw--below that clear blue eye, and that upright easy +carriage, lay a faithful heart haunted by a sense of wrong: he +who is not perfect in forgiveness must be haunted thus; he only +is free whose love for the human is so strong that he can pardon +the individual sin; he alone can pray the prayer, "Forgive us our +trespasses," out of a full heart. Forgiveness is the only cure of +wrong. And hand in hand with Sense-of-injury walks ever the weak +sister-demon Self-pity, so dear, so sweet to many--both of them +the children of Philautos, not of Agape. But there was no hate, +no revenge, in Godfrey, and, I repeat, his weakness he kept +concealed. It must have been in his eyes, but eyes are hard to +read. For the rest, his was a strong poetic nature--a nature +which half unconsciously turned ever toward the best, away from +the mean judgments of common men, and with positive loathing from +the ways of worldly women. Never was peace endangered between his +mother and him, except when she chanced to make use of some evil +maxim which she thought experience had taught her, and the look +her son cast upon her stung her to the heart, making her for a +moment feel as if she had sinned what the theologians call the +unpardonable sin. When he rose and walked from the room without a +word, she would feel as if abandoned to her wickedness, and be +miserable until she saw him again. Something like a spring- +cleaning would begin and go on in her for some time after, and +her eyes would every now and then steal toward her judge with a +glance of awe and fearful apology. But, however correct Godfrey +might be in his judgment of the worldly, that judgment was less +inspired by the harmonies of the universe than by the discords +that had jarred his being and the poisonous shocks he had +received in the encounter of the noble with the ignoble. There +was yet in him a profound need of redemption into the love of the +truth for the truth's sake. He had the fault of thinking too well +of himself--which who has not who thinks of himself at all, apart +from his relation to the holy force of life, within yet beyond +him? It was the almost unconscious, assuredly the undetected, +self-approbation of the ordinarily righteous man, the defect of +whose righteousness makes him regard himself as upright, but the +virtue of whose uprightness will at length disclose to his +astonished view how immeasurably short of rectitude he comes. At +the age of thirty, Godfrey Wardour had not yet become so +displeased with himself as to turn self-roused energy upon +betterment; and until then all growth must be of doubtful result. +The point on which the swift-revolving top of his thinking and +feeling turned was as yet his present conscious self, as a thing +that was and would be, not as a thing that had to become. +Naturally the pivot had worn a socket, and such socket is sure to +be a sore. His friends notwithstanding gave him credit for great +imperturbability; but in such willfully undemonstrative men the +evil burrows the more insidiously that it is masked by a +constrained exterior. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +GODFREY AND LETTY. + + +Godfrey, being an Englishman, and with land of his own, could not +fail to be fond of horses. For his own use he kept two--an +indulgence disproportioned to his establishment; for, although +precise in his tastes as to equine toilet, he did not feel +justified in the keeping of a groom for their use only. Hence it +came that, now and then, strap and steel, as well as hide and +hoof, would get partially neglected; and his habits in the use of +his horses being fitful--sometimes, it would be midnight even, +when he scoured from his home, seeking the comfort of desert as +well as solitary places--it is not surprising if at times, going +to the stable to saddle one, he should find its gear not in the +spick-and-span condition alone to his mind. It might then well +happen there was no one near to help him, and there be nothing +for it but to put his own hands to the work: he was too just to +rouse one who might be nowise to blame, or send a maid to fetch +him from field or barn, where he might be more importantly +engaged. + +One night, meaning to start for a long ride early in the morning, +he had gone to the stable to see how things were; and, soon +after, it happened that Letty, attending to some duty before +going to bed, caught sight of him cleaning his stirrups: from +that moment she took upon herself the silent and unsuspected +supervision of the harness-room, where, when she found any part +of the riding-equipments neglected, she would draw a pair of +housemaid's gloves on her pretty hands, and polish away like a +horse-boy. + +Godfrey had begun to remark how long it was since he had found +anything unfit, and to wonder at the improvement somewhere in the +establishment, when, going hastily one morning, some months +before the date of my narrative, into the harness-room to get a +saddle, he came upon Letty, who had imagined him afield with the +men: she was energetic upon a stirrup with a chain-polisher. He +started back in amazement, but she only looked up and smiled. + +"I shall have done in a moment, Cousin Godfrey," she said, and +polished away harder than before. + +"But, Letty! I can't allow you to do things like that. What on +earth put it in your head? Work like that is only for horny +hands." + +"Your hands ain't horny, Cousin Godfrey. They may be a little +harder than mine--they wouldn't be much good if they weren't--but +they're no fitter by nature to clean stirrups. Is it for me to +sit with mine in my lap, and yours at this? I know better." + +"Why shouldn't I clean my own harness, Letty, if I like?" said +Godfrey, who could not help feeling pleased as well as annoyed; +in this one moment Letty had come miles nearer him. + +"Oh, surely! if you like, Cousin Godfrey," she answered; "but do +you like?" + +"Better than to see you doing it." + +"But not better than I like to do it; that I am sure of. It is +hands that write poetry that are not fit for work like this." + +"How do you know I write poetry?" asked Godfrey, displeased, for +she touched here a sensitive spot. + +"Oh, don't be angry with me!" she said, letting the stirrup fall +on the floor, and clasping her great wash-leather gloves +together; "I couldn't help seeing it was poetry, for it lay on +the table when I went to do your room." + +"Do my room, Letty! Does my mother--?" + +"She doesn't want to make a fine lady of me, and I shouldn't like +it if she did. I have no head, but I have pretty good hands. Of +course, Cousin Godfrey, I didn't read a word of the poetry. I +daredn't do that, however much I might have wished." + +A childlike simplicity looked out of the clear eyes and sounded +in the swift words of the maiden; and, had Godfrey's heart been +as hard as the stirrup she had dropped, it could not but be +touched by her devotion. He was at the same time not a little +puzzled how to carry himself. Letty had picked up the stirrup, +and was again hard at work with it; to take it from her, and turn +her out of the saddle-room, would scarcely be a proper way of +thanking her, scarcely an adequate mode of revealing his estimate +of the condescension of her ladyhood. For, although Letty did +make beds and chose to clean harness, Godfrey was gentleman +enough not to think her less of a lady--for the moment at least-- +because of such doings: I will not say he had got so far on in +the great doctrine concerning the washing of hands as to be able +to think her _more_ of a lady for thus cleaning his +stirrups. But he did see that to set the fire-engine of indignant +respect for womankind playing on the individual woman was not the +part of the man to whose service she was humbling herself. He +laid his hand on her bent head, and said: + +"I ought to be a knight of the old times, Letty, to have a lady +serve me so." + +"You're just as good, Cousin Godfrey," she rejoined, rubbing +away. + +He turned from her, and left her at her work. + +He had taken no real notice of the girl before--had felt next to +no interest in her. Neither did he feel much now, save as owing +her something beyond mere acknowledgment. But was there anything +now he could do for her--anything in her he could help? He did +not know. What she really was, he could not tell. She was a +fresh, bright girl--that he seemed to have just discovered; and, +as she sat polishing the stirrup, her hair shaken about her +shoulders, she looked engaging; but whether she was one he could +do anything for that was worth doing, was hardly the less a +question for those discoveries. + +"There must be _something_ in the girl!" he said to himself +--then suddenly reflected that he had never seen a book in her +hand, except her prayer-book; how _was_ he to do anything +for a girl like that? For Godfrey knew no way of doing people +good without the intervention of books. How could he get near one +that had no taste for the quintessence of humanity? How was he to +offer her the only help he had, when she desired no such help? +"But," he continued, reflecting further, "she may have thirsted, +may even now be athirst, without knowing that books are the +bottles of the water of life!" Perhaps, if he could make her +drink once, she would drink again. The difficulty was, to find +out what sort of spiritual drink would be most to her taste, and +would most entice her to more. There must be some seeds lying +cold and hard in her uncultured garden; what water would soonest +make them grow? Not all the waters of Damascus will turn mere +sand sifted of eternal winds into fruitful soil; but Letty's soul +could not be such. And then literature has seed to sow as well as +water for the seed sown. Letty's foolish words about the hands +that wrote poetry showed a shadow of respect for poetry--except, +indeed, the girl had been but making game of him, which he was +far from ready to believe, and for which, he said to himself, her +face was at the time much too earnest, and her hands much too +busy; he must find out whether she had any instincts, any +predilections, in the matter of poetry! + +Thus pondering, he forgot all about his projected ride, and, +going up to the study he had contrived for himself in the +rambling roof of the ancient house, began looking along the backs +of his books, in search of some suggestion of how to approach +Letty; his glance fell on a beautifully bound volume of verse--a +selection of English lyrics, made with tolerable judgment--which +he had bought to give, but the very color of which, every time +his eye flitting along the book-shelves caught it, threw a faint +sickness over his heart, preluding the memory of old pain and +loss: + +"It may as well serve some one," he said, and, taking it down, +carried it with him to the saddle-room. + +Letty was not there, and the perfect order of the place somehow +made him feel she had been gone some time. He went in search of +her; she might be in the dairy. + +That was the very picture of an old-fashioned English dairy-- +green-shadowy, dark, dank, and cool--floored with great irregular +slabs, mostly of green serpentine, polished into smooth hollows +by the feet of generations of mistresses and dairy-maids. Its +only light came through a small window shaded with shrubs and +ivy, which stood open, and let in the scents of bud and blossom, +weaving a net of sweetness in the gloom, through which, like a +silver thread, shot the twittering song of a bird, which had +inherited the gathered carelessness and bliss of a long ancestry +in God's aviary. + +Godfrey came softly to the door, which he found standing ajar, +and peeped in. There stood Letty, warm and bright in the middle +of the dusky coolness. She had changed her dress since he saw +her, and now, in a pink-rosebud print, with the sleeves tucked +above her elbows, was skimming the cream in a great red-brown +earthen pan. He pushed the door a little, and, at its screech +along the uneven floor, Letty's head turned quickly on her lithe +neck, and she saw Godfrey's brown face and kind blue eyes where +she had never seen them before. In his hand glowed the book: some +of the stronger light from behind him fell on it, and it caught +her eyes. + +"Letty," he said, "I have just come upon this book in my library: +would you care to have it?" + +"You don't mean to keep for my own, Cousin Godfrey?" cried Letty, +in sweet, childish fashion, letting the skimmer dive like a coot +to the bottom of the milk-pool, and hastily wiping her hands in +her apron. Her face had flushed rosy with pleasure, and grew +rosier and brighter still as she took the rich morocco-bound +thing from Godfrey's hand into her own. Daintily she peeped +within the boards, and the gilding of the leaves responded in +light to her smile. + +"Poetry!" she cried, in a tone of delight. "Is it really for me, +Cousin Godfrey? Do you think I shall be able to understand it?" + +"You can soon settle that question for yourself," answered +Godfrey, with a pleased smile--for he augured well from this +reception of his gift--and turned to leave the dairy. + +"But, Cousin Godfrey--please!" she called after him, "you don't +give me time to thank you." + +"That will do when you are certain you care for it," he returned. + +"I care for it very _much_!" she replied. + +"How can you say that, when you don't know yet whether you will +understand it or not?" he rejoined, and closed the door. + +Letty stood motionless, the book in her hand illuminating the +dusk with gold, and warming its coolness with its crimson boards +and silken linings. One poem after another she read, nor knew how +the time passed, until the voice of her aunt in her ears warned +her to finish her skimming, and carry the jug to the pantry. But +already Letty had taken a little cream off the book also, and +already, between the time she entered and the time she left the +dairy, had taken besides a fresh start in spiritual growth. + +The next day Godfrey took an opportunity of asking her whether +she had found in the book anything she liked. To his +disappointment she mentioned one of the few commonplace things +the collection contained--a last-century production, dull and +respectable, which, surely, but for the glamour of some pleasant +association, the editor would never have included. Happily, +however, he bethought himself in time not to tell her the thing +was worthless: such a word, instead of chipping the shell in +which the girl's faculty lay dormant, would have smashed the +whole egg into a miserable albuminous mass. And he was well +rewarded; for, the same day, in the evening, he heard her singing +gayly over her work, and listening discovered that she was +singing verse after verse of one of the best ballads in the whole +book. She had chosen with the fancy of pleasing Godfrey; she sang +to please herself. After this discovery he set himself in earnest +to the task of developing her intellectual life, and, daily +almost, grew more interested in the endeavor. His main object was +to make her think; and for the high purpose, chiefly but not +exclusively, he employed verse. + +The main obstacle to success he soon discovered to be Letty's +exceeding distrust of herself. I would not be mistaken to mean +that she had too little confidence in herself; of that no one can +have too little. Self-distrust will only retard, while self- +confidence will betray. The man ignorant in these things will +answer me, "But you must have one or the other." "You must have +neither," I reply. "You must follow the truth, and, in that +pursuit, the less one thinks about himself, the pursuer, the +better. Let him so hunger and thirst after the truth that the dim +vision of it occupies all his being, and leaves no time to think +of his hunger and his thirst. Self-forgetfulness in the reaching +out after that which is essential to us is the healthiest of +mental conditions. One has to look to his way, to his deeds, to +his conduct--not to himself. In such losing of the false, or +merely reflected, we find the true self. There is no harm in +being stupid, so long as a man does not think himself clever; no +good in being clever, if a man thinks himself so, for that is a +short way to the worst stupidity. If you think yourself clever, +set yourself to do something; then you will have a chance of +humiliation." + +With good faculties, and fine instincts, Letty was always +thinking she must be wrong, just because it was she was in it--a +lovely fault, no doubt, but a fault greatly impeditive to +progress, and tormenting to a teacher. She got on very fairly in +spite of it, however; and her devotion to Godfrey, as she felt +herself growing in his sight, increased almost to a passion. Do +not misunderstand me, my reader. If I say anything grows to a +passion, I mean, of course, the passion of that thing, not of +something else. Here I no more mean that her devotion became what +in novels is commonly called love, than, if I said ambition or +avarice had grown to a passion, I should mean those vices had +changed to love. Godfrey Wardour was at least ten years older +than Letty; besides him, she had not a single male relative in +this world--neither had she mother or sister on whom to let out +her heart; while of Mrs. Wardour, who was more severe on her than +on any one else, she was not a little afraid: from these causes +it came that Cousin Godfrey grew and grew in Letty's imagination, +until he was to her everything great and good--her idea of him +naturally growing as she grew herself under his influences. To +her he was the heart of wisdom, the head of knowledge, the arm of +strength. + +But her worship was quiet, as the worship of maiden, in whatever +kind, ought to be. She knew nothing of what is called love except +as a word, and from sympathy with the persons in the tales she +read. Any remotest suggestion of its existence in her relation to +Godfrey she would have resented as the most offensive +impertinence--an accusation of impossible irreverence. + +By degrees Godfrey came to understand, but then only in a +measure, with what a self-refusing, impressionable nature he was +dealing; and, as he saw, he became more generous toward her, more +gentle and delicate in his ministration. Of necessity he grew +more and more interested in her, especially after he had made the +discovery that the moment she laid hold of a truth--the moment, +that is, when it was no longer another's idea but her own +perception--it began to sprout in her in all directions of +practice. By nature she was not intellectually quick; but, +because such was her character, the ratio of her progress was of +necessity an increasing one. + +If Godfrey had seen in his new relation to Letty a possibility of +the revival of feelings he had supposed for ever extinguished, +such a possibility would have borne to him purely the aspect of +danger; at the mere idea of again falling in love he would have +sickened with dismay; and whether or not ho had any dread of such +a catastrophe, certain it is that he behaved to her more as a +pedagogue than a cousinly tutor, insisting on a precision in all +she did that might have gone far to rouse resentment and recoil +in the mind of a less childlike woman. Just as surely, +notwithstanding all that, however, did the sweet girl grow into +his heart: it _could_ not be otherwise. The idea of her was +making a nest for itself in his soul--what kind of a nest for +long he did not know, and for long did not think to inquire. +Living thus, like an elder brother with a much younger sister, he +was more than satisfied, refusing, it may be, to regard the +probability of intruding change. But how far any man and woman +may have been made capable of loving without falling in love, can +be answered only after question has yielded to history. In the +mean time, Mrs. Wardour, who would have been indignant at the +notion of any equal bond between her idolized son and her +patronized cousin, neither saw, nor heard, nor suspected anything +to rouse uneasiness. + +Things were thus in the old house, when the growing affection of +Letty for Mary Marston took form one day in the request that she +would make Thornwick the goal of her Sunday walk. She repented, +it is true, the moment she had said the words, from dread of her +aunt; but they had been said, and were accepted. Mary went, and +the aunt difficulty had been got over. The friendship of Godfrey +also had now run into that of the girls, and Mary's visits were +continued with pleasure to all, and certainly with no little +profit to herself; for, where the higher nature can not +communicate the greater benefit, it will reap it. Her Sunday +visit became to Mary the one foraging expedition of the week-- +that which going to church ought to be, and so seldom can be. + +The beginning and main-stay of her spiritual life was, as we have +seen, her father, in whom she believed absolutely. From books and +sermons she had got little good; for in neither kind had the best +come nigh her. She did very nearly her best to obey, but without +much perceiving the splendor of the thing required, or much +feeling its might upon her own eternal nature. She was as yet, in +relation to the gospel, much as the Jews were in relation to +their law; they had not yet learned the gospel of their law, and +she was yet only serving the law of the gospel. But she was +making progress, in simple and pure virtue of her obedience. Show +me the person ready to step from any, let it be the narrowest, +sect of Christian Pharisees into a freer and holier air, and I +shall look to find in that person the one of that sect who, in +the midst of its darkness and selfish worldliness, mistaken for +holiness, has been living a life more obedient than the rest. + +And now was sent Godfrey to her aid, a teacher himself far behind +his pupil, inasmuch as he was more occupied with what he was, +than what he had to become: the weakest may be sent to give the +strongest saving help; even the foolish may mediate between the +wise and the wiser; and Godfrey presented Mary to men greater +than himself, whom in a short time she would understand even +better than he. Book after book he lent her--now and then gave +her one of the best--introducing her, with no special intention, +to much in the way of religion that was good in the way of +literature as well. Only where he delighted mainly in the +literature, she delighted more in the religion. Some of my +readers will be able to imagine what it must have been to a +capable, clear-thinking, warm-hearted, loving soul like Mary, +hitherto in absolute ignorance of any better religious poetry +than the chapel hymn-book afforded her, to make acquaintance with +George Herbert, with Henry Vaughan, with Giles Fletcher, with +Richard Crashaw, with old Mason, not to mention Milton, and +afterward our own Father Newman and Father Faber. + +But it was by no means chiefly upon such that Godfrey led the +talk on the Sunday afternoons. A lover of all truly imaginative +literature, his knowledge of it was large, nor confined to that +of his own country, although that alone was at present available +for either of his pupils. His seclusion from what is called the +world had brought him into larger and closer contact with what is +really the world. The breakers upon reef and shore may be the +ocean to some, but he who would know the ocean indeed must leave +them afar, sinking into silence, and sail into wider and lonelier +spaces. Through Godfrey, Mary came to know of a land never +promised, yet open--a land of whose nature even she had never +dreamed--a land of the spirit, flowing with milk and honey--a +land of which the fashionable world knows little more than the +dwellers in the back slums, although it imagines it lying, with +the kingdoms of the earth, at its feet. + +As regards her feeling toward her new friend, this opener of +unseen doors, the greatness of her obligation to him wrought +against presumption and any possible folly. Besides, Mary was one +who possessed power over her own spirit--rare gift, given to none +but those who do something toward the taking of it. She was able +in no small measure to order her own thoughts. Without any theory +of self-rule, she yet ruled her Self. She was not one to slip +about in the saddle, or let go the reins for a kick and a plunge +or two. There was the thing that should be, and the thing that +should not be; the thing that was reasonable, and the thing that +was absurd. Add to all this, that she believed she saw in Mr. +Wardour's behavior to his cousin, in the careful gentleness +evident through all the severity of the schoolmaster, the +presence of a deeper feeling, that might one day blossom to the +bliss of her friend--and we need not wonder if Mary's heart +remained calm in the very floods of its gratitude; while the +truth she gathered by aid of the intercourse, enlarging her +strength, enlarged likewise the composure that comes of strength. +She did not even trouble herself much to show Godfrey her +gratitude. We may spoil gratitude as we offer it, by insisting on +its recognition. To receive honestly is the best thanks for a +good thing. + +Nor was Godfrey without payment for what he did: the revival of +ancient benefits, a new spring-time of old flowers, and the fresh +quickening of one's own soul, are the spiritual wages of every +spiritual service. In giving, a man receives more than he gives, +and the _more_ is in proportion to the worth of the thing +given. + +Mary did not encourage Letty to call at the shop, because the +rudeness of the Turnbulls was certain to break out on her +departure, as it did one day that Godfrey, dismounting at the +door, and entering the shop in quest of something for his mother, +naturally shook hands with Mary over the counter. No remark was +made so long as her father was in the shop, for, with all their +professed contempt of him and his ways, the Turnbulls stood +curiously in awe of him: no one could tell what he might or might +not do, seeing they did not in the least understand him; and +there were reasons for avoiding offense. + +But the moment he retired, which he always did earlier than the +rest, the small-arms of the enemy began to go off, causing Mary a +burning cheek and indignant heart. Yet the great desire of Mr. +Turnbull was a match between George and Mary, for that would, +whatever might happen, secure the Marston money to the business. +Their evil report Mary did not carry to her father. She scorned +to trouble his lofty nature with her small annoyances; neither +could they long keep down the wellspring of her own peace, which, +deeper than anger could reach, soon began to rise again fresh in +her spirit, fed from that water of life which underlies all care. +In a few moments it had cooled her cheek, stilled her heart, and +washed the wounds of offense. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +TOM HELMER. + + +When Tom Helmer's father died, his mother, who had never been +able to manage him, sent him to school to get rid of him, +lamented his absence till he returned, then writhed and fretted +under his presence until again he went. Never thereafter did +those two, mother and son, meet, whether from a separation of +months or of hours, without at once tumbling into an obstinate +difference. When the youth was at home, their sparring, to call +it by a mild name, went on from morning to night, and sometimes +almost from night to morning. Primarily, of course, the fault lay +with the mother; and things would have gone far worse, had not +the youth, along with the self-will of his mother, inherited his +father's good nature. At school he was a great favorite, and +mostly had his own way, both with boys and masters, for, although +a fool, he was a pleasant fool, clever, fond of popularity, and +complaisant with everybody--except always his mother, the merest +word from whom would at once rouse all the rebel in his blood. In +person he was tall and loosely knit, with large joints and +extremities. His face was handsome and vivacious, expressing far +more than was in him to express, and giving ground for +expectation such as he had never met. He was by no means an ill- +intentioned fellow, preferred doing well and acting fairly, and +neither at school nor at college had got into any serious scrape. +But he had never found it imperative to reach out after his own +ideal of duty. He had never been worthy the name of student, or +cared much for anything beyond the amusements the universities +provide so liberally, except dabbling in literature. Perhaps his +only vice was self-satisfaction--which few will admit to be a +vice; remonstrance never reached him; to himself he was ever in +the right, judging himself only by his sentiments and vague +intents, never by his actions; that these had little +correspondence never struck him; it had never even struck him +that they ought to correspond. In his own eyes he did well +enough, and a good deal better. Gifted not only with fluency of +speech, that crowning glory and ruin of a fool, but with +plausibility of tone and demeanor, a confidence that imposed both +on himself and on others, and a certain dropsical +impressionableness of surface which made him seem and believe +himself sympathetic, nobody could well help liking him, and it +took some time to make one accept the disappointment he caused. + +He was now in his twenty-first year, at home, pretending that +nothing should make him go back to Oxford, and enjoying more than +ever the sport of plaguing his mother. A soul-doctor might have +prescribed for him a course of small-pox, to be followed by +intermittent fever, with nobody to wait upon him but Mrs. Gamp: +after that, his mother might have had a possible chance with him, +and he with his mother. But, unhappily, he had the best of +health--supreme blessing in the eyes of the fool whom it enables +to be a worse fool still; and was altogether the true son of his +mother, who consoled herself for her absolute failure in his +moral education with the reflection that she had reared him sound +in wind and limb. Plaguing his mother, amusing himself as best he +could, riding about the country on a good mare, of which he was +proud, he was living in utter idleness, affording occasion for +much wonder that he had never yet disgraced himself. He talked to +everybody who would talk to him, and made acquaintance with +anybody on the spur of the moment's whim. He would sit on a log +with a gypsy, and bamboozle him with lies made for the purpose, +then thrash him for not believing them. He called here and called +there, made himself specially agreeable everywhere, went to every +ball and evening party to which he could get admittance in the +neighborhood, and flirted with any girl who would let him. He +meant no harm, neither had done much, and was imagined by most +incapable of doing any. The strange thing to some was that he +staid on in the country, and did not go to London and run up +bills for his mother to pay; but the mare accounted for a good +deal; and the fact that almost immediately on his late return he +had seen Letty and fallen in love with her at first sight, +accounted for a good deal more. Not since then, however, had he +yet been able to meet her so as only to speak to her; for +Thornwick was one of the few houses of the middle class in the +neighborhood where he was not encouraged to show himself. He was +constantly, therefore, on the watch for a chance of seeing her, +and every Sunday went to church in that same hope and no other. +But Letty knew nothing of the favor in which she stood with him; +for, although Tom had, as we have heard, confessed to her friend +Mary Marston his admiration of her, Mary had far too much good +sense to make herself his ally in the matter. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +DURNMELLING. + + +In the autumn, Mr. Mortimer of Durnmelling resolved to give a +harvest-home to his tenants, and under the protection of the +occasion to invite also a good many of his neighbors and of the +townsfolk of Testbridge, whom he could not well ask to dinner: +there happened to be a political expediency for something of the +sort: America is not the only country in which ambition opens the +door to mean doings on the part of such as count themselves +gentlemen. Not a few on whom Lady Margaret had never called, and +whom she would never in any way acknowledge again, were invited; +nor did the knowledge of what it meant cause many of them to +decline the questionable honor--which fact carried in it the best +justification of which the meanness and insult were capable. Mrs. +Wardour accepted for herself and Letty; but in their case Lady +Margaret did call, and in person give the invitation. Godfrey +positively refused to accompany them. He would not be patronized, +he said; "--and by an inferior," he added to himself. + +Mr. Mortimer was the illiterate son of a literary father who had +reaped both money and fame. The son spent the former, on the +strength of the latter married an earl's daughter, and thereupon +began to embody in his own behavior his ideas of how a nobleman +ought to carry himself; whence, from being only a small, he +became an objectionable man, and failed of being amusing by +making himself offensive. He had never manifested the least +approach to neighborliness with Godfrey, although their houses +were almost within a stone's throw of each other. Had Wardour +been an ordinary farmer, of whose presuming on the acquaintance +there could have been no danger, Mortimer would doubtless have +behaved differently; but as Wardour had some pretensions--namely, +old family, a small, though indeed _very_ small, property of +his own, a university education, good horses, and the habits and +manners of a gentleman--the men scarcely even saluted when they +met. The Mortimer ladies, indeed, had more than once remarked-- +but it was in solemn silence, each to herself only--how well the +man sat, and how easily he handled the hunter he always rode; but +not once until now had so much as a greeting passed between them +and Mrs. Wardour. It was not therefore wonderful that Godfrey +should not choose to accept their invitation. Finding, however, +that his mother was distressed at having to go to the gathering +without him, and far more exercised in her mind than was needful +as to what would be thought of his absence, and what excuse it +would be becoming to make, he resolved to go to London a day or +two before the event, and pay a long-promised visit to a clerical +friend. + +The relative situation of the houses--I mean the stone-and-lime +houses--of Durnmelling and Thornwick, was curious; and that they +had at one time formed part of the same property might have +suggested itself to any beholder. Durnmelling was built by an +ancestor of Godfrey's, who, forsaking the old nest for the new, +had allowed Thornwick to sink into a mere farmhouse, in which +condition it had afterward become the sole shelter of the +withered fortunes of the Wardours. In the hands of Godfrey's +father, by a continuity of judicious cares, and a succession of +partial resurrections, it had been restored to something like its +original modest dignity. Durnmelling, too, had in part sunk into +ruin, and had been but partially recovered from it; still, it +swelled important beside its antecedent Thornwick. Nothing but a +deep ha-ha separated the two houses, of which the older and +smaller occupied the higher ground. Between it and the ha-ha was +nothing but grass--in front of the house fine enough and well +enough kept to be called lawn, had not Godfrey's pride refused +the word. On the lower, the Durnmelling side of the fence, were +trees, shrubbery, and out-houses--the chimney of one of which, +the laundry, gave great offense to Mrs. Wardour, when, as she +said, wind and wash came together. But, although they stood so +near, there was no lawful means of communication between the +houses except the road; and the mile that implied was seldom +indeed passed by any of the unneighborly neighbors. + +The father of Lady Margaret would at one time have purchased +Thornwick at twice its value; but the present owner could not +have bought it at half its worth. He had of late been losing +money heavily--whence, in part, arose that anxiety of Lady +Margaret's not to keep Mr. Redmain fretting for his lunch. + +The house of Durnmelling, new compared with that of Thornwick, +was yet, as I have indicated, old enough to have passed also +through vicissitudes, and a large portion of the original +structure had for many years been nothing better than a ruin. +Only a portion of one side of its huge square was occupied by the +family, and the rest of that side was not habitable. Lady +Margaret, of an ancient stock, had gathered from it only pride, +not reverence; therefore, while she valued the old, she neglected +it; and what money she and her husband at one time spent upon the +house, was devoted to addition and ornamentation, nowise to +preservation or restoration. They had enlarged both dining-room +and drawing-rooms to twice their former size, when half the +expense, with a few trees from a certain outlying oak-plantation +of their own, would have given them a room fit for a regal +assembly. For, constituting a portion of the same front in which +they lived, lay roofless, open to every wind that blew, its paved +floor now and then in winter covered with snow--an ancient hall, +whose massy south wall was pierced by three lovely windows, +narrow and lofty, with simple, gracious tracery in their pointed +heads. This hall connected the habitable portion of the house +with another part, less ruinous than itself, but containing only +a few rooms in occasional use for household purposes, or, upon +necessity, for quite inferior lodgment. It was a glorious ruin, +of nearly a hundred feet in length, and about half that in width, +the walls entire, and broad enough to walk round upon in safety. +Their top was accessible from a tower, which formed part of the +less ruinous portion, and contained the stair and some small +rooms. + +Once, the hall was fair with portraits and armor and arms, with +fire and lights, and state and merriment; now the sculptured +chimney lay open to the weather, and the sweeping winds had made +its smooth hearthstone clean as if fire had never been there. Its +floor was covered with large flags, a little broken: these, in +prospect of the coming entertainment, a few workmen were +leveling, patching, replacing. For the tables were to be set +here, and here there was to be dancing after the meal. + +It was Miss Yolland's idea, and to her was committed the +responsibility of its preparation and adornment for the occasion, +in which Hesper gave her active assistance. With colored +blankets, with carpets, with a few pieces of old tapestry, and a +quantity of old curtains, mostly of chintz, excellent in hues and +design, all cunningly arranged for as much of harmony as could be +had, they contrived to clothe the walls to the height of six or +eight feet, and so gave the weather-beaten skeleton an air of +hospitable preparation and respectful reception. + +The day and the hour arrived. It was a hot autumnal afternoon. +Borne in all sorts of vehicles, from a carriage and pair to a +taxed cart, the guests kept coming. As they came, they mostly +scattered about the place. Some loitered on the lawn by the +flower-beds and the fountain; some visited the stables and the +home-farm, with its cow-houses and dairy and piggeries; some the +neglected greenhouses, and some the equally neglected old- +fashioned alleys, with their clipped yews and their moss-grown +statues. No one belonging to the house was anywhere visible to +receive them, until the great bell at length summoned them to the +plentiful meal spread in the ruined hall. "The hospitality of +some people has no roof to it," Godfrey said, when he heard of +the preparations. "Ten people will give you a dinner, for one who +will offer you a bed and a breakfast:" + +Then at last their host made his appearance, and took the head of +the table: the ladies, he said, were to have the honor of joining +the company afterward. They were at the time--but this he did not +say--giving another stratum of society a less ponderous, but yet +tolerably substantial, refreshment in the dining-room. + +By the time the eating and drinking were nearly over, the shades +of evening had gathered; but even then some few of the farmers, +capable only of drinking, grumbled at having their potations +interrupted for the dancers. These were presently joined by the +company from the house, and the great hall was crowded. + +Much to her chagrin, Mrs. Wardour had a severe headache, +occasioned by her working half the night at her dress, and was +compelled to remain at home. But she allowed Letty to go without +her, which she would not have done had she not been so anxious to +have news of what she could not lift her head to see: she sent +her with an old servant--herself one of the invited guests--to +gather and report. The dancing had begun before they reached the +hall. + +Tom Helmer had arrived among the first, and had joined the +tenants in their feast, faring well, and making friends, such as +he knew how to make, with everybody in his vicinity. When the +tables were removed, and the rest of the company began to come +in, he went about searching anxiously for Letty's sweet face, but +it did not appear; and, when she did arrive, she stole in without +his seeing her, and stood mingled with the crowd about the door. + +It was a pleasant sight that met her eyes. The wide space was +gayly illuminated with colored lamps, disposed on every shelf, +and in every crevice of the walls, some of them gleaming like +glow-worms out of mere holes; while candles in sconces, and lamps +on the window-sills and wherever they could stand, gave a light +the more pleasing that it was not brilliant. Overhead, the night- +sky was spangled with clear pulsing stars, afloat in a limpid +blue, vast even to awfulness in the eyes of such--were any such +there?--as say to themselves that to those worlds also were they +born. Outside, it was dark, save where the light streamed from +the great windows far into the night. The moon was not yet up; +she would rise in good time to see the scattering guests to their +homes. + +Tom's heart had been sinking, for he could see Letty nowhere. Now +at last, he had been saying to himself all the day, had come his +chance! and his chance seemed but to mock him. More than any girl +he had ever seen, had Letty moved him--perhaps because she was +more unlike his mother. He knew nothing, it is true, or next to +nothing, of her nature; but that was of little consequence to one +who knew nothing, and never troubled himself to know anything, of +his own. Was he doomed never to come near his idol?--Ah, there +she was! Yes; it was she--all but lost in a humble group near the +door! His foolish heart--not foolish in that--gave a great bound, +as if it would leap to her where she stood. She was dressed in +white muslin, from which her white throat rose warm and soft. Her +head was bent forward, and a gentle dissolved smile was over all +her face, as with loveliest eyes she watched eagerly the motions +of the dance, and her ears drank in the music of the yeomanry +band. He seized the first opportunity of getting nearer to her. +He had scarcely spoken to her before, but that did not trouble +Tom. Even in a more ceremonious assembly, that would never have +abashed him; and here there was little form, and much freedom. He +had, besides, confidence in his own carriage and manners--which, +indeed, were those of a gentleman--and knew himself not likely to +repel by his approach. + +Mr. Mortimer had opened the dancing by leading out the wife of +his principal tenant, a handsome matron, whose behavior and +expression were such as to give a safe, home-like feeling to the +shy and doubtful of the company. But Tom knew better than injure +his chance by precipitation: he would wait until the dancing was +more general, and the impulse to movement stronger, and then +offer himself. He stood therefore near Letty for some little +time, talking to everybody, and making himself agreeable, as was +his wont, all round; then at last, as if he had just caught sight +of her, walked up to her where she stood flushed and eager, and +asked her to favor him with her hand in the next dance. + +By this time Letty had got familiar with his presence, had +recalled her former meeting with him, had heard his name spoken +by not a few who evidently liked him, and was quite pleased when +he asked her to dance with him. + +In the dance, nothing but commonplaces passed between them; but +Tom had a certain pleasant way of his own in saying the +commonest, emptiest things--an off-hand, glancing, skimming, +swallow-like way of brushing and leaving a thing, as if he "could +an' if he would," which made it seem for the moment as if he had +said something: were his companion capable of discovering the +illusion, there was no time; Tom was instantly away, carrying him +or her with him to something else. But there was better than +this--there was poetry, more than one element of it, in Tom. In +the presence of a girl that pleased him, there would rise in him +a poetic atmosphere, full of a rainbow kind of glamour, which, +first possessing himself, passed out from him and called up a +similar atmosphere, a similar glamour, about many of the girls he +talked to. This he could no more help than the grass can help +smelling sweet after the rain. + +Tom was a finely projected, well-built, unfinished, barely +furnished house, with its great central room empty, where the +devil, coming and going at his pleasure, had not yet begun to +make any great racket. There might be endless embryonic evil in +him, but Letty was aware of no repellent atmosphere about him, +and did not shrink from his advances. He pleased her, and why +should she not be pleased with him? Was it a fault to be easily +pleased? The truer and sweeter any human self, the readier is it +to be pleased with another self--save, indeed, something in it +grate on the moral sense: that jars through the whole harmonious +hypostasy. To Tom, therefore, Letty responded with smiles and +pleasant words, even grateful to such a fine youth for taking +notice of her small self. + +The sun had set in a bank of cloud, which, as if he had been a +lump of leaven to it, immediately began to swell and rise, and +now hung dark and thick over the still, warm night. Even the +farmers were unobservant of the change: their crops were all in, +they had eaten and drunk heartily, and were merry, looking on or +sharing in the multiform movement, their eyes filled with light +and color. + +Suddenly came a torrent-sound in the air, heard of few and heeded +by none, and straight into the hall rushed upon the gay company a +deluge of rain, mingled with large, half-melted hail-stones. In a +moment or two scarce a light was left burning, except those in +the holes and recesses of the walls. The merrymakers scattered +like flies--into the house, into the tower, into the sheds and +stables in the court behind, under the trees in front--anywhere +out of the hall, where shelter was none from the perpendicular, +abandoned down-pour. + +At that moment, Letty was dancing with Tom, and her hand happened +to be in his. He clasped it tight, and, as quickly as the crowd +and the confusion of shelter-seeking would permit, led her to the +door of the tower already mentioned. But many had run in the same +direction, and already its lower story and stair were crowded +with refugees--the elder bemoaning the sudden change, and folding +tight around them what poor wraps they were fortunate enough to +have retained; the younger merrier than ever, notwithstanding the +cold gusts that now poked their spirit-arms higher and thither +through the openings of the half-ruinous building: to them even +the destruction of their finery was but added cause of laughter. +But a few minutes before, its freshness had been a keen pleasure +to them, brightening their consciousness with a rare feeling of +perfection; now crushed and rumpled, soiled and wet and torn, it +was still fuel to the fire of gayety. But Tom did not stay among +them. He knew the place well; having a turn for scrambling, he +had been all over it many a time. On through the crowd, he led +Letty up the stair to the first floor. Even here were a few +couples talking and laughing in the dark. With a warning, by no +means unnecessary, to mind where they stepped, for the floors +were bad, he passed on to the next stair. + +"Let us stop here, Mr. Helmer," said Letty. "There is plenty of +room here." + +"I want to show you something," answered Tom. "You need not be +frightened. I know every nook of the place." + +"I am not frightened," said Letty, and made no further objection. + +At the top of that stair they entered a straight passage, in the +middle of which was a faint glimmer of light from an oval +aperture in the side of it. Thither Tom led Letty, and told her +to look through. She did so. + +Beneath lay the great gulf, wide and deep, of the hall they had +just left. This was the little window, high in its gable, through +which, in far-away times, the lord or lady of the mansion could +oversee at will whatever went on below. + +The rain had ceased as suddenly as it came on, and already lights +were moving about in the darkness of the abyss--one, and another, +and another, was searching for something lost in the hurry of the +scattering. It was a waste and dismal show. Neither of them had +read Dante; but Letty may have thought of the hall of Belshazzar, +the night after the hand-haunted revel, when the Medes had had +their will; for she had but lately read the story. A strange fear +came upon her, and she drew back with a shudder. + +"Are you cold?" said Tom. "Of course you must be, with nothing +but that thin muslin! Shall I run down and get you a shawl?" + +"Oh, no! do not leave me, please. It's not that," answered Letty. +"I don't mind the wind a bit; it's rather pleasant. It's only +that the look of the place makes me miserable, I think. It looks +as if no one had danced there for a hundred years." + +"Neither any one has, I suppose, till to-night," said Tom. "What +a fine place it would be if only it had a roof to it! I can't +think how any one can live beside it and leave it like that!" + +But Tom lived a good deal closer to a worse ruin, and never spent +a thought on it. + +Letty shivered again. + +"I'm quite ashamed of myself," she said, trying to speak +cheerfully. "I can't think why I should feel like this--just as +if something dreadful were watching me! I'll go home, Mr. +Helmer.". + +"It will be much the safest thing to do: I fear you have indeed +caught cold," replied Tom, rejoiced at the chance of accompanying +her. "I shall be delighted to see you safe." + +"There is not the least occasion for that, thank you," answered +Letty. "I have an old servant of my aunt's with me--somewhere +about the place. The storm is quite over now: I will go and find +her." + +Tom made no objection, but helped her down the dark stair, +hoping, however, the servant might not be found. + +As they went, Letty seemed to herself to be walking in some old +dream of change and desertion. The tower was empty as a monument, +not a trace of the crowd left, which a few minutes before had +thronged it. The wind had risen in earnest now, and was rushing +about, like a cold wild ghost, through every cranny of the +desolate place. Had Letty, when she reached the bottom of the +stairs, found herself on the rocks of the seashore, with the +waves dashing up against them, she would only have said to +herself, "I knew I was in a dream!" But the wind having blown +away the hail-cloud, the stars were again shining down into the +hall. One or two forlorn-looking searchers were still there; the +rest had scattered like the gnats. A few were already at home; +some were harnessing their horses to go, nor would wait for the +man in the moon to light his lantern; some were already trudging +on foot through the dark. Hesper and Miss Yolland were talking to +two or three friends in the drawing-room; Lady Margaret was in +her boudoir, and Mr. Mortimer smoking a cigar in his study. + +Nowhere could Letty find Susan. She was in the farmer's kitchen +behind. Tom suspected as much, but was far from hinting the +possibility. Letty found her cloak, which she had left in the +hall, soaked with rain, and thought it prudent to go home at +once, nor prosecute her search for Susan further. She accepted, +therefore, Tom's renewed offer of his company. + +They were just leaving the hall, when a thought came to Letty: +the moon suddenly appearing above the horizon had put it in her +head. + +"Oh," she cried, "I know quite a short way home!" and, without +waiting any response from her companion, she turned, and led him +in an opposite direction, round, namely, by the back of the +court, into a field. There she made for a huge oak, which gloomed +in the moonlight by the sunk fence parting the grounds. In the +slow strength of its growth, by the rounding of its bole, and the +spreading of its roots, it had so rent and crumbled the wall as +to make through it a little ravine, leading to the top of the ha- +ha. When they reached it, before even Tom saw it, Letty turned +from him, and was up in a moment. At the top she turned to bid +him good night, but there he was, close behind her, insisting on +seeing her safe to the house. + +"Is this the way you always come?" asked Tom. + +"I never was on Durnmelling land before," answered Letty. + +"How did you find the short-cut, then?" he asked. "It certainly +does not look as if it were much used." + +"Of course not," replied Letty. "There is no communication +between Durnmelling and Thornwick now. It was all ours once, +though, Cousin Godfrey says. Did you notice how the great oak +sends its biggest arm over our field?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I often sit there under it, when I want to learn my +lesson, and can't rest in the house; and that's how I know of the +crack in the ha-ha." + +She said it in absolute innocence, but Tom laid it up in his +mind. + +"Are you at lessons still?" he said. "Have you a governess?" + +"No," she answered, in a tone of amusement. "But Cousin Godfrey +teaches me many things." + +This made Tom thoughtful; and little more had been said, when +they reached the gate of the yard behind the house, and she would +not let him go a step farther. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE OAK. + + +In the morning, as she narrated the events of the evening, she +told her aunt of the acquaintance she had made, and that he had +seen her home. This information did not please the old lady, as, +indeed, without knowing any reason, Letty had expected. Mrs. +Wardour knew all about Tom's mother, or thought she did, and knew +little good; she knew also that, although her son was a general +favorite, her own son had a very poor opinion of him. On these +grounds, and without a thought of injustice to Letty, she sharply +rebuked the poor girl for allowing such a fellow to pay her any +attention, and declared that, if ever she permitted him so much +as to speak to her again, she would do something which she left +in a cloud of vaguest suggestion. + +Letty made no reply. She was hurt. Nor was it any wonder if she +judged this judgment of Tom by the injustice of the judge to +herself. It was of no consequence to her, she said to herself, +whether she spoke to him again or not; but had any one the right +to compel another to behave rudely? Only what did it matter, +since there was so little chance of her ever seeing him again! +All day she felt weary and disappointed, and, after the +merrymaking of the night before, the household work was irksome. +But she would soon have got over both weariness and tedium had +her aunt been kind. It is true, she did not again refer to Tom, +taking it for granted that he was done with; but all day she kept +driving Letty from one thing to another, nor was once satisfied +with anything she did, called her even an ungrateful girl, and, +before evening, had rendered her more tired, mortified, and +dispirited, than she had ever been in her life. + +But the tormentor was no demon; she was only doing what all of us +have often done, and ought to be heartily ashamed of: she was +only emptying her fountain of bitter water. Oppressed with the +dregs of her headache, wretched because of her son's absence, who +had not been a night from home for years, annoyed that she had +spent time and money in preparation for nothing, she had allowed +the said cistern to fill to overflowing, and upon Letty it +overflowed like a small deluge. Like some of the rest of us, she +never reflected how balefully her evil mood might operate; and +that all things work for good in the end, will not cover those by +whom come the offenses. Another night's rest, it is true, sent +the evil mood to sleep again for a time, but did not exorcise it; +for there are demons that go not out without prayer, and a bad +temper is one of them--a demon as contemptible, mean-spirited, +and unjust, as any in the peerage of hell--much petted, +nevertheless, and excused, by us poor lunatics who are possessed +by him. Mrs. Wardour was a lady, as the ladies of this world go, +but a poor lady for the kingdom of heaven: I should wonder much +if she ranked as more than a very common woman there. + +The next day all was quiet; and a visit paid Mrs. Wardour by a +favorite sister whom she had not seen for months, set Letty at +such liberty as she seldom had. In the afternoon she took the +book Godfrey had given her, in which he had set her one of +Milton's smaller poems to study, and sought the shadow of the +Durnmelling oak. + +It was a lovely autumn day, the sun glorious as ever in the +memory of Abraham, or the author of Job, or the builder of the +scaled pyramid at Sakkara. But there was a keenness in the air +notwithstanding, which made Letty feel a little sad without +knowing why, as she seated herself to the task Cousin Godfrey had +set her. She, as well as his mother, heartily wished he were +home. She was afraid of him, it is true; but in how different a +way from that in which she was afraid of his mother! His absence +did not make her feel free, and to escape from his mother was +sometimes the whole desire of her day. + +She was trying hard, not altogether successfully, to fix her +attention on her task, when a yellow leaf dropped on the very +line she was poring over. Thinking how soon the trees would be +bare once more, she brushed the leaf away, and resumed her +lesson. + + "To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light," + +she had just read once more, when down fell a second tree-leaf on +the book-leaf. Again she brushed it away, and read to the end of +the sonnet: + +"Hast gained thy entrance, virgin wise and pure." + +What Letty's thoughts about the sonnet were, I can not tell: how +fix thought indefinite in words defined? But her angel might well +have thought what a weary road she had to walk before she gained +that entrance. But for all of us the road _has_ to be +walked, every step, and the uttermost farthing paid. The gate +will open wide to welcome us, but it will not come to meet us. +Neither is it any use to turn aside; it only makes the road +longer and harder. + +Down on the same spot fell the third leaf. Letty looked up. There +was a man in the tree over her head. She started to her feet. At +the same moment, he dropped on the ground beside her, lifting his +hat as coolly as if he had met her on the road. Her heart seemed +to stand still with fright. She stood silent, with white lips +parted. + +"I hope I haven't frightened you," said Tom. "Do forgive me," he +added, becoming more aware of the perturbation he had caused her. +"You were so kind to me the other night, I could not help wanting +to see you again. I had no idea the sight of me would terrify you +so." + +"You gave me such a start!" gasped Letty, with her hand pressed +on her heart. + +"I was afraid of it," answered Tom; "but what could I do? I was +certain, if you saw me coming, you would run away." + +"Why should you think that?" asked Letty, a faint color rising in +her cheek. + +"Because," answered Tom, "I was sure they would be telling you +all manner of things against me. But there is no harm in me-- +really, Miss Lovel--nothing, that is, worth mentioning." + +"I am sure there isn't," said Letty; and then there was a pause. + +"What book are you reading, may I ask?" said Tom. + +Letty had now remembered her aunt's injunctions and threats; but, +partly from a kind of paralysis caused by his coolness, partly +from its being impossible to her nature to be curt with any one +with whom she was not angry, partly from mere lack of presence of +mind, not knowing what to do, yet feeling she ought to run to the +house, what should she do but drop down again on the very spot +whence she had been scared! Instantly Tom threw himself on the +grass at her feet, and there lay, looking up at her with eyes of +humble admiration. + +Confused and troubled, she began to turn over the leaves of her +book. She supposed afterward she must have asked him why he +stared at her so, for the next thing she remembered was hearing +him say: + +"I can't help it. You are so lovely!" + +"Please don't talk such nonsense to me," she rejoined. "I am not +lovely, and I know it. What is not true can not please anybody." + +She spoke a little angrily now. + +"I speak the truth," said Tom, quietly and earnestly. "Why should +you think I do not?" + +"Because nobody ever said so before." + +"Then it is quite time somebody should say so," returned Tom, +changing his tone. "It may be a painful fact, but even ladies +ought to be told the truth, and learn to bear it. To say you are +not lovely would be a downright lie." + +"I wish you wouldn't talk to me about myself!" said Letty, +feeling confused and improper, but not altogether displeased that +it was possible for such a mistake to be made. "I don't want to +hear about myself. It makes me so uncomfortable! I am sure it +isn't right: is it, now, Mr. Helmer?" + +As she ended, the tears rose in her eyes, partly from unanalyzed +uneasiness at the position in which she found herself and the +turn the talk had taken, partly from the discomfort of conscious +disobedience. But still she did not move. + +"I am very sorry if I have vexed you," said Tom, seeing her +evident trouble. "I can't think how I've done it. I know I didn't +mean to; and I promise you not to say a word of the kind again-- +if I can help it. But tell me, Letty," he went on again, changing +in tone and look and manner, and calling her by her name with +such simplicity that she never even noticed it, "do tell me what +you are reading, and that will keep me from _talking_ about +you--not from--the other thing, you know." + +"There!" said Letty, almost crossly, handing him her book, and +pointing to the sonnet, as she rose to go. + +Tom took the book, and sprang to his feet. He had never read the +poem, for Milton had not been one of his masters. He stood +devouring it. He was doing his best to lay hold of it quickly, +for there Letty stood, with her hand held out to take the book +again, ready upon its restoration to go at once. Silent and +motionless, to all appearance unhasting, he read and reread. +Letty was restless, and growing quite impatient; but still Tom +read, a smile slow-spreading from his eyes over his face; he was +taking possession of the poem, he would have said. But the shades +and kinds and degrees of possession are innumerable; and not +until we downright love a thing, can we _know_ we understand +it, or rightly call it our own; Tom only admired this one; it was +all he was capable of in regard to such at present. Had the whim +for acquainting himself with it seized him in his own study, he +would have satisfied it with a far more superficial interview; +but the presence of the girl, with those eyes fixed on him as he +read--his mind's eye saw them--was for the moment an enlargement +of his being, whose phase to himself was a consciousness of +ignorance. + +"It is a beautiful poem," he said at last, quite honestly; and, +raising his eyes, he looked straight in hers. There is hardly a +limit to the knowledge and sympathy a man may have in respect of +the finest things, and yet be a fool. Sympathy is not harmony. A +man may be a poet even, and speak with the tongue of an angel, +and yet be a very bad fool. + +"I am sure it must be a beautiful poem," said Letty; "but I have +hardly got a hold of it yet." And she stretched her hand a little +farther, as if to proceed with its appropriation. + +But Tom was not yet prepared to part with the book. He proceeded +instead, in fluent speech and not inappropriate language, to set +forth, not the power of the poem--that he both took and left as a +matter of course--but the beauty of those phrases, and the turns +of those expressions, which particularly pleased him--nor failing +to remark that, according to the strict laws of English verse, +there was in it one bad rhyme. + +That point Letty begged him to explain, thus leading Tom to an +exposition of the laws of rhyme, in which, as far as English was +concerned, he happened to be something of an expert, partly from +an early habit of scribbling in ladies' albums. About these +surface affairs, Godfrey, understanding them better and valuing +them more than Tom, had yet taught Letty nothing, judging it +premature to teach polishing before carving; and hence this +little display of knowledge on the part of Tom impressed Letty +more than was adequate--so much, indeed, that she began to regard +him as a sage, and a compeer of her cousin Godfrey. Question +followed question, and answer followed answer, Letty feeling all +the time she _must_ go, yet standing and standing, like one +in a dream, who thinks he can not, and certainly does not break +its spell--for in the act only is the ability and the deed born. +Besides, was she to go away and leave her beautiful book in his +hand? What would Godfrey think if she did? Again and again she +stretched out her own to take it, but, although he saw the +motion, he held on to the book as to his best anchor, hurriedly +turned its leaves by fits and searching for something more to his +mind than anything of Milton's. Suddenly his face brightened. + +"Ah!" he said--and remained a moment silent, reading. "I don't +wonder," he resumed, "at your admiration of Milton. He's very +grand, of course, and very musical, too; but one can't be +listening to an organ always. Not that I prefer merry music; that +must be inferior, for the tone of all the beauty in the world is +sad." Much Tom Helmer knew of beauty or sadness either! but +ignorance is no reason with a fool for holding his tongue. "But +there is the violin, now!--that can be as sad as any organ, +without being so ponderous. Hear this, now! This is the violin +after the organ--played as only a master can!" + +With this preamble, he read a song of Shelley's, and read it +well, for he had a good ear for rhythm and cadence, and prided +himself on his reading of poetry. + +Now the path to Letty's heart through her intellect was neither +open nor well trodden; but the song in question was a winged one, +and flew straight thither; there was something in the tone of it +that suited the pitch of her spirit-chamber. And, if Letty's +heart was not easily found, it was the readier to confess itself +when found. Her eyes filled with tears, and through those tears +Tom looked large and injured. "He must be a poet himself to read +poetry like that!" she said to herself, and felt thoroughly +assured that her aunt had wronged him greatly. "Some people scorn +poetry like sin," she said again. "I used myself to think it was +only for children, until Cousin Godfrey taught me differently." + +As thus her thoughts went on interweaving themselves with the +music, all at once the song came to an end. Tom closed the book, +handed it to her, said, "Good morning, Miss Lovel," and ran down +the rent in the ha-ha; and, before Letty could come to herself, +she heard the soft thunder of hoofs on the grass. She ran to the +edge, and, looking over, saw Tom on his bay mare, at full gallop +across the field. She watched him as he neared the hedge and +ditch that bounded it, saw him go flying over, and lost sight of +him behind a hazel-copse. Slowly, then, she turned, and slowly +she went back to the house and up to her room, vaguely aware that +a wind had begun to blow in her atmosphere, although only the +sound of it had yet reached her. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +CONFUSION. + + +Then first, and from that moment, Letty's troubles began. Up to +this point neither she herself nor another could array troublous +accusation or uneasy thought against her; and now she began to +feel like a very target, which exists but to receive the piercing +of arrows. At first sight, and if we do not look a long way ahead +of what people stupidly regard as the end when it is only an +horizon, it seems hard that so much we call evil, and so much +that is evil, should result from that unavoidable, blameless, +foreordained, preconstituted, and essential attraction which is +the law of nature, that is the will of God, between man and +woman. Even if Letty had fallen in love with Tom at first sight, +who dares have the assurance to blame her? who will dare to say +that Tom was blameworthy in seeking the society and friendship, +even the love, of a woman whom in all sincerity he admired, or +for using his wits to get into her presence, and detain her a +little in his company? Reasons there are, infinitely deeper than +any philosopher has yet fathomed, or is likely to fathom, why a +youth such as he--foolish, indeed, but not foolish in this--and a +sweet and blameless girl such as Letty, should exchange regards +of admiration and wonder. That which thus moves them, and goes on +to draw them closer and closer, comes with them from the very +source of their being, and is as reverend as it is lovely, rooted +in all the gentle potencies and sweet glories of creation, and +not unworthily watered with all the tears of agony and ecstasy +shed by lovers since the creation of the world. What it is, I can +not tell; I only know it is _not_ that which the young fool +calls it, still less that which the old sinner thinks it. As to +Letty's disobedience of her aunt's extravagant orders concerning +Tom, I must leave that to the judgment of the just, reminding +them that she was taken by surprise, and that, besides, it was +next to impossible to obey them. But Letty found herself very +uncomfortable, because there now was that to be known of her, the +knowledge of which would highly displease her aunt--for which +very reason, if for no other, ought she not to tell her all? On +the other hand, when she recalled how unkindly, how unjustly her +aunt had spoken, when she confessed her new acquaintance, it +became to her a question whether in very deed she _must_ +tell her all that had passed that afternoon. There was no +smallest hope of any recognition of the act, surely more hard +than incumbent, but severity and unreason; _must_ she let +the thing out of her hands, and yield herself a helpless prey-- +and that for good to none? Concerning Mrs. Wardour, she reasoned +justly: she who is even once unjust can not complain if the like +is expected of her again. + +But, supposing it remained Letty's duty to acquaint her aunt with +what had taken place, and not forgetting that, as one of the old +people, I have to render account of the young that come after me, +and must be careful over their lovely dignities and fair duties, +I yet make haste to assert that the old people, who make it hard +for the young people to do right, may be twice as much to blame +as those whom they arraign for a concealment whose very heart is +the dread of their known selfishness, fierceness, and injustice. +If children have to obey their parents or guardians, those +parents and guardians are over them in the name of God, and they +must look to it: if in the name of God they act the devil, that +will not prove a light thing for their answer. The causing of the +little ones to offend hangs a fearful woe about the neck of the +causer. It were a hard, as well as a needless task, seeing there +is One who judges, to set forth how far the child is to blame as +toward the parent, where the parent first of all is utterly +wrong, yea out of true relation, toward the child. Not, +therefore, is the child free; obligation remains--modified, it +may be, but how difficult, alas, to fulfill! And, whether Letty +and such as act like her are _excusable_ or not in keeping +attentions paid them a secret, this sorrow for the good ones of +them certainly remains, that, next to a crime, a secret is the +heaviest as well as the most awkward of burdens to carry. It has +to be carried always, and all about. From morning to night it +hurts in tenderest parts, and from night to morning hurts +everywhere. At any expense, let there be openness. Take courage, +my child, and speak out. Dare to speak, I say, and that will give +you strength to resist, should disobedience become a duty. +Letty's first false step was here: she said to herself _I can +not_, and did not. She lacked courage--a want in her case not +much to be wondered at, but much to be deplored, for courage of +the true sort is just as needful to the character of a woman as +of a man. Had she spoken, she might have heard true things of +Tom, sufficient so to alter her opinion of him as, at this early +stage of their intercourse, to alter the _set_ of her +feelings, which now was straight for him. It may be such an +exercise of courage would have rendered the troubles that were +now to follow unnecessary to her development. For lack of it, she +went about from that time with the haunting consciousness that +she was one who might be found out; that she was guilty of what +would go a good way to justify the hard words she had so +resented. Already the secret had begun to work conscious woe. She +contrived, however, to quiet herself a little with the idea, +rather than the resolve, that, as soon as Godfrey came home, she +would tell him all, confessing, too, that she had not the courage +to tell his mother. She was sure, she said to herself, he would +forgive her, would set her at peace with herself, and be unfair +neither to Mr. Helmer nor to her. In the mean time she would take +care--and this was a real resolve, not a mere act contemplated in +the future--not to go where she might meet him again. Nor was the +resolve the less genuine that, with the very making of it, rose +the memory of that delightful hour more enticing than ever. How +beautifully, and with what feeling, he read the lovely song! With +what appreciation had he not expounded Milton's beautiful poem! +Not yet was she capable of bethinking herself that it was but on +this phrase and on that he had dwelt, on this and on that line +and rhythm, enforcing their loveliness of sound and shape; while +the poem, the really important thing, the drift of the whole--it +was her own heart and conscience that revealed that to her, not +the exposition of one who at best could understand it only with +his brain. She kept to her resolve, nevertheless; and, although +Tom, leaving his horse now here now there, to avoid attracting +attention, almost every day visited the oak, he looked in vain +for the light of her approach. Disappointment increased his +longing: what would he not have given to see once more one of +those exquisite smiles break out in its perfect blossom! He kept +going and going--haunted the oak, sure of some blessed chance at +last. It was the first time in his life he had followed one idea +for a whole fortnight. + +At length Godfrey came. But, although all the time he was away +Letty had retained and contemplated with tolerable calmness the +idea of making her confession to him, the moment she saw him she +felt such confession impossible. It was a sad discovery to her. +Hitherto Godfrey, and especially of late, had been the chief +source of the peace and interest of her life, that portion of her +life, namely, to which all the rest of it looked as its sky, its +overhanging betterness--and now she felt before him like a +culprit: she had done what he might be displeased with. Nay, +would that were all! for she felt like a hypocrite: she had done +that which she could not confess. Again and again, while Godfrey +was away, she had flattered herself that the help the +objectionable Tom had given her with her task would at once +recommend him to Godfrey's favorable regard; but now that she +looked in Godfrey's face, she was aware--she did not know why, +but she was aware it would not be so. Besides, she plainly saw +that the same fact would, almost of necessity, lead him to +imagine there had been much more between them than was the case; +and she argued with herself, that, now there was nothing, now +that everything was over, it would be a pity if, because of what +she could not help, and what would never be again, there should +arise anything, however small, of a misunderstanding between her +cousin Godfrey and her. + +The moment Godfrey saw her, he knew that something was the +matter; but there had been that going on in him which put him on +a false track for the explanation. Scarcely had he, on his +departure for London, turned his back on Thornwick, ere he found +he was leaving one whom yet he could not leave behind him. Every +hour of his absence he found his thoughts with the sweet face and +ministering hands of his humble pupil. Therewith, however, it was +nowise revealed to him that he was in love with her. He thought +of her only as his younger sister, loving, clinging, obedient. So +dear was she to him, he thought, that he would rejoice to secure +her happiness at any cost to himself. _Any_ cost? he asked-- +and reflected. Yes, he answered himself--even the cost of giving +her to a better man. The thing was sure to come, he thought--nor +thought without a keen pang, scarcely eased by the dignity of the +self-denial that would yield her with a smile. But such a crisis +was far away, and there was no necessity for now contemplating +it. Indeed, there was no _certainty_ it would ever arrive; +it was only a possibility. The child was not beautiful, although +to him she was lovely, and, being also penniless, was therefore +not likely to attract attention; while, if her being unfolded +under the genial influences he was doing his best to make +powerful upon her, if she grew aware that by them her life was +enlarging and being tenfold enriched, it was possible she might +not be ready to fall in love, and leave Thornwick. He must be +careful, however, he said to himself, quite plainly now, that his +behavior should lead her into no error. He was not afraid she +might fall in love with him; he was not so full of himself as +that; but he recoiled from the idea, as from a humiliation, that +she might imagine him in love with her. It was not merely that he +had loved once for all, and, once deceived and forsaken, would +love no more; but it was not for him, a man of thirty years, to +bow beneath the yoke of a girl of eighteen--a child in everything +except outward growth. Not for a moment would he be imagined by +her a courtier for her favor. + +Thus, even in the heart of one so far above ordinary men as +Godfrey, and that in respect of the sweetest of child-maidens, +pride had its evil place; and no good ever comes of pride, for it +is the meanest of mean things, and no one but he who is full of +it thinks it grand. For its sake this wise man was firmly +resolved on caution; and so, when at last they met, it was no +more with that _abandon_ of simple pleasure with which he +had been wont to receive her when she came knocking at the door +of his study, bearing clear question or formless perplexity; and +his restraint would of itself have been enough to make Letty, +whose heart was now beating in a very thicket of nerves, at once +feel it impossible to carry out her intent--impossible to confess +to him any more than to his mother; while Godfrey, on his part, +perceiving her manifest shyness and unwonted embarrassment, +attributed them altogether to his own wisely guarded behavior, +and, seeing therein no sign of loss of influence, continued his +caution. Thus the pride, which is of man, mingled with the love, +which is of God, and polluted it. From that hour he began to lord +it over the girl; and this change in his behavior immediately +reacted on himself, in the obscure perception that there might be +danger to her in continued freedom of intercourse: he must, +therefore, he concluded, order the way for both; he must take +care of her as well as of himself. But was it consistent with +this resolve that he should, for a whole month, spend every +leisure moment in working at a present for her--a written marvel +of neatness and legibility? + +Again, by this meeting askance, as it were, another +disintegrating force was called into operation: the moment Letty +knew she could not tell Godfrey, and that therefore a wall had +arisen between him and her, that moment woke in her the desire, +as she had never felt it before, to see Tom Helmer. She could no +longer bear to be shut up in herself; she must see somebody, get +near to somebody, talk to somebody; her secret would choke her +otherwise, would swell and break her heart; and who was there to +think of but Tom--and Mary Marston? + +She had never once gone to the oak again, but she had not +altogether avoided a certain little cobwebbed gable-window in the +garret, from which it was visible; neither had she withheld her +hands from cleaning a pane in that window, that through it she +might see the oak; and there, more than once or twice, now +thickening the huge limb, now spotting the grass beneath it, she +had descried a dark object, which could be nothing else than Tom +Helmer on the watch for herself. He must surely be her friend, +she reasoned, or how would he care, day after day, to climb a +tree to look if she were coming--she who was the veriest nobody +in all other eyes but his? It was so good of Tom! She +_would_ call him Tom; everybody else called him Tom, and why +shouldn't she--to herself, when nobody was near? As to Mary +Marston, she treated her like a child! When she told her that she +had met Tom at Durnmelling, and how kind he had been, she looked +as grave as if it had been wicked to be civil to him; and told +her in return how he and his mother were always quarreling: that +must be his mother's fault, she was sure-it could not be Tom's; +any one might see that at a glance! His mother must be something +like her aunt! But, after that, how could she tell Mary any more? +It would not be fair to Tom, for, like the rest, she would +certainly begin to abuse him. What harm could come of it? and, if +harm did, how could she help it! If they had been kind to her, +she would have told them everything, but they all frightened her +so, she could not speak. It was not her fault if Tom was the only +friend she had! She _would_ ask his advice; he was sure to +advise her just the right thing. He had read that sonnet about +the wise virgin with such feeling and such force, he _must_ +know what a girl ought to do, and how she ought to behave to +those who were unkind and would not trust her. + +Poor Letty! she had no stay, no root in herself yet. Well do I +know not one human being ought, even were it possible, to be +enough for himself; each of us needs God and every human soul he +has made, before he has enough; but we ought each to be able, in +the hope of what is one day to come, to endure for a time, not +having enough. Letty was unblamable that she desired the comfort +of humanity around her soul, but I am not sure that she was quite +unblamable in not being fit to walk a few steps alone, or even to +sit still and expect. With all his learning, Godfrey had not +taught her what William Marston had taught Mary; and now her +heart was like a child left alone in a great room. She had not +yet learned that we must each bear his own burden, and so become +able to bear each the burden of the other. Poor friends we are, +if we are capable only of leaning, and able never to support. + +But the moment Letty's heart had thus cried out against Mary, +came a shock, and something else cried out against herself, +telling her that she was not fair to her friend, and that Mary, +and no other, was the proper person to advise with in this +emergency of her affairs. She had no right to turn from her +because she was a little afraid of her. Perhaps Letty was on the +point of discovering that to be unable to bear disapproval was an +unworthy weakness. But in her case it came nowise of the pride +which blame stirs to resentment, but altogether of the self- +depreciation which disapproval rouses to yet greater dispiriting. +Praise was to her a precious thing, in part because it made her +feel as if she could go on; blame, a misery, in part because it +made her feel as if all was of no use, she never could do +anything right. She had not yet learned that the right is the +right, come of praise or blame what may. The right will produce +more right and be its own reward--in the end a reward altogether +infinite, for God will meet it with what is deeper than all +right, namely, perfect love. But the more Letty thought, the more +she was sure she must tell Mary; and, disapprove as she might, +Mary was a very different object of alarm from either her aunt or +her cousin Godfrey. + +The first afternoon, therefore, on which she thought her aunt +could spare her, she begged leave to go and see Mary. Mrs. +Wardour yielded it, but not very graciously. She had, indeed, +granted that Miss Marston was not like other shop-girls, but she +did not favor the growth of the intimacy, and liked Letty's going +to her less than Mary's coming to Thornwick. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE HEATH AND THE HUT. + + +Letty seldom went into the shop, except to buy, for she knew Mr. +Turnbull would not like it, and Mary did not encourage it; but +now her misery made her bold. Mary saw the trouble in her eyes, +and without a moment's hesitation drew her inside the counter, +and thence into the house, where she led the way to her own room, +up stairs and through passages which were indeed lanes through +masses of merchandise, like those cut through deep-drifted snow. +It was shop all over the house, till they came to the door of +Mary's chamber, which, opening from such surroundings, had upon +Letty much the effect of a chapel--and rightly, for it was a room +not unused to having its door shut. It was small, and plainly but +daintily furnished, with no foolish excess of the small +refinements on which girls so often set value, spending large +time on what it would be waste to buy: only they have to kill the +weary captive they know not how to redeem, for he troubles them +with his moans. + +"Sit down, Letty dear, and tell me what is the matter," said +Mary, placing her friend in a chintz-covered straw chair, and +seating herself beside her. + +Letty burst into tears, and sat sobbing. + +"Come, dear, tell me all about it," insisted Mary. "If you don't +make haste, they will be calling me." + +Letty could not speak. + +"Then I'll tell you what," said Mary; "you must stop with me to- +night, that we may have time to talk it over. You sit here and +amuse yourself as well as you can till the shop is shut, and then +we shall have such a talk! I will send your tea up here. Beenie +will be good to you." + +"Oh, but, indeed, I can't!" sobbed Letty; "my aunt would never +forgive me." + +"You silly child! I never meant to keep you without sending to +your aunt to let her know." + +"She won't let me stop," persisted Letty. + +"We will try her," said Mary, confidently; and, without more ado, +left Letty, and, going to her desk in the shop, wrote a note to +Mrs. Wardour. This she gave to Beenie to send by special +messenger to Thornwick; after which, she told her, she must take +up a nice tea to Miss Lovel in her bedroom. Mary then resumed her +place in the shop, under the frowns and side-glances of Turnbull, +and the smile of her father, pleased at her reappearance from +even such a short absence. + +But the return, in an hour or so, of the boy-messenger, whom +Beenie had taken care not to pay beforehand, destroyed the hope +of a pleasant evening; for he brought a note from Mrs. Wardour, +absolutely refusing to allow Letty to spend the night from home: +she must return immediately, so as to get in before dark. + +The rare anger flushed Letty's cheek and flashed from her eyes as +she read; for, in addition to the prime annoyance, her aunt's +note was addressed to her and not to Mary, to whom it did not +even allude. Mary only smiled inwardly at this, but Letty felt +deeply hurt, and her displeasure with her aunt added yet a shade +to the dimness of her judgment. She rose at once. + +"Will you not tell me first what is troubling you, Letty?" said +Mary. + +"No, dear, not now," replied Letty, caring a good deal less about +the right ordering of her way than when she entered the house. +Why should she care, she said to herself--but it was her anger +speaking in her--how she behaved, when she was treated so +abominably? + +"Then I will come and see you on Sunday," said Mary; "and then we +shall manage to have our talk." + +They kissed and parted--Letty unaware that she had given her +friend a less warm kiss than usual. There can hardly be a plainer +proof of the lowness of our nature, until we have laid hold of +the higher nature that belongs to us by birthright, than this, +that even a just anger tends to make us unjust and unkind: Letty +was angry with every person and thing at Thornwick, and unkind to +her best friend, for whose sake in part she was angry. With +glowing cheeks, tear-filled eyes, and indignant heart she set out +on her walk home. + +It was a still evening, with a great cloud rising in the +southwest; from which, as the sun drew near the horizon, a thin +veil stretched over the sky between, and a few drops came +scattering. This was in harmony with Letty's mood. Her soul was +clouded, and her heaven was only a place for the rain to fall +from. Annoyance, doubt, her new sense of constraint, and a wide- +reaching, undefined feeling of homelessness, all wrought together +to make her mind a chaos out of which misshapen things might +rise, instead of an ordered world in which gracious and +reasonable shapes appear. For as the place such will be the +thoughts that spring there; when all in us is peace divine, then, +and not till then, shall we think the absolutely reasonable. +Alas, that by our thoughtlessness or unkindness we should so +often be the cause of monster-births, and those even in the minds +of the loved! that we should be, if but for a moment, the demons +that deform a fair world that loves us! Such was Mrs. Wardour, +with her worldly wisdom, that day to Letty. + +About half-way to Thornwick, the path crossed a little heathy +common; and just as Letty left the hedge-guarded field-side, and +through a gate stepped, as it were, afresh out of doors on the +open common, the wind came with a burst, and brought the rain in +earnest. It was not yet very heavy, but heavy enough, with the +wind at its back, and she with no defense but her parasol, to wet +her thoroughly before she could reach any shelter, the nearest +being a solitary, decrepit old hawthorn-tree, about half-way +across the common. She bent her head to the blast, and walked on. +She had no desire for shelter. She would like to get wet to the +skin, take a violent cold, go into a consumption, and die in a +fortnight. The wind whistled about her bonnet, dashed the rain- +drops clanging on the drum-tight silk of her parasol, and made of +her skirts fetters and chains. She could hardly get along, and +was just going to take down her parasol, when suddenly, where was +neither house nor hedge nor tree, came a lull. For from behind, +over head and parasol, had come an umbrella, and now came a voice +and an audible sigh of pleasure. + +"I little thought when I left home this afternoon," said the +voice, "that I should have such a happiness before night!" + +At the sound of the voice Letty gave a cry, which ran through all +the shapes of alarm, of surprise, of delight; and it was not much +of a cry either. + +"O Tom!" she said, and clasped the arm that held the umbrella. +How her foolish heart bounded! Here was help when she had sought +none, and where least she had hoped for any! Her aunt would have +her run from under the umbrella at once, no doubt, but she would +do as she pleased this time. Here was Tom getting as wet as a +spaniel for her sake, and counting it a happiness! Oh, to have a +friend like that--all to herself! She would not reject such a +friend for all the aunts in creation. Besides, it was her aunt's +own fault; if she had let her stay with Mary, she would not have +met Tom. It was not her doing; she would take what was sent her, +and enjoy it! But, at the sound of her own voice calling him Tom, +the blood rushed to her cheeks, and she felt their glow in the +heart of the chill-beating rain. + +"What a night for you to be out in, Letty," responded Tom, taking +instant advantage of the right she had given him. "How lucky it +was I chose the right place to watch in at last! I was sure, if +only I persevered long enough, I should be rewarded." + +"Have you been waiting for me long?" asked Letty, with foolish +acceptance. + +"A fortnight and a day," answered Tom, with a laugh. "But I would +wait a long year for such another chance as this." And he pressed +to his side the hand upon his arm. "Fate is indeed kind to- +night." + +"Hardly in the weather," said Letty, fast recovering her spirits. + +"Not?" said Tom, with seeming pretense of indignation. "Let any +one but yourself dare to say a word against the weather of this +night, and he will have me to reckon with. It's the sweetest +weather I ever walked in. I will write a glorious song in praise +of showery gusts and bare commons." + +"Do," said Letty, careful not to say Tom this time, but unwilling +to revert to Mr. Helmer, "and mind you bring in the umbrella." + +"That I will! See if I don't!" answered Tom. + +"And make it real poetry too?" asked Letty, looking archly round +the stick of the umbrella. + +"Thou shalt thyself be the lovely critic, fair maiden!" answered +Tom. + +And thus they were already on the footing of somewhere about a +two years' acquaintance--thanks to the smart of ill-usage in +Letty's bosom, the gayety in Tom's, the sudden wild weather, the +quiet heath, the gathering shades, and the umbrella! The wind +blew cold, the air was dank and chill, the west was a low gleam +of wet yellow, and the rain shot stinging in their faces; but +Letty cared quite as little for it all as Tom did, for her heart, +growing warm with the comfort of the friendly presence, felt like +a banished soul that has found a world; and a joy as of endless +deliverance pervaded her being. And neither to her nor to Tom +must we deny our sympathy in the pleasure which, walking over a +bog, they drew from the flowers that mantled awful deeps; they +will not sink until they stop, and begin to build their house +upon it. Within that umbrella, hovered, and glided with them, an +atmosphere of bliss and peace and rose-odors. In the midst of +storm and coming darkness, it closed warm and genial around the +pair. Tom meditated no guile, and Letty had no deceit in her. Yet +was Tom no true man, or sweet Letty much of a woman. Neither of +them was yet _of the truth._ + +At the other side of the heath, almost upon the path, stood a +deserted hut; door and window were gone, but the roof remained: +just as they neared it, the wind fell, and the rain began to come +down in earnest. + +"Let us go in here for a moment," said Tom, "and get our breath +for a new fight." + +Letty said nothing, but Tom felt she was reluctant. + +"Not a soul will pass to-night," he said. "We mustn't get wet to +the skin." + +Letty felt, or fancied, refusal would be more unmaidenly than +consent, and allowed Tom to lead her in. And there, within those +dismal walls, the twilight sinking into a cheerless night of +rain, encouraged by the very dreariness and obscurity of the +place, she told Tom the trouble of mind their interview at the +oak was causing her, saying that now it would be worse than ever, +for it was altogether impossible to confess that she had met him +yet again that evening. + +So now, indeed, Letty's foot was in the snare: she had a secret +with Tom. Every time she saw him, liberty had withdrawn a pace. +There was no room for confession now. If a secret held be a +burden, a secret shared is a fetter. But Tom's heart rejoiced +within him. + +"Let me see!--How old are you, Letty?" he asked gayly. + +"Eighteen past," she answered. + +"Then you are fit to judge for yourself. You ain't a child, and +they are not your father and mother. What right have they to know +everything you do? I wouldn't let any such nonsense trouble me." + +"But they give me everything, you know--food, and clothes, and +all." + +"Ah, just so!" returned Tom. "And what do you do for them?" + +"Nothing." + +"Why! what are you about all day?" + +Letty gave him a brief sketch of her day. + +"And you call that nothing?" exclaimed Tom. "Ain't that enough to +pay for your food and your clothes? Does it want your private +affairs to make up the difference? Or have you to pay for your +food and clothes with your very thoughts?--What pocket-money do +they give you?" + +"Pocket-money?" returned Letty, as if she did not quite know what +he meant. + +"Money to do what you like with," explained Tom. + +Letty thought for a moment. + +"Cousin Godfrey gave me a sovereign last Christmas," she +answered. "I have got ten shillings of it yet." + +Tom burst into a merry laugh. + +"Oh, you dear creature!" he cried. "What a sweet slave you make! +The lowest servant on the farm gets wages, and you get none: yet +you think yourself bound to tell them everything, because they +give you food and clothes, and a sovereign last Christmas!" + +Here a gentle displeasure arose in the heart of the girl, +hitherto so contented and grateful. She did not care about money, +but she resented the claim her conscience made for them upon her +confidence. She did not reflect that such claim had never been +made by them; nor that the fact that she felt the claim, proved +that she had been treated, in some measure at least, like a +daughter of the house. + +"Why," continued Tom, "it is mere, downright, rank slavery! You +are walking to the sound of your own chains. Of course, you are +not to do anything wrong, but you are not bound not to do +anything they may happen not to like." + +In this style he went on, believing he spoke the truth, and was +teaching her to show a proper spirit. His heart, as well as +Godfrey's, was uplifted, to think he had this lovely creature to +direct and superintend: through her sweet confidence, he had to +set her free from unjust oppression taking advantage of her +simplicity. But in very truth he was giving her just the +instruction that goes to make a slave--the slave in heart, who +serves without devotion, and serves unworthily. Yet in this, and +much more such poverty-stricken, swine-husk argument, Letty +seemed to hear a gospel of liberty, and scarcely needed the +following injunctions of Tom, to make a firm resolve not to utter +a word concerning him. To do so would be treacherous to him, and +would be to forfeit the liberty he had taught her! Thus, from the +neglect of a real duty, she became the slave of a false one. + +"If you do," Tom had said, "I shall never see you again: they +will set every one about the place to watch you, like so many +cats after one poor little white mousey, and on the least +suspicion, one way or another, you will be gobbled up, as sure as +fate, before you can get to me to take care of you." + +Letty looked up at him gratefully. + +"But what could you do for me if I did?" she asked. "If my aunt +were to turn me out of the house, your mother would not take me +in!" + +Letty was not herself now; she was herself and Tom--by no means a +healthful combination. + +"My mother won't be mistress long," answered Tom. "She will have +to do as I bid her when I am one-and-twenty, and that will be in +a few months." Tom did not know the terms of his father's will. +"In the mean time we must keep quiet, you know. I don't want a +row--we have plenty of row as it is. You may be sure _I_ +shall tell no one how I spent the happiest hour of my life. How +little circumstance has to do with bliss!" he added, with a +philosophical sigh. "Here we are in a wretched hut, roared and +rained upon by an equinoctial tempest, and I am in paradise!" + +"I must go home," said Letty, recalled to a sense of her +situation, yet set trembling with pleasure, by his words. "See, +it is getting quite dark!" + +"Don't be afraid, my white bird," said Tom. "I will see you home. +But surely you are as well here as there anyhow! Who knows when +we shall meet again? Don't be alarmed; I'm not going to ask you +to meet me anywhere; I know your sweet innocence would make you +fancy it wrong, and then you would be unhappy. But that is no +reason why I should not fall in with you when I have the chance. +It is very hard that two people who understand each other can not +be friends without other people shoving in their ugly beaks! +Where is the harm to any one if we choose to have a few minutes' +talk together now and then?" + +"Where, indeed?" responded Letty shyly. + +A tall shadow--no shadow either, but the very person of Godfrey +Wardour--passed the opening in the wall of the hut where once had +been a window, and the gloom it cast into the dusk within was +awful and ominous. The moment he saw it, Tom threw himself flat +on the clay floor of the hut. Godfrey stopped at the doorless +entrance, and stood on the threshold, bending his head to clear +the lintel as he looked in. Letty's heart seemed to vanish from +her body. A strange feeling shook her, as if some mysterious +transformation were about to pass upon her whole frame, and she +were about to be changed into some one of the lower animals. The +question, where was the harm, late so triumphantly put, seemed to +have no heart in it now. For a moment that had to Letty the air +of an aeon, Godfrey stood peering. + +Not a little to his displeasure, he had heard from his mother of +her refusal to grant Letty's request, and had set out in the hope +of meeting and helping her home, for by that time it had begun to +rain, and looked stormy. + +In the darkness he saw something white, and, as he gazed, it grew +to Letty's face. The strange, scared, ghastly expression of it +bewildered him. + +Letty became aware that Godfrey did not recognize her at first, +and the hope sprung up in her heart that he might not see Tom at +all; but she could not utter a word, and stood returning +Godfrey's gaze like one fascinated with terror. Presently her +heart began again to bear witness in violent piston-strokes. + +"Is it really you, my child?" said Godfrey, in an uncertain +voice--for, if it was indeed she, why did she not speak, and why +did she look so scared at the sight of him? + +"O Cousin Godfrey!" gasped Letty, then first finding a little +voice, "you gave me such a start!" + +"Why should you be so startled at seeing me, Letty?" he returned. +"Am I such a monster of the darkness, then?" + +"You came all at once," replied Letty, gathering courage from the +playfulness of his tone, "and blocked up the door with your +shoulders, so that not a ray of light fell on your face; and how +was I to know it was you, Cousin Godfrey?" + +From a paleness grayer than death, her face was now red as fire; +it was the burning of the lie inside her. She felt all a lie now: +there was the good that Tom had brought her! But the gloom was +friendly. With a resolution new to herself, she went up to +Godfrey and said: + +"If you are going to the town, let me walk with you, Cousin +Godfrey. It is getting so dark." + +She felt as if an evil necessity--a thing in which man must not +believe--were driving her. But the poor child was not half so +deceitful inside as the words seemed to her issuing from her +lips. It was such a relief to be assured Godfrey had not seen +Tom, that she felt as if she could forego the sight of Tom for +evermore. Her better feelings rushed back, her old confidence and +reverence; and, in the altogether nebulo-chaotic condition of her +mind, she felt as if, in his turn, Godfrey had just appeared for +her deliverance. + +"I am not going to the town, Letty," he answered. "I came to meet +you, and we will go home together. It is no use waiting for the +rain to stop, and about as little to put up an umbrella, I have +brought your waterproof, and we must just take it as it comes." + +The wind was up again, and the next moment Letty, on Godfrey's +arm, was struggling with the same storm she had so lately +encountered leaning on Tom's, while Tom was only too glad to be +left alone on the floor of the dismal hut, whence he did not +venture to rise for some time, lest any the most improbable thing +should happen, to bring Mr. Wardour back. He was as mortally +afraid of being discovered as any young thief in a farmer's +orchard. + +He had a dreary walk back to the public house where he had +stabled his horse; but he trudged it cheerfully, brooding with +delight on Letty's beauty, and her lovely confidence in Tom +Helmer--a personage whom he had begun to feel nobody trusted as +he deserved. + +"Poor child!" he said to himself--he as well as Godfrey +patronized her--"what a doleful walk home she will have with that +stuck-up old bachelor fellow!" + +Nor, indeed, was it a very comfortable walk home she had, +although Godfrey talked all the way, as well as a head-wind, full +of rain, would permit. A few weeks ago she would have thought the +walk and the talk and everything delightful. But after Tom's airy +converse on the same level with herself, Godfrey's sounded indeed +wise--very wise--but dull, so dull! It is true the suspicion, +hardly awake enough to be troublous, lay somewhere in her, that +in Godfrey's talk there was a value of which in Tom's there was +nothing; but then it was not wisdom Letty was in want of, she +thought, but somebody to be kind to her--as kind as she should +like; somebody, though she did not say this even to herself, to +pet her a little, and humor her, and not require too much of her. +Physically, Letty was not in the least lazy, but she did not +enjoy being forced to think much. She could think, and to no very +poor purpose either, but as yet she had no hunger for the +possible results of thought, and how then could she care to +think? Seated on the edge of her bed, weary and wet and self- +accused, she recalled, and pondered, and, after her faculty, +compared the two scarce comparable men, until the voice of her +aunt, calling to her to make haste and come to tea, made her +start up, and in haste remove her drenched garments. The old lady +imagined from her delay she was out of temper because she had +sent for her home; but, when she appeared, she was so ready, so +attentive, and so quick to help, that, a little repentant, she +said to herself, "Really the girl is very good-natured!" as if +then first she discovered the fact. But Thornwick could never +more to Letty feel like a home! Not at peace with herself, she +could not be in rhythmic relation with her surroundings. + +The next day, the old manner of life began again; but, alas! it +was only the old manner, it was not the old life; that was gone +for ever, like an old sunset, or an old song, and could not be +recalled from the dead. We may have better, but we can not have +the same. God only can have the same. God grant our new may +inwrap our old! Letty labored more than ever to lay hold of the +lessons, to his mind so genial, in hers bringing forth more labor +than fruit, which Godfrey set before her, but success seemed +further from her than ever. She was now all the time aware of a +weight, an oppression, which seemed to belong to the task, but +was in reality her self-dissatisfaction. She was like a poor +Hebrew set to make brick without straw, but the Egyptian that had +brought her into bondage was the feebleness of her own will. Now +and then would come a break--a glow of beauty, a gleam of truth; +for a moment she would forget herself; for a moment a shining +pool would flash on the clouded sea of her life; presently her +heart would send up a fresh mist, the light would fade and +vanish, and the sea lie dusky and sad. Not seldom reproaching +herself with having given Tom cause to think unjustly of her +guardians, she would try harder than ever to please her aunt; and +the small personal services she had been in the way of rendering +to Godfrey were now ministered with the care of a devotee. Not +once should he miss a button from a shirt or find a sock +insufficiently darned! But even this conscience of service did +not make her happy. Duty itself could not, where faith was +wanting, where the heart was not at one with those to whom the +hands were servants. She would cry herself to sleep, and rise +early to be sad. She resolved at last, and seemed to gain +strength and some peace from the resolve, to do all in her power +to avoid Tom; and certainly not once did she try to meet him. Not +with him, she could resist him. + +Thus it went on. Her aunt saw that something was amiss, and +watched her, without attempt at concealment, which added greatly +to Letty's discomfort. But the only thing her keenness discovered +was, that the girl was forwardly eager to please Godfrey, and the +conviction began to grow that she was indulging the impudent +presumption of being in love with her peerless cousin. Then +maternal indignation misled her into the folly of dropping hints +that should put Godfrey on his guard: men were so easily taken in +by designing girls! She did not say much; but she said a good +deal too much for her own ends, when she caused her fancy to +present itself to the mind of Godfrey. + +He had not failed, no one could have failed, to observe the +dejection that had for some time ruled every feature and +expression of the girl's countenance. Again and again he had +asked himself whether she might not be fancying him displeased +with her; for he knew well that, becoming more and more aware of +what he counted his danger, he had kept of late stricter guard +than ever over his behavior; but, watching her now with the +misleading light of his mother's lantern, nor quite unwilling, I +am bound to confess, that the thing might be as she implied, he +became by degrees convinced that she was right. + +So far as this, perhaps, the man was pardonable--with a mother to +cause him to err. But, for what followed, punishment was +inevitable. He had a true and strong affection for the girl, but +it was an affection as from conscious high to low; an affection, +that is, not unmixed with patronage--a bad thing--far worse than +it can seem to the heart that indulges it. He still recoiled, +therefore, from the idea of such a leveling of himself as he +counted it would be to show her anything like the love of a +lover. All pride is more or less mean, but one pride may be +grander than another, and Godfrey was not herein proud in any +grand way. Good fellow as he was, he thought much too much of +himself; and, unconsciously comparing it with Letty's, altogether +overvalued his worth. Stranger than any bedfellow misery ever +acquainted a man withal, are the heart-fellows he carries about +with him. Noble as in many ways Wardour was, and kind as, to +Letty, he thought he always was, he was not generous toward her; +he was not Prince Arthur, "the Knight of Magnificence." Something +may perhaps be allowed on the score of the early experience +because of which he had resolved--pridefully, it is true--never +again to come under the power of a woman; it was unworthy of any +man, he said, to place his peace in a hand which could +thenceforth wring his whole being with agony. But, had he now +brought himself as severely to task as he ought, he would have +discovered that he was making no objection to the little girl's +loving him, only he would not love her in the same way in return; +and where was the honor in that? Doubtless, had he thus examined +himself, he would have thought he meant to take care that the +child's love for him should not go too far--should not endanger +her peace; and that, if the thing should give her trouble, it +should be his business to comfort her in it; but descend he would +not--would not _yet_--from his pedestal, to meet the silly +thing on the level ground of humanity, and the relation of the +man and the woman! Something like this, I say, he would have +found in his heart, horrid as it reads. That heart's action was +not even, was not healthy. + +When in London he had ransacked Holywell Street for dainty +editions of so many of his favorite authors as would make quite a +little library for Letty; and on his return, had commissioned a +cabinet-maker in Testbridge to put together a small set of book- +shelves, after his own design, measured and fitted to receive +them exactly; these shelves, now ready, he fastened to her wall +one afternoon when she was out of the way, and filled them with +the books. He never doubted that, the moment she saw them, she +would rush to find him; and, when he had done, retreated, +therefore, to his study, there to sit in readiness to receive her +and her gratitude with gentle kindness; when he would express the +hope that she would make real friends of the spirits whose +quintessence he had thus stored to her hand; and would introduce +her to what Milton says in his "Areopagitica" concerning good +books. There, for her sake, then, he sat, in mental state, +expectant; but sat in vain. When they met at tea, then, in the +presence of his mother, with embarrassment and broken utterance, +she did thank him. + +"O Cousin Godfrey!" she said, and ceased; then, "It is so much +more than I deserve, I dare hardly thank you." After another +pause, with a shake of her pretty head, as if she would toss +aside her hair, or the tears out of her eyes, "I don't know--I +seem to have no right to thank you; I ought not to have such a +splendid present. Indeed, I don't deserve it. You would not give +it me if you knew how naughty I am." + +These broken sentences were by both mother and son altogether +misinterpreted. The mother, now hearing for the first time of +Godfrey's present, was filled with jealousy, and began to revolve +thoughts of dire disquietude: was the hussy actually beginning to +gain her point, and steal from her the heart of her son? Was it +in the girl's blood to wrong her? The father of her had wronged +her: she would take care his daughter should not! She had taken a +viper to her bosom! Who was _she_, to wriggle herself into +an old family and property? Had _she_ been born to such +things? She would teach her who she was! When dependents began to +presume, it was time they had a lesson. + +Letty could not bear the sight of the books and their shelves; +the very beauty of the bindings was a reproach to her. From the +misery of this fresh burden, this new stirring of her sense of +hypocrisy, she began to wish herself anywhere out of the house, +and away from Thornwick. It was torture to her to think how she +had deceived Cousin Godfrey at the hut; and throughout the night, +across the darkness, she felt, though she could not see, the +books gazing at her, like an embodied conscience, from the wall +of her chamber. Twenty times that night she started from her +sleep, saying, "I will go where they shall never see me"; then +rose with the dawn, and set herself to the hardest work she could +find. + +The next day was Sunday, and they all went to church. Letty felt +that Tom was there, too, but she never raised her eyes to glance +at him. + +He had been looking out in vain for a sight of her--now from the +oak-tree, now from his bay mare's back, as he haunted the roads +about Thornwick, now from the window of the little public-house +where the path across the fields joined the main road to +Testbridge: but not once had he caught a glimpse of her. + +He had seated himself where he could not fail to see her if she +were in the Thornwick pew. How ill she looked! His heart swelled +with indignation. + +"They are cruel to her," he said; "that is plain. Poor girl, they +will kill her! She is a pearl in the oyster-maw of Thornwick. +This will never do; I _must_ see her somehow!" + +If at this crisis Letty had but had a real friend to strengthen +and advise her, much suffering might have been spared her, for +never was there a more teachable girl. She was, indeed, only too +ready to be advised, too ready to accept for true whatever +friendship offered itself. None but the friend who will +strengthen us to stand, is worthy of the name. Such a friend Mary +would have been, but Letty did not yet know what she needed. The +unrest of her conscience made her shrink from one who was sure to +side with that conscience, and help it to trouble her. It was +sympathy Letty longed for, not strength, and therefore she was +afraid of Mary. She came to see her, as she had promised, the +Sunday after that disastrous visit; but the weather was still +uncertain and gusty, and she found both her and Godfrey in the +parlor; nor did Letty give her a chance of speaking to her alone. +The poor girl had now far more on her mind that needed help than +then when she went in search of it, but she would seek it no more +from her! For, the more she thought, the surer she felt that Mary +would insist on her making a disclosure of the whole foolish +business to Mrs. Wardour, and would admit neither her own fear +nor her aunt's harshness as reason sufficient to the contrary. +"More than that," thought Letty, "I can't be sure she wouldn't +go, in spite of me, and tell her all about it! and what would +become of me then? I should be worse off a hundred times than if +I had told her myself." + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +WILLIAM MARSTON. + + +The clouds were gathering over Mary, too--deep and dark, but of +altogether another kind from those that enveloped Letty: no +troubles are for one moment to be compared with those that come +of the wrongness, even if it be not wickedness, that is our own. +Some clouds rise from stagnant bogs and fens; others from the +wide, clean, large ocean. But either kind, thank God, will serve +the angels to come down by. In the old stories of celestial +visitants the clouds do much; and it is oftenest of all down the +misty slope of griefs and pains and fears, that the most powerful +joy slides into the hearts of men and women and children. +Beautiful are the feet of the men of science on the dust-heaps of +the world, but the patient heart will yield a myriad times +greater thanks for the clouds that give foothold to the shining +angels. + +Few people were interested in William Marston. Of those who saw +him in the shop, most turned from him to his jolly partner. But a +few there were who, some by instinct, some from experience, did +look for him behind the counter, and were disappointed if he were +absent: most of them had a repugnance to the over-complaisant +Turnbull. Yet Marston was the one whom the wise world of +Testbridge called the hypocrite, and Turnbull was the plain- +spoken, agreeable, honest man of the world, pretending to be no +better either than himself or than other people. The few friends, +however, that Marston bad, loved him as not many are loved: they +knew him, not as he seemed to the careless eye, but as he was. +Never did man do less either to conceal or to manifest himself. +He was all taken up with what he loved, and that was neither +himself nor his business. These friends knew that, when the far- +away look was on him, when his face was paler, and he seemed +unaware of person or thing about him, he was not indifferent to +their presence, or careless of their existence; it was only that +his thoughts were out, like heavenly bees, foraging; a word of +direct address brought him back in a moment, and his soul would +return to them with a smile. He stood as one on the keystone of a +bridge, and held communion now with these, now with those: on +this side the river and on that, both companies were his own. + +He was not a man of much education, in the vulgar use of the +word; but he was a good way on in that education, for the sake of +which, and for no other without it, we are here in our +consciousness--the education which, once begun, will, soon or +slow, lead knowledge captive, and teaches nothing that has to be +unlearned again, because every flower of it scatters the seed of +one better than itself. The main secret of his progress, the +secret of all wisdom, was, that with him action was the beginning +and end of thought. He was not one of that cloud of false +witnesses, who, calling themselves Christians, take no trouble +for the end for which Christ was born, namely, their salvation +from unrighteousness--a class that may be divided into the +insipid and the offensive, both regardless of obedience, the +former indifferent to, the latter contentious for doctrine. + +It may well seem strange that such a man should have gone into +business with such another as John Turnbull; but the latter had +been growing more and more common, while Marston had been growing +more and more refined. Still from the first it was an unequal +yoking of believer with unbeliever--just as certainly, although +not with quite such wretched results, as would have been the +marriage of Mary Marston and George Turnbull. And it had been a +great trial: punishment had not been spared--with best results in +patience and purification; for so are our false steps turned back +to good by the evil to which they lead us. Turnbull was ready to +take every safe advantage to be gained from his partner's +comparative carelessness about money. He drew a larger proportion +of the profits than belonged to his share in the capital, +justifying himself on the ground that he had a much larger +family, did more of the business, and had to keep up the standing +of the firm. He made him pay more than was reasonable for the +small part of the house yielded from storage to the accommodation +of him, his daughter, and their servant, notwithstanding that, if +they had not lived there, some one must have been paid to do so. +Far more than this, careless of his partner's rights, and +insensible to his interests, he had for some time been risking +the whole affair by private speculations. After all, Marston was +the safer man of business, even from the worldly point of view. +Alone, it is true, he would hardly have made money, but he would +have got through, and would have left his daughter the means of +getting through also; for he would have left her in possession of +her own peace and the confidence of her friends, which will +always prove enough for those who confess themselves to be +strangers and pilgrims on the earth--those who regard it as a +grand staircase they have to climb, not a plain on which to build +their houses and plant their vineyards. + +As to the peculiar doctrines of the sect to which he had joined +himself, right or wrong in themselves, Marston, after having +complied with what seemed to him the letter of the law concerning +baptism, gave himself no further trouble. He had for a long time +known--for, by the power of the life in him, he had gathered from +the Scriptures the finest of the wheat, where so many of every +sect, great church and little church, gather only the husks and +chaff--that the only baptism of any avail is the washing of the +fresh birth, and the making new by that breath of God, which, +breathed into man's nostrils, first made of him a living soul. +When a man _knows_ this, potentially he knows all things. +But, _just therefore_, he did not stand high with his sect +any more than with his customers, though--a fact which Marston +himself never suspected--the influence of his position had made +them choose him for a deacon. One evening George had had leave to +go home early, because of a party at _the villa_, as the +Turnbulls always called their house; and, the boy having also for +some cause got leave of absence, Mr. Marston was left to shut the +shop himself, Mary, who was in some respects the stronger of the +two, assisting him. When he had put up the last shutter, he +dropped his arms with a weary sigh. Mary, who had been fastening +the bolts inside, met him in the doorway. + +"You look worn out, father," she said. "Come and lie down, and I +will read to you." + +"I will, my dear," he answered. "I don't feel quite myself to- +night. The seasons tell upon me now. I suppose the stuff of my +tabernacle is wearing thin." + +Mary cast an anxious look at him, for, though never a strong man, +he seldom complained. But she said nothing, and, hoping a good +cup of tea would restore him, led the way through the dark shop +to the door communicating with the house. Often as she had passed +through it thus, the picture of it as she saw it that night was +the only one almost that returned to her afterward: a few vague +streaks of light, from the cracks of the shutters, fed the rich, +warm gloom of the place; one of them fell upon a piece of orange- +colored cotton stuff, which blazed in the dark. + +Arrived at their little sitting-room at the top of the stair, she +hastened to shake up the pillows and make the sofa comfortable +for him. He lay down, and she covered him with a rug; then ran to +her room for a book, and read to him while Beenie was getting the +tea. She chose a poem with which Mr. Wardour had made her +acquainted almost the last tune she was at Thornwick--that was +several weeks ago now, for plainly Letty was not so glad to see +her as she used to be--it was Milton's little ode "On Time," +written for inscription on a clock--one of the grandest of small +poems. Her father knew next to nothing of literature; having +pondered his New Testament, however, for thirty years, he was +capable of understanding Milton's best--to the childlike mind the +best is always simplest and easiest-not unfrequently the +_only_ kind it can lay hold of. When she ended, he made her +read it again, and then again; not until she had read it six +times did he seem content. And every time she read it, Mary found +herself understanding it better. It was gradually growing very +precious. + +Her father had made no remark; but, when she lifted her eyes from +the sixth reading, she saw that his face shone, and, as the last +words left her lips, he took up the line like a refrain, and +repeated it after her: + +"'Triumphing over death, and chance, and thee, O Time!' + +"That will do now, Mary, I thank you," he said. "I have got a +good hold of it, I think, and shall be able to comfort myself +with it when I wake in the night. The man must have been very +like the apostle Paul." + +He said no more. The tea was brought, and he drank a cup of it, +but could not eat; and, as he could not, neither could Mary. + +"I want a long sleep," he said; and the words went to his child's +heart--she dared not question herself why. When the tea-things +were removed, he called her. + +"Mary," he said, "come here. I want to speak to you." + +She kneeled beside him, + +"Mary," he said again, taking her little hand in his two long, +bony ones, "I love you, my child, to that degree I can not say; +and I want you, I do want you, to be a Christian." + +"So do I, father dear," answered Mary simply, the tears rushing +into her eyes at the thought that perhaps she was not one; "I +want me to be a Christian." + +"Yes, my love," he went on; "but it is not that I do not think +you a Christian; it is that I want you to be a downright real +Christian, not one that is but trying to feel as a Christian +ought to feel. I have lost so much precious time in that way!" + +"Tell me--tell me," cried Mary, clasping her other hand over his. +"What would you have me do?" + +"I will tell you. I am just trying how," he responded. "A +Christian is just one that does what the Lord Jesus tells him. +Neither more nor less than that makes a Christian. It is not even +understanding the Lord Jesus that makes one a Christian. That +makes one dear to the Father; but it is being a Christian, that +is, doing what he tells us, that makes us understand him. Peter +says the Holy Spirit is given to them that obey him: what else is +that but just actually, really, doing what he says--just as if I +was to tell you to go and fetch me my Bible, and you would get up +and go? Did you ever do anything, my child, just because Jesus +told you to do it?" + +Mary did not answer immediately. She thought awhile. Then she +spoke. + +"Yes, father," she said, "I think so. Two nights ago, George was +very rude to me--I don't mean anything bad, but you know he is +very rough." + +"I know it, my child. And you must not think I don't care because +I think it better not to interfere. I am with you all the time." + +"Thank you, father; I know it. Well, when I was going to bed, I +was angry with him still, so it was no wonder I found I could not +say my prayers. Then I remembered how Jesus said we must forgive +or we should not be forgiven. So I forgave him with all my heart, +and kindly, too, and then I found I could pray." + +The father stretched out his arms and drew her to his bosom, +murmuring, "My child! my Christ's child!" After a little he began +to talk again. + +"It is a miserable thing to hear those who desire to believe +themselves Christians, talking and talking about this question +and that, the discussion of which is all for strife and nowise +for unity--not a thought among them of the one command of Christ, +to love one another. I fear some are hardly content with not +hating those who differ from them." + +"I am sure, father, I try--and I think I do love everybody that +loves him," said Mary. + +"Well, that is much--not enough though, my child. We must be like +Jesus, and you know that it was while we were yet sinners that +Christ died for us; therefore we must love all men, whether they +are Christians or not." + +"Tell me, then, what you want me to do, father dear. I will do +whatever you tell me." + +"I want you to be just like that to the Lord Christ, Mary. I want +you to look out for his will, and find it, and do it. I want you +not only to do it, though that is the main thing, when you think +of it, but to look for it, that you may do it. I need not say to +you that this is not a thing to be _talked_ about much, for +you don't do that. You may think me very silent, my love; but I +do not talk always when I am inclined, for the fear I might let +my feeling out that way, instead of doing something he wants of +me with it. And how repulsive and full of offense those generally +are who talk most! Our strength ought to go into conduct, not +into talk--least of all, into talk about what they call the +doctrines of the gospel. The man who does what God tells him, +sits at his Father's feet, and looks up in his Father's face; and +men had better leave him alone, for he can not greatly mistake +his Father, and certainly will not displease him. Look for the +lovely will, my child, that you may be its servant, its priest, +its sister, its queen, its slave--as Paul calls himself. How that +man did glory in his Master!" + +"I will try, father," returned Mary, with a burst of tears. "I do +want to be good. I do want to be one of his slaves, if I may." + +"_May!_ my child? You are bound to be. You have no choice +but choose it. It is what we are made for--freedom, the divine +nature, God's life, a grand, pure, open-eyed existence! It is +what Christ died for. You must not talk about _may;_ it is +all _must._" + +Mary had never heard her father talk like this, and, +notwithstanding the endless interest of his words, it frightened +her. An instinctive uneasiness crept up and laid hold of her. The +unsealing hand of Death was opening the mouth of a dumb prophet. + +A pause followed, and he spoke again. + +"I will tell you one thing now that Jesus says: he is +unchangeable; what he says once he says always; and I mention it +now, because it may not be long before you are specially called +to mind it. It is this: _'Let not your heart be troubled.'_" + +"But he said that on one particular occasion, and to his +disciples--did he not?" said Mary, willing, in her dread, to give +the conversation a turn. + +"Ah, Mary!" said her father, with a smile, "_will_ you let +the questioning spirit deafen you to the teaching one? Ask +yourself, the first time you are alone, what the disciples were +not to be troubled about, and why they were not to be troubled +about it.--I am tired, and should like to go to bed." + +He rose, and stood for a moment in front of the fire, winding his +old double-cased silver watch. Mary took from her side the little +gold one he had given her, and, as was her custom, handed it to +him to wind for her. The next moment he had dropped it on the +fender. + +"Ah, my child!" he cried, and, stooping, gathered up a dying +thing, whose watchfulness was all over. The glass was broken; the +case was open; it lay in his hand a mangled creature. Mary heard +the rush of its departing life, as the wheels went whirring, and +the hands circled rapidly. + +They stopped motionless. She looked up in her father's face with +a smile. He was looking concerned. + +"I am very sorry, Mary," he said; "but, if it is past repair, I +will get you another.--You don't seem to mind it much!" he added, +and smiled himself. + +"Why should I, father dear?" she replied. "When one's father +breaks one's watch, what is there to say but 'I am very glad it +was you did it'? I shall like the little thing the better for +it." + +He kissed her on the forehead. + +"My child, say that to your Father in heaven, when he breaks +something for you. He will do it from love, not from blundering. +I don't often preach to you, my child--do I? but somehow it comes +to me to-night." + +"I will remember, father," said Mary; and she did remember. + +She went with him to his bedroom, and saw that everything was +right for him. When she went again, before going to her own, he +felt more comfortable, he said, and expected to have a good +night. Relieved, she left him; but her heart would be heavy. A +shapeless sadness seemed pressing it down; it was being got ready +for what it had to bear. + +When she went to his room in the middle of the night, she found +him slumbering peacefully, and went back to her own and slept +better. When she went again in the morning, he lay white, +motionless, and without a breath. + +It was not in Mary's nature to give sudden vent to her feelings. +For a time she was stunned. As if her life had rushed to overtake +her departing parent, and beg a last embrace, she stood gazing +motionless. The sorrow was too huge for entrance. The thing could +not be! Not until she stooped and kissed the pale face, did the +stone in her bosom break, and yield a torrent of grief. But, +although she had left her father in that very spot the night +before, already she not only knew but felt that was not he which +lay where she had left him. He was gone, and she was alone. She +tried to pray, but her heart seemed to lie dead in her bosom, and +no prayer would rise from it. It was the time of all times when, +if ever, prayer must be the one reasonable thing--and pray she +could not. In her dull stupor she did not hear Beenie's knock. +The old woman entered, and found her on her knees, with her +forehead on one of the dead hands, while the white face of her +master lay looking up to heaven, as if praying for the living not +yet privileged to die. Then first was the peace of death broken. +Beenie gave a loud cry, and turned and ran, as if to warn the +neighbors that Death was loose in the town. Thereupon, as if +Death were a wild beast yet lurking in it, the house was filled +with noise and tumult; the sanctuary of the dead was invaded by +unhallowed presence; and the poor girl, hearing behind her voices +she did not love, raised herself from her knees, and, without +lifting her eyes, crept from the room and away to her own. + +"Follow her, George," said his father, in a loud, eager whisper. +"You've got to comfort her now. That's your business, George. +There's your chance!" + +The last words he called from the bottom of the stair, as George +sped up after her. "Mary! Mary, dear," he called as he ran. + +But Mary had the instinct--it was hardly more--to quicken her +pace, and lock the door of her room the moment she entered. As +she turned from it, her eye fell upon her watch--where it lay, +silent and disfigured, on her dressing-table; and, with the +sight, the last words of her father came back to her. She fell +again on her knees with a fresh burst of weeping, and, while the +foolish youth was knocking unheard at her door, cried, with a +strange mixture of agony and comfort, "O my Father in heaven, +give me back William Marston!" Never in his life had she thought +of her father by his name; but death, while it made him dearer +than ever, set him away from her so, that she began to see him in +his larger individuality, as a man before the God of men, a son +before the Father of many sons: Death turns a man's sons and +daughters into his brothers and sisters. And while she kneeled, +and, with exhausted heart, let her brain go on working of itself, +as it seemed, came a dreamy vision of the Saviour with his +disciples about him, reasoning with them that they should not +give way to grief. "Let not your heart be troubled," he seemed to +be saying, "although I die, and go out of your sight. It is all +well. Take my word for it." + +She rose, wiped her eyes, looked up, said, "I will try, Lord," +and, going down, called Beenie, and sent her to ask Mr. Turnbull +to speak with her. She knew her father's ideas, and must do her +endeavor to have the funeral as simple as possible. It was a +relief to have something, anything, to do in his name. + +Mr. Turnbull came, and the coarse man was kind. It went not a +little against the grain with him to order what he called a +pauper's funeral for the junior partner in the firm; but, more +desirous than ever to conciliate Mary, he promised all that she +wished. + +"Marston was but a poor-spirited fellow," he said to his wife +when he told her; "the thing is a disgrace to the shop, but it's +fit enough for him.--It will be so much money saved," he added in +self-consolation, while his wife turned up her nose, as she +always did at any mention of the shop. + +Mary returned to her father's room, now silent again with the air +of that which is not. She took from the table the old silver +watch. It went on measuring the time by a scale now useless to +its owner. She placed it lovingly in her bosom, and sat down by +the bedside. Already, through love, sorrow, and obedience, she +began to find herself drawing nearer to him than she had ever +been before; already she was able to recall his last words, and +strengthen her resolve to keep them. And, sitting thus, holding +vague companionship with the merely mortal, the presence of that +which was not her father, which was like him only to remind her +that it was not he, and which must so soon cease to resemble him, +there sprang, as in the very footprint of Death, yet another +flower of rarest comfort--a strong feeling, namely, of the +briefness of time, and the certainty of the messenger's return to +fetch herself. Her soul did not sink into peace, but a strange +peace awoke in her spirit. She heard the spring of the great +clock that measures the years rushing rapidly down with a +feverous whir, and saw the hands that measure the weeks and +months careering around its face; while Death, like one of the +white-robed angels in the tomb of the Lord, sat watching, with +patient smile, for the hour when he should be wanted to go for +her. Thus mingled her broken watch, her father's death, and Jean +Paul's dream; and the fancy might well comfort her. + +I will not linger much more over the crumbling time. It is good +for those who are in it, specially good for those who come out of +it chastened and resolved; but I doubt if any prolonged +contemplation of death is desirable for those whose business it +now is to live, and whose fate it is ere long to die. It is a +closing of God's hand upon us to squeeze some of the bad blood +out of us, and, when it relaxes, we must live the more +diligently--not to get ready for death, but to get more life. I +will relate only one thing yet, belonging to this twilight time. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +MARY'S DREAM. + + +That night, and every night until the dust was laid to the dust, +Mary slept well; and through the days she had great composure; +but, when the funeral was over, came a collapse and a change. The +moment it became necessary to look on the world as unchanged, and +resume former relations with it, then, first, a fuller sense of +her lonely desolation declared itself. When she said good night +to Beenie, and went to her chamber, over that where the loved +parent and friend would fall asleep no more, she felt as if she +went walking along to her tomb. + +That night was the first herald of the coming winter, and blew a +cold blast from his horn. All day the wind had been out. Wildly +in the churchyard it had pulled at the long grass, as if it would +tear it from its roots in the graves; it had struck vague sounds, +as from a hollow world, out of the great bell overhead in the +huge tower; and it had beat loud and fierce against the corner- +buttresses which went stretching up out of the earth, like arms +to hold steady and fast the lighthouse of the dead above the sea +which held them drowned below; despairingly had the gray clouds +drifted over the sky; and, like white clouds pinioned below, and +shadows that could not escape, the surplice of the ministering +priest and the garments of the mourners had flapped and fluttered +as in captive terror; the only still things were the coffin and +the church--and the soul which had risen above the region of +storms in the might of Him who abolished death. At the time Mary +had noted nothing of these things; now she saw them all, as for +the first time, in minute detail, while slowly she went up the +stair and through the narrowed ways, and heard the same wind that +raved alike about the new grave and the old house, into which +latter, for all the bales banked against the walls, it found many +a chink of entrance. The smell of the linen, of the blue cloth, +and of the brown paper--things no longer to be handled by those +tender, faithful hands--was dismal and strange, and haunted her +like things that intruded, things which she had done with, and +which yet would not go away. Everything had gone dead, as it +seemed, had exhaled the soul of it, and retained but the odor of +its mortality. If for a moment a thing looked the same as before, +she wondered vaguely, unconsciously, how it could be. The +passages through the merchandise, left only wide enough for one, +seemed like those she had read of in Egyptian tombs and pyramids: +a sarcophagus ought to be waiting in her chamber. When she opened +the door of it, the bright fire, which Beenie undesired had +kindled there, startled her: the room looked unnatural, +_uncanny_, because it was cheerful. She stood for a moment +on the hearth, and in sad, dreamy mood listened to the howling +swoops of the wind, making the house quiver and shake. Now and +then would come a greater gust, and rattle the window as if in +fierce anger at its exclusion, then go shrieking and wailing +through the dark heaven. Mechanically she took her New Testament, +and, seating herself in a low chair by the fire, tried to read; +but she could not fix her thoughts, or get the meaning of a +sentence: when she had read it, there it lay, looking at her just +the same, like an unanswered riddle. + +The region of the senses is the unbelieving part of the human +soul; and out of that now began to rise fumes of doubt and +question into Mary's heart and brain. Death was a fact. The loss, +the evanishment, the ceasing, were incontrovertible--the only +incontrovertible things: she was sure of them: could she be sure +of anything else? How could she? She had not seen Christ rise; +she had never looked upon one of the dead; never heard a voice +from the other bank; had received no certain testimony. These +were not her thoughts; she was too weary to think; they were but +the thoughts that steamed up in her, and went floating about +before her; she looked on them calmly, coldly, as they came, and +passed, or remained--saw them with indifference--there they were, +and she could not help it--weariedly, believing none of them, +unable to cope with and dispel them, hardly affected by their +presence, save with a sense of dreariness and loneliness and +wretched company. At last she fell asleep, and in a moment was +dreaming diligently. This was her dream, as nearly as she could +recall it, when she came to herself after waking from it with a +cry. + +She was one of a large company at a house where she had never +been before--a beautiful house with a large garden behind. It was +a summer night, and the guests were wandering in and out at will, +and through house and garden, amid lovely things of all colors +and odors. The moon was shining, and the roses were in pale +bloom. But she knew nobody, and wandered alone in the garden, +oppressed with something she did not understand. Every now and +then she came on a little group, or met a party of the guests, as +she walked, but none spoke to her, or seemed to see her, and she +spoke to none. + +She found herself at length in an avenue of dark trees, the end +of which was far off. Thither she went walking, the only living +thing, crossing strange shadows from the moon. At the end of it +she was in a place of tombs. Terror and a dismay indescribable +seized her; she turned and fled back to the company of her kind. +But for a long time she sought the house in vain; she could not +reach it; the avenue seemed interminable to her feet returning. +At last she was again upon the lawn, but neither man nor woman +was there; and in the house only a light here and there was +burning. Every guest was gone. She entered, and the servants, +soft-footed and silent, were busy carrying away the vessels of +hospitality, and restoring order, as if already they prepared for +another company on the morrow. No one heeded her. She was out of +place, and much unwelcome. She hastened to the door of entrance, +for every moment there was a misery. She reached the hall. A +strange, shadowy porter opened to her, and she stepped out into a +wide street. + +That, too, was silent. No carriage rolled along the center, no +footfarer walked on the side. Not a light shone from window or +door, save what they gave back of the yellow light of the moon. +She was lost--lost utterly, with an eternal loss. She knew +nothing of the place, had nowhere to go, nowhere she wanted to +go, had not a thought to tell her what question to ask, if she +met a living soul. But living soul there could be none to meet. +She had nor home, nor direction, nor desire; she knew of nothing +that she had lost, nor of anything she wished to gain; she had +nothing left but the sense that she was empty, that she needed +some goal, and had none. She sat down upon a stone between the +wide street and the wide pavement, and saw the moon shining gray +upon the stone houses. It was all deadness. + +Presently, from somewhere in the moonlight, appeared, walking up +to her, where she sat in eternal listlessness, the one only +brother she had ever had. She had lost him years and years +before, and now she saw him; he was there, and she knew him. But +not a throb went through her heart. He came to her side, and she +gave him no greeting. "Why should I heed him?" she said to +herself. "He is dead. I am only in a dream. This is not he; it is +but his pitiful phantom that comes wandering hither--a ghost +without a heart, made out of the moonlight. It is nothing. I am +nothing. I am lost. Everything is an empty dream of loss. I know +it, and there is no waking. If there were, surely the sight of +him would give me some shimmer of delight. The old time was but a +thicker dream, and this is truer because more shadowy." And, the +form still standing by her, she felt it was ages away; she was +divided from it by a gulf of very nothingness. Her only life was, +that she was lost. Her whole consciousness was merest, all but +abstract, loss. + +Then came the form of her mother, and bent over that of her +brother from behind. "Another ghost of a ghost! another shadow of +a phantom!" she said to herself. "She is nothing to me. If I +speak to her, she is not there. Shall I pour out my soul into the +ear of a mist, a fume from my own brain? Oh, cold creatures, ye +are not what ye seem, and I will none of you!" + +With that, came her father, and stood beside the others, gazing +upon her with still, cold eyes, expressing only a pale quiet. She +bowed her face on her hands, and would not regard him. Even if he +were alive, her heart was past being moved. It was settled into +stone. The universe was sunk in one of the dreams that haunt the +sleep of death; and, if these were ghosts at all, they were +ghosts walking in their sleep. + +But the dead, one of them seized one of her hands, and another +the other. They raised her to her feet, and led her along, and +her brother walked before. Thus was she borne away captive of her +dead, neither willing nor unwilling, of life and death equally +careless. Through the moonlight they led her from the city, and +over fields, and through valleys, and across rivers and seas--a +long journey; nor did she grow weary, for there was not life +enough in her to be made weary. The dead never spoke to her, and +she never spoke to them. Sometimes it seemed as if they spoke to +each other, but, if it were so, it concerned some shadowy matter, +no more to her than the talk of grasshoppers in the field, or of +beetles that weave their much-involved dances on the face of the +pool. Their voices were even too thin and remote to rouse her to +listen. + +They came at length to a great mountain, and, as they were going +up the mountain, light began to grow, as if the sun were +beginning to rise. But she cared as little for the sun that was +to light the day as for the moon that had lighted the night, and +closed her eyes, that she might cover her soul with her eyelids. + +Of a sudden a great splendor burst upon her, and through her +eyelids she was struck blind--blind with light and not with +darkness, for all was radiance about her. She was like a fish in +a sea of light. But she neither loved the light nor mourned the +shadow. + +Then were her ears invaded with a confused murmur, as of the +mingling of all sweet sounds of the earth--of wind and water, of +bird and voice, of string and metal--all afar and indistinct. +Next arose about her a whispering, as of winged insects, talking +with human voices; but she listened to nothing, and heard nothing +of what was said: it was all a tiresome dream, out of which +whether she waked or died it mattered not. + +Suddenly she was taken between two hands, and lifted, and seated +upon knees like a child, and she felt that some one was looking +at her. Then came a voice, one that she never heard before, yet +with which she was as familiar as with the sound of the blowing +wind. And the voice said, "Poor child! something has closed the +valve between her heart and mine." With that came a pang of +intense pain. But it was her own cry of speechless delight that +woke her from her dream. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE HUMAN SACRIFICE. + + +The same wind that rushed about the funeral of William Marston in +the old churchyard of Testbridge, howled in the roofless hall and +ruined tower of Durnmelling, and dashed against the plate-glass +windows of the dining-room, where the three ladies sat at lunch. +Immediately it was over, Lady Malice rose, saying: + +"Hesper, I want a word with you. Come to my room." + +Hesper obeyed, with calmness, but without a doubt that evil +awaited her there. To that room she had never been summoned for +anything she could call good. And indeed she knew well enough +what evil it was that to-day played the Minotaur. When they +reached the boudoir, rightly so called, for it was more in use +for _sulking_ than for anything else, Lady Margaret, with +back as straight as the door she had just closed, led the way to +the fire, and, seating herself, motioned Hesper to a chair. +Hesper again obeyed, looking as unconcerned as if she cared for +nothing in this world or in any other. Would we were all as +strong to suppress hate and fear and anxiety as some ladies are +to suppress all show of them! Such a woman looks to me like an +automaton, in which a human soul, somewhere concealed, tries to +play a good game of life, and makes a sad mess of it. + +"Well, Hesper, what do you think?" said her mother, with a dull +attempt at gayety, which could nowise impose upon the experience +of her daughter. + +"I think nothing, mamma," drawled Hesper. + +"Mr. Redmain has come to the point at last, my dear child." + +"What point, mamma?" + +"He had a private interview with your father this morning." + +"Indeed!" + +"Foolish girl! you think to tease me by pretending indifference!" + +"How can a fact be pretended, mamma? Why should I care what +passes in the study? I was never welcome there. But, if you wish, +I will pretend. What important matter was settled in the study +this morning?" + +"Hesper, you provoke me with your affectation!" + +Hesper's eyes began to flash. Otherwise she was still--silent-- +not a feature moved. The eyes are more untamable than the tongue. +When the wild beast can not get out at the door, nothing can keep +him from the windows. The eyes flash when the will is yet lord +even of the lines of the mouth. Not a nerve of Hesper's quivered. +Though a mere child in the knowledge that concerned her own +being, even the knowledge of what is commonly called the heart, +she was yet a mistress of the art of self-defense, socially +applied, and she would not now put herself at the disadvantage of +taking anything for granted, or accept the clearest hint for a +plain statement. She not merely continued silent, but looked so +utterly void of interest, or desire to speak, that her mother, +recognizing her own child, and quailing before the evil spirit +she had herself sent on to the generations to come, yielded and +spoke out. + +"Mr. Redmain has proposed for your hand, Hesper," she said, in a +tone as indifferent in her turn as if she were mentioning the +appointment of a new clergyman to the family living. + +For one moment, and one only, the repose of Hesper's faultless +upper lip gave way; one writhing movement of scorn passed along +its curves, and left them for a moment straightened out--to +return presently to a grander bend than before. In a tone that +emulated, and more than equaled, the indifference of her +mother's, she answered: + +"And papa?" + +"Has referred him to you, of course," replied Lady Margaret. + +"Meaning it?" + +"What else? Why not? Is he not a _bon parli?_" + +"Then papa did not mean it?" "I do not understand you," +elaborated the mother, with a mingled yawn, which she was far +from attempting to suppress, seeing she simulated it. + +"If Mr. Redmain is such a good match in papa's eyes," explained +Hesper, "why does papa refer him to me?" + +"That you may accept him, of course." + +"How much has the man promised to pay for me?" + +"_Hesper!_" + +"I beg your pardon, mamma. I thought you approved of calling +things by their right names!" + +"No girl can do better than follow her mother's example," said +Lady Margaret, with vague sequence. "If _you_ do, Hesper, +you will accept Mr. Redmain." + +Hesper fixed her eyes on her mother, but hers were too cold and +clear to quail before them, let them flash and burn as they +pleased. + +"As you did papa?" said Hesper. + +"As I did Mr. Mortimer." + +"That explains a good deal, mamma." + +"We are _your_ parents, anyhow, Hesper." + +"I suppose so. I don't know which to be sorrier for--you or me. +Tell me, mamma: would _you_ marry Mr. Redmain?" + +"That is a foolish question, and ought not to be put. It is one +which, as a married woman, I could not consider without +impropriety. Knowing the duty of a daughter, I did not put the +question to _you_. You are yourself the offspring of duty." + +"If you were in my place, mamma," reattempted Hesper, but her +mother did not allow her to proceed. + +"In any place, in every place, I should do my duty," she said. + +It was not only born in Lady Malice's blood, but from earliest +years, had been impressed on her brain, that her first duty was +to her family, and mainly consisted in getting well out of its +way--in going peaceably through the fire to Moloch, that the rest +might have good places in the Temple of Mammon. In her turn, she +had trained her children to the bewildering conviction that it +was duty to do a certain wrong, if it should be required. That +wrong thing was now required of Hesper--a thing she scorned, +hated, shuddered at; she must follow the rest; her turn to be +sacrificed was come; she must henceforth be a living lie. She +could recompense herself as the daughters who have sinned by +yielding generally do when they are mothers, with the sin of +compelling, and thus make the trespass round and full. There is +in no language yet the word invented to fit the vileness of such +mothers; but, as time flows and speech grows, it may be found, +and, when it is found, it will have action retrospective. It is a +frightful thing when ignorance of evil, so much to be desired +where it can contribute to safety, is employed to smooth the way +to the unholiest doom, in which love itself must ruthlessly +perish, and those, who on the plea of virtue were kept ignorant, +be perfected in the image of the mothers who gave them over to +destruction. Some, doubtless, of the innocents thus immolated +pass even through hideous fires of marital foulness to come out +the purer and the sweeter; but whither must the stone about the +neck of those that cause the little ones to offend sink those +mothers? What company shall in the end be too low, too foul for +them? Like to like it must always be. + +Hesper was not so ignorant as some girls; she had for some time +had one at her side capable of casting not a little light of the +kind that is darkness. + +"_Duty_, mamma!" she cried, her eyes flaming, and her cheek +flushed with the shame of the thing that was but as yet the +merest object in her thought; "can a woman be born for such +things? How _could_ I--mamma, how could any woman, with an +atom of self-respect, consent to occupy the same--_room_ +with Mr. Redmain?" + +"Hesper! I am shocked. _Where_ did you learn to speak, not +to say _think_, of such things? Have I taken such pains-- +good God! you strike me dumb! Have I watched my child like a +very--angel, as anxious to keep her mind pure as her body fair, +and is _this_ the result?" Upon what Lady Margaret founded +her claim to a result more satisfactory to her maternal designs, +it were hard to say. For one thing, she had known nothing of what +went on in her nursery, positively nothing of the real character +of the women to whom she gave the charge of it; and--although, I +dare say, for worldly women, Hesper's schoolmistresses were quite +respectable--what did her mother, what could she know of the +governesses or of the flock of sheep--all presumably, but how +certainly _all_ white?--into which she had sent her? + +"Is _this_ the result?" said Lady Margaret. + +"Was it your object, then, to keep me innocent, only that I might +have the necessary lessons in wickedness first from my husband?" +said Hesper, with a rudeness for which, if an apology be +necessary, I leave my reader to find it. + +"Hesper, you are vulgar!" said Lady Margaret, with cold +indignation, and an expression of unfeigned disgust. She was, +indeed, genuinely shocked. That a young lady of Hesper's birth +and position should talk like this, actually objecting to a man +as her husband because she recoiled from his wickedness, of which +she was not to be supposed to know, or to be capable of +understanding, anything, was a thing unheard of in her world-a +thing unmaidenly in the extreme! What innocent girl would or +could or dared allude to such matters? She had no right to know +an atom about them! + +"You are a married woman, mamma," returned Hesper, "and therefore +must know a great many things I neither know nor wish to know. +For anything I know, you may be ever so much a better woman than +I, for having learned not to mind things that are a horror to me. +But there was a time when you shrunk from them as I do now. I +appeal to you as a woman: for God's sake, save me from marrying +that wretch!" + +She spoke in a tone inconsistently calm. + +"Girl! is it possible you dare to call the man, whom your father +and I have chosen for your husband, a wretch!" + +"Is he not a wretch, mamma?" + +"If he were, how should I know it? What has any lady got to do +with a man's secrets?" + +"Not if he wants to marry her daughter?" + +"Certainly not. If he should not be altogether what he ought to +be--and which of us is?--then you will have the honor of +reclaiming him. But men settle down when they marry." + +"And what comes of their wives?" + +"What comes of women. You have your mother before you, Hesper." + +"O mother!" cried Hesper, now at length losing the horrible +affectation of calm which she had been taught to regard as _de +rigueur_, "is it possible that you, so beautiful, so +dignified, would send me on to meet things you dare not tell me-- +knowing they would turn me sick or mad? How dares a man like that +even desire in his heart to touch an innocent girl?" + +"Because he is tired of the other sort," said Lady Malice, half +unconsciously, to herself. What she said to her daughter was ten +times worse: the one was merely a fact concerning Redmain; the +other revealed a horrible truth concerning herself. "He will +settle three thousand a year on you, Hesper," she said with a +sigh; "and you will find yourself mistress." + +"I don't doubt it," answered Hesper, in bitter scorn. "Such a man +is incapable of making any woman a wife." + +Hesper meant an awful spiritual fact, of which, with all her +ignorance of human nature, she had yet got a glimpse in her +tortured reflections of late; but her mother's familiarity with +evil misinterpreted her innocence, and caused herself utter +dismay. What right had a girl to think at all for herself in such +matters? Those were things that must be done, not thought of! + + "These things must not be thought + After these ways; so, they will drive us mad." + +Yes, these things are hard to think about--harder yet to write +about! The very persons who would send the white soul into arms +whose mere touch is a dishonor will be the first to cry out with +indignation against that writer as shameless who but utters the +truth concerning the things they mean and do; they fear lest +their innocent daughters, into whose hands his books might +chance, by ill luck, to fall, should learn that it is _their_ +business to keep themselves pure.--Ah, sweet mothers! do +not be afraid. You have brought them up so carefully, +that they suspect you no more than they do the well-bred +gentlemen you would have them marry. And have they not your blood +in them? That will go far. Never heed the foolish puritan. Your +mothers succeeded with you: you will succeed with your daughters. + +But it is a shame to speak of those things that are done of you +in secret, and I will forbear. Thank God, the day will come--it +may be thousands of years away--when there shall be no such +things for a man to think of, any more than for a girl to shudder +at! There is a purification in progress, and the kingdom of +heaven _will_ come, thanks to the Man who was holy, +harmless, undefined, and separate from sinners. You have heard a +little, probably only a little, about him at church sometimes. +But, when that day comes, what part will you have had in causing +evil to cease from the earth? + +There had been a time in the mother's life when she herself +regarded her approaching marriage, with a man she did not love, +as a horror to which her natural maidenliness--a thing she could +not help--had to be compelled and subjected: of the true +maidenliness--that before which the angels make obeisance, and +the lion cowers--she never had had any; for that must be gained +by the pure will yielding itself to the power of the highest. +Hence she had not merely got used to the horror, but in a measure +satisfied with it; never suspecting, because never caring enough, +that she had at the same time, and that not very gradually, been +assimilating to the horror; had lost much of what purity she had +once had, and become herself unclean, body and mind, in the +contact with uncleanness. One thing she did know, and that +swallowed up all the rest--that her husband's affairs were so +involved as to threaten absolute poverty; and what woman of the +world would not count damnation better than that?--while Mr. +Redmain was rolling in money. Had she known everything bad of her +daughter's suitor, short of legal crime, for her this would have +covered it all. + +In Hesper's useless explosion the mother did not fail to +recognize the presence of Sepia, without whose knowledge of the +bad side of the world, Hesper, she believed, could not have been +awake to so much. But she was afraid of Sepia. Besides, the thing +was so far done; and she did not think she would work to thwart +the marriage. On that point she would speak to her. + +But it was a doubtful service that Sepia had rendered her cousin +--to rouse her indignation and not her strength; to wake horror +without hinting at remedy; to give knowledge of impending doom, +without poorest suggestion of hope, or vaguest shadow of possible +escape. It is one thing to see things as they are; to be consumed +with indignation at the wrong; to shiver with aversion to the +abominable; and quite another to rouse the will to confront the +devil, and resist him until he flee. For this the whole education +of Hesper had tended to unfit her. What she had been taught--and +that in a world rendered possible only by the self-denial of a +God--was to drift with the stream, denying herself only that +divine strength of honest love, which would soonest help her to +breast it. + +For the earth, it is a blessed thing that those who arrogate to +themselves the holy name of society, and to whom so large a +portion of the foolish world willingly yields it, are in reality +so few and so ephemeral. Mere human froth are they, worked up by +the churning of the world-sea--rainbow-tinted froth, lovely +thinned water, weaker than the unstable itself out of which it is +blown. Great as their ordinance seems, it is evanescent as +arbitrary: the arbitrary is but the slavish puffed up--and is +gone with the hour. The life of the people is below; it ferments, +and the scum is for ever being skimmed off, and cast--God knows +where. All is scum where will is not. They leave behind them +influences indeed, but few that keep their vitality in shapes of +art or literature. There they go--little sparrows of the human +world, chattering eagerly, darting on every crumb and seed of +supposed advantage! while from behind the great dustman's cart, +the huge tiger-cat of an eternal law is creeping upon them. Is it +a spirit of insult that leads me to such a comparison? Where +human beings do not, will not _will_, let them be ladies +gracious as the graces, the comparison is to the disadvantage of +the sparrows. Not time, but experience will show that, although +indeed a simile, this is no hyperbole. + +"I will leave your father to deal with you, Hesper," said her +mother, and rose. + +Up to this point, Mortimer children had often resisted their +mother; beyond this point, never more than once. + +"No, please, mamma!" returned Hesper, in a tone of expostulation. +"I have spoken my mind, but that is no treason. As my father has +referred Mr. Redmain to me, I would rather deal with him." + +Lady Malice was herself afraid of her husband. There is many a +woman, otherwise courageous enough, who will rather endure the +worst and most degrading, than encounter articulate insult. The +mere lack of conscience gives the scoundrel advantage +incalculable over the honest man; the lack of refinement gives a +similar advantage to the cad over the gentleman; the combination +of the two lacks elevates the husband and father into an +autocrat. Hesper was not one her world would have counted weak; +she had physical courage enough; she rode well, and without fear; +she sat calm in the dentist's chair; she would have fought with +knife and pistol against violence to the death; and yet, rather +than encounter the brutality of an evil-begotten race +concentrated in her father, she would yield herself to a +defilement eternally more defiling than that she would both kill +and die to escape. + +"Give me a few hours first, mamma," she begged. "Don't let him +come to me just yet. For all your hardness, you feel a little for +me--don't you?" + +"Duty is always hard, my child," said Lady Margaret. She entirely +believed it, and looked on herself as a martyr, a pattern of +self-devotion and womanly virtue. But, had she been certain of +escaping discovery, she would have slipped the koh-i-noor into +her belt-pouch, notwithstanding. Never once in her life had she +done or abstained from doing a thing _because that thing was +right or was wrong. Such a person, be she as old and as hard as +the hills, is mere putty in the fingers of Beelzebub. Hesper rose +and went to her own room. There, for a long hour, she sat--with +the skin of her fair face drawn tight over muscles rigid as +marble--sat without moving, almost without thinking--in a mere +hell of disgusted anticipation. She neither stormed nor wept; her +life went smoldering on; she nerved herself to a brave endurance, +instead of a far braver resistance. + +I fancy Hesper would have been a little shocked if one had called +her an atheist. She went to church most Sundays--when in the +country; for, in the opinion of Lady Margaret, it was not +decorous _there_ to omit the ceremony: where you have +influence you ought to set a good example--of hypocrisy, namely! +But, if any one had suggested to Hesper a certain old-fashioned +use of her chamber-door, she would have inwardly laughed at the +absurdity. But, then, you see, her chamber was no closet, but a +large and stately room; and, besides, how, alas! _could_ the +child of Roger and Lady M. Alice Mortimer know that in the +silence was hearing--that in the vacancy was a power waiting to +be sought? Hesper was not much alone, and here was a chance it +was a pity she should lose; but, when she came to herself with a +sigh, it was not to pray, and, when she rose, it was to ring the +bell. + +A good many minutes passed before it was answered. She paced the +room--swiftly; she could sit, but she could not walk slowly. With +her hands to her head, she went sweeping up and down. Her maid's +knock arrested her before her toilet-table, with her back to the +door. In a voice of perfect composure, she desired the woman to +ask Miss Yolland to come to her. + +Entering with a slight stoop from the waist, Sepia, with a long, +rapid, yet altogether graceful step, bore down upon Hesper like a +fast-sailing cutter over broad waves, relaxing her speed as she +approached her. + +"Here I am, Hesper!" she said. + +"Sepia," said Hesper, "I am sold." + +Miss Yolland gave a little laugh, showing about the half of her +splendid teeth--a laugh to which Hesper was accustomed, but the +meaning of which she did not understand--nor would, without +learning a good deal that were better left unlearned. "To Mr. +Redmain, of course!" she said. + +Hesper nodded. + +"When are you going to be--"--she was about to say "cut up" but +there was a something occasionally visible in Hesper that now and +then checked one of her less graceful coarsenesses. "When is the +purchase to be completed?" she asked, instead. + +"Good Heavens, Sepia! don't be so heartless!" cried Hesper. +"Things are not quite so bad as that! I am not yet in the hell of +knowing that. The day is not fixed for the great red dragon to +make a meal of me." + +"I see you were not asleep in church, as I thought, all the time +of the sermon, last Sunday," said Sepia. + +"I did my best, but I could not sleep: every time little Mowbray +mentioned the beast, I thought of Mr. Redmain; and it made me too +miserable to sleep." + +"Poor Hesper!--Well! let us hope that, like the beast in the +fairy-tale, he will turn out a man after all." + +"My heart will break," cried Hesper, throwing herself into a +chair. "Pity me, Sepia; _you_ love me a little." + +A slight shadow darkened yet more Sepia's shadowy brow. + +"Hesper," she said, gravely, "you never told me there was +anything of that sort! Who is it?" + +"Mr. Redmain, of course!--I don't know what you mean, Sepia." + +"You said your heart was breaking: who is it for?" asked Sepia, +almost imperiously, and raising her voice a little. + +"Sepia!" cried Hesper, in bewilderment. + +"Why should your heart be breaking, except you loved somebody?" + +"Because I hate _him_," answered Hesper. + +"Pooh! is that all?" returned Miss Yolland. "If there were +anybody you wanted--then I grant!" + +"Sepia!" said Hesper, almost entreatingly, "I can not bear to be +teased to-day. Do be open with me. You always puzzle me so! I +don't understand you a bit better than the first day you came to +us. I have got used to you--that is all. Tell me--are you my +friend, or are you in league with mamma? I have my doubts. I +can't help it, Sepia." + +She looked in her face pitifully. Miss Yolland looked at her +calmly, as if waiting for her to finish. + +"I thought you would--not help me," Hesper went on, "--that no +one can except God--he could strike me dead; but I did think you +would feel for me a little. I hate Mr. Redmain, and I loathe +myself. If _you_ laugh at me, I shall take poison." + +"I wouldn't do that," returned Miss Yolland, quite gravely, and +as if she had already contemplated the alternative; "--that is, +not so long as there was a turn of the game left." + +"The game!" echoed Hesper. "--Playing for love with the devil!--I +wish the game were yours, as you call it!" + +"Mine I'd make it, if I had it to play," returned Sepia. "I wish +I were the other player instead of you, but the man hates me. +Some men do.--Come," she went on, "I will be open with you, +Hesper; you don't hang for thoughts in England. I will tell you +what I would do with a man I hated--that is, if I was compelled +to marry him; it would hardly be fair otherwise, and I have a +weakness for fair play.--I would give him absolute fair play." + +The last three words she spoke with a strange expression of +mingled scorn and jest, then paused, and seemed to have said all +she meant to say. + +"Go on," sighed Hesper; "you amuse me." Her tone expressed +anything but amusement. "What would a woman of your experience do +in my place?" + +Sepia fixed a momentary look on Hesper; the words seemed to have +stung her. She knew well enough that, if Lady Malice came to know +anything of her real history, she would have bare time to pack up +her small belongings. She wanted Hesper married, that she might +go with her into the world again; at the same time, she feared +her marriage with Mr. Redmain would hardly favor her wishes. But +she could not with prudence do anything expressly to prevent it; +while she might even please Mr. Redmain a little, if she were +supposed to have used influence on his side. That, however, must +not seem to Hesper. Sepia did not yet know in fact upon what +ground she had to build. + +For some time she had been trying to get nearer to Hesper, but-- +much like Hesper's experience with her--had found herself +strangely baffled, she could not tell how--the barrier being +simply the half innocence, half ignorance, of Hesper. When minds +are not the same, words do not convey between them. + +She gave a ringing laugh, throwing back her head, and showing all +her fine teeth. + +"You want to know what I would do with a man I hated, as you +_say_ you hate Mr. Redmain?--I would send for him at once-- +not wait for him to come to me--and entreat him, _as he loved +me_, to deliver me from the dire necessity of obeying my +father. If he were a gentleman, as I hope he may be, he would +manage to get me out of it somehow, and wouldn't compromise me a +hair's breadth. But, that is, _if I were you_. If I were +_myself_ in your circumstances, and hated him as you do, +that would not serve my turn. I would ask him all the same to set +me free, but I would behave myself so that he could not do it. +While I begged him, I mean, I should make him feel that he could +not--should make him absolutely determined to marry me, at any +price to him, and at whatever cost to me. He should say to +himself that I did not mean what I said--as, indeed, for the sake +of my revenge, I should not. For that I would give anything-- +supposing always, don't you know? that I hated him as you do Mr. +Redmain. He should declare to me it was impossible; that he would +die rather than give up the most precious desire of his life--and +all that rot, you know. I would tell him I hated him--only so +that he should not believe me. I would say to him, 'Release me, +Mr. Redmain, or I will make you repent it. I have given you fair +warning. I have told you I hated you.' He should persist, should +marry me, and then I _would_." + +"Would what?" + +"Do as I said." + +"But what?" + +"Make him repent it." + +With the words, Miss Yolland broke into a second fit of laughter, +and, turning from Hesper, went, with a kind of loitering, +strolling pace toward the door, glancing round more than once, +each time with a fresh bubble rather than ripple in her laughter. +Whether it was all nonsensical merriment, or whether the author +of laughter without fun, Beelzebub himself, was at the moment +stirring in her, Hesper could not have told; as it was, she sat +staring after her, unable even to think. Just as she reached the +door, however, she turned quickly, and, with the smile of a +hearty, innocent child, or something very like it, ran back to +Hesper, threw her arms round her, and said: + +"There, now! I've done for you what I could: I have made you +forget the odious man for a moment. I was curious to know whether +I could not make a bride forget her bridegroom. The other thing +is too easy." + +"What other thing?" + +"To make a bridegroom forget his bride, of course, you silly +child!--But there I am, off again! when really it is time to be +serious, and come to the only important point in the matter.--In +what shade of purity do you think of ascending the funeral pyre? +--In absolute white?--or rose-tinged?--or cream-colored!--or gold- +suspect?--Eh, happy bride?" + +As she ceased, she turned her head away, pulled out her +handkerchief, and whimpered a little. + +"Sepia!" said Hesper, annoyed, "you are a worse goose than I +thought you! What have _you_ got to cry about? _You_ +have not got to marry him!" + +"No; I wish I had!" returned Sepia, wiping her eyes. "Then I +shouldn't lose you. I should take care of that." + +"And am I likely to gain such a friend in Mr. Redmain as to +afford the loss of the only _other_ friend I have?" said +Hesper, calmly. + +"Ah, Hesper! a sad experience has taught me differently, The +moment you are married to the man--as married you will be--you +all are--bluster as you may--that moment you will begin to change +into a wife--a domesticated animal, that is--a tame tabby. +Unwilling a woman must be to confess herself only the better half +of a low-bred brute, with a high varnish--or not, as the case may +be; and there is nothing left her to do but set herself to find +out the wretch's virtues, or, as he hasn't got any, to invent for +him the least unlikely ones. She wants for her own sake to +believe in him, don't you know? Then she begins to repent having +said hard words of the poor gentleman. The next thing, of course, +will be, that you begin to hate the person, to whom you said +them, and to persuade yourself she drew them out of you; and so +you break off all communication with the obnoxious person; who +being, in the present instance, that black-faced sheep, Sepia +Yolland, she is very sorry beforehand, and hates Mr. Redmain with +all her heart; first, because Hesper Mortimer hates him, and +next, but twice as much, because she is going to love him. It is +a great pity _you_ should have him, Hesper. I wish you would +hand him over to me. _I_ shouldn't mind what he was. I +should soon tame him." + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Hesper, with +righteous indignation. "_You would not mind what lie was!_" + +Sepia laughed--this time her curious half-laugh. + +"If I did, I wouldn't marry him, Hesper," she said. "Which is +worse--not to mind, and marry him; or to mind, and marry him all +the same? Eh, Cousin Hesper Mortimer?" + +"I _can't_ make you out, Sepia!" said Hesper. "I believe I +never shall." + +"Very likely. Give it up?" + +"Quite." + +"The best thing you could do. I can't always make myself out. +But, then, I always give it up directly, and so it does me no +harm. But it's ten times worse to worry your poor little heart to +rags about such a man as that; he's not worth a thought from a +grand creature like you. Where's the use, besides? Would you +stand staring at your medicine a whole day before the time for +taking it comes? I wouldn't have my right leg cut off because +that is the side my dog walks on, and dogs go mad! Slip, cup, and +lip--don't you know? The man may be underground long before the +wedding-day: he's anything but sound, they tell me. But it would +be far better soon after it, of course. Think only--a young +widow, rich, and not a straw the worse!" + +"Sepia, I can't for the life of me tell whether you are a Job's +comforter or the devil's advocate." + +"Not the latter, my child; for I want to see you emerge a saint +from the miseries of matrimony. But, whatever you do, Hesper, +don't break your heart, for you will find it hard to mend. I +broke mine once, and have been mad ever since." + +"What is the use of saying that to me, when you know I have to +marry the man?" + +"I never said you were not to marry him; I said you were not to +break your heart. Marriage is nothing so long as you do not make +a heart affair of it; that hurts; and, as you are not in love, +there is no occasion for it at all." + +"Marriage is nothing, Sepia! Is it nothing to be tied to a man-- +to _any_ man--for all your life?" + +"That's as you take it. Nobody makes so much of it nowadays as +they used. The clergy themselves, who are at the bottom of all +the business, don't fuss about every trifle in the prayer-book. +They sign the articles, and have done with it--meaning, of +course, to break them, if they stand in their way." + +Hesper rose in anger. + +"How dare you--" she began. + +"Good gracious!" cried Sepia, "you don't imagine I meant anything +so wicked! How could you let such a thing come into your head? I +declare you are quite dangerous to talk to!" + +"It's such a horrible business," said Hesper, "it seems to make +one capable of anything wicked, only to think about it. I would +rather not say another word on the subject." + +A shudder ran through her, as if at the sight of some hideously +offensive object. + +"That would be the best thing," said Sepia, "if it meant not +think more about it. Everything is better for not being thought +about. I would do anything to comfort you, dear. I would marry +him for you, if that would do; but I fear it would scarcely meet +the views of Herr Papa. If I could please the beast as well--and +I think I should in time--I would willingly hand him the +purchase-money. But, of course, he would scorn to touch it, +except as the proceeds of the _bona-fide_ sale of his own +flesh and blood." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +UNGENEROUS BENEVOLENCE. + + +As the time went on, and Letty saw nothing more of Tom, she began +to revive a little, and feel as if she were growing safe again. +The tide of temptation was ebbing away; there would be no more +deceit; never again would she place herself in circumstances +whence might arise any necessity for concealment. She began, much +too soon, alas! to feel as if she were newborn; nothing worthy of +being called a new birth can take place anywhere but in the will, +and poor Letty's will was not yet old enough to give birth to +anything; it scarcely, indeed, existed. The past was rapidly +receding, that was all, and had begun to look dead, and as if it +wanted only to be buried out of her sight. For what is done is +done, in small faults as well as in murders; and, as nothing can +recall it, or make it not be, where can be the good in thinking +about it?--a reasoning worse than dangerous, before one has left +off being capable of the same thing over again. Still, in the +mere absence of renewed offense, it is well that some shadow of +peace should return; else how should men remember the face of +innocence? or how should they live long enough to learn to +repent? But for such breaks, would not some grow worse at full +gallop? + +That the idea of Tom's friendship was very pleasant to her, who +can blame her? He had never said he loved her; he had only said +she was lovely: was she therefore bound to persuade herself he +meant nothing at all? Was it not as much as could be required of +her, that, in her modesty, she took him for no more than a true, +kind friend, who would gladly be of service to her? Ah! if Tom +had but been that! If he was not, he did not know it, which is +something to say both for and against him. It could not be other +than pleasant to Letty to have one, in her eyes so superior, who +would talk to her as an equal. It was not that ever she resented +being taught; but she did get tired of lessons only, beautiful as +they were. A kiss from Mrs. Wardour, or a little teasing from +Cousin Godfrey, would have done far more than all his +intellectual labor upon her to lift her feet above such snares as +she was now walking amid. She needed some play--a thing far more +important to life than a great deal of what is called business +and acquirement. Many a matter, over which grown people look +important, long-faced, and consequential, is folly, compared with +the merest child's frolic, in relation to the true affairs of +existence. + +All the time, Letty had not in the least neglected her +houseduties; and, again, her readings with her cousin Godfrey, +since Tom's apparent recession, had begun to revive in interest. +He grew kinder and kinder to her, more and more fatherly. + +But the mother, once disquieted, had lost no time in taking +measures. In every direction, secretly, through friends, she was +inquiring after some situation suitable for Letty: she owed it to +herself, she said, to find for the girl the right thing, before +sending her from the house. In the true spirit of benevolent +tyranny, she said not a word to Letty of her design. She had the +chronic distemper of concealment, where Letty had but a feverish +attack. Much false surmise might have been corrected, and much +evil avoided, had she put it in Letty's power to show how gladly +she would leave Thornwick. In the mean time the old lady kept her +lynx-eye upon the young people. + +But Godfrey, having caught a certain expression in the said eye, +came to the resolution that thenceforth their schoolroom should +be the common sitting-room. This would aid him in carrying out +his resolve of a cautious and staid demeanor toward his pupil. To +preserve his freedom, he must keep himself thoroughly in hand. +Experience had taught him that, were he once to give way and show +his affection, there would from that moment be an end of teaching +and learning. And yet so much was he drawn to the girl, that, at +this very time, he gave her the manuscript of his own verses to +which I have referred--a volume exquisitely written, and +containing, certainly, the outcome of the best that was in him: +he did not tell her that he had copied them all with such care +and neatness, and had the book so lovelily bound, expressly and +only for her eyes.. + +News of something that seemed likely to suit her ideas for Letty +at length came to Mrs. Wardour's ears, whereupon she thought it +time to prepare the girl for the impending change. One day, +therefore, as she herself sat knitting one sock for Godfrey, and +Letty darning another, she opened the matter. + +"I am getting old, Letty," she said, "and you can't be here +always. You are a thoughtless creature, but I suppose you have +the sense to see that?" + +"Yes, indeed, aunt," answered Letty. + +"It is high time you should be thinking," Mrs. Wardour went on, +"how you are to earn your bread. If you left it till I was gone, +you would find it very awkward, for you would have to leave +Thornwick at once, and I don't know who would take you while you +were looking out. I must see you comfortably settled before I +go." + +"Yes, aunt." + +"There are not many things you could do." + +"No, aunt; very few. But I should make a better housemaid than +most--I do believe that." + +"I am glad to find you willing to work; but we shall be able, I +trust, to do a little better for you than that. A situation as +housemaid would reflect little credit on my pains for you--would +hardly correspond to the education you have had." + +Mrs. Wardour referred to the fact that Letty was for about a year +a day--boarder at a ladies' school in Testbridge, where no +immortal soul, save that of a genius, which can provide its own +sauce, could have taken the least interest in the chaff and +chopped straw that composed the provender. + +"It is true," her aunt went on, "you might have made a good deal +more of it, if you had cared to do your best; but, such as you +are, I trust we shall find you a very tolerable situation as +governess." + +At the word, Letty's heart ran half-way up her throat. A more +dreadful proposal she could not have imagined. She felt, and was, +utterly insufficient for--indeed, incapable of such an office. +She felt she knew nothing: how was she to teach anything? Her +heart seemed to grow gray within her. By nature, from lack of +variety of experience, yet more from daily repression of her +natural joyousness, she was exceptionally apprehensive where +anything was required of her. What she understood, she +encountered willingly and bravely; but, the simplest thing that +seemed to involve any element of obscurity, she dreaded like a +dragon in his den. + +"You don't seem to relish the proposal, Letty," said Mrs. +Wardour. "I hope you had not taken it in your head that I meant +to leave you independent. What I have done for you, I have done +purely for your father's sake. I was under no obligation to take +the least trouble about you. But I have more regard to your +welfare than I fear you give me credit for." + +"O aunt! it's only that I'm not fit for being a governess. I +shouldn't a bit mind being dairymaid or housemaid. I would go to +such a place to-morrow, if you liked." + +"Letty, your tastes may be vulgar, but you owe it to your family +to look at least like a lady." + +"But I am not scholar enough for a governess, aunt." + +"That is not my fault. I sent you to a good school. Now, I will +find you a good situation, and you must contrive to keep it." + +"O aunt! let me stay here--just as I am. Call me your dairymaid +or your housemaid. It is all one--I do the work now." + +"Do you mean to reflect on me that I have required menial offices +of you? I have been to you in the place of a mother; and it is +for me, not for you, to make choice of your path in life." + +"Do you want me to go at once?" asked Letty, her heart sinking +again, and her voice trembling with a pathos her aunt quite +misunderstood. + +"As soon as I have secured for you a desirable situation--not +before," answered Mrs. Wardour, in a tone generously protective. + +Her affection for the girl had never been deep; and, the moment +she fancied she and her son were drawing toward each other, she +became to her the thawed adder: she wished the adder well, but +was she bound to harbor it after it had begun to bite? There are +who never learn to see anything except in its relation to +themselves, nor that relation except as fancied by themselves; +and, this being a withering habit of mind, they keep growing +drier, and older, and smaller, and deader, the longer they live-- +thinking less of other people, and more of themselves and their +past experience, all the time as they go on withering. + +But Mrs. Wardour was in some dread of what her son would say when +he came to know what she had been doing; for, when we are not at +ease with ourselves, when conscience keeps moving as if about to +speak, then we dread the disapproval of the lowliest, and Godfrey +was the only one before whom his mother felt any kind of awe. +Toward him, therefore, she kept silence for the present. If she +had spoken then, things might have gone very differently: it +might have brought Godfrey to the point of righteous resolve or +of passionate utterance. He could not well have opposed his +mother's design without going further and declaring that, if +Letty would, she should remain where she was, the mistress of the +house. If not the feeling of what was due to her, the dread of +the house without her might well have brought him to this. + +Letty, for her part, believed her cousin Godfrey regarded her +with pity, and showed her kindness from a generous sense of duty; +she was a poor, dull creature for whom her cousin must do what he +could: one word of genuine love from him, one word even of such +love as was in him, would have caused her nature to shoot +heavenward and spread out earthward with a rapidity that would +have astonished him; she would thereby have come into her +spiritual property at once, and heaven would have opened to her-- +a little way at least--probably to close again for a time. Now +she felt crushed. The idea of undertaking that for which she knew +herself so ill fitted was not merely odious but frightful to her. +She was ready enough to work, but it must be real, not sham work. +She must see and consult Mary! This was quite another affair from +Tom! She would take the first opportunity. In the mean time there +was nothing to be done or said; and with a heavy heart she held +her peace--only longed for her own room, that she might have a +cry. To her comfort the clock struck ten, and all that now lay +between her and that refuge was the usual round of the house with +Mrs. Wardour, to see all safe for the night. That done, they +parted, and Letty went slowly and sadly up the stair. It was a +dark prospect before her. At best, she had to leave the only home +she remembered, and go among strangers. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE MOONLIGHT. + + +It was a still, frosty night, with a full moon. When she reached +her chamber, Letty walked mechanically to the window, and there +stood, with the candle in her hand, looking carelessly out, nor +taking any pleasure in the great night. The window looked on an +open, grassy yard, where were a few large ricks of wheat, shining +yellow in the cold, far-off moon. Between the moon and the earth +hung a faint mist, which the thin clouds of her breath seemed to +mingle with and augment. There lay her life--out of doors--dank +and dull; all the summer faded from it--all its atmosphere a +growing fog! She would never see Tom again! It was six weeks +since she saw him last! He must have ceased to think of her by +this time! And, if he did think of her again, she would be far +off, nobody knew where. + +Something struck the window with a slight, sharp clang. It was +winter, and there were no moths or other insects flying, What +could it be? She put her face close to the pane, and looked out. +There was a man in the shadow of one of the ricks! He had his hat +off, and was beckoning to her. It could be nobody but Tom! The +thought sent to her heart a pang of mingled pleasure and pain. +Clearly he wanted to speak to her! How gladly she would! but then +would come again all the trouble of conscious deceit: how was she +to bear that all over again! Still, if she was going to be turned +out of the house so soon, what would it matter? If her aunt was +going to compel her to be her own mistress, where was the harm if +she began it a few days sooner? What did it matter anyhow what +she did? But she dared not speak to him! Mrs. Wardour's ears were +as sharp as her eyes. The very sound of her own voice in the +moonlight would terrify her. She opened the lattice softly, and +gently shaking her head--she dared not shake it vigorously--was +on the point of closing it again, when, making frantic signs of +entreaty, the man stepped into the moonlight, and it was plainly +Tom. It was too dreadful! He might be seen any moment! She shook +her head again, in a way she meant, and he understood, to mean +she dared not. He fell on his knees and laid his hands together +like one praying. Her heart interpreted the gesture as indicating +that he was in trouble, and that, therefore, he begged her to go +to him. With sudden resolve she nodded acquiescence, and left the +window. + +Her room was in a little wing, projecting from the back of the +house, over the kitchen. The servants' rooms were in another +part, but Letty forgot a tiny window in one of them, which looked +also upon the ricks. There was a back stair to the kitchen, and +in the kitchen a door to the farm-yard. She stole down the stair, +and opened the door with absolute noiselessness. In a moment more +she had stolen on tiptoe round the corner, and was creeping like +a ghost among the ricks. Not even a rustle betrayed her as she +came up to Tom from behind. He still knelt where she had left +him, looking up to her window, which gleamed like a dead eye in +the moonlight. She stood for a moment, afraid to move, lest she +should startle him, and he should call out, for the slightest +noise about the place would bring Godfrey down. The next moment, +however, Tom, aware of her presence, sprang to his feet, and, +turning, bounded to her, and took her in his arms. Still +possessed by the one terror of making a noise, she did not object +even by a contrary motion, and, when he took her hand to lead her +away out of sight of the house, she yielded at once. + +When they were safe in the field behind the hedge-- + +"Why did you make me come down, Tom?" she whispered, half choked +with fear, looking up in his face, which was radiant in the +moonshine. + +"Because I could not bear it one day longer," he answered. "All +this time I have been breaking my heart to get a word with you, +and never seeing you except at church, and there you would never +even look at me. It is cruel of you, Letty. I know you could +manage it, if you liked, well enough. Why should you try me so?" + +"Do speak a little lower, Tom: sound goes so far at night!--I +didn't know you would want to see me like that," she answered, +looking up in his face with a pleased smile. + +"Didn't know!" repeated Tom. "I want nothing else, think of +nothing else, dream of nothing else. Oh, the delight of having +you here all alone to myself at last! You darling Letty!" + +"But I must go directly, Tom. I have no business to be out of the +house at this time of the night. If you hadn't made me think you +were in some trouble, I daredn't have come." + +"And ain't I in trouble enough--trouble that nothing but your +coming could get me out of? To love your very shadow, and not be +able to get a peep even of that, except in church, where all the +time of the service I'm raging inside like a wild beast in a +cage--ain't that trouble enough to make you come to me?" + +Letty's heart leaped up. He loved her, then! Love, real love, was +what it meant! It was paradise! Anything might come that would! +She would be afraid of nothing any more. They might say or do to +her what they pleased--she did not care a straw, if he loved her +--really loved her! And he did! he did! She was going to have him +all to her own self, and nobody was to have any right to meddle +with her more! + +"I didn't know you loved me, Tom!" she said, simply, with a +little gasp. + +"And I don't know yet whether you love me," returned Tom. + +"Of course, if you love _me_," answered Letty, as if +everybody must give back love for love. + +Tom took her again in his arms, and Letty was in greater bliss +than she had ever dreamed possible. From being a nobody in the +world, she might now queen it to the top of her modest bent; from +being looked down on by everybody, she had the whole earth under +her feet; from being utterly friendless, she had the heart of Tom +Helmer for her own! Yet even then, eluding the barriers of Tom's +arms, shot to her heart, sharp as an arrow, the thought that she +was forsaking Cousin Godfrey. She did not attempt to explain it +to herself; she was in too great confusion, even if she had been +capable of the necessary analysis. It came, probably, of what her +aunt had told her concerning her cousin's opinion of Tom. Often +and often since, she had said to herself that, of course, Cousin +Godfrey was mistaken and quite wrong in not liking Tom; she was +sure he would like him if he knew him as she did!--and yet to act +against his opinion, and that never uttered to herself, cost her +this sharp pang, and not a few that followed! To soften it for +the moment, however, came the vaguely, sadly reproachful feeling, +that, seeing they were about to send her out into the world to +earn her bread, they had no more any right to make such demands +upon her loyalty to them as should exclude the closest and only +satisfying friend she had--one who would not turn her away, but +wanted to have her for ever. That Godfrey knew nothing of his +mother's design, she did not once suspect. + +"Now, Tom, you have seen me, and spoken to me, and I must go," +said Letty. + +"O Letty!" cried Tom, reproachfully, "now when we understand each +other? Would you leave me in the very moment of my supremest +bliss? That would be mockery, Letty! That is the way my dreams +serve me always. But, surely, you are no dream! Perhaps I +_am_ dreaming, and shall wake to find myself alone! I never +was so happy in my life, and you want to leave me all alone in +the midnight, with the moon to comfort me! Do as you like, +Letty!--I won't leave the place till the morning. I will go back +to the rick-yard, and lie under your window all night." + +The idea of Tom, out on the cold ground, while she was warm in +bed, was too much for Letty's childish heart. Had she known Tom +better, she would not have been afraid: she would have known that +he would indeed do as he had said--so far; that he would lie down +under her window, and there remain, even to the very moment when +he began to feel miserable, and a moment longer, but not more +than two; that then he would get up, and, with a last look, start +home for bed. + +"I will stop a little while, Tom," she offered, "if you will +promise to go home as soon as I leave you." + +Tom promised. + +They went wandering along the farm-lanes, and Tom made love to +her, as the phrase is--in his case, alas! a phrase only too +correct. I do not say, or wish understood, that he did not love +her--with such love as lay in the immediate power of his +development; but, being a sort of a poet, such as a man may be +who loves the form of beauty, but not the indwelling power of it, +that is, the truth, he _made_ love to her--fashioned forms +of love, and offered them to her; and she accepted them, and +found the words of them very dear and very lovely. For neither +had she got far enough, with all Godfrey's endeavors for her +development, to love aright the ring of the true gold, and +therefore was not able to distinguish the dull sound of the gilt +brass Tom offered her. Poor fellow! it was all he had. But +compassion itself can hardly urge that as a reason for accepting +it for genuine. What rubbish most girls will take for poetry, and +with it heap up impassably their door to the garden of delights! +what French polish they will take for refinement! what merest +French gallantry for love! what French sentiment for passion! +what commonest passion they will take for devotion!--passion that +has little to do with their beauty even, still less with the +individuality of it, and nothing at all with their loveliness! + +In justice to Tom, I must add, however, that he also took not a +little rubbish for poetry, much sentiment for pathos, and all +passion for love. He was no intentional deceiver; he was so self- +deceived, that, being himself a deception, he could be nothing +but a deceiver--at once the most complete and the most +pardonable, and perhaps the most dangerous of deceivers. + +With all his fine talk of love, to which he now gave full flow, +it was characteristic of him that, although he saw Letty without +hat or cloak, just because he was himself warmly clad, he never +thought of her being cold, until the arm he had thrown round her +waist felt her shiver. Thereupon he was kind, and would have +insisted that she should go in and get a shawl, had she not +positively refused to go in and come out again. Then he would +have had her put on his coat, that she might be able to stay a +little longer; but she prevailed on him to let her go. He brought +her to the nearest point not within sight of any of the windows, +and, there leaving her, set out at a rapid pace for the inn where +he had put up his mare. + +When Tom was gone, and the bare night, a diffused conscience, all +about her, Letty, with a strange fear at her heart, like one in a +churchyard, with the ghost-hour at hand, and feeling like "a +guilty thing surprised," although she had done nothing wrong in +its mere self, stole back to the door of the kitchen, longing for +the shelter of her own room, as never exile for his fatherland. + +She had left the door an inch ajar, that she might run the less +risk of making a noise in opening it; but ere she reached it, the +moon shining full upon it, she saw plainly, and her heart turned +sick when she saw, that it was closed. Between cold and terror +she shuddered from head to foot, and stood staring. + +Recovering a little, she said to herself some draught must have +blown it to. If so, there was much danger that the noise had been +heard; but, in any case, there was no time to lose. She glided +swiftly to it. She lifted the latch softly--but, horror of +horrors! in vain. The door was locked. She was shut out. She must +lie or confess! And what lie would serve? Poor Letty! And yet, +for all her dismay, her terror, her despair that night, in her +innocence, she never once thought of the worst danger in which +she stood! + +The least perilous, where no safe way was left, would now have +been to let the simple truth appear; Letty ought immediately to +have knocked at the door, and, should that have proved +unavailing, to have broken her aunt's window even, to gain +hearing and admittance. But that was just the kind of action of +which, truthful as was her nature, poor Letty, both by +constitution and training, was incapable; human opposition, +superior anger, condemnation, she dared not encounter. She sank, +more than half fainting, upon the door-step. + +The moment she came to herself, apprehension changed into active +dread, rushed into uncontrollable terror. She sprang to her feet, +and, the worst thing she could do, fled like the wind after Tom-- +now, indeed, she imagined, her only refuge! She knew where he had +put up his horse, and knew he could hardly take any other way +than the foot-path to Testbridge. He could not be more than a few +yards ahead of her, she thought. Presently she heard him +whistling, she was sure, as he walked leisurely along, but she +could not see him. The way was mostly between hedges until it +reached the common: there she would catch sight of him, for, +notwithstanding the gauzy mist, the moon gave plenty of light. On +she went swiftly, still fancying at intervals she heard in front +of her his whistle, and even his step on the hard, frozen path. +In her eager anxiety to overtake him, she felt neither the +chilling air nor the fear of the night and the loneliness. Dismay +was behind her, and hope before her. On and on she ran. But when, +with now failing breath, she reached the common, and saw it lie +so bare and wide in the moonlight, with the little hut standing +on its edge, like a ghastly lodge to nowhere, with gaping black +holes for door and window, then, indeed, the horror of her +deserted condition and the terrors of the night began to crush +their way into her soul. What might not be lurking in that ruin, +ready to wake at the lightest rustle, and, at sight of a fleeing +girl, start out in pursuit, and catch her by the hair that now +streamed behind her! And there was the hawthorn, so old and +grotesquely contorted, always bringing to her mind a frightful +German print at the head of a poem called "The Haunted Heath," in +one of her cousin Godfrey's books! It was like an old miser, +decrepit with age, pursued and unable to run! Miserable as was +her real condition, it was rendered yet more pitiable by these +terrors of the imagination. The distant howl of a dog which the +moon would not let sleep, the muffled low of a cow from a +shippen, and a certain strange sound, coming again and again, +which she could not account for, all turned to things unnatural, +therefore frightful. Faintly, once or twice, she tried to +persuade herself that it was only a horrible dream, from which +she would wake in safety; but it would not do; it was, alas! all +too real--hard, killing fact! Anyhow, dream or fact, there was no +turning; on to the end she must go. More frightful than all +possible dangers, most frightful thing of all, was the old house +she had left, standing silent in the mist, holding her room +inside it empty, the candle burning away in the face of the moon! +Across the common she glided like a swift wraith, and again into +the shadow of the hedges. + +There seems to be a hope as well as a courage born of despair: +immortal, yet inconstant children of a death-doomed sire, both +were now departing. If Tom had come this way, she must, she +thought, have overtaken him long before now! But, perhaps, she +had fainted outright, and lain longer than she knew at the +kitchen-door; and when she started to follow him, Tom was already +at home! Alas, alas! she was lost utterly! + +The footpath came to an end, and she was on the high-road. There +was the inn where Tom generally put up! It was silent as the +grave. The clang of a horseshoe striking a stone came through the +frosty air from far along the road. Her heart sank into the +depths of the infinite sea that encircles the soul, and, for the +second time that night, Death passing by gave her an alms of +comfort, and she lay insensible on the border of the same highway +along which Tom, on his bay mare, went singing home. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE MORNING. + + +At Thornwick, Tom had been descried in the yard, by the spying +organs of one of the servants--a woman not very young, and not +altogether innocent of nightly interviews. Through the small +window of her closet she had seen, and having seen she watched-- +not without hope she might be herself the object of the male +presence, which she recognized as that of Tom Helmer, whom almost +everybody knew. In a few minutes, however, Letty appeared behind +him, and therewith a throb of evil joy shot through her bosom: +what a chance! what a good joke! what a thing for her to find out +Miss Letty; to surprise her naughty secret! to have her in her +power! She would have no choice but tell her everything--and then +what privileges would be hers! and what larks they two would have +together, helping each other! She had not a thought of betraying +her: there would be no fun in that! not the less would she +encourage a little the fear that she might, for it would be as a +charm in her bosom to work her will withal!--To make sure of +Letty and her secret, partly also in pure delight of mischief, +and enjoyment of the power to tease, she stole down stairs, and +locked the kitchen door--the bolt of which, for reasons of her +own, she kept well oiled; then sat down in an old rocking-chair, +and waited--I can not say watched, for she fell fast asleep. +Letty lifted the latch almost too softly for her to have heard +had she been awake; but on the door-step Letty, had she been +capable of listening, might have heard her snoring. + +When the young woman awoke in the cold gray of the morning, and +came to herself, compunction seized her. Opening the door softly, +she went out and searched everywhere; then, having discovered no +trace of Letty, left the door unlocked, and went to bed, hoping +she might yet find her way into the house before Mrs. Wardour was +down. + +When that lady awoke at the usual hour, and heard no sound of +stir, she put on her dressing-gown, and went, in the anger of a +housekeeper, to Letty's room: there, to her amazement and horror, +she saw the bed had lain all the night expectant. She hurried +thence to the room occupied by the girl who was the cause of the +mischief. Roused suddenly by the voice of her mistress, she got +up half awake, and sleepy-headed; and, assailed by a torrent of +questions, answered so, in her confusion, as to give the +initiative to others: before she was well awake, she had told all +she had seen from the window, but nothing of what she had herself +done. Mrs. Wardour hurried to the kitchen, found the door on the +latch, believed everything and much more, went straight to her +son's room, and, in a calm rage, woke him up, and poured into his +unwilling ears a torrent of mingled fact and fiction, wherein +floated side by side with Letty's name every bad adjective she +could bring the lips of propriety to utter. Before he quite came +to himself the news had well-nigh driven him mad. There stood his +mother, dashing her cold hailstorm of contemptuous wrath on the +girl he loved, whom he had gone to bed believing the sweetest +creature in creation, and loving himself more than she dared +show! He had been dreaming of her with the utmost tenderness, +when his mother woke him with the news that she had gone in the +night with Tom Helmer, the poorest creature in the neighborhood. + +"For God's sake, mother," he cried, "go away, and let me get up!" + +"What can you do, Godfrey? What is there to be done? Let the jade +go to her ruin!" cried Mrs. Wardour, alarmed in the midst of her +wrath. "You _can_ do nothing now. As she has made her bed, +so she must lie." + +Her words were torture to him. He sprang from his bed, and +proceeded to pull on his clothes. Terrified at the wildness of +his looks, his mother fled from the room, but only to watch at +the door. + +Scarcely could Godfrey dress himself for agitation; brain and +heart seemed to mingle in chaotic confusion. Anger strove with +unbelief, and indignation at his mother with the sense of bitter +wrong from Letty. It was all incredible and shameful, yet not the +less utterly miserable. The girl whose Idea lay in the innermost +chamber of his heart like the sleeping beauty in her palace! +while he loved and ministered to her outward dream-shape which +flitted before the eyes of his sense, in the hope that at last +the Idea would awake, and come forth and inform it!--he dared not +follow the thought! it was madness and suicide! He had been +silently worshiping an angel with wings not yet matured to the +spreading of themselves to the winds of truth; those wings were a +little maimed, and he had been tending them with precious balms, +and odors, and ointments: all at once she had turned into a bat, +a skin-winged creature that flies by night, and had disappeared +in the darkness! Of all possible mockeries, for _her_ to +steal out at night to the embraces of a fool! a wretched, weak- +headed, idle fellow, whom every clown called by his Christian +name! an ass that did nothing but ride the country on a horse too +good for him, and quarrel with his mother from Sunday to +Saturday! For such a man she had left him, Godfrey Wardour! a man +who would have lifted her to the height of her nature! whereas +the fool Helmer would sink her to the depth of his own merest +nothingness! The thing was inconceivable! yet it was! He knew it; +they were all the same! Never woman worthy of true man! The +poorest show would take them captive, would draw them from +reason! + +He knew _now_ that he loved the girl. Gnashing his teeth +with fellest rage, he caught from the wall his heaviest hunting- +whip, rushed heedless past his mother where she waited on the +landing, and out of the house. + +In common with many, he thought worse of Tom Helmer than he yet +deserved. He was a characterless fool, a trifler, a poetic +babbler, a good-for-nothing good sort of fellow; that was the +worst that as yet was true of him; and better things might with +equal truth have been said of him, had there been any one that +loved him enough to know them. + +Godfrey ran to the stable, and to the stall of his fastest horse. +As he threw the saddle over his back, he almost wept in the midst +of his passion at the sight of the bright stirrups. His hands +trembled so that he failed repeatedly in passing the straps +through the buckles of the girths. But the moment he felt the +horse under him, he was stronger, set his head straight for the +village of Warrender, where Tom's mother lived, and went away +over everything. His crow-flight led him across the back of the +house of Durnmelling. Hesper, who had not slept well, and found +the early morning even a worse time to live in than the evening, +saw him from her window, going straight as an arrow. The sight +arrested her. She called Sepia, who for a few nights had slept in +her room, to the window. + +"There, now!" she said, "there is a man who looks a man! Good +Heavens! how recklessly he rides! I don't believe Mr. Redmain +could keep on a horse's back if he tried!" Sepia looked, half +asleep. Her eyes grew wider. Her sleepiness vanished. + +"Something is wrong with the proud yeoman!" she said. "He is +either mad or in love, probably both! We shall hear more of this +morning's ride, Hesper, as I hope to die a maid!--That's a man I +should like to know now," she added, carelessly. "There is some +go in him! I have a weakness for the kind of man that +_could_ shake the life out of me if I offended him." + +"Are you so anxious, then, to make a good, submissive wife?" said +Hesper. + +"I should take the very first opportunity of offending him-- +mortally, as they call it. It would be worth one's while with a +man like that." + +"Why? How? For what good?" + +"Just to see him look. There is nothing on earth so scrumptious +as having a grand burst of passion all to yourself." She drew in +her breath like one in pain. "My God!" she said, "to see it come +and go! the white and the red! the tugging at the hair! the tears +and the oaths, and the cries and the curses! To know that you +have the man's heart-strings stretched on your violin, and that +with one dash of your bow, one tiniest twist of a peg, you can +make him shriek!" + +"Sepia!" said Hesper, "I think Darwin must be right, and some of +us at least are come from--" + +"Tiger-cats? or perhaps the Tasmanian devil?" suggested Sepia, +with one of her scornful half-laughs. + +But the same instant she turned white as death, and sat softly +down on the nearest chair. + +"Good Heavens, Sepia! what is the matter? I did not mean it," +said Hesper, remorsefully, thinking she had wounded her, and that +she had broken down in the attempt to conceal the pain. + +"It's not that, Hesper, dear. Nothing you could say would hurt +me," replied Sepia, drawing breath sharply. "It's a pain that +comes sometimes--a sort of picture drawn in pains--something I +saw once." + +"A picture?" + +"Oh! well!--picture, or what you will!--Where's the difference, +once it's gone and done with? Yet it will get the better of me +now and then for a moment! Some day, when you are married, and a +little more used to men and their ways, I will tell you. My +little cousin is much too innocent now." + +"But you have not been married, Sepia! What should you know about +disgraceful things?" + +"I will tell you when you are married, and not until then, +Hesper. There's a bribe to make you a good child, and do as you +must--that is, as your father and mother and Mr. Redmain would +have you!" + +While they talked, Godfrey, now seen, now vanishing, had become a +speck in the distance. Crossing a wide field, he was now no +longer to be distinguished from the grazing cattle, and so was +lost to the eyes of the ladies. + +By this time he had collected his thoughts a little, and it had +grown plain to him that the last and only thing left for him to +do for Letty was to compel Tom to marry her at once. "My mother +will then have half her own way!" he said to himself bitterly. +But, instead of reproaching himself that he had not drawn the +poor girl's heart to his own, and saved her by letting her know +that he loved her, he tried to congratulate himself on the pride +and self-important delay which had preserved him from yielding +his love to one who counted herself of so little value. He did +not reflect that, if the value a woman places upon herself be the +true estimate of her worth, the world is tolerably provided with +utterly inestimable treasures of womankind; yet is it the meek +who shall inherit it; and they who make least of themselves are +those who shall be led up to the dais at last. + +"But the wretch shall marry her at once!" he swore. "Her +character is nothing now but a withered flower in the hands of +that woman. Even were she capable of holding her tongue, by this +time a score must have seen them together." + +Godfrey hardly knew what he was to gain by riding to Warrender, +for how could he expect to find Tom there? and what could any one +do with the mother? Only, where else could he go first to learn +anything about him? Some hint he might there get, suggesting in +what direction to seek them. And he must be doing something, +however useless: inaction at such a moment would be hell itself! + +Arrived at the house--a well-appointed cottage, with out-houses +larger than itself--he gave his horse to a boy to lead up and +down, while he went through the gate and rang the bell in a porch +covered with ivy. The old woman who opened the door said Master +Tom was not up yet, but she would take his message. Returning +presently, she asked him to walk in. He declined the hospitality, +and remained in front of the house. + +Tom was no coward, in the ordinary sense of the word: there was +in him a good deal of what goes to the making of a gentleman; but +he confessed to being "in a bit of a funk" when he heard who was +below: there was but one thing it could mean, he thought--that +Letty had been found out, and here was her cousin come to make a +row. But what did it matter, so long as Letty was true to him? +The world should know that Wardour nor Platt--his mother's maiden +name!--nor any power on earth should keep from him the woman of +his choice! As soon as he was of age, he would marry her, in +spite of them all. But he could not help being a little afraid of +Godfrey Wardour, for he admired him. + +For Godfrey, he would have rather liked Tom Helmer, had he ever +seen down into the best of him; but Tom's carelessness had so +often misrepresented him, that Godfrey had too huge a contempt +for him. And now the miserable creature had not merely grown +dangerous, but had of a sudden done him the greatest possible +hurt! It was all Godfrey could do to keep his contempt and hate +within what he would have called the bounds of reason, as he +waited for "the miserable mongrel." He kept walking up and down +the little lawn, which a high shrubbery protected from the road, +making a futile attempt, as often as he thought of the policy of +it, to look unconcerned, and the next moment striking fierce, +objectless blows with his whip. Catching sight of him from a +window on the stair, Tom was so little reassured by his demeanor, +that, crossing the hall, he chose from the stand a thick oak +stick--poor odds against a hunting-whip in the hands of one like +Godfrey, with the steel of ten years of manhood in him. + +Tom's long legs came doubling carelessly down the two steps from +the door, as, with a gracious wave of the hand, and swinging his +cudgel as if he were just going out for a stroll, he coolly +greeted his visitor. But the other, instead of returning the +salutation, stepped quickly up to him. + +"Mr. Helmer, where is Miss Lovel?" he said, in a low voice. + +Tom turned pale, for a pang of undefined fear shot through him, +and his voice betrayed genuine anxiety as he answered: + +"I do not know. What has happened?" + +Wardour's fingers gripped convulsively his whip-handle, and the +word _liar_ had almost escaped his lips; but, through the +darkness of the tempest raging in him, he yes read truth in Tom's +scared face and trembling words. + +"You were with her last night," he said, grinding it out between +his teeth. + +"I was," answered Tom, looking more scared still. + +"Where is she now?" demanded Godfrey again. + +"I hope to God you know," answered Tom, "for I don't." + +"Where did you leave her?" asked Wardour, in the tone of an +avenger rather than a judge. + +Tom, without a moment's hesitation, described the place with +precision--a spot not more than a hundred yards from the house. + +"What right had you to come sneaking about the place?" hissed +Godfrey, a vain attempt to master an involuntary movement of the +muscles of his face at once clinching and showing his teeth. At +the same moment he raised his whip unconsciously. + +Tom instinctively stepped back, and raised his stick in attitude +of defense. Godfrey burst into a scornful laugh. + +"You fool!" he said; "you need not be afraid; I can see you are +speaking the truth. You dare not tell me a lie!" + +"It is enough," returned Tom with dignity, "that I do not tell +lies. I am not afraid of you, Mr. Wardour. What I dare or dare +not do, is neither for you nor me to say. You are the older and +stronger and every way better man, but that gives you no right to +bully me." + +This answer brought Godfrey to a better sense of what became +himself, if not of what Helmer could claim of him. Using positive +violence over himself, he spoke next in a tone calm even to +iciness. + +"Mr. Helmer," he said, "I will gladly address you as a gentleman, +if you will show me how it can be the part of a gentleman to go +prowling about his neighbor's property after nightfall." + +"Love acknowledges no law but itself, Mr. Wardour," answered Tom, +inspired by the dignity of his honest affection for Letty. "Miss +Lovel is not your property. I love her, and she loves me. I would +do my best to see her, if Thornwick were the castle of Giant +Blunderbore." + +"Why not walk up to the house, like a man, in the daylight, and +say you wanted to see her?" + +"Should I have been welcome, Mr. Wardour?" said Tom, +significantly. "You know very well what my reception would have +been; and I know better than throw difficulties in my own path. +To do as you say would have been to make it next to impossible to +see her." + +"Well, we must find her now anyhow; and you must marry her off- +hand." + +"Must!" echoed Tom, his eyes flashing, at once with anger at the +word and with pleasure at the proposal. "Must?" he repeated, +"when there is nothing in the world I desire or care for but to +marry her? Tell me what it all means, Mr. Wardour; for, by +Heaven! I am utterly in the dark." + +"It means just this--and I don't know but I am making a fool of +myself to tell you--that the girl was seen in your company late +last night, and has been neither seen nor heard of since." + +"My God!" cried Tom, now first laying hold of the fact; and with +the word he turned and started for the stable. His run, however, +broke down, and with a look of scared bewilderment he came back +to Godfrey. + +"Mr. Wardour," he said, "what am I to do? Please advise me. If we +raise a hue and cry, it will set people saying all manner of +things, pleasant neither for you nor for us." + +"That is your business, Mr. Helmer," answered Godfrey, bitterly. +"It is you who have brought this shame on her." + +"You are a cold-hearted man," said Tom. "But there is no shame in +the matter. I will soon make that clear--if only I knew where to +go after her. The thing is to me utterly mysterious: there are +neither robbers nor wild beasts about Thornwick. What _can_ +have happened to her?" + +He turned his back on Godfrey for a moment, then, suddenly +wheeling, broke out: + +"I will tell you what it is; I see it all now; she found out that +she had been seen, and was too terrified to go into the house +again!--Mr. Wardour," he continued, with a new look in his eyes, +"I have more reason to be suspicious of you and your mother than +you have to suspect me. Your treatment of Letty has not been of +the kindest." + +So Letty had been accusing him of unkindness! Ready as he now was +to hear anything to her disadvantage, it was yet a fresh stab to +the heart of him. Was this the girl for whom, in all honesty and +affection, he had sought to do so much! How could she say he was +unkind to her?--and say it to a fellow like this? It was +humiliating, indeed! But he would not defend himself. Not to Tom, +not to his mother, not to any living soul, would he utter a word +even resembling blame of the girl! He, at least, would carry +himself generously! Everything, though she had plunged his heart +in a pitcher of gall, should be done for her sake! She should go +to her lover, and leave blame behind her with him! His sole care +should be that the wind-bag should not collapse and slip out of +it, that he should actually marry her; and, as soon as he had +handed him over to her in safety, he would have done with her and +with all women for ever, except his mother! Not once more would +he speak to one of them in tone of friendship! + +He looked at Tom full in the eyes, and made him no answer. + +"If I don't find Letty this very morning," said Tom, "I shall +apply for a warrant to search your house: my uncle Rendall will +give me one." + +Godfrey smiled a smile of scorn, turned from him as a wise man +turns from a fool, and went out of the gate. + +He had just taken his horse from the boy and sent him off, when +he saw a young woman coming hurriedly across the road, from the +direction of Testbridge. Plainly she was on business of pressing +import. She came nearer, and he saw it was Mary Marston. The +moment she recognized Godfrey, she began to run to him; but, when +she came near enough to take notice of his mien, as he stood with +his foot in the stirrup, with no word of greeting or look of +reception, and inquiry only in every feature, her haste suddenly +dropped, her flushed face turned pale, and she stood still, +panting. Not a word could she utter, and was but just able to +force a faint smile, with intent to reassure him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THE RESULT. + + +Letty would never perhaps have come to herself in the cold of +this world, under the shifting tent of the winter night, but for +an outcast mongrel dog, which, wandering masterless and hungry, +but not selfish, along the road, came upon her where she lay +seemingly lifeless, and, recognizing with pity his neighbor in +misfortune, began at once to give her--it was all he had that was +separable--what help and healing might lie in a warm, honest +tongue. Diligently he set himself to lick her face and hands. + +By slow degrees her misery returned, and she sat up. Rejoiced at +his success, the dog kept dodging about her, catching a lick here +and a lick there, wherever he saw a spot of bare within his +reach. By slow degrees, next, the knowledge of herself joined on +to the knowledge of her misery, and she knew who it was that was +miserable. She threw her arms round the dog, laid her head on +his, and wept. This relieved her a little: weeping is good, even +to such as Alberigo in an ice-pot of hell. But she was cold to +the very marrow, almost too cold to feel it; and, when she rose, +could scarcely put one foot before the other. + +Not once, for all her misery, did she imagine a return to +Thornwick. Without a thought of whither, she moved on, unaware +even that it was in the direction of the town. The dog, delighted +to believe that he had raised up to himself a mistress, followed +humbly at her heel: but always when she stopped, as she did every +few paces, ran round in front of her, and looked up in her face, +as much as to say, "Here I am, mistress! shall I lick again?" If +a dog could create, he would make masters and mistresses. Gladly +would she then have fondled him, but feared the venture; for, it +seemed, were she to stoop, she must fall flat on the road, and +never rise more. + +Slowly the two went on, with motion scarce enough to keep the +blood moving in their veins. Had she not been, for all her late +depression, in fine health and strength, Letty could hardly have +escaped death from the cold of that night. For many months after, +some portion of every night she passed in dreaming over again +this dreariest wandering; and in her after life people would be +puzzled to think why Mrs. Helmer looked so angry when any one +spoke as if the animals died outright. But, although she never +forgot this part of the terrible night, she never dreamed of any +rescue from it; memory could not join it on to the next part, for +again she lost consciousness, and could recall nothing between +feeling the dog once more licking her face and finding herself in +bed. + +When Beenie opened her kitchen-door in the morning to let in the +fresh air, she found seated on the step, and leaning against the +wall, what she took first for a young woman asleep, and then for +the dead body of one; for, when she gave her a little shake, she +fell sideways off the door-step. Beenie's heart smote her; for +during the last hours of her morning's sleep she had been +disturbed by the howling of a dog, apparently in their own yard, +but had paid no further attention to it than that of repeated +mental objurgation: there stood the offender, looking up at her +pitifully--ugly, disreputable, of breed unknown, one of the +_canaille!_ When the girl fell down, he darted at her, +licked her cold face for a moment, then stretching out a long, +gaunt neck, uttered from the depth of his hidebound frame the +most melancholy appeal, not to Beenie, at whom he would not even +look again, but to the open door. But, when Beenie, in whom, as +in most of us, curiosity had the start of service, stooped, and, +peering more closely into the face of the girl, recognized, +though uncertainly, a known face, she too uttered a kind of howl, +and straightway raising Letty's head drew her into the house. It +is the mark of an imperfect humanity, that personal knowledge +should spur the sides of hospitable intent: what difference does +our knowing or not knowing make to the fact of human need? The +good Samaritan would never have been mentioned by the mouth of +the True, had he been even an old acquaintance of the "certain +man." But it is thus we learn; and, from loving this one and +that, we come to love all at last, and then is our humanity +complete. + +Letty moved not one frozen muscle, and Beenie, growing terrified, +flew up the stair to her mistress. Mary sprang from her bed and +hurried down. There, on the kitchen-floor, in front of the yet +fireless grate, lay the body of Letty Lovel. A hideous dog was +sitting on his haunches at her head. The moment she entered, +again the animal stretched out a long, bony neck, and sent forth +a howl that rang penetrative through the house. It sounded in +Mary's ears like the cry of the whole animal creation over the +absence of their Maker. They raised her and carried her to Mary's +room. There they laid her in the still warm bed, and proceeded to +use all possible means for the restoration of heat and the +renewal of circulation. + +Here I am sorry to have to mention that Beenie, returning, +unsuccessful, from their first efforts, to the kitchen, to get +hot water, and finding the dog sitting there motionless, with his +face turned toward the door by which they had carried Letty out, +peevish with disappointment and dread, drove him from the +kitchen, and from the court, into the street where that same day +he was seen wildly running with a pan at his tail, and the next +was found lying dead in a bit of waste ground among stones and +shards. God rest all such! + +But, as far as Letty was concerned, happily Beenie was not an old +woman for nothing. With a woman's sympathy, Mary hesitated to run +for the doctor: who could tell what might be involved in so +strange an event? If they could but bring her to, first, and +learn something to guide them! She pushed delay to the very verge +of danger. But, soon after, thanks to Beenie's persistence, +indications of success appeared, and Letty began to breathe. It +was then resolved between the nurses that, for the present, they +would keep the affair to themselves, a conclusion affording much +satisfaction to Beenie, in the consciousness that therein she had +the better of the Turnbulls, against whom she cherished an ever- +renewed indignation. + +But, when Mary set herself at length to find out from Letty what +had happened, without which she could not tell what to do next, +she found her mind so far gone that she understood nothing said +to her, or, at least, could return no rational response, although +occasionally an individual word would seem to influence the +current of her ideas. She kept murmuring almost inarticulately; +but, to Mary's uneasiness, every now and then plainly uttered the +name _Tom_. What was she to make of it? In terror lest she +should betray her, she must yet do something. Matters could not +have gone wrong so far that nothing could be done to set them at +least a little straight! If only she knew what! A single false +step might do no end of mischief! She must see Tom Helmer: +without betraying Letty, she might get from him some +enlightenment. She knew his open nature, had a better opinion of +him than many had, and was a little nearer the right of him. The +doctor must be called; but she would, if possible, see Tom first. + +It was not more than half an hour's walk to Warrender, and she +set out in haste. She must get back before George Turnbull came +to open the shop. + +When she got near enough to see Mr. Wardour's face, she read in +it at once that he was there from the same cause as herself; but +there was no good omen to be drawn from its expression: she read +there not only keen anxiety and bitter disappointment, but +lowering anger; nor was that absent which she felt to be distrust +of herself. The sole acknowledgment he made of her approach was +to withdraw his foot from the stirrup and stand waiting. + +"You know something," he said, looking cold and hard in her face. + +"About what?" returned Mary, recovering herself; she was careful, +for Letty's sake, to feel her way. + +"I hope to goodness," returned Godfrey, almost fiercely, yet with +a dash of rude indifference, "_you_ are not concerned in +this--business!"--he was about to use a bad adjective, but +suppressed it. + +"I _am_ concerned in it," said Mary, with perfect quietness. + +"You knew what was going on?" cried Wardour. "You knew that +fellow there came prowling about Thornwick like a fox about a +hen-roost? By Heaven! if I had but suspected it--" + +"No, Mr. Wardour," interrupted Mary, already catching a glimpse +of light, "I knew nothing of that." + +"Then what do you mean by saying you are concerned in the +matter?" + +Mary thought he was behaving so unlike himself that a shock might +be of service. + +"Only this," she answered, "--that Letty is now lying in my room, +whether dead or alive I am in doubt. She must have spent the +night in the open air--and that without cloak or bonnet." + +"Good God!" cried Godfrey. "And you could leave her like that!" + +"She is attended to," replied Mary, with dignity. "There are +worse evils to be warded than death, else I should not be here; +there are hard judgments and evil tongues.--Will you come and see +her, Mr. Wardour?" + +"No," answered Godfrey, gruffly. + +"Shall I send a note to Mrs. Wardour, then?" + +"I will tell her myself." + +"What would you have me do about her?" + +"I have no concern in the matter, but I suppose you had better +send for a doctor. Talk to that fellow there," he added, pointing +with his whip toward the cottage, and again putting his foot in +the stirrup. "Tell him he has brought her to disgrace--" + +"I don't believe it," interrupted Mary, her face flushing with +indignant shame. But Godfrey went on without heeding her: + +"And get him to marry her off-hand, if you can--for, by God! he +_shall_ marry her, or I will kill him." + +He spoke looking round at her over his shoulder, a scowl on his +face, his foot in the stirrup, one hand twisted in the mane of +his horse, and the other with the whip stretched out as if +threatening the universe. Mary stood white but calm, and made no +answer. He swung himself into the saddle, and rode away. She +turned to the gate. + +From behind the shrubbery, Tom had heard all that passed between +them, and, meeting her as she entered, led the way to a side- +walk, unseen from the house. + +"O Miss Marston! what is to be done?" he said. "This is a +terrible business! But I am so glad you have got her, poor girl! +I heard all you said to that brute, Wardour. Thank you, thank you +a thousand times, for taking her part. Indeed, you spoke but the +truth for her. Let me tell you all I know." + +He had not much to tell, however, beyond what Mary knew already. + +"She keeps calling out for you, Mr. Helmer," she said, when he +had ended. + +"I will go with you. Come, come," he answered. + +"You will leave a message for your mother?" + +"Never mind my mother. She's good at finding out for herself." + +"She ought to be told," said Mary; "but I can't stop to argue it +with you. Certainly your first duty is to Letty now. Oh, if +people only wouldn't hide things!" + +"Come along," cried Tom, hurrying before her; "I will soon set +everything right." + +"How shall we manage with the doctor?" said Mary, as they went. +"We can not do without him, for I am sure she is in danger." + +"Oh, no!" said Tom. "She will be all right when she sees me. But +we will take the doctor on our way, and prepare him." + +When they came to the doctor's house, Mary walked on, and Tom +told the doctor he had met Miss Marston on her way to him, and +had come instead: she wanted to let him know that Miss Lovel had +come to her quite unexpected that morning; that she was +delirious, and had apparently wandered from home under an attack +of brain-fever, or something of the sort. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +MARY AND GODFREY. + + +Everything went very tolerably, so far as concerned the world of +talk, in the matter of Letty's misfortunes. Rumors, it is true-- +and more than one of them strange enough--did for a time go +floating about the country; but none of them came to the ears of +Tom or of Mary, and Letty was safe from hearing anything; and the +engagement between her and Tom soon became generally known. + +Mrs. Helmer was very angry, and did all she could to make Tom +break it off--it was so much below him! But in nothing could the +folly of the woman have been more apparent than in her fancying, +with the experience of her life before her, that any opposition +of hers could be effectual otherwise than to the confirmation of +her son's will. So short-sighted was she as to originate most of +the reports to Letty's disadvantage; but Tom's behavior, on the +other hand, was strong to put them down; for the man is seldom +found so faithful where such reports are facts. + +Mrs. Wardour took care to say nothing unkind of Letty. She was of +her own family; and, besides, not only was Tom a better match +than she could have expected for her, but she was more than +satisfied to have Godfrey's dangerous toy thus drawn away beyond +his reach. As soon as ever the doctor gave his permission, she +went to see her; but, although, dismayed at sight of her +suffering face, she did not utter one unkind word, her visit was +so plainly injurious in its effects, that it was long before Mary +would consent to a repetition of it. + +Letty's recovery was very slow. The spring was close at hand +before the bloom began to reappear--and then it was but fitfully +--in Letty's cheek. Neither her gayety nor her usual excess of +timorousness returned. A certain sad seriousness had taken the +place of both, and she seemed to look out from deeper eyes. I can +not think that Letty had begun to perceive that there actually is +a Nature shaping us to its own ends; but I think she had begun to +feel that Mary lived in the conscious presence of such a power. +To Tom she behaved very sweetly, but more like a tender sister +than a lover, and Mary began to doubt whether her heart was +altogether Tom's. From mention of approaching marriage, she +turned with a nervous, uneasy haste. Had the insight which the +enforced calmness of suffering sometimes brings opened her eyes +to anything in Tom? The doubt filled Mary with anxiety. She +thought and thought, until--delicate matter as it was to meddle +with, and small encouragement as Godfrey Wardour had given her to +expect sympathy--she yet made up her mind to speak to him on the +subject--and the rather that she was troubled at the unworthiness +of his behavior to Letty: gladly would she have him treat her +with the generosity essential to the idea she had formed of him. + +She went, therefore, one Sunday evening, to Thornwick, and +requested to see Mr. Wardour. + +It was plainly an unwilling interview he granted her, but she was +not thereby deterred from opening her mind to him. + +"I fear, Mr. Wardour," she said, "--I come altogether without +authority--but I fear Letty has been rather hurried in her +engagement with Mr. Helmer. I think she dreads being married--at +least so soon." + +"You would have her break it off?" said Godfrey, with cold +restraint. + +"No; certainly not," replied Mary; "that would be unjust to Mr. +Helmer. But the thing was so hastened, indeed, hurried, by that +unhappy accident, that she had scarcely time to know her own +mind." + +"Miss Marston," answered Godfrey, severely, "it is her own fault +--all and entirely her own fault." + +"But, surely," said Mary, "it will not do for us to insist upon +desert. That is not how we are treated ourselves." + +"Is it not?" returned Godfrey, angrily. "My experience is +different. I am sure my faults have come back upon me pretty +sharply.--She _must_ marry the fellow, or her character is +gone." + +"I am unwilling to grant that, Mr. Wardour. It was wrong in her +to have anything to say to Mr. Helmer without your knowledge, and +a foolish thing to meet him as she did; but Letty is a good girl, +and you know country ways are old-fashioned, and in itself there +is nothing wicked in having a talk with a young man after dark." + +"You speak, I dare say, as such things arc regarded in--certain +strata of society," returned Godfrey, coldly; "but such views do +not hold in that to which either of them belongs." + +"It seems to me a pity they should not, then," said Mary. "I know +nothing of such matters, but, surely, young people should have +opportunities of understanding each other. Anyhow, marriage is a +heavy penalty to pay for such an indiscretion. A girl might like +a young man well enough to enjoy a talk with him now and then, +and yet find it hard to marry him." + +"Did you come here to dispute social customs with me, Miss +Marston?" said Godfrey. "I am not prepared, nor, indeed, +sufficiently interested, to discuss them with you." + +"I will come to the point at once," answered Mary; who, although +speaking so collectedly, was much frightened at her own boldness: +Godfrey seemed from his knowledge so far above her, and she owed +him so much.--Would it not be possible for Letty to return +here? Then the thing might take its natural course, and Tom and +she know each other better that he did not hear the remarks which +rose like the dust of his passage behind him. In the same little +sitting-room, where for so many years Mary had listened to the +slow, tender wisdom of her father, a clever young man was now +making love to an ignorant girl, whom he did not half understand +or half appreciate, all the time he feeling himself the greater +and wiser and more valuable of the two. He was unaware, however, +that he did feel so, for he had never yet become conscious of any +_fact_ concerning himself. + +The whole Turnbull family, from the beginnings of things self- +constituted judges of the two Marstons, were not the less +critical of the daughter, that the father had been taken from +her. There was grumbling in the shop every time she ran up to see +Letty, every one regarding her and speaking of her as a servant +neglecting her duty. Yet all knew well enough that she was co- +proprietor of business and stock, and the elder Turnbull knew +besides that, if the lawyer to whose care William Marston had +committed his daughter were at that moment to go into the affairs +of the partnership, he would find that Mary had a much larger +amount of money actually in the business than he. + +Of all matters connected with the business, except those of her +own department, Mary was ignorant. Her father had never neglected +his duty, but he had so far neglected what the world calls a +man's interests as to leave his affairs much too exclusively in +the hands of his partner; he had been too much interested in life +itself to look sharply after anything less than life. He +acknowledged no _worldly_ interests at all: either God cared +for his interests or he himself did not. Whether he might not +have been more attentive to the state of his affairs without +danger of deeper loss, I do not care to examine or determine; the +result of his life in the world was a grand success. Now, Mary's +feeling and judgment in regard to _things_ being identical +with her father's, Turnbull, instructed by his greed, both +natural and acquired, argued thus--unconsciously almost, but not +the less argued--that what Mary valued so little, and he valued +so much, must, by necessary deduction, be more his than hers--and +_logically_ ought to be _legally_. So servants begin to +steal, arguing that such and such things are only lying about, +and nobody cares for them. + +But Turnbull, knowing that, notwithstanding the reason on his +side, it was not safe to act on such a conclusion, had for some +time felt no little anxiety to secure himself from investigation +and possible disaster by the marriage of Mary to his son George. + +Tom Helmer had now to learn that, by his father's will, made +doubtless under the influence of his mother, he was to have but a +small annuity so long as she lived. Upon this he determined +nevertheless to marry, confident in his literary faculty, which, +he never doubted, would soon raise it to a very sufficient +income. Nor did Mary attempt to dissuade him; for what could be +better for a disposition like his than care for the things of +this life, occasioned by the needs of others dependent upon him! +Besides, there seemed to be nothing else now possible for Letty. +So, in the early summer, they were married, no relative present +except Mrs. Wardour, Mrs. Helmer and Godfrey having both declined +their invitation; and no friend, except Mary for bridesmaid, and +Mr. Pycroft, a school and college friend of Tom's, who was now +making a bohemian livelihood in London by writing for the weekly +press, as he called certain journals of no high standing, for +groom's man. After the ceremony, and a breakfast provided by +Mary, the young couple took the train for London. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +MARY IN THE SHOP. + + +More than a year had now passed from the opening of my narrative. +It was full summer again at Testbridge, and things, to the +careless eye, were unchanged, and, to the careless mind, would +never change, although, in fact, nothing was the same, and +nothing could continue as it now was. For were not the earth and +the sun a little colder? Had not the moon crumbled a little? And +had not the eternal warmth, unperceived save of a few, drawn a +little nearer--the clock that measures the eternal day ticked one +tick more to the hour when the Son of Man will come? But the +greed and the fawning did go on unchanged, save it were for the +worse, in the shop of Turnbull and Marston, seasoned only with +the heavenly salt of Mary's good ministration. + +She was very lonely. Letty was gone; and the link between Mr. +Wardour and her not only broken, but a gulf of separation in its +place. Not the less remained the good he had given her. No good +is ever lost. The heavenly porter was departed, but had left the +door wide. She had seen him but once since Letty's marriage, and +then his salutation was like that of a dead man in a dream; for +in his sore heart he still imagined her the confidante of Letty's +deception. + +But the shadow of her father's absence swallowed all the other +shadows. The air of warmth and peace and conscious safety which +had hitherto surrounded her was gone, and in its place cold, +exposure, and annoyance. Between them her father and she had +originated a mutually protective atmosphere of love; when that +failed, the atmosphere of earthly relation rushed in and +enveloped her. The moment of her father's departure, malign +influences, inimical to the very springs of her life, +concentrated themselves upon her: it was the design of John +Turnbull that she should not be comfortable so long as she did +not irrevocably cast in her lot with his family; and, the rest in +the shop being mostly creatures of his own choice, by a sort of +implicit understanding they proceeded to make her uncomfortable. +So long as they confined themselves to silence, neglect, and +general exclusion, Mary heeded little their behavior, for no +intercourse with them, beyond that of external good offices, +could be better than indifferent to her; but, when they advanced +to positive interference, her position became indeed hard to +endure. They would, for instance, keep watch on her serving, and, +as soon as the customer was gone, would find open fault with this +or that she had said or done. But even this was comparatively +endurable: when they advanced to the insolence of doing the same +in the presence of the customer, she found it more than she could +bear with even a show of equanimity. She did her best, however; +and for some time things went on without any symptom of +approaching crisis. But it was impossible this should continue; +for, had she been capable of endless endurance, her persecutors +would only have gone on to worse. But Mary was naturally quick- +tempered, and the chief trouble they caused her was the control +of her temper; for, although she had early come to recognize the +imperative duty of this branch of self-government, she was not +yet perfect in it. Not every one who can serve unboundedly can +endure patiently; and the more gentle some natures, the more they +resent the rudeness which springs from an opposite nature; +absolutely courteous, they flame at discourtesy, and thus lack of +the perfection to which patience would and must raise them. When +Turnbull, in the narrow space behind the counter, would push his +way past her without other pretense of apology than something +like a sneer, she did feel for a moment as if evil were about to +have the victory over her; and when Mrs. Turnbull came in, which +happily was but seldom, she felt as if from some sepulchre in her +mind a very demon sprang to meet her. For she behaved to her +worst of all. She would heave herself in with the air and look of +a vulgar duchess; for, from the height of her small +consciousness, she looked down upon the shop, and never entered +it save as a customer. The daughter of a small country attorney, +who, notwithstanding his unneglected opportunities, had not been +too successful to accept as a husband for his daughter such a +tradesman as John Turnbull, she arrogated position from her idea +of her father's position; and, while bitterly cherishing the +feeling that she had married beneath her, obstinately excluded +the fact that therein she had descended to her husband's level, +regarding herself much in the light of a princess whose disguise +takes nothing from her rank. She was like those ladies who, +having set their seal to the death of their first husbands by +marrying again, yet cling to the title they gave them, and +continue to call themselves by their name. + +Mrs. Turnbull never bought a dress at the shop. No one should say +of her, it was easy for a snail to live in a castle! before they +did what was irrevocable. They are little better than children +now." + +"The thing is absolutely impossible," said Godfrey, and haughtily +rose from his chair like one in authority ending an interview. +"But," he added, "you have been put to great expense for the +foolish girl, and, when she leaves you, I desire you will let me +know--" + +"Thank you, Mr. Wardour!" said Mary, who had risen also. "As you +have now given a turn to the conversation which is not in the +least interesting to me, I wish you a good evening." + +With the words, she left the room. He had made her angry at last. +She trembled so that, the instant she was out of sight of the +house, she had to sit down for dread of falling. + +Godfrey remained in the room where she left him, full of +indignation. Ever since that frightful waking, he had brooded +over the injury--the insult, he counted it--which Letty had +heaped upon him. A great tenderness toward her, to himself +unknown, and of his own will unbegotten, remained in his spirit. +When he passed the door of her room, returning from that terrible +ride, he locked it, and put the key in his pocket, and from that +day no one entered the chamber. But, had he loved Letty as purely +as he had loved her selfishly, he would have listened to Mary +pleading in her behalf, and would have thought first about her +well-being, not about her character in the eyes of the world. He +would have seen also that, while the breath of the world's +opinion is a mockery in counterpoise with a life of broken +interest and the society of an unworthy husband, the mere fact of +his mother's receiving her again at Thornwick would of itself be +enough to reestablish her position in the face of all gainsayers. +But in Godfrey Wardour love and pride went hand in hand. Not for +a moment would he will to love a girl capable of being +interested, if nothing more, in Tom Helmer. It must be allowed, +however, that it would have been a terrible torture to see Letty +about the place, to pass her on the stair, to come upon her in +the garden, to sit with her in the room, and know all the time +that it was the test of Tom's worth and her constancy. Even were +she to give up Tom, satisfied that she did not love him, she +could be nothing more to him, even in the relation in which he +had allowed her to think she stood to him. She had behaved too +deceitfully, too heartlessly, too ungratefully, too +_vulgarly_ for that! Yet was his heart torn every time the +vision of the gentle girl rose before "that inward eye," which, +for long, could no more be to him "the bliss of solitude"; when +he saw those hazel depths looking half anxious, half sorrowful in +his face, as, with sadly comic sense of her stupidity, she +listened while he explained or read something he loved. But no; +nothing else would do than act the mere honest guardian, +compelling them to marry, no matter how slight or transient the +shadow the man had cast over her reputation! + +Mary returned with a sense of utter failure. + +But before long she came to the conclusion that all was right +between Tom and Letty, and that the cause of her anxiety had lain +merely in Letty's loss of animal spirits. + +Now and then Mary tried to turn Tom's attention a little toward +the duty of religion: Tom received the attempt with gentle +amusement and a little _badinage_. It was all very well for +girls! Indeed, he had made the observation that girls who had no +religion were "strong-minded," and that he could not endure! Like +most men, he was so well satisfied with himself, that he saw no +occasion to take trouble to be anything better than he was. Never +suspecting what a noble creature he was meant to be, he never saw +what a poor creature he was. In his own eyes he was a man any +girl might be proud to marry. He had not yet, however, sunk to +the depth of those who, having caught a glimpse of nobility, +confess wretchedness, excuse it, and decline to allow that the +noble they see they are bound to be; or, worse still, perhaps, +admit the obligation, but move no inch to fulfill it. It seems to +me that such must one day make acquaintance with _essential_ +misery--a thing of which they have no conception. + +Day after day Tom passed through Turnbull and Marston's shop to +see Letty. Tom cared for nobody, else he would have gone in by +the kitchen-door, which was the only other entrance to the house; +but I do not know whether it is a pity or not she took pains to +let her precious public know that she went to London to make her +purchases. If she did not mention also that she made them at the +warehouses where her husband was a customer, procuring them at +the same price he would have paid, it was because she saw no +occasion. It was indeed only for some small occasional necessity +she ever crossed the threshold of the place whence came all the +money she had to spend. When she did, she entered it with such +airs as she imagined to represent the consciousness of the scion +of a county family: there is one show of breeding vulgarity +seldom assumes--simplicity. No sign of recognition would pass +between her husband and herself: by one stern refusal to +acknowledge his advances, she had from the first taught him that +in the shop they were strangers: he saw the rock of ridicule +ahead, and required no second lesson: when she was present, he +never knew it. George had learned the lesson before he went into +the business, and Mary had never required it. The others behaved +to her as to any customer known to stand upon her dignity, but +she made them no return in politeness; and the way she would +order Mary, now there was no father to offend, would have been +amusing enough but for the irritation its extreme rudeness caused +her. She did, however, manage sometimes to be at once both a +little angry and much amused. Small idea had Mrs. Turnbull of the +diversion which on such occasions she afforded the customers +present. + +One day, a short time before her marriage, delayed by the illness +of Mr. Redmain, Miss Mortimer happened to be in the shop, and was +being served by Mary, when Mrs. Turnbull entered. Careless of the +customer, she walked straight up to her as if she saw none, and +in a tone that would be dignified, and was haughty, desired her +to bring her a reel of marking-cotton. Now it had been a +principle with Mary's father, and she had thoroughly learned it, +that whatever would be counted a rudeness by _any_ customer, +must be shown to _none_. "If all are equal in the sight of +God," he would say, "how dare I leave a poor woman to serve a +rich? Would I leave one countess to serve another? My business is +to sell in the name of Christ. To respect persons in the shop +would be just the same as to do it in the chapel, and would be to +deny him." + +"Excuse me, ma'am," said Mary, "I am waiting on Miss Mortimer," +and went on with what she was about. Mrs. Turnbull flounced away, +a little abashed, not by Mary, but by finding who the customer +was, and carried her commands across the shop. After a moment or +two, however, imagining, in the blindness of her surging anger, +that Miss Mortimer was gone, whereas she had only moved a little +farther on to look at something, she walked up to Mary in a fury. + +"Miss Marston," she said, her voice half choked with rage, "I am +at a loss to understand what you mean by your impertinence." + +"I am sorry you should think me impertinent," answered Mary. "You +saw yourself I was engaged with a customer, and could not attend +to you." + +"Your tone was insufferable, miss!" cried the grand lady; but +what more she would have said I can not tell, for just then Miss +Mortimer resumed her place in front of Mary. She had no idea of +her position in the shop, neither suspected who her assailant +was, and, fearing the woman's accusation might do her an injury, +felt compelled to interfere. + +"Miss Marston," she said--she had just heard Mrs. Turnbull use +her name--"if you should be called to account by your employer, +will you, please, refer to me? You were perfectly civil both to +me and to this--" she hesitated a perceptible moment, but ended +with the word "_lady_," peculiarly toned. + +"Thank you, ma'am," said Mary, with a smile, "but it is of no +consequence." + +This answer would have almost driven the woman out of her reason +--already, between annoyance with herself and anger with Mary, her +hue was purple: something she called her constitution required a +nightly glass of brandy-and-water--but she was so dumfounded by +Miss Mortimer's defense of Mary, which she looked upon as an +assault on herself, so painfully aware that all hands were +arrested and all eyes fixed on herself, and so mortified with the +conviction that her husband was enjoying her discomfiture, that, +with what haughtiness she could extemporize from consuming +offense, she made a sudden vertical gyration, and walked from the +vile place. + +Now, George never lost a chance of recommending himself to Mary +by siding with her--but only after the battle. He came up to her +now with a mean, unpleasant look, intended to represent sympathy, +and, approaching his face to hers, said, confidentially: + +"What made my mother speak to you like that, Mary?" + +"You must ask herself," she answered. + +"There you are, as usual, Mary!" he protested; "you will never +let a fellow take your part!" + +"If you wanted to take my part, you should have done so when +there would have been some good in it." + +"How could I, before Miss Mortimer, you know!" + +"Then why do it now?" + +"Well, you see--it's hard to bear hearing you ill used! What did +you say to Miss Mortimer that angered my mother?" + +His father heard him, and, taking the cue, called out in the +rudest fashion: + +"If you think, Mary, you're going to take liberties with +customers because you've got no one over you, the sooner you find +you're mistaken the better." + +Mary made him no answer. + +On her way to "the villa," Mrs. Turnbull, spurred by spite, had +got hold of the same idea as George, only that she invented where +he had but imagined it; and when her husband came home in the +evening fell out upon him for allowing Mary to be impertinent to +his customers, in whom for the first time she condescended to +show an interest: + +"There she was, talking away to that Miss Mortimer as if she was +Beenie in the kitchen! County people won't stand being treated as +if one was just as good as another, I can tell you! She'll be the +ruin of the business, with her fine-lady-airs! Who's she, I +should like to know?" + +"I shall speak to her," said the husband. "But," he went on, "I +fear you will no longer approve of marrying her to George, if you +think she's an injury to the business!" + +"You know, as well as I do, that is the readiest way to get her +out of it. Make her marry George, and she will fall into my +hands. If I don't make her repent her impudence then, you may +call me the fool you think me." + +Mary knew well enough what they wanted of her; but of the real +cause at the root of their desire she had no suspicion. Recoiling +altogether from Mr. Turnbull's theories of business, which were +in flat repudiation of the laws of Him who alone understands +either man or his business, she yet had not a doubt of his +honesty as the trades and professions count honesty. Her father +had left the money affairs of the firm to Mr. Turnbull, and she +did the same. It was for no other reason than that her position +had become almost intolerable, that she now began to wonder if +she was bound to this mode of life, and whether it might not be +possible to forsake it. + +Greed is the soul's thieving; where there is greed, there can not +be honesty. John Turnbull, it is true, was not only proud of his +reputation for honesty, but prided himself on being an honest +man; yet not the less was he dishonest--and that with a +dishonesty such as few of those called thieves have attained to. + +Like most of his kind, he had been neither so vulgar nor so +dishonest from the first. In the prime of youth he had had what +the people about him called high notions, and counted quixotic +fancies. But it was not their mockery of his tall talk that +turned him aside; opposition invariably confirmed Turnbull. He +had never set his face in the right direction. The seducing +influence lay in himself. It was not the truth he had loved; it +was the show of fine sentiment he had enjoyed. The distinction of +holding loftier opinions than his neighbors was the ground of his +advocacy of them. Something of the beauty of the truth he must +have seen--who does not?--else he could not have been thus moved +at all; but he had never denied himself even a whim for the +carrying out of one of his ideas; he had never set himself to be +better; and the whole mountain-chain, therefore, of his notions +sank and sank, until at length their loftiest peak was the maxim, +_Honesty is the best policy_--a maxim which, true enough in +fact, will no more make a man honest than the economic aphorism, +_The supply equals the demand_, will teach him the niceties +of social duty. Whoever makes policy the ground of his honesty +will discover more and more exceptions to the rule. The career, +therefore, of Turnbull of the high notions had been a gradual +descent to the level of his present dishonesty and vulgarity; +nothing is so vulgarizing as dishonesty. I do not care to follow +the history of any man downward. Let him who desires to look on +such a panorama, faithfully and thoroughly depicted, read +Auerbach's "Diethelm von Buchenberg." + +Things went a little more quietly in the shop after this for a +while: Turnbull probably was afraid of precipitating matters, and +driving Mary to seek counsel--from which much injury might arise +to his condition and prospects. As if to make amends for past +rudeness, he even took some pains to be polite, putting on +something of the manners with which he favored his "best +customers," of all mankind in his eyes the most to be honored. +This, of course, rendered him odious in the eyes of Mary, and +ripened the desire to free herself from circumstances which from +garments seemed to have grown cerements. She was, however, too +much her father's daughter to do anything in haste. + +She might have been less willing to abandon them, had she had any +friends like-minded with herself, but, while they were all kindly +disposed to her, none of the religious associates of her father, +who knew, or might have known her well, approved of her. They +spoke of her generally with a shake of the head, and an +unquestioned feeling that God was not pleased with her. There are +few of the so-called religious who seem able to trust either God +or their neighbor in matters that concern those two and no other. +Nor had she had opportunity of making acquaintance with any who +believed and lived like her father, in other of the Christian +communities of the town. But she had her Bible, and, when that +troubled her, as it did not a little sometimes, she had the +Eternal Wisdom to cry to for such wisdom as she could receive; +and one of the things she learned was, that nowhere in the Bible +was she called on to believe in the Bible, but in the living God, +in whom is no darkness, and who alone can give light to +understand his own intent. All her troubles she carried to him. + +It was not always the solitude of her room that Mary sought to +get out of the wind of the world. Her love of nature had been +growing stronger, notably, from her father's death. If the world +is God's, every true man ought to feel at home in it. Something +is wrong if the calm of the summer night does not sink into the +heart, for the peace of God is there embodied. Sometime is wrong +in the man to whom the sunrise is not a divine glory for therein +are embodied the truth, the simplicity, the might of the Maker. +When all is true in us, we shall feel the visible presence of the +Watchful and Loving; for the thing that he works is its sign and +symbol, its clothing fact. In the gentle conference of earth and +sky, in the witnessing colors of the west, in the wind that so +gently visited her cheek, in the great burst of a new morning, +Mary saw the sordid affairs of Mammon, to whose worship the shop +seemed to become more and more of a temple, sink to the bottom of +things, as the mud, which, during the day, the feet of the +drinking cattle have stirred, sinks in the silent night to the +bottom of the clear pool; and she saw that the sordid is all in +the soul, and not in the shop. The service of Christ is help. The +service of Mammon is greed. + +Letty was no good correspondent: after one letter in which she +declared herself perfectly happy, and another in which she said +almost nothing, her communication ceased. Mrs. Wardour had been +in the shop again and again, but on each occasion had sought the +service of another; and once, indeed, when Mary alone was +disengaged, had waited until another was at liberty. While Letty +was in her house, she had been civil, but, as soon as she was +gone, seemed to show that she held her concerned in the scandal +that had befallen Thornwick. Once, as I have said, she met +Godfrey. It was in the fields. He was walking hurriedly, as +usual, but with his head bent, and a gloomy gaze fixed upon +nothing visible. He started when he saw her, took his hat off, +and, with his eyes seeming to look far away beyond her, passed +without a word. Yet had she been to him a true pupil; for, +although neither of them knew it, Mary had learned more from +Godfrey than Godfrey was capable of teaching. She had turned +thought and feeling into life, into reality, into creation. They +speak of the _creations_ of the human intellect, of the +human imagination! there is nothing man can do comes half so near +the making of the Maker as the ordering of his way--except one +thing: the highest creation of which man is capable, is to will +the will of the Father. That _has_ in it an element of the +purely creative, and then is man likest God. But simply to do +what we ought, is an altogether higher, diviner, more potent, +more creative thing, than to write the grandest poem, paint the +most beautiful picture, carve the mightiest statue, build the +most worshiping temple, dream out the most enchanting commotion +of melody and harmony. If Godfrey could have seen the soul of the +maiden into whose face his discourtesy called the hot blood, he +would have beheld there simply what God made the earth for; as it +was, he saw a shop-girl, to whom in happier circumstances he had +shown kindness, in whom he was now no longer interested. But the +sight of his troubled face called up all the mother in her; a +rush of tenderness, born of gratitude, flooded her heart. He was +sad, and she could do nothing to comfort him! He had been royally +good to her, and no return was in her power. She could not even +let him know how she had profited by his gifts! She could come +near him with no ministration! The bond between them was an +eternal one, yet were they separated by a gulf of unrelation. Not +a mountain-range, but a stayless nothingness parted them. She +built many a castle, with walls of gratitude and floors of +service to entertain Godfrey Wardour; but they stood on no +foundation of imagined possibility. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE WEDDING-DRESS. + + +For all her troubles, however, Mary had her pleasures, even in +the shop. It was a delight to receive the friendly greetings of +such as had known and honored her father. She had the pleasure, +as real as it was simple, of pure service, reaping the fruit of +the earth in the joy of the work that was given her to do; there +is no true work that does not carry its reward though there are +few that do not drop it and lose it. She gathered also the +pleasure of seeing and talking with people whose manners and +speech were of finer grain and tone than those about her. When +Hesper Mortimer entered the shop, she brought with her delight; +her carriage was like the gait of an ode; her motions were +rhythm; and her speech was music. Her smile was light, and her +whole presence an enchantment to Mary. The reading aloud which +Wardour had led her to practice had taught her much, not only in +respect of the delicacies of speech and utterance, but in the +deeper matters of motion, relation, and harmony. Hesper's clear- +cut but not too sharply defined consonants; her soft but full- +bodied vowels; above all, her slow cadences that hovered on the +verge of song, as her walk on the verge of a slow aerial dance; +the carriage of her head, the movements of her lips, her arms, +her hands; the self-possession that seemed the very embodiment of +law--these formed together a whole of inexpressible delight, +inextricably for Mary associated with music and verse: she would +hasten to serve her as if she had been an angel come to do a +little earthly shopping, and return with the next heavenward +tide. Hesper, in response all but unconscious, would be waited on +by no other than Mary; and always between them passed some sweet, +gentle nothings, which afforded Hesper more pleasure than she +could have accounted for. + +Her wedding-day was now for the third time fixed, when one +morning she entered the shop to make some purchases. Not happy in +the prospect before her, she was yet inclined to make the best of +it so far as clothes were concerned--the more so, perhaps, that +she had seldom yet been dressed to her satisfaction: she was now +brooding over a certain idea for her wedding-dress, which she had +altogether failed in the attempt to convey to her London +_couturiere_; and it had come into her head to try whether +Mary might not grasp her idea, and help her to make it +intelligible. Mary listened and thought, questioned, and desired +explanations--at length, begged she would allow her to ponder the +thing a little: she could hardly at once venture to say anything. +Hesper laughed, and said she was taking a small matter too +seriously--concluding from Mary's hesitation that she had but +perplexed her, and that she could be of no use to her in the +difficulty. + +"A small matter? Your wedding-dress!" exclaimed Mary, in a tone +of expostulation. + +Hesper did not laugh again, but gave a little sigh instead, which +struck sadly on Mary's sympathetic heart. She cast a quick look +in her face. Hesper caught the look, and understood it. For one +passing moment she felt as if, amid the poor pleasure of adorning +herself for a hated marriage, she had found a precious thing of +which she had once or twice dreamed, never thought as a possible +existence--a friend, namely, to love her: the next, she saw the +absurdity of imagining a friend in a shop-girl. + +"But I must make up my mind so soon!" she answered. "Madame +Crepine gave me her idea, in answer to mine, but nothing like it, +two days ago; and, as I have not written again, I fear she may be +taking her own way with the thing. I am certain to hate it." + +"I will talk to you about it as early as you please to-morrow, if +that will do," returned Mary. + +She knew nothing about dressmaking beyond what came of a true +taste, and the experience gained in cutting out and making her +own garments, which she had never yet found a dressmaker to do to +her mind; and, indeed, Hesper had been led to ask her advice +mainly from observing how neat the design of her dresses was, and +how faithfully they fitted her. Dress is a sort of freemasonry +between girls. + +"But I can not have the horses to-morrow," said Hesper. + +"I might," pondered Mary aloud, after a moment's silence, "walk +out to Durnmelling this evening after the shop is shut. By that +time I shall have been able to think; I find it impossible, with +you before me." + +Hesper acknowledged the compliment with a very pleasant smile. If +it be true, as I may not doubt, that women, in dressing, have the +fear of women and not of men before their eyes, then a compliment +from some women must be more acceptable to some than a compliment +from any man but the specially favored. + +"Thank you a thousand times," she drawled, sweetly. "Then I shall +expect you. Ask for my maid. She will take you to my room. Good- +by for the present." + +As soon as she was gone, Mary, her mind's eye full of her figure, +her look, her style, her motion, gave herself to the important +question of the dress conceived by Hesper; and during her dinner- +hour contrived to cut out and fit to her own person the pattern +of a garment such as she supposed intended in the not very lucid +description she had given her. When she was free, she set out +with it for Durnmelling. + +It was rather a long walk, the earlier part of it full of sad +reminders of the pleasure with which, greater than ever +accompanied her to church, she went to pay her Sunday visit at +Thornwick; but the latter part, although the places were so near, +almost new to her: she had never been within the gate of +Durnmelling, and felt curious to see the house of which she had +so often heard. + +The butler opened the door to her--an elderly man, of conscious +dignity rather than pride, who received the "young person" +graciously, and, leaving her in the entrance-hall, went to find +"Miss Mortimer's maid," he said, though there was but one lady's- +maid in the establishment. + +The few moments she had to wait far more than repaid her for the +trouble she had taken: through a side-door she looked into the +great roofless hall, the one grand thing about the house. Its +majesty laid hold upon her, and the shopkeeper's daughter felt +the power of the ancient dignity and ineffaceable beauty far more +than any of the family to which it had for centuries belonged. + +She was standing lost in delight, when a rude voice called to her +from half-way up a stair: + +"You're to come this way, miss." + +With a start, she turned and went. It was a large room to which +she was led. There was no one in it, and she walked to an open +window, which had a wide outlook across the fields. A little to +the right, over some trees, were the chimneys of Thornwick. She +almost started to see them--so near, and yet so far--like the +memory of a sweet, sad story. + +"Do you like my prospect?" asked the voice of Hesper behind her. +"It is flat." + +"I like it much, Miss Mortimer," answered Mary, turning quickly +with a bright face. "Flatness has its own beauty. I sometimes +feel as if room was all I wanted; and of that there is so much +there! You see over the tree-tops, too, and that is good-- +sometimes--don't you think?" + +Miss Mortimer gave no other reply than a gentle stare, which +expressed no curiosity, although she had a vague feeling that +Mary's words meant something. Most girls of her class would +hardly have got so far. + +The summer was backward, but the day had been fine and warm, and +the evening was dewy and soft, and full of evasive odor. The +window looked westward, and the setting sun threw long shadows +toward the house. A gentle wind was moving in the tree-tops. The +spirit of the evening had laid hold of Mary. The peace of +faithfulness filled the air. The day's business vanished, molten +in the rest of the coming night. Even Hesper's wedding-dress was +gone from her thoughts. She was in her own world, and ready, for +very, quietness of spirit, to go to sleep. But she had not +forgotten the delight of Hesper's presence; it was only that all +relation between them was gone except such as was purely human. + +"This reminds me so of some beautiful verses of Henry Vaughan!" +she said, half dreamily. + +"What do they say?" drawled Hesper. + +Mary repeated as follows: + + "'The frosts are past, the storms are gone, + And backward life at last comes on. + And here in dust and dirt, O here, + The Lilies of His love appear!'" + +"Whose did you say the lines were?" asked Hesper, with merest +automatic response. + +"Henry Vaughan's," answered Mary, with a little spiritual shiver +as of one who had dropped a pearl in the miry way. + +"I never heard of him," rejoined Hesper, with entire +indifference. + +For anything she knew, he might be an occasional writer in "The +Belgrave Magazine," or "The Fireside Herald." Ignorance is one of +the many things of which a lady of position is never ashamed; +wherein she is, it may be, more right than most of my readers +will be inclined to allow; for ignorance is not the thing to be +ashamed of, but neglect of knowledge. That a young person in +Mary's position should know a certain thing, was, on the other +hand, a reason why a lady in Hesper's position should not know +it! Was it possible a shop-girl should know anything that Hesper +ought to know and did not? It was foolish of Mary, perhaps, but +she had vaguely felt that a beautiful lady like Miss Mortimer, +and with such a name as Hesper, must know all the lovely things +she knew, and many more besides. + +"He lived in the time of the Charleses," she said, with a tremble +in her voice, for she was ashamed to show her knowledge against +the other's ignorance. + +"Ah!" drawled Hesper, with a confused feeling that people who +kept shops read stupid old books that lay about, because they +could not subscribe to a circulating library.--"Are you fond of +poetry?" she added; for the slight, shadowy shyness, into which +her venture had thrown Mary, drew her heart a little, though she +hardly knew it, and inclined her to say something. + +"Yes," answered Mary, who felt like a child questioned by a +stranger in the road; "--when it is good," she added, +hesitatingly. + +"What do you mean by good?" asked Hesper--out of her knowledge, +Mary thought, but it was not even out of her ignorance, only out +of her indifference. People must say something, lest life should +stop. + +"That is a question difficult to answer," replied Mary. "I have +often asked it of myself, but never got any plain answer." + +"I do not see why you should find any difficulty in it," returned +Hesper, with a shadow of interest. "You know what you mean when +you say to yourself you like this, or you do not like that." + +"How clever she is, too!" thought Mary; but she answered: "I +don't think I ever say anything to myself about the poetry I +read--not at the time, I mean. If I like it, it drowns me; and, +if I don't like it, it is as the Dead Sea to me, in which you +know you can't sink, if you try ever so." + +Hesper saw nothing in the words, and began to fear that Mary was +so stupid as to imagine herself clever; whereupon the fancy she +had taken to her began to sink like water in sand. The two were +still on their feet, near the window--Mary, in her bonnet, with +her back to it, and Hesper, in evening attire, with her face to +the sunset, so that the one was like a darkling worshiper, the +other like the radiant goddess. But the truth was, that Hesper +was a mere earthly woman, and Mary a heavenly messenger to her. +Neither of them knew it, but so it was; for the angels are +essentially humble, and Hesper would have condescended to any +angel out of her own class. + +"I think I know good poetry by what it does to me," resumed Mary, +thoughtfully, just as Hesper was about to pass to the business of +the hour. + +"Indeed!" rejoined Hesper, not less puzzled than before, if the +word should be used where there was no effort to understand. +Poetry had never done anything to her, and Mary's words conveyed +no shadow of an idea. + +The tone of her _indeed_ checked Mary. She hesitated a +moment, but went on. + +"Sometimes," she said, "it makes me feel as if my heart were too +big for my body; sometimes as if all the grand things in heaven +and earth were trying to get into me at once; sometimes as if I +had discovered something nobody else knew; sometimes as if--no, +not _as if_, for then I _must_ go and pray to God. But +I am trying to tell you what I don't know how to tell. I am not +talking nonsense, I hope, only ashamed of myself that I can't +talk sense.--I will show you what I have been doing about your +dress." + +Far more to Hesper's surprise and admiration than any of her +half-foiled attempts at the utterance of her thoughts, Mary, +taking from her pocket the shape she had prepared, put it on +herself, and, slowly revolving before Hesper, revealed what in +her eyes was a masterpiece. + +"But how clever of you!" she cried.--Her own fingers had not been +quite innocent of the labor of the needle, for money had long +been scarce at Durnmelling, and in the paper shape she recognized +the hand of an artist.--"Why," she continued, "you are nothing +less than an accomplished dressmaker!" + +"That I dare not think myself," returned Mary, "seeing I never +had a lesson." + +"I wish you would make my wedding-dress," said Hesper. + +"I could not venture, even if I had the time," answered Mary. +"The moment I began to cut into the stuff, I should be terrified, +and lose my self-possession. I never made a dress for anybody but +myself." + +"You are a little witch!" said Hesper; while Mary, who had +roughly prepared a larger shape, proceeded to fit it to her +person. + +She was busy pinning and unpinning, shifting and pinning again, +when suddenly Hesper said: + +"I suppose you know I am going to marry money?" + +"Oh! don't say that. It's too dreadful!" cried Mary, stopping her +work, and looking up in Hesper's face. + +"What! you supposed I was going to marry a man like Mr. Redmain +for love?" rejoined Hesper, with a hard laugh. + +"I can not bear to think of it!" said Mary. "But you do not +really mean it! You are only--making fun of me! Do say you are." + +"Indeed, I am not. I wish I could say I was! It is very horrid, I +know, but where's the good of mincing matters? If I did not call +the thing by its name, the thing would be just the same. You +know, people in our world have to do as they must; they can't +pick and choose like you happy creatures. I dare say, now, you +are engaged to a young man you love with all your heart, one you +would rather marry than any other in the whole universe." + +"Oh, dear, no!" returned Mary, with a smile most plainly fancy- +free. "I am not engaged, nor in the least likely to be." + +"And not in love either?" said Hesper--with such coolness that +Mary looked up in her face to know if she had really said so. + +"No," she replied. + +"No more am I," echoed Hesper; "that is the one good thing in the +business: I sha'n't break my heart, as some girls do. At least, +so they say--I don't believe it: how could a girl be so indecent? +It is bad enough to marry a man: that one can't avoid; but to die +of a broken heart is to be a traitor to your sex. As if women +couldn't live without men!" + +Mary smiled and was silent. She had read a good deal, and thought +she understood such things better than Miss Mortimer. But she +caught herself smiling, and she felt as if she had sinned. For +that a young woman should speak of love and marriage as Miss +Mortimer did, was too horrible to be understood--and she had +smiled! She would have been less shocked with Hesper, however, +had she known that she forced an indifference she could not feel +--her last poor rampart of sand against the sea of horror rising +around her. But from her heart she pitied her, almost as one of +the lost. + +"Don't fix your eyes like that," said Hesper, angrily, "or I +shall cry. Look the other way, and listen.--I am marrying money, +I tell you--and for money; therefore, I ought to get the good of +it. Mr. Mortimer will be father enough to see to that! So I shall +be able to do what I please. I have fallen in love with you; and +why shouldn't I have you for my--" + +She paused, hesitating: what was it she was about to propose to +the little lady standing before her? She had been going to say +_maid_: what was it that checked her? The feeling was to +herself shapeless and nameless; but, however some of my readers +may smile at the notion of a girl who served behind a counter +being a lady, and however ready Hesper Mortimer would have been +to join them, it was yet a vague sense of the fact that was now +embarrassing her, for she was not half lady enough to deal with +it. In very truth, Mary Marston was already immeasurably more of +a lady than Hesper Mortimer was ever likely to be in this world. +What was the stateliness and pride of the one compared to the +fact that the other would have died in the workhouse or the +street rather than let a man she did not love embrace her--yes, +if all her ancestors in hell had required the sacrifice! To be a +martyr to a lie is but false ladyhood. She only is a lady who +witnesses to the truth, come of it what may. + +"--For my--my companion, or something of the sort," concluded +Hesper; "and then I should be sure of being always dressed to my +mind." + +"That _would_ be nice!" responded Mary, thinking only of the +kindness in the speech. + +"Would you really like it?" asked Hesper, in her turn pleased. + +"I should like it very much," replied Mary, not imagining the +proposal had in it a shadow of seriousness. "I wish it were +possible." + +"Why not, then? Why shouldn't it be possible? I don't suppose you +would mind using your needle a little?" + +"Not in the least," answered Mary, amused. "Only what would they +do in the shop without me?" + +"They could get somebody else, couldn't they?" + +"Hardly, to take my place. My father was Mr. Turnbull's partner." + +"Oh!" said Hesper, not much instructed. "I thought you had only +to give warning." + +There the matter dropped, and Mary thought no more about it. + +"You will let me keep this pattern?" said Hesper. + +"It was made for you," answered Mary. + +While Hesper was lazily thinking whether that meant she was to +pay for it, Mary made her a pretty obeisance, and bade her good +night. Hesper returned her adieu kindly, but neither shook hands +with her nor rang the bell to have her shown out Mary found her +own way, however, and presently was breathing the fresh air of +the twilight fields on her way home to her piano and her books. + +For some time after she was gone, Hesper was entirely occupied +with the excogitation of certain harmonies of the toilet that +must minister effect to the dress she had now so plainly before +her mind's eye; but by and by the dress began to melt away, and +like a dissolving view disappeared, leaving in its place the form +of "that singular shop-girl." There was nothing striking about +her; she made no such sharp impression on the mind as compelled +one to think of her again; yet always, when one had been long +enough in her company to feel the charm of her individuality, the +very quiet of any quiet moment was enough to bring back the +sweetness of Mary's twilight presence. For this girl, who spent +her days behind a counter, was one of the spiritual forces at +work for the conservation and recovery of the universe. + +Not only had Hesper Mortimer never had a friend worthy of the +name, but no idea of pure friendship had as yet been generated in +her. Sepia was the nearest to her intimacy: how far friendship +could have place between two such I need not inquire; but in her +fits of misery Hesper had no other to go to. Those fits, alas! +grew less and less frequent; for Hesper was on the downward +incline; but, when the next came, after this interview, she found +herself haunted, at a little distance, as it were, by a strange +sense of dumb, invisible tending. It did not once come close to +her; it did not once offer her the smallest positive consolation; +the thing was only this, that the essence of Mary's being was so +purely ministration, that her form could not recur to any memory +without bringing with it a dreamy sense of help. Most powerful of +all powers in its holy insinuation is _being_. _To be_ is more +powerful than even _to do_. Action _may_ be hypocrisy, +but being is the thing itself, and is the parent of action. Had +anything that Mary said recurred to Hesper, she would have +thought of it only as the poor sentimentality of a low education. + +But Hesper did not think of Mary's position as low; that would +have been to measure it; and it did not once suggest itself as +having any relation to any life in which she was interested. She +saw no difference of level between Mary and the lawyer who came +about her marriage settlements: they were together beyond her +social horizon. In like manner, moral differences--and that in +her own class--were almost equally beyond recognition. If by +neglect of its wings, an eagle should sink to a dodo, it would +then recognize only the laws of dodo life. For the dodos of +humanity, did not one believe in a consuming fire and an outer +darkness, what would be left us but an ever-renewed _alas_! +It is truth and not imperturbability that a man's nature requires +of him; it is help, not the leaving of cards at doors, that will +be recognized as the test; it is love, and no amount of flattery +that will prosper; differences wide as that between a gentleman +and a cad will contract to a hair's breadth in that day; the +customs of the trade and the picking of pockets will go together, +with the greater excuse for the greater need and the less +knowledge; liars the most gentleman-like and the most rowdy will +go as liars; the first shall be last, and the last first. + +Hesper's day drew on. She had many things to think about--things +very different from any that concerned Mary Marston. She was +married; found life in London somewhat absorbing; and forgot +Mary. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +MR. REDMAIN. + + +A life of comparatively innocent gayety could not be attractive +to Mr. Redmain, but at first he accompanied his wife everywhere. +No one knew better than he that not an atom of love had mingled +with her motives in marrying him; but for a time he seemed bent +on showing her that she needed not have been so averse to him. +Whether this was indeed his design or not, I imagine he enjoyed +the admiration she roused: for why should not a man take pride in +the possession of a fine woman as well as in that of a fine +horse? To be sure, Mrs. Redmain was not quite in the same way, +nor quite so much his, as his horses were, and might one day be a +good deal less his than she was now; but in the mean time she +was, I fancy, a pleasant break in the gathering monotony of his +existence. As he got more accustomed to the sight of her in a +crowd, however, and at the same time to her not very interesting +company in private, when she took not the smallest pains to +please him, he gradually lapsed into his former ways, and soon +came to spend his evenings in company that made him forget his +wife. He had loved her in a sort of a way, better left undefined, +and had also, almost from the first, hated her a little; for, +following her cousin's advice, she had appealed to him to save +her, and, when he evaded her prayer, had addressed him in certain +terms too appropriate to be agreeable, and too forcible to be +forgotten. His hatred, however, if that be not much too strong a +name, was neither virulent nor hot, for it had no inverted love +to feed and embitter it. It was more a thing of his head than his +heart, revealing itself mainly in short, acrid speeches, meant to +be clever, and indubitably disagreeable. Nor did Hesper prove an +unworthy antagonist in their encounters of polite Billingsgate: +what she lacked in experience she made up in breeding. The common +remark, generally false, about no love being lost, was in their +case true enough, for there never had been any between them to +lose. The withered rose-leaves have their sweetness yet, but what +of the rotted peony? It was generally when Redmain had been +longer than usual without seeing his wife that he said the worst +things to her, as if spite had grown in absence; but that he +should then be capable of saying such things as he did say, could +be understood only by those who knew the man and his history. + +Ferdinand Goldberg Redmain--parents with mean surroundings often +give grand names to their children--was the son of an +intellectually gifted laborer, who, rising first to be boss of a +gang, began to take portions of contracts, and arrived at last, +through one lucky venture after another, at having his estimate +accepted and the contract given him for a rather large affair. +The result was that, through his minute knowledge of details, his +faculty for getting work out of his laborers, a toughness of +heart and will that enabled him to screw wages to the lowest +mark, and the judicious employment of inferior material, the +contract paid him much too well for any good to come out of it. +From that time, what he called his life was a continuous course +of what he called success, and he died one of the richest dirt- +beetles of the age, bequeathing great wealth to his son, and +leaving a reputation for substantial worth behind him; hardly +leaving it, I fancy, for surely he found it waiting him where he +went. He had been guilty of a thousand meannesses, oppressions, +rapacities, and some quiet rogueries, but none of them worse than +those of many a man whose ultimate failure has been the sole +cause of his excommunication by the society which all the time +knew well enough what he was. Often had he been held up by +would-be teachers as a pattern to aspiring youth of what might +be achieved by unwavering attention to _the main chance_, +combined with unassailable honesty: from his experience they +would once more prove to a gaping world the truth of the maxim, +the highest intelligible to a base soul, that "honesty is the +best policy." With his money he left to his son the seeds of a +varied meanness, which bore weeds enough, but curiously, neither +avarice nor, within the bounds of a modest prudence, any +unwillingness to part with money--a fact which will probably +appear the stranger when I have told the following anecdote +concerning a brother of the father, of whom few indeed mentioned +in my narrative ever heard. + +This man was a joiner, or working cabinet-maker, or something of +the sort. Having one day been set by his master to repair for an +old lady an escritoire which had been in her possession for a +long time, he came to her house in the evening with a five-pound +note of a country bank, which he had found in a secret drawer of +the same, handing it to her with the remark that he had always +found honesty the best policy. She gave him half a sovereign, and +he took his leave well satisfied. _He had been first to make +inquiry, and had learned that the bank stopped payment many years +ago._ I can not help wondering, curious in the statistics of +honesty, how many of my readers will be more amused than +disgusted with the story. It is a great thing to come of decent +people, and Ferdinand Goldberg Redmain must not be judged like +one who, of honorable parentage, whether noble or peasant, takes +himself across to the shady side of the road. Much had been +against Redmain. I do not know of what sort his mother was, but +from certain embryonic virtues in him, which could hardly have +been his father's, I should think she must have been better than +her husband. She died, however, while he was a mere child; and +his father married, some said did not _marry_ again. The boy +was sent to a certain public school, which at that time, whatever +it may or may not be now, was simply a hot-bed of the lowest +vices, and in devil-matters Redmain was an apt pupil. There is +fresh help for the world every time a youth starts clean upon +manhood's race; his very being is a hope of cleansing: this one +started as foul as youth could well be, and had not yet begun to +repent. His character was well known to his associates, for he +was no hypocrite, and Hosper's father knew it perfectly, and was +therefore worse than he. Had Redmain had a daughter, he would +never have given her to a man like himself. But, then, Mortimer +was so poor, and Redmain was so _very_ rich! Alas for the +man who degrades his poverty by worshiping wealth! there is no +abyss in hell too deep for him to find its bottom. + +Mr. Redmain had no profession, and knew nothing of business +beyond what was necessary for understanding whether his factor or +steward, or whatever he called him, was doing well with his +money--to that he gave heed. Also, wiser than many, he took some +little care not to spend at full speed what life he had. With +this view he laid down and observed certain rules in the ordering +of his pleasures, which enabled him to keep ahead of the vice- +constable for some time longer than would otherwise have been the +case. But he is one who can never finally be outrun, and now, as +Mr. Redmain was approaching the end of middle age, he heard +plainly enough the approach of the wool-footed avenger behind +him. Horrible was the inevitable to him, as horrible as to any; +but it had not yet looked frightful enough to arrest his downward +rush. In his better conditions--physical, I mean--whether he had +any better moral conditions, I can not tell--he would laugh and +say, "_Gather the roses while you may_"--heaven and earth! +what roses!--but, in his worse, he maledicted everything, and was +horribly afraid of hell. When in tolerable health, he laughed at +the notion of such an out-of-the-way place, repudiating its very +existence, and, calling in all the arguments urged by good men +against the idea of an eternity of aimless suffering, used them +against the idea of any punishment after death. Himself a bad +man, he reasoned that God was too good to punish sin; himself a +proud man, he reasoned that God was too high to take heed of him. +He forgot the best argument he could have adduced--namely, that +the punishment he had had in this life had done him no good; from +which he might have been glad to argue that none would, and +therefore none would be tried. But I suppose his mother believed +there was a hell, for at such times, when from weariness he was +less of an evil beast than usual, the old-fashioned horror would +inevitably raise its dinosaurian head afresh above the slime of +his consciousness; and then even his wife, could she have seen +how the soul of the man shuddered and recoiled, would have let +his brutality pass unheeded, though it was then at its worst, his +temper at such times being altogether furious. There was no grace +in him when he was ill, nor at any time, beyond a certain cold +grace of manner, which he kept for ceremony, or where he wanted +to please. + +Happily, Mr. Redmain had one intellectual passion, which, poor +thing as it was, and in its motive, most of its aspects, and +almost all its tendencies, evil exceedingly, yet did something to +delay that corruption of his being which, at the same time, it +powerfully aided to complete: it was for the understanding and +analysis of human evil--not in the abstract, but alive and +operative. For the appeasement of this passion, he must render +intelligible to himself, and that on his own exclusive theory of +human vileness, the aims and workings of every fresh specimen of +what he called human nature that seemed bad enough, or was +peculiar enough to interest him. In this region of darkness he +ranged like a discoverer--prowled rather, like an unclean beast +of prey--ever and always on the outlook for the false and foul; +acknowledging, it is true, that he was no better himself, but +arrogating on that ground a correctness of judgment beyond the +reach of such as, desiring to be better, were unwilling to +believe in the utter badness of anything human. Like a lover, he +would watch for the appearance of the vile motive, the self- +interest, that "must be," _he knew_, at the heart of this or +that deed or proceeding of apparent benevolence or generosity. +Often, alas! the thing was provable; and, where he did not find, +he was quick to invent; and, where he failed in finding or +inventing, he not the less believed the bad motive was there, and +followed the slightest seeming trail of the cunning demon only +the more eagerly. What a smile was his when he heard, which truly +he was not in the way to hear often, the praise of some good +deed, or an ascription of high end to some endeavor of one of the +vile race to which he belonged! Do those who abuse their kind +actually believe they are of it? Do they hold themselves +exceptions? Do they never reflect that it must be because such is +their own nature, whether their accusation be true or false, that +they know how to attribute such motives to their fellows? Or is +it that, actually and immediately rejoicing in iniquity, they +delight in believing it universal? + +Quiet as a panther, Redmain was, I say, always in pursuit, if not +of something sensual for himself, then of something evil in +another. He would sit at his club, silent and watching, day after +day, night after night, waiting for the chance that should cast +light on some idea of detection, on some doubt, bewilderment, or +conjecture. He would ask the farthest-off questions: who could +tell what might send him into the track of discovery? He would +give to the talk the strangest turns, laying trap after trap to +ensnare the most miserable of facts, elevated into a desirable +secret only by his hope to learn through it something equally +valueless beyond it. Especially he delighted in discovering, or +flattering himself he had discovered, the hollow full of dead +men's bones under the flowery lawn of seeming goodness. Nor as +yet had he, so far as he knew, or at least was prepared to allow, +ever failed. And this he called the study of human nature, and +quoted Pope. Truly, next to God, the proper study of mankind is +man; but how shall a man that knows only the evil in himself, nor +sees it hateful, read the thousandfold-compounded heart of his +neighbor? To rake over the contents of an ash-pit, is not to +study geology. There were motives in Redmain's own being, which +he was not merely incapable of understanding, but incapable of +seeing, incapable of suspecting. + +The game had for him all the pleasure of keenest speculation; nor +that alone, for, in the supposed discovery of the evil of +another, he felt himself vaguely righteous. + +One more point in his character I may not in fairness omit: he +had naturally a strong sense of justice; and, if he exercised it +but little in some of the relations of his life, he was none the +less keenly alive to his own claims on its score; for chiefly he +cried out for fair play on behalf of those who were wicked in +similar fashion to himself. But, in truth, no one dealt so hardly +with Redmain as his own conscience at such times when suffering +and fear had awaked it. + +So much for a portrait-sketch of the man to whom Mortimer had +sold his daughter--such was the man whom Hesper, entirely aware +that none could compel her to marry against her will, had, partly +from fear of her father, partly from moral laziness, partly from +reverence for the Moloch of society, whose priestess was her +mother, vowed to love, honor, and obey! In justice to her, it +must be remembered, however, that she did not and could not know +of him what her father knew. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +MRS. REDMAIN. + + +In the autumn the Redmains went to Durnmelling: why they did so, +I should find it hard to say. If, when a child, Hesper loved +either of her parents, the experiences of later years had so +heaped that filial affection with the fallen leaves of dead hopes +and vanished dreams, that there was now nothing in her heart +recognizable to herself as love to father or mother. She always +behaved to them, of course, with perfect propriety; never refused +any small request; never showed resentment when blamed--never +felt any, for she did not care enough to be angry or sorry that +father or mother should disapprove. + +On the other hand, Lady Margaret saw great improvement in her +daughter. To the maternal eye, jealous for perfection, Hesper's +carriage was at length satisfactory. It was cold, and the same to +her mother as to every one else, but the mother did not find it +too cold. It was haughty, even repellent, but by no means in the +mother's eyes repulsive. Her voice came from her in well-balanced +sentences, sounding as if they had been secretly constructed for +extempore use, like the points of a parliamentary orator. +"Marriage has done everything for her!" said Lady Malice to +herself with a dignified chuckle, and dismissed the last shadowy +remnant of maternal regret for her part in the transaction of her +marriage. + +She never saw herself in the wrong, and never gave herself the +least trouble to be in the right. She was in good health, ate, +and liked to eat; drank her glass of champagne, and would have +drunk a second, but for her complexion, and that it sometimes +made her feel ill, which was the only thing, after marrying Mr. +Redmain, she ever felt degrading. Of her own worth she had never +had a doubt, and she had none yet: how was she to generate one, +courted wherever she went, both for her own beauty and her +husband's wealth? + +To her father she was as stiff and proud as if she had been a +maiden aunt, bent on destroying what expectations from her he +might be cherishing. Who will blame her? He had done her all the +ill he could, and by his own deed she was beyond his reach. Nor +can I see that the debt she owed him for being her father was of +the heaviest. + +Her husband was again out of health--certain attacks to which he +was subject were now coming more frequently. I do not imagine his +wife offered many prayers for his restoration. Indeed, she never +prayed for the thing she desired; and, while he and she occupied +separate rooms, the one solitary thing she now regarded as a +privilege, how _could_ she pray for his recovery? + +Greatly contrary to Mr. Redmain's unexpressed desire, Miss +Yolland had been installed as Hesper's cousin-companion. After +the marriage, she ventured to unfold a little, as she had +promised, but what there was yet of womanhood in Hesper had +shrunk from further acquaintance with the dimly shadowed +mysteries of Sepia's story; and Sepia, than whom none more +sensitive to change of atmosphere, had instantly closed again; +and now not unfrequently looked and spoke like one feeling her +way. The only life-principle she had, so far as I know, was to +get from the moment the greatest possible enjoyment that would +leave the way clear for more to follow. She had not been in his +house a week before Mr. Redmain hated her. He was something given +to hating people who came near him, and she came much too near. +She was by no means so different in character as to be repulsive +to him; neither was she so much alike as to be tiresome; their +designs could not well clash, for she was a woman and he was a +man; if she had not been his wife's friend, they might, perhaps, +have got on together better than well; but the two were such as +must either be hand in glove or hate each other. There had not, +however, been the least approach to rupture between them. Mr. +Redmain, indeed, took no trouble to avoid such a catastrophe, but +Sepia was far too wise to allow even the dawn of such a risk. +When he was ill, he was, if possible, more rude to her than to +every one else, but she did not seem to mind it a straw. Perhaps +she knew something of the ways of such _gentlemen_ as lose +their manners the moment they are ailing, and seem to consider a +headache or an attack of indigestion excuse sufficient for +behaving like the cad they scorn. It was not long, however, +before he began to take in her a very real interest, though not +of a sort it would have made her comfortable with him to know. + +Every time Mr. Redmain had an attack, the baldness on the top of +his head widened, and the skin of his face tightened on his +small, neat features; his long arms looked longer; his formerly +flat back rounded yet a little; and his temper grew yet more +curiously spiteful. Long after he had begun to recover, he was by +no means an agreeable companion. Nevertheless, as if at last, +though late in the day, she must begin to teach her daughter the +duty of a married woman, from the moment he arrived, taken ill on +the way, Lady Malice, regardless of the brusqueness with which he +treated her from the first, devoted herself to him with an +attention she had never shown her husband. She was the only one +who manifested any appearance of affection for him, and the only +one of the family for whom, in return, he came to show the least +consideration. Rough he was, even to her, but never, except when +in absolute pain, rude as to everybody in the house besides. At +times, one might have almost thought he stood in some little awe +of her. Every night, after his man was gone, she would visit him +to see that he was left comfortable, would tuck him up as his +mother might have done, and satisfy herself that the night-light +was shaded from his eyes. With her own hands she always arranged +his breakfast on the tray, nor never omitted taking him a basin +of soup before he got up; and, whatever he may have concluded +concerning her motives, he gave no sign of imagining them other +than generous. Perhaps the part in him which had never had the +opportunity of behaving ill to his mother, and so had not choked +up its channels with wrong, remained, in middle age and illness, +capable of receiving kindness. + +Hesper saw the relation between them, but without the least +pleasure or the least curiosity. She seemed to care for nothing-- +except the keeping of her back straight. What could it be, inside +that lovely form, that gave itself pleasure to be, were a +difficult question indeed. The bear as he lies in his winter +nest, sucking his paw, has no doubt his rudimentary theories of +life, and those will coincide with a desire for its continuance; +but whether what either the lady or the bear counts the good of +life, be really that which makes either desire its continuance, +is another question. Mere life without suffering seems enough for +most people, but I do not think it could go on so for ever. I can +not help fancying that, but for death, utter dreariness would at +length master the healthiest in whom the true life has not begun +to shine. But so satisfying is the mere earthly existence to some +at present, that this remark must sound to them bare insanity. + +Partly out of compliment to Mr. Redmain, the Mortimers had +scarcely a visitor; for he would not come out of his room when he +knew there was a stranger in the house. Fond of company of a +certain kind when he was well, he could not endure an unknown +face when ho was ill. He told Lady Malice that at such times a +stranger always looked a devil to him. Hence the time was dull +for everybody--dullest, perhaps, for Sepia, who, as well as +Redmain, had a few things that required forgetting. It was no +wonder, then, that Hesper, after a fort-night of it, should think +once more of the young woman in the draper's shop of Testbridge. +One morning, in consequence, she ordered her brougham, and drove +to the town. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE MENIAL. + + +Things had been going nowise really better with Mary, though +there was now more lull and less storm around her. The position +was becoming less and less endurable to her, and she had as yet +no glimmer of a way out of it. Breath of genial air never blew in +the shop, except when this and that customer entered it. But how +dear the dull old chapel had grown! Not that she heard anything +more to her mind, or that she paid any more attention to what was +said; but the memory of her father filled the place, and when the +Bible was read, or some favorite hymn sung, he seemed to her +actually present. And might not love, she thought, even love to +her, be strong enough to bring him from the gracious freedom of +the new life, back to the house of bondage, to share it for an +hour with his daughter? + +When Hesper entered, she was disappointed to see Mary so much +changed. But when, at sight of her, the pale face brightened, and +a faint, rosy flush overspread it from brow to chin, Mary was +herself again as Hesper had known her; and the radiance of her +own presence, reflected from Mary, cast a reflex of sunshine into +the February of Hesper's heart: had Mary known how long it was +since such a smile had lighted the face she so much admired, hers +would have flushed with a profounder pleasure. Hesper was human +after all, though her humanity was only molluscous as yet, and it +is not in the power of humanity in any stage of development to +hold itself indifferent to the pleasure of being loved. Also, +poor as is the feeling comparatively, it is yet a reflex of love +itself--the shine of the sun in a rain-pool. + +She walked up to Mary, holding out her hand. + +"O ma'am, I am so glad to see you!" exclaimed Mary, forgetting +her manners in her love. + +"I, too, am glad," drawled Hesper, genuinely, though with +condescension. "I hope you are well. I can not say you look so." + +"I am pretty well, thank you, ma'am," answered Mary, flushing +afresh: not much anxiety was anywhere expressed about her health +now, except by Beenie, who mourned over the loss of her +plumpness, and told her if she did not eat she would soon follow +her poor father. + +"Come and have a drive with me," said Hesper, moved by a sudden +impulse: through some hidden motion of sympathy, she felt, as she +looked at her, that the place was stuffy. "It will do you good," +she went on. "You are too much indoors.--And the ceiling is low," +she added, looking up. + +"It is very kind of you," replied Mary, "but--I don't think I +could quite manage it to-day." + +She looked round as she spoke. There were not many customers; but +for conscience sake she was trying hard to give as little ground +for offense as possible. + +"Why not?--If I were to ask Mr.--" + +"If you really wish it, ma'am, I will venture to go for half an +hour. There is no occasion to speak to Mr. Turnbull. Besides, it +is almost dinner-time." + +"Do, then. I am sure you will eat a better dinner for having had +a little fresh air first. It is a lovely morning. We will drive +to the Roman camp on the top of Clover-down." + +"I shall be ready in two minutes," said Mary, and ran from the +shop. + +As she passed along the outside of his counter coming back, she +stopped and told Mr. Turnbull where she was going. Instead of +answering her, he turned himself toward Mrs. Redmain, and went +through a series of bows and smiles recognizant of favor, which +she did not choose to see. She turned and walked from the shop, +got into the brougham, and made room for Mary at her side. + +But, although the drive was a lovely one, and the view from +either window delightful, and to Mary it was like getting out of +a tomb to leave the shop in the middle of the day, she saw little +of the sweet country on any side, so much occupied was she with +Hesper. Ere they stopped again at the shop-door, the two young +women were nearer being friends than Hesper had ever been with +any one. The sleepy heart in her was not yet dead, but capable +still of the pleasure of showing sweet condescension and gentle +patronage to one who admired her, and was herself agreeable. To +herself she justified her kindness to Mary with the remark that +_the young woman deserved encouragement_--whatever that +might mean--_because she was so anxious to improve +herself!_--a duty Hesper could recognize in another. + +As they went, Mary told her something of her miserable relations +with the Turnbulls; and, as they returned, Hesper actually--this +time with perfect seriousness--proposed that she should give up +business, and live with her. + +Nor was this the ridiculous thing it may at first sight appear to +not a few of my readers. It arose from what was almost the first +movement in the direction of genuine friendship Hesper had ever +felt. She had been familiar in her time with a good many, but +familiarity is not friendship, and may or may not exist along +with it. Some, who would scorn the idea of a _friendship_ +with such as Mary, will be familiar enough with maids as selfish +as themselves, and part from them--no--part _with_ them, the +next day, or the next hour, with never a twinge of regret. Of +this, Hesper was as capable as any; but friendship is its own +justification, and she felt no horror at the new motion of her +heart. At the same time she did not recognize it as friendship, +and, had she suspected Mary of regarding their possible relation +in that light, she would have dismissed her pride, perhaps +contempt. Nevertheless the sorely whelmed divine thing in her had +uttered a feeble sigh of incipient longing after the real; Mary +had begun to draw out the love in her; while her conventional +judgment justified the proposed extraordinary proceeding with the +argument of the endless advantages to result from having in the +house, devoted to her wishes, a young woman with an absolute +genius for dressmaking; one capable not only of originating in +that foremost of arts, but, no doubt, with a little experience, +of carrying out also with her own hands the ideas of her +mistress. No more would she have to send for the dressmaker on +every smallest necessity! No more must she postpone confidence in +her appearance, that was, in herself, until Sepia, dressed, +should be at leisure to look her over! Never yet had she found +herself the best dressed in a room: now there would be hope! + +Nothing, however, was clear in her mind as to the position she +would have Mary occupy. She had a vague feeling that one like her +ought not to be expected to undertake things befitting such women +as her maid Folter; for between Mary and Folter there was, she +saw, less room for comparison than between Folter and a naked +Hottentot. She was incapable, at the same time, of seeing that, +in the eyes of certain courtiers of a high kingdom, not much +known to the world of fashion, but not the less judges of the +beautiful, there was a far greater difference between Mary and +herself than between herself and her maid, or between her maid +and the Hottentot. For, while the said beholders could hardly +have been astonished at Hesper's marrying Mr. Redmain, there +would, had Mary done such a thing, have been dismay and a hanging +of the head before the face of her Father in heaven. + +"Come and live with me, Miss Marston," said Hesper; but it was +with a laugh, and that light touch of the tongue which suggests +but a flying fancy spoken but for the sake of the preposterous; +while Mary, not forgetting she had heard the same thing once +before, heard it with a smile, and had no rejoinder ready; +whereupon Hesper, who was, in reality, feeling her way, ventured +a little more seriousness. + +"I should never ask you to do anything you would not like," she +said. + +"I don't think you could," answered Mary. "There are more things +I should like to do for you than you would think to ask.--In +fact," she added, looking round with a loving smile, "I don't +know what I shouldn't like to do for you." + +"My meaning was, that, as a thing of course, I should never ask +you to do anything menial," explained Hesper, venturing a little +further still, and now speaking in a tone perfectly matter-of- +fact. + +"I don't know what you intend by _menial_," returned Mary. + +Hesper thought it not unnatural she should not he familiar with +the word, and proceeded to explain it as well as she could. That +seeming ignorance may be the consequence of more knowledge, she +had yet to learn. + +"_Menial_, don't you know?" she said, "is what you give +servants to do." + +But therewith she remembered that Mary's help in certain things +wherein her maid's incapacity was harrowing, was one of the hopes +she mainly cherished in making her proposal: that definition of +_menial_ would hardly do. + +"I mean--I mean," she resumed, with a little embarrassment, a +rare thing with her, "--things like--like--cleaning one's shoes, +don't you know?--or brushing your hair." + +Mary burst out laughing. + +"Let me come to you to-morrow morning," she said, "and I will +brush your hair that you will want me to come again the next day. +You beautiful creature! whose hands would not be honored to +handle such stuff as that?" + +As she spoke, she took in her fingers a little stray drift from +the masses of golden twilight that crowned one of the loveliest +temples in which the Holy Ghost had not yet come to dwell. + +"If cleaning your shoes be menial, brushing your hair must be +royal," she added. + +Hesper's heart was touched; and if at the same time her +_self_ was flattered, the flattery was mingled with its best +antidote--love. + +"Do you really mean," she said, "you would not mind doing such +things for me?--Of course I should not be exacting." + +She laughed again, afraid of showing herself too much in earnest +before she was sure of Mary. + +"You would not ask me to do anything _menial_?" said Mary, +archly. + +"I dare not promise," said Hesper, in tone responsive. "How could +I help it, if I saw you longing to do what I was longing to have +you do?" she added, growing more and more natural. + +"I would no more mind cleaning your boots than my own," said +Mary. + +"But I should not like to clean my own boots," rejoined Hesper. + +"No more should I, except it had to be done. Even then I would +much rather not," returned Mary, "for cleaning my own would not +interest me. To clean yours would. Still I would rather not, for +the time might be put to better use--except always it were +necessary, and then, of course, it couldn't. But as to anything +degrading in it, I scorn the idea. I heard my father once say +that, to look down on those who have to do such things may be to +despise them for just the one honorable thing about them.--Shall +I tell you what I understand by the word _menial_? You know +it has come to have a disagreeable taste about it, though at +first it only meant, as you say, something that fell to the duty +of attendants." + +"Do tell me," answered Hesper, with careless permission. + +"I did not find it out myself," said Mary. "My father taught me. +He was a wise as well as a good man, Mrs. Redmain." + +"Oh!" said Hesper, with the ordinary indifference of fashionable +people to what an inferior may imagine worth telling them. + +"He said," persisted Mary, notwithstanding, "that it is menial to +undertake anything you think beneath you for the sake of money; +and still more menial, having undertaken it, not to do it as well +as possible." "That would make out a good deal more of the menial +in the world than is commonly supposed," laughed Hesper. "I +wonder who would do anything for you if you didn't pay them--one +way or another!" + +"I've taken my father's shoes out of Beenie's hands many a time," +said Mary, "and finished them myself, just for the pleasure of +making them shine for _him_." + +"Re-a-ally!" drawled Hesper, and set out for the conclusion that +after all it was no such great compliment the young woman had +paid her in wanting to brush her hair. Evidently she had a taste +for low things!--was naturally menial!--would do as much for her +own father as for a lady like her! But the light in Mary's eyes +checked her. + +"Any service done without love, whatever it be," resumed Mary, +"is slavery--neither more nor less. It can not be anything else. +So, you see, most slaves are made slaves by themselves; and that +is what makes me doubtful whether I ought to go on serving in the +shop; for, as far as the Turnbulls are concerned, I have no +pleasure in it; I am only helping them to make money, not doing +them any good." + +"Why do you not give it up at once then?" asked Hesper. + +"Because I like serving the customers. They were my father's +customers; and I have learned so much from having to wait on +them!" + +"Well, now," said Hesper, with a rush for the goal, "if you will +come to me, I will make you comfortable; and you shall do just as +much or as little as you please." + +"What will your maid think?" suggested Mary. "If I am to do what +I please, she will soon find me trespassing on her domain." + +"I never trouble myself about what my servants think," said +Hesper. + +"But it might hurt her, you know--to be paid to do a thing and +then not allowed to do it," + +"She may take herself away, then. I had not thought of parting +with her, but I should not be at all sorry if she went. She would +be no loss to me." + +"Why should you keep her, then?" + +"Because one is just as good--and as bad as another. She knows my +ways, and I prefer not having to break in a new one. It is a bore +to have to say how you like everything done." + +"But you are speaking now as if you meant it," said Mary, waking +up to the fact that Hesper's tone was of business, and she no +longer seemed half playing with the proposal. "_Do_ you mean +you want me to come and live with you?" + +"Indeed, I do," answered Hesper, emphatically. "You shall have a +room close to my bedroom, and there you shall do as you like all +day long; and, when I want you, I dare say you will come." + +"Fast enough," said Mary, cheerily, as if all was settled. In +contrast with her present surroundings, the prospect was more +than attractive. "--But would you let me have my piano?" she +asked, with sudden apprehension. + +"You shall have my grand piano always when I am out, which will +be every night in the season, I dare say. That will give you +plenty of practice; and you will be able to have the best of +lessons. And think of the concerts and oratorios you will go to!" + +As she spoke, the carriage drew up at the door of the shop, and +Mary took her leave. Hesper accepted her acknowledgments in the +proper style of a benefactress, and returned her good-by kindly. +But not yet did she shake hands with her. + +Some of my readers may wonder that Mary should for a moment dream +of giving up what they would call her independence; for was she +not on her own ground in the shop of which she was a proprietor? +and was the change proposed, by whatever name it might be called, +anything other than _service_? But they are outside it, and +Mary was in it, and knew how little such an independence was +worth the name. Almost everything about the shop had altered in +its aspect to her. The very air she breathed in it seemed +slavish. Nor was the change in her. The whole thing was growing +more and more sordid, for now--save for her part--the one spirit +ruled it entirely. + +The work had therefore more or less grown a drudgery to her. The +spirit of gain was in full blast, and whoever did not trim his +sails to it was in danger of finding it rough weather. No longer +could she, without offense, and consequent disturbance of spirit, +arrange her attendance as she pleased, or have the same time for +reading as before. She could encounter black looks, but she could +not well live with them; and how was she to continue the servant +of such ends as were now exclusively acknowledged in the place? +The proposal of Mrs. Redmain stood in advantageous contrast to +this treadmill-work. In her house she would be called only to the +ministrations of love, and would have plenty of time for books +and music, with a thousand means of growth unapproachable in +Testbridge. All the slavery lay in the shop, all the freedom in +the personal service. But she strove hard to suppress anxiety, +for she saw that, of all poverty-stricken contradictions, a +Christian with little faith is the worst. + +The chief attraction to her, however, was simply Hesper herself. +She had fallen in love with her--I hardly know how otherwise to +describe the current with which her being set toward her. Few +hearts are capable of loving as she loved. It was not merely that +she saw in Hesper a grand creature, and lovely to look upon, or +that one so much her superior in position showed such a liking +for herself; she saw in her one she could help, one at least who +sorely needed help, for she seemed to know nothing of what made +life worth having--one who had done, and must yet be capable of +doing, things degrading to the humanity of womanhood. Without the +hope of helping in the highest sense, Mary could not have taken +up her abode in such a house as Mrs. Redmain's. No outward +service of any kind, even to the sick, was to her service enough +to _choose_; were it laid upon her, she would hasten to it; +for necessity is the push, gentle or strong, as the man is more +or less obedient, by which God sends him into the path he would +have him take. But to help to the birth of a beautiful Psyche, +enveloped all in the gummy cerecloths of its chrysalis, not yet +aware, even, that it must get out of them, and spread great wings +to the sunny wind of God--that was a thing for which the holiest +of saints might well take a servant's place--the thing for which +the Lord of life had done it before him. To help out such a +lovely sister--how Hesper would have drawn herself up at the +word! it is mine, not Mary's--as she would be when no longer +holden of death, but her real self, the self God meant her to be +when he began making her, would indeed be a thing worth having +lived for! Between the ordinarily benevolent woman and Mary +Marston, there was about as great a difference as between the +fashionable church-goer and Catherine of Siena. She would be +Hesper's servant that she might gain Hesper. I would not have her +therefore wondered at as a marvel of humility. She was simply a +young woman who believed that the man called Jesus Christ is a +real person, such as those represent him who profess to have +known him; and she therefore believed the man himself--believed +that, when he said a thing, he entirely meant it, knowing it to +be true; believed, therefore, that she had no choice but do as he +told her. That man was the servant of all; therefore, to regard +any honest service as degrading would be, she saw, to deny +Christ, to call the life of creation's hero a disgrace. Nor was +he the first servant; he did not of himself choose his life; the +Father gave it him to live--sent him to be a servant, because he, +the Father, is the first and greatest servant of all. He gives it +to one to serve as the rich can, to another as the poor must. The +only disgrace, whether of the counting-house, the shop, or the +family, is to think the service degrading. If it be such, why not +sit down and starve rather than do it? No man has a right to +disgrace himself. Starve, I say; the world will lose nothing in +you, for you are its disgrace, who count service degrading. You +are much too grand people for what your Maker requires of you, +and does himself, and yet you do it after a fashion, because you +like to eat and go warm. You would take rank in the kingdom of +hell, not the kingdom of heaven. But obedient love, learned by +the meanest Abigail, will make of her an angel of ministration, +such a one as he who came to Peter in the prison, at whose touch +the fetters fell from the limbs of the apostle. + +"What forced, overdriven, Utopian stuff! A kingdom always coming, +and never come! I hold by what _is._ This solid, plowable +earth will serve my turn. My business is what I can find in the +oyster." + +I hear you, friend. Your answer will come whence you do not look +for it. For some, their only answer will be the coming of that +which they deny; and the _Presence_ will be a very different +thing to those who desire it and those who do not. In the mean +time, if we are not yet able to serve like God from pure love, +let us do it because it is his way; so shall we come to do it +from pure love also. + +The very next morning, as she called it--that is, at four o'clock +in the afternoon--Hesper again entered the shop, and, to the +surprise and annoyance of the master of it, was taken by Mary +through the counter and into the house. "What a false +impression," thought the great man, "will it give of the way +_we_ live, to see the Marstons' shabby parlor in a +warehouse!" But he would have been more astonished and more +annoyed still, had the deafening masses of soft goods that filled +the house permitted him to hear through them what passed between +the two. Before they came down, Mary had accepted a position in +Mrs. Redmain's house, if that may be called a position which was +so undefined; and Hesper had promised that she would not mention +the matter. For Mary judged Mr. Turnbull would be too glad to get +rid of her to mind how brief the notice she gave him, and she +would rather not undergo the remarks that were sure to be made in +contempt of her scheme. She counted it only fair, however, to let +him know that she intended giving up her place behind the +counter, hinting that, as she meant to leave when it suited her +without further warning, it would be well to look out at once for +one to take her place. + +As to her money in the business, she scarcely thought of it, and +said nothing about it, believing it as safe as in the bank. It +was in the power of a dishonest man who prided himself on his +honesty--the worst kind of rogue in the creation; but she had not +yet learned to think of him as a dishonest man--only as a greedy +one--and the money had been there ever since she had heard of +money. Mr. Turnbull was so astonished by her communication that, +not seeing at once how the change was likely to affect him, he +held his peace--with the cunning pretense that his silence arose +from anger. His first feeling was of pleasure, but the man of +business must take care how he shows himself pleased. On +reflection, he continued pleased; for, as they did not seem +likely to succeed in securing Mary in the way they had wished, +the next best thing certainly would be to get rid of her. +Perhaps, indeed, it was the very best thing; for it would be easy +to get George a wife more suitable to the position of his family +than a little canting dissenter, and her money would be in their +hands all the same; while, once clear of her haunting cat-eyes, +ready to pounce upon whatever her soft-headed father had taught +her was wicked, he could do twice the business. But, while he +continued pleased, he continued careful not to show his +satisfaction, for she would then go smelling about for the cause! +During three whole days, therefore, he never spoke to her. On the +fourth, he spoke as if nothing had ever been amiss between them, +and showed some interest in her further intentions. But Mary, in +the straightforward manner peculiar to herself, told him she +preferred not speaking of them at present; whereupon the cunning +man concluded that she wanted a place in another shop, and was on +the outlook--prepared to leave the moment one should turn up. + +She asked him one day whether he had yet found a person to take +her place. + +"Time enough for that," he answered. "You're not gone yet." + +"As you please, Mr. Turnbull," said Mary. "It was merely that I +should be sorry to leave you without sufficient help in the +shop." + +"And _I_ should be sorry," rejoined Turnbull, "that Miss +Marston should fancy herself indispensable to the business she +turned her back upon." + +From that moment, the restraint he had for the last week or two +laid upon himself thus broken through, he never spoke to her +except with such rudeness that she no longer ventured to address +him even on shop-business; and all the people in the place, +George included, following the example so plainly set them, she +felt, when, at last, in the month of November, a letter from +Hesper heralded the hour of her deliverance, that to take any +formal leave would be but to expose herself to indignity. She +therefore merely told Turnbull, one evening as he left the shop, +that she would not be there in the morning, and was gone from +Testbridge before it was opened the next day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +MRS. REDMAIN'S DRAWING-ROOM. + + +A few years ago, a London drawing-room was seldom beautiful; but +size is always something, and, if Mrs. Redmain's had not harmony, +it had gilding--a regular upholsterer's drawing-room it was, on +which about as much taste had been expended as on the fattening +of a prize-pig. Happily there is as little need as temptation to +give any description of it, with its sheets of glass and steel, +its lace curtains, crude-colored walls and floor and couches, and +glittering chandeliers of a thousand prisms. Everybody knows the +kind of room--a huddle of the chimera ambition wallowing in the +chaos of the commonplace--no miniature world of harmonious +abiding. The only interesting thing in it was, that on all sides +were doors, which must lead out of it, and might lead to a better +place. + +It was about eleven o'clock of a November morning--more like one +in March. There might be a thick fog before the evening, but now +the sun was shining like a brilliant lump of ice--so inimical to +heat, apparently, that a servant had just dropped the venetian +blind of one of the windows to shut his basilisk-gaze from the +sickening fire, which was now rapidly recovering. Betwixt the +cold sun and the hard earth, a dust-befogged wind, plainly +borrowed from March, was sweeping the street. + +Mr. and Mrs. Redmain had returned to town thus early because +their country-place was in Cornwall, and there Mr. Redmain was +too far from his physician. He was now considerably better, +however, and had begun to go about again, for the weather did not +yet affect him much. He was now in his study, as it was called, +where he generally had his breakfast alone. Mrs. Redmain always +had hers in bed, as often with a new novel as she could, of which +her maid cut the leaves, and skimmed the cream. But now she was +descending the stair, straight as a Greek goddess, and about as +cold as the marble she is made of--mentally rigid, morally +imperturbable, and vacant of countenance to a degree hardly +equaled by the most ordinary of goddesses. She entered the +drawing-room with a slow, careless, yet stately step, which +belonged to her, I can not say by nature, for it was not natural, +but by ancestry. She walked to the chimney, seated herself in a +low, soft, shiny chair almost on the hearth-rug, and gazed +listlessly into the fire. In a minute she rose and rang the bell. + +"Send my maid, and shut the door," she said. + +The woman came. + +"Has Miss Yolland left her room yet?" she asked. + +"No, ma'am." + +"Let her know I am in the drawing-room." + +This said, she resumed her fire-gazing. + +There was not much to see in the fire, for the fire is but a +reflector, and there was not much behind the eyes that looked +into it for that fire to reflect. Hesper was no dreamer--the more +was the pity, for dreams are often the stuff out of which actions +are made. Had she been a truer woman, she might have been a +dreamer, but where was the space for dreaming in a life like +hers, without heaven, therefore without horizon, with so much +room for desiring, and so little room for hope? The buz that +greeted her entrance of a drawing-room, was the chief joy she +knew; to inhabit her well-dressed body in the presence of other +well-dressed bodies, her highest notion of existence. And even +upon these hung ever as an abating fog the consciousness of +having a husband. I can not say she was tired of marriage, for +she had loathed her marriage from the first, and had not found it +at all better than her expectation: she had been too ignorant to +forebode half its horrors. + +Education she had had but little that was worth the name, for she +had never been set growing; and now, although well endowed by +nature, she was gradually becoming stupid. People who have plenty +of money, and neither hope nor aspiration, must become stupid, +except indeed they hate, and then for a time the devil in them +will make them a sort of clever. + +Miss Yolland came undulating. No kiss, no greeting whatever +passed between the ladies. Sepia began at once to rearrange a few +hot-house flowers on the mantel-piece, looking herself much like +some dark flower painted in an old missal. + +"This day twelve months!" said Hesper. + +"I know," returned Sepia. + +"If one could die without pain, and there was nothing to come +after!" said Hesper. "What a tiresome dream it is!" + +"Dream, or nightmare, or what you will, you had better get all +you can out of it before you break it," said Sepia. + +"You seem to think it worth keeping!" yawned Hesper. + +Sepia smiled, with her face to the glass, in which she saw the +face of her cousin with her eyes on the fire; but she made no +answer. Hesper went on. + +"Ah!" she said, "your story is not mine. You are free; I am a +slave. You are alive; I am in my coffin." + +"That's marriage," said Sepia, dryly. + +"It would not matter much," continued Hesper, "if you could have +your coffin to yourself; but when you have to share it--ugh!" + +"If I were you, then," said Sepia, "I would not lie still; I +would get up and bite--I mean, be a vampire." + +Hesper did not answer. Sepia turned from the mirror, looked at +her, and burst into a laugh--at least, the sound she made had all +the elements of a laugh--except the merriment. + +"Now really, Hesper, you ought to be ashamed of yourself," she +cried. "You to put on the pelican and the sparrow, with all the +world before you, and all the men in it at your feet!" + +"A pack of fools!" remarked Hesper, with a calmness which in +itself was scorn. "I don't deny it--but amusing fools--you must +allow that!" + +"They don't amuse me." + +"That's your fault: you won't be amused. The more foolish they +are, the more amusing I find them." + +"I am sick of it all. Nothing amuses me. How can it, when there +is nothing behind it? You can't live on amusement. It is the +froth on water an inch deep, and then the mud!" + +"I declare, misery makes a poetess of you! But as to the mud, I +don't mind a little mud. It is only dirt, and has its part in the +inevitable peck, I hope." + +"_I_ don't mind mud so long as you can keep out of it. But +when one is over head and ears in it, I should like to know what +life is worth," said Hesper, heedless that the mud was of her own +making. "I declare, Sepia," she went on, drawling the +declaration, "if I were to be asked whether I would go on or not--" + +"You would ask a little time to make up your mind, Hesper, I +fancy," suggested Sepia, for Hesper had paused. As she did not +reply, Sepia resumed. + +"Which is your favorite poison, Hesper?" she said. + +"When I choose, it will be to use," replied Hesper. + +"Rhyming, at last!" said Sepia. + +But Hesper would not laugh, and her perfect calmness checked the +laughter which would have been Sepia's natural response: she was +careful not to go too far. + +"Do you know, Hesper," she said, with seriousness, "what is the +matter with you?" + +"Tolerably well," answered Hesper. + +"You do not--let me tell you. You are nothing but a baby yet. You +have no heart." + +"If you mean that I have never been in love, you are right. But +you talk foolishly; for you know that love is no more within my +reach than if I were the corpse I feel." + +Sepia pressed her lips together, and nodded knowingly; then, +after a moment's pause, said: + +"When your hour is come, you will understand. Every woman's hour +comes, one time or another--whether she will or not." + +"Sepia, if you think that, because I hate my husband, I would +allow another man to make love to me, you do not know me yet." + +"I know you very well; you do not know yourself, Hesper; you do +not know the heart of a woman--because your own has never come +awake yet." + +"God forbid it ever should, then--so long as--as the man I hate +is alive!" + +Sepia laughed. + +"A good prayer," she said; "for who can tell what you might do to +him!" + +"Sepia, I sometimes think you are a devil." + +"And I sometimes think you are a saint." + +"What do you take me for the other times?" + +"A hypocrite. What do _you_ take _me_ for the other +times?" + +"No hypocrite," answered Hesper. + +With a light, mocking laugh, Sepia turned away, and left the +room. + +Hesper did not move. If stillness indicates thought, then Hesper +was thinking; and surely of late she had suffered what might have +waked something like thought in what would then have been +something like a mind: all the machinery of thought was there-- +sorely clogged, and rusty; but for a woman to hate her husband is +hardly enough to make a thinking creature of her. True as it was, +there was no little affectation in her saying what she did about +the worthlessness of her life. She was plump and fresh; her eye +was clear, her hand firm and cool; suffering would have to go a +good deal deeper before it touched in her the issues of life, or +the love of it. What set her talking so, was in great part the +_ennui_ of endeavor after enjoyment, and the reaction from +success in the pursuit. Her low moods were, however, far more +frequent than, even with such fatigue and reaction to explain +them, belonged to her years, her health, or her temperament. + +The fire grew hot. Hesper thought of her complexion, and pushed +her chair back. Then she rose, and, having taken a hand-screen +from the chimney-piece, was fanning herself with it, when the +door opened, and a servant asked if she were at home to Mr. +Helmer. She hesitated a moment: what an unearthly hour for a +caller! + +"Show him up," she answered: anything was better than her own +company. + +Tom Helmer entered--much the same--a little paler and thinner. He +made his approach with a certain loose grace natural to him, and +seated himself on the chair, at some distance from her own, to +which Mrs. Redmain motioned him. + +Tom seldom failed of pleasing. He was well dressed, and not too +much; and, to the natural confidence of his shallow character, +added the assurance born of a certain small degree of success in +his profession, which he took for the pledge of approaching +supremacy. He carried himself better than he used, and his legs +therefore did not look so long. His hair continued to curl soft +and silky about his head, for he protested against the +fashionable convict-style. His hat was new, and he bore it in +front of him like a ready apology. + +It was to no presentableness of person, however, any more than to +previous acquaintance, that Tom now owed his admittance. True, he +had been to Durnmelling not unfrequently, but that was in the +other world of the country, and even there Hesper had taken no +interest in the self-satisfied though not ill-bred youth who went +galloping about the country, showing off to rustic girls. It was +merely, as I have said, that she could no longer endure a +_tete-a-tete_ with one she knew so little as herself, and +whose acquaintance she was so little desirous of cultivating. + +Tom had been to a small party at the house a few evenings before, +brought thither by the well-known leader of a certain literary +clique, who, in return for homage, not seldom, took younger +aspirants under a wing destined never to be itself more than +half-fledged. It was, notwithstanding, broad enough already so to +cover Tom with its shadow that under it he was able to creep into +several houses of a sort of distinction, and among them into Mrs. +Redmain's. + +Nothing of less potency than the presumption attendant on self- +satisfaction could have emboldened him to call thus early, and +that in the hope not merely of finding Mrs. Redmain at home, but +of finding her alone; and, with the not unusual reward of +unworthy daring, he had succeeded. He was ambitious of making +himself acceptable to ladies of social influence, and of being +known to stand well with such. In the case of Mrs. Redmain he was +the more anxious, because she had not received him on any footing +of former acquaintance. + +At the gathering to which I have referred, a certain song was +sung by a lady, not without previous manoeuvre on the part of +Tom, with which Mrs. Redmain had languidly expressed herself +pleased; that song he had now brought her--for, concerning words +and music both, he might have said with Touchstone, "An ill- +favored thing, but mine own." He did not quote Touchstone because +he believed both words and music superexcellent, the former being +in truth not quite bad, and the latter nearly as good. +Appreciation was the very hunger of Tom's small life, and here +was a chance! + +"I ought to apologize," he said, airily, "and I will, if you will +allow me." + +Mrs. Redmain said nothing, only waited with her eyes. They were +calm, reposeful eyes, not fixed, scarcely lying upon Tom. It was +chilling, but he was not easily chilled when self was in the +question--as it generally was with Tom. He felt, however, that he +must talk or be lost. + +"I have taken the liberty," he said, "of bringing you the song I +had the pleasure--a greater pleasure than you will readily +imagine--of hearing you admire the other evening." + +"I forget," said Hesper. + +"I would not have ventured," continued Tom, "had it not happened +that both air and words were my own." + +"Ah!--indeed!--I did not know you were a poet, Mr.--" + +She had forgotten his name. + +"That or nothing," answered Tom, boldly. + +"And a musician, too?" + +"At your service, Mrs. Redmain." + +"I don't happen to want a poet at present--or a musician either," +she said, with just enough of a smile to turn the rudeness into +what Tom accepted as a flattering familiarity. + +"Nor am I in want of a place," he replied, with spirit; "a bird +can sing on any branch. Will you allow me to sing this song on +yours? Mrs. Downport scarcely gave the expression I could have +desired.--May I read the voices before I sing them?" + +Without either intimacy or encouragement, Tom was capable of +offering to read his own verses! Such fools self-partisanship +makes of us. + +Mrs. Redmain was, for her, not a little amused with the young +man; he was not just like every other that came to the house. + +"I should li-i-ike," she said. + +Tom laid himself back a little in his chair, with the sheet of +music in his hand, closed his eyes, and repeated as follows--he +knew all his own verses by heart: + + "Lovely lady, sweet disdain! + Prithee keep thy Love at home; + Bind him with a tressed chain; + Do not let the mischief roam. + + "In the jewel-cave, thine eye, + In the tangles of thy hair, + It is well the imp should lie-- + There his home, his heaven is there. + + "But for pity's sake, forbid + Beauty's wasp at me to fly; + Sure the child should not be chid, + And his mother standing by. + + "For if once the villain came + To my house, too well I know + He would set it all aflame-- + To the winds its ashes blow. + + "Prithee keep thy Love at home; + Net him up or he will start; + And if once the mischief roam, + Straight he'll wing him to my heart." + +What there might be in verse like this to touch with faintest +emotion, let him say who cultivates art for art's sake. Doubtless +there is that in rhythm and rhyme and cadence which will touch +the pericardium when the heart itself is not to be reached by +divinest harmony; but, whether such women as Hesper feel this +touch or only admire a song as they admire the church-prayers and +Shakespeare, or whether, imagining in it some _tour de +force_ of which they are themselves incapable, they therefore +look upon it as a mighty thing, I am at a loss to determine. All +I know is that a gleam as from some far-off mirror of admiration +did certainly, to Tom's great satisfaction, appear on Hesper's +countenance. As, however, she said nothing, he, to waive aside a +threatening awkwardness, lightly subjoined: + +"Queen Anne is all the rage now, you see." + +Mrs. Redmain knew that Queen-Anne houses were in fashion, and was +even able to recognize one by its flush window-frames, while she +had felt something odd, which might be old-fashioned, in the +song; between the two, she was led to the conclusion that the +fashion of Queen Anne's time had been revived in the making of +verses also. + +"Can you, then, make a song to any pattern you please?" she +asked. + +"I fancy so," answered Tom, indifferently, as if it were nothing +to him to do whatever he chose to attempt. And in fact he could +imitate almost anything--and well, too--the easier that he had +nothing of his own pressing for utterance; for he had yet made no +response to the first demand made on every man, the only demand +for originality made on any man--that he should order his own way +aright. + +"How clever you must be!" drawled Hesper; and, notwithstanding +the tone, the words were pleasant in the ears of goose Tom. He +rose, opened the piano, and, with not a little cheap facility, +began to accompany a sweet tenor voice in the song he had just +read. + +The door opened, and Mr. Redmain came in. He gave a glance at Tom +as he sang, and went up to his wife where she still sat, with her +face to the fire, and her back to the piano. + +"New singing-master, eh?" he said. + +"No," answered his wife. + +"Who the deuce is he?" + +"I forget his name," replied Hesper, in the tone of one bored by +question. "He used to come to Durnmelling." + +"That is no reason why he should not have a name to him." + +Hesper did not reply. Tom went on playing. The moment he struck +the last chord, she called to him in a clear, soft, cold voice: + +"Will you tell Mr. Redmain your name? I happen to have forgotten +it." + +Tom picked up his hat, rose, came forward, and, mentioning his +name, held out his hand. + +"I don't know you," said Mr. Redmain, touching his palm with two +fingers that felt like small fishes. + +"It is of no consequence," said his wife; "Mr. Aylmer is an old +acquaintance of our family." + +"Only you don't quite remember his name!" + +"It is not my _friends'_ names only I have an unhappy trick +of forgetting. I often forget yours, Mr. Redmain!" + +"My _good_ name, you must mean." + +"I never heard that." + +Neither had raised the voice, or spoken with the least apparent +anger. + +Mr. Redmain gave a grin instead of a retort. He appreciated her +sharpness too much to get one ready in time. Turning away, he +left the room with a quiet, steady step, taking his grin with +him: it had drawn the clear, scanty skin yet tighter on his face, +and remained fixed; so that he vanished with something of the +look of a hairless tiger. + +The moment he disappeared, Tom's gaze, which had been fascinated, +sought Hesper. Her lips were shaping the word _brute!_--Tom +heard it with his eyes; her eyes were flashing, and her face was +flushed. But the same instant, in a voice perfectly calm-- + +"Is there anything else you would like to sing, Mr. Helmer?" she +said. "Or--" Here she ceased, with the slightest possible +choking--it was only of anger--in the throat. + +Tom's was a sympathetic nature, especially where a pretty woman +was in question. He forgot entirely that she had given quite as +good, or as bad, as she received, and was hastening to say +something foolish, imagining he had looked upon the sorrows of a +lovely and unhappy wife and was almost in her confidence, when +Sepia entered the room, with a dark glow that flashed into dusky +radiance at sight of the handsome Tom. She had noted him on the +night of the party, and remembered having seen him at the +merrymaking in the old hall of Durnmelling, but he had not been +introduced to her. A minute more, and they were sitting together +in a bay-window, blazing away at each other like two corvettes, +though their cartridges were often blank enough, while Hesper, +never heeding them, kept her place by the chimney, her gaze +transferred from the fire to the novel she had sent for from her +bedroom. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +MARY'S RECEPTION. + + +In the afternoon of the same day, now dreary enough, with the +dreariness naturally belonging to the dreariest month of the +year, Mary arrived in the city preferred to all cities by those +who live in it, but the most uninviting, I should imagine, to a +stranger, of all cities on the face of the earth. Cold seemed to +have taken to itself a visible form in the thin, gray fog that +filled the huge station from the platform to the glass roof. The +latter had vanished, indistinguishable from sky invisible, and +from the brooding darkness, in which the lamps innumerable served +only to make spots of thinness. It was a mist, not a November +fog, properly so called; but every breath breathed by every +porter, as he ran along by the side of the slowly halting train, +was adding to its mass, which seemed to Mary to grow in bulk and +density as she gazed. Her quiet, simple, decided manner at once +secured her attention, and she was among the first who had their +boxes on cabs and were driving away. + +But the drive seemed interminable, and she had grown anxious and +again calmed herself many times, before it came to an end. The +house at which the cab drew up was large, and looked as dreary as +large, but scarcely drearier than any other house in London on +that same night of November. The cabman rang the bell, but it was +not until they had waited a time altogether unreasonable that the +door at length opened, and a lofty, well-built footman in livery +appeared framed in it. + +Mary got out, and, going up the steps, said she hoped the driver +had brought her to the right house: it was Mrs. Redmain's she +wanted. + +"Mrs. Redmain is not at home, miss," answered the man. "I didn't +hear as how she was expecting of any one," he added, with a +glance at the boxes, formlessly visible on the cab, through the +now thicker darkness. + +"She is expecting me, I know," returned Mary; "but of course she +would not stay at home to receive me," she remarked, with a +smile. + +"Oh!" returned the man, in a peculiar tone, and adding, "I'll +see," went away, leaving her on the top of the steps, with the +cabman behind her, at the bottom of them, waiting orders to get +her boxes down. + +"It don't appear as you was overwelcome, miss!" he remarked: with +his comrades on the stand he passed for a wit; "--leastways, it +don't seem as your sheets was quite done hairing." + +"It's all right," said Mary, cheerfully. + +She was not ready to imagine her dignity in danger, therefore did +not provoke assault upon it by anxiety for its safety. + +"I'm sorry to hear it, miss," the man rejoined. + +"Why?" she asked. + +"'Cause I should ha' liked to ha' taken _you_ farther." + +"But why?" said Mary, the second time, not understanding him, and +not unwilling to cover the awkwardness of that slow minute of +waiting. + +"Because it gives a poor man with a whole family o' prowocations +some'at of a chance, to 'ave a affable young lady like you, miss, +behind him in his cab, once a year, or thereabouts. It's not by +no means as I'd have you go farther and fare worse, which it's a +sayin' as I've heerd said, miss. So, if you're sure o' the place, +I may as well be a-gettin' down of _your_ boxes." + +So saying, he got on the cab, and proceeded to unfasten the chain +that secured the luggage. + +"Wait a bit, cabbie. Don't you be in sech a 'urry as if you was a +'ansom, now," cried the footman, reappearing at the farther end +of the hall. "I should be sorry if there was a mistake, and you +wasn't man enough to put your boxes up again without assistance." +Then, turning to Mary, "Mrs. Perkin says, miss--that's the +housekeeper, miss," he went on, "--that, if as you're the young +woman from the country--and I'm sure I beg your pardon if I make +a mistake--it ain't my fault, miss--Mrs. Perkin says she did hear +Mrs. Redmain make mention of one, but she didn't have any +instructions concerning her.--But, as there you are," he +continued more familiarly, gathering courage from Mary's nodded +assent, "you can put your boxes in the hall, and sit down, she +says, till Mrs. R. comes 'ome." + +"Do you think she will be long?" asked Mary. + +"Well, that's what no fellow can't say, seein' its a new play as +she's gone to. They call it Doomsday, an' there's no tellin' when +parties is likely to come 'ome from that," said the man, with a +grin of satisfaction at his own wit. + +Was London such a happy place that everybody in it was given to +joking, thought Mary. + +"'Ere, mister! gi' me a 'and wi' this 'ere luggage," cried the +cabman, finding the box he was getting down too much for him. +"Yah wouldn't see me break my back, an' my poor 'orse standin' +there a lookin' on--would ye now?" + +"Why don't you bring a man with you?" objected the footman, as he +descended the steps notwithstanding, to give the required +assistance. "I ain't paid as a crane.--By Juppiter! what a weight +the new party's boxes is!" + +"Only that one," said Mary, apologetically. "It is full of books. +The other is not half so heavy." + +"Oh, it ain't the weight, miss!" returned the footman, who had +not intended she should hear the remark. "I believe Mr. Cabman +and myself will prove equal to the occasion." + +With that the book-box came down a great bump on the pavement, +and presently both were in the hall, the one on the top of the +other. Mary paid the cabman, who asked not a penny more than his +fare; he departed with thanks; the facetious footman closed the +door, told her to take a seat, and went away full of laughter, to +report that the young person had brought a large library with her +to enliven the dullness of her new situation. + +Mrs. Perkin smiled crookedly, and, in a tone of pleasant reproof, +desired her laughter-compressing inferior not to forget his +manners. + +"Please, ma'am, am I to leave the young woman sittin' up there +all by herself in the cold?" he asked, straightening himself up. +"She do look a rayther superior sort of young person," he added, +"and the 'all-stove is dead out." + +"For the present, Castle," replied Mrs. Perkin. + +She judged it wise to let the young woman have a lesson at once +in subjection and inferiority. + +Mrs. Perkin was a rather tall, rather thin, quite straight, and +very dark-complexioned woman. She always threw her head back on +one side and her chin out on the other when she spoke, and had +about her a great deal of the authoritative, which she mingled +with such consideration toward her subordinates as to secure +their obedience to her, while she cultivated antagonism to her +mistress. She had had a better education than most persons of her +class, but was morally not an atom their superior in consequence. +She never went into a new place but with the feeling that she was +of more importance by far than her untried mistress, and the +worthier person of the two. She entered her service, therefore, +as one whose work it was to take care of herself against a woman +whose mistress she ought to have been, had Providence but started +her with her natural rights. At the same time, she would have +been _almost_ as much offended by a hint that she was not a +Christian, as she would have been by a doubt whether she was a +lady. For, indeed, she was both, if a great opinion of herself +constituted the latter, and a great opinion of going to church +constituted the former. + +She had not been taken into Hesper's confidence with regard to +Mary, had discovered that "a young person" was expected, but had +learned nothing of what her position in the house was to be. She +welcomed, therefore, this opportunity both of teaching Mrs. +Redmain--she never called her her _mistress_, while severely +she insisted on the other servants' speaking of her so--the +propriety of taking counsel with her housekeeper and of letting +the young person know in time that Mrs. Perkin was in reality her +mistress. + +The relation of the upper servants of the house to their +employers was more like that of the managers of an hotel to their +guests. The butler, the lady's-maid, and Mr. Redmain's body- +servant, who had been with him before his marriage, and was +supposed to be deep in his master's confidence, ate with the +housekeeper in her room, waited upon by the livery and maid- +servants, except the second cook: the first cook only came to +superintend the cooking of the dinner, and went away after. To +all these Mrs. Perkin was careful to be just; and, if she was +precise even to severity with them, she was herself obedient to +the system she had established--the main feature of which was +punctuality. She not only regarded punctuality as the foremost of +virtues, but, in righteous moral sequence, made it the first of +her duties; and the benefit everybody reaped. For nothing oils +the household wheels so well as this same punctuality. In a +family, love, if it be strong, genuine, and patent, will make up +for anything; but, where there is no family and no love, the loss +of punctuality will soon turn a house into the mere pouch of a +social _inferno_. Here the master and mistress came and +went, regardless of each other, and of all household polity; but +their meals were ready for them to the minute, when they chose to +be there to eat them; the carriage came round like one of the +puppets on the Strasburg clock; the house was quiet as a +hospital; the bells were answered--all except the door-bell +outside of calling hours--with swiftness; you could not soil your +fingers anywhere--not even if the sweep had been that same +morning; the manners of the servants--_when serving_--were +unexceptionable; but the house was scarcely more of a home than +one of the huge hotels characteristic of the age. + +In the hall of it sat Mary for the space of an hour, not exactly +learning the lesson Mrs. Perkin had intended to teach her, but +learning more than one thing Mrs. Perkin was not yet capable of +learning. I can not say she was comfortable, for she was both +cold and hungry; but she was far from miserable. She had no small +gift of patience, and had taught herself to look upon the less +troubles of life as on a bad dream. There are children, though +not yet many, capable, through faith in their parents, of +learning not a little by their experience, and Mary was one of +such; from the first she received her father's lessons like one +whose business it was to learn them, and had thereby come to +learn where he had himself learned. Hence she was not one to say +_our Father in heaven_, and act as if there were no such +Father, or as if he cared but little for his children. She was +even foolish enough to believe that that Father both knew and +cared that she was hungry and cold and wearily uncomfortable; and +thence she was weak enough to take the hunger and cold and +discomfort as mere passing trifles, which could not last a moment +longer than they ought. From her sore-tried endeavors after +patience, had grown the power of active waiting--and a genuinely +waiting child is one of the loveliest sights the earth has to +show. + +This was not the reception she had pictured to herself, as the +train came rushing from Testbridge to London; she had not, +indeed, imagined a warm one, but she had not expected to be +forgotten--for so she interpreted her abandonment in the hall, +which seemed to grow colder every minute. She saw no means of +reminding the household of her neglected presence, and indeed +would rather have remained where she was till the morning than +encounter the growing familiarity of the man who had admitted +her. She did think once--if Mrs. Redmain were to hear of her +reception, how she would resent it! and would have found it +difficult to believe how far people like her are from troubling +themselves about the behavior of their servants to other people; +for they have no idea of an obligation to rule their own house, +neither seem to have a notion of being accountable for what goes +on in it. + +She had grown very weary, and began to long for a floor on which +she might stretch herself; there was not a sound in the house but +the ticking of a clock somewhere; and she was now wondering +whether everybody had gone to bed, when she heard a step +approaching, and presently Castle, who was the only man at home, +stood up before her, and, with the ease of perfect self- +satisfaction, and as if there was nothing in the neglect of her +but the custom of the house to cool people well in the hall +before admitting them to its penetralia, said, "Step this way-- +miss"; the last word added after a pause of pretended hesitation, +for the man had taken his cue from the housekeeper. + +Mary rose, and followed him to the basement story, into a +comfortable room, where sat Mrs. Perkin, embroidering large +sunflowers on a piece of coarse stuff. She was _artistic_, +and despised the whole style of the house. + +"You may sit down," she said, and pointed to a chair near the +door. + +Mary, not a little amused, for all her discomfort, did as she was +permitted, and awaited what should come next. + +"What part of the country are you from?" asked Mrs. Perkin, with +her usual diagonal upward toss of the chin, but without lifting +her eyes from her work. + +"From Testbridge," answered Mary. + +"The servants in this house are in the habit of saying _ma'am_ +to their superiors: it is required of them," remarked Mrs. Perkin. +But, although her tone was one of rebuke, she said the +words lightly, tossed the last of them off, indeed, almost +playfully, as if the lesson was meant for one who could hardly +have been expected to know better. "And what place did you +apply for in the house?" she went on to ask. + +"I can hardly say, ma'am," answered Mary, avoiding both +inflection and emphasis, and by her compliance satisfying Mrs. +Perkin that she had been right in requiring the _kotou_. "It +is not usual for young persons to be engaged without knowing for +what purpose." + +"I suppose not, ma'am." + +"What wages were you to have?" next inquired Mrs. Perkin, +gradually assuming a more decided drawl as she became more +assured of her position with the stranger. She would gladly get +some light on the affair. "You need not object to mentioning +them," she went on, for she imagined Mary hesitated, whereas she +was only a little troubled to keep from laughing; "I always pay +the wages myself." + +"There was nothing said about wages, ma'am," answered Mary. + +"Indeed! Neither work nor wages specified? Excuse me if I say it +seems rather peculiar.--We must be content to wait a little, +then--until we learn what Mrs. Redmain expected of you, _and +whether or not you are capable of it_. We can go no further +now." + +"Certainly not, ma'am," assented Mary. + +"Can you use your needle?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Have you done any embroidery?" + +"I understand it a little, but I am not particularly fond of it." + +"You mistake: I did not ask you whether you were fond of it," +said Mrs. Perkin; "I asked you if you had ever done any"; and she +smiled severely, but ludicrously, for a diagonal smile is apt to +have a comic effect. "Here!--take off your gloves," she +continued, "and let me see you do one of these loose-worked +sunflowers. They are the fashion now, though. I dare say, you +will not be able to see the beauty of them." + +"Please, ma'am," returned Mary, "if you will excuse me, I would +rather go to my room. I have had a long journey, and am very +tired." + +"There is no room yours.--I have had no character with you.-- +Nothing can be done til Mrs. Redman comes home, and she and I +have had a little talk about you. But you can go to the +housemaid's--the second housemaid's room, I mean--and make +yourself tidy. There is a spare bed in it, I believe, which you +can have for the night; only mind you don't keep the girl awake +talking to her, or she will be late in the morning, and that I +never put up with. I think you will do. You seem willing to +learn, and that is half the battle." + +Therewith Mrs. Perkin, believing she had laid in awe the +foundation of a rightful authority over the young person, gave +her a nod of dismissal, which she intended to be friendly. + +"Please, ma'am," said Mary, "could I have one of my boxes taken +up stairs?" + +"Certainly not. I can not have two movings of them; I must take +care of my men. And your boxes, I understand, are heavy, quite +absurdly so. It would _look_ better in a young person not to +have so much to carry about with her." + +"I have but two boxes, ma'am," said Mary. + +"Full of _books_, I am told." + +"One of them only." + +"You must do your best without them to-night. When I have made up +my mind what is to be done with you, I shall let you have the one +with your clothes; the other shall be put away in the box-room. I +give my people what books I think fit. For light reading, the +'Fireside Herald' is quite enough for the room.--There--good +night!" + +Mary courtesied, and left her. At the door she glanced this way +and that to find some indication to guide her steps. A door was +open at the end of a passage, and from the odor that met her, it +seemed likely to be that of the kitchen. She approached, and +peeped in. + +"Who is that?" cried a voice irate. + +It was the voice of the second cook, who was there supreme except +when the _chef_ was present. Mary stepped in, and the woman +advanced to meet her. + +"May I ask to what I am indebted for the honner of this +unexpected visit?" said the second cook, whose head its +overcharge of self-importance jerked hither and thither upon her +neck, as she seized the opportunity of turning to her own use a +sentence she had just read in the "Fireside Herald" which had +taken her fancy--spoken by Lady Blanche Rivington Delaware to a +detested lover disinclined to be dismissed. + +"Would you please tell me where to find the second house-maid," +said Mary. "Mrs. Perkin has sent me to her room." + +"Why don't Mrs. Perkin show you the way, then?" returned the +woman. "There ain't nobody else in the house as I knows on fit to +send to the top o' them stairs with you. A nice way Jemim' 'ill +be in when _she_ comes 'ome, to find a stranger in her +room!" + +The same instant, however, the woman bethought herself that, if +what she had said in her haste were reported, it would be as much +as her place was worth; and at once thereupon she assumed a more +complaisant tone. Casting a look at her saucepans, as if to warn +them concerning their behavior in her absence, she turned again +to Mary, saying: + +"I believe I better show you the way myself. It's easier to take +you than find a girl to do it. Them hussies is never where they +oughto be! _You_ follow _me_." + +She led the way along two passages, and up a back staircase of +stone--up and up, till Mary, unused to such heights, began to be +aware of knees. Plainly at last in the regions of the roof, she +thought her hill Difficulty surmounted, but the cook turned a +sharp corner, and Mary following found herself once more at the +foot of a stair--very narrow and steep, leading up to one of +those old-fashioned roof-turrets which had begun to appear in the +new houses of that part of London. + +"Are you taking me to the clouds, cook?" she said, willing to be +cheerful, and to acknowledge her obligation for laborious +guidance. + +"Not yet a bit, I hope," answered the cook; "we'll get there soon +enough, anyhow--excep' you belong to them peculiars as wants to +be saints afore their time. If that's your sort, don't you come +here; for a wickeder 'ouse, or an 'ouse as you got to work harder +in o' Sundays, no one won't easily find in this here west end." + +With these words she panted up the last few steps, immediately at +the top of which was the room sought. It was a very small one, +scarcely more than holding the two beds. Having lighted the gas, +the cook left her; and Mary, noting that one of the beds was not +made up, was glad to throw herself upon it. Covering herself with +her cloak, her traveling-rug, and the woolen counterpane, she was +soon fast asleep. + +She was roused by a cry, half of terror, half of surprise. There +stood the second housemaid, who, having been told nothing of her +room-fellow, stared and gasped. + +"I am sorry to have startled you," said Mary, who had half risen, +leaning on her elbow. "They ought to have told you there was a +stranger in your room." + +The girl was not long from the country, and, in the midst of the +worst vulgarity in the world, namely, among the servants of the +selfish, her manners had not yet ceased to be simple. For a +moment, however, she seemed capable only of panting, and pressing +her hand on her heart. + +"I am very sorry," said Mary, again; "but you see I won't hurt +you! I don't look dangerous, do I?" + +"No, miss," answered the girl, with an hysterical laugh. "I been +to the play, and there was a man in it was a thief, you know, +miss!" And with that she burst out crying. + +It was some time before Mary got her quieted, but, when she did, +the girl was quite reasonable. She deplored that the bed was not +made up, and would willingly have yielded hers; she was sorry she +had not a clean night-gown to offer her--"not that it would be +fit for the likes of _you_, miss!"--and showed herself full +of friendly ministration. Mary being now without her traveling- +cloak, Jemima judged from her dress she must be some grand +visitor's maid, vastly her superior in the social scale: if she +had taken her for an inferior, she would doubtless, like most, +have had some airs handy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +HER POSITION. + + +Mary seemed to have but just got to sleep again, when she was +startled awake by the violent ringing of a bell, almost at her +ear. + +"Oh, you needn't trouble yet a long while, miss!" said the girl, +who was already dressing. "I've got ever so many fires to light, +ere there'll be a thought of you!" + +Mary lay down again, and once more fell fast asleep. + +She was waked the third time by the girl telling her that +breakfast was ready; whereupon she rose, and made herself as tidy +as she could, while Jemima _cleaned herself up a bit,_ and +was not a little improved in the process. + +"I thought," she said, "as Mrs. Perkin would 'a' as't you to your +first meal with her; but she told me, when I as't what were to be +done with you, as how you must go to the room, and eat your +breakfast with the rest of us." + +"As Mrs. Perkin pleases," said Mary. + +She had before this come to understand the word of her Master, +that not what enters into a man defiles him, but only what comes +out of him; hence, that no man's dignity is affected by what +another does to him, but only by what he does, or would like to +do, himself. + +She did, however, feel a little shy on entering "the room," where +all the livery and most of the women servants were already seated +at breakfast. Two of the men, with a word to each other, made +room for her between them, and laughed; but she took no notice, +and seated herself at the bottom of the table with her companion. +Everything was as clean and tidy as heart could wish, and Mary +was glad enough to make a good meal. + +For a few minutes there was loud talking--from a general impulse +to show off before the stranger; then fell a silence, as if some +feeling of doubt had got among them. The least affected by it was +the footman who had opened the door to her: he had witnessed her +reception by Mrs. Perkin. Addressing her boldly, he expressed a +hope that she was not too much fatigued by her journey. Mary +thanked him in her own natural, straightforward way, and the +consequence was, that, when he spoke to her next, he spoke like a +gentleman--in the tone natural to him, that is, and in the +language of the parlor, without any mock-politeness. And, +although the way they talked among themselves made Mary feel as +if she were in a strange country, with strange modes, not of +living merely, but of feeling and of regarding, she received not +the smallest annoyance during the rest of the meal--which did not +last long: Mrs. Perkin took care of that. + +For an hour or more, after the rest had scattered to their +respective duties, she was left alone. Then Mrs. Perkin sent for +her. + +When she entered her room, she found her occupied with the cook, +and was allowed to stand unnoticed. + +"When shall I be able to see Mrs. Redmain, ma'am?" she asked, +when the cook at length turned to go. + +"Wait," rejoined Mrs. Perkin, with a quiet dignity, well copied, +"until you are addressed, young woman."--Then first casting a +glance at her, and perhaps perceiving on her countenance a +glimmer of the amusement Mary felt, she began to gather a more +correct suspicion of the sort of being she might possibly be, and +hastily added, "Pray, take a seat." + +The idea of making a blunder was unendurable to Mrs. Perkin, and +she was most unwilling to believe she had done so; but, even if +she had, to show that she knew it would only be to render it the +more difficult to recover her pride of place. An involuntary +twinkle about the corners of Mary's mouth made her hasten to +answer her question. + +"I am sorry," she said, "that I can give you no prospect of an +interview with Mrs. Redmain before three o'clock. She will very +likely not be out of her room before one.--I suppose you saw her +at Durnmelling?" + +"Yes, ma'am," answered Mary, "--and at Testbridge." + +It kept growing on the housekeeper that she had made a mistake-- +though to what extent she sought in vain to determine. + +"You will find it rather wearisome waiting," she said next; "-- +would you not like to help me with my work?" + +Already she had the sunflowers under her creative hands. + +"I should be very glad--if I can do it well enough to please you, +ma'am," answered Mary. "But," she added, "would you kindly see +that Mrs. Redmain is told, as soon as she wakes, that I am here?" + +"Oblige me by ringing the bell," said Mrs. Perkin.--"Send Mrs. +Folter here."' + +A rather cross-looking, red-faced, thin woman appeared, whom she +requested to let her mistress know, as soon as was proper, that +there was a young person in the house who said she had come from +Testbridge by appointment to see her. + +"Yes, ma'am," said Folter, with a supercilious yet familiar nod +to Mary; "I'll take care she knows." + +Mary passed what would have been a dreary morning to one +dependent on her company. It was quite three o'clock when she was +at length summoned to Mrs. Redmain's boudoir. Folter, who was her +guide thither, lingered, in the soft closing of the door, long +enough to learn that her mistress received the young person with +a kiss--almost as much to Mary's surprise as Folter's annoyance, +which annoyance partly to relieve, partly to pass on to Mrs. +Perkin, whose reception of Mary she had learned, Folter hastened +to report the fact, and succeeded thereby in occasioning no small +uneasiness in the bosom of the housekeeper, who was almost as +much afraid of her mistress as the other servants were of +herself. Some time she spent in expectant trepidation, but +gradually, as nothing came of it, calmed her fears, and concluded +that her behavior to Mary had been quite correct, seeing the girl +had made it no ground of complaint. + +But, although Hesper, being at the moment in tolerable spirits, +in reaction from her depression of the day before, received Mary +with a kiss, she did not ask her a question about her journey, or +as to how she had spent the night. She was there, and looking all +right, and that was enough. On the other hand, she did proceed to +have her at once properly settled. + +The little room appointed her looked upon a small court or yard, +and was dark, but otherwise very comfortable. As soon as she was +left to herself, she opened her boxes, put her things away in +drawers and wardrobe, arranged her books within easy reach of the +low chair Hesper had sent for from the drawing-room for her, and +sat down to read a little, brood a little, and build a few +castles in the air, more lovely than evanescent: no other house +is so like its builder as this sort of castle. + +About eight o'clock, Folter summoned her to go to Mrs. Redmain. +By this time she was tired: she was accustomed to tea in the +afternoon, and since her dinner with the housekeeper she had had +nothing. + +She found Mrs. Redmain dressed for the evening. As soon as Mary +entered, she dismissed Folter. + +"I am going out to dinner," she said. "Are you quite +comfortable?" + +"I am rather cold, and should like some tea," said Mary. + +"My poor girl! have you had no tea?" said Hesper, with some +concern, and more annoyance. "You are looking quite pale, I see! +When did you have anything to eat?" + +"I had a good dinner at one o'clock," replied Mary, with a rather +weary smile. + +"This is dreadful!" said Hesper. "What can the servants be +about!" + +"And, please, may I have a little fire?" begged Mary. + +"Certainly," replied Hesper, knitting her brows with a look of +slight anguish. "Is it possible you have been sitting all day +without one? Why did you not ring the bell?" She took one of her +hands. "You are frozen!" she said. + +"Oh, no!" answered Mary; "I am far from that. You see nobody +knows yet what to do with me.--You hardly know yourself," she +added, with a merry look. "But, if you wouldn't mind telling Mrs. +Perkin where you wish me to have my meals, that would put it all +right, I think." + +"Very well," said Hesper, in a tone that for her was sharp. "Will +you ring the bell?" + +She sent for the housekeeper, who presently appeared--lank and +tall, with her head on one side like a lamp-post in distress, but +calm and prepared--a dumb fortress, with a live garrison. + +"I wish you, Mrs. Perkin, to arrange with Miss Marston about her +meals." + +"Yes, ma'am," answered Mrs. Perkin, with sedatest utterance. + +"Mrs. Perkin," said Mary, "I don't want to be troublesome; tell +me what will suit you best." + +But Mrs. Perkin did not even look at her; standing straight as a +rush, she kept her eyes on her mistress. + +"Do you desire, ma'am, that Miss Marston should have her meals in +the housekeeper's room?" she asked. + +"That must be as Miss Marston pleases," answered Hesper. "If she +prefer them in her own, you will see they are properly sent up." + +"Very well, ma'am!--Then I wait Miss Marston's orders," said Mrs. +Perkin, and turned to leave the room. But, when her mistress +spoke again, she turned again and stood. It was Mary, however, +whom Hesper addressed. + +"Mary," she said, apparently foreboding worse from the tone of +the housekeeper's obedience than from her occurred neglect, "when +I am alone, you shall take your meals with me; and when I have +any one with me, Mrs. Perkin will see that they are sent to your +room. We will settle it so." + +"Thank you," said Mary. + +"Very well, ma'am," said Mrs. Perkin. + +"Send Miss Marston some tea directly," said Hesper. + +Scarcely was Mrs. Perkin gone when the brougham was announced. +Mary returned to her room, and in a little while tea, with thin +bread and butter in limited quantity, was brought her. But it was +brought by Jemima, whose face wore a cheerful smile over the tray +she carried: she, at least, did not grudge Mary her superior +place in the household. + +"Do you think, Jemima," asked Mary, "you could manage to answer +my bell when I ring?" + +"I should only be too glad, miss; it would be nothing but a +pleasure to me; and I'd jump to it if I was in the way; but if I +was up stairs, which this house ain't a place to hear bells in, +sure I am nobody would let me know as you was a-ringin'; and if +you was to think as how I was giving of myself airs, like some +people not far out of this square, I should be both sorry and +ashamed--an' that's more'n I'd say for my place to Mrs. Perkin, +miss." + +"You needn't be afraid of that, Jemima," returned Mary. "If you +don't answer when I ring, I shall know, as well as if you told +me, that you either don't hear or can't come at the moment. I +sha'n't be exacting." + +"Don't you be afeared to ring, miss; I'll answer your bell as +often as I hear it." + +"Could you bring me a loaf? I have had nothing since Mrs. +Perkin's dinner; and this bread and butter is rather too +delicately cut," said Mary. + +"Laws, miss, you must be nigh clemmed!" said the girl; and, +hastening away, she soon returned with a loaf, and butter, and a +pot of marmalade sent by the cook, who was only too glad to open +a safety-valve to her pleasure at the discomfiture of Mrs. +Perkin. + +"When would you like your breakfast, miss?" asked Jemima, as she +removed the tea-things. + +"Any time convenient," replied Mary. + +"It's much the same to me, miss, so it's not before there's +bilin' water. You'll have it in bed, miss?" + +"No, thank you. I never do." + +"You'd better, miss." + +"I could not think of it." + +"It makes no more trouble--less, miss, than if I had to get it +when the room-breakfast was on. I've got to get the things +together anyhow; and why shouldn't you have it as well as Mrs. +Perkin, or that ill-tempered cockatoo, Mrs. Folter? You're a +lady, and that's more'n can be said for either of them--justly, +that is." + +"You don't mean," said Mary, surprised out of her discretion, +"that the housekeeper and the lady's-maid have breakfast in bed?" + +"It's every blessed mornin' as I've got to take it up to 'em, +miss, upon my word of honor, with a soft-biled egg, or a box o' +sardines, new-opened, or a slice o' breakfast bacon, streaky. An' +I do _not_ think as it belongs proper to my place; only you +see, miss, the kitchen-maid has got to do it for the cook, an' if +I don't, who is there? It's not them would let the scullery-maid +come near them in their beds." + +"Does Mrs. Perkin know that the cook and the lady's-maid have it +as well as herself?" + +"Not she, miss; she'd soon make their coffee too 'ot! She's the +only lady down stairs--she is! No more don't Mrs. Folter know as +the cook has hers, only, if she did, it wouldn't make no differ, +for she daren't tell. And cook, to be sure, it ain't her +breakfast, only a cup o' tea an' a bit o' toast, to get her heart +up first." + +"Well," said Mary, "I certainly shall not add another to the +breakfasts in bed. But I must trouble you all the same to bring +it me here. I will make my bed, and do out the room myself, if +you will come and finish it off for me." + +"Oh, no, indeed, miss, you mustn't do that! Think what they'd say +of you down stairs! They'd despise you downright!" + +"I shall do it, Jemima. If they were servants of the right sort, +I should like to have their good opinion, and they would think +all the more of me for doing my share; as it is, I should count +it a disgrace to care a straw, what they thought. We must do our +work, and not mind what people say." + +"Yes, miss, that's what my mother used to say to my father, when +he wouldn't be reasonable. But I must go, miss, or I shall catch +it for gossiping with you--that's what _she'll_ call it." + +When Jemima was gone, Mary fell a-thinking afresh. It was all +very well, she said to herself, to talk about doing her work, but +here she was with scarce a shadow of an idea what her work was! +Had _any_ work been given her to do in this house? Had she +presumed in coming--anticipated the guidance of Providence, and +was she therefore now where she had no right to be? She could not +tell; but, anyhow, here she was, and no one could be anywhere +without the fact involving its own duty. Even if she had put +herself there, and was to blame for being there, that did not +free her from the obligations of the position, and she was +willing to do whatever should _now_ be given her to do. God +was not a hard master; if she had made a mistake, he would pardon +her, and either give her work here, where she found herself, or +send her elsewhere. I need not say that thinking was not all her +care; for she thought in the presence of Him who, because he is +always setting our wrong things right, is called God our Saviour. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +MR. AND MRS. HELMER + + +The next morning, Mary set out to find Letty, from whom, as I +have said, she had heard but twice since her marriage. Mary had +written again about a month ago, but had had no reply. The sad +fact was, that, ever since she left Testbridge, Letty, for a long +time, without knowing it, had been going down hill. There have +been many whose earnestness has vanished with the presence of +those whose influence awoke it. Letty's better self seemed to +have remained behind with Mary; and not even if he had been as +good as she thought him, could Tom himself have made up to her +for the loss of such a friend. + +But Letty had not found marriage at all the grand thing she had +expected. With the faithfulness of a woman, however, she +attributed her disappointment to something inherent in marriage, +nowise affecting the man whom marriage had made her husband. + +That he might be near the center to which what little work he did +gravitated, Tom had taken a lodging in a noisy street, as unlike +all that Letty had been accustomed to as anything London, except +in its viler parts, could afford. Never a green thing was to be +looked upon in any direction. Not a sweet sound was to be heard. + +The sun, at this time of the year, was seldom to be seen in +London anywhere; and in Lydgate Street, even when there was no +fog, it was but askance, and for a brief portion of the day, that +he shone upon that side where stood their dusty windows. And then +the noise!--a ceaseless torrent of sounds, of stony sounds, of +iron sounds, of grinding sounds, of clashing sounds, of yells and +cries--of all deafening and unpoetic discords! Letty had not much +poetry in her, and needed what could be had from the outside so +much the more. It is the people of a land without springs that +must have cisterns. It is the poetic people without poetry that +pant and pine for the country. When such get hold of a poet, they +expect him to talk poetry, or, at least, to talk about poetry! I +fancy poets do not read much poetry, and except to their peers do +not often care to talk about it. But to one like Letty, however +little she may understand or even be aware of the need, the +poetic is as necessary as rain in summer; while, to one so little +skilled in the finding of it, there was none visible, audible, or +perceptible about her--except, indeed, what, of poorest sort for +her uses, she might discover bottled in some circulating library: +there was one--blessed proximity!--within ten minutes' walk of +her. + +Once a week or so, some weeks oftener, Tom would take her to the +play, and that was, indeed, a happiness--not because of the +pleasure of the play only or chiefly, though that was great, but +in the main because she had Tom beside her all the time, and +mixed up Tom with the play, and the play with Tom. + +Alas! Tom was not half so dependent upon her, neither derived +half so much pleasure from her company. Some of his evenings +every week he spent at houses where those who received him had +not the faintest idea whether he had a wife or not, and cared as +little, for it would have made no difference: they would not have +invited her. Small, silly, conceited Tom, regarding himself as a +somebody, was more than content to be asked to such people's +houses. He thought he went as a lion, whereas it was merely as a +jackal: so great is the love of some for wild beasts in general, +that they even think something of jackals. He was aware of no +insult to himself in asking him whether as a lion or any other +wild beast, nor of any to his wife and himself together in not +asking her with him. While she sat in her dreary lodging, dingily +clad and lonely, Tom, dressed in the height of the fashion, would +be strolling about grand rooms, now exchanging a flying shot of +recognition, now pausing to pay a compliment to this lady on her +singing, to that on her verses, to a third, where he dared, on +her dress; for good-natured Tom was profuse of compliments, not +without a degree and kind of honesty in them; now singing one of +his own songs to the accompaniment of some gracious goddess, now +accompanying the same or some other gracious goddess as she sang +--for Tom could do that well enough for people without a +conscience in their music; now in the corner of a conservatory, +now in a cozy little third room behind a back drawing-room, +talking nonsense with some lady foolish enough to be amused with +his folly. Tom meant no harm and did not do much--was only a +human butterfly, amusing himself with other creatures of a day, +who have no notion that death can not kill them, or they might +perhaps be more miserable than they are. They think, if they +think at all, that it is life, strong in them, that makes them +forget death; whereas, in truth, it is death, strong in them, +that makes them forget life. Like a hummingbird, all sparkle and +flash, Tom flitted through the tropical delights of such society +as his "uncommon good luck" had gained him admission to, forming +many an evanescent friendship, and taking many a graceful liberty +for which his pleasant looks, confident manners, and free +carriage were his indemnity--for Tom seemed to have been born to +show what a nice sort of a person a fool, well put together, may +be--with his high-bred air, and his ready replies, for he had +also a little of that social element, once highly valued, now +less countenanced, and rare--I mean wit. + +He had, indeed, plenty of all sorts of brains; but no amount of +talent could reveal to him the reason or the meaning of the fact +that wedded life was less interesting than courtship; for the +former, the reason lay in himself, and of himself proper he knew, +as I have said, next to nothing; while the latter, the meaning of +the fact, is profound as eternity. He had no notion that, when he +married, his life was thereby, in a lofty and blessed sense, +forfeit; that, to save his wife's life, he must yield his own, +she doing the same for him--for God himself can save no other +way. But the notion of any saving, or the need of it, was far +from Tom; nor had Letty, for her part, any thought of it either, +except from the tyranny of her aunt. Not the less, in truth, did +they both want saving--very much saving--before life could be to +either of them a good thing. It is only its inborn possibility of +and divine tendency toward blossoming that constitute life a good +thing. Life's blossom is its salvation, its redemption, the +justification of its existence--and is a thing far off with most +of us. For Tom, his highest notion of life was to be recognized +by the world for that which he had chosen as his idea of himself +--to have the reviews allow him a poet, not grudgingly, nor with +abatement of any sort, but recognizing him as the genius he must +contrive to believe himself, or "perish in" his "self-contempt." +Then would he live and die in the blessed assurance that his name +would be for over on the lips and in the hearts of that idol of +fools they call _posterity_-divinity as vague as the old +gray Fate, and less noble, inasmuch as it is but the supposed +concave whence is to rebound the man's own opinion of himself. + +While jewelly Tom was idling away time which yet could hardly be +called precious, his little brown wife, as I have said, sat at +home--such home as a lodging can be for a wife whose husband +finds his interest mainly outside of it--inquired after by +nobody, thought of by nobody, hardly even taken up by her own +poor, weary self; now trying in vain after interest in the feeble +trash she was reading; now getting into the story for the last +half of a chapter, to find herself, when the scene changed at the +next, as far out and away and lost as ever; now dropping the book +on her knee, to sit musing--if, indeed, such poor mental vagaries +as hers can be called even musing!--ignorant what was the matter +with her, hardly knowing that anything was the matter, and yet +pining morally, spiritually, and psychically; now wondering when +Tom would be home; now trying to congratulate herself on his +being such a favorite, and thinking what an honor it was to a +poor country girl like her to be the wife of a man so much +courted by the best society--for she never doubted that the +people to whose houses Tom went desired his company from +admiration of his writings. She had not an idea that never a soul +of them or of their guests cared a straw about what he wrote-- +except, indeed, here and there, a young lady in her first season, +who thought it a grand thing to know an author, as poor Letty +thought it a grand thing to be the wife of one. Hail to the +coming time when, those who write books outnumbering those who do +not, a man will be thought no more of because he can write than +because he can sit a horse or brew beer! In that happy time the +true writer will be neither an atom the more regarded nor +disregarded; he will only be less troubled with birthday books, +requests for autographs, and such-like irritating attentions. +From that time, also, it may be, the number of writers will begin +to diminish; for then, it is to be hoped, men will begin to see +that it is better to do the inferior thing well than the superior +thing after a middling fashion. The man who would not rather be a +good shoemaker than a middling author would be no honor to the +shoemakers, and can hardly be any to the authors. I have the +comfort that in this all authors will agree with me, for which of +us is now able to see himself _middling_? Honorable above +all honor that authorship can give is he who can. + +It was through some of his old college friends that Tom had thus +easily stepped into the literary profession. They were young men +with money and friends to back them, who, having taken to +literature as soon as they chipped the university shell, were +already in the full swing of periodical production, when Tom, to +quote two rather contradictory utterances of his mother, ruined +his own prospects and made Letty's fortune by marrying her. I can +not say, however, that they had found him remunerative +employment. The best they had done for him was to bring him into +such a half sort of connection with a certain weekly paper that +now and then he got something printed in it, and now and then, +with the joke of acknowledging an obligation irremunerable, the +editor would hand him what he called an honorarium, but what in +reality was a five-pound note. When such an event occurred, Tom +would feel his bosom swell with the imagined dignity of +supporting a family by literary labor, and, forgetful of the +sparseness of his mother's doles, who delighted to make the young +couple feel the bitterness of dependence, would immediately, on +the strength of it, invite his friends to supper--not at the +lodging where Letty sat lonely, but at some tavern frequented by +people of the craft. It was at such times, and in the company of +men certainly not better than himself, that Tom's hopes were +brightest, and his confidence greatest: therefore such seasons +were those of his highest bliss. Especially, when his sensitive +but poor imagination was stimulated from the nerve-side of the +brain, was Tom in his glory; and it was not the "few glasses of +champagne," of which he talked so airily, that had all the honor +of crowning him king of fate and poet of the world. Long after +midnight, upon such and many other occasions, would he and his +companions sit laughing and jesting and drinking, some saying +witty things, and all of them foolish things and worse; inventing +stories apropos of the foibles of friends, and relating anecdotes +which grew more and more irreverent to God and women as the night +advanced, and the wine gained power, and the shame-faced angels +of their true selves, made in the image of God, withdrew into the +dark; until at last, between night and morning, Tom would reel +gracefully home, using all the power of his will--the best use to +which it ever was put--to subdue the drunkenness of which, even +in its embrace, he had the lingering honor to be ashamed, that he +might face his wife with the appearance of the gentleman he was +anxious she should continue to consider him. + +It was an unhappy thing for Tom that his mother, having persuaded +her dying husband, "for Tom's sake," to leave the money in her +power, should not now have carried her tyranny further, and +refused him money altogether. He would then have been compelled +to work harder, and to use what he made in procuring the +necessaries of life. There might have been some hope for him +then. As it was, his profession was the mere grasping after the +honor of a workman without the doing of the work; while the +little he gained by it was, at the same time, more than enough to +foster the self-deception that he did something in the world. +With the money he gave her, which was never more than a part of +what his mother sent him, Letty had much ado to make both ends +meet; and, while he ran in debt to his tailor and bootmaker, she +never had anything new to wear. She did sometimes wish he would +take her out with him a little oftener of an evening; for +sometimes she felt so lonely as to be quite unable to amuse +herself: her resources were not many in her position, and fewer +still in herself; but she always reflected that he could not +afford it, and it was long ere she began to have any doubt or +uneasiness about him--long before she began even to imagine it +might be well if he spent his evenings with her, or, at least, in +other ways and other company than he did. When first such a +thought presented itself, she banished it as a disgrace to +herself and an insult to him. But it was no wonder if she found +marriage dull, poor child!--after such expectations, too, from +her Tom! + +What a pity it seems to our purblind eyes that so many girls +should be married before they are women! The woman comes at +length, and finds she is forestalled--that the prostrate and +mutilated Dagon of a girl's divinity is all that is left her to +do the best with she can! But, thank God, in the faithfully +accepted and encountered responsibility, the woman must at length +become aware that she has under her feet an ascending stair by +which to climb to the woman of the divine ideal. + +There was at present, however, nothing to be called thought in +the mind of Letty. She had even lost much of what faculty of +thinking had been developed in her by the care of Cousin Godfrey. +That had speedily followed the decay of the aspiration kindled in +her by Mary. Her whole life now--as much of it, that is, as was +awake--was Tom, and only Tom. Her whole day was but the +continuous and little varied hope of his presence. Most of the +time she had a book in her hands, but ever again book and hands +would sink into her lap, and she would sit staring before her at +nothing. She was not unhappy, she was only not happy. At first it +was a speechless delight to have as many novels as she pleased, +and she thought Tom the very prince of bounty in not merely +permitting her to read them, but bringing them to her, one after +the other, sometimes two at once, in spendthrift profusion. The +first thing that made her aware she was not quite happy was the +discovery that novels were losing their charm, that they were not +sufficient to make her day pass, that they were only dessert, and +she had no dinner. When it came to difficulty in going on with a +new one long enough to get interested in it, she sighed heavily, +and began to think that perhaps life was rather a dreary thing-- +at least considerably diluted with the unsatisfactory. How many +of my readers feel the same! How few of them will recognize that +the state of things would indeed be desperate were it otherwise! +How many would go on and on being only butterflies, but for +life's dismay! And who would choose to be a butterfly, even if +life and summer and the flowers were to last for ever! + +"I would," I fancy this and that reader saying. + +"Then," I answer, "the only argument you are equal to, is the +fact that life nor summer nor the flowers do last for ever." + +"I suppose I am made a butterfly," do you say? "seeing I prefer +to be one." + +"Ah! do you say so, indeed? Then you begin to excuse yourself, +and what does that mean? It means that you are no butterfly, for +a butterfly--no, nor an angel in heaven--could never begin +excusing the law of its existence. Butterfly-brother, the hail +will be upon you." + +I may not then pity Letty that she had to discover that novels +taken alone serve one much as sweetmeats _ad libitum_ do +children, nor that she had to prove that life has in it that +spiritual quinine, precious because bitter, whose part it is to +wake the higher hunger. + +Tom talked of himself as on the staff of "The Firefly"--such was +the name of the newspaper whose editor sometimes paid him--a +weekly of great pretense, which took upon itself the mystery of +things, as if it were God's spy. It was popular in a way, chiefly +in fashionable circles. As regarded the opinions it promulgated, +I never heard one, who understood the particular question at any +time handled, say it was correct. Its writers were mostly young +men, and their passion was to say clever things. If a friend's +book came in their way, it was treated worse or better than that +of a stranger, but with impartial disregard for truth in either +case; yet many were the authors who would go up endless back +stairs to secure from that paper a flattering criticism, and then +be as proud of it as if it had been the genuine and unsought +utterance of a true man's conviction; and many were the men, +immeasurably the superiors of the reviewers, and in a general way +acquainted with their character, who would accept as conclusive +upon the merits of a book the opinions they gave, nor ever +question a mode of quotation by which a book was made to show +itself whatever the reviewer chose to call it. A scandalous rumor +of any kind, especially from the region styled "high life," often +false, and always incorrect, was the delight both of the paper +and of its readers; and the interest it thus awoke, united to the +fear it thus caused, was mainly what procured for such as were +known to be employed upon it the _entree_ of houses where, +if they had had a private existence only, their faces would never +have been seen. But, to do Tom justice, he wrote nothing of this +sort: he was neither ill-natured nor experienced enough for that +department; what he did write was clever, shallow sketches of +that same society into whose charmed precincts he was but so +lately a comer that much was to him interesting which had long +ceased to be observed by eyes turned horny with the glare of the +world's footlights; and, while these sketches pleased the young +people especially, even their jaded elders enjoyed the sparkling +reflex of what they called life, as seen by an outsider; for they +were thereby enabled to feel for a moment a slight interest in +themselves objectively, along with a galvanized sense of +existence as the producers of history. These sketches did more +for the paper than the editor was willing to know or acknowledge. + +But "The Firefly" produced also a little art on its own account-- +not always very original, but, at least, not a sucking of life +from the labor of others, as is most of that parasitic thing +miscalled criticism. In this branch Tom had a share, in the shape +of verse. A ready faculty was his, but one seldom roused by +immediate interest, and never by insight. It was not things +themselves, but the reflection of things in the art of others, +that moved him to produce. Coleridge, I think, says of Dryden, +that he took fire with the running of his own wheels: so did Tom; +but it was the running of the wheels of others that set his +wheels running. He was like some young preachers who spend a part +of the Saturday in reading this or that author, in order to +_get up_ the mental condition favorable to preaching on the +Sunday. He was really fond of poetry; delighted in the study of +its external elements for the sake of his craft; possessed not +only a good but cultivated ear for verse, which is a rare thing +out of the craft; had true pleasure in a fine phrase, in a strong +or brilliant word; last and chief, had a special faculty for +imitation; from which gifts, graces, and acquirements, it came, +that he could write almost in any style that moved him--so far, +at least, as to remind one who knew it, of that style; and that +every now and then appeared verses of his in "The Firefly." + +As often as this took place, Letty was in the third heaven of +delight. For was not Tom's poetry unquestionably superior to +anything else the age could produce? was the poetry Cousin +Godfrey made her read once to be compared to Tom's? and was not +Tom her own husband? Happy woman she! + +But, by the time at which my narrative has arrived, the first +mist of a coming fog had begun to gather faintly dim in her +heart. When Tom would come home happy, but talk perplexingly; +when he would drop asleep in the middle of a story she could make +nothing of; when he would burst out and go on laughing, and +refuse to explain the motive--how was she to avoid the conclusion +forced upon her, that he had taken too much strong drink? and, +when she noted that this condition reappeared at shorter and +shorter intervals, might she not well begin to be frightened, and +to feel, what she dared not allow, that she was being gradually +left alone--that Tom had struck into a diverging path, and they +were slowing parting miles from each other? + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +MARY AKD LETTY. + + +When her landlady announced a visitor, Letty, not having yet one +friend in London, could not think who it should be. When Mary +entered, she sprang to her feet and stood staring: what with +being so much in the house, and seeing so few people, the poor +girl had, I think, grown a little stupid. But, when the fact of +Mary's presence cleared itself to her, she rushed forward with a +cry, fell into her arms, and burst out weeping. Mary held her +fast until she had a little come to herself, then, pushing her +gently away to the length of her arms, looked at her. + +She was not a sight to make one happy. She was no longer the +plump, fresh girl that used to go singing about; nor was she +merely thin and pale, she looked unhealthy. Things could not be +going well with her. Had her dress been only disordered, that +might have been accidental, but it looked neglected--was not +merely dingy, but plainly shabby, and, to Mary's country eyes, +appeared on the wrong side of clean. Presently, as those eyes got +accustomed to the miserable light, they spied in the skirt of her +gown a perfunctory darn, revealing but too evidently that to +Letty there no longer seemed occasion for being particular. The +sadness of it all sunk to Mary's heart: Letty had not found +marriage a grand affair! + +But Mary had not come into the world to be sad or to help another +to be sad. Sorrowful we may often have to be, but to indulge in +sorrow is either not to know or to deny God our Saviour. True, +her heart ached for Letty; and the ache immediately laid itself +as close to Letty's ache as it could lie; but that was only the +advance-guard of her army of salvation, the light cavalry of +sympathy: the next division was help; and behind that lay +patience, and strength, and hope, and faith, and joy. This last, +modern teachers, having failed to regard it as a virtue, may well +decline to regard as a duty; but he is a poor Christian indeed in +whom joy has not at least a growing share, and Mary was not a +poor Christian--at least, for the time she had been learning, and +as Christians go in the present aeon of their history. Her whole +nature drew itself together, confronting the destroyer, whatever +he might be, in possession of Letty. How to help she could not +yet tell, but sympathy was already at its work. + +"You are not looking your best, Letty," she said, clasping her +again in her arms. + +With a little choking, Letty assured her she was quite well, only +rather overcome with the pleasure of seeing her so unexpectedly. + +"How is Mr. Helmer?" asked Mary. + +"Quite well--and very busy," answered Letty--a little hurriedly, +Mary thought. "--But," she added, in a tone of disappointment, +"you always used to call him Tom!" + +"Oh!" answered Mary, with a smile, "one must be careful how one +takes liberties with married people. A certain mysterious change +seems to pass over some of them; they are not the same somehow, +and you have to make your acquaintance with them all over again +from the beginning." + +"I shouldn't think such people's acquaintance worth making over +again," said Letty. + +"How can you tell what it may be worth?" said Mary, "--they are +so different from what they were? Their friendship may now be one +that won't change so easily." + +"Ah! don't be hard on me, Mary. I have never ceased to love you." + +"I am _so_ glad!" answered Mary. "People don't generally +take much to me--at least, not to come _near_ me. But you +can _be_ friends without _having_ friends," she added, +with a sententiousness she had inherited. + +"I don't quite understand you," said Letty, sadly; "but, then, I +never could quite, you know. Tom finds me very stupid." + +These words strengthened Mary's suspicion, from the first a +probability, that all was not going well between the two; but she +shrunk from any approach to confidences with _one_ of a +married pair. To have such, she felt instinctively, would be a +breach of unity, except, indeed, that were already, and +irreparably, broken. To encourage in any married friend the +placing of a confidence that excludes the other, is to encourage +that friend's self-degradation. But neither was this a fault to +which Letty could have been tempted; she loved her Tom too much +for it: with all her feebleness, there was in Letty not a little +of childlike greatness, born of faith. + +But, although Mary would make Letty tell nothing, she was not the +less anxious to discover, that she might, if possible, help. She +would observe: side-lights often reveal more than direct +illumination. It might be for Letty, and not for Mrs. Redmain, +she had been sent. He who made time in time would show. + +"Are you going to be long in London, Mary?" asked Letty. + +"Oh, a long time!" answered Mary, with a loving glance. + +Letty's eyes fell, and she looked troubled. + +"I am so sorry, Mary," she said, "that I can not ask you to come +here! We have only these two rooms, and--and--you see--Mrs. +Helmer is not very liberal to Tom, and--because they--don't get +on together very well--as I suppose everybody knows--Tom won't-- +he won't consent to--to--" + +"You little goose!" cried Mary; "you don't think I would come +down on you like a devouring dragon, without even letting you +know, and finding whether it would suit you!--I have got a +situation in London." + +"A situation!" echoed Letty. "What can you mean, Mary? You +haven't left your own shop, and gone into somebody else's?" + +"No, not exactly that," replied Mary, laughing; "but I have no +doubt most people would think that by far the more prudent thing +to have done." + +"Then I don't," said Letty, with a little flash of her old +enthusiasm. "Whatever you do, Mary, I am sure will always be the +best." + +"I am glad I have so much of your good opinion, Letty; but I am +not sure I shall have it still, when I have told you what I have +done. Indeed, I am not quite sure myself that I have done wisely; +but, if I have made a mistake, it is from having listened to love +more than to prudence." + +"What!" cried Letty; "you're married, Mary?" + +And here a strange thing, yet the commonest in the world, +appeared; had her own marriage proved to Letty the most blessed +of fates, she could not have shown more delight at the idea of +Mary's. I think men find women a little incomprehensible in this +matter of their friends' marriage: in their largerheartedness, I +presume, women are able to hope for their friends, even when they +have lost all hope for themselves. + +"No," replied Mary, amused at having thus misled her. "It is +neither so bad nor so good as that. But I was far from +comfortable in the shop without my father, and kept thinking how +to find a life, more suitable for me. It was not plain to me that +my lot was cast there any longer, and one has no right to choose +difficulty; for, even if difficulty be the right thing for you, +the difficulty you choose can't be the right difficulty. Those +that are given to choosing, my father said, are given to +regretting. Then it happened that I fell in love--not with a +gentleman--don't look like that, Letty--but with a lady; and, as +the lady took a small fancy to me at the same time, and wanted to +have me about her, here I am." + +"But, surely, that is not a situation fit for one like you, +Mary!" cried Letty, almost in consternation; for, notwithstanding +her opposition to her aunt's judgment in the individual case of +her friend, Letty's own judgments, where she had any, were mostly +of this world. "I suppose you are a kind of--of--companion to +your lady-friend?" + +"Or a kind of lady's-maid, or a kind of dressmaker, or a kind of +humble friend--something like a dog, perhaps--only not to be +quite so much loved and petted; In truth, Letty, I do not know +what I am, or what I am going to be; but I shall find out before +long, and where's the use of knowing, any more than anything else +before it's wanted?" + +"You take my breath away, Mary! The thing doesn't seem at all +like you! It's not consistent!--Mary Marston in a menial +position! I can't get a hold of it!" + +"You remind me," said Mary, laughing, "of what my father said to +Mr. Turnbull once. They were nearer quarreling then than ever I +saw them. You remember my father's way, Letty--how he would say a +thing too quietly even to smile with it? I can't tell you what a +delight it is to me to talk to anybody that knew him!--Mr. +Turnbull imagined he did not know what he was about, for the +thoughts my father was thinking could not have lived a moment in +Mr. Turnbull. 'You see, John Turnbull,' my father said, 'no man +can look so inconsistent as one whose principles are not +understood; for hardly in anything will that man do as his friend +must have thought he would.'--I suppose you think, Letty," Mary +went on, with a merry air, "that, for the sake of consistency, I +should never do anything but sell behind a counter?" + +"In that case," said Letty, "I ought to have married a milkman, +for a dairy is the only thing I understand. I can't help Tom ever +so little!--But I suppose it wouldn't be possible for two to +write poetry together, even if they were husband and wife, and +both of them clever!" + +"Something like it has been tried, I believe," answered Mary, +"but not with much success. I suppose, when a man sets himself to +make anything, he must have it all his own way, or he can't do +it." + +"I suppose that's it. I know Tom is very angry with the editor +when he wants to alter anything he has written. I'm sure Tom's +right, too. You can't think how much better Tom's way always is!- +-He makes that quite clear, even to poor, stupid me. But then, +you know, Tom's a genius; that's one thing there's _no_ +doubt of!--But you haven't told me yet where you are." + +"You remember Miss Mortimer, of Durnmelling?" + +"Quite well, of course." + +"She is Mrs. Redmain now: I am with her." + +"You don't mean it! Why, Tom knows her very well! He has been +several times to parties at her house." + +"And not you, too?" asked Mary. + +"Oh, dear, no!" answered Letty, laughing, superior at Mary's +ignorance. "It's not the fashion in London, at least for +distinguished persons like my Tom, to take their wives to +parties." + +"Are there no ladies at those parties, then?" + +"Oh, yes!" replied Letty, smiling again at Mary's ignorance of +the world, "the grandest of ladies--duchesses and all. You don't +know what a favorite Tom is in the highest circles!" + +Now Mary could believe almost anything bearing on Tom's being a +favorite, for she herself liked him a great deal more than she +approved of him; but she could not see the sense of his going to +parties without his wife, neither could she see that the +_height_ of the circle in which he was a favorite made any +difference. She had old-fashioned notions of a man and his wife +being one flesh, and felt a breach of the law where they were +separated, whatever the custom--reason there could be none. But +Letty seemed much too satisfied to give her any light on the +matter. Did it seem to her so natural that she could not +understand Mary's difficulty? She could not help suspecting, +however, that there might be something in this recurrence of a +separation absolute as death--for was it not a passing of one +into a region where the other could not follow?--to account for +the change in her.--The same moment, as if Letty divined what was +passing in Mary's thought, and were not altogether content with +the thing herself, but would gladly justify what she could not +explain, she added, in the tone of an unanswerable argument: + +"Besides, Mary, how could I get a dress fit to wear at such +parties? You wouldn't have me go and look like a beggar! That +would be to disgrace Tom. Everybody in London judges everybody by +the clothes she wears. You should hear Tom's descriptions of the +ladies' dresses when he comes home!" + +Mary was on the verge of crying out indignantly, "Then, if he +can't take you, why doesn't he stop at home with you?" but she +bethought herself in time to hold her peace. She settled it with +herself, however, that Tom must have less heart or yet more +muddled brains than she had thought. + +"So, then," reverted Letty, as if willing to turn definitively +from the subject, "you are actually living with the beautiful +Mrs. Redmain! What a lucky girl you are! You will see no end of +grand people! You will see my Tom sometimes--when I can't!" she +added, with a sigh that went to Mary's heart. + +"Poor thing!" she said to herself, "it isn't anything much out of +the way she wants--only a little more of a foolish husband's +company!" + +It was no wonder that Tom found Letty dull, for he had just as +little of his own in him as she, and thought he had a great +store--which is what sends a man most swiftly along the road to +that final poverty in which even that which he has shall be taken +from him. + +Mary did not stay so long with Letty as both would have liked, +for she did not yet know enough of Hesper's ways. When she got +home, she learned that she had a headache, and had not yet made +her appearance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE EVENING STAR. + + +Notwithstanding her headache, however, Mrs. Redmain was going in +the evening to a small fancy-ball, meant for a sort of rehearsal +to a great one when the season should arrive. The part and +costume she had chosen were the suggestion of her own name: she +would represent the Evening Star, clothed in the early twilight; +and neither was she unfit for the part, nor was the dress she had +designed altogether unsuitable either to herself or to the part. +But she had sufficient confidence neither in herself nor her maid +to forestall a desire for Mary's opinion. After luncheon, +therefore, she sent for Miss Marston to her bedroom. + +Mary found her half dressed, Folter in attendance, a great heap +of pink lying on the bed. + +"Sit down, Mary," said Hesper, pointing to a chair; "I want your +advice. But I must first explain. Where I am going this evening, +nobody is to be herself except me. I am not to be Mrs. Redmain, +though, but Hesper. You know what Hesper means?" + +Mary said she knew, and waited--a little anxious; for sideways in +her eyes glowed the pink of the chosen Hesperian clouds, and, if +she should not like it, what could be done at that late hour. + +"There is my dress," continued the Evening Star, with a glance of +her eyes, for Folter was busied with her hair; "I want to know +your opinion of it." Folter gave a toss of her head that seemed +to say, "Have not _I_ spoken?" but what it really did mean, +how should other mortal know? for the main obstructions to +understanding are profundity and shallowness, and the latter is +far the more perplexing of the two. + +"I should like to see it on first," said Mary: she was in doubt +whether the color--bright, to suggest the brightest of sunset- +clouds--would suit Hesper's complexion. Then, again, she had +always associated the name _Hesper_ with a later, a solemnly +lovely period of twilight, having little in common with the color +so voluminous in the background. + +Hesper had a good deal of appreciative faculty, and knew +therefore when she liked and when she did not like a thing; but +she had very little originative faculty--so little that, when +anything was wrong, she could do next to nothing to set it right. +There was small originality in taking a suggestion for her part +from her name, and less in the idea, following by concatenation, +of adopting for her costume sunset colors upon a flimsy material, +which might more than hint at clouds. She had herself, with the +assistance of Sepia and Folter, made choice of the particular +pink; but, although it continued altogether delightful in the +eyes of her maid, it had, upon nearer and pro-longed +acquaintance, become doubtful in hers; and she now waited, with +no little anxiety, the judgment of Mary, who sat silently +thinking. + +"Have you nothing to say?" she asked, at length, impatiently. + +"Please, ma'am," replied Mary, "I must think, if I am to be of +any use. I am doing my best, but you must let me be quiet." + +Half annoyed, half pleased, Hesper was silent, and Mary went on +thinking. All was still, save for the slight noises Folter made, +as, like a machine, she went on heartlessly brushing her +mistress's hair, which kept emitting little crackles, as of +dissatisfaction with her handling. Mary would now take a good +gaze at the lovely creature, now abstract herself from the +visible, and try to call up the vision of her as the real Hesper, +not a Hesper dressed up--a process which had in it hope for the +lady, but not much for the dress upon the bed. At last Folter had +done her part. + +"I suppose you _must_ see it on!" said Hesper, and she rose +up. + +Folter jerked herself to the bed, took the dress, arranged it on +her arms, got up on a chair, dropped it over her mistress's head, +got down, and, having pulled it this way and that for a while, +fastened it here, undone it there, and fastened it again, several +times, exclaimed, in a tone whose confidence was meant to +forestall the critical impertinence she dreaded: + +"There, ma'am! If you don't look the loveliest woman in the room, +I shall never trust my eyes again." + +Mary held her peace, for the commonplace style of the dress but +added to her dissatisfaction with the color. It was all puffed +and bubbled and blown about, here and there and everywhere, so +that the form of the woman was lost in the frolic shapelessness +of the cloud. The whole, if whole it could be called, was a +miserable attempt at combining fancy and fashion, and, in result, +an ugly nothing. + +"I see you don't like it!" said Hesper, with a mingling of +displeasure and dismay. "I wish you had come a few days sooner! +It is much too late to do anything now. I might just as well have +gone without showing it to you!--Here, Folter!" + +With a look almost of disgust, she began to pull off the dress, +in which, a few hours later, she would yet make the attempt to +enchant an assembly. + +"O ma'am!" cried Mary, "I wish you had told me yesterday. There +would have been time then.--And I don't know," she added, seeing +disgust change to mortification on Hesper's countenance, "but +something might be done yet." + +"Oh, indeed!" dropped from Folter's lips with an indescribable +expression. + +"What can be done?" said Hesper, angrily. "There can be no time +for anything." + +"If only we had the stuff!" said Mary. "That shade doesn't suit +your complexion. It ought to be much, much darker--in fact, a +different color altogether." + +Folter was furious, but restrained herself sufficiently to +preserve some calmness of tone, although her face turned almost +blue with the effort, as she said: + +"Miss Marston is not long from the country, ma'am, and don't know +what's suitable to a London drawing-room." + +Her mistress was too dejected to snub her impertinence. + +"What color were you thinking of, Miss Marston?" Hesper asked, +with a stiffness that would have been more in place had Mary +volunteered the opinion she had been asked to give. She was out +of temper with Mary from feeling certain she was right, and +believing there was no remedy. + +"I could not describe it," answered Mary. "And, indeed, the color +I have in my mind may not be to be had. I have seen it somewhere, +but, whether in a stuff or only in nature, I can not at this +moment be certain." + +"Where's the good of talking like that--excuse me, ma'am--it's +more than I can bear--when the ball comes off in a few hours?" +cried Folter, ending with eyes of murder on Mary. + +"If you would allow me, ma'am," said Mary, "I should like much to +try whether I could not find something that would suit you and +your idea too. However well you might look in that, you would owe +it no thanks. The worst is, I know nothing of the London shops." + +"I should think not!" remarked Folter, with emphasis. + +"I would send you in the brougham, if I thought it was of any +use," said Hesper. "Folter could take you to the proper places." + +"Folter would be of no use to me," said Mary. "If your coachman +knows the best shops, that will be enough." + +"But there's no time to make up anything," objected Hesper, +despondingly, not the less with a glimmer of hope in her heart. + +"Not like that," answered Mary; "but there is much there as +unnecessary as it is ugly. If Folter is good at her needle--" + +"I won't take up a single stitch. It would be mere waste of +labor," cried Folter. + +"Then, please, ma'am," said Mary, "let Folter have that dress +ready, and, if I don't succeed, you have something to wear." + +"I hate it. I won't go if you don't find me another." + +"Some people may like it, though I don't," said Mary. + +"Not a doubt of that!" said Folter. + +"Ring the bell," said her mistress. + +The woman obeyed, and the moment afterward repented she had not +given warning on the spot, instead. The brougham was ordered +immediately, and in a few minutes Mary was standing at a counter +in a large shop, looking at various stuffs, of which the young +man waiting on her soon perceived she knew the qualities and +capabilities better than he. + +She had set her heart on carrying out Hesper's idea, but in +better fashion; and after great pains taken, and no little +trouble given, left the shop well satisfied with her success. And +now for the greater difficulty! + +She drove straight to Letty's lodging, and, there dismissing the +brougham, presented herself, with a great parcel in her arms, for +the second time that day, at the door of her room, as unexpected +as the first, and even more to the joy of her solitary friend. + +She knew that Letty was good at her needle. And Letty was, +indeed, even now, by fits, fond of using it; and on several +occasions, when her supply of novels had for a day run short, had +asked a dressmaker who lived above to let her help her for an +hour or two: before Mary had finished her story, she was untying +the parcel, and preparing to receive her instructions. Nor had +they been at work many minutes, when Letty bethought her of +calling in the help of the said dressmaker; so that presently +there were three of them busy as bees--one with genius, one with +experience, and all with facility. The notions of the first were +quickly taken up by the other two, and, the design of the dress +being simplicity itself, Mary got all done she wanted in shorter +time than she had thought possible. The landlady sent for a cab, +and Mary was home with the improbability in more than time for +Mrs. Redmain's toilet. It was with some triumph, tempered with +some trepidation, that she carried it to her room. + +There Folter was in the act of persuading her mistress of the +necessity of beginning to dress: Miss Marston, she said, knew +nothing of what she had undertaken; and, even if she arrived in +time, it would be with something too ridiculous for any lady to +appear in--when Mary entered, and was received with a cry of +delight from Hesper; in proportion to whose increasing disgust +for the pink robe, was her pleasure when she caught sight of +Mary's colors, as she undid the parcel: when she lifted the dress +on her arm for a first effect, she was enraptured with it--aerial +in texture, of the hue of a smoky rose, deep, and cloudy with +overlying folds, yet diaphanous, a darkness dilute with red. + +Silent as a torture-maiden, and as grim, Folter approached to try +the filmy thing, scornfully confident that the first sight of it +on would prove it unwearable. But Mary judged her scarcely in a +mood to be trusted with anything so ethereal; and begged +therefore that, as the dress had, of necessity, been in many +places little more than run together, and she knew its weak +points, she might, for that evening, be allowed the privilege of +dressing Mrs. Redmain. Hesper gladly consented; Folter left the +room; Mary, now at her ease, took her place; and presently, more +to Hesper's pleasure than Mary's surprise, for she had made and +fixed in her mind the results of minute observation before she +went, it was found that the dress fitted quite sufficiently well, +and, having confined it round the waist with a cincture of thin +pale gold, she advanced to her chief anxiety--the head-dress. + +For this she had chosen such a doubtful green as the sky appears +through yellowish smoke--a sad, lovely color--the fair past +clouded with the present--youth not forgotten, but filmed with +age. They were all colors of the evening, as it strives to keep +its hold of the heavens, with the night pressing upon it from +behind. In front, above the lunar forehead, among the coronal +masses, darkly fair, she fixed a diamond star, and over it wound +the smoky green like a turbaned vapor, wind-ruffled, through +which the diamonds gleamed faintly by fits. Not once would she, +while at her work, allow Hesper to look, and the self-willed lady +had been submissive in her hands as a child of the chosen; but +the moment she had succeeded--for her expectations were more than +realized--she led her to the cheval-glass. Hesper gazed for an +instant, then, turning, threw her arms about Mary, and kissed +her. + +"I don't believe you're a human creature at all!" she cried. "You +are a fairy godmother, come to look after your poor Cinderella, +the sport of stupid lady's-maids and dressmakers!" + +The door opened, and Folter entered. + +"If you please, ma'am, I wish to leave this day month," she said, +quietly. + +"Then," answered her mistress, with equal calmness, "oblige me by +going at once to Mrs. Perkin, and telling her that I desire her +to pay you a month's wages, and let you leave the house to-morrow +morning.--You won't mind helping me to dress till I get another +maid--will you, Mary?" she added; and Folter left the room, +chagrined at her inability to cause annoyance. + +"I do not see why you should have another maid so long as I am +with you, ma'am," said Mary. "It should not need many days' +apprenticeship to make one woman able to dress another." + +"Not when she is like you, Mary," said Hesper. "It is well the +wretch has done my hair for to-night, though! That will be the +main difficulty." + +"It will not be a great one," said Mary, "if you will allow me to +undo it when you come home." + +"I begin almost to believe in a special providence," said Hesper. +"What a blessed thing for me that you came to drive away that +woman! She has been getting worse and worse." + +"If I have driven her away," answered Mary, "I am bound to supply +her place." + +As they talked, she was giving her final touches of arrangement +to the head-dress--with which she found it least easy to satisfy +herself. It swept round from behind in a misty cloak, the two +colors mingling with and gently obscuring each other; while, +between them, the palest memory of light, in the golden cincture, +helped to bring out the somber richness, the delicate darkness of +the whole. + +Searching now again Hesper's jewel-case, Mary found a fine +bracelet of the true, the Oriental topaz, the old chrysolite--of +that clear yellow of the sunset-sky that looks like the 'scaped +spirit of miser-smothered gold: this she clasped upon one arm; +and when she had fastened a pair of some ancient Mortimer's +garnet buckles in her shoes, which she had insisted should be +black, and taken off all the rings that Hesper had just put on, +except a certain glorious sapphire, she led her again to the +mirror; and, if there Hesper was far more pleased with herself +than was reasonable or lovely, my reader needs not therefore fear +a sermon from the text, "Beauty is only skin-deep," for that text +is out of the devil's Bible. No Baal or Astarte is the maker of +beauty, but the same who made the seven stars and Orion, and His +works are past finding out. If only the woman herself and her +worshipers knew how deep it is! But the woman's share in her own +beauty may be infinitely less than skin-deep; and there is but +one greater fool than the man who worships that beauty--the woman +who prides herself upon it, as if she were the fashioner and not +the thing fashioned. + +But poor Hesper had much excuse, though no justification. She had +had many of the disadvantages and scarce one of the benefits of +poverty. She had heard constantly from childhood the most worldly +and greedy talk, the commonest expression of abject dependence on +the favors of Mammon, and thus had from the first been in +preparation for _marrying money_. She had been taught no +other way of doing her part to procure the things of which the +Father knows we have need. She had never earned a dinner; had +never done or thought of doing a day's work--of offering the +world anything for the sake of which the world might offer her a +shilling to do it again; she had never dreamed of being of any +use, even to herself; she had learned to long for money, but had +never been hungry, never been cold: she had sometimes felt +shabby. Out of it all she had brought but the knowledge that this +matter of beauty, with which, by some blessed chance, she was +endowed, was worth much precious money in the world's market-- +worth all the dresses she could ever desire, worth jewels and +horses and servants, adoration and adulation--everything, in +fact, the world calls fine, and the devil offers to those who, +unscared by his inherent ugliness, will fall down and worship +him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +A SCOLDING. + + +The Evening Star found herself a success--that is, much followed +by the men and much complimented by the women. Her triumph, +however, did not culminate until the next appearance of "The +Firefly," containing a song "To the Evening Star," which +_everybody_ knew to stand for Mrs. Redmain. The chaos of the +uninitiated, indeed, exoteric and despicable, remained in +ignorance, nor dreamed that the verses meant anybody of note; to +them they seemed but the calf-sigh of some young writer so deep +in his first devotion that he jumbled up his lady-love, Hesper, +and Aphrodite, in the same poetic bundle--of which he left the +string-ends hanging a little loose, while, upon the whole, it +remained a not altogether unsightly bit of prentice-work. Tom had +not been at the party, but had gathered fire enough from what he +heard of Hesper's appearance there to write the verses. Here they +are, as nearly as I can recall them. They are in themselves not +worth writing out for the printers, but, in their surroundings, +they serve to show Tom, and are the last with which I shall +trouble the readers of this narrative. + +"TO THE EVENING STAR. + + "From the buried sunlight springing, + Through flame-darkened, rosy loud, + Native sea-hues with thee bringing, + In the sky thou reignest proud! + + "Who is like thee, lordly lady, + Star-choragus of the night! + Color worships, fainting fady, + Night grows darker with delight! + + "Dusky-radiant, far, and somber, + In the coolness of thy state, + From my eyelids chasing slumber, + Thou dost smile upon my fate; + + "Calmly shinest; not a whisper + Of my songs can reach thine ear; + What is it to thee, O Hesper, + That a heart should long or fear?" + +Tom did not care to show Letty this poem--not that there was +anything more in his mind than an artistic admiration of Hesper, +and a desire to make himself agreeable in her eyes; but, when +Letty, having read it, betrayed no shadow of annoyance with its +folly, he was a little relieved. The fact was, the simple +creature took it as a pardon to herself. + +"I am glad you have forgiven me, Tom," she said. + +"What do you mean?" asked Tom. + +"For working for Mrs. Redmain with _your_ hands," she said, +and, breaking into a little laugh, caught his cheeks between +those same hands, and reaching up gave him a kiss that made him +ashamed of himself--a little, that is, and for the moment, that +is: Tom was used to being this or that a little for the moment. + +For this same dress, which Tom had thus glorified in song, had +been the cause of bitter tears to Letty. He came home _too +late_ the day of Mary's visit, but the next morning she told +him all about both the first and the second surprise she had had +--not, however, with much success in interesting the lordly youth. + +"And then," she went on, "what do you think we were doing all the +afternoon, Tom?" + +"How should I know?" said Tom, indifferently. + +"We were working hard at a dress--a dress for a fancy-ball!" + +"A fancy-ball, Letty? What do you mean? You going to a fancy- +ball!" + +"Me!" cried Letty, with merry laugh; "no, not quite me. Who do +you think it was for?" + +"How should I know?" said Tom again, but not quite so +indifferently; he was prepared to be annoyed. + +"For Mrs. Redmain!" said Letty, triumphantly, clapping her hands +with delight at what she thought the fun of the thing, for was +not Mrs. Redmain Tom's friend?--then stooping a little--it was an +unconscious, pretty trick she had--and holding them out, palm +pressed to palm, with the fingers toward his face. + +"Letty," said Tom, frowning--and the frown deepened and deepened; +for had he not from the first, if in nothing else, taken trouble +to instruct her in what became the wife of Thomas Helmer, Esq.?-- +"Letty, this won't do!" + +Letty was frightened, but tried to think he was only pretending +to be displeased. + +"Ah! don't frighten me, Tom," she said, with her merry hands now +changed to pleading ones, though their position and attitude +remained the same. + +But he caught them by the wrists in both of his, and held them +tight. + +"Letty," he said once more, and with increased severity, "this +won't do. I tell you, it won't do." + +"What won't do, Tom?" she returned, growing white. "There's no +harm done." + +"Yes, there is," said Tom, with solemnity; "there _is_ harm +done, when _my_ wife goes and does like that. What would +people say of _me,_ if they were to come to know--God forbid +they should!--that your husband was talking all the evening to +ladies at whose dresses his wife had been working all the +afternoon!--You don't know what you are doing, Letty. What do you +suppose the ladies would think if they were to hear of it?" + +Poor, foolish Tom, ignorant in his folly, did not know how little +those grand ladies would have cared if his wife had been a char- +woman: the eyes of such are not discerning of fine social +distinctions in women who are not of their set, neither are the +family relations of the bohemians they invite of the smallest +consequence to them. + +"But, Tom," pleaded his wife, "such a grand lady as that! one you +go and read your poetry to! What harm can there be in your poor +little wife helping to make a dress for a lady like that?" + +"I tell you, Letty, I don't choose _my_ wife to do such a +thing for the greatest lady in the land! Good Heavens! if it +_were_ to come to the ears of the staff! It would be the +ruin of me! I should never hold up my head again!" + +By this time Letty's head was hanging low, like a flower half +broken from its stem, and two big tears were slowly rolling down +her cheeks. But there was a gleam of satisfaction in her heart +notwithstanding. Tom thought so much of his little wife that he +would not have her work for the greatest lady in the land! She +did not see that it was not pride in her, but pride in himself, +that made him indignant at the idea. It was not "my _wife,"_ +but "_my_ wife" with Tom. She looked again up timidly in his +face, and said, her voice trembling, and her cheeks wet, for she +could not wipe away the tears, because Tom still held her hands +as one might those of a naughty child: + +"But, Tom! I don't exactly see how you can make so much of it, +when you don't think me--when you know I am not fit to go among +such people." + +To this Tom had no reply at hand: he was not yet far enough down +the devil's turnpike to be able to tell his wife that he had +spoken the truth--that he did not think her fit for such company; +that he would be ashamed of her in it; that she had no style; +that, instead of carrying herself as if she knew herself +somebody--as good as anybody there, indeed, being the wife of Tom +Helmer--she had the meek look of one who knew herself nobody, and +did not know her husband to be anybody. He did not think how +little he had done to give the unassuming creature that quiet +confidence which a woman ought to gather from the assurance of +her husband's satisfaction in her, and the consciousness of +being, in dress and everything else, pleasing in his eyes, +therefore of occupying the only place in the world she desires to +have. But he did think that Letty's next question might naturally +be, "Why do you not take me with you?" No doubt he could have +answered, no one had ever asked her; but then she might rejoin, +had he ever put it in any one's way to ask her? It might even +occur to her to in-quire whether he had told Mrs. Redmain that he +had a wife! and he had heart enough left to imagine it might +mortally hurt her to find he lived a life so utterly apart from +hers--that she had so little of the relations though all the +rights of wifehood. It was no wonder, therefore, if he was more +than willing to change the subject. He let the poor, imprisoned +hands drop so abruptly that, in their abandonment, they fell +straight from her shoulders to her sides. + +"Well, well, child!" he said; "put on your bonnet, and we shall +be in time for the first piece at the Lyceum." + +Letty flew, and was ready in five minutes. She could dress the +more quickly that she was delayed by little doubt as to what she +had better wear: she had scarcely a choice. Tom, looking after +his own comforts, left her to look after her necessities; and +she, having a conscience, and not much spirit, went even shabbier +than she yet needed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +SEPIA. + + +As naturally as if she had been born to that very duty and no +other, Mary slid into the office of lady's-maid to Mrs. Redmain, +feeling in it, although for reasons very different, no more +degradation than her mistress saw in it. If Hesper was +occasionally a little rude to her, Mary was not one to _accept_ +a rudeness--that is, to wrap it up in resentment, and put it +away safe in the pocket of memory. She could not help +feeling things of the kind--sometimes with indignation and anger; +but she made haste to send them from her, and shut the doors +against them. She knew herself a far more blessed creature than +Hesper, and felt the obligation, from the Master himself, of so +enduring as to keep every channel of service open between Hesper +and her. To Hesper, the change from the vulgar service of Folter +to the ministration of Mary was like passing from a shallow +purgatory to a gentle paradise. Mary's service was full of live +and near presence, as that of dew or summer wind; Folter handled +her as if she were dressing a doll, Mary as if she were dressing +a baby; her hands were deft as an angel's, her feet as noiseless +as swift. And to have Mary near was not only to have a +ministering spirit at hand, but to have a good atmosphere all +around--an air, a heaven, out of which good things must momently +come. Few could be closely associated with her and not become +aware at least of the capacity of being better, if not of the +desire to be better. + +In the matter of immediate result, it was a transition from +decoration to dress. If in any sense Hesper was well dressed +before, she was in every sense well dressed now--dressed so, that +is, as to reveal the nature, the analogies, and the associations +of her beauty: no manner of dressing can make a woman look more +beautiful than she is, though many a mode may make her look less +so. + +There was one in the house, however, who was not pleased at the +change from Folter to Mary: Sepia found herself in consequence +less necessary to Hesper. Hitherto Hesper had never been +satisfied without Sepia's opinion and final approval in that +weightiest of affairs, the matter of dress; but she found in Mary +such a faculty as rendered appeal to Sepia unnecessary; for she +not only satisfied her idea of herself, and how she would choose +to look, but showed her taste as much surer than Sepia's as +Sepia's was readier than Hesper's own. Sepia was equal to the +dressing of herself--she never blundered there; but there was +little dependence to be placed upon her in dressing another. She +cared for herself, not for another; and to dress another, love is +needful--love, the only true artist--love, the only opener of +eyes. She cared nothing to minister to the comfort or +beautification of her cousin, and her displeasure did not arise +from the jealousy that is born of affection. So far as Hesper's +self was concerned, Sepia did not care a straw whether she was +well or ill dressed; but, if the link between them of dress was +severed, what other so strong would be left? And to find herself +in any way a less object in Hesper's eyes, would be to find +herself on the inclined plane of loss, and probable ruin. + +Another, though a smaller, point was, that hitherto she had +generally been able so to dress Hesper as to make of her more or +less a foil to herself. My reader may remember that there was +between Hesper and Sepia, if not a resemblance, yet a relation of +appearance, like, vaguely, that between the twilight and the +night; seen in certain positions and circumstances, the one would +recall the other; and it was therefore a matter of no small +consequence to Sepia that the relation of her dress to Hesper's +should be such as to give herself any advantage to be derived in +it from the relation of their looks. This was far more difficult, +of course, when she had no longer a voice in the matter of +Hesper's dress, and when the loving skill of the new maid +presented her rival to her individual best. Mary would have been +glad to help her as well, but Sepia drew back as from a hostile +nature, and they made no approximation. This was more loss to +Sepia than she knew, for Mary would have assisted her in doing +the best when she had no money, a condition which often made it +the more trying that she had now so little influence over her +cousin's adornment. To dress was a far more difficult, though not +more important, affair with Sepia than with Hesper, for she had +nothing of her own, and from, her cousin no fixed allowance. Any +arrangement of the kind had been impossible at Durnmelling, where +there was no money; and here, where it would have been easy +enough, she judged it better to give no hint in its direction, +although plainly it had never suggested itself to Hesper. There +was nothing of the money-mean in her, any more than in her +husband. They were of course, as became people of fashion, +regular and unwearied attendants of the church of Mammon, +ordering all their judgments and ways in accordance with the +precepts there delivered; but they were none of Mammon's priests +or pew-openers, money-grubs, or accumulators. They gave liberally +where they gave, and scraped no inferior to spend either on +themselves or their charities. They had plenty, it is true; but +so have many who withhold more than is meet, and take the ewe- +lamb to add to their flock. For one thing, they had no time for +that sort of wickedness, and took no interest in it. So Hesper, +although it had not come into her mind to give her the ease of a +stated allowance, behaved generously to Sepia--when she thought +of it; but she did not love her enough to be love-watchful, and +seldom thought how her money must be going, or questioned whether +she might not at the moment be in want of more. There are many +who will give freely, who do not care to understand need and +anticipate want. Hence at times Sepia's purse would be long empty +before the giving-thought would wake in the mind of Hesper. When +it woke, it was gracious and free. + + +Had Sepia ventured to run up bills with the tradespeople, Hesper +would have taken it as a thing of course, and settled them with +her own. But Sepia had a certain politic pride in spending only +what was given her; also she saw or thought she saw serious +reason for avoiding all appearances of taking liberties; from the +first of Mr. Redmain's visits to Durnmelling, she had been aware, +with an instinct keen in respect of its objects, though blind as +to its own nature, that he did not like her, and soon satisfied +herself that any overt attempt to please him would but ripen his +dislike to repugnance; and her dread was that he might make it a +condition with Mr. Mortimer that Hesper's intimacy with her +should cease; whereas, if once they were married, the husband's +disfavor would, she believed, only strengthen the wife's +predilection. Having so far gained her end, it remained, however, +almost as desirable as before that she should do nothing to fix +or increase his dislike--nay, that, if within the possible, she +should become pleasing to him. Did not even hate turn sometimes +to its mighty opposite? But she understood so little of the man +with whom she had to deal that her calculations were ill-founded. + +She was right in believing that Mr. Redmain disliked her, but she +was wrong in imagining that he had therefore any objection to her +being for the present in the house. He certainly did not relish +the idea of her continuing to be his wife's inseparable +companion, but there would be time enough to get rid of her after +he had found her out. For she had not long been one of his +_family,_ before he knew, with insight unerring, that she +had to be found out, and was therefore an interesting subject for +the exercise of his faculty of moral analysis. He was certain her +history was composed mainly of secrets. As yet, however, he had +discovered nothing. + +I must just remind my reader of the intellectual passion I have +already mentioned as characterizing Mr. Redmain's mental +constitution. His faults and vices were by no means peculiar; but +the bent to which I refer, certainly no virtue, and springing +originally from predominant evil, was in no small degree +peculiar, especially in the degree to which, derived as it was +from his father, he had in his own being developed it. Most men, +he judged with himself, were such fools as well as rogues, that +there was not the least occasion to ask what they were after: +they did but turn themselves inside out before you! But, on the +other hand, there were not a few who took pains, more or less +successful, to conceal their game of life; and such it was the +delight of his being to lay bare to his own eyes-not to those of +other people; that, he said, would be to spoil his game! Men were +his library, he said-his history, his novels, his sermons, his +philosophy, his poetry, his whole literature--and he did not like +to have his books thumbed by other people. Human nature, in its +countless aspects, was all about him, he said, every mask crying +to him to take it off. Unhappily, it was but the morbid anatomy +of human nature he cared to study. For all his abuse of it, he +did not yet recognize it as morbid, but took it as normal, and +the best to be had. No doubt, he therein judged and condemned +himself, but that he never thought of--nor, perceived, would it +have been a point of any consequence to him. + +From the first, he saw through Mr. Mortimer, and all belonging to +him, except Miss Yolland: she soon began to puzzle--and, so far, +to please him, though, as I have said, he did not like her. Had +he been a younger man, she would have captivated him; as it was, +she would have repelled him entirely, but that she offered him a +good subject. He said to himself that she was a bad lot, but what +sort of a bad lot was not so clear as to make her devoid of +interest to him; he must discover how she played her life-game; +she had a history, and he would fain know it. As I have said, +however, so far it had come to nothing, for, upon the surface, +Sepia showed herself merely like any other worldly girl who knows +"on which side her bread is buttered." + +The moment he had found, or believed he had found, what there was +to know about her, he was sure to hate her heartily. For some +time after his marriage, he appeared at his wife's parties +oftener than he otherwise would have done, just for the sake of +having an eye upon Sepia; but had seen nothing, nor the shadow of +anything--until one night, by the merest chance, happening to +enter his wife's drawing-room, he caught a peculiar glance +between Sepia and a young man--not very young--who had just +entered, and whom he had not seen before. + +To not a few it seemed strange that, with her unquestioned powers +of fascination, she had not yet married; but London is not the +only place in which poverty is as repellent as beauty is +attractive. At the same time it must be confessed there was +something about her which made not a few men shy of her. Some +found that, if her eyes drew them within a certain distance, +there they began to repel them, they could not tell why. Others +felt strangely uncomfortable in her presence from the first. Not +only much that a person has done, but much of what a person is +capable of, is, I suspect, written on the bodily presence; and, +although no human eye is capable of reading more than here and +there a scattered hint of the twilight of history, which is the +aurora of prophecy, the soul may yet shudder with an instinctive +foreboding it can not explain, and feel the presence, without +recognizing the nature, of the hostile. + +Sepia's eyes were her great power. She knew the laws of mortar- +practice in that kind as well as any officer of engineers those +of projectiles. There was something about her engines which it +were vain to attempt to describe. Their lightest glance was a +thing not to be trifled with, and their gaze a thing hardly to be +withstood. Sustained and without hurt defied, it could hardly be +by man of woman born. They were large, but no fool would be taken +with mere size. They were as dark as ever eyes of woman, but our +older poets delighted in eyes as gray as glass: certainly not in +their darkness lay their peculiar witchery. They were grandly +proportioned, neither almond-shaped nor round, neither prominent +nor deep-set; but even shape by itself is not much. If I go on to +say they were luminous, plainly there the danger begins. Sepia's +eyes, I confess, were not lords of the deepest light--for she was +not true; but neither was theirs a surface light, generated of +merely physical causes: through them, concentrating her will upon +their utterance, she could establish a psychical contact with +_almost_ any man she chose. Their power was an evil, selfish +shadow of original, universal love. By them she could produce at +once, in the man on whom she turned their play, a sense as it +were of some primordial, fatal affinity between her and him--of +an aboriginal understanding, the rare possession of but a few of +the pairs made male and female. Into those eyes she would call up +her soul, and there make it sit, flashing light, in gleams and +sparkles, shoots and coruscations--not from great, black pupils +alone--to whose size there were who said the suicidal belladonna +lent its aid--but from great, dark irids as well--nay, from +eyeballs, eyelashes, and eyelids, as from spiritual catapult or +culverin, would she dart the lightnings of her present soul, +invading with influence as irresistible as subtile the soul of +the man she chose to assail, who, thenceforward, for a season, if +he were such as she took him for, scarce had choice but be her +slave. She seldom exerted their full force, however, without some +further motive than mere desire to captivate. There are women who +fly their falcons at any game, little birds and all; but Sepia +did not so waste herself: her quarry must be worth her hunt: she +must either love him or need him. _Love!_ did I say? Alas! if +ever holy word was put to unholy use, _love_ is that word! +When Diana goes to hell, her name changes to Hecate, but love +among the devils is called love still! + +In more than one other country, whatever might be the cause, +Sepia had found _the men_ less shy of her than here; and she +had almost begun to think her style was not generally pleasing to +English eyes. Whether this had anything to do with the fact that +now in London she began to amuse herself with Tom Helmer, I can +not say with certainty; but almost if not quite the first time +they met, that morning, namely, when first he called, and they +sat in the bay-window of the drawing-room in Glammis Square, she +brought her eyes to play upon him; and, although he addressed +"The Firefly" poem to Hesper in the hope of pleasing her, it was +for the sake of Sepia chiefly that he desired the door of her +house to be an open one to him. Whether at that time she knew he +was a married man, it is hardly necessary to inquire, seeing it +would have made no difference whatever to one like her, whose +design was only to amuse herself with the youth, and possibly to +make of him a screen. She went so far, however, as to allow him, +when there was opportunity, to draw her into quiet corners, and +even to linger when the other guests were gone, and he had had +his full share of champagne. Once, indeed, they remained together +so long in the little conservatory, lighted only by an alabaster +lamp, pale as the moon in the dawning, that she had to unbolt the +door to let him out. This did not take place without coming to +the knowledge of both Mr. and Mrs. Redmain; but the former was +only afraid there was nothing in it, and was far from any wish to +control her; and Sepia herself was the in-formant of the latter. +To her she would make game of her foolish admirer, telling how, +on this and that occasion, it was all she could do to get rid of +him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +HONOR. + + +Having now gained a partial insight into Letty's new position, +Mary pondered what she could do to make life more of life to her. +Not many knew better than she that the only true way to help a +human heart is to lift it up; but she knew also that every kind +of loving aid tends more or less to that uplifting; and that, if +we can not do the great thing, we must be ready to do the small: +if we do not help in little things, how shall we be judged fit to +help in greater? We must help where we can, that we may help +where we can not. The first and the only thing she could for a +time think of, was, to secure for Letty, if possible, a share in +her husband's pleasures. + +Quietly, yet swiftly, a certain peaceful familiarity had +established itself between Hesper and Mary, to which the perfect +balance of the latter and her sense of the only true foundation +of her position contributed far more than the undefined +partiality of the former. The possibility of such a conversation +as I am now going to set down was one of the results. + +"Do you like Mr. Helmer, ma'am?" asked Mary one morning, as she +was brushing her hair. + +"Very well. How do you know anything of him?" + +"Not many people within ten miles of Testbridge do not know Mr. +Helmer," answered Mary. + +"Yes, yes, I remember," said Hesper. "He used to ride about on a +long-legged horse, and talked to anybody that would listen to +him. But there was always something pleasing about him, and he is +much improved. Do you know, he is considered really very clever?" + +"I am not surprised," rejoined Mary. "He used to be rather +foolish, and that is a sign of cleverness--at least, many clever +people are foolish, I think." + +"You can't have had much opportunity for making the observation, +Mary!" + +"Clever people think as much of themselves in the country as they +do in London, and that is what makes them foolish," returned +Mary. "But I used to think Mr. Helmer had very good points, and +was worth doing something for--if one only knew what." + +"He does not seem to want anything done for him," said Hesper. + +"I know one thing _you_ could do for him, and it would be no +trouble," said Mary. + +"I will do anything for anybody that is no trouble," answered +Hesper. "I should like to know something that is no trouble." + +"It is only, the next time you ask him, to ask his wife," said +Mary. + +"He is married, then?" returned Hesper with indifference. "Is the +woman presentable? Some shopkeeper's daughter, I suppose!" + +Mary laughed. "You don't imagine the son of a lawyer would be +likely to marry a shopkeeper's daughter!" she said. + +"Why not?" returned Hesper, with a look of non-intelligence. + +"Because a professional man is so far above a tradesman." + +"Oh!" said Hesper. "--But he should have told me if he wanted to +bring his wife with him. I don't care who she is, so long as she +dresses decently and holds her tongue. What are you laughing at, +Mary?" + +Hesper called it laughing, but Mary was only smiling. + +"I can't help being amused," answered Mary, "that you should +think it such an out-of-the-way thing to be a shopkeeper's +daughter, and here am I all the time, feeling quite comfortable, +and proud of the shopkeeper whose daughter I am." + +"Oh! I beg your pardon," exclaimed Hesper, growing hot for, I +almost believe, the first time in her life, and therein, I fear, +showing a drop of bad blood from somewhere, probably her father's +side of the creation; for not even the sense of having hurt the +feelings of an inferior can make the thoroughbred woman of the +world aware of the least discomfort; and here was Hesper, not +only feeling like a woman of God's making, but actually showing +it!--"How cruel of me!" she went on. "But, you see, I never think +of you--when I am talking to you--as--as one of that class!" + +Mary laughed outright this time: she was amused, and thought it +better to show it, for that would show also she was not hurt. +Hesper, however, put it down to insensibility. + +"Surely, dear Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, "you can not think the +class to which I belong in itself so objectionable that it is +rude to refer to it in my hearing!" + +"I am very sorry," repeated Hesper, but in a tone of some +offense: it was one thing to confess a fault; another to be +regarded as actually guilty of the fault. "Nothing was further +from my intention than to offend you. I have not a doubt that +shopkeepers are a most respectable class in their way--" + +"Excuse me, dear Mrs. Redmain," said Mary again, "but you quite +mistake me. I am not in the least offended. I don't care what you +think of the class. There are a great many shopkeepers who are +anything but respectable--as bad, indeed, as any of the +nobility." + +"I was not thinking of morals," answered Hesper. "In that, I dare +say, all classes are pretty much alike. But, of course, there are +differences." + +"Perhaps one of them is, that, in our class, we make +respectability more a question of the individual than you do in +yours." + +"That may be very true," returned Hesper. "So long as a man +behaves himself, we ask no questions." + +"Will you let me tell you how the thing looks to me?" said Mary. + +"Certainly. You do not suppose I care for the opinions of the +people about me! I, too, have my way of looking at things." + +So said Hesper; yet it was just the opinions of the people about +her that ruled all those of her actions that could be said to be +ruled at all. No one boasts of freedom except the willing slave-- +the man so utterly a slave that he feels nothing irksome in his +fetters. Yet, perhaps, but for the opinions of those about her, +Hesper would have been worse than she was. + +"Am I right, then, in thinking," began Mary, "that people of your +class care only that a man should wear the look of a gentleman, +and carry himself like one?--that, whether his appearance be a +reality or a mask, you do not care, so long as no mask is removed +in your company?--that he may be the lowest of men, but, so long +as other people receive him, you will, too, counting him good +enough?" + + +Hesper held her peace. She had by this time learned some facts +concerning the man she had married which, beside Mary's question, +were embarrassing. + +"It is interesting," she said at length, "to know how the +different classes in a country regard each other." But she spoke +wearily: it was interesting in the abstract, not interesting to +her. + +"The way to try a man," said Mary, "would be to turn him the +other way, as I saw the gentleman who is taking your portrait do +yesterday trying a square--change his position quite, I mean, and +mark how far he continued to look a true man. He would show +something of his real self then, I think. Make a nobleman a +shopkeeper, for instance, and see what kind of a shopkeeper he +made. If he showed himself just as honorable when a shopkeeper as +he had seemed when a nobleman, there would be good reason for +counting him an honorable man." + +"What odd fancies you have, Mary!" said Hesper, yawning. + +"I know my father would have been as honorable as a nobleman as +he was when a shopkeeper," persisted Mary. + +"That I can well believe--he was your father," said Hesper, +kindly, meaning what she said, too, so far as her poor +understanding of the honorable reached. + +"Would you mind telling me," asked Mary, "how you would define +the difference between a nobleman and a shopkeeper?" + +Hesper thought a little. The question to her was a stupid one. +She had never had interest enough in humanity to care a straw +what any shopkeeper ever thought or felt. Such people inhabited a +region so far below her as to be practically out of her sight. +They were not of her kind. It had never occurred to her that life +must look to them much as it looked to her; that, like Shylock, +they had feelings, and would bleed if cut with a knife. But, +although she was not interested, she peered about sleepily for an +answer. Her thoughts, in a lazy fashion, tumbled in her, like +waves without wind--which, indeed, was all the sort of thinking +she knew. At last, with the decision of conscious superiority, +and the judicial air afforded by the precision of utterance +belonging to her class--a precision so strangely conjoined with +the lack of truth and logic both--she said, in a tone that gave +to the merest puerility the consequence of a judgment between +contending sages: + +"The difference is, that the nobleman is born to ease and dignity +and affluence, and the--shopkeeper to buy and sell for his +living." + +"Many a nobleman," suggested Mary, "buys and sells without the +necessity of making a living." + +"That is the difference," said Hesper. + +"Then the nobleman buys and sells to make money, and the +shopkeeper to make a living?" + +"Yes," granted Hesper, lazily. + +"Which is the nobler end--to live, or to make money?" But this +question was too far beyond Hesper. She did not even choose to +hear it. + +"And," she said, resuming her definition instead, "the nobleman +deals with great things, the shopkeeper with small." + +"When things are finally settled," said Mary--"Gracious, Mary!" +cried Hesper, "what do you mean? Are not things settled for good +this many a century? I am afraid I have been harboring an awful +radical!--a--what do they call it?--a communist!" + +She would have turned the whole matter out of doors, for she was +tired of it. + +"Things hardly look as if they were going to remain just as they +are at this precise moment," said Mary. "How could they, when, +from the very making of the world, they have been going on +changing and changing, hardly ever even seeming to standstill?" + +"You frighten me, Mary! You will do something terrible in my +house, and I shall get the blame of it!" said Hesper, laughing. + +But she did in truth feel a little uncomfortable. The shadow of +dismay, a formless apprehension overclouded her. Mary's words +recalled sentiments which at home she had heard alluded to with +horror; and, however little parents may be loved or respected by +their children, their opinions will yet settle, and, until they +are driven out by better or worse, will cling. + +"When I tell you what I was really thinking of, you will not be +alarmed at my opinions," said Mary, not laughing now, but smiling +a deep, sweet smile; "I do not believe there ever will be any +settlement of things but one; they can not and must not stop +changing, until the kingdom of heaven is come. Into that they +must change, and rest." + +"You are leaving politics for religion now, Mary. That is the one +fault I have to find with you--you won't keep things in their own +places! You are always mixing them up--like that Mrs.--what's her +name?--who will mix religion and love in her novels, though +everybody tells her they have nothing to do with each other! It +is so irreverent!" + +"Is it irreverent to believe that God rules the world he made, +and that he is bringing things to his own mind in it?" + +"You can't persuade me religion means turning things upside +down." + +"It means that a good deal more than people think. Did not our +Lord say that many that are first shall be last, and the last +first?" + +"What has that to do with this nineteenth century?" + +"Perhaps that the honorable shopkeeper and the mean nobleman will +one day change places." + +"Oh," thought Hesper, "that is why the lower classes take so to +religion!" But what she said was: "Oh, yes, I dare say! But +everything then will be so different that it won't signify. When +we are all angels, nobody will care who is first, and who is +last. I'm sure, for one, it won't be anything to me." + +Hesper was a tolerable attendant at church--I will not say +whether high or low church, because I should be supposed to care. + +"In the kingdom of heaven," answered Mary, "things will always +look what they are. My father used to say people will grow their +own dresses there, as surely as a leopard his spots. He had to do +with dresses, you know. There, not only will an honorable man +look honorable, but a mean or less honorable man must look what +he is." + +"There will be nobody mean there." + +"Then a good many won't be there who are called honorable here." + +"I have no doubt there will be a good deal of allowance made for +some people," said Hesper. "Society makes such demands!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +THE INVITATION. + + +When Letty received Mrs. Redmain's card, inviting her with her +husband to an evening party, it raised in her a bewildered +flutter--of pleasure, of fear, of pride, of shyness, of dismay: +how dared she show her face in such a grand assembly? She would +not know a bit how to behave herself! But it was impossible, for +she had no dress fit to go anywhere! What would Tom say if she +looked a dowdy? He would be ashamed of her, and she dared not +think what might come of it! + +But close upon the postman came Mary, and a long talk followed. +Letty was full of trembling delight, but Mary was not a little +anxious with herself how Tom would take it. + +The first matter, however, was Letty's dress. She had no money, +and seemed afraid to ask for any. The distance between her and +her husband had been widening. + +Their council of ways and means lasted a good while, including +many digressions. At last, though unwillingly, Letty accepted +Mary's proposal that a certain dress, her best indeed, though she +did not say so, which she had scarcely worn, and was not likely +to miss, should be made to fit Letty. It was a lovely black silk, +the best her father had been able to choose for her the last time +he was in London. A little pang did shoot through her heart at +the thought of parting with it, but she had too much of that +father in her not to know that the greatest honor that can be +shown any _thing_, is to make it serve a _person_; that +the dearest gift of love, withheld from human necessity, is +handed over to the moth and the rust. But little idea had Letty, +much as she appreciated her kindness, what a sacrifice Mary was +making for her that she might look her own sweet self, and worthy +of her renowned Tom! + +When Tom came home that night, however, the look of the world and +all that is in it changed speedily for Letty, and terribly. He +arrived in great good humor--somebody had been praising his +verses, and the joy of the praise overflowed on his wife. But +when, pleased as any little girl with the prospect of a party and +a new frock, she told him, with gleeful gratitude, of the +invitation and the heavenly kindness which had rendered it +possible for her to accept it, the countenance of the great man +changed. He rejected the idea of her going with him to any +gathering of his grand friends--objected most of all to her going +to Mrs. Redmain's. Alas! he had begun to allow to himself that he +had married in too great haste--and beneath him. Wherever he +went, his wife could be no credit to him, and her presence would +take from him all sense of liberty! Not choosing, however, to +acknowledge either of these objections, and not willing, besides, +to appear selfish in the eyes of the woman who had given herself +to him, he was only too glad to put all upon another, to him +equally genuine ground. Controlling his irritation for the +moment, he set forth with lordly kindness the absolute +impossibility of accepting such an offer as Mary's. Could she for +a moment imagine, he said, that he would degrade himself by +taking his wife out in a dress that was not her own? + +Here Letty interrupted him. + +"Mary has given me the dress," she sobbed, "--for my very own." + +"A second-hand dress! A dress that has been worn!" cried Tom. +"How could you dream of insulting me so? The thing is absolutely +impossible. Why, Letty, just think!--There should I be, going +about as if the house were my own, and there would be my wife in +the next room, or perhaps at my elbow, dressed in the finery of +the lady's-maid of the house! It won't bear thinking of! I +declare it makes me so ashamed, as I lie here, that I feel my +face quite hot in the dark! To have to reason about such a thing +--with my own wife, too!" + +"It's not finery," sobbed Letty, laying hold of the one fact +within her reach; "it's a beautiful black silk." + +"It matters not a straw what it is," persisted Tom, adding humbug +to cruelty. "You would be nothing but a sham!--A live dishonesty! +A jackdaw in peacock's feathers!--I am sorry, Letty, your own +sense of truth and uprightness should not prevent even the +passing desire to act such a lie. Your fine dress would be just a +fine fib--yourself would be but a walking fib. I have been taking +too much for granted with you: I must bring you no more novels. A +volume or two of Carlyle is what _you_ want." + +This was too much. To lose her novels and her new dress together, +and be threatened with nasty moral medicine--for she had never +read a word of Carlyle beyond his translation of that dream of +Richter's, and imagined him dry as a sand-pit--was bad enough, +but to be so reproved by her husband was more than she could +bear. If she was a silly and ignorant creature, she had the heart +of a woman-child; and that precious thing in the sight of God, +wounded and bruised by the husband in whom lay all her pride, +went on beating laboriously for him only. She did not blame him. +Anything was better than that. The dear, simple soul had a horror +of rebuke. It would break hedges and climb stone walls to get out +of the path of judgment--ten times more eagerly if her husband +were the judge. She wept and wailed like a sick child, until at +length the hard heart of selfish Tom was touched, and he sought, +after the fashion of a foolish mother, to read the inconsolable a +lesson of wisdom. But the truer a heart, the harder it is to +console with the false. By and by, however, sleep, the truest of +things, did for her what even the blandishments of her husband +could not. + +When she woke in the morning, he was gone: he had thought of an +emendation in a poem that had been set up the day before, and +made haste to the office, lest it should be printed without the +precious betterment. + +Mary came before noon, and found sadness where she had left joy. +When she had heard as much as Letty thought proper to tell her, +she was filled with indignation, and her first thought was to +compass the tyrant's own exclusion from the paradise whose gates +he closed against his wife. But second thoughts are sometimes +best, and she saw the next moment not only that punishment did +not belong to her, but that the weight of such would fall on +Letty. The sole thing she could think of to comfort her was, to +ask her to spend the same evening with her in her room. The +proposal brightened Letty up at once: some time or other in the +course of the evening she would, she fancied, see, or at least +catch a glimpse of Tom in his glory! + +The evening came, and with beating heart Letty went up the back +stairs to Mary's room. She was dressing her mistress, but did not +keep her waiting long. She had provided tea beforehand, and, when +Mrs. Redmain had gone down, the two friends had a pleasant while +together. Mary took Letty to Mrs. Redmain's room while she put +away her things, and there showed her many splendors, which, +moving no envy in her simple heart, yet made her sad, thinking of +Tom. As she passed to the drawing-room, Sepia looked in, and saw +them together. + +But, as the company kept arriving, Letty grew very restless. She +could not talk of anything for two minutes together, but kept +creeping out of the room and half-way down the stair, to look +over the banister-rail, and have a bird's-eye peep of a portion +of the great landing, where indeed she caught many a glimpse of +beauty and state, but never a glimpse of her Tom. Alas! she could +not even imagine herself near him. What she saw made her feel as +if her idol were miles away, and she could never draw nigh him +again. How should the familiar associate of such splendid +creatures care a pin's point for his humdrum wife? + +Worn out at last, and thoroughly disappointed, she wanted to go +home. It was then past midnight. Mary went with her, and saw her +safe in bed before she left her. + +As she went up to her room on her return, she saw, through the +door by which the gardener entered the conservatory, Sepia +standing there, and Tom, with flushed face, talking to her +eagerly. + +Letty cried herself to sleep, and dreamed that Tom had disowned +her before a great company of grand ladies, who mocked her from +their sight. + +Tom came home while she slept, and in the morning was cross and +miserable--in part, because he had been so abominably selfish to +her. But the moment that, half frightened, half hopeful, she told +him where she was the night before, he broke into the worst anger +he had ever yet shown her. His shameful pride could not brook the +idea that, where he was a guest, his wife was entertained by one +of the domestics! + +"How dare you be guilty of such a disgraceful thing!" he cried. + +"Oh, don't, Tom--dear Tom!" pleaded Letty in terror. "It was you +I wanted to see--not the great people, Tom! I don't care if I +never see one of them again." + +"Why should you ever see one of them again, I should like to +know! What are they to you, or you to them?" + +"But you know I was asked to go, Tom!" + +"You're not such a fool as to fancy they cared about you! +Everybody knows they are the most heartless set of people in the +world!" + +"Then why do you go, Tom?" said Letty, innocently. + +"That's quite another thing! A man has to cultivate connections +his wife need not know anything about. It is one of the +necessities laid on my position." + +Letty supposed it all truer than it was either intelligible or +pleasant, and said no more, but let poor, self-abused, fine- +fellow Tom scold and argue and reason away till he was tired. She +was not sullen, but bewildered and worn out. He got up, and left +her without a word. + +Even at the risk of hurt to his dignity, of which there was no +danger from the presence of his sweet, modest little wife in the +best of company, it had been well for Tom to have allowed Letty +the pleasure within her reach; for that night Sepia's artillery +played on him ruthlessly. It may have been merely for her +amusement--time, you see, moves so slowly with such as have no +necessities they must themselves supply, and recognize no duties +they must perform: without those two main pillars of life, +necessity and duty, how shall the temple stand, when the huge, +weary Samson comes tugging at it? The wonder is, there is not a +great deal more wickedness in the world. For listlessness and +boredness and nothing-to-do-ness are the best of soils for the +breeding of the worms that never stop gnawing. Anyhow, Sepia had +flashed on Tom, the tinder of Tom's heart had responded, and, any +day when Sepia chose, she might blow up a wicked as well as +foolish flame; nor, if it should suit her purpose, was Sepia one +to hesitate in the use of the fire-fan. All the way home, her +eyes haunted him, and it is a more dreadful thing than most are +aware to be haunted by anything, good or bad, except the being +who is our life. And those eyes, though not good, were beautiful. +Evil, it is true, has neither part nor lot in beauty; it is +absolutely hostile to it, and will at last destroy it utterly; +but the process is a long one, so long that many imagine badness +and beauty vitally associable. Tom yielded to the haunting, and +it was in part the fault of those eyes that he used such hard +words to his wife in the morning. Wives have not seldom to suffer +sorely for discomforts and wrongs in their husbands of which they +know nothing. But the thing will be set right one day, and in a +better fashion than if all the woman's-rights' committees in the +world had their will of the matter. + +About this time, from the top, left-hand corner of the last page +of "The Firefly," it appeared that Twilight had given place to +Night; for the first of many verses began to show themselves, in +which Twilight, or Hesper, or Vesper, or the Evening Star, was no +more once mentioned, but only and al-ways Nox, or Hecate, or the +dark Diana. _Tenebrious_ was a great word with Tom about +this time. He was very fond, also, of the word _interlunar_. +I will not trouble my reader with any specimen of the outcome of +Tom's new inspiration, partly for this reason, that the verses +not unfrequently came so near being good, nay, sometimes were +really so good, that I do not choose to set them down where they +would be treated with a mockery they do not in themselves +deserve. He did not direct his wife's attention to them, nor did +he compose them at home or at the office. Mostly he wrote them +between acts at the theatre, or in any public place where +something in which he was not interested was going on. + +Of all that read them, and here was a Nemesis awful in justice, +there was not one less moved by them than she who had inspired +them. She saw in them, it is true, a reflex of her own power--and +that pleased, but it did not move her. She took the devotion and +pocketed it, as a greedy boy might an orange or bull's-eye. The +verses in which Tom delighted were but the merest noise in the +ears of the lady to whom of all he would have had them +acceptable. One momentary revelation as to how she regarded them +would have been enough to release him from his foolish +enthrallment. Indignation, chagrin, and mortification would have +soon been the death of such poor love as Tom's. + +Mary and Sepia were on terms of politeness--of readiness to help +on the one side, and condescension upon the other. Sepia would +have condescended to the Mother Mary. The pure human was an idea +beyond her, as beyond most people. They have not enough +_religion_ toward God to know there is such a thing as +religion toward their neighbor. But Sepia never made an enemy-if +she could help it. She could not afford the luxury of hating-- +openly, at least. But I imagine she would have hated Mary +heartily could she have seen the way she regarded her--the look +of pitiful love, of compassionate and waiting helpfulness which +her soul would now and then cast upon her. Of all things she +would have resented pity; and she took Mary's readiness to help +for servility--and naturally, seeing in herself willingness came +from nothing else, though she called it prudence and necessity, +and knew no shame because of it. Her children justify the +heavenly wisdom, but the worldly wisdom justifies her children. +Mary could not but feel how Sepia regarded her service, but +service, to be true, must be divine, that is, to the just and the +unjust, like the sun and the rain. + +Between Sepia and Mr. Redmain continued a distance too great for +either difference or misunderstanding. They met with a cold good +morning, and parted without any good night. Their few words were +polite, and their demeanor was civil. At the breakfast-table, +Sepia would silently pass things to Mr. Redmain; Mr. Redmain +would thank her, but never trouble himself to do as much for her. +His attentions, indeed, were seldom wasted at home; but he was +not often rude to anybody save his wife and his man, except when +he was ill. + +It was a long time before he began to feel any interest in Mary. +He knew nothing of her save as a nice-looking maid his wife had +got--rather a prim-looking puss, he would have said, had he had +occasion to describe her. What Mary knew of him was merely the +reflection of him in the mind of his wife; but, the first time +she saw him, she felt she would rather not have to speak to him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +A STRAY SOUND. + + +Mary went to see Letty as often as she could, and that was not +seldom; but she had scarcely a chance of seeing Tom; either he +was not up, or had gone--to the office, Letty supposed: she had +no more idea of where the office was, or of the other localities +haunted by Tom, than he himself had of what spirit he was of. + +One day, when Mary could not help remarking upon her pale, weary +looks, Letty burst into tears, and confided to her a secret of +which she was not the less proud that it caused her anxiety and +fear. As soon as she began to talk about it, the joy of its hope +began to predominate, and before Mary left her she might have +seemed to a stranger the most blessed little creature in the +world. The greatness of her delight made Mary sad for her. To any +thoughtful heart it must be sad to think what a little time the +joy of so many mothers lasts--not because their babies die, but +because they live; but Mary's mournfulness was caused by the fear +that the splendid dawn of mother-hope would soon be swallowed in +dismal clouds of father-fault. For mothers and for wives there is +no redemption, no unchaining of love, save by the coming of the +kingdom--_in themselves_. Oh! why do not mothers, sore- +hearted mothers at least, if none else on the face of the earth, +rush to the feet of the Son of Mary? + +Yet every birth is but another link in the golden chain by which +the world shall be lifted to the feet of God. It is only by the +birth of new children, ever fresh material for the creative +Spirit of the Son of Man to work upon, that the world can finally +be redeemed. Letty had no _ideas_ about children, only the +usual instincts of appropriation and indulgence; Mary had a few, +for she recalled with delight some of her father's ways with +herself. Him she knew as, next to God, the source of her life, so +well had he fulfilled that first duty of all parents--the +transmission of life. About such things she tried to talk to +Letty, but soon perceived that not a particle of her thought +found its way into Letty's mind: she cared nothing for any duty +concerned--only for the joy of being a mother. + +She grew paler yet and thinner; dark hollows came about her eyes; +she was parting with life to give it to her child; she lost the +girlish gayety Tom used to admire, and the something more lovely +that was taking its place he was not capable of seeing. He gave +her less and less of his company. His countenance did not shine +on her; in her heart she grew aware that she feared him, and, +ever as she shrunk, he withdrew. Had it not now been for Mary, +she would likely have died. She did all for her that friend +could. As often as she seemed able, she would take her for a +drive, or on the river, that the wind, like a sensible presence +of God, might blow upon her, and give her fresh life to take home +with her. So little progress did she make with Hesper, that she +could not help thinking it must have been for Letty's sake she +was allowed to go to London. + +Mr. and Mrs. Redmain went again to Durnmelling, but Mary begged +Hesper to leave her behind. She told her the reason, without +mentioning the name of the friend she desired to tend. Hesper +shrugged her shoulders, as much as to say she wondered at her +taste; but she did not believe that was in reality the cause of +her wish, and, setting herself to find another, concluded she did +not choose to show herself at Testbridge in her new position, +and, afraid of losing if she opposed her, let her have her way. +Nor, indeed, was she so necessary to her at Durnmelling, where +there were few visitors, and comparatively little dressing was +required: for the mere routine of such ordinary days, Jemima was +enough, who, now and then called by Mary to her aid, had proved +herself handy and capable, and had learned much. So, all through +the hottest of the late summer and autumn weather, Mary remained +in London, where every pavement seemed like the floor of a +baker's oven, and, for all the life with which the city swarmed, +the little winds that wandered through it seemed to have lost +their vitality. How she longed for the common and the fields and +the woods, where the very essence of life seemed to dwell in the +atmosphere even when stillest, and the joy that came pouring from +the throats of the birds seemed to flow first from her own soul +into them! The very streets and lanes of Testbridge looked like +paradise to Mary in Lon-don. But she never wished herself in the +shop again, although almost every night she dreamed of the glad +old time when her father was in it with her, and when, although +they might not speak from morning to night, their souls kept +talking across crowd and counters, and each was always aware of +the other's supporting presence. + +Longing, however, is not necessarily pain--it may, indeed, be +intensest bliss; and, if Mary longed for the freedom of the +country, it was not to be miserable that she could not have it. +Her mere thought of it was to her a greater delight than the +presence of all its joys is to many who desire them the most. +That such things, and the possibility of such sensations from +them, should be in the world, was enough to make Mary jubilant. +But, then, she was at peace with her conscience, and had her +heart full of loving duty. Besides, an active patience is a +heavenly power. Mary could not only walk along a pavement dry and +lifeless as the Sahara, enjoying the summer that brooded all +about and beyond the city, but she bore the re-freshment of +blowing winds and running waters into Letty's hot room, with the +clanging street in front, and the little yard behind, where, from +a cord stretched across between the walls, hung a few pieces of +ill-washed linen, motionless in the glare, two plump sparrows +picking up crumbs in their shadow--into this live death Mary +would carry a tone of breeze, and sailing cloud, and swaying +tree-top. In her the life was so concentrated and active that she +was capable of communicating life--the highest of human +endowments. + +One evening, as Letty was telling her how the dressmaker up +stairs had been for some time unwell, and Mary was feeling +reproachful that she had not told her before, that she might have +seen what she could do for her, they became aware, it seemed +gradually, of one softest, sweetest, faintest music-tone coming +from somewhere--but not seeming sufficiently of this world to +disclose whence. Mary went to the window: there was nothing +capable of music within sight. It came again; and intermittingly +came and came. For some time they would hear nothing at all, and +then again the most delicate of tones would creep into their +ears, bringing with it more, it seemed to Mary in the surprise of +its sweetness, than she could have believed single tone capable +of carrying. Once or twice a few consecutive sounds made a +division strangely sweet; and then again, for a time, nothing +would reach them but a note here and a note there of what she was +fain to imagine a wonderful melody. The visitation lasted for +about an hour, then ceased. Letty went to bed, and all night long +dreamed she heard the angels calling her. She woke weeping that +her time was come so early, while as yet she had tasted so little +of the pleasure of life. But the truth was, she had as yet, poor +child, got so little of the _good_ of life, that it was not +at all time for her to go. + +When her hour drew near, Tom condescended--unwillingly, I am +sorry to say, for he did not take the trouble to understand her +feelings--to leave word where he might be found if he should be +wanted. Even this assuagement of her fears Letty had to plead +for; Mary's being so much with her was to him reason, and he made +it excuse, for absence; he had begun to dread Mary. Nor, when at +length he was sent for, was he in any great haste; all was well +over ere he arrived. But he was a little touched when, drawing +his face down to hers, she feebly whispered," He's as like to +you, Tom, as ever small thing was to great!" She saw the slight +emotion, and fell asleep comforted. + +It was night when she woke. Mary was sitting by her. + +"O Mary!" she cried, "the angels have been calling me again. Did +you hear them?" + +"No," answered Mary, a little coldly, for, if ever she was +inclined to be hard, it was toward self-sentiment. "Why do you +think the angels should call you? Do you suppose them very +desirous of your company?" + +"They do call people," returned Letty, almost crying; "and I +don't know why they mightn't call me. I'm not such a very wicked +person!" + +Mary's heart smote her; she was refusing Letty the time God was +giving her! She could not wake her up, and, while God was waking +her, she was impatient! + +"I heard the call, too, Letty," she said; "but it was not the +angels. It was the same instrument we heard the other night. Who +can there be in the house to play like that? It was clearer this +time. I thought I could listen to it a whole year." + +"Why didn't you wake me?" said Letty. + +"Because the more you sleep the better. And the doctor says I +mustn't let you talk. I will get you something, and then you must +go to sleep again." + +Tom did not appear any more that night; and, if they had wanted +him now, they would not have known where to find him. He was +about nothing very bad--only supping with some friends--such +friends as he did not even care to tell that he had a son. + +He was ashamed of being in London at this time of the year, and, +but that he had not money enough to go anywhere except to his +mother's, he would have gone, and left Letty to shift for +herself. + +With his child he was pleased, and would not seldom take him for +a few moments; but, when he cried, he was cross with him, and +showed himself the unreasonable baby of the two. + +The angels did not want Letty just yet, and she slowly recovered. + +For Mary it was a peaceful time. She was able to read a good +deal, and, although there were no books in Mr. Redmain's house, +she generally succeeded in getting such as she wanted. She was +able also to practice as much as she pleased, for now the grand +piano was entirely at her service, and she took the opportunity +of having a lesson every day. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +THE MUSICIAN. + + +One evening, soon after the baby's arrival, as Mary sat with him +in her lap, the sweet tones they had heard twice before came +creeping into her ears so gently that she seemed to be aware of +their presence only after they had been for some time coming and +going: she laid the baby down, and, stealing from the room, +listened on the landing. Certainly the sounds were born in the +house, but whether they came from below or above she could not +tell. Going first down the stair, and then up, she soon satisfied +herself that they came from above, and thereupon ventured a +little farther up the stair. + +She had already been to see the dressmaker, whom she had come to +know through the making of Hesper's twilight robe of cloud, had +found her far from well, and had done what she could for her. But +she was in no want, and of more than ordinary independence--a +Yorkshire woman, about forty years of age, delicate, but of great +patience and courage; a plain, fair, freckled woman, with a +belief in religion rather than in God. Very strict, therefore, in +her observances, she thought a great deal more of the Sabbath +than of man, a great deal more of the Bible than of the truth, +and ten times more of her creed than of the will of God; and, had +she heard any one utter such words as I have just written, would +have said he was an atheist. She was a worthy creature, +notwithstanding, only very unpleasant if one happened to step on +the toes of a pet ignorance. Mary soon discovered that there was +no profit in talking with her on the subjects she loved most: +plainly she knew little about them, except at second hand--that +is, through the forms of other minds than her own. Such people +seem intended for the special furtherance of the saints in +patience; being utterly unassailable by reason, they are +especially trying to those who desire to stand on brotherly terms +with all men, and so are the more sensitive to the rudeness that +always goes with moral stupidity; intellectual stupidity may +coexist with the loveliness of an angel. It is one of the blessed +hopes of the world to come, that there will be none such in it. +But why so many words? I say to myself, Will one of such as I +mean recognize his portrait in my sketch? Many such have I met in +my young days, and in my old days I find they swarm still. I +could wish that all such had to earn their own bread like Ann +Byron: had she been rich, she would have been unbearable. Women +like her, when they are well to do, walk with a manly stride, +make the tails of their dresses go like the screw of a steamer +behind them, and are not unfrequently Scotch. + +As Mary went up, the music ceased; but, hoping Miss Byrom would +be able to enlighten her concerning its source, she continued her +ascent, and knocked at her door. A voice, rather wooden, yet not +without character, invited her to enter. + +Ann sat near the window, for, although it was quite dusk, a +little use might yet be made of the lingering ghost of the +daylight. Almost all Mary could see of her was the reflection +from the round eyes of a pair of horn spectacles. + +"How do you do, Miss Byrom?" she said. + +"Not at all well," answered Ann, almost in a tone of offense. + +"Is there nothing I can do for you?" asked Mary. + +"We are to owe no man anything but love, the apostle tells us." + +"You must owe a good deal of that, then," said Mary, one part +vexed, and two parts amused, "for you don't seem to pay much of +it." + +She was just beginning to be sorry for what she had said when she +was startled by a sound, very like a little laugh, which seemed +to come from behind her. She turned quickly, but, before she +could see anything through the darkness, the softest of violin- +tones thrilled the air close beside her, and then she saw, seated +on the corner of Ann's bed, the figure of a man--young or old, +she could not tell. How could he have kept so still! His bow was +wandering slowly about over the strings of his violin; but +presently, having overcome, as it seemed, with the help of his +instrument, his inclination to laugh, he ceased, and all was +still. + +"I came," said Mary, turning again to Ann, "hoping you might be +able to tell me where the sweet sounds came from which we have +heard now two or three times; but I had no idea there was any one +in the room besides yourself.--They come at intervals a great +deal too long," she added, turning toward the figure in the +darkness. + +"I am afraid my ear is out sometimes," said the man, mistaking +her remark. "I think it comes of the anvil." + +The voice was manly, though gentle, and gave an impression of +utter directness and simplicity. It was Mary's turn, however, not +to understand, and she made no answer. + +"I am very sorry," the musician went on, "if I annoyed you, +miss." + +Mary was hastening to assure him that the fact was quite the +other way, when Ann prevented her. + +"I told you so!" she said; "_you_ make an idol of your +foolish plaything, but other people take it only for the nuisance +it is." + +"Indeed, you never were more mistaken," said Mary. "Both Mrs. +Helmer and myself are charmed with the little that reaches us. It +is, indeed, seldom one hears tones of such purity." + +The player responded with a sigh of pleasure. + +"Now there you are, miss," cried Ann, "a-flattering of his folly +till not a word I say will be of the smallest use!" + +"If your words are not wise," said Mary, with suppressed +indignation, "the less he heeds them the better." + +"It ain't wise, to my judgment, miss, to make a man think himself +something when he is nothing. It's quite enough a man should +deceive his own self, without another to come and help him." + +"To speak the truth is not to deceive," replied Mary. "I have +some knowledge of music, and I say only what is true." + +"What good can it be spending his time scraping horsehair athort +catgut?" + +"They must fancy some good in it up in heaven," said Mary, "or +they wouldn't have so much of it there." + +"There ain't no fiddles in heaven," said Ann, with indignation; +"they've nothing there but harps and trumpets." Mary turned to +the man, who had not said a word. + +"Would you mind coming down with me," she said, "and playing a +little, very softly, to my friend? She has a little baby, and is +not strong. It would do her good." + +"She'd better read her Bible," said Ann, who, finding she could +no longer see, was lighting a candle. + +"She does read her Bible," returned Mary; "and a little music +would, perhaps, help her to read it to better purpose." + +"There, Ann!" cried the player. + +The woman replied with a scornful grunt. + +"Two fools don't make a wise man, for all the franchise," she +said. + +But Mary had once more turned toward the musician, and in the +light of the candle was met by a pair of black eyes, keen yet +soft, looking out from tinder an overhanging ridge of forehead. +The rest of the face was in shadow, but she could see by the +whiteness, through a beard that clouded all the lower part of it, +that he was smiling to himself: Mary had said what pleased him, +and his eyes sought her face, and seemed to rest on it with a +kind of trust, and a look as if he was ready to do whatever she +might ask of him. + +"You will come?" said Mary. + +"Yes, miss, with all my heart," he replied, and flashed a full +smile that rested upon Ann, and seemed to say he knew her not so +hard as she looked. + +Rising, he tucked his violin under his arm, and showed himself +ready to follow. + +"Good night, Miss Byrom," said Mary. + +"Good night, miss," returned Ann, grimly. "I'm sorry for you +both, miss. But, until the spirit is poured out from on high, +it's nothing but a stumbling in the dark." + +This last utterance was a reflection rather than a remark. + +Mary made no reply. She did not care to have the last word; nor +did she fancy her cause lost when she had not at hand the answer +that befitted folly. She ran down the stair, and at the bottom +stood waiting her new acquaintance, who descended more slowly, +careful not to make a noise. + +She could now see, by the gaslight that burned on the landing, a +little more of what the man was. He was powerfully built, rather +over middle height, and about the age of thirty. His complexion +was dark, and the hand that held the bow looked grimy. He bore +himself well, but a little stiffly, with a care over his violin +like that of a man carrying a baby. He was decidedly handsome, in +a rugged way--mouth and chin but hinted through a thick beard of +darkest brown. + +"Come this way," said Mary, leading him into Letty's parlor. "I +will tell my friend you are come. Her room, you see, opens off +this, and she will hear you delightfully. Pray, take a seat." + +"Thank you, miss," said the man, but remained standing. + +"I have caught the bird, Letty," said Mary, loud enough for him +to hear; "and he is come to sing a little to you--if you feel +strong enough for it." + +"It will do me good," said Letty. "How kind of him!" + +The man, having heard, was already tuning his violin when Mary +came from the bedroom, and sat down on the sofa. The instant he +had got it to his mind, he turned, and, going to the farthest +corner of the room, closed his eyes tight, and began to play. + +But how shall I describe that playing? how convey an idea of it, +however remote? I fear it is nothing less than presumption in me, +so great is my ignorance, to attempt the thing. But would it be +right, for dread of bringing shame upon me through failure, to +leave my readers without any notion of it at all? On the other +hand, I shall, at least, have the merit of daring to fail--a +merit of which I could well be ambitious. + +If, then, my reader will imagine some music-loving sylph +attempting to guide the wind among the strings of an Aeolian +harp, every now and then for a moment succeeding, and then again +for a while the wind having its own way, he will gain, I think, +something like a dream-notion of the man's playing. Mary tried +hard to get hold of some clew to the combinations and sequences, +but the motive of them she could not find. Whatever their source, +there was, either in the composition itself or in his mode of +playing, not a little of the inartistic, that is, the lawless. +Yet every now and then would come a passage of exquisite melody, +owing much, however, no doubt, to the marvelous delicacy of the +player's tones, and the utterly tender expression with which he +produced them. But ever as she thought to get some insight into +the movement of the man's mind, still would she be swept away on +the storm of some change, seeming of mood incongruous. + +At length came a little pause. He wiped his forehead with a blue +cotton handkerchief, and seemed ready to begin again. Mary +interrupted him with the question: + +"Will you please tell me whose music you have been playing?" + +He opened his eyes, which had remained closed even while he stood +motionless, and, with a smile sweeter than any she had ever seen +on such a strong face, answered: + +"It's nobody's, miss." + +"Do you mean you have been extemporizing all this time?" + +"I don't know exactly what that means." + +"You must have learned it from notes?" + +"I couldn't read them if I had any to read," he answered. + +"Then what an ear and what a memory you must have! How often have +you heard it?" + +"Just as often as I've played it, and no oftener. Not being able +to read, and seldom hearing any music I care for, I'm forced to +be content with what runs out at my fingers when I shut my eyes. +It all comes of shutting my eyes. I couldn't play a thing but for +shutting my eyes. It's a wonderful deal that comes of shutting +your eyes! Did you never try it, miss?" + +Mary was so astonished both by what he said and the simplicity +with which he said it, having clearly no notion that he was +uttering anything strange, that she was silent, and the man, +after a moment's retuning, began again to play. Then did Mary +gather all her listening powers, and brace her attention to the +tightest--but at first with no better success. And, indeed, that +was not the way to understand. It seems to me, at least, in my +great ignorance, that one can not understand music unless he is +humble toward it, and consents, if need be, not to understand. +When one is quiescent, submissive, opens the ears of the mind, +and demands of them nothing more than the hearing--when the +rising waters of question retire to their bed, and individuality +is still, then the dews and rains of music, finding the way clear +for them, soak and sink through the sands of the mind, down, far +down, below the thinking-place, down to the region of music, +which is the hidden workshop of the soul, the place where lies +ready the divine material for man to go making withal. + +Weary at last with vain effort, she ceased to endeavor, and in a +little while was herself being molded by the music unconsciously +received to the further understanding of it. It wrought in her +mind pictures, not thoughts. It is possible, however, my later +knowledge may affect my description of what Mary then saw with +her mind's eye. + +First there was a crowd in slow, then rapid movement. Arose cries +and entreaties. Came hurried motions, disruption, and running +feet. A pause followed. Then woke a lively melody, changing to +the prayer of some soul too grateful to find words. Next came a +bar or two of what seemed calm, lovely speech, then a few slowly +delivered chords, and all was still. + +She came to herself, and then first knew that, like sleep, the +music had seized her unawares, and she had been understanding, or +at least enjoying, without knowing it. The man was approaching +her from his dark corner. His face was shining, but plainly he +did not intend more music, for his violin was already under his +arm. He made her a little awkward bow--not much more than a nod, +and turned to the door. He had it half open, and not yet could +Mary speak. For Letty, she was fast asleep. + +From the top of the stair came the voice of Ann, screaming: + +"Here's your hat, Joe. I knew you'd be going when you played +that. You'd have forgotten it, I know!" + +Mary heard the hat come tumbling down the stair. + +"Thank you, Ann," returned Joe. "Yes, I'm going. The ladies don't +care much for my music. Nobody does but myself. But, then, it's +good for me." The last two sentences were spoken in soliloquy, +but Mary heard them, for he stood with the handle of the door in +his hand. He closed it, picked up his hat, and went softly down +the stair. + +The spell was broken, and Mary darted to the door. But, just as +she opened it, the outer door closed behind the strange musician, +and she had not even learned his name. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +A CHANGE. + + +As soon as Letty had strength enough to attend to her baby +without help, Mary, to the surprise of her mistress, and the +destruction of her theory concerning her stay in London, +presented herself at Durnmelling, found that she was more welcome +than looked for, and the same hour resumed her duties about +Hesper. + +It was with curiously mingled feelings that she gazed from her +window on the chimneys of Thornwick. How much had come to her +since first, in the summer-seat at the end of the yew-hedge, Mr. +Wardour opened to her the door of literature! It was now autumn, +and the woods, to get young again, were dying their yearly death. +For the moment she felt as if she, too, had begun to grow old. +Ministration had tired her a little--but, oh! how different its +weariness from that which came of labor amid obstruction and +insult! Her heart beat a little slower, perhaps, but she could +now be sad without losing a jot of hope. Nay, rather, the least +approach of sadness would begin at once to wake her hope. She +regretted nothing that had come, nothing that had gone. She +believed more and more that not anything worth having is ever +lost; that even the most evanescent shades of feeling are safe +for those who grow after their true nature, toward that for which +they were made--in other and higher words, after the will of God. + +But she did for a moment taste some bitterness in her cup, when, +one day, on the footpath of Testbridge, near the place where, +that memorable Sunday, she met Mr. Wardour, she met him again, +and, looking at her, and plainly recognizing her, he passed +without salutation. Like a sudden wave the blood rose to her +face, and then sank to the deeps of her heart; and from somewhere +came the conviction that one day the destiny of Godfrey Wardour +would be in her hands: he had done more for her than any but her +father; and, when that day was come, he should not find her fail +him! + +She was then on her way to the shop. She did not at all relish +entering it, but, as she had a large money-interest in the +business; she ought at least, she said to herself, to pay the +place a visit. When she went in, Turnbull did not at first +recognize her, and, taking her for a customer, blossomed into +repulsive suavity. The change that came over his countenance, +when he knew her, was a shadow of such mingled and conflicting +shades that she felt there was something peculiar in it which she +must attempt to analyze. It remained hardly a moment to encounter +question, but was almost immediately replaced with a politeness +evidently false. Then, first, she began to be aware of +distrusting the man. + +Asking a few questions about the business, to which he gave +answers most satisfactory, she kept casting her eyes about the +shop, unable to account for the impression the look of it made +upon her. Either her eyes had formed for themselves another +scale, and could no more rightly judge between past and present, +or the aspect of the place was different, and not so +satisfactory. Was there less in it? she asked herself--or was it +only not so well kept as when she left it? She could not tell. +Neither could she understand the profound but distant +consideration with which Mr. Turnbull endeavored to behave to +her, treating her like a stranger to whom he must, against his +inclination, manifest all possible respect, while he did not +invite her even to call at _the villa._ She bought a pair of +gloves of the young woman who seemed to occupy her place, paid +for them, and left the shop without speaking to any one else. All +the time, George was standing behind the opposite counter, +staring at her; but, much to her relief, he showed no other sign +of recognition. + +Before she went to find Beenie, who was still at Testbridge, in a +cottage of her own, she felt she must think over these things, +and come, if possible, to some conclusion about them. She left +the town, therefore, and walked homeward. + +What did it all mean? She knew very well they must look down on +her ten times more than ever, because of the _menial_ +position in which she had placed herself, sinking thereby beyond +all pretense to be regarded as their equal. But, if that was what +the man's behavior meant, why was he so studiously--not so much +polite as respectful? That did not use to be Mr. Turnbull's way +whore he looked down upon one. And, then, what did the shadow +preceding this behavior mean? Was there not in it something more +than annoyance at the sight of her? It was with an effort he +dismissed it! She had never seen that look upon him! + +Then there was the impression the shop made on her! Was there +anything in that? Somehow it certainly seemed to have a shabby +look! Was it possible anything was wrong or going wrong with the +concern? Her father had always spoken with great respect of Mr. +Turnbull's business faculties, but she knew he had never troubled +himself to, look into the books or know how they stood with the +bank. She knew also that Mr. Turnbull was greedy after money, and +that his wife was ambitious, and hated the business. But, if he +wanted to be out of it, would he not naturally keep it up to the +best, at least in appearance, that he might part with his share +in it to the better advantage? + +She turned, and, walking back to the town, sought Beenie. + +The old woman being naturally a gossip, Mary was hardly seated +before she began to pour out the talk of the town, in which came +presently certain rumors concerning Mr. Turnbull--mainly hints at +speculation and loss. + +The result was that Mary went from Beenie to the lawyer in whose +care her father had left his affairs. Ho was an old man, and had +been ill; had no suspicion of anything being wrong, but would +look into the matter at once. She went home, and troubled herself +no more. + +She had been at Durnmelling but a few days, when Mr. Redmain, +wishing to see how things were on his estate in Cornwall, and +making up his mind to run down, carelessly asked his wife if she +would accompany him: it would be only for a few days, he said; +but a breeze or two from the Atlantic would improve her +complexion. This was gracious; but he was always more polite in +the company of Lady Margaret, who continued to show him the +kindness no one else dared or was inclined to do. For some years +he had suffered increasingly from recurrent attacks of the +disease to which I have already referred; and, whatever might be +the motive of his mother-in-law's behavior, certainly, in those +attacks, it was a comfort to him to be near her. On such +occasions in London, his sole attendant was his man Mewks. + +Mary was delighted to see more of her country. She had traveled +very little, but was capable of gathering ten times more from a +journey to Cornwall than most travelers from one through +Switzerland itself. The place to which they went was lonely and +lovely, and Mary, for the first few days, enjoyed it unspeakably. + +But then, suddenly, as was not unusual, Mr. Redmain was taken +ill. For some reason or other, he had sent his man to London, and +the only other they had with them, besides the coachman, was +useless in such a need, while the housekeeper who lived at the +place was nearly decrepit; so that of the household Mary alone +was capable of fit attendance in the sickroom. Hesper shrunk, +almost with horror, certainly with disgust, from the idea of +having anything to do with her husband as an invalid. When she +had the choice of her company, she said, she would not choose +his. Mewks was sent for at once, but did not arrive before the +patient had had some experience of Mary's tendance; nor, after he +came, was she altogether without opportunity of ministering to +him. The attack was a long and severe one, delaying for many +weeks their return to London, where Mr. Redmain declared he must +be, at any risk, before the end of November. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +LYDGATE STEEET. + + +Letty's whole life was now gathered about her boy, and she +thought little, comparatively, about Tom. And Tom thought so +little about her that he did not perceive the difference. When he +came home, he was always in a hurry to be gone again. He had +always something important to do, but it never showed itself to +Letty in the shape of money. He gave her a little now and then, +of course, and she made it go incredibly far, but it was ever +with more of a grudge that he gave it. The influence over him of +Sepia was scarcely less now that she was gone; but, if she cared +for him at all, it was mainly that, being now not a little stale- +hearted, his devotion reminded her pleasurably of a time when +other passions than those of self-preservation were strongest in +her; and her favor even now tended only to the increase of Tom's +growing disappointment, for, like Macbeth, he had begun already +to consider life but a poor affair. Across the cloud of this +death gleamed, certainly, the flashing of Sepia's eyes, or the +softly infolding dawn of her smile, but only, the next hour, nay, +the next moment, to leave all darker than before. Precious is the +favor of any true, good woman, be she what else she may; but what +is the favor of one without heart or faith or self-giving? Yet is +there testimony only too strong and terrible to the demoniacal +power, enslaving and absorbing as the arms of the kraken, of an +evil woman over an imaginative youth. Possibly, did he know +beforehand her nature, he would not love her, but, knowing it +only too late, he loves and curses; calls her the worst of names, +yet can not or will not tear himself free; after a fashion he +still calls love, he loves the demon, and hates her thralldom. +Happily Tom had not reached this depth of perdition; Sepia was +prudent for herself, and knew, none better, what she was about, +so far as the near future was concerned, therefore held him at +arm's length, where Tom basked in a light that was of hell--for +what is a hell, or a woman like Sepia, but an inverted creation? +His nature, in consequence, was in all directions dissolving. He +drank more and more strong drink, fitting fuel to such his +passion, and Sepia liked to see him approach with his eyes +blazing. There are not many women like her; she is a rare type-- +but not, therefore, to be passed over in silence. It is little +consolation that the man-eating tiger is a rare animal, if one of +them be actually on the path; and to the philosopher a +possibility is a fact. But the true value of the study of +abnormal development is that, in the deepest sense, such +development is not abnormal at all, but the perfected result of +the laws that avenge law-breach. It is in and through such that +we get glimpses, down the gulf of a moral volcano, to the +infernal possibilities of the human--the lawless rot of that +which, in its _attainable_ idea, is nothing less than +divine, imagined, foreseen, cherished, and labored for, by the +Father of the human. Such inverted possibility, the infernal +possibility, I mean, lies latent in every one of us, and, except +we stir ourselves up to the right, will gradually, from a +possibility, become an energy. The wise man dares not yield to a +temptation, were it only for the terror that, if he do, he will +yield the more readily again. The commonplace critic, who +recognizes life solely upon his own conscious level, mocks +equally at the ideal and its antipode, incapable of recognizing +the art of Shakespeare himself as true to the human nature that +will not be human. + +I have said that Letty did her best with what money Tom gave her; +but when she came to find that he had not paid the lodging for +two months; that the payment of various things he had told her to +order and he would see to had been neglected, and that the +tradespeople were getting persistent in their applications; that, +when she told him anything of the sort, he treated it at one time +as a matter of no consequence which he would speedily set right, +at another as behavior of the creditor hugely impertinent, which +he would punish by making him wait his time--her heart at length +sank within her, and she felt there was no bulwark between her +and a sea of troubles; she felt as if she lay already in the +depths of a debtor's jail. Therefore, sparing as she had been +from the first, she was more sparing than ever. Not only would +she buy nothing for which she could not pay down, having often in +consequence to go without proper food, but, even when she had a +little in hand, would live like an anchorite. She grew very thin; +and, in-deed, if she had not been of the healthiest, could not +have stood her own treatment many weeks. + +Her baby soon began to show suffering, but this did not make her +alter her way, or drive her to appeal to Tom. She was ignorant of +the simplest things a mother needs to know, and never imagined +her abstinence could hurt her baby. So long as she went on +nursing him, it was all the same, she thought. He cried so much, +that Tom made it a reason with himself, and indeed gave it as one +to Letty, for not coming home at night: the child would not let +him sleep; and how was he to do his work if he had not his +night's rest? It mattered little with semi-mechanical professions +like medicine or the law, but how was a man to write articles +such as he wrote, not to mention poetry, except he had the repose +necessary to the redintegration of his exhausted brain? The baby +went on crying, and the mother's heart was torn. The woman of the +house said he must be already cutting his teeth, and recommended +some devilish sirup. Letty bought a bottle with the next money +she got, and thought it did him good-because, lessening his +appetite, it lessened his crying, and also made him sleep more +than he ought. + +At last one night Tom came home very much the worse of drink, and +in maudlin affection insisted on taking the baby from its cradle. +The baby shrieked. Tom was angry with the weakling, rated him +soundly for ingratitude to "the author of his being," and shook +him roughly to teach him the good manners of the world he had +come to. + +Thereat in Letty sprang up the mother, erect and fierce. She +darted to Tom, snatched the child from his arms, and turned to +carry him to the inner room. But, as the mother rose in Letty, +the devil rose in Tom. If what followed was not the doing of the +real Tom, it was the doing of the devil to whom the real Tom had +opened the door. With one stride he overtook his wife, and mother +and child lay together on the floor. I must say for him that, +even in his drunkenness, he did not strike his wife as ho would +have struck a man; it was an open-handed blow he gave her, what, +in familiar language, is called a box on the ear, but for days +she carried the record of it on her cheek in five red finger- +marks. + +When he saw her on the floor, Tom's bedazed mind came to itself; +he knew what he had done, and was sobered. But, alas! even then +he thought more of the wrong he had done to himself as a +gentleman than of the grievous wound he had given his wife's +heart. He took the baby, who had ceased to cry as soon as he was +in his mother's arms, and laid him on the rug, then lifted the +bitterly weeping Letty, placed her on the sofa, and knelt beside +her--not humbly to entreat her pardon, but, as was his wont, to +justify himself by proving that all the blame was hers, and that +she had wronged him greatly in driving him to do such a thing. +This for apology poor Letty, never having had from him fuller +acknowledgment of wrong, was fain to accept. She turned on the +sofa, threw her arms about his neck, kissed him, and clung to him +with an utter forgiveness. But all it did for Tom was to restore +him his good opinion of himself, and enable him to go on feeling +as much of a gentleman as before. + +Reconciled, they turned to the baby. He was pale, his eyes were +closed, and they could not tell whether he breathed. In a +horrible fright, Tom ran for the doctor. Before he returned with +him, the child had come to, and the doctor could discover no +injury from the fall they told him he had had. At the same time, +he said he was not properly nourished, and must have better food. + +This was a fresh difficulty to Letty; it was a call for more +outlay. And now their landlady, who had throughout been very +kind, was in trouble about her own rent, and began to press for +part at least of theirs. Letty's heart seemed to labor under a +stone. She forgot that there was a thing called joy. So sad she +looked that the good woman, full of pity, assured her that, come +what might, she should not be turned out, but at the worst would +only have to go a story higher, to inferior rooms. The rent +should wait, she said, until better days. But this kindness +relieved Letty only a little, for the rent past and the rent to +come hung upon her like a cloak of lead. + +Nor was even debt the worst that now oppressed her. For, possibly +from the fall, but more from the prolonged want of suitable +nourishment and wise treatment, after that terrible night, the +baby grew worse. Many were the tears the sleepless mother shed +over the sallow face and wasted limbs of her slumbering treasure +--her one antidote to countless sorrows; and many were the foolish +means she tried to restore his sinking vitality. + +Mary had written to her, and she had written to Mary; but she had +said nothing of the straits to which she was reduced; that would +have been to bring blame upon Tom. But Mary, with her fine human +instinct, felt that things must be going worse with her than +before; and, when she found that her return was indefinitely +postponed by Mr. Redmain's illness, she ventured at last in her +anxiety upon a daring measure: she wrote to Mr. Wardour, telling +him she had reason to fear things were not going well with Letty +Helmer, and suggesting, in the gentlest way, whether it might not +now be time to let bygones be bygones, and make some inquiry +concerning her. + +To this letter Godfrey returned no answer. For all her denial, he +had never ceased to believe that Mary had been Letty's accomplice +throughout that miserable affair; and the very name--the Letty +and the Helmer--stung him to the quick. He took it, therefore, as +a piece of utter presumption in Mary to write to him about Letty, +and that in the tone, as ho interpreted it, of one reading him a +lesson of duty. But, while he was thus indignant with Mary, he +was also vexed with Letty that she should not herself have +written to him if she was in any need, forgetting that he had +never hinted at any door of communication open between him and +her. His heart quivered at the thought that she might be in +distress; he had known for certain, he said, the fool would bring +her to misery! For himself, the thought of Letty was an ever-open +wound--with an ever-present pain, now dull and aching, now keen +and stinging. The agony of her desertion, he said, would never +cease gnawing at his heart until it was laid in the grave; like +most heathen Christians, he thought of death as the end of all +the joys, sorrows, and interests generally of this life. But, +while thus he brooded, a fierce and evil joy awoke in him at the +thought that now at last the expected hour had come when he would +heap coals of fire on her head. He was still fool enough to think +of her as having forsaken him, although he had never given her +ground for believing, and she had never had conceit enough to +imagine, that he cared the least for her person. If he could but +let her have a glimmer of what she had lost in losing him! She +knew what she had gained in Tom Helmer. + +He passed a troubled night, dreamed painfully, and started awake +to renewed pain. Before morning he had made up his mind to take +the first train to London. But he thought far more of being her +deliverer than of bringing her deliverance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + +GODFREY AND LETTY. + + +It was a sad, gloomy, kindless November night, when Godfrey +arrived in London. The wind was cold, the pavements were cold, +the houses seemed to be not only cold but feeling it. The very +dust that blow in his face was cold. Now cold is a powerful ally +of the commonplace, and imagination therefore was not very busy +in the bosom of Godfrey Wardour as he went to find Letty Helmer, +which was just as well, in the circumstances. He was cool to the +very heart when he walked up to the door indicated by Mary, and +rung the bell: Mrs. Helmer was at home: would he walk up stairs? + +It was not a house of ceremonies; he was shown up and up and into +the room where she sat, without a word carried before to prepare +her for his visit. It was so dark that he could see nothing but +the figure of one at work by a table, on which stood a single +candle. There was but a spark of fire in the dreary grate, and +Letty was colder than any one could know, for she was at the +moment making down the last woolly garment she had, in the vain +hope of warming her baby. + +She looked up. She had thought it was the landlady, and had +waited for her to speak. She gazed for a moment in bewilderment, +saw who it was, and jumped up half frightened, half ready to go +wild with joy. All the memories of Godfrey rushed in a confused +heap upon her, and overwhelmed her. She ran to him, and the same +moment was in his arms, with her head on his shoulder, weeping +tears of such gladness as she had not known since the first week +of her marriage. + +Neither spoke for some time; Letty could not because she was +crying, and Godfrey would not because he did not want to cry. +Those few moments were pure, simple happiness to both of them; to +Letty, because she had loved him from childhood, and hoped that +all was to be as of old between them; to Godfrey, because, for +the moment, he had forgotten himself, and had neither thought of +injury nor hope of love, remembering only the old days and the +Letty that used to be. It may seem strange that, having never +once embraced her all the time they lived together, he should do +so now; but Letty's love would any time have responded to the +least show of affection, and when, at the sight of his face, into +which memory had called up all his tenderness, she rushed into +his arms, how could he help kissing her? The pity was that he had +not kissed her long before. Or was it a pity? I think not. + +But the embrace could not be a long one. Godfrey was the first to +relax its strain, and Letty responded with an instant collapse; +for instantly she feared she had done it all, and disgusted +Godfrey. But he led her gently to the sofa, and sat down beside +her on the hard old slippery horsehair. Then first he perceived +what a change had passed upon her. Pale was she, and thin, and +sad, with such big eyes, and the bone tightening the skin upon +her forehead! He felt as if she were a spectre-Letty, not the +Letty he had loved. Glancing up, she caught his troubled gaze. + +"I am not ill, Cousin Godfrey," she said. "Do not look at me so, +or I shall cry again. You know you never liked to see me cry." + +"My poor girl!" said Godfrey, in a voice which, if he had not +kept it lower than natural, would have broken, "you are +suffering." + +"Oh, no, I'm not," replied Letty, with a pitiful effort at the +cheerful; "I am only so glad to see you again, Cousin Godfrey." + +She sat on the edge of the sofa, and had put her open hands, palm +to palm, between her knees, in a childish way, looking like one +chidden, who did not deserve it, but was ready to endure. For a +moment Godfrey sat gazing at her, with troubled heart and +troubled looks, then between his teeth muttered, "Damn the +rascal!" + +Letty sat straight up, and turned upon him eyes of appeal, +scared, yet ready to defend. Her hands were now clinched, one on +each side of her; she was poking the little fists into the squab +of the sofa. + +"Cousin Godfrey!" she cried, "if you mean Tom, you must not, you +must not. I will go away if you speak a word against him. I will; +I will.--I _must,_ you know!" + +Godfrey made no reply--neither apologized nor sought to cover. + +"Why, child!" he said at last, "you are half starved!" + +The pity and tenderness of both word and tone were too much for +her. She had not been at all pitying herself, but such an +utterance from the man she loved like an elder brother so wrought +upon her enfeebled condition that she broke into a cry. She +strove to suppress her emotion; she fought with it; in her agony +she would have rushed from the room, had not Godfrey caught her, +drawn her down beside him, and kept her there. "You shall not +leave me!" he said, in that voice Letty had always been used to +obey. "Who has a right to know how things go with you, if I have +not? Come, you must tell me all about it." + +"I have nothing to tell, Cousin Godfrey," she replied with some +calmness, for Godfrey's decision had enabled her to conquer +herself, "except that baby is ill, and looks as if he would never +get better, and it is like to break my heart. Oh, he is such a +darling, Cousin Godfrey!" + +"Let me see him," said Godfrey, in his heart detesting the child +--the visible sign that another was nearer to Letty than he. + +She jumped up, almost ran into the next room, and, coming back +with her little one, laid him in Godfrey's arms. The moment he +felt the weight of the little, sad-looking, sleeping thing, he +grew human toward him, and saw in him Letty and not Tom. + +"Good God! the child is starving, too," he exclaimed. + +"Oh, no, Cousin Godfrey!" cried Letty; "he is not starving. He +had a fresh-laid egg for breakfast this morning, and some +arrowroot for dinner, and some bread and milk for tea--" + +"London milk!" said Godfrey. + +"Well, it is not like the milk in the dairy at Thornwick," +admitted Letty. "If he had milk like that, he would soon be +well!" + +But Godfrey dared not say, "Bring him to Thornwick": he knew his +mother too well for that! + +"When were you anywhere in the country?" he asked. In a negative +kind of way he was still nursing the baby. + +"Not since we were married," she answered, sadly. "You see, poor +Tom can't afford it." + +Now Godfrey happened to have heard, "from the best authority," +that Tom's mother was far from illiberal to him. + +"Mrs. Helmer allows him so much a year--does she not?" he said. + +"I know he gets money from her, but it can't be much," she +answered. + +Godfrey's suspicions against Tom increased every moment. He must +learn the truth. He would have it, if by an even cruel +experiment! He sat a moment silent--then said, with assumed +cheerfulness: + +"Well, Letty, I suppose, for the sake of old times, you will give +me some dinner?" + +Then, indeed, her courage gave way. She turned from him, laid her +head on the end of the sofa, and sobbed so that the room seemed +to shake with the convulsions of her grief. "Letty," said +Godfrey, laying his hand on her head, "it is no use any more +trying to hide the truth. I don't want any dinner; in fact, I +dined long ago. But you would not be open with me, and I was +forced to find out for myself: you have not enough to eat, and +you know it. I will not say a word about who is to blame--for +anything I know, it may be no one--I am sure it is not you. But +this must not go on! See, I have brought you a little pocket- +book. I will call again tomorrow, and you will tell me then how +you like it." + +He laid the pocket-book on the table. There was ten times as much +in it as ever Letty had had at once. But she never knew what was +in it. She rose with instant resolve. All the woman in her waked +at once. She felt that a moment was come when she must be +resolute, or lose her hold on life. + +"Cousin Godfrey," she said, in a tone he scarcely recognized as +hers--it frightened him as if it came from a sepulchre--"if you +do not take that purse away, I will throw it in the fire without +opening it! If my husband can not give me enough to eat, I can +starve as well as another. If you loved Tom, it would be +different, but you hate him, and I will have nothing from you. +Take it away, Cousin Godfrey." + +Mortified, hurt, miserable, Godfrey took the purse, and, without +a word, walked from the room. Somewhere down in his secret heart +was dawning an idea of Letty beyond anything he used to think of +her, but in the mean time he was only blindly aware that his +heart had been shot through and through. Nor was this the time +for him to reflect that, under his training, Letty, even if he +had married her, would never have grown to such dignity. + +It was, indeed, only in that moment she had become capable of the +action. She had been growing as none, not Mary, still less +herself, knew, under the heavy snows of affliction, and this was +her first blossom. Not many of my readers will mistake me, I +trust. Had it been in Letty pride that refused help from such an +old friend, that pride I should count no blossom, but one of the +meanest rags that ever fluttered to scare the birds. But the +dignity of her refusal was in this--that she would accept nothing +in which her husband had and could have no human, that is, no +spiritual share. She had married him because she loved him, and +she would hold by him wherever that might lead her: not wittingly +would she allow the finest edge, even of ancient kindness, to +come between her Tom and herself! To accept from her cousin +Godfrey the help her husband ought to provide her, would be to +let him, however innocently, step into his place! There was no +reasoning in her resolve: it was allied to that spiritual insight +which, in simple natures, and in proportion to their simplicity, +approaches or amounts to prophecy. As the presence of death will +sometimes change even an ordinary man to a prophet, in times of +sore need the childlike nature may well receive a vision +sufficing to direct the doubtful step. Letty felt that the taking +of that money would be the opening of a gulf to divide her and +Tom for ever. + +The moment Godfrey was out of the room she cast herself on the +floor, and sobbed as if her heart must break. But her sobs were +tearless. And, oh, agony of agonies! unsought came the +conviction, and she could not send it away--to this had sunk her +lofty idea of her Tom!--that he would have had her take the +money! More than once or twice, in the ill-humors that followed a +forced hilarity, he had forgotten his claims to being a gentleman +so far as--not exactly to reproach her with having brought him to +poverty--but to remind her that, if she was poor, she was no +poorer than she had been when dependent on the charity of a +distant relation! + +The baby began to cry. She rose and took him from the sofa where +Godfrey had laid him when he was getting out the pocket-book, +held him fast to her bosom, as if by laying their two aching +lives together they might both be healed, and, rocking him to and +fro, said to herself, for the first time, that her trouble was +greater than she could bear. "O baby! baby! baby!" she cried, and +her tears streamed on the little wan face. But, as she sat with +him in her arms, the blessed sleep came, and the storm sank to a +calm. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + +RELIEF. + + +It was dark, utterly dark, when she woke. For a minute she could +not remember where she was. The candle had burned out: it must be +late. The baby was on her lap--still, very still. One faint gleam +of satisfaction crossed her "during dark" at the thought that he +slept so peacefully, hidden from the gloom which, somehow, +appeared to be all the same gloom outside and inside of her. In +that gloom she sat alone. + +Suddenly a prayer was in her heart. It was moving there as of +itself. It had come there by no calling of it thither, by no +conscious will of hers. "O God," she cried, "I am desolate!--Is +there no help for me?" And therewith she knew that she had +prayed, and knew that never in her life had she prayed before. + +She started to her feet in an agony: a horrible fear had taken +possession of her. With one arm she held the child fast to her +bosom, with the other hand searched in vain to find a match. And +still, as she searched, the baby seemed to grow heavier upon her +arm, and the fear sickened more and more at her heart. + +At last she had light! and the face of the child came out of the +darkness. But the child himself had gone away into it. The +Unspeakable had come while she slept--had come and gone, and +taken her child with him. What was left of him was no more good +to kiss than the last doll of her childhood! + +When Tom came home, there was his wife on the floor as if dead, +and a little way from her the child, dead indeed, and cold with +death. He lifted Letty and carried her to the bed, amazed to find +how light she was: it was long since he had had her thus in his +arms. Then he laid her dead baby by her side, and ran to rouse +the doctor. He came, and pronounced the child quite dead--from +lack of nutrition, he said. To see Tom, no one could have helped +contrasting his dress and appearance with the look and +surroundings of his wife; but no one would have been ready to lay +blame on him; and, as for himself, he was not in the least awake +to the fact of his guilt. + +The doctor gave the landlady, who had responded at once to Tom's +call, full directions for the care of the bereaved mother; Tom +handed her the little money he had in his pocket, and she +promised to do her best. And she did it; for she was one of +those, not a few, who, knowing nothing of religion toward God, +are yet full of religion toward their fellows, and with the Son +of Man that goes a long way. As soon as it was light, Tom went to +see about the burying of his baby. + +He betook himself first to the editor of "The Firefly," but had +to wait a long time for his arrival at the office. He told him +his baby was dead, and he wanted money. It was forthcoming at +once; for literary men, like all other artists, are in general as +ready to help each other as the very poor themselves. There is +less generosity, I think, among business-men than in any other +class. The more honor to the exceptions! + +"But," said the editor, who had noted the dry, burning palm, and +saw the glazed, fiery eye of Tom, "my dear fellow, you ought to +be in bed yourself. It's no use taking on about the poor little +kid: _you_ couldn't help it. Go home to your wife, and tell +her she's got you to nurse; and, if she's in any fix, tell her to +come to me." + +Tom went home, but did not give his wife the message. She lay all +but insensible, never asked for anything, or refused anything +that was offered her, never said a word about her baby, or about +Tom, or seemed to be more than when she lay in her mother's lap. +Her baby was buried, and she knew nothing of it. Not until nine +days were over did she begin to revive. + +For the first few days, Tom, moved with undefined remorse, tried +to take a part in nursing her. She took things from him, as she +did from the landlady, without heed or recognition. Just once, +opening suddenly her eyes wide upon him, she uttered a feeble +wail of "_Baby!_" and, turning her head, did not look at him +again. Then, first, Tom's conscience gave him a sharp sting. + +He was far from well. The careless and in many respects dissolute +life he had been leading had more than begun to tell on a +constitution by no means strong, but he had never become aware of +his weakness nor had ever felt really ill until now. + +But that sting, although the first sharp one, was not his first +warning of a waking conscience. Ever since he took his place at +his wife's bedside, he had been fighting off the conviction that +he was a brute. He would not, he could not believe it. What! Tom +Helmer, the fine, indubitable fellow! such as he had always known +himself!--he to cower before his own consciousness as a man +unworthy, and greatly to be despised! The chaos was come again! +And, verily, chaos was there, but not by any means newly come. +And, moreover, when chaos begins to be conscious of itself, then +is the dawn of an ordered world at hand. Nay, the creation of it +is already begun, and the pangs of the waking conscience are the +prophecy of the new birth. + +With that pitiful cry of his wife after her lost child, disbelief +in himself got within the lines of his defense; he could do no +more, and began to loathe that conscious self which had hitherto +been his pride. + +Whatever the effect of illness may be upon the temper of some, it +is most certainly an ally of the conscience. All pains, indeed, +and all sorrows, all demons, yea, and all sins themselves under +the suffering care of the highest minister, are but the ministers +of truth and righteousness. I never came to know the condition of +such as seemed exceptionally afflicted but I seemed to see reason +for their affliction, either in exceptional faultiness of +character or the greatness of the good it was doing them. + +But conscience reacts on the body--for sickness until it is +obeyed, for health thereafter. The moment conscience spoke thus +plainly to Tom, the little that was left of his physical +endurance gave way, his illness got the upper hand, and he took +to his bed--all he could have for bed, that is--namely, the sofa +in the sitting-room, widened out with chairs, and a mattress over +all. There he lay, and their landlady had enough to do. Not that +either of her patients was exacting; they were both too ill and +miserable for that. It is the self-pitiful, self-coddling invalid +that is exacting. Such, I suspect, require something sharper +still. + +Tom groaned and tossed, and cursed himself, and soon passed into +delirium. Straightway his visions, animate with shame and +confusion of soul, were more distressing than even his ready +tongue could have told. Dead babies and ghastly women pursued him +everywhere. His fever increased. The cries of terror and dismay +that he uttered reached the ears of his wife, and were the first +thing that roused her from her lethargy. She rose from her bed, +and, just able to crawl, began to do what she could for him. If +she could but get near enough to him, the husband would yet be +dearer than any child. She had him carried to the bed, and +thereafter took on the sofa what rest there was for her. To and +fro between bed and sofa she crept, let the landlady say what she +might, gave him all the food he could be got to take, cooled his +burning hands and head, and cried over him because she could not +take him on her lap like the baby that was gone. Once or twice, +in a quieter interval, he looked at her pitifully, and seemed +about to speak; but the back-surging fever carried far away the +word of love for which she listened so eagerly. The doctor came +daily, but Tom grew worse, and Letty could not get well. + + + + +CHAPTER XL. + +GODFREY AND SEPIA. + + +When the Redmains went to Cornwall, Sepia was left at +Durnmelling, in the expectation of joining them in London within +a fortnight at latest. The illness of Mr. Redmain, however, +caused her stay to be prolonged, and she was worn out with +_ennui_. The self she was so careful over was not by any +means good company: not seldom during her life had she found +herself capable of almost anything to get rid of it, short of +suicide or repentance. This autumn, at Durnmelling, she would +even, occasionally, with that object, when the weather was fine, +go for a solitary walk--a thing, I need not say, she hated in +itself, though now it was her forlorn hope, in the poor +possibility of falling in with some distraction. But the hope was +not altogether a vague one; for was there not a man somewhere +underneath those chimneys she saw over the roof of the laundry? +She had never spoken to him, but Hesper and she had often talked +about him, and often watched him ride--never man more to her +mind. In her wanderings she had come upon the breach in the ha- +ha, and, clambering up, found herself on the forbidden ground of +a neighbor whom the family did not visit. To no such folly would +Sepia be a victim. + +The analysis of such a nature as hers, with her story to set it +forth, would require a book to itself, and I must happily content +myself with but a fact here and there in her history. + +In one of her rambles on his ground she had her desire, and met +Godfrey Wardour. He lifted his hat, and she stopped and addressed +him by way of apology. + +"I am afraid you think me very rude, Mr. Wardour," she said. "I +know I am trespassing, but this field of yours is higher than the +ground about Durnmelling, and seems to take pounds off the weight +of the atmosphere." + +For all he had gone through, Godfrey was not yet less than +courteous to ladies. He assured Miss Yolland that Thornwick was +as much at her service as if it were a part of Durnmelling. +"Though, indeed," he added, with a smile, "it would be more +correct to say, 'as if Durnmelling were a part of Thornwick'--for +that was the real state of the case once upon a time." + +The statement interested or seemed to interest Miss Yolland, +giving rise to many questions; and a long conversation ensued. +Suddenly she woke, or seemed to wake, to the consciousness that +she had forgotten herself and the proprieties together: hastily, +and to all appearance with some confusion, she wished him a good +morning; but she was not too much confused to thank him again for +the permission he had given her to walk on his ground. + +It was not by any intention on the part of Godfrey that they met +several times after this; but they always had a little +conversation before they parted; nor did Sepia find any +difficulty in getting him sufficiently within their range to make +him feel the power of her eyes. She was too prudent, however, to +bring to bear upon any man all at once the full play of her +mesmeric battery; and things had got no further when she went to +London--a week or two before the return of the Redmains, +ostensibly to get things in some special readiness for Hesper; +but that this may have been a pretense appears possible from the +fact that Mary came from Cornwall on the same mission a few days +later. + +I have just mentioned an acquaintance of Sepia's, who attracted +the notice and roused the peculiar interest of Mr. Redmain, +because of a look he saw pass betwixt them. This man spoke both +English and French with a foreign accent, and gave himself out as +a Georgian--Count Galofta, he called himself: I believe he was a +prince in Paris. At this time he was in London, and, during the +ten days that Sepia was alone, came to see her several times-- +called early in the forenoon first, the next day in the evening, +when they went together to the opera, and once came and staid +late. Whether from her dark complexion making her look older than +she was, or from the subduing air which her experience had given +her, or merely from the fact that she belonged to nobody much, +Miss Yolland seemed to have _carte blanche_ to do as she +pleased, and come and go when and where she liked, as one knowing +well enough how to take care of herself. + +Mary, arriving unexpectedly at the house in Glammis Square, met +him in the hall as she entered: he had just taken leave of Sepia, +who was going up the stair at the moment. Mary had never seen him +before, but something about him caused her to look at him again +as he passed. + +Somehow, Tom also had discovered Sepia's return, and had gone to +see her more than once. + +When Mr. and Mrs. Redmain arrived, there was so much to be done +for Hesper's wardrobe that, for some days, Mary found it +impossible to go and see Letty. Her mistress seemed harder to +please than usual, and more doubtful of humor than ever before. +This may have arisen--but I doubt it--from the fact that, having +gone to church the Sunday before they left, she had there heard a +different sort of sermon from any she had heard in her life +before: sermons have something to do with the history of the +world, however many of them may be no better than a withered leaf +in the blast. + +The morning after her arrival, Hesper, happening to find herself +in want of Mary's immediate help, instead of calling her as she +generally did, opened the door between their rooms, and saw Mary +on her knees by her bedside. Now, Hesper had heard of saying +prayers--night and morning both--and, when a child, had been +expected, and indeed compelled, to say her prayers; but to be +found on one's knees in the middle of the day looked to her a +thing exceedingly odd. Mary, in truth, was not much in the way of +kneeling at such a time: she had to pray much too often to kneel +always, and God was too near her, wherever she happened to be, +for the fancy that she must seek him in any particular place; but +so it happened now. She rose, a little startled rather than +troubled, and followed her mistress into her room. + +"I am sorry to have disturbed you, Mary," said Hesper, herself a +little annoyed, it is not quite easy to say why; "but people do +not generally say their prayers in the middle of the day." + +"I say mine when I need to say them," answered Mary, a little +cross that Hesper should take any notice. She would rather the +thing had not occurred, and it was worse to have to talk about +it. + +"For my part, I don't see any good in being righteous overmuch," +said Hesper. + +I wonder if there was another saying in the Bible she would have +been so ready to quote! + +"I don't know what that means," returned Mary. "I believe it is +somewhere in the Bible, but I am sure Jesus never said it, for he +tells us to be righteous as our Father in heaven is righteous." + +"But the thing is impossible," said Hesper. "How is one with such +claims on her as I have, to attend to these things? Society has +claims: no one denies that." + +"And has God none?" asked Mary. + +"Many people think now there is no God at all," returned Hesper, +with an almost petulant expression. + +"If there is no God, that settles the question," answered Mary. +"But, if there should be one, how then?" + +"Then I am sure he would never be hard on one like me. I do just +like other people. One must do as people do. If there is one +thing that must be avoided more than another, it is peculiarity. +How ridiculous it would be of any one to set herself against +society!" + +"Then you think the Judge will be satisfied if you say, 'Lord, I +had so many names in my visiting-book, and so many invitations I +could not refuse, that it was impossible for me to attend to +those things'?" + +"I don't see that I'm at all worse than other people," persisted +Hesper. "I can't go and pretend to be sorry for sins I should +commit again the next time there was a necessity. I don't see +what I've got to repent of." + +Nothing had been said about repentance: here, I imagine, the +sermon may have come in. + +"Then, of course, you can't repent," said Mary. + +Hesper recovered herself a little. + +"I am glad you see the thing as I do," she said. + +"I don't see it at all as you do, ma'am," answered Mary, gently. + +"Why!" exclaimed Hesper, taken by surprise, "what have I got to +repent of?" + +"Do you really want me to say what I think?" asked Mary. + +"Of course, I do," returned Hesper, getting angry, and at the +same time uneasy: she knew Mary's freedom of speech upon +occasion, but felt that to draw back would be to yield the point. +"What have I done to be ashamed of, pray?" + +Some ladies are ready to plume themselves upon not having been +guilty of certain great crimes. Some thieves, I dare say, console +themselves that they have never committed murder. + +"If I had married a man I did not love," answered Mary, "I should +be more ashamed of myself than I can tell." + +"That is the way of looking at such things in the class you +belong to, I dare say," rejoined Hesper; "but with us it is quite +different. There is no necessity laid upon _you. Our_ +position obliges us." + +"But what if God should not see it as you do?" + +"If that is all you have got to bring against me!--" said Hesper, +with a forced laugh. + +"But that is not all," replied Mary. "When you married, you +promised many things, not one of which you have ever done." + +"Really, Mary, this is intolerable!" cried Hesper. + +"I am only doing what you asked me, ma'am," said Mary. "And I +have said nothing that every one about Mr. Redmain does not know +as well as I do." + +Hesper wished heartily she had never challenged Mary's judgment. + +"But," she resumed, more quietly, "how could you, how could any +one, how could God himself, hard as he is, ask me to fulfill the +part of a loving wife to a man like Mr. Redmain?--There is no use +mincing matters with _you,_ Mary." + +"But you promised," persisted Mary. "It belongs, besides, to the +very idea of marriage." + +"There are a thousand promises made every day which nobody is +expected to keep. It is the custom, the way of the world! How +many of the clergy, now, believe the things they put their names +to?" + +"They must answer for themselves. We are not clergymen, but +women, who ought never to say a thing except we mean it, and, +when we have said it, to stick to it." + +"But just look around you, and see how many there are in +precisely the same position! Will you dare to say they are all +going to be lost because they do not behave like angels to their +brutes of husbands?" + +"I say, they have got to repent of behaving to their husbands as +their husbands behave to them." + +"And what if they don't?" + +Mary paused a little. + +"Do you expect to go to heaven, ma'am?" she asked + +"I hope so." + +"Do you think you will like it?" + +"I must say, I think it will be rather dull." + +"Then, to use your own word, you must be very like lost anyway. +There does not seem to be a right place for you anywhere, and +that is very like being lost--is it not?" + +Hesper laughed. + +"I am pretty comfortable where I am," she said. + +"Husband and all!" thought Mary, but she did not say that. What +she did say was: + +"But you know you can't stay here. God is not going to keep up +this way of things for you; can you ask it, seeing you don't care +a straw what he wants of you? But I have sometimes thought, What +if hell be just a place where God gives everybody everything she +wants, and lets everybody do whatever she likes, without once +coming nigh to interfere! What a hell that would be! For God's +presence in the very being, and nothing else, is bliss. That, +then, would be altogether the opposite of heaven, and very much +the opposite of this world. Such a hell would go on, I suppose, +till every one had learned to hate every one else in the same +world with her." + +This was beyond Hesper, and she paid no attention to it. + +"You can never, in your sober senses, Mary," she said, "mean that +God requires of me to do things for Mr. Redmain that the servants +can do a great deal better! That would be ridiculous--not to +mention that I oughtn't and couldn't and wouldn't do them for any +man!" + +"Many a woman," said Mary, with a solemnity in her tone which she +did not intend to appear there, "has done many more trying things +for persons of whom she knew nothing." + +"I dare say! But such women go in for being saints, and that is +not my line. I was not made for that." + +"You were made for that, and far more," said Mary. + +"There are such women, I know," persisted Hesper; "but I do not +know how they find it possible." + +"I can tell you how they find it possible. They love every human +being just because he is human. Your husband might be a demon +from the way you behave to him." + +"I suppose _you_ find it agreeable to wait upon him: he is +civil to you, I dare say!" + +"Not very," replied Mary, with a smile; "but the person who can +not bear with a sick man or a baby is not fit to be a woman." + +"You may go to your own room," said Hesper. + +For the first time, a feeling of dislike to Mary awoke in the +bosom of her mistress--very naturally, _all_ my readers will +allow. The next few days she scarcely spoke to her, sending +directions for her work through Sepia, who discharged the office +with dignity. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. + +THE HELPER. + + +At length one morning, when she believed Mrs. Redmain would not +rise before noon, Mary felt she must go and see Letty. She did +not find her in the quarters where she had left her, but a story +higher, in a mean room, sitting with her hands in her lap. She +did not lift her eyes when Mary entered: where hope is dead, +curiosity dies. Not until she had come quite near did she raise +her head, and then she seemed to know nothing of her. When she +did recognize her, she held out her hand in a mechanical way, as +if they were two specters met in a miserable dream, in which they +were nothing to each other, and neither could do, or cared to do, +anything for the other. + +"My poor Letty!" cried Mary, greatly shocked, "what has come to +you? Are you not glad to see me? Has anything happened to Tom?" + +She broke into a low, childish wail, and for a time that was all +Mary heard. Presently, however, she became aware of a feeble +moaning in the adjoining chamber, the sound of a human sea in +trouble--mixed with a wandering babble, which to Letty was but as +the voice of her own despair, and to Mary was a cry for help. She +abandoned the attempt to draw anything from Letty, and went into +the next room, the door of which stood wide. There lay Tom, but +so changed that Mary took a moment to be certain it was he. Going +softly to him, she laid her hand on his head. It was burning. He +opened his eyes, but she saw their sense was gone. She went back +to Letty, and, sitting down beside her, put her arm about her, +and said: + +"Why didn't you send for me, Letty? I would have come to you at +once. I will come now, to-night, and help you to nurse him. Where +is the baby?" + +Letty gave a shriek, and, starting from her chair, walked wildly +about the room, wringing her hands. Mary went after her, and +taking her in her arms, said: + +"Letty, dear, has God taken your baby?" + +Letty gave her a lack-luster look. + +"Then," said Mary, "he is not far away, for we are all in God's +arms." + +But what is the use of the most sovereign of medicines while they +stand on the sick man's table? What is the mightiest of truths so +long as it is not believed? The spiritually sick still mocks at +the medicine offered; he will not know its cure. Mary saw that, +for any comfort to Letty, God was nowhere. It went to her very +heart. Death and desolation and the enemy were in possession. She +turned to go, that she might return able to begin her contest +with ruin. Letty saw that she was going, and imagined her +offended and abandoning her to her misery. She flew to her, +stretching out her arms like a child, but was so feeble that she +tripped and fell. Mary lifted her, and laid her wailing on her +couch. + +"Letty," said Mary, "you didn't think I was going to leave you! +But I must go for an hour, perhaps two, to make arrangements for +staying with you till Tom is over the worst." + +Then Letty clasped her hands in her old, beseeching way, and +looked up with a faint show of comfort. + +"Be courageous, Letty," said Mary. "I shall be back as soon as +ever I can. God has sent me to you." + +She drove straight home, and heard that Mrs. Redmain was annoyed +that she had gone out. + +"I offered to dress her," said Jemima; "and she knows I can quite +well; but she would not get up till you came, and made me fetch +her a book. So there she is, a-waiting for you!" + +"I am sorry," said Mary; "but I had to go, and she was fast +asleep." + +When she entered her room, Hesper gave her a cold glance over the +top of her novel, and went on with her reading. Mary proceeded to +get her things ready for dressing. But by this time she had got +interested in the story. + +"I shall not get up yet," she said. + +"Then, please, ma'am," replied Mary, "would you mind letting +Jemima dress you? I want to go out again, and should be glad if +you could do without me for some days. My friend's baby is dead, +and both she and her husband are very ill." + +Hesper threw down her book, and her eyes flamed. + +"What do you mean by using me so, Miss Marston?" she said. + +"I am very sorry to put you to inconvenience," answered Mary; +"but the husband seems dying, and the wife is scarcely able to +crawl." + +"I have nothing to do with it," interrupted Hesper. "When you +made it necessary for me to part with my maid, you undertook to +perform her duties. I did not engage you as a sick-nurse for +other people." + +"'No, ma'am," replied Mary; "but this is an extreme case, and I +can not believe you will object to my going." + +"I do object. How, pray, is the world to go on, if this kind of +thing be permitted! I may be going out to dinner, or to the opera +to-night, for anything you know, and who is there to dress me? +No; on principle, and for the sake of example, I will not let you +go." + +"I thought," said Mary, not a little disappointed in Hesper, "I +did not stand to you quite in the relation of an ordinary +servant." + +"Certainly you do not: I look for a little more devotion from you +than from a common, ungrateful creature who thinks only of +herself. But you are all alike." + +More and more distressed to find one she had loved so long show +herself so selfish, Mary's indignation had almost got the better +of her. But a little heightening of her color was all the show it +made. + +"Indeed, it is quite necessary, ma'am," she persisted, "that I +should go." + +"The law has fortunately made provision against such behavior," +said Hesper. "You can not leave without giving me a month's +notice." + +"The understanding on which I came to you was very different," +said Mary, sadly. + +"It was; but, since then, you consented to become my maid." + +"It is ungenerous to take advantage of that," returned Mary, +growing angry again. + +"I have to protect myself and the world in general from the +consequences that must follow were such lawless behavior allowed +to pass." + +Hesper spoke with calm severity, and Mary, making up her mind, +answered now with almost equal calmness. + +"The law was made for both sides, ma'am; and, as you bring the +law to me, I will take refuge in the law. It is, I believe, a +month's warning or a month's wages; and, as I have never had any +wages, I imagine I am at liberty to go. Good-by, ma'am." + +Hesper made her no answer, and Mary left the room. She went to +her own, stuffed her immediate necessities into a bag, let +herself out of the house, called a cab, and, with a great lump in +her throat, drove to the help of Letty. + +First she had a talk with the landlady, and learned all she could +tell. Then she went up, and began to make things as comfortable +as she could: all was in sad disorder and neglect. + +With the mere inauguration of cleanliness, and the first dawn of +coming order, the courage of Letty began to revive a little. The +impossibility of doing all that ought to be done, had, in her +miserable weakness, so depressed her that she had not done even +as much as she could--except where Tom was immediately concerned: +there she had not failed of her utmost. + +Mary next went to the doctor to get instructions, and then to buy +what things were most wanted. And now she almost wished Mrs. +Redmain had paid her for her services, for she must write to Mr. +Turnbull for money, and that she disliked. But by the very next +post she received, inclosed in a business memorandum in George's +writing, the check for fifty pounds she had requested. + +She did not dare write to Tom's mother, because she was certain, +were she to come up, her presence would only add to the misery, +and take away half the probability of his recovery and of +Letty's, too. In the case of both, nourishment was the main +thing; and to the fit providing and the administering of it she +bent her energy. + +For a day or two, she felt at times as if she could hardly get +through what she had undertaken; but she soon learned to drop +asleep at any moment, and wake immediately when she was wanted; +and thereafter her strength was by no means so sorely tried. + +Under her skillful nursing--skillful, not from experience, but +simply from her faith, whence came both conscience of and +capacity for doing what the doctor told her--things went well. It +is from their want of this faith, and their consequent arrogance +and conceit, that the ladies who aspire to help in hospitals give +the doctors so much trouble: they have not yet learned +_obedience,_ the only path to any good, the one essential to +the saving of the world. One who can not obey is the merest +slave--essentially and in himself a slave. The crisis of Tom's +fever was at length favorably passed, but the result remained +doubtful. By late hours and strong drink, he had done not a +little to weaken a constitution, in itself, as I have said, far +from strong; while the unrest of what is commonly and foolishly +called a bad conscience, with misery over the death of his child +and the conduct which had disgraced him in his own eyes and +ruined his wife's happiness, combined to retard his recovery. + +While he was yet delirious, and grief and shame and consternation +operated at will on his poetic nature, the things he kept saying +over and over were very pitiful; but they would have sounded more +miserable by much in the ears of one who did not look so far +ahead as Mary. She, trained to regard all things in their true +import, was rejoiced to find him loathing his former self, and +beyond the present suffering saw the gladness at hand for the +sorrowful man, the repenting sinner. Had she been mother or +sister to him, she could hardly have waited on him with more +devotion or tenderness. + +One day, as his wife was doing some little thing for him, he took +her hand in his feeble grasp, and pressing it to his face, wet +with the tears of reviving manhood, said: + +"We might have been happy together, Letty, if I had but known how +much you were worth, and how little I was worth myself!--Oh me! +oh me!" + +He burst into an incontrollable wail that tortured Letty with its +likeness to the crying of her baby. + +"Tom! my own darling Tom!" she cried, "when you speak as if I +belonged to you, it makes me as happy as a queen. When you are +better, you will be happy, too, dear. Mary says you will." + +"O Letty!" he sobbed--"the baby!" + +"The baby's all right, Mary says; and, some day, she says, he +will run into your arms, and know you for his father." + +"And I shall be ashamed to look at him!" said Tom. + +An hour or so after, he woke from a short sleep, and his eyes +sought Letty's watching face. + +"I have seen baby," he said, "and he has forgiven me. I dare say +it was only a dream," he added, "but somehow it makes me happier. +At least, I know how the thing might be." + +"It was true, whether it was but a dream or something more," said +Mary, who happened to be by. + +"Thank you, Mary," he returned. "You and Letty have saved me from +what I dare not think of! I could die happy now--if it weren't +for one thing." + +"What is that?" asked Mary. + +"I am ashamed to say," he replied, "but I ought to say it and +bear the shame, for the man who does shamefully ought to be +ashamed. It is that, when I am in my grave--or somewhere else, +for I know Mary does not like people to talk about being in their +graves--you say it is heathenish, don't you, Mary?--when I am +where they can't find me, then, it is horrid to think that people +up here will have a hold on me and a right over me still, because +of debts I shall never be able to pay them." + +"Don't be too sure of that, Tom," said Mary, cheerfully. "I think +you will pay them yet.--But I have heard it said," she went on, +"that a man in debt never tells the truth about his debts--as if +he had only the face to make them, not to talk about them: can +you make a clean breast of it, Tom?" + +"I don't exactly know what they are; but I always did mean to pay +them, and I have some idea about them. I don't think they would +come to more than a hundred pounds." + +"Your mother would not hesitate to pay that for you?" said Mary. + +"I know she wouldn't; but, then, I'm thinking of Letty." + +He paused, and Mary waited. + +"You know, when I am gone," he resumed, "there will be nothing +for her but to go to my mother; and it breaks my heart to think +of it. Every sin of mine she will lay to her charge; and how am I +to lie still in my grave--oh, I beg your pardon, Mary." + +"I will pay your debts, Tom, and gladly," said Mary, "if they +don't come to much more than you say--than you think, I mean." + +"But, don't you see, Mary, that would be only a shifting of my +debt from them to you? Except for Letty, it would not make the +thing any better." + +"What!" said Mary, "is there no difference between owing a thing +to one who loves you and one who does not? to one who would +always be wishing you had paid him and one who is glad to have +even the poor bond of a debt between you and her? All of us who +are sorry for our sins are brothers and sisters." + +"O Mary!" said Tom. + +"But I will tell you what will be better: let your mother pay +your debts, and I will look after Letty. I will care for her like +my own sister, Tom." + +"Then I shall die happy," said Tom; and from that day began to +recover. + +Many who would pay money to keep a man alive or to deliver him +from pain would pay nothing to take a killing load off the +shoulders of his mind. Hunger they can pity--not mental misery. + +Tom would not hear of his mother being written to. + +"I have done Letty wrong enough already," he said, "without +subjecting her to the cruel tongue of my mother. I have +conscience enough left not to have anybody else abuse her." + +"But, Tom," expostulated Mary, "if you want to be good, one of +your first duties is to be reconciled to your mother." + +"I am very sorry things are all wrong between us, Mary," said +Tom. "But, if you want her to come here, you don't know what you +are talking about. She must have everything her own way, or storm +from morning to night. I would gladly make it up with her, but +live with her, or die with her, I could _not_. To make +either possible, you must convert her, too. When you have done +that, I will invite her at once." + +"Never mind me, Tom," said Letty. "So long as you love me, I +don't care what even your mother thinks of me. I will do +everything I can to make her comfortable, and satisfied with me." + +"Wait till I am better, anyhow, Letty; for I solemnly assure you +I haven't a chance if my mother comes. I will tell you what, +Mary: I promise you, if I get better, I will do what is possible +to be a son to my mother; and for the present I will dictate a +letter, if you will write it, bidding her good-by, and asking her +pardon for everything I have done wrong by her, which you will +please send if I should die. I can not and I will not promise +more." + +He was excited and exhausted, and Mary dared not say another +word. Nor truly did she at the moment see what more could be +said. Where all relation has been perverted, things can not be +set right by force. Perhaps all we can do sometimes is to be +willing and wait. + +The letter was dictated and written--a lovely one, Mary thought-- +and it made her weep as she wrote it. Tom signed it with his own +hand. Mary folded, sealed, addressed it, and laid it away in her +desk. + +The same evening Tom said to Letty, putting his thin, long hand +in hers-- + +"Mary thinks we shall know each other there, Letty." + +"Tom!" interrupted Letty, "don't talk like that; I _can't_ +bear it. If you do, I shall die before you." + +"All I wanted to say," persisted Tom, "was, that I should sit all +day looking out for you, Letty." + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + +THE LEPER. + + +The faint, sweet, luminous jar of bow and string, as betwixt them +they tore the silky air into a dying sound, came hovering-- +neither could have said whether it was in the soul only, or there +and in the outer world too. + +"What _is_ that?" said Tom. + +"Mary!" Letty called into the other room, "there is our friend +with the violin again! Don't you think Tom would like to hear +him?" + +"Yes, I do," answered Mary. + +"Then would you mind asking him to come and play a little to us? +It would do Tom good, I do think." Mary went up the one stair-- +all that now divided them, and found the musician with his +sister--his half-sister she was. + +"I thought we should have you in upon us!" said Ann. "Joe thinks +he can play so as nobody can hear him; and I was fool enough to +let him try. I am sorry." + +"I am glad," rejoined Mary, "and am come to ask him down stairs; +for Mrs. Helmer and I think it will do her husband good to hear +him. He is very fond of music." + +"Much help music will be to him, poor young man!" said Ann, +scornfully. + +"Wouldn't you give a sick man a flower, even if it only made him +a little happier for a moment with its scent and its loveliness?" +asked Mary. + +"No, I wouldn't. It would only be to help the deceitful heart to +be more desperately wicked." + +I will not continue the conversation, although they did a little +longer. Ann's father had been a preacher among the followers of +Whitefield, and Ann was a follower of her father. She laid hold +upon the garment of a hard master, a tyrannical God. Happy he who +has learned the gospel according to Jesus, as reported by John-- +that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all! Happy he who +finds God his refuge from all the lies that are told for him, and +in his name! But it is love that saves, and not opinion that +damns; and let the Master himself deal with the weeds in his +garden as with the tares in his field. + +"I read my Bible a good deal," said Mary, at last, "but I never +found one of those things you say in it." + +"That's because you were never taught to look for them," said +Ann. + +"Very likely," returned Mary. "In the mean time I prefer the +violin--that is, with one like your brother to play it." + +She turned to the door, and Joseph Jasper, who had not spoken a +word, rose and followed her. As soon as they were outside, Mary +turned to him, and begged he would play the same piece with which +he had ended on the former occasion. + +"I thought you did not care for it! I am so glad!" he said. + +"I care for it very much," replied Mary, "and have often thought +of it since. But you left in such haste! before I could find +words to thank you!" + +"You mean the ten lepers, don't you?" he said. "But of course you +do. I always end off with them." + +"Is that how you call it?" returned Mary. "Then you have given me +the key to it, and I shall understand it much better this time, I +hope." + +"That is what I call it," said Joseph, "--to myself, I mean, not +to Ann. She would count it blasphemy. God has made so many things +that she thinks must not be mentioned in his hearing!" + +When they entered the room, Joseph, casting a quick look round +it, made at once for the darkest corner. Three swift strides took +him there; and, without more preamble than if he had come upon a +public platform to play, he closed his eyes and began. + +And now at last Mary understood at least this specimen of his +strange music, and was able to fill up the blanks in the +impression it formerly made upon her. Alas, that my helpless +ignorance should continue to make it impossible for me to +describe it! + +A movement even and rather slow, full of unexpected chords, +wonderful to Mary, who did not know that such things could be +made on the violin, brought before her mind's eye the man who +knew all about everything, and loved a child more than a sage, +walking in the hot day upon the border be-tween Galilee and +Samaria. Sounds arose which she interpreted as the stir of +village life, the crying and calling of domestic animals, and of +busy housewives at their duties, carried on half out of doors, in +the homeliness of country custom. Presently the instrument began +to tell the gathering of a crowd, with bee-like hum, and the +crossing of voice with voice--but, at a distance, the sounds +confused and obscure. Swiftly then they seemed to rush together, +to blend and lose themselves in the unity of an imploring melody, +in which she heard the words, uttered afar, with uplifted hands +and voices, drawing nearer and nearer as often repeated, "Jesus, +Master, have mercy on us." Then came a brief pause, and then +what, to her now fully roused imagination, seemed the voice of +the Master, saying, "Go show yourselves unto the priests." Then +followed the slow, half-unwilling, not hopeful march of timeless +feet; then a clang as of something broken, then a silence as of +sunrise, then air and liberty--long-drawn notes divided with +quick, hurried ones; then the trampling of many feet, going +farther and farther--merrily, with dance and song; once more a +sudden pause--and a melody in which she read the awe-struck +joyous return of one. Steadily yet eagerly the feet drew nigh, +the melody growing at once in awe and jubilation, as the man came +nearer and nearer to him whose word had made him clean, until at +last she saw him fall on his face before him, and heard his soul +rushing forth in a strain of adoring thanks, which seemed to end +only because it was choked in tears. + +The violin ceased, but, as if its soul had passed from the +instrument into his, the musician himself took up the strain, and +in a mellow tenor voice, with a mingling of air and recitative, +and an expression which to Mary was entrancing, sang the words, +"And he was a Samaritan." + +At the sound of his own voice, he seemed to wake up, hung his +head for a moment, as if ashamed of having shown his emotion, +tucked his instrument under his arm, and walked from the room, +without a word spoken on either side. Nor, while he played, had +Mary once seen the face of the man; her soul sat only in the +porch of her ears, and not once looked from the windows of her +eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + +MARY AND MR. REDMAIN. + + +A few rudiments of righteousness lurked, in their original +undevelopment, but still in a measure active, in the being of Mr. +Redmain: there had been in the soul of his mother, I suspect, a +strain of generosity, and she had left a mark of it upon him, and +it was the best thing about him. But in action these rudiments +took an evil shape. + +Preferring inferior company, and full of that suspicion which +puts the last edge upon what the world calls knowledge of human +nature, he thought no man his equal in penetrating the arena of +motive, and reading actions in the light of motive; and, that the +fundamental principle of all motive was self-interest, he assumed +to be beyond dispute. With this candle, not that of the Lord, he +searched the dark places of the soul; but, where the soul was +light, his candle could show him nothing--served only to blind +him yet further, if possible, to what was there present. And, +because he did not seek the good, never yet in all his life had +he come near enough to a righteous man to recognize that in +something or other that man was different from himself. As for +women--there was his wife--of whom he was willing to think as +well as she would let him! And she, firmly did he believe, was an +angel beside Sepia!--of whom, bad as she was, it is quite +possible he thought yet worse than she deserved: alas for the +woman who is not good, and falls under the judgment of a bad +man!--the good woman he can no more hurt than the serpent can +bite the adamant. He believed he knew Sepia's self, although he +did not yet know her history; and he scorned her the more that he +was not a hair better himself. He had regard enough for his wife, +and what virtue his penetration conceded her, to hate their +intimacy; and ever since his marriage had been scheming how to +get rid of Sepia--only, however, through finding her out: he must +unmask her: there would be no satisfaction in getting rid of her +without his wife's convinced acquiescence. He had been, +therefore, almost all the time more or less on the watch to +uncover the wickedness he felt sure lay at no great depth beneath +her surface; and in the mean time, and for the sake of this end, +he lived on terms of decent domiciliation with her. She had no +suspicion how thin was the crust between her and the lava. + +In Cornwall, he began at length to puzzle himself about Mary. Of +course she was just like the rest! but he did not at once succeed +in fitting what he saw to what he entirely believed of her. She +remained, like Sepia, a riddle to be solved. He was not so +ignorant as his wife concerning the relations of the different +classes, and he felt certain there must be some reason, of course +a discreditable one, for her leaving her former, and taking her +present, position. The attack he had in Cornwall afforded him +unexpected opportunity of making her out, as he called it. + +Upon this occasion it was also that Mary first ventured to +expostulate with her mistress on her neglect of her husband. She +heard her patiently; and the same day, going to his room, paid +him some small attention--handed him his medicine, I believe, but +clumsily, because ungraciously. The next moment, one of his fits +of pain coming on, he broke into such a torrent of cursing as +swept her in stately dignity from the room. She would not go near +him again. + +"Brought up as you have been, Mary," she said, "you can not enter +into the feelings of one in my position, to whom the very tone +even of coarse language is unspeakably odious. It makes me sick +with disgust. Coarseness is what no lady can endure. I beg you +will not mention Mr. Redmain to me again." + +"Dear Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, "ugly as such language is, there +are many things worse. It seems to me worse that a wife should +not go near her husband when he is suffering than that he should +in his pain speak bad words." + +She had been on the point of saying that a thin skin was not +purity, but bethought herself in time. + +"You are scarcely in a position to lay down the law for me, +Mary," said Hesper. "We will, if you please, drop the subject." + +Mary's words were overheard, as was a good deal in the house more +than was reckoned on, and reached Mr. Redmain, whom they +perplexed: what could the young woman hope from taking his part? + +One morning, after the arrival of Mewks, his man, Mary heard Mr. +Redmain calling him in a tone which betrayed that he had been +calling for some time: the house was an old one, and the bells +were neither in good trim, nor was his in a convenient position. +She thought first to find Mewks, but pity rose in her heart. She +ran to Mr. Redmain's door, which stood half open, and showed +herself. + +"Can _I_ not do something for you, sir?" she said. + +"Yes, you can. Go and tell that lumbering idiot to come to me +instantly. No! here, you!--there's a good girl!--Oh, damn!--Just +give me your hand, and help me to turn an inch or two." + +Change of posture relieved him a little. "Thank you," he said. +"That is better. Wait a few moments, will you--till the rascal +comes?" + +Mary stood back, a little behind him, thinking not to annoy him +with the sight of her. + +"What are you doing there?" he cried. "I like to see what people +are about in my room. Come in front here, and let me look at +you." + +Mary obeyed, and with a smile took the position he pointed out to +her. Immediately followed another agony of pain, in which he +looked beset with demons, whom he not feared but hated. Mary +hurried to him, and, in the compassion which she inherited long +back of Eve, took his hand, the fingers of which were twisting +themselves into shapes like tree-roots. With a hoarse roar, he +dashed hers from him, as if it had been a serpent. She returned +to her place, and stood. + +"What did you mean by that?" he said, when he came to himself. +"Do you want to make a fool of me?" + +Mary did not understand him, and made no reply. Another fit came. +This time she kept her distance. + +"Come here," he howled; "take my head in your hands." + +She obeyed. + +"Damned nice hands you've got!" he gasped; "much nicer than your +mistress's." + +Mary took no notice. Gently she withdrew her hands, for the fit +was over. + +"I see! that's the way of you!" he said, as she stepped back. +"But come now, tell me how it is that a nice, well-behaved, +handsome girl like you, should leave a position where, they tell +me, you were your own mistress, and take a cursed place as lady's +maid to my wife." + +"It was because I liked Mrs. Redmain so much," answered Mary. +"But, indeed, I was not very comfortable where I was." + +"What the devil did you see to like in her? I never saw +anything!" + +"She is so beautiful!" said Mary. + +"Is she! ho! ho!" he laughed. "What is that to another woman! You +are new to the trade, my girl, if you think that will go down! +One woman taking to another because 'she's so beautiful'! Ha! ha! +ha!" + +He repeated Mary's words with an indescribable contempt, and his +laugh was insulting to a degree; but it went off in a cry of +suffering. + +"Hypocrisy mustn't be too barefaced," he resumed, when again his +torture abated. "I didn't make you stop to amuse me! It's little +of that this beastly world has got for me! Come, a better reason +for waiting on my wife?" + +"That she was kind to me," said Mary, "may be a better reason, +but it is not a truer." + +"It's more than ever she was to me! What wages does she give +you?" + +"We have not spoken about that yet, sir." + +"You haven't had any?" + +"I haven't wanted any yet." + +"Then what the deuce ever made you come to this house?" + +"I hoped to be of some service to Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, +growing troubled. + +"And you ain't of any? Is that why you don't want wages?" + +"No, sir. That is not the reason." + +"Then what _is_ the reason? Come! Trust me. I will be much +better to you than your mistress. Out with it! I knew there was +something!" + +"I would rather not talk more about it," said Mary, knowing that +her feeling in relation to Hesper would be altogether incredible, +and the notion of it ridiculous to him. + +"You needn't mind telling _me_! I know all about such +things.--Look here! Give me that pocket-book on the table." + +Mary brought him the pocket-book. He opened it, and, taking from +it some notes, held them out to her. + +"If your mistress won't pay you your wages, I will. There! take +that. You're quite welcome. What matter which pays you? It all +comes out of the same stocking-foot." + +"I don't know yet," answered Mary, "whether I shall accept wages +from Mrs. Redmain. Something might happen to make it impossible; +or, if I had taken money, to make me regret it." + +"I like that! There you keep a hold on her!" said Mr. Redmain, in +a confidential tone, while in his heart he was more puzzled than +ever. "There's no occasion, though, for all that," he went on, +"to go without your money when you can have it and she be nothing +the wiser. There--take it. I will swear you any oath you like not +to tell my stingy wife." + +"She is not stingy," said Mary; "and, if I don't take wages from +her, I certainly shall not from any one else.--Besides," she +added, "it would be dishonest." + +"Oh! that's the dodge!" said Mr. Redmain to himself; but aloud, +"Where would be the dishonesty, when the money is mine to do with +as I please?" + +"Where the dishonesty, sir!" exclaimed Mary, astounded. "To take +wages from you, and pretend to Mrs. Redmain I was going without!" + +"Ha! ha! The first time, no doubt, you ever pretended anything!" + +"It would be," said Mary, "so far as I can, at the moment, +remember." + +"Go along," cried Mr. Redmain, losing, or pretending to lose, +patience with her; "you are too unscrupulous a liar for me to +deal with." + +Mary turned and left the room. As she went, his keen glance +caught the expression of her countenance, and noted the indignant +red that flushed her cheeks, and the lightning of wronged +innocence in her eyes. + +"I ought not to have said it," he remarked to himself. + +He did not for a moment fancy she had spoken the truth; but the +look of her went to a deeper place in him than he knew even the +existence of. + +"Hey! stop," he cried, as she was disappearing. "Come back, will +you?" + +"I will find Mr. Mewks," she answered, and went. + +After this, Mary naturally dreaded conference with Mr. Redmain; +and he, thinking she must have time to get over the offense he +had given her, made for the present no fresh attempt to come, by +her own aid, at a bird's-eye view of her character and scheme of +life. His curiosity, however, being in no degree assuaged +concerning the odd human animal whose spoor he had for the moment +failed to track, he meditated how best to renew the attempt in +London. Not small, therefore, was his annoyance to find, a few +days after his arrival, that she was no longer in the house. He +questioned his wife as to the cause of her absence, and told her +she was utterly heartless in refusing her leave to go and nurse +her friend; whereupon Hesper, neither from desire to do right nor +from regard to her husband's opinion, but because she either saw +or fancied she saw that, now Mary did not dress her, she no +longer caused the same sensation on entering a room, resolved to +write to her--as if taking it for granted she had meant to return +as soon as she was able. And to prick the sides of this intent +came another spur, as will be seen from the letter she wrote: + +"Dear Mary, can you tell me what is become of my large sapphire +ring? I have never seen it since you brought my case up with you +from Cornwall. I have been looking for it all the morning, but in +vain. You _must_ have it. I shall be lost without it, for +you know it has not its equal for color and brilliance. I do not +believe you intended for a moment to keep it, but only to punish +me for thinking I could do without you. If so, you have your +revenge, for I find I can not do without either of you--you or +the ring--so you will not carry the joke further than I can bear. +If you can not come at once, write and tell me it is safe, and I +shall love you more than ever. I am dying to see you again. Yours +faithfully, H. R." + +By this time, Letty was much better, and Tom no longer required +such continuous attention; Mary, therefore, betook herself at +once to Mr. Redmain's. Hesper was out shopping, and Mary went to +her own room to wait for her, where she was glad of the +opportunity of getting at some of the things she had left behind +her. + +"While she was looking for what she wanted, Sepia entered, and +was, or pretended to be, astonished to see her. In a strange, +sarcastic tone: + +"Ah, you there!" she said. "I hope you will find it." + +"If you mean the ring, that is not likely, Miss Yolland," Mary +answered. + +Sepia was silent a moment or two, then said: + +"How is your cousin?" + +"I have no cousin," replied Mary. + +"The person, I mean, you have been staying with?" + +"Better, thank you." + +"Almost a pity, is it not--if there should come trouble about +this ring?" + +"I do not understand you. The ring will, of course, be found," +returned Mary. + +"In any case the blame will come on you: it was in your charge." + +"The ring was in the case when I left." + +"You will have to prove that." + +"I remember quite well." + +"That no one will question." + +Beginning at last to understand her insinuations, Mary was so +angry that she dared not speak. + +"But it will hardly go to clear you," Sepia went on. "Don't +imagine I mean you have taken it; I am only warning you how the +matter will look, that you may be prepared. Mr. Redmain is one to +believe the worst things of the best people." + +"I am obliged to you," said Mary, "but I am not anxious." + +"It is necessary you should know also," continued Sepia, "that +there is some suspicion attaching to a female friend of yours as +well, a young woman who used to visit you--the wife of the other, +it is supposed. She was here, I remember, one night there was a +party; I saw you together in my cousin's bedroom. She had just +dressed and gone down." + +"I remember," said Mary. "It was Mrs. Helmer." + +"Well?" + +"It is very unfortunate, certainly; but the truth must be told: a +few days before you left, one of the servants, hearing some one +in the house in the middle of the night, got up and went down, +but only in time to hear the front door open and shut. In the +morning a hat was found in the drawing-room, with the name +_Thomas Helmer_ in it: that is the name of your friend's +husband, I believe?" + +"I am aware Mr. Helmer was a frequent visitor," said Mary, trying +to keep cool for what was to come. + +This that Sepia told her was true enough, though she was not +accurate as to the time of its occurrence. I will relate briefly +how it came about. + +Upon a certain evening, a few days before Mary's return from +Cornwall, Tom would have gone to see Miss Yolland had he not +known that she meant to go to the play with a Mr. Emmet, a cousin +of the Redmains. Before the hour arrived, however, Count Galofta +called, and Sepia went out with him, telling the man who opened +the door to ask Mr. Emmet to wait. The man was rather deaf, and +did not catch with certainty the name she gave. Mr. Emmet did not +appear, and it was late before Sepia returned. + +Tom, jealous even to hatred, spent the greater part of his +evening in a tavern on the borders of the city--in gloomy +solitude, drinking brandy-and-water, and building castles of the +most foolish type--for castles are as different as the men that +build them. Through all the rooms of them glided the form of +Sepia, his evil genius. He grew more and more excited as he +built, and as he drank. He rose at last, paid his bill, and, a +little suspicious of his equilibrium, stalked into the street. +There, almost unconsciously, he turned and walked westward. It +was getting late; before long the theatres would be emptying: he +might have a peep of Sepia as she came out!--but where was the +good when that fellow was with her! "But," thought Tom, growing +more and more daring as in an adventurous dream, "why should I +not go to the house, and see her after he has left her at the +door?" + +He went to the house and rang the bell. The man came, and said +immediately that Miss Yolland was out, but had desired him to ask +Mr. Helmer to wait; whereupon Tom walked in, and up the stair to +the drawing-room, thence into a second and a third drawing-room, +and from the last into the conservatory. The man went down and +finished his second, pint of ale. From the conservatory, Tom, +finding himself in danger of havoc among the flower-pots, turned +back into the third room, threw himself on a couch, and fell fast +asleep. + +He woke in the middle of the night in pitch darkness; and it was +some time before he could remember where he was. When he did, he +recognized that he was in an awkward predicament. But he knew the +house well, and would make the attempt to get out undiscovered. +It was foolish, but Tom was foolish. Feeling his way, he knocked +down a small table with a great crash of china, and, losing his +equanimity, rushed for the stair. Happily the hall lamp was still +alight, and he found no trouble with bolts or lock: the door was +not any way secured. + +The first breath of the cold night-air brought with it such a +gush of joy as he had rarely experienced; and he trod the silent +streets with something of the pleasure of an escaped criminal, +until, alas! the wind, at the first turning, let him know that he +had left his hat behind him! He felt as if he had committed a +murder, and left his card-case with the body. A vague terror grew +upon him as he hurried along. Justice seemed following on his +track. He had found the door on the latch: if anything was +missing, how should he explain the presence of his hat without +his own? The devil of the brandy he had drunk was gone out of +him, and only the gray ashes of its evil fire were left in his +sick brain, but it had helped first to kindle another fire, which +was now beginning to glow unsuspected--that of a fever whose fuel +had been slowly gathering for some time. + +He opened the door with his pass-key, and hurried up the stair, +his long legs taking three steps at a time. Never before had he +felt as if he were fleeing to a refuge when going home to his +wife. + +He opened the door of the sitting-room--and there on the floor +lay Letty and little Tom, as I have already told. + +"Why have I heard nothing of this before?" said Mary. + +"I am not aware of any right you have to know what happens in +this house." + +"Not from you, of course, Miss Yolland--perhaps not from Mrs. +Redmain; but the servants talk of most things, and I have not +heard a word--" + +"How could you," interrupted Sepia, "when you were not in the +house?--And, so long as nothing was missed, the thing was of no +consequence," she added. "Now it is different." + +This confused Mary a little. She stopped to consider. One thing +was clear--that, if the ring was not lost till after she left-- +and of so much she was sure--it could not be Tom that had taken +it, for he was then ill in bed. Something to this effect she +managed to say. + +"I told you already," returned Sepia, "that I had no suspicion of +him--at least, I desire to have none, but you may be required to +prove all you say; and it is as well to let you understand-- +though there is no reason why _I_ should take the trouble-- +that your going to those very people at the time, and their +proving to be friends of yours, adds to the difficulty." + +"How?" asked Mary. + +"I am not on the jury," replied Sepia, with indifference. + +The scope of her remarks seemed to Mary intended to show that any +suspicion of her would only be natural. For the moment the idea +amused her. But Sepia's way of talking about Tom, whatever she +meant by it, was disgraceful! + +"I am astonished you should seem so indifferent," she said, "if +the character of a gentleman with whom you have been so intimate +is so seriously threatened as you would imply. I know he has been +to see you more than once while Mr. and Mrs. Redmain were not yet +returned." + +Sepia's countenance changed; an evil fire glowed in her eyes, and +she looked at Mary as if she would search her to the bone. The +poorer the character, the more precious the repute! + +"The foolish fellow," she returned, with a smile of contempt, +"chose to fall in love with me!--A married man, too!" + +"If you understood that, how did he come to be here so often?" +asked Mary, looking her in the face. + +But Sepia knew better than declare war a moment before it was +unavoidable. + +"Have I not just told you," she said, in a haughty tone, "that +the man was in love with me?" + +"And have you not just told me he was a married man? Could he +have come to the house so often without at least your +permission?" + +Mary was actually taking the upper hand with her! Sepia felt it +with scarcely repressive rage. + +"He deserved the punishment," she replied, with calmness. + +"You do not seem to have thought of his wife!" + +"Certainly not. She never gave me offense." + +"Is offense the only ground for casting a regard on a fellow- +creature?" + +"Why should I think of her?" + +"Because she was your neighbor, and you were doing her a wrong." + +"Once for all, Marston," cried Sepia, overcome at last, "this +kind of thing will not do with me. I may not be a saint, but I +have honesty enough to know the genuine thing from humbug. You +have thrown dust in a good many eyes in this house, but +_none_ in mine." + +By this time Mary had got her temper quite in hand, taking a +lesson from the serpent, who will often keep his when the dove +loses hers. She hardly knew what fear was, for she had in her +something a little stronger than what generally goes by the name +of faith. She was therefore able to see that she ought, if +possible, to learn Sepia's object in talking thus to her. + +"Why do you say all this to me?" she asked, quietly. "I can not +flatter myself it is from friendship." + +"Certainly not. But the motive may be worthy, for all that. You +are not the only one involved. People who would pass for better +than their neighbors will never believe any good purpose in one +who does not choose to talk their slang." + +Sepia had repressed her rage, and through it looked aggrieved. +"She confesses to a purpose," said Mary to herself, and waited. + +"They are not all villains who are not saints," Sepia went on. "- +-This man's wife is your friend?" + +"She is." + +"Well, the man himself is my friend--in a sort of a sense." A +strange shiver went through Mary, and seemed to make her angry. +Sepia went on: + +"I confess I allowed the poor boy--he is little more--to talk +foolishly to me. I was amused at first, but perhaps I have not +quite escaped unhurt; and, as a woman, you must understand that, +when a woman has once felt in that way, if but for a moment, she +would at least be--sorry--" Here her voice faltered, and she did +not finish the sentence, but began afresh: "What I want of you +is, through his wife, or any way you think best, to let the poor +fellow know he had better slip away--to France, say--and stop +there till the thing blow over." + +"But why should you imagine he has had anything to do with the +matter? The ring will be found, and then the hat will not +signify." + +"Well," replied Sepia, putting on an air of openness, and for +that sake an air of familiarity, "I see I must tell you the whole +truth. I never did for a moment believe Mr. Helmer had anything +to do with the business, though, when you put me out of temper, I +pretended to believe it, and that you were in it as well: that +was mere irritation. But there is sure to be trouble; for my +cousin is miserable about her sapphire, which she values more +than anything she has; and, if it is not found, the affair will +be put into the hands of the police, and then what will become of +poor Mr. Helmer, be he as innocent as you and I believe him! Even +if the judge should declare that he leaves the court without a +blot on his character, Newgate mud is sure to stick, and he will +be half looked upon as a thief for the rest of his days: the +world is so unjust. Nor is that all; for they will put you in the +witness-box, and make you confess the man an old friend of yours +from the same part of the country; whereupon the counsel for the +prosecution will not fail to hint that you ought to be standing +beside the accused. Believe me, Mary, that, if Mr. Helmer is +taken up for this, you will not come out of it clean." + +"Still you explain nothing," said Mary. "You would not have me +believe it is for my sake you are giving yourself all this +trouble?" + +"No. But I thought you would see where I was leading you. For-- +and now for the _whole_ truth--although nothing can touch +the character of one in my position, it would be worse than +awkward for me to be spoken of in connection with the poor +fellow's visits to the house: _my_ honesty would not be +called in question as yours would, but what is dear to me as my +honesty might--nay, it certainly would. You see now why I came to +you!--You must go to his wife, or, better still, to Mr. Helmer +himself, and tell him what I have been saying to you. He will at +once see the necessity of disappearing for a while." + +Mary had listened attentively. She could not help fearing that +something worse than unpleasant might be at hand; but she did not +believe in Sepia, and in no case could consent that Tom should +compromise himself. Danger of this kind must be met, not avoided. +Still, whatever could be done ought to be done to protect him, +especially in his present critical state. A breath of such a +suspicion as this reaching him might be the death of him, and of +Letty, too. + +"I will think over what you have said," she answered; "but I can +not give him the advice you wish me. What I shall do I can not +say--the thing has come upon me with such a shock." + +"You have no choice that I see," said Sepia. "It is either what I +propose or ruin. I give you fair warning that I will stick at +nothing where my reputation is concerned. You and yours shall be +trod in the dirt before I allow a spot on my character!" + +To Mary's relief they were here interrupted by the hurried +entrance of Mrs. Redmain. She almost ran up to her, and took her +by both hands. + +"You dear creature! You have brought me my ring!" she cried. + +Mary shook her head with a little sigh. + +"But you have come to tell me where it is?" + +"Alas! no, dear Mrs. Redmain!" said Mary. + +"Then you must find it," she said, and turned away with an +ominous-looking frown. "I will do all I can to help you find it." + +"Oh, you _must_ find it! My jewel-case was in your charge." + +"But there has been time to lose everything in it, the one after +the other, since I gave it up. The sapphire ring was there, I +know, when I went." + +"That can not be. You gave me the box, and I put it away myself, +and, the next time I looked in it, it was not there." + +"I wish I had asked you to open it when I gave it you," said +Mary. + +"I wish you had," said Hesper. "But the ring must be found, or I +shall send for the police." + +"I will not make matters worse, Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, with as +much calmness as she could assume, and much was needed, "by +pointing out what your words imply. If you really mean what you +say, it is I who must insist on the police being sent for." + +"I am sure, Mary," said Sepia, speaking for the first time since +Hesper's entrance, "that your mistress has no intention of +accusing you." + +"Of course not," said Hesper; "only, what am I to do? I must have +my ring. Why did you come, if you had nothing to tell me about +it?" + +"How could I stay away when you were in trouble? Have you +searched everywhere?" + +"Everywhere I can think of." + +"Would you like me to help you look? I feel certain it will be +found." + +"No, thank you. I am sick of looking." + +"Shall I go, then?--What would you like me to do?" + +"Go to your room, and wait till I send for you." + +"I must not be long away from my invalids," said Mary, as +cheerfully as she could. + +"Oh, indeed! I thought you had come back to your work!" + +"I did not understand from your letter you wished that, ma'am-- +though, indeed, I could not have come just yet in any case." + +"Then you mean to go, and leave things just as they are?" + +"I am afraid there is no help for it. If I could do anything-. +But I will call again to-morrow, and every day till the ring is +found, if you like." + +"Thank you," said Hesper, dryly; "I don't think that would be of +much use." + +"I will call anyhow," returned Mary, "and inquire whether you +would like to see me.--I will go to my room now, and while I wait +will get some things I want." + +"As you please," said Hesper. + +Scarcely was Mary in her room, however, when she heard the door, +which had the trick of falling-to of itself, closed and locked, +and knew that she was a prisoner. For one moment a frenzy of +anger overcame her; the next, she remembered where her life was +hid, knew that nothing could touch her, and was calm. While she +took from her drawers the things she wanted, and put them in her +hand-bag, she heard the door unlocked, but, as no one entered, +she sat down to wait what would next arrive. + +Mrs. Redmain, as soon as she was aware of her loss, had gone in +her distress to tell her husband, whose gift the ring had been. +Unlike his usual self, he had showed interest in the affair. She +attributed this to the value of the jewel, and the fact that he +had himself chosen it: he was rather, and thought himself very, +knowing in stones; and the sapphire was in truth a most rare one: +but it was for quite other reasons that Mr. Redmain cared about +its loss: it would, he hoped, like the famous carbuncle, cast a +light all round it. + +He was as yet by no means well, and had not been from the house +since his return. + +The moment Mary was out of the room, Hesper rose. + +"I should be a fool to let her leave the house," she said. + +"Hesper, you will do nothing but mischief," cried Sepia. + +Hesper paid no attention, but, going after Mary, locked the door +of her room, and, running to her husband's, told him she had made +her a prisoner. + +No sooner was she in her husband's room than Sepia hastened to +unlock Mary's door; but, just as she did so, she heard some one +on the stair above, and retreated without going in. She would +then have turned the key again, but now she heard steps on the +stair below, and once more withdrew. + +Mary heard a knock at her door. Mewks entered. He brought a +request from his master that she would go to his room. + +She rose and went, taking her bag with her. + +"You may go now, Mrs. Redmain," said her husband when Mary +entered. "Get out, Mewks," he added; and both lady and valet +disappeared. + +"So!" he said, with a grin of pleasure. "Here's a pretty +business! You may sit down, though. You haven't got the ring in +that bag there?" + +"Nor anywhere else, sir," answered Mary. "Shall I shake it out on +the floor?--or on the sofa would be better." + +"Nonsense! You don't imagine me such a fool as to suppose, if you +had it, you would carry it about in your bag!" + +"You don't believe I have it, sir--do you?" she returned, in a +tone of appeal. + +"How am I to know what to believe? There is something dubious +about you--you have yourself all but admitted that: how am I to +know that robbery mayn't be your little dodge? All that rubbish +you talked down at Lychford about honesty, and taking no wages, +and loving your mistress, and all that rot, looks devilish like +something off the square! That ring, now, the stone of it alone, +is worth seven hundred pounds: one might let pretty good wages go +for a chance like that!" + +Mary looked him in the face, and made him no answer. He spied a +danger: if he irritated her, he would get nothing out of her! + +"My girl," he said, changing his tone, "I believe you know +nothing about the ring; I was only teasing you." + +Mary could not help a sigh of relief, and her eyes fell, for she +felt them beginning to fill. She could not have believed that the +judgment of such a man would ever be of consequence to her. But +the unity of the race is a thing that can not be broken. + +Now, although Mr. Redmain was by no means so sure of her +innocence as he had pretended, he did at least wish and hope to +find her innocent--from no regard for her, but because there was +another he would be more glad to find concerned in the ugly +affair. + +"Mrs. Redmain," he went on, "would have me hand you over to the +police; but I won't. You may go home when you please, and you +need fear nothing." + +He had the house where the Helmers lodged already watched, and +knew this much, that some one was ill there, and that the doctor +came almost every day. + +"I certainly shall fear nothing," said Mary, not quite trusting +him; "my fate is in God's hands." + +"We know all about that," said Mr. Redmain; "I'm up to most +dodges. But look here, my girl: it wouldn't be prudent in me, +lest there should be such a personage as you have just mentioned, +to be hard upon any of my fellow-creatures: I am one day pretty +sure to be in misfortune myself. You mightn't think it of me, but +I am not quite a heathen, and do reflect a little at times. You +may be as wicked as myself, or as good as Joseph, for anything I +know or care, for, as I say, it ain't my business to judge you. +Tell me now what you are up to, and I will make it the better for +you." + +Mary had been trying hard to get at what he was "up to," but +found herself quite bewildered. + +"I am sorry, sir," she faltered, "but I haven't the slightest +idea what you mean." + +"Then you go home," he said. "I will send for you when I want +you." + +The moment she was out of the room, he rang his bell violently. +Mewks appeared. + +"Go after that young woman--do you hear? You know her--Miss--damn +it, what's her name?--Harland or Cranston, or--oh, hang it! you +know well enough, you rascal!" + +"Do you mean Miss Marston, sir?" + +"Of course I do! Why didn't you say so before? Go after her, I +tell you; and make haste. If she goes straight home--you know +where--come back as soon as she's inside the door." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Damn you, go, or you'll lose sight of her!" + +"I'm a-listenin' after the street-door, sir. It ain't gone yet. +There it is now!" + +And with the word he left the room. + +Mary was too much absorbed in her own thoughts to note that she +was followed by a man with the collar of his great-coat up to his +eyes, and a woolen comforter round his face. She walked on +steadily for home, scarce seeing the people that passed her. It +was clear to Mewks that she had not a suspicion of being kept in +sight. He saw her in at her own door, and went back to his +master. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + +JOSEPH JASPER. + + +Another fact Mewks carried to his master--namely, that, as Mary +came near the door of the house, she was met by "a rough-looking +man," who came walking slowly along, as if he had been going up +and down waiting for her. Ho made her an awkward bow as she drew +near, and she stopped and had a long conversation with him--such +at least it seemed to Mewks, annoyed that he could hear nothing +of it, and fearful of attracting their attention--after which the +man went away, and Mary went into the house. This report made his +master grin, for, through the description Mewks gave, he +suspected a thief disguised as a workman; but, his hopes being +against the supposition, he dwelt the less upon it. + +The man who stopped Mary, and whom, indeed, she would have +stopped, was Joseph Jasper, the blacksmith. That he was rough in +appearance, no one who knew him would have wished himself able to +deny, and one less like a thief would have been hard to find. His +hands were very rough and ingrained with black; his fingers were +long, but chopped off square at the points, and had no +resemblance to the long, tapering fingers of an artist or +pickpocket. His clothes were of corduroy, not very grimy, because +of the huge apron of thick leather he wore at his work, but they +looked none the better that he had topped them with his tall +Sunday hat. His complexion was a mixture of brown and browner; +his black eyebrows hung far over the blackest of eyes, the +brightest flashing of which was never seen, because all the time +he played he kept them closed tight. His face wore its natural +clothing--a mustache thick and well-shaped, and a beard not too +large, of a color that looked like black burned brown. His hair +was black and curled all over his head. His whole appearance was +that of a workman; a careless glance could never have suspected +him a poet-musician; as little could even such a glance have +failed to see in him an honest man. He was powerfully built, over +the middle height, but not tall. He spoke very fair old-fashioned +English, with the Yorkshire tone and turn. His walk was rather +plodding, and his movements slow and stiff; but in communion with +his violin they were free enough, and the more delicate for the +strength that was in them; at the anvil they were as supple as +powerful. On his face dwelt an expression that was not to be read +by the indifferent--a waiting in the midst of work, as of a man +to whom the sense of the temporary was always present, but +present with the constant reminder that, just therefore, work +must be as good as work can be that things may last their due +time. + +The following was the conversation concerning the purport of +which Mewks was left to what conjecture was possible to a +serving-man of his stamp. + +Mary held out her hand to Jasper, and it disappeared in his. He +held it for a moment with a great but gentle grasp, and, as he +let it go, said: + +"I took the liberty of watching for you, miss. I wanted to ask a +favor of you. It seemed to me you would take no offense." + +"You might be sure of that," Mary answered. "You have a right to +anything I can do for you." + +He fixed his gaze on her for a moment, as if he did not +understand her. "That's where it is," he said: "I've _done_ +nothing for your people. It's all very well to go playing and +playing, but that's not doing anything; and, if _he_ had +done nothing, there would ha' been no fiddling. You understand +me, miss, I know: work comes before music, and makes the soul of +it; it's not the music that makes the doing. I'm a poor hand at +saying without my fiddle, miss: you'll excuse me." + +Mary's heart was throbbing. She had not heard a word like this-- +not since her father went to what people call the "long home"--as +if a home could be too long! What do we want but an endless +home?--only it is not the grave! She felt as if the spirit of her +father had descended on the strange workman, and had sent him to +her. She looked at him with shining eyes, and did not speak. He +resumed, as fearing he had not conveyed his thought. + +"What I think I mean is, miss, that, if the working of miracles +in his name wouldn't do it, it's not likely playing the fiddle +will." + +"Oh, I understand you so well!" said Mary, in a voice hardly her +own, "--so well! It makes me happy to hear you! Tell me what I +can do for you." + +"The poor gentleman in there must want all the help you can give +him, and more. There must be something left, surely, for a man to +do. He must want lifting at times, for instance, and that's not +fit for either of you ladies." + +"Thank you," said Mary, heartily. "I will mention it to Mrs. +Helmer, and I am sure she will be very glad of your help +sometimes." + +"Couldn't you ask her now, miss? I should like to know at what +hour I might call. But perhaps the best way would be to walk +about here in the evening, after my day's work is over, and then +you could run down any time, and look out: that would be enough; +I should be there. Saturday nights I could just as well be there +all night." + +To Tom and Letty it seemed not a little peculiar that a man so +much a stranger should be ready to walk about the street in order +to be at hand with help for them; but Mary was only delighted, +not surprised, for what the man had said to her made the thing +not merely intelligible, but absolutely reasonable. + +Joseph was not, however, allowed to wander the street. The +arrangement made was, that, as soon as his work was over, he +should come and see whether there was anything he could do for +them. And he never came but there was plenty to do. He took a +lodging close by, that he might be with them earlier, and stay +later; and, when nothing else was wanted of him, he was always +ready to discourse on his violin. Sometimes Tom enjoyed his music +much, though he found no little fault with his mode of playing, +for Tom knew something about everything, and could render many a +reason; at other times, he preferred having Mary read to him. + +On one of these latter occasions, Mary, occupied in cooking +something for the invalid, asked Joseph to read for her. He +consented, but read very badly--as if he had no understanding of +the words, but, on the other hand, stopping every few lines, +apparently to think and master what he had read. This was not +good reading anyway, least of all for an invalid who required the +soothing of half-thought, molten and diluted in sweet, even, +monotonous sound, and it was long before Mary asked him again. + +Many things showed that he had had little education, and +therefore probably the more might be made of him. Mary saw that +he must be what men call a genius, for his external history had +been, by his own showing, of an altogether commonplace type. + +His father, who was a blacksmith before him, and a local +preacher, had married a second time, and Joseph was the only +child of the second marriage. His father had brought him up to +his own trade, and, after his death, Joseph came to work in +London, whither his sister had preceded him. He was now thirty, +and had from the first been saving what he could of his wages in +the hope of one day having a smithy of his own, and his time more +at his ordering. + +Mary saw too that in his violin he possessed a grand fundamental +undeveloped education; he was like a man going about the world +with a ten-thousand-pound-note in his pocket, and not many +sixpences to pay his way with. But there was another education +working in him far deeper, and already more developed, than that +which divine music even was giving him; this also Mary thoroughly +recognized; this it was in him that chiefly attracted her; and +the man himself knew it as underlying all his consciousness. + +Though he could ill read aloud, he could read well for his inward +nourishment; he could write tolerably, and, if he could not +spell, that mattered a straw, and no more; he had never read a +play of Shakespeare--had never seen a play; knew nothing of +grammar or geography--or of history, except the one history +comprising all. He knew nothing of science; but he could shoe a +horse as well as any man in the three Eidings, and make his +violin talk about things far beyond the ken of most men of +science. + +So much of a change had passed upon Tom in his illness, that Mary +saw it not unreasonable to try upon him now and then a poem of +her favorite singer. Occasionally, of course, the feeling was +altogether beyond him, but even then he would sometimes enter +into the literary merit of the utterance. + +"I had no idea there were such gems in George Herbert, Mary!" he +said once. "I declare, some of them are even in their structure +finer than many things that have nothing in them to admire except +the structure." + +"That is not to be wondered at," replied Mary. + +"No," said Joseph; "it is not to be wondered at; for it's clear +to me the old gentleman plied a good bow. I can see that plain +enough." + +"Tell us how you see it," said Mary, more interested than she +would have liked to show. + +"Easily," he answered. "There was one poem"--he pronounced it +_pome_--"you read just now--" + +"Which? which?" interrupted Mary, eagerly. + +"That I can not tell you; but, all the time you were reading it, +I heard the gentleman--Mr. George Herbert, you call him--playing +the tune to it." + +"If you heard him so well," ventured Mary, "you could, I fancy, +play the tune over again to us." + +"I think I could," he answered, and, rising, went for his +instrument, which he always brought, and hung on an old nail in +the wall the moment he came in. + +He played a few bars of a prelude, as if to get himself into +harmony with the recollection of what he had heard the master +play, and then began a lively melody, in which he seemed as usual +to pour out his soul. Long before he reached the end of it, Mary +had reached the poem. + +"This is the one you mean, is it not?" she said, as soon as he +had finished--and read it again. + +In his turn he did not speak till she had ended. + +"That's it, miss," he said then; "I can't mistake it; for, the +minute you began, there was the old gentleman again with his +fiddle." + +"And you know now what it says, don't you?" asked Mary. + +"I heard nothing but the old gentleman," answered the musician. + +Mary turned to Tom. + +"Would you mind if I tried to show Mr. Jasper what I see in the +poem? He can't get a hold of it himself for the master's violin +in his ears; it won't let him think about it." + +"I should like myself to hear what you have got to say about it, +Mary! Go on," said Tom. + +Mary had now for a long time been a student of George Herbert; +and anything of a similar life-experience goes infinitely +further, to make one understand another, than any amount of +learning or art. Therefore, better than many a poet, Mary was +able to set forth the scope and design of this one. Herself at +the heart of the secret from which came all his utterance, she +could fit herself into most of the convolutions of the shell of +his expression, and was hence able also to make others perceive +in his verse not a little of what they were of themselves unable +to see. + +"We shall have you lecturing at the Royal Institution yet, Mary," +said Tom; "only it will be long before its members care for that +sort of antique." + +Tom's insight had always been ahead of his character, and of late +he had been growing. People do grow very fast in bed sometimes. +Also he had in him plenty of material, to which a childlike +desire now began to give shapes and sequences. + +The musician's remark consisted in taking his violin, and once +more giving his idea of the "old gentleman's" music, but this +time with a richer expression and fuller harmonies. Mary had +every reason to be satisfied with her experiment. From that time +she talked a good deal more about her favorite writers, and +interested both the critical taste of Tom and the artistic +instinct of the blacksmith. + +But Joseph's playing had great faults: how could it be +otherwise?--and to Mary great seemed the pity that genius should +not be made perfect in faculty, that it should not have that +redemption of its body for which unwittingly it groaned. And the +man was one of those childlike natures which may indeed go a long +time without discovering this or that external fault in +themselves, patent to the eye of many an inferior onlooker--for +the simple soul is the last to see its own outside--but, once +they become aware of it, begin that moment to set the thing +right. At the same time he had not enough of knowledge to render +it easy to show him by words wherein any fault consisted--the +nature, the being of the fault, that is--what it simply was; but +Mary felt confident that, the moment he saw a need, he would obey +its law. + +She had taken for herself the rooms below, formerly occupied by +the Helmers, with the hope of seeing them before long reinstated +in them; and there she had a piano, the best she could afford to +hire: with its aid she hoped to do something toward the breaking +of the invisible bonds that tied the wings of Jasper's genius. + +His great fault lay in his time. Dare I suggest that he contented +himself with measuring it to his inner ear, and let his fingers, +like horses which he knew he had safe in hand, play what pranks +they pleased? A reader may, I think, be measuring verse correctly +to himself, and yet make of it nothing but rugged prose to his +hearers. Perhaps this may be how severe masters of quantity in +the abstract are so careless of it in the concrete--in the +audible, namely, where alone it is of value. Shall I analogize +yet a little further, and suggest the many who admire +righteousness and work iniquity; who say, "Lord, Lord," and +seldom or never obey? Anyhow, a man may have a good enough ear, +with which he holds all the time a secret understanding, and from +carelessness offend grievously the ears he ought to please; and +it was thus with Joseph Jasper. + +Mary was too wise to hurry anything. One evening when he came as +usual, and she knew he was not at the moment wanted, she asked +him to take a seat while she played something to him. But she was +not a little disappointed in the reception he gave her offering-- +a delicate morsel from Beethoven. She tried something else, but +with no better result. He showed little interest: he was not a +man capable of showing where nothing was, for he never meant to +show anything; his expression was only the ripple of the +unconscious pool to the sway and swirl of the fishes below. It +seemed as if he had only a narrow entrance for the admission of +music into his understanding--but a large outlet for the spring +that rose within him, and was, therefore, a somewhat remarkable +exception to the common run of mortals: in such, the capacity for +reception far exceeds the capability of production. His dominant +thoughts were in musical form, and easily found their expression +in music; but, mainly no doubt from want of practice in +reception, and experience of variety in embodiment, the forms in +which others gave themselves utterance could not with +corresponding readiness find their way to the sympathetic place +in him. But pride or repulsion had no share in this defect. The +man was open and inspired, and stupid as a child. + +The next time she made the attempt to open this channel between +them, something she played did find him, and for a few minutes he +seemed lost in listening. + +"How nice it would be," she said, "if we could play together +sometimes!" + +"Do you mean both at once, miss?" he asked. + +"Yes--you on your violin, and I on the piano." + +"That could hardly be, I'm afraid, miss," he answered; "for, you +see, I don't know always--not exactly--what I'm going to play; +and if I don't know, and you don't know, how are we to keep +together?" + +"Nobody can play your own things but yourself, of course--that +is, until you are able to write them down; but, if you would +learn something, we could play that together." + +"I don't know how to learn. I've heard tell of the notes and all +that, but I don't know how to work them." + +"You have heard the choir in the church--all keeping with the +organ," said Mary. + +"Scarcely since I was a child--and not very often then--though my +mother took me sometimes. But I was always wanting to get out +again, and gave no heed." + +"Do you never go to church now?" + +"No, miss--not for long. Time's too precious to waste." + +"How do you spend it, then?" + +"As soon as I've had my breakfast--that's on a Sunday, I mean--I +get up and lock my door, and set myself to have a day of it. Then +I read the next thing where I stopped last--whether it be a +chapter or a verse--till I get the sense of it--if I can't get +that, it's no manner of use to me; and I generally know when I've +got it by finding the bow in one hand and the fiddle in the +other. Then, with the two together, I go stirring and stirring +about at the story, and the music keeps coming and coming; and +when it stops, which it does sometimes all at once, then I go +back to the book." + +"But you don't go on like that all day, do you?" said Mary. + +"I generally go on till I'm hungry, and then I go out for +something to eat. My landlady won't get me any dinner. Then I +come back and begin again." + +"Will you let me teach you to read music?" said Mary, more and +more delighted with him, and desirous of contributing to his +growth--the one great service of the universe. + +"If you would, miss, perhaps then I might be able to learn. You +see, I never was like other people. Mother was the only one that +didn't take me for an innocent. She used to talk big things about +me, and the rest used to laugh at her. She gave me her large +Testament when she was dying, but, if it hadn't been for Ann, I +should never have been able to read it well enough to understand +it. And now Ann tells me I'm a heathen and worship my fiddle, +because I don't go to chapel with her; but it do seem such a +waste of good time. I'll go to church, though, miss, if you tell +me it's the right thing to do; only it's hard to work all the +week, and be weary all the Sunday. I should only be longing for +my fiddle all the time. You don't think, miss, that a great +person like God cares whether we pray to him in a room or in a +church?" + +"No, I don't," answered Mary. "For my own part, I find I can pray +best at home." + +"So can I," said Joseph, with solemn fervor. "Indeed, miss, I +can't pray at all sometimes till I get my fiddle under my chin, +and then it says the prayers for me till I grow able to pray +myself. And sometimes, when I seem to have got to the outside of +prayer, and my soul is hungrier than ever, only I can't tell what +I want, all at once I'm at my fiddle again, and it's praying for +me. And then sometimes it seems as if I lost myself altogether, +and God took me, for I'm nowhere and everywhere all at once." + +Mary thought of the "groanings that can not be uttered." Perhaps +that is just what music is meant for--to say the things that have +no shape, therefore can have no words, yet are intensely alive-- +the unembodied children of thought, the eternal child. Certainly +the musician can groan the better with the aid of his violin. +Surely this man's instrument was the gift of God to him. All +God's gifts are a giving of himself. The Spirit can better dwell +in a violin than in an ark or in the mightiest of temples. + +But there was another side to the thing, and Mary felt bound to +present it. + +"But, you know, Mr. Jasper," she said, "when many violins play +together, each taking a part in relation to all the rest, a much +grander music is the result than any single instrument could +produce." + +"I've heard tell of such things, miss, but I've never heard +them." He had never been to concert or oratorio, any more than +the play. + +"Then you shall hear them," said Mary, her heart filling with +delight at the thought. "--But what if there should be some way +in which the prayers of all souls may blend like many violins? We +are all brothers and sisters, you know--and what if the gathering +together in church be one way of making up a concert of souls?-- +Imagine one mighty prayer, made up of all the desires of all the +hearts God ever made, breaking like a huge wave against the foot +of his throne!" + +"There would be some force in a wave like that, miss!" said +Joseph. "But answer me one question: Ain't it Christ that teaches +men to pray?" + +"Surely," answered Mary. "He taught them with his mouth when he +was on the earth; and now he teaches them with his mind." + +"Then, miss, I will tell you why it seems to me that churches +can't be the places to tune the fiddles for that kind of consort +--and that's just why I more than don't care to go into one of +them: I never heard a sermon that didn't seem to be taking my +Christ from me, and burying him where I should never find him any +more. For the somebody the clergy talk about is not only nowise +like my Christ, but nowise like a live man at all. It always +seemed to me more like a guy they had dressed up and called by +his name than the man I read about in my mother's big Testament." + +"How my father would have delighted in this man!" said Mary to +herself. + +"You see, miss," Jasper resumed, "I can't help knowing something +about these matters, because I was brought up in it all, my +father being a local preacher, and a very good man. Perhaps, if I +had been as clever as Sister Ann, I might be thinking now just as +she does; but it seems to me a man that is born stupid has much +to be thankful for: he can't take in things before his heart's +ready for believing them, and so they don't get spoiled, like a +child's book before he is able to read it. All that I heard when +I went with my father to his preachings was to me no more than +one of the chapters full of names in the Book of Chronicles-- +though I do remember once hearing a Wesleyan clergyman say that +he had got great spiritual benefit from those chapters. I wasn't +even frightened at the awful things my father said about hell, +and the certainty of our going there if we didn't lay hold upon +the Saviour; for, all the time, he showed but such a ghost or +cloud of a man that he called the Saviour as it wasn't possible +to lay hold upon. Not that I reasoned about it that way then; I +only felt no interest in the affair; and my conscience said +nothing about it. But after my father and mother were gone, and I +was at work away from all my old friends--well, I needn't trouble +you with what it was that set me a-thinking--it was only a great +disappointment, such as I suppose most young fellows have to go +through--I shouldn't wonder," he added with a smile, "if that was +what you ladies are sent into this world for--to take the conceit +out of the likes of us, and give us something to think about. +What came of it was, that I began to read my mother's big +Testament in earnest, and then my conscience began to speak. Here +was a man that said he was God's son, and sent by him to look +after us, and we must do what he told us or we should never be +able to see our Father in heaven! That's what I made out of it, +miss. And my conscience said to me, that I must do as he said, +seeing he had taken all that trouble, and come down to look after +us. If he spoke the truth, and nobody could listen to him without +being sure of that, there was nothing left but just to do the +thing he said. So I set about getting a hold of anything he did +say, and trying to do it. And then it was that I first began to +be able to play on the fiddle, though I had been muddling away at +it for a long time before. I knew I could play then, because I +understood what it said to me, and got help out of it. I don't +really mean that, you know, miss; for I know well enough that the +fiddle in itself is nothing, and nothing is anything but the way +God takes to teach us. And that's how I came to know you, miss." + +"How do you mean that?" asked Mary. + +"I used to be that frightened of Sister Ann that, after I came to +London, I wouldn't have gone near her, but that I thought Jesus +Christ would have me go; and, if I hadn't gone to see her, I +should never have seen you. When I went to see her, I took my +fiddle with me to take care of me; and, when she would be going +on at me, I would just give my fiddle a squeeze under my arm, and +that gave me patience." + +"But we heard you playing to her, you know." + +"That was because I always forgot myself while she was talking. +The first time, I remember, it was from misery--what she was +saying sounded so wicked, making God out not fit for any honest +man to believe in. I began to play without knowing it, and it +couldn't have been very loud, for she went on about the devil +picking up the good seed sown in the heart. Off I went into that, +and there I saw no end of birds with long necks and short legs +gobbling up the corn. But, a little way off, there was the long +beautiful stalks growing strong and high, waving in God's wind; +and the birds did not go near them." + +Mary drew a long breath, and said to herself: + +"The man is a poet!"--"You're not afraid of your sister now?" she +said to him. + +"Not a bit," he answered. "Since I knew you, I feel as if we had +in a sort of a way changed places, and she was a little girl that +must be humored and made the best of. When she scolds, I laugh, +and try to make a bit of fun with her. But she's always so sure +she's right, that you wonder how the world got made before she +was up." + +They parted with the understanding that, when he came next, she +should give him his first lesson in reading music. With herself +Mary made merry at the idea of teaching the man of genius his +letters. + +But, when once, through trying to play with her one of his own +pieces which she had learned from hearing him play it, he had +discovered how imperative it was to keep good time, he set +himself to the task with a determination that would have made +anything of him that he was only half as fit to become as a +musician. + +When, however, in a short time, he was able to learn from notes, +he grew so delighted with some of the music Mary got for him, +entering into every nicety of severest law, and finding therein a +better liberty than that of improvisation, that he ceased for +long to play anything of his own, and Mary became mortally afraid +lest, in developing the performer, she had ruined the composer. + +"How can I go playing such loose, skinny things," he would say, +"when here are such perfect shapes all ready to my hand!" + +But Mary said to herself that, if these were shapes, his were +odors. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. + +THE SAPPHIRE. + + +One morning, as Mary sat at her piano, Mewks was shown into the +room. He brought the request from his master that she would go to +him; he wanted particularly to see her. She did not much like it, +neither did she hesitate. + +She was shown into the room Mr. Redmain called his study, which +communicated by a dressing-room with his bedroom. He was seated, +evidently waiting for her. + +"Ah, Miss Marston!" he said; "I have a piece of good news for +you--so good that I thought I should like to give it you myself." + +"You are very kind, sir," Mary answered. + +"There!" he went on, holding out what she saw at once was the +lost ring. + +"I am so glad!" she said, and took it in her hand. "Where was it +found?" + +"There's the point!" he returned. "That is just why I sent for +you! Can you suggest any explanation of the fact that it was +found, after all, in a corner of my wife's jewel-box? Who +searched the box last?" + +"I do not know, sir." + +"Did you search it?" + +"No, sir. I offered to help Mrs. Redmain to look for the ring, +but she said it was no use. Who found it, sir?" + +"I will tell you who found it, if you will tell me who put it +there." + +"I don't know what you mean, sir. It must have been there all the +time." + +"That's the point again! Mrs. Redmain swears it was not, and +could not have been, there when she looked for it. It is not like +a small thing, you see. There is something mysterious about it." + +He looked hard at Mary. + +Now, Mary had very much admired the ring, as any one must who had +an eye for stones; and had often looked at it--into the heart of +it--almost loving it; and while they were talking now, she kept +gazing at it. When Mr. Redmain ended, she stood silent. In her +silence, her attention concentrated itself upon the sapphire. She +stood long, looking closely at it, moving it about a little, and +changing the direction of the light; and, while her gaze was on +the ring, Mr. Redmain's gaze was on her, watching her with equal +attention. At last, with a sigh, as if she waked from a reverie, +she laid the ring on the table. But Mr. Redmain still stared in +her face. + +"Now what is it you've got in your head?" he said at last. "I +have been watching you think for three minutes and a half, I do +believe. Come, out with it!" + +"Hardly _think_, sir," answered Mary. "I was only plaguing +myself between my recollection of the stone and the actual look +of it. It is so annoying to find what seemed a clear recollection +prove a deceitful one! It may appear a presumptuous thing to say, +but my recollection seems of a finer color." + +While she spoke, she had again taken the ring, and was looking at +it. Mr. Redmain snatched it from her hand. + +"The devil!" he cried. "You haven't the face to hint that the +stone has been changed?" + +Mary laughed. + +"Such a thing never came into my head, sir; but now that you have +put it there, I could almost believe it." + +"Go along with you!" he cried, casting at her a strange look +which she could not understand, and the same moment pulling the +bell hard. + +That done, he began to examine the ring intently, as Mary had +been doing, and did not speak a word. Mewks came. + +"Show Miss Marston out," said his master; "and tell my coachman +to bring the hansom round directly." + +"For Miss Marston?" inquired Mewks, who had learned not a little +cunning in the service. + +"No!" roared Mr. Redmain; and Mewks darted from the room, +followed more leisurely by Mary. + +"I don't know what's come to master!" ventured Mewks, as he led +the way down the stair. + +But Mary took no notice, and left the house. + +For about a week she heard nothing. + +In the meantime Mr. Redmain had been prosecuting certain +inquiries he had some time ago begun, and another quite new one +besides. He was acquainted with many people of many different +sorts, and had been to jewelers and pawnbrokers, gamblers and +lodging-house keepers, and had learned some things to his +purpose. + +Once more Mary received from him a summons, and once more, +considerably against her liking, obeyed. She was less disinclined +to go this time, however, for she felt not a little curious about +the ring. + +"I want you to come back to the house," he said, abruptly, the +moment she entered his room. + +For such a request Mary was not prepared. Even since the ring was +found, so long a time had passed that she never expected to hear +from the house again. But Tom was now so much better, and Letty +so much like her former self, that, if Mrs. Redmain had asked +her, she might perhaps have consented. + +"Mr. Redmain," she answered, "you must see that I can not do so +at your desire." + +"Oh, rubbish! humbug!" he returned, with annoyance. "Don't fancy +I am asking you to go fiddle-faddling about my wife again: I +don't see how you _can_ do that, after the way she has used +you! But I have reasons for wanting to have you within call. Go +to Mrs. Perkin. I won't take a refusal." + +"I can not do it, Mr. Redmain," said Mary; "the thing is +impossible." And she turned to leave the room. + +"Stop, stop!" cried Mr. Redmain, and jumped from his chair to +prevent her. + +He would not have succeeded had not Mewks met her in the doorway +full in the face. She had to draw back to avoid him, and the man, +perceiving at once how things were, closed the door the moment he +entered, and stood with his back against it. + +"He's in the drawing-room, sir," said Mewks. + +A scarcely perceptible sign of question was made by the master, +and answered in kind by the man. + +"Show him here directly," said Mr. Redmain. Then turning to Mary, +"Go out that way, Miss Marston, if you will go," he said, and +pointed to the dressing-room. + +Mary, without a suspicion, obeyed; but, just as she discovered +that the door into the bedroom beyond was locked, she heard the +door behind her locked also. She turned, and knocked. + +"Stay where you are," said Mr. Redmain, in a low but imperative +voice. "I can not let you out till this gentleman is gone. You +must hear what passes: I want you for a witness." + +Bewildered and annoyed, Mary stood motionless in the middle of +the room, and presently heard a man, whose voice seemed not quite +strange to her, greet Mr. Redmain like an old friend. The latter +made a slight apology for having sent for him to his study-- +claiming the privilege, he said, of an invalid, who could not for +a time have the pleasure of meeting him either at the club or at +his wife's parties. The visitor answered agreeably, with a touch +of merriment that seemed to indicate a soul at ease with itself +and with the world. + +But here Mary all at once came to herself, and was aware that she +was in quite a false position. She withdrew therefore to the +farthest corner, sat down, closed her ears with the palms of her +hands, and waited. + +She had sat thus for a long time, not weary, but occupied with +such thoughts as could hardly for a century or two cross the +horizon line of such a soul as Mr. Redmain's, even if he were at +once to repent, when she heard a loud voice calling her name from +a distance. She raised her head, and saw the white, skin-drawn +face of Mr. Redmain grinning at her from the open door. When he +spoke again, his words sounded like thunder, for she had removed +her hands from her ears. + +"I fancy you've had a dose of it!" he said. + +As he spoke, she rose to her feet, her countenance illumined both +with righteous anger and the tender shine of prayer. Her look +went to what he had of a heart, and the slightest possible color +rose to his face. + +"Gone a step too far, damn it!" he murmured to himself. "There's +no knowing one woman by another!" + +"I see!" he said; "it's been a trifle too much for you, and I +don't wonder! You needn't believe a word I said about myself. It +was all hum to make the villain show his game." + +"I have not heard a word, Mr. Redmain," she said with +indignation. + +"Oh, you needn't trouble yourself!" he returned. "I meant you to +hear it all. What did I put you there for, but to get your oath +to what I drew from the fellow? A fine thing if your pretended +squeamishness ruin my plot! What do you think of yourself, hey?-- +But I don't believe it." + +He looked at her keenly, expecting a response, but Mary made him +none. For some moments he regarded her curiously, then turned +away into the study, saying: + +"Come along. By Jove! I'm ashamed to say it, but I half begin to +believe in you. I did think I was past being taken in, but it +seems possible for once again. Of course, you will return to Mrs. +Redmain now that all is cleared up." + +"It is impossible," Mary answered. "I can not live in a house +where the lady mistrusts and the gentleman insults me." + +She left the room, and Mr. Redmain did not try to prevent her. As +she left the house she burst into tears; and the fact Mewks +carried to his master. + +The man was the more careful to report everything about Mary, +that there was one in the house of whom he never reported +anything, but to whom, on the contrary, he told everything he +thought she would care to know. Till Sepia came, he had been +conventionally faithful--faithful with the faith of a lackey, +that is--but she had found no difficulty in making of him, in +respect of her, a spy upon his master. + +I will now relate what passed while Mary sat deaf in the corner. + +Mr. Redmain asked his visitor what he would have, as if, although +it was quite early, he must, as a matter of course, stand in need +of refreshment. He made choice of brandy and soda-water, and the +bell was rung. A good deal of conversation followed about a +disputed point in a late game of cards at one of the clubs. + +The talk then veered in another direction--that of personal +adventure, so guided by Mr. Redmain. He told extravagant stories +about himself and his doings, in particular various _ruses_ +by which he had contrived to lay his hands on money. And whatever +he told, his guest capped, narrating trick upon trick to which on +different occasions he had had recourse. At all of them Mr. +Redmain laughed heartily, and applauded their cleverness +extravagantly, though some of them were downright swindling. + +At last Mr. Redmain told how he had once got money out of a lady. +I do not believe there was a word of truth in it. But it was +capped by the other with a narrative that seemed specially +pleasing to the listener. In the midst of a burst of laughter, he +rose and rang the bell. Count Galofta thought it was to order +something more in the way of "refreshment," and was not a little +surprised when he heard his host desire the man to request the +favor of Miss Yolland's presence. But the Count had not studied +non-expression in vain, and had brought it to a degree of +perfection not easily disturbed. Casting a glance at him as he +gave the message, Mr. Redmain could read nothing; but this was in +itself suspicious to him--and justly, for the man ought to have +been surprised at such a close to the conversation they had been +having. + +Sepia had been told that Galofta was in the study, and therefore +received the summons thither--a thing that had never happened +before--with the greater alarm. She made, consequently, what +preparation she could against surprise. Thoroughly capable of +managing her features, her anxiety was sufficient nevertheless to +deprive her of power over her complexion, and she entered the +room with the pallor peculiar to the dark-skinned. Having greeted +the Count with the greatest composure, she turned to Mr. Redmain +with question in her eyes. + +"Count Galofta," said Mr. Redmain in reply, "has just been +telling me a curious story of how a certain rascal got possession +of a valuable jewel from a lady with whom he pretended to be in +love, and I thought the opportunity a good one for showing you a +strange discovery I have made with regard to the sapphire Mrs. +Redmain missed for so long. Very odd tricks are played with gems +--such gems, that is, as are of value enough to make it worth a +rogue's while." + +So saying, he took the ring from one drawer, and from another a +bottle, from which he poured something into a crystal cup. Then +he took a file, and, looking at Galofta, in whose well-drilled +features he believed he read something that was not mere +curiosity, said, "I am going to show you something very curious," +and began to file asunder that part of the ring which immediately +clasped the sapphire, the setting of which was open. + +"What a pity!" cried Sepia; "you are destroying the ring! What +will Cousin Hesper say?" + +Mr. Redmain filed away, heedless; then with the help of a pair of +pincers freed the stone, and held it up in his hand. + +"You see this?" he said. + +"A splendid sapphire!" answered Count Galofta, taking it in his +fingers, but, as Mr. Redmain saw, not looking at it closely. + +"I have always heard it called a splendid stone," said Sepia, +whose complexion, though not her features, passed through several +changes while all this was going on: she was anxious. + +Nor did her inquisitor fail to surprise the uneasy glances she +threw, furtively though involuntarily, in the face of the Count-- +who never once looked in hers: tolerably sure of himself, he was +not sure of her. + +"That ring, when I bought it--the stone of it," said Mr. Redmain, +"was a star sapphire, and worth seven hundred pounds; now, the +whole affair is worth about ten." + +As he spoke, he threw the stone into the cup, let it lie a few +moments, and took it out again; when, almost with a touch, he +divided it in two, the one a mere scale. + +"There!" he said, holding out the thin part on the tip of a +finger, "that is a slice of sapphire; and there!" holding out the +rest of the seeming stone, "that is glass." + +"What a shame!" cried Sepia. + +"Of course," said the Count, "you will prosecute the jeweler." + +"I will not prosecute the jeweler," answered Mr. Redmain; "but I +have taken some trouble to find out who changed the stones." + +With that he threw both the bits of blue into a drawer, and the +contents of the cup into the fire. A great flame flew up the +chimney, and, as if struck at the sight of it, he stood gazing +for a moment after it had vanished. + +When he turned, the Count was gone, as he had expected, and Sepia +stood with eyes full of anger and fear. Her face was set and +colorless, and strange to look upon. + +"Very odd--ain't it?" said Mr. Redmain, and, opening the door of +his dressing-room, called out: + +"Miss Marston!" + +When he turned, Sepia too was gone. + +I would not have my reader take Sepia for an accomplice in the +robbery. Even Mr. Redmain did not believe that: she was much too +prudent! His idea was, that she had been wearing the ring--Hesper +did not mind what she wore of hers--and that (I need not give his +conjecture in detail), with or without her knowledge, the fellow +had got hold of it and carried it away, then brought it back, +treating the thing as a joke, when she was only too glad to +restore it to the jewel-case, hoping the loss of it would then +pass for an oversight on the part of Hesper. If he was right in +this theory of the affair, then the Count had certainly a hold +upon her, and she dared not or would not expose him! He had +before discovered that, about the time when the ring disappeared, +the Count had had losses, and was supposed unable to meet them, +but had suddenly showed himself again "flush of money," and from +that time had had an extraordinary run of luck. + +When he went out of the door of Mr. Redmain's study, he vanished +from the house and from London. Turning the first corner he came +to, and the next and the next, he stepped into a mews, the court +of which seemed empty, and slipped behind the gate. He wore a new +hat, and was clean shaved except his upper lip. Presently a man +came out of the mews in a Scotch cap and a full beard. + +What had become of him Mr. Redmain did not care. He had no desire +to punish him. It was enough he had found him out, proved his +suspicion correct, and obtained evidence against Sepia. He did +not at once make up his mind how he would act on this last; while +he lived, it did not matter so much; and he had besides a certain +pleasure in watching his victim. But Hesper, free, rich, and +beautiful, and far from wise, with Sepia for counselor, was not +an idea to be contemplated with equanimity. Still he shrank from +the outcry and scandal of sending her away; for certainly his +wife, if it were but to oppose him, would refuse to believe a +word against her cousin. + +For the present, therefore, the thing seemed to blow over. Mr. +Redmain, who had pleasure in behaving handsomely so far as money +was concerned, bought his wife the best sapphire he could find, +and, for once, really pleased her. + +But Sepia knew that Mr. Redmain had now to himself justified his +dislike of her; and, as he said nothing, she was the more certain +he meant something. She lived, therefore, in constant dread of +his sudden vengeance, against which she could take no precaution, +for she had not even a conjecture as to what form it might +assume. From that hour she was never at peace in his presence, +and hardly out of it; from every possible _tete-a-tete_ with +him she fled as from a judgment. + +Nor was it a small addition to her misery that she imagined Mary +cognizant of Mr. Redmain's opinion and intention with regard to +her, and holding the worst possible opinion of her. For, whatever +had passed first between the Count and Mr. Redmain, she did not +doubt Mary had heard, and was prepared to bring against her when +the determined moment should arrive. How much the Count might or +might not have said, she could not tell; but, seeing their common +enemy had permitted him to escape, she more than dreaded he had +sold her secret for his own impunity, and had laid upon her a +burden of lies as well. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + +REPARATION. + + +With all Mr. Redmain's faults, there was a certain love of +justice in the man; only, as is the case with most of us, it had +ten times the reference to the action of other people that it had +to his own: I mean, he made far greater demand for justice upon +other people than upon himself; and was much more indignant at +any shortcoming of theirs which crossed any desire or purpose of +his than ho was anxious in his own person to fulfill justice when +that fulfillment in its turn would cross any wish he cherished. +Badly as he had himself behaved to Mary, he was now furious with +his wife for having treated her so heartlessly that she could not +return to her service; for he began to think she might be one to +depend upon, and to desire her alliance in the matter of ousting +Sepia from the confidence of his wife. + +However indifferent a woman may be to the opinion of her husband, +he can nevertheless in general manage to make her uncomfortable +enough if he chooses; and Mr. Redmain did choose now, in the +event of her opposition to his wishes: when he set himself to do +a thing, he hated defeat even more than he loved success. + +The moment Mary was out of the study, he walked into his wife's +boudoir, and shut the door behind him. His presence there was +enough to make her angry, but she took no notice of it. + +"I understand, Mrs. Redmain," he began, "that you wish to bring +the fate of Sodom upon the house." + +"I do not know what you mean," she answered, scarcely raising her +eyes from her novel--and spoke the truth, for she knew next to +nothing of the Bible, while the Old Testament was all the +literature Mr. Redmain was "up in." + +"You have turned out of it the only just person in it, and we +shall all be in hell soon!" + +"How dare you come to my room with such horrid language!" + +"You'll hear worse before long, if you keep on at this rate. My +language is not so bad as your actions. If you don't have that +girl back, and in double-quick time, too, I shall know how to +make you!" + +"You have taught me to believe you capable of anything." + +"You shall at least find me capable of a good deal. Do you +imagine, madam, I have found you a hair worse than I expected?" + +"I never took the trouble to imagine anything about you." + +"Then I need not ask you whether I married you to please you or +to please myself?" + +"You need not. You can best answer that question yourself." + +"Then we understand each other." + +"We do not, Mr. Redmain; and, if this occurs again, I shall go to +Durnmelling." + +She spoke with a vague idea that he also stood in some awe of the +father and mother whose dread, however well she hid it, she would +never, while she lived, succeed in shaking off. But to the +husband it was a rare delight to speak with conscious rectitude +in the moral chastisement of his wife. He burst into a loud and +almost merry laugh. + +"Happy they will be to see you there, madam! Why, you goose, if I +send a telegram before you, they won't so much as open the door +to you! They know better which side their bread is buttered." + +Hesper started up in a rage. This was too much--and the more too +much, that she believed it would be as he said. + +"Mr. Redmain, if you do not leave the room, I will." + +"Oh, don't!" he cried, in a tone of pretended alarm. His pleasure +was great, for he had succeeded in stinging the impenetrable. +"You really ought to consider before you utter such an awful +threat! I will go myself a thousand times rather!--But will you +not feel the want of pocket-money when you come to pay a rough +cabman? The check I gave you yesterday will not last you long." + +"The money is my own, Mr. Redmain." + +"But you have not yet opened a banking-account in your own name." + +"I suppose you have a meaning, Mr. Redmain; but I am not in the +habit of using cabs." + +"Then you had better get into the habit; for I swear to you, +madam, if you don't fetch that girl home within the week, I will, +next Monday, discharge your coachman, and send every horse in the +stable to Tattersall's! Good morning." + +She had no doubt he would do as he said; she knew Mr. Redmain +would just enjoy selling her horses. But she could not at once +give in. I say "_could_ not," because hers was the weak will +that can hardly bring itself to do what it knows it must, and is +continually mistaken for the strong will that defies and endures. +She had a week to think about it, and she would see! + +During the interval, he took care not once to refer to his +threat, for that would but weaken the impression of it, he knew. + +On the Sunday, after service, she knocked at his door, and, being +admitted, bade him good morning, but with no very gracious air-- +as, indeed, he would have been the last to expect. + +"We have had a sermon on the forgiveness of injuries, Mr. +Redmain," she said. + +"By Jove!" interrupted her husband, "it would have been more to +the purpose if I, or poor Mary Marston, had had it; for I swear +you put our souls in peril!" + +"The ring was no common one, Mr. Redmain; and the young woman +had, by leaving the house, placed herself in a false position: +every one suspected her as much as I did. Besides, she lost her +temper, and talked about forgiving _me_, when I was in +despair about my ring!" + +"And what, pray, was your foolish ring compared to the girl's +character?" + +"A foolish ring, indeed!--Yes, it was foolish to let you ever +have the right to give it me! But, as to her character, that of +persons in her position is in constant peril. They have to lay +their account with that, and must get used to it. How was I to +know? We can not read each other's hearts." + +"Not where there is no heart in the reader." + +Hesper's face flushed, but she did her best not to lose her +temper. Not that it would have been any great loss if she had, +for there is as much difference in the values of tempers as in +those who lose them. She said nothing, and her husband resumed: + +"So you came to forgive me?" he said. + +"And Marston," she answered. + +"Well, I will accept the condescension--that is, if the terms of +it are to my mind." + +"I will make no terms. Marston may return when she pleases." + +"You must write and ask her." + +"Of course, Mr. Redmain. It would hardly be suitable that +_you_ should ask her." + +"You must write so as to make it possible to accept your offer." + +"I am not deceitful, Mr. Redmain." + +"You are not. A man must be fair, even to his wife." + +"I will show you the letter I write." + +"If you please." + +She had to show him half a score ere he was satisfied, declaring +he would do it himself, if she could not make a better job of it. + +At length one was dispatched, received, and answered: Mary would +not return. She had lost all hope of being of any true service to +Mrs. Redmain, and she knew that, with Tom and Letty, she was +really of use for the present. Mrs. Redmain carried the letter, +with ill-concealed triumph, to her husband; nor did he conceal +his annoyance. + +"You must have behaved to her very cruelly," he said. "But you +have done your best now--short of a Christian apology, which it +would be folly to demand of you. I fear we have seen the last of +her."--"And there was I," he said to himself, "for the first time +in my life, actually beginning to fancy I had perhaps thrown salt +upon the tail of that rare bird, an honest woman! The devil has +had quite as much to do with my history as with my character! +Perhaps that will be taken into the account one day." + +But Mary lay awake at night, and thought of many things she might +have said and done better when she was with Hesper, and would +gladly have given herself another chance; but she could no longer +flatter herself she would ever be of any real good to her. She +believed there was more hope of Mr. Redmain even. For had she not +once, for one brief moment, seen him look a trifle ashamed of +himself? while Hesper was and remained, so far as she could +judge, altogether satisfied with herself. Equal to her own +demands upon herself, there was nothing in her to begin with--no +soil to work upon. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. + +ANOTHER CHANGE. + + +For some time Tom made progress toward health, and was able to +read a good part of the day. Most evenings he asked Joseph to +play to him for a while; he was fond of music, and fonder still +of criticism--upon anything. When he had done with Joseph, or +when he did not want him, Mary was always ready to give the +latter a lesson; and, had he been a less gifted man than he was, +he could not have failed to make progress with such a teacher. + +The large-hearted, delicate-souled woman felt nothing strange in +the presence of the workingman, but, on the contrary, was +comfortably aware of a being like her own, less privileged but +more gifted, whose nearness was strength. And no teacher, not to +say no woman, could have failed to be pleased at the thorough +painstaking with which he followed the slightest of her hints, +and the delight his flushed face would reveal when she praised +the success he had achieved. + +It was not long before he began to write some of the things that +came into his mind. For the period of quiescence as to +production, which followed the initiation of more orderly study, +was, after all, but of short duration, and the return tide of +musical utterance was stronger than ever. Mary's delight was +great when first he brought her one of his compositions very +fairly written out--after which others followed with a rapidity +that astonished her. They enabled her also to understand the man +better and better; for to have a thing to brood over which we are +capable of understanding must be more to us than even the +master's playing of it. She could not be sure this or that was +correct, according to the sweet inexorability of musical +ordainment, but the more she pondered them, the more she felt +that the man was original, that the material was there, and the +law at hand, that he brought his music from the only bottomless +well of utterance, the truth, namely, by which alone the soul +most glorious in gladness, or any other the stupidest of souls, +can live. + +To the first he brought her she contrived to put a poor little +faulty accompaniment; and when she played his air to him so +accompanied, his delight was touching, and not a little amusing. +Plainly he thought the accompaniment a triumph of human faculty, +and beyond anything he could ever develop. Never pupil was more +humble, never pupil more obedient; thinking nothing of himself or +of anything he had done or could do, his path was open to the +swiftest and highest growth. It matters little where a man may be +at this moment; the point is whether he is growing. The next +point will be, whether he is growing at the ratio given him. The +key to the whole thing is _obedience_, and nothing else. + +What the gift of such an instructor was to Joseph, my reader may +be requested to imagine. He was like a man seated on the grass +outside the heavenly gate, from which, slow-opening every evening +as the sun went down, came an angel to teach, and teach, until he +too should be fit to enter in: an hour would arrive when she +would no longer have to come out to him where he sat. Under such +an influence all that was gentlest and sweetest in his nature +might well develop with rapidity, and every accidental roughness +--and in him there was no other--by swift degrees vanish from both +speech and manners. The angels do not want tailors to make their +clothes: their habits come out of themselves. But we are often +too hard upon our fellows; for many of those in the higher ranks +of life--no, no, I mean of society--whose insolence wakens ours, +as growl wakes growl in the forest, are not yet so far removed +from the savage--I mean in their personal history--as some in the +lowest ranks. When a nobleman mistakes the love of right in +another for a hatred of refinement, he can not be far from +mistaking insolence for good manners. Of such a nobility, good +Lord, deliver us from all envy! + +As to falling in love with a lady like Mary, such a thing was as +far from Jasper's consciousness as if she had been a duchess. She +belonged to another world from his, a world which his world +worshiped, waiting. He might miss her even to death; her absence +might, for him, darken the universe as if the sun had withdrawn +his brightness; but who thinks of falling in love with the sun, +or dreams of climbing nearer to his radiance? + +The day will one day come--or what of the long-promised kingdom +of heaven?--when a woman, instead of spending anxious thought on +the adornment of her own outward person, will seek with might the +adornment of the inward soul of another, and will make that her +crown of rejoicing. Nay, are there none such even now? The day +will come when a man, rather than build a great house for the +overflow of a mighty hospitality, will give himself, in the +personal labor of outgoing love, to build spiritual houses like +St. Paul--a higher art than any of man's invention. O my brother, +what were it not for thee to have a hand in making thy brother +beautiful! + +Be not indignant, my reader: not for a moment did I imagine thee +capable of such a mean calling! It is left to a certain school of +weak enthusiasts, who believe that such growth, such +embellishment, such creation, is all God cares about; these +enthusiasts can not indeed see, so blind have they become with +their fixed idea, how God could care for anything else. They +actually believe that the very Son of the life-making God lived +and died for that, and for nothing else. That such men and women +are fools, is and has been so widely believed, that, to men of +the stamp of my indignant reader, it has become a fact! But the +end alone will reveal the beginning. Such a fool was Prometheus, +with the vulture at his heart--but greater than Jupiter with his +gods around him. + +There soon came a change, however, and the lessons ceased +altogether. + +Tom had come down to his old quarters, and, in the arrogance of +convalescence, had presumed on his imagined strength, and so +caught cold. An alarming relapse was the consequence, and there +was no more playing; for now his condition began to draw to a +change, of which, for some time, none of them had even thought, +the patient had seemed so certainly recovering. The cold settled +on his lungs, and he sank rapidly. + +Joseph, whose violin was useless now, was not the less in +attendance. Every evening, when his work was over, he came +knocking gently at the door of the parlor, and never left until +Tom was settled for the night. The most silently helpful, +undemonstrative being he was, that doctor could desire to wait +upon patient. When it was his turn to watch, he never closed an +eye, but at daybreak--for it was now spring--would rouse Mary, +and go off straight to his work, nor taste food until the hour +for the mid-day meal arrived. + +Tom speedily became aware that his days were numbered--phrase of +unbelief, for are they not numbered from the beginning? Are our +hairs numbered, and our days forgotten--till death gives a hint +to the doctor? He was sorry for his past life, and thoroughly +ashamed of much of it, saying in all honesty he would rather die +than fall for one solitary week into the old ways--not that he +wished to die, for, with the confidence of youth, he did not +believe he could fall into the old ways again. For my part, I +think he was taken away to have a little more of that care and +nursing which neither his mother nor his wife had been woman +enough to give the great baby. After all, he had not been one of +the worst of babies. + +Is it strange that one so used to bad company and bad ways should +have so altered, in so short a time, and without any great +struggle? The assurance of death at the door, and a wholesome +shame of things that are past, may, I think, lead up to such a +swift change, even in a much worse man than Tom. For there is the +Life itself, all-surrounding, and ever pressing in upon the human +soul, wherever that soul will afford a chink of entrance; and Tom +had not yet sealed up all his doors. + +When he lay there dead--for what excuse could we have for foolish +lamentation, if we did not speak of the loved as _lying +dead?_--Letty had him already enshrined in her heart as the +best of husbands--as her own Tom, who had never said a hard word +to her--as the cleverest as well as kindest of men who had +written poetry that would never die while the English language +was spoken. Nor did "The Firefly" spare its dole of homage to the +memory of one of its gayest writers. Indeed, all about its office +had loved him, each after his faculty. Even the boy cried when he +heard he was gone, for to him too he had always given a kind +word, coming and going. A certain little runnel of verse flowed +no more through the pages of "The Firefly," and in a month there +was not the shadow of Tom upon his age. But the print of him was +deep in the heart of Letty, and not shallow in the affection of +Mary; nor were such as these, insignificant records for any one +to leave behind him, as records go. Happy was he to have left +behind him any love, especially such a love as Letty bore him! +For what is the loudest praise of posterity to the quietest love +of one's own generation? For his mother, her memory was mostly in +her temper. She had never understood her wayward child, just +because she had given him her waywardness, and not parted with it +herself, so that between them the two made havoc of love. But she +who gives her child all he desires, in the hope of thus binding +his love to herself, no less than she who thwarts him in +everything, may rest assured of the neglect she has richly +earned. When she heard of his death, she howled and cursed her +fate, and the woman, meaning poor Letty, who had parted her and +her Tom, swearing she would never set eyes upon her, never let +her touch a farthing of Tom's money. She would not hear of paying +his debts until Mary told her she then would, upon which the fear +of public disapprobation wrought for right if not righteousness. + +But what was Mary to do now with Letty? She was little more than +a baby yet, not silly from youth, but young from silliness. +Children must learn to walk, but not by being turned out alone in +Cheapside. + +She was relieved from some perplexity for the present, however, +by the arrival of a letter from Mrs. Wardour to Letty, written in +a tone of stiffly condescendent compassion--not so unpleasant to +Letty as to her friend, because from childhood she had been used +to the nature that produced it, and had her mind full of a vast, +undefined notion of the superiority of the writer. It may be a +question whether those who fill our inexperienced minds with +false notions of their greatness, do us thereby more harm or +good; certainly when one comes to understand with what an +arrogance and self-assertion they have done so, putting into us +as reverence that which in them is conceit, one is ready to be +scornful more than enough; but, rather than have a child question +such claims, I would have him respect the meanest soul that ever +demanded respect; the first shall be last in good time, and the +power of revering come forth uninjured; whereas a child judging +his elders has already withered the blossom of his being. + +But Mrs. Wardour's letter was kind-perhaps a little repentant; it +is hard to say, for ten persons will repent of a sin for one who +will confess it--I do not mean to the priest--that may be an easy +matter, but to the only one who has a claim to the confession, +namely, the person wronged. Yet such confession is in truth far +more needful to the wronger than to the wronged; it is a small +thing to be wronged, but a horrible thing to wrong. + +The letter contained a poverty-stricken expression of sympathy, +and an invitation to spend the summer months with them at her old +home. It might, the letter said, prove but a dull place to her +after the gayety to which she had of late been accustomed, but it +might not the less suit her present sad situation, and possibly +uncertain prospects. + +Letty's heart felt one little throb of gladness at the thought of +being again at Thornwick, and in peace. With all the probable +unpleasant accompaniments of the visit, nowhere else, she +thought, could she feel the same sense of shelter as where her +childhood had passed. Mary also was pleased; for, although Letty +might not be comfortable, the visit would end, and by that time +she might know what could be devised best for her comfort and +well-being. + +-------------- + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. + +DISSOLUTION. + + +It was now Mary's turn to feel that she was, for the first time +in her life, about to be cut adrift--adrift, that is, as a world +is adrift, on the surest of paths, though without eyes to see. +For ten days or so, she could form no idea of what she was likely +or would like to do next. But, when we are in such perplexity, +may not the fact be accepted as showing that decision is not +required of us--perhaps just because our way is at the moment +being made straight for us? + +Joseph called once or twice, but, for Letty's sake, they had no +music. As they met so seldom now, Mary, anxious to serve him as +she could, offered him the loan of some of her favorite books. He +accepted it with a gladness that surprised her, for she did not +know how much he had of late been reading. + +One day she received an unexpected visit--from Mr. Brett, her +lawyer. He had been searching into the affairs of the shop, and +had discovered enough to make him uneasy, and indeed fill him +with self-reproach that he had not done so with more thoroughness +immediately on her father's death. He had come to tell her all he +knew, and talk the matter over with her, that they might agree +what proceedings should be taken. + +I will not weary myself or my readers with business detail, for +which kind of thing I have no great aptitude, and a good deal of +incapacitating ignorance; but content myself with the briefest +statement of the condition in which Mr. Brett found the affairs +of Mr. Turnbull. + +He had been speculating in several companies, making haste to be +rich, and had periled and lost what he had saved of the profits +of the business, and all of Mary's as well that had not been +elsewhere secured. He had even trenched on the original capital +of the firm, by postponing the payment of moneys due, and +allowing the stock to run down and to deteriorate, and things out +of fashion to accumulate, so that the business had perceptibly +fallen off. But what displeased Mary more than anything was, that +he had used money of her father's to speculate with in more than +one public-house; and she knew that, if in her father's lifetime +he had so used even his own, it would have been enough to make +him insist on dissolving partnership. + +It was impossible to allow her money to remain any longer in the +power of such a man, and she gave authority to Mr. Brett to make +the necessary arrangements for putting an end to business +relations between them. + +It was a somewhat complicated, therefore tedious business; and +things looked worse the further they were searched into. Unable +to varnish the facts to the experience of a professional eye, Mr. +Turnbull wrote Mary a letter almost cringing in its tone, begging +her to remember the years her father and he had been as brothers; +how she had grown up in the shop, and had been to him, until +misunderstandings arose, into the causes of which he could not +now enter, in the place of a daughter; and insisting that her +withdrawal from it had had no small share in the ruin of the +business. For these considerations, and, more than all, for the +memory of her father, he entreated her to leave things as they +were, to trust him to see after the interests of the daughter of +his old friend, and not insist upon measures which must end in a +forced sale, in the shutting up of the shop of Turnbull and +Marston, and the disgracing of her father's name along with his. + +Mary replied that she was acting by the advice of her father's +lawyer, and with the regard she owed her father's memory, in +severing all connection with a man in whom she no longer had +confidence; and insisted that the business must be wound up as +soon as possible. + +She instructed Mr. Brett, at the same time, that, if it could be +managed, she would prefer getting the shop, even at considerable +loss, into her own hands, with what stock might be in it, when +she would attempt to conduct the business on principles her +father would have approved, whereby she did not doubt of soon +restoring it to repute. While she had no intention, she said, of +selling so _well_ as Mr. Turnbull would fain have done, she +believed she would soon be able to buy to just as good advantage +as he. It would be necessary, however, to keep her desire a +secret, else Mr. Turnbull would be certain to frustrate it. + +Mr. Brett approved of her plan, for he knew she was much +respected, and had many friends. Mr. Turnbull would be glad, he +said, to give up the whole to escape prosecution--that at least +was how Mary interpreted his somewhat technical statement of +affairs between them. + +The swindler wrote again, begging for an interview--which she +declined, except in the presence of her lawyer. + +She made up her mind that she would not go near Testbridge till +everything was settled, and the keys of the shop in Mr. Brett's +hands; and remained, therefore, where she was--with Letty, who to +keep her company delayed her departure as long as she could +without giving offense at Thornwick. + +A few days before Letty was at last compelled to leave, Jasper +called, and heard about as much as they knew themselves of their +plans. When Mary said to him she would miss her pupil, he smiled +in a sort of abstracted way, as if not quite apprehending what +she said, which seemed to Mary a little odd, his manners in +essentials being those of a gentleman, as judged by one a little +more than a lady; for there is an unnamed degree higher than the +ordinary _lady_. So Mary was left alone--more alone than she +had ever been in her life. But she did not feel lonely, for the +best of reasons--that she never fancied herself alone, but knew +that she was not. Also she had books at her command, being one of +the few who can read; and there were picture-galleries to go to, +and music-lessons to be had. Of these last she crowded in as many +as her master could be persuaded to give her--for it would be +long, she knew, before she was able to have such again. + +Joseph Jasper never came near her. She could not imagine why, and +was disappointed and puzzled. To know that Ann Byrom was in the +house was not a great comfort to her--she regarded so much that +Mary loved as of earth and not of heaven. God's world even she +despised, because men called it nature, and spoke of its +influences. But Mary did go up to see her now and then. Very +different she seemed from the time when first they were at work +together over Hesper's twilight dress! Ever since Mary had made +the acquaintance of her brother, she seemed to have changed +toward her. Perhaps she was jealous; perhaps she believed Mary +was confirming him in his bad ways. Just where they were all +three of one mind--just _there_ her rudimentary therefore +self-sufficient religion shut them out from her sympathy and +fellowship. + +Alone, and with her time at her command, Mary was more inclined +than she had ever been, except for her father's company, to go to +church. The second Sunday after Letty left her, she went to the +one nearest, and in the congregation thought she saw Joseph. A +week before, she would have waited for him as he came out, but, +now that he seemed to avoid her, she would not, and went home +neither comforted by the sermon nor comfortable with herself. For +the parson, instead of recognizing, through all defects of the +actual, the pattern after which God had made man, would fain have +him remade after the pattern of the middle-age monk--a being far +superior, no doubt, to the most of his contemporaries, but as far +from the beauty of the perfect man as the mule is from that of +the horse; and she was annoyed with herself that she was annoyed +with Joseph. It was the middle of summer before the affairs of +the firm were wound up, and the shop in the hands of the London +man whom Mr. Brett had employed in the purchase. + +Lawyer as he was, however, Mr. Brett had not been sharp enough +for Turnbull. The very next day, a shop in the same street, that +had been to let for some time, displayed above its now open door +the sign, _John Turnbull, late_--then a very small of-- +_Turnbull and Marston;_ whereupon Mr. Brett saw the +oversight of which he had been guilty. There was nothing in the +shop when it was opened, but that Turnbull utilized for +advertisement: he had so arranged, that within an hour the goods +began to arrive, and kept arriving, by every train, for days and +days after, while all the time he made public show of himself, +fussing about, the most triumphant man in the town. It made +people talk, and if not always as he would have liked to hear +them talk, yet it was talk, and, in the matter of advertisement, +that is the main thing. + +When it was told Mary, it gave her not the smallest uneasiness. +She only saw what had several times seemed on the point of +arriving in her father's lifetime. She would not have moved a +finger to prevent it. Let the two principles meet, with what +result God pleased! + +Whether he had suspected her design, and had determined to +challenge her before the public, I can not tell; but his wife's +aversion to shopkeeping was so great, that one who knew what sort +of scene passed because of it between them, would have expected +that, but for some very strong reason, he would have been glad +enough to retire from that mode of gaining a livelihood. As it +was, things appeared to go on with them just as before. They +still inhabited the villa, the wife scornful of her surroundings, +and the husband driving a good horse to his shop every morning. +How he managed it all, nobody knew but himself, and whether he +succeeded or not was a matter of small interest to any except his +own family and his creditors. He was a man nowise beloved, +although there was something about him that carried simple people +with him--for his ends, not theirs. To those who alluded to the +change, he represented it as entirely his own doing, to be rid of +the interference of Miss Marston in matters of which she knew +nothing. He knew well that a confident lie has all the look of +truth, and, while fact and falsehood were disputing together in +men's mouths, he would be selling his drapery. The country people +were flattered by the confidence he seemed to put in them by this +explanation, and those who liked him before sought the new shop +as they had frequented the old one. + +Unlike most men, not to say lawyers, Mr. Brett was fully +recognizant to Mary of his oversight, and was not a little +relieved to be assured she would not have had the thing +otherwise: she would gladly meet Mr. Turnbull in a fair field-- +not that she would in the least acknowledge or think of him as a +rival; she would simply carry out her own ideas of right, without +regard to him or any measures he might take; the result should be +as God willed. Mr. Brett shook his head: he knew her father of +old, and saw the daughter prepared to go beyond the father. +Theirs were principles that did not come within the range of his +practice! He said to himself and his wife that the world could +not go on for a twelvemonth if such ways were to become +universal: whether by the world he meant his own profession, I +will not inquire. Certainly he did not make the reflection that +the new ways are intended to throw out the old ways; and the +worst argument against any way is that the world can not go on +so; for that is just what is wanted--that the world should not go +on so. Mr. Brett nevertheless admired not only Mary's pluck, but +the business faculty which every moment she manifested: there is +a holy way of doing business, and, little as business men may +think it, that is the standard by which they must be tried; for +their judge in business affairs is not their own trade or +profession, but the man who came to convince the world concerning +right and wrong and the choice between them; or, in the older +speech-to reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of +judgment. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. + +THORNWICK. + + +It was almost with bewilderment that Mrs. Helmer revisited +Thornwick. The near past seemed to have vanished like a dream +that leaves a sorrow behind it, and the far past to take its +place. She had never been accustomed to reflect on her own +feelings; things came, were welcome or unwelcome, proved better +or worse than she had anticipated, passed away, and were mostly +forgotten. With plenty of faculty, Letty had not yet emerged from +the chrysalid condition; she lived much as one in a dream, with +whose dream mingle sounds and glimmers from the waking world. +Very few of us are awake, very few even alive in true, availing +sense. "Pooh! what stuff!" says the sleeper, and will say it +until the waking begins to come. + +On the threshold of her old home, then, Letty found her old self +awaiting her; she crossed it, and was once more just Letty, a +Letty wrapped in the garments of sorrow, and with a heaviness at +the heart, but far from such a miserable Letty as during the last +of her former life there. Little joy had been hers since the +terrible night when she fled from its closed doors; and now that +she returned, she could take up everything where she had left it, +except the gladness. But peace is better than gladness, and she +was on the way to find that. + +Mrs. Wardour, who, for all her severity, was not without a good- +sized heart, and whoso conscience had spoken to her in regard of +Letty far oftener than any torture would have made her allow, was +touched with compassion at sight of her worn and sad look; and, +granting to herself that the poor thing had been punished enough, +even for her want of respect to the house of Thornwick, broke +down a little, though with well-preserved dignity, and took the +wandering ewe-lamb to her bosom. Letty, loving and forgiving +always, nestled in it for a moment, and in her own room quietly +wept a long time. When she came out, Mrs. Wardour pleased herself +with the fancy that her eyes were red with the tears of +repentance; but Letty never dreamed of repenting, for that would +have been to deny Tom, to cut off her married life, throw it from +her, and never more see Tom. + +By degrees, rapid yet easy, she slid into all her old ways; took +again the charge of the dairy as if she had never left it; +attended to the linen; darned the stockings; and in everything +but her pale, thin face, and heavy, exhausted heart, was the +young Letty again. She even went to the harness-room to look to +Cousin Godfrey's stirrups and bits; but finding, morning after +morning for a whole week, that they had not once been neglected, +dismissed the care-not without satisfaction. + +Mrs. Wardour continued kind to her; but every now and then would +allow a tone as of remembered naughtiness to be sub-audible in +speech or request. Letty, even in her own heart, never resented +it. She had been so used to it in the old days, that it seemed +only natural. And then her aunt considered her health in the +kindest way. Now that Letty had known some of the troubles of +marriage, she felt more sympathy with her, did not look down upon +her from quite such a height, and to Letty this was strangely +delightful. Oh, what a dry, hard, cold world this would grow to, +but for the blessing of its many sicknesses! + +When Godfrey saw her moving about the house as in former days, +but changed, like one of the ghosts of his saddest dreams, a new +love began to rise out of the buried seed of the old. In vain he +reasoned with himself, in vain ho resisted. The image of Letty, +with its trusting eyes fixed on him so "solemn sad," and its +watching looks full of ministration, haunted him, and was too +much for him. She was never the sort of woman he could have +fancied himself falling in love with; he did in fact say to +himself that she was only _almost_ a lady-but at the word +his heart rebuked him for a traitor to love and its holy laws. +Neither in person was she at all his ideal. A woman like Hesper, +uplifted and strong, broad-fronted and fearless, large-limbed, +and full of latent life, was more of the ideal he could have +written poetry about. But we are deeper than we know. Who is +capable of knowing his own ideal? The ideal of a man's self is +hid in the bosom of God, and may lie ages away from his +knowledge; and his ideal of woman is the ideal belonging to this +unknown self: the ideal only can bring forth an ideal. He can +not, therefore, know his own ideal of woman; it is, nevertheless +--so I presume--this his own unknown ideal that makes a man choose +against his choice. Gladly would Godfrey now have taken Letty to +his arms. It was no longer anything that from boyhood he had +vowed rather to die unmarried, and let the land go to a stranger, +than marry a widow. He had to recall every restraining fact of +his and her position to prevent him from now precipitating that +which he had before too long delayed. But the gulf of the grave +and the jealousy of a mother were between them; for, if he were +again to rouse her suspicions, she would certainly get rid of +Letty, as she had before intended, so depriving her of a home, +and him of opportunity. He kept, therefore, out of Letty's way as +much as he could, went more about the farm, and took long rides. + +Nothing was further from Letty than any merest suspicion of the +sort of regard Godfrey cherished for her. There was in her +nothing of the self-sentimental. Her poet was gone from her, but +she did not therefore take to poetry; nay, what poetry she had +learned to like was no longer anything to her, now her singing +bird had flown to the land of song. To her, Tom was the greatest, +the one poet of the age; he had been hers--was hers still, for +did ho not die telling her that he would go on watching till she +came to him? He had loved her, she knew; he had learned to love +her better before he died. She must be patient; the day would +come when she should be a Psyche, as he had told her, and soar +aloft in search of her mate. The sense of wifehood had grown one +with her consciousness. It mingled with all her prayers, both in +chamber and in church. As she went about the house, she was +dreaming of her Tom--an angel in heaven, she said to herself, but +none the less her husband, and waiting for her. If she did not +read poetry, she read her New Testament; and if she understood it +only in a childish fashion, she obeyed it in a child-like one, +whence the way of all wisdom lay open before her. It is not where +one is, but in what direction he is going. Before her, too, was +her little boy--borne in his father's arms, she pictured him, and +hearing from him of the mother who was coming to them by and by, +when God had made her good enough to rejoin them! + +But, while she continued thus simple, Godfrey could not fail to +see how much more of a woman she had grown: he was not yet +capable of seeing that she would--could never hare got so far +with him, even if he had married her. + +Love and marriage are of the Father's most powerful means for the +making of his foolish little ones into sons and daughters. But so +unlike in many cases are the immediate consequences to those +desired and expected, that it is hard for not a few to believe +that he is anywhere looking after their fate--caring about them +at all. And the doubt would be a reasonable one, if the end of +things was marriage. But the end is life--that we become the +children of God; after which, all things can and will go their +grand, natural course; the heart of the Father will be content +for his children, and the hearts of the children will be content +in their Father. + +Godfrey indulged one great and serious mistake in reference to +Letty, namely, that, having learned the character of Tom through +the saddest of personal experience, she must have come to think +of him as he did, and must have dismissed from her heart every +remnant of love for him. Of course, he would not hint at such a +thing, he said to himself, nor would she for a moment allow it, +but nothing else could be the state of her mind! He did not know +that in a woman's love there is more of the specially divine +element than in a man's--namely, the original, the unmediated. +The first of God's love is not founded upon any merit, rests only +on being and need, and the worth that is yet unborn. + +The Redmains were again at Durnmelling--had been for some weeks; +and Sepia had taken care that she and Godfrey should meet--on the +footpath to Testbridge, in the field accessible by the breach in +the ha-ha--here and there and anywhere suitable for a little +detention and talk that should seem accidental, and be out of +sight. Nor was Godfrey the man to be insensible to the influence +of such a woman, brought to bear at close quarters. A man less +vulnerable--I hate the word, but it is the right one with Sepia +concerned, for she was, in truth, an enemy--might perhaps have +yielded room to the suspicion that these meetings were not all so +accidental as they appeared, and as Sepia treated them; but no +glimmer of such a thought passed through the mind of Godfrey. He +knew nothing of all that my readers know to Sepia's disadvantage, +and her eyes were enough to subdue most men from the first--for a +time at least. Had it not been for the return of Letty, she would +by this time have had him her slave: nothing but slavery could it +ever be to love a woman like her, who gave no love in return, +only exercised power. But although he was always glad to meet +her, and his heart had begun to beat a little faster at sight of +her approach, the glamour of her presence was nearly destroyed by +the arrival of Letty; and Sepia was more than sharp enough to +perceive a difference in the expression of his eyes the next time +she met him. At the very first glance she suspected some hostile +influence at work--intentionally hostile, for persons with a +consciousness like Sepia's are always imagining enemies. And as +the two worst enemies she could have were the truth and a woman, +she was alternately jealous and terrified: the truth and a woman +together, she had not yet begun to fear; that would, indeed, be +too much! + +She soon found there was a young woman at Thornwick, who had but +just arrived; and ere long she learned who she was--one, indeed, +who had already a shadowy existence in her life--was it possible +the shadow should be now taking solidity, and threatening to foil +her? Not once did it occur to her that, were it so, there would +be retribution in it. She had heard of Tom's death through "The +Firefly," which had a kind, extravagant article about him, but +she had not once thought of his widow--and there she was, a hedge +across the path she wanted to go! If the house of Durnmelling had +but been one story higher, that she might see all round +Thornwick! + +For some time now, as I have already more than hinted, Sepia had +been fashioning a man to her thrall--Mewks, namely, the body- +servant of Mr. Redmain. It was a very gradual process she had +adopted, and it had been the more successful. It had got so far +with him that whatever Sepia showed the least wish to understand, +Mewks would take endless trouble to learn for her. The rest of +the servants, both at Durnmelling and in London, were none of +them very friendly with her--least of all Jemima, who was now +with her mistress as lady's-maid, the accomplished attendant whom +Hesper had procured in place of Mary being away for a holiday. + +The more Sepia realized, or thought she realized, the position +she was in, the more desirous was she to get out of it, and the +only feasible and safe way, in her eyes, was marriage: there was +nothing between that and a return to what she counted slavery. +Rather than lift again such a hideous load of irksomeness, she +would find her way out of a world in which it was not possible, +she said, to be both good and comfortable: she had, in truth, +tried only the latter. But if she could, she thought, secure for +a husband this gentleman-yeoman, she might hold up her head with +the best. Even if Galofta should reappear, she would know then +how to meet him: with a friend or two, such as she had never had +yet, she could do what she pleased! It was hard work to get on +quite alone--or with people who cared only for themselves! She +must have some love on her side! some one who cared for +_her_! + +From all she could learn, there was nothing that amounted even to +ordinary friendship between Mr. Wardour and the young widow. She +was in the family but as a distant poor relation--"Much as I am +myself!" thought Sepia, with a bitter laugh that even in her own +eyes she should be comparable to a poor creature like Letty. The +fact, however, remained that Godfrey was a little altered toward +her: she must have been telling him something against her-- +something she had heard from that detestable little hypocrite who +was turned away on suspicion of theft! Yes--that was how Sepia +talked _to herself_ about Mary. + +One morning, Letty, finding she had an hour's leisure, for her +aunt did not pursue her as of old time, wandered out to the oak +on the edge of the ha-ha, so memorable with the shadowy presence +of her Tom. She had not been seated under it many minutes before +Godfrey caught sight of her from his horse's back: knowing his +mother was gone to Testbridge, he yielded to an urgent longing, +took his horse to the stable, and crossed the grass to where she +sat. + +Letty was thinking of Tom--what else was there of her own to do?- +-thinking like a child, looking up into the cloud-flecked sky, +and thinking Tom was somewhere there, though she could not see +him: she must be good and patient, that she might go up to him, +as he could not come down to her--if he could, he would have come +long ago! All the enchantment of the first days of her love had +come back upon the young widow; all the ill that had crept in +between had failed from out her memory, as the false notes in +music melt in the air that carries the true ones across ravine +and river, meadow and grove, to the listening ear. Letty lived in +a dream of her husband--in heaven, "yet not from her"--such a +dream of bliss and hope as in itself went far to make up for all +her sorrows. + +She was sitting with her back toward the tree and her face to +Thornwick, and yet she did not see Godfrey till he was within a +few yards of her. She smiled, expecting his kind greeting, but +was startled to hear from behind her instead the voice of a lady +greeting him. She turned her head involuntarily: there was the +head of Sepia rising above the breach in the ha-ha, and Godfrey +had turned aside and run to give her his hand. + +Now Letty knew Sepia by sight, from the evening she had spent at +the old hall; more of her she knew nothing. From the mind of Tom, +in his illness, her baleful influence had vanished like an evil +dream, and Mary had not thought it necessary to let him know how +falsely, contemptuously, and contemptibly, she had behaved toward +him. Letty, therefore, had no feeling toward Sepia but one of +admiration for her grace and beauty, which she could appreciate +the more that they were so different from her own. + +"Thank you," said Sepia, holding fast by Godfrey's hand, and +coming up with a little pant. "What a lovely day it is for your +haymaking! How can you afford the time to play knight-errant to a +distressed damsel?" + +"The hay is nearly independent of my presence," replied Godfrey. +"Sun and wind have done their parts too well for my being of much +use." + +"Take me with you to see how they are getting on. I am as fond of +hay as Bottom in his translation." + +She had learned Godfrey's love of literature, and knew that one +quotation may stand for much knowledge. + +"I will, with pleasure," said Godfrey, perhaps a little consoled +in the midst of his disappointment; and they walked away, neither +taking notice of Letty. + +"I did not know," she said to herself, "that the two houses had +come together at last! What a handsome couple they make!" + +What passed between them is scarcely worthy of record. It is +enough to say that Sepia found her companion distrait, and he +felt her a little invasive. In a short while they came back +together, and Sepia saw Letty under the great bough of the +Durnmelling oak. Godfrey handed her down the rent, careful +himself not to invade Durnmelling with a single foot. She ran +home, and up to a certain window with her opera-glass. But the +branches and foliage of the huge oak would have concealed pairs +and pairs of lovers. + +Godfrey turned toward Letty. She had not stirred. + +"What a beautiful creature Miss Yolland is!" she said, looking up +with a smile of welcome, and a calmness that prevented the +slightest suspicion of a flattering jealousy. + +"I was coming to _you_," returned Godfrey. "I never saw her +till her head came up over the ha-ha.--Yes, she is beautiful--at +least, she has good eyes." + +"They are splendid! What a wife she would make for you, Cousin +Godfrey! I should like to see such a two." + +Letty was beyond the faintest suggestion of coquetry. Her words +drove a sting to the heart of Godfrey. He turned pale. But not a +word would he have spoken then, had not Letty in her innocence +gone on to torture him. She sprang from the ground. + +"Are you ill, Cousin Godfrey?" she cried in alarm, and with that +sweet tremor of the voice that shows the heart is near. "You are +quite white!--Oh, dear! I've said something I oughtn't to have +said! What can it be? Do forgive me, Cousin Godfrey." In her +childlike anxiety she would have thrown her arms round his neck, +but her hands only reached his shoulders. He drew back: such was +the nature of the man that every sting tasted of offense. But he +mastered himself, and in his turn, alarmed at the idea of having +possibly hurt her, caught her hands in his. As they stood +regarding each other with troubled eyes, the embankment of his +prudence gave way, and the stored passion broke out. + +"You don't _mean_ you would like to see me married, Letty?" +he groaned. + +"Yes, indeed, I do, Cousin Godfrey! You would make such a lovely +husband!" + +"Ah! I thought as much! I knew you never cared for me, Letty!" + +He dropped her hands, and turned half aside, like a figure warped +with fire. + +"I care for you more than anybody in the world--except, perhaps, +Mary," said Letty: truthfulness was a part of her. + +"And I care for you more than all the world!--more than very +being--it is worthless without you. O Letty! your eyes haunt me +night and day! I love you with my whole soul." + +"How kind of you, Cousin Godfrey!" faltered Letty, trembling, and +not knowing what she said. She was very frightened, but hardly +knew why, for the idea of Godfrey in love with her was all but +inconceivable. Nevertheless, its approach was terrible. Like a +fascinated bird she could not take her eyes off his face. Her +knees began to fail her; it was all she could do to stand. But +Godfrey was full of himself, and had not the most shadowy +suspicion of how she felt. He took her emotion for a favorable +sign, and stupidly went on: + +"Letty, I can't help it! I know I oughtn't to speak to you like +this--so soon, but I can't keep quiet any longer. I love you more +than the universe and its Maker. A thousand times rather would I +cease to live, than live without you to love me. I have loved you +for years and years--longer than I know. I was loving you with +heart and soul and brain and eyes when you went away and left +me." + +"Cousin Godfrey!" shrieked Letty, "don't you know I belong to +Tom?" + +And she dropped like one lifeless on the grass at his feet. + +Godfrey felt as if suddenly damned; and his hell was death. He +stood gazing on the white face. The world, heaven, God, and +nature were dead, and that was the soul of it all, dead before +him! But such death is never born of love. This agony was but the +fog of disappointed self-love; and out of it suddenly rose what +seemed a new power to live, but one from a lower world: it was +all a wretched dream, out of which he was no more to issue, in +which he must go on for ever, dreaming, yet acting as one wide +awake! Mechanically he stooped and lifted the death-defying lover +in his arms, and carried her to the house. He felt no thrill as +he held the treasure to his heart. It was the merest material +contact. He bore her to the room where his mother sat, laid her +on the sofa, said he had found her under the oak-tree--and went +to his study, away in the roof. On a chair in the middle of the +floor he sat, like a man bereft of all. Nothing came between him +and suicide but an infinite scorn. A slow rage devoured his +heart. Here he was, a man who knew his own worth, his +faithfulness, his unchangeableness, cast over the wall of the +universe, into the waste places, among the broken shards of ruin! +If there was a God--and the rage in his heart declared his being +--why did he make him? To make him for such a misery was pure +injustice, was willful cruelty! Henceforward he would live above +what God or woman could do to him! He rose and went to the hay- +field, whence he did not return till after midnight. + +He did not sleep, but he came to a resolution. In the morning he +told his mother that he wanted a change; now that the hay was +safe, he would have a run, he hardly knew where--possibly on the +Continent; she must not be uneasy if she did not hear from him +for a week or two; perhaps he would have a look at the pyramids. +The old lady was filled with dismay; but scarcely had she begun +to expostulate when she saw in his eyes that something was +seriously amiss, and held her peace--she had had to learn that +with both father and son. Godfrey went, and courted distraction. +Ten years before, he would have brooded: that he would not do +now: the thing was not worth it! His pride was strong as ever, +and both helped him to get over his suffering, and prevented him +from gaining the good of it. He intrenched himself in his pride. +No one should say he had not had his will! He was a strong man, +and was going to prove it to himself afresh! + +Thus thought Godfrey; but he is in reality a weak man who must +have recourse to pride to carry him through. Only, if a man has +not love enough to make a hero of him, what is he to do? + +He was away a month, and came back in seeming health and spirits. +But it was no small relief to him to find on his arrival that +Letty was no longer at Thornwick. + +She had gone through a sore time. To have made Godfrey unhappy, +made her miserable; but how was she to help it? She belonged to +Tom! Not once did she entertain the thought of ceasing to be +Tom's. She did not even say to herself, what would Tom do if she +forgot and forsook him--and for what he could not help! for +having left her because death took him away! But what was she to +do? She must not remain where she was. No more must she tell his +mother why she went. + +She wrote to Mary, and told her she could not stay much longer. +They were very kind, she said, but she must be gone before +Godfrey came back. + +Mary suspected the truth. The fact that Letty did not give her +any reason was almost enough. The supposition also rendered +intelligible the strange mixture of misery and hardness in +Godfrey's behavior at the time of Letty's old mishap. She +answered, begging her to keep her mind easy about the future, and +her friend informed of whatever concerned her. + +This much from Mary was enough to set Letty at comparative ease. +She began to recover strength, and was able to write a letter to +Godfrey, to leave where he would find it, in his study. + +It was a lovely letter--the utterance of a simple, childlike +spirit--with much in it, too, I confess, that was but prettily +childish. She poured out on Godfrey the affection of a +womanchild. She told him what a reverence and love he had been to +her always; told him, too, that it would change her love into +fear, perhaps something worse, if he tried to make her forget +Tom. She told him he was much too grand for her to dare love him +in that way, but she could look up to him like an angel--only he +must not come between her and Tom. Nothing could be plainer, +simpler, honester, or stronger, than the way the little woman +wrote her mind to the great man. Had he been worthy of her, he +might even yet, with her help, have got above his passion in a +grand way, and been a great man indeed. But, as so many do, he +only sat upon himself, kept himself down, and sank far below his +passion. + +When he went to his study the day after his return, he saw the +letter. His heart leaped like a wild thing in a trap at sight of +the ill-shaped, childish writing; but--will my lady reader +believe it?--the first thought that shot through it was--"She +shall find it too late! I am not one to be left and taken at +will!" When he read it, however, it was with a curling lip of +scorn at the childishness of the creature to whom he had offered +the heart of Godfrey Wardour. Instead of admiring the lovely +devotion of the girl-widow to her boy-husband, he scorned himself +for having dreamed of a creature who could not only love a fool +like Tom Helmer, but go on loving him after he was dead, and that +even when Godfrey Wardour had condescended to let her know he +loved her. It was thus the devil befooled him. Perhaps the worst +devil a man can be posessed withal, is himself. In mere madness, +the man is beside himself; but in this case he is inside himself; +the presiding, indwelling, inspiring sprit of him is himself, and +that is the hardest of all to cast out. Godfrey rose form the +reading of that letter _cured,_ as he called it. But it was +a cure that left the wound open as a door to the entrance of evil +things. He tore the letter into a thousand pieces, and throw them +into the empty grate--not even showed it the respect of burning +it with fire. + +Mary had got her affairs settled, and was again in the old place, +the hallowed temple of so many holy memories. I do not forget it +was a shop I call a temple. In that shop God had been worshiped +with holiest worship--that is, obedience--and would be again. +Neither do I forget that the devil had been worshiped there too-- +in what temple is he not? He has fallen like lightning from +heaven, but has not yet been cast out of the earth. In that shop, +however, he would be worshiped no more for a season. + +At once she wrote to Letty, saying the room which had been hers +was at her service as soon as she pleased to occupy it: she would +take her father's. + +Letty breathed a deep breath of redemption, and made haste to +accept the offer. But to let Mrs. Wardour know her resolve was a +severe strain on her courage. + +I will not give the conversation that followed her announcement +that she was going to visit Mary Marston. Her aunt met it with +scorn and indignation. Ingratitude, laziness, love of low +company, all the old words of offense she threw afresh in her +face. But Letty could not help being pleased to find that her +aunt's storm no longer swamped her boat. When she began, however, +to abuse Mary, calling her a low creature, who actually gave up +an independent position to put herself at the beck and call of a +fine lady, Letty grew angry. + +"I must not sit and hear you call Mary names, aunt," she said. +"When you cast me out, she stood by me. You do not understand +her. She is the only friend I ever had-except Tom." + +"You dare, you thankless hussy, to say such a thing in the house +where you've been clothed and fed and sheltered for so many +years! You're the child of your father with a vengeance! Get out +of my sight!" + +"Aunt--" said Letty, rising. + +"No aunt of yours!" interrupted the wrathful woman. + +"Mrs. Wardour," said Letty, with dignity, "you have been my +benefactor, but hardly my friend: Mary has taught me the +difference. I owe you more than you will ever give me the chance +of repaying you. But what friendship could have stood for an hour +the hard words you have been in the way of giving me, as far back +as I can remember! Hard words take all the sweetness from +shelter. Mary is the only Christian _I_ have ever known." + +"So we are all pagans, except your low-lived lady's-maid! Upon my +word!" + +"She makes me feel, often, often," said Letty, bursting into +tears, "as if I were with Jesus himself--as if he must be in the +room somewhere." + +So saying, she left her, and went to put up her things. Mrs. +Wardour locked the door of the room where she sat, and refused to +see or speak to her again. Letty went away, and walked to +Testbridge. + +"Godfrey will do something to make her understand," she said to +herself, weeping as she walked. + +Whether Godfrey ever did, I can not tell. + + + + +CHAPTER L. + +WILLIAM AND MARY MARSTON. + + +The same day on which Turnbull opened his new shop, a man was +seen on a ladder painting out the sign above the old one. But the +paint took time to dry. + +The same day, also, Mary returned to Testbridge, and, going in by +the kitchen-door, went up to her father's room, of which and of +her own she had kept the keys--to the indignation of Turnbull, +who declared he did not know how to get on without them for +storage. But, for all his bluster, he was afraid of Mary, and did +not dare touch anything she had left. + +That night she spent alone in the house. But she could not sleep. +She got up and went down to the shop. It was a bright, moonlit +night, and all the house, even where the moon could not enter, +was full of glimmer and gleam, except the shop. There she lighted +a candle, sat down on a pile of goods, and gave herself up to +memories of the past. Back and back went her thoughts as far as +she could send them. God was everywhere in all the story; and the +clearer she saw him there the surer she was that she would find +him as she went on. She was neither sad nor fearful. The dead +hours of the night came, that valley of the shadow of death where +faith seems to grow weary and sleep, and all the things of the +shadow wake up and come out and say, "Here we are, and there is +nothing but us and our kind in the universe!" They woke up and +came out upon Mary now, but she fought them off. Either there is +mighty, triumphant life at the root and apex of all things, or +life is not--and whence, then, the power of dreaming horrors? It +is life alone--life imperfect--that can fear; death can not fear. +Even the terror that walketh by night is a proof that I live, and +that it shall not prevail against me. And to Mary, besides her +heavenly Father, her William Marston seemed near all the time. +Whereever she turned she saw the signs of him, and she pleased +herself to think that perhaps he was there to welcome her. But it +would not have made her the least sad to know for certain that he +was far off, and would never come near her again in this world. +She knew that, spite of time and space, she was and must be near +him so long as she loved and did the truth. She knew there is no +bond so strong, none so close, none so lasting as the truth. In +God alone, who is the truth, can creatures meet. + +The place was left in sad confusion and dirt, and she did not a +little that night to restore order at least. But at length she +was tired, and went up to her room. + +On the first landing there was a window to the street. She +stopped and looked out, candle in hand, but drew back with a +start: on the opposite side of the way stood a man, looking up, +she thought, at the house! She hastened to her room, and to bed. +If God was not watching, no waking was of use; and if God was +watching, she might sleep in peace. She did sleep, and woke +refreshed. + +Her first care in the morning was to write to Letty--with the +result I have set down. The next thing she did was to go and ask +Beenie to give her some breakfast. The old woman was delighted to +see her, and ready to lock her door at once and go back to her +old quarters. They returned together, while Testbridge was yet +but half awake. + +Many things had to be done before the shop could be opened. +Beenie went after charwomen, and soon a great bustle of cleaning +arose. But the door was kept shut, and the front windows. + +In the afternoon Letty came fresh from misery into more than +counterbalancing joy. She took but time to put off her bonnet and +shawl, and was presently at work helping Mary, cheerful as hope +and a good conscience could make her. + +Mary was in no hurry to open the shop. There was "stock to be +taken," many things had to be rearranged, and not a few things to +be added, before she could begin with comfort; and she must see +to it all herself, for she was determined to engage no assistant +until she could give her orders without hesitation. + +She was soon satisfied that she could not do better than make a +proposal to Letty which she had for some time contemplated-- +namely, that she should take up her permanent abode with her, and +help her in the shop. Letty was charmed, nor ever thought of the +annoyance it would be to her aunt. Mary had thought of that, but +saw that, for Letty to allow the prejudices of her aunt to +influence her, would be to order her life not by the law of that +God whose Son was a workingman, but after the whim and folly of +an ill-educated old woman. A new spring of life seemed to bubble +up in Letty the moment Mary mentioned the matter; and in serving +she soon proved herself one after Mary's own heart. Letty's day +was henceforth without a care, and her rest was sweet to her. +Many customers were even more pleased with her than with Mary. +Before long, Mary, besides her salary, gave her a small share in +the business. + +Mrs. Wardour carried her custom to the Turnbulls. + +When the paint was dry which obliterated the old sign, people +saw the now one begin with an _M_., and the sign-writer went +on until there stood in full, _Mary Marston_. Mr. Brett +hinted he would rather have seen it without the Christian name; +but Mary insisted she would do and be nothing she would not hold +just that name to; and on the sign her own name, neither more nor +less, should stand. She would have liked, she said, to make it +_William and Mary Marston_; for the business was to go on +exactly as her father had taught her; the spirit of her father +should never be out of the place; and if she failed, of which she +had no fear, she would fail trying to carry out his ideas-but +people were too dull to understand, and she therefore set the +sign so in her heart only. + +Her old friends soon began to come about her again, and it was +not many weeks before she saw fit to go to London to add to her +stock. + +The evening of her return, as she and Letty sat over a late tea, +a silence fell, during which Letty had a brooding fit. + +"I wonder how Cousin Godfrey is getting on?" she said at last, +and smiled sadly. + +"How do you mean _getting on_?" asked Mary. + +"I was wondering whether Miss Yolland and he--" + +Mary started from her seat, white as the table-cloth. + +"Letty!" she said, in a voice of utter dismay, "you don't mean +that woman is--is making friends with _him_?" + +"I saw them together more than once, and they seemed--well, on +very good terms." + +"Then it is all over with him!" cried Mary, in despair. "O Letty! +what _is_ to be done? Why didn't you tell me before? He'll +be madly in love with her by this time! They always are." + +"But where's the harm, Mary? She's a very handsome lady, and of a +good family." + +"We're all of good enough family," said Mary, a little +petulantly. "But that Miss Yolland--Letty--that Miss Yolland-- +she's a bad woman, Letty." + +"I never heard you say such a hard word of anybody before, Mary! +It frightens me to hear you." + +"It's a true word of her, Letty." + +"How can you be so sure?" + +Mary was silent. There was that about Letty that made the maiden +shrink from telling the married woman what she knew. Besides, in +so far as Tom had been concerned, she could not bring herself, +even without mentioning his name, to talk of him to his wife: +there was no evil to be prevented and no good to be done by it. +If Letty was ever to know those passages in his life, she must +hear them first in high places, and from the lips of the +repentant man himself! + +"I can not tell you, Letty," she said. "You know the two bonds of +friendship are the right of silence and the duty of speech. I +dare say you have some things which, truly as I know you love me, +you neither wish nor feel at liberty to tell me." + +Letty thought of what had so lately passed between her and her +cousin Godfrey, and felt almost guilty. She never thought of one +of the many things Tom had done or said that had cut her to the +heart; those had no longer any existence. They were swallowed in +the gulf of forgetful love--dismissed even as God casts the sins +of his children behind his back: behind God's back is just +nowhere. She did not answer, and again there was silence for a +time, during which Mary kept walking about the room, her hands +clasped behind her, the fingers interlaced, and twisted with a +strain almost fierce. + +"There's no time! there's no time!" she cried at length. "How are +we to find out? And if we knew all about it, what could we do? O +Letty! what _am_ I to do?" + +"Anyhow, Mary dear, _you_ can't be to blame! One would think +you fancied yourself accountable for Cousin Godfrey!" + +"I _am_ accountable for him. He has done more for me than +any man but my father; and I know what he does not know, and what +the ignorance of will be his ruin. I know that one of the best +men in the world"--so in her agony she called him--"is in danger +of being married by one of the worst women; and I can't bear it-- +I can't bear it!" + +"But what can you do, Mary?" + +"That's what I want to know," returned Mary, with irritation. +"What _am_ I to do? What _am_ I to do?" + +"If he's in love with her, he wouldn't believe a word any one-- +even you--told him against her." + +"That is true, I suppose; but it won't clear me. I must do +something." + +She threw herself on the couch with a groan. + +"It's horrid!" she cried, and buried her face in the pillow. + +All this time Letty had been so bewildered by Mary's agitation, +and the cause of it was to her so vague, that apprehension for +her cousin did not wake. But when Mary was silent, then came the +thought that, if she had not so repulsed him--but she could not +help it, and would not think in that direction. + +Mary started from the couch, and began again to pace the room, +wringing her hands, and walking up and down like a wild beast in +its cage. It was so unlike her to be thus seriously discomposed, +that Letty began to be frightened. She sat silent and looked at +her. Then spoke the spirit of truth in the scholar, for the +teacher was too troubled to hear. She rose, and going up to Mary +from behind, put her arm round her, and whispered in her ear: + +"Mary, why don't you ask Jesus?" + +Mary stopped short, and looked at Letty. But she was not thinking +about her; she was questioning herself: why had she not done as +Letty said? Something was wrong with her: that was clear, if +nothing else was! She threw herself again on the couch, and Letty +saw her body heaving with her sobs. Then Letty was more +frightened, and feared she had done wrong. Was it her part to +remind Mary of what she knew so much better than she? + +"But, then, I was only referring her to herself!" she thought. + +A few minutes, and Mary rose. Her face was wet and white, but +perplexity had vanished from it, and resolution had taken its +place. She threw her arms round Letty, and kissed her, and held +her face against hers. Letty had never seen in her such an +expression of emotion and tenderness. + +"I have found out, Letty, dear," she said. "Thank you, thank you, +Letty! You are a true sister." + +"What have you found out, Mary?" + +"I have found out why I did not go at once to ask Him what I +ought to do. It was just because I was afraid of what he would +tell me to do." + +And with that the tears ran down her cheeks afresh. + +"Then you know now what to do?" asked Letty. + +"Yes," answered Mary, and sat down. + + + + +CHAPTER LI. + +A HARD TASK. + + +The next morning, leaving the shop to Letty, Mary set out +immediately after breakfast to go to Thornwick. But the duty she +had there to perform was so distasteful, that she felt her very +limbs refuse the office required of them. They trembled so under +her that she could scarcely walk. She sent, therefore, to the +neighboring inn for a fly. All the way, as she went, she was +hoping she might be spared an encounter with Mrs. Wardour; but +the old lady heard the fly, saw her get out, and, imagining she +had brought Letty back in some fresh trouble, hastened to prevent +either of them from entering the house. The door stood open, and +they met on the broad step. + +"Good morning, Mrs. Wardour," said Mary, trying to speak without +betraying emotion. + +"Good morning, Miss Marston," returned Mrs. Wardour, grimly. + +"Is Mr. Wardour at home?" asked Mary. + +"What is your business with _him_?" rejoined the mother. + +"Yes; it is with him," returned Mary, as if she had mistaken her +question, and there had been a point of exclamation after the +_What_. + +"About that hussy?" + +"I do not know whom you call by the name," replied Mary, who +would have been glad indeed to find a fellow-protector of Godfrey +in his mother. + +"You know well enough whom I mean. Whom should it be, but Letty +Lovel!" + +"My business has nothing to do with her," answered Mary. + +"Whom has it to do with, then?" + +"With Mr. Wardour." + +"What is it?" + +"Only Mr. Wardour himself must hear it. It is his business, not +mine." + +"I will have nothing to do with it." + +"I have no desire to give you the least trouble about it," +rejoined Mary. + +"You can't see Mr. Wardour. He's not one to be at the beck and +call of every silly woman that wants him." + +"Then I will write, and tell him I called, but you would not +allow me to see him." + +"I will give him a message, if you like." + +"Then tell him what I have just said. I am going home to write to +him. Good morning." + +She was getting into the fly again, when Mrs. Wardour, reflecting +that it must needs be something of consequence that brought her +there so early in a fly, and made her show such a determined +front to so great a personage as herself, spoke again. + +"I will tell him you are here; but you must not blame me if he +does not choose to see you. We don't feel you have behaved well +about that girl." + +"Letty is my friend. I have behaved to her as if she were my +sister." + +"You had no business to behave to her as if she were your sister. +You had no right to tempt her down to your level." + +"Is it degradation to earn one's own living?" + +"You had nothing to do with her. She would have done very well if +you had but let her alone." + +"Excuse me, ma'am, but I have _some_ right in Letty. I am +sorry to have to assert it, but she would have been dead long ago +if I had behaved to her as you would have me." + +"That was all her own fault." + +"I will not talk with you about it: you do not know the +circumstances to which I refer. I request to see Mr. Wardour. I +have no time to waste in useless altercation." + +Mary was angry, and it did her good; it made her fitter to face +the harder task before her. + +That moment they heard the step of Godfrey approaching through a +long passage in the rear. His mother went into the parlor, +leaving the door, which was close to where Mary stood, ajar. +Godfrey, reaching the hall, saw Mary, and came up to her with a +formal bow, and a face flushed with displeasure. + +"May I speak to you alone, Mr. Wardour?" said Mary. "Can you not +say what you have to say here?" + +"It is impossible." + +"Then I am curious to know--" + +"Let your curiosity plead for me, then." + +With a sigh of impatience he yielded, and led the way to the +drawing-room, which was at the other end of the hall. Mary turned +and shut the door he left open. + +"Why all this mystery, Miss Marston?" he said. "I am not aware of +anything between you and me that can require secrecy." + +He spoke with unconcealed scorn. + +"When I have made my communication, you will at least allow +secrecy to have been necessary." + +"Some objects may require it!" said Wardour, in a tone itself an +insult. + +"Mr. Wardour," returned Mary, "I am here for your sake, not my +own. May I beg you will not render a painful duty yet more +difficult?" + +"May _I_ beg, then, that you will be as brief as possible? I +am more than doubtful whether what you have to say will seem to +me of so much consequence as you suppose." + +"I shall be very glad to find it so." + +"I can not give you more than ten minutes." Mary looked at her +watch. + +"You have lately become acquainted with Miss Yolland, I am told," +she began. + +"Whew!" whistled Godfrey, yet hardly as if he were surprised. + +"I have been compelled to know a good deal of that lady." + +"As lady's-maid in her family, I believe." + +"Yes," said Mary--then changing her tone after a slight pause, +went on: "Mr. Wardour, I owe you more than I can ever thank you +for. I strongly desire to fulfill the obligation your goodness +has laid upon me, though I can never discharge it. For the sake +of that obligation--for your sake, I am risking much--namely, +your opinion of me." + +He made a gesture of impatience. + +"I _know_ Miss Yolland to be a woman without principle. I +know it by the testimony of my own eyes, and from her own +confession. She is capable of playing a cold-hearted, cruel game +for her own ends. Be persuaded to consult Mr. Redmain before you +commit yourself. Ask him if Miss Yolland is fit to be the wife of +an honest man." + +There was nothing in Godfrey's countenance but growing rage. +Turning to the door, Mary would have gone without another word. + +"Stay!" cried Godfrey, in a voice of suppressed fury. "Do not +dare to go until I have told you that you are a vile slanderer. I +knew something of what I had to expect, but you should never have +entered this room had I known how far your effrontery could carry +you. Listen to me: if anything more than the character of your +statement had been necessary to satisfy me of the falsehood of +every word of it, you have given it me in your reference to Mr. +Redmain--a man whose life has rendered him unfit for the +acquaintance, not to say the confidence of any decent woman. This +is a plot--for what final object, God knows--between you and him! +I should be doing my duty were I to expose you both to the public +scorn you deserve." + +"Now I am clear!" said Mary to herself, but aloud, and stood +erect, with glowing face and eyes of indignation: "Then why not +do your duty, Mr. Wardour? I should be glad of anything that +would open your eyes. But Miss Yolland will never give Mr. +Redmain such an opportunity. Nor does he desire it, for he might +have had it long ago, by the criminal prosecution of a friend of +hers. For my part, I should be sorry to see her brought to public +shame." + +"Leave the house!" said Godfrey through his teeth, and almost +under his breath. + +"I am sorry it is so hard to distinguish between truth and +falsehood," said Mary, as she went to the door. + +She walked out, got into the fly, and drove home; went into the +shop, and served the rest of the morning; but in the afternoon +was obliged to lie down, and did not appear again for three days. + +The reception she had met with did not much surprise her: plainly +Sepia had been before her. She had pretended to make Godfrey her +confidant, had invented, dressed, and poured out injuries to him, +and so blocked up the way to all testimony unfavorable to her. +Was there ever man in more pitiable position? + +It added to Godfrey's rage that he had not a doubt Mary knew what +had passed between Letty and him. That, he reasoned, was at the +root of it all: she wanted to bring them together yet: it would +be a fine thing for her to have her bosom-friend mistress of +Thornwick! What a cursed thing he should ever have been civil to +her! And what a cursed fool he was ever to have cared a straw for +such a low-minded creature as that Letty! Thank Heaven, he was +cured of that! + +Cured?--He had fallen away from love--that was all the cure! + +Like the knight of the Red Cross, he was punished for abandoning +Una, by falling in love with Duessa. His rage against Letty, just +because of her faithfulness, had cast him an easy prey into the +arms of the clinging Sepia. + +And now what more could Mary do? Just one thing was left: Mr. +Redmain could satisfy Mr. Wardour of the fact he would not hear +from her!--so, at least, thought Mary yet. If Mr. Redmain would +take the trouble to speak to him, Mr. Wardour must be convinced! +However true might be what Mr. Wardour had said about Mr. +Redmain, fact remained fact about Sepia! + +She sat down and wrote the following letter: + +"Sir: I hardly know how to address you without seeming to take a +liberty; at the same time I can not help hoping you trust me +enough to believe that I would not venture such a request as I am +about to make, without good reason. Should you kindly judge me +not to presume, and should you be well enough in health, which I +fear may not be the case, would you mind coming to see me here in +my shop? I think you must know it--it used to be Turnbull and +Marston--the Marston was my father. You will see my name over the +door. Any hour from morning to night will do for me; only please +let it be as soon as you can make it convenient. + + "I am, sir, + "Your humble and grateful servant, + "MARY MARSTON" + +"What the deuce is she grateful to me for?" grumbled Mr. Redmain +when he read it. "I never did anything for her! By Jove, the +gypsy herself wouldn't let me! I vow she's got more brains of her +own than any half-dozen women I ever had to do with before!" + +The least thing bearing the look of plot, or intrigue, or secret +to be discovered or heard, was enough for Mr. Redmain. What he +had of pride was not of the same sort as Wardour's: it made no +pretense to dignity, and was less antagonistic, so long at least +as there was no talk of good motive or righteous purpose. Far +from being offended with Mary's request, he got up at once, +though indeed he was rather unwell and dreading an attack, +ordered his brougham, and drove to Testbridge. There, careful of +secrecy, he went to several shops, and bought something at each, +but pretended not to find the thing he wanted. + +He then said he would lunch at the inn, told his coachman to put +up, and, while his meal was getting ready, went to Mary's shop, +which was but a few doors off. There he asked for a certain +outlandish stuff, and insisted on looking over a bale not yet +unpacked. Mary understood him, and, whispering Letty to take him +to the parlor, followed a minute after. + +As soon as she entered-- + +"Come, now, what's it all about?" he said. + +Mary began at once to tell him, as directly as she could, that +she was under obligation to Mr. Wardour of Thornwick, and that +she had reason to fear Miss Yolland was trying to get a hold of +him--"And you know what that would be for any man!" she said. + +"No, by Jove! I don't," he answered. "What would it be?" + +"Utter ruin," replied Mary. "Then go and tell him so, if you want +to save him." + +"I have told him. But he does not like me, and won't believe me." + +"Then let him take his own course, and be ruined." + +"But I have just told you, sir, I am under obligation to him-- +great obligation!" + +"Oh! I see! you want him yourself!--Well, as you wish it, I would +rather you should have him than that she-devil. But come, now, +you must be open with me." + +"I am. I will be." + +"You say so, of course. Women do.--But you confess you want him +yourself?" + +Mary saw it would be the worst possible policy to be angry with +him, especially as she had given him the trouble to come to her, +and she must not lose this her last chance. + +"I do not want him," she answered, with a smile; "and, if I did, +he would never look at one in my position. He would as soon think +of marrying the daughter of one of his laborers--and quite right, +too--for the one might just be as good as the other." + +"Well, now, that's a pity. I would have done a good deal for +_you_--I don't know why, for you're a little humbug if ever +there was one! But, if you don't care about the fellow, I don't +see why I should take the trouble. Confess--you're a little bit +in love with him--ain't you, now? Confess to that, and I will do +what I can." + +"I can't confess to a lie. I owe Mr. Wardour a debt of gratitude +--that is all--but no light thing, you will allow, sir!" + +"I don't know; I never tried its weight. Anyhow, I should make +haste to be rid of it." + +"I have sought to make him this return, but he only fancies me a +calumniator. Miss Yolland has been beforehand with me." + +"Then, by Jove! I don't see but you're quits with him. If he +behaves like that to you, don't you see, it wipes it all out? +Upon my soul! I don't see why you should trouble your head about +him. Let him take his way, and go to--Sepia." + +"But, sir, what a dreadful thing it would be, knowing what she +is, to let a man like him throw himself away on her!" + +"I don't see it. I've no doubt he's just as bad as she is. We all +are; we're all the same. And, if he weren't, it would be the +better joke. Besides, you oughtn't to keep up a grudge, don't you +know; you ought to let the--the _woman_ have a chance. If he +marries her--and that must be her game this time--she'll grow +decent, and be respectable ever after, you may be sure--go to +church, as you would have her, and all that--never miss a Sunday, +I'll lay you a thousand." + +"He's of a good old family!" said Mary, foolishly, thinking that +would weigh with him. + +"Good old fiddlestick! Damned old worn-out broom-end! +_She's_ of a good old family--quite good enough for his, you +may take your oath! Why, my girl! the thing's not worth burning +your fingers with. You've brought me here on a goose-errand. I'll +go and have my lunch." + +He rose. + +"I'm sorry to have vexed you, sir," said Mary, greatly +disappointed. + +"Never mind.--I'm horribly sold," he said, with a tight grin. "I +thought you must have some good thing in hand to make it worth +your while to send for me." + +"Then I must try something else," reflected Mary aloud. + +"I wouldn't advise you. The man's only the surer to hate you and +stick to her. Let him alone. If he's a stuck-up fellow like that, +it will take him down a bit--when the truth comes out, that is, +as come out it must. There's one good thing in it, my wife'll get +rid of her. But I don't know! there's an enemy, as the Bible +says, that sticketh closer than a brother. And they'll be next +door when Durnmelling is mine! But I can sell it." + +"If he _should_ come to you, will you tell him the truth?" + +"I don't know that. It might spoil my own little game." + +"Will you let him think me a liar and slanderer?" + +"No, by Jove! I won't do that. I don't promise to tell him all +the truth, or even that what I do tell him shall be exactly true; +but I won't let him think ill of my little puritan; that would +spoil _your_ game. Ta, ta!" + +He went out, with his curious grin, amused, and enjoying the idea +of a proud fellow like that being taken in with Sepia. + +"I hope devoutly he'll marry her!" he said to himself as he went +to his luncheon. "Then I shall hold a rod over them both, and +perhaps buy that miserable little Thornwick. Mortimer would give +the skin off his back for it." + +The thing that ought to be done had to be done, and Mary had done +it--alas! to no purpose for the end desired: what was left her to +do further? She could think of nothing. Sepia, like a moral +hyena, must range her night. She went to bed, and dreamed she was +pursued by a crowd, hooting after her, and calling her all the +terrible names of those who spread evil reports. She woke in +misery, and slept no more. + + + + +CHAPTER LII. + +A SUMMONS. + + +One hot Saturday afternoon, in the sleepiest time of the day, +when nothing was doing; and nobody in the shop, except a poor boy +who had come begging for some string to help him fly his kite, +though for the last month wind had been more scarce than string, +Jemima came in from Durnmelling, and, greeting Mary with the +warmth of the friendship that had always been true between them, +gave her a letter. + +"Whom is this from?" asked Mary, with the usual human waste of +inquiry, seeing she held the surest answer in her hand. + +"Mr. Mewks gave it me," said Jemima. "He didn't say whom it was +from." + +Mary made haste to open it: she had an instinctive distrust of +everything that passed through Mewks's hands, and greatly feared +that, much as his master trusted him, he was not true to him. She +found the following note from Mr. Redmain: + +"DEAR MISS MARSTON: Come and see me as soon as you can; I have +something to talk to you about. Send word by the bearer when I +may look for you. I am not well. + +"Yours truly, + +"F. G. REDMAIN." + +Mary went to her desk and wrote a reply, saying she would be with +him the next morning about eleven o'clock. She would have gone +that same night, she said, but, as it was Saturday, she could +not, because of country customers, close in time to go so far. + +"Give it into Mr. Redmain's own hand, if you can, Jemima," she +said. + +"I will try; but I doubt if I can, miss," answered the girl. + +"Between ourselves, Jemima," said Mary, "I do not trust that man +Mewks." + +"Nobody does, miss, except the master and Miss Yolland." + +"Then," thought Mary, "the thing is worse than I had supposed." + +"I'll do what I can, miss," Jemima went on. "But he's so sharp!-- +Mr. Mewks, I mean." + +After she was gone, Mary wished she had given her a verbal +message; that she might have insisted on delivering in person. + +Jemima, with circumspection, managed to reach Mr. Redmain's room +unencountered, but just as she knocked at the door, Mewks came +behind her from somewhere, and snatching the letter out of her +hand, for she carried it ready to justify her entrance to the +first glance of her irritable master, pushed her rudely away, and +immediately went in. But as he did so he put the letter in his +pocket. + +"Who took the note?" asked his master. + +"The girl at the lodge, sir." + +"Is she not come back yet?" + +"No, sir, not yet. She'll be in a minute, though. I saw her +coming up the avenue." + +"Go and bring her here." + +"Yes, sir." + +Mewks went, and in two minutes returned with the letter, and the +message that Miss Marston hadn't time to direct it. + +"You damned rascal! I told you to bring the messenger here." + +"She ran the whole way, sir, and not being very strong, was that +tired, that, the moment she got in, the poor thing dropped in a +dead faint. They ain't got her to yet." + +His master gave him one look straight in the eyes, then opened +the letter, and read it. + +"Miss Marston will call here tomorrow morning," he said; "see +that _she_ is shown up at once--here, to my sitting-room. I +hope I am explicit." + +When the man was gone, Mr. Redmain nodded his head three times, +and grinned the skin tight as a drum-head over his cheek-bones. + +"There isn't a damned soul of them to be trusted!" he said to +himself, and sat silently thoughtful. + +Perhaps he was thinking how often he had come short of the hope +placed in him; times of reflection arrive to most men; and a +threatened attack of the illness he believed must one day carry +him off, might well have disposed him to think. + +In the evening he was worse. + +By midnight he was in agony, and Lady Margaret was up with him +all night. In the morning came a lull, and Lady Margaret went to +bed. His wife had not come near him. But Sepia might have been +seen, more than once or twice, hovering about his door. + +Both she and Mewks thought, after such a night, he must have +forgotten his appointment with Mary. + +When he had had some chocolate, he fell into a doze. But his +sleep was far from profound. Often he woke and again dozed off. + +The clock in the dressing-room struck eleven. + +"Show Miss Marston up the moment she arrives," he said--and his +voice was almost like that of a man in health. + +"Yes, sir," replied the startled Mewks, and felt he must obey. + +So Mary was at once shown to the chamber of the sick man. + +To her surprise (for Mewks had given her no warning), he was in +bed, and looking as ill as ever she had seen him. His small head +was like a skull covered with parchment. He made the slightest of +signs to her to come nearer--and again. She went close to the +bed. Mewks sat down at the foot of it, out of sight. It was a +great four-post-bed, with curtains. + +"I'm glad you're come," he said, with a feeble grin, all he had +for a smile. "I want to have a little talk with you. But I can't +while that brute is sitting there. I have been suffering +horribly. Look at me, and tell me if you think I am going to die +--not that I take your opinion for worth anything. That's not what +I wanted you for, though. I wasn't so ill then. But I want you +the more to talk to now. _You_ have a bit of a heart, even +for people that don't deserve it--at least I'm going to believe +you have; and, if I am wrong, I almost think I would rather not +know it till I'm dead and gone!--Good God! where shall I be +then?" + +I have already said that, whether in consequence of remnants of +mother-teaching or from the movements of a conscience that had +more vitality than any of his so-called friends would have +credited it with, Mr. Redmain, as often as his sufferings reached +a certain point, was subject to fits of terror--horrible anguish +it sometimes amounted to--at the thought of hell. This, of +course, was silly, seeing hell is out of fashion in far wider +circles than that of Mayfair; but denial does not alter fact, and +not always fear. Mr. Redmain laughed when he was well, and shook +when he was suffering. In vain he argued with himself that what +he held by when in health was much more likely to be true than a +dread which might be but the suggestion of the disease that was +slowly gnawing him to death: as often as the sickness returned, +he received the suggestion afresh, whatever might be its source, +and trembled as before. In vain he accused himself of cowardice-- +the thing was there--_in him_--nothing could drive it out. +And, verily, even a madman may be wiser than the prudent of this +world; and the courage of not a few would forsake them if they +dared but look the danger in the face. I pity the poor ostrich, +and must I admire the man of whose kind he is the type, or take +him in any sense for a man of courage? Wait till the thing stares +you in the face, and then, whether you be brave man or coward, +you will at all events care little about courage or cowardice. +The nearer a man is to being a true man, the sooner will +conscience of wrong make a coward of him; and herein Redmain had +a far-off kindred with the just. After the night he had passed, +he was now in one of his terror-fits; and this much may be said +for his good sense--that, if there was anywhere a hell for the +use of anybody, he was justified in anticipating a free entrance. + +"Mewks!" he called, suddenly, and his tone was loud and angry. + +Mewks was by his bedside instantly. + +"Get out with you! If I find you in this room again, without +having been called, I will kill you! I am strong enough for that, +even without this pain. They won't hang a dying man, and where I +am going they will rather like it." + +Mewks vanished. + +"You need not mind, my girl," he went on, to Mary. "Everybody +knows I am ill--very ill. Sit down there, on the foot of the bed, +only take care you don't shake it, and let me talk to you. +People, you know, say nowadays there ain't any hell--or perhaps +none to speak of?" + +"I should think the former more likely than the latter," said +Mary. + +"You don't believe there is any? I _am_ glad of that! for +you are a good girl, and ought to know." + +"You mistake me, sir. How can I imagine there is no hell, when +_he_ said there was?" + +"Who's _he_?" + +"The man who knows all about it, and means to put a stop to it +some day." + +"Oh, yes; I see! Hm!--But I don't for the life of me see what a +fellow is to make of it all--don't you know? Those parsons! They +will have it there's no way out of it but theirs, and I never +could see a handle anywhere to that door!" + +"_I_ don't see what the parsons have got to do with it, or, +at least, what you have got to do with the parsons. If a thing is +true, you have as much to do with it as any parson in England; if +it is not true, neither you nor they have anything to do with +it." + +"But, I tell you, if it be all as true as--as--that we are all +sinners, I don't know what to do with it!" + +"It seems to me a simple thing. _That_ man as much as said +he knew all about it, and came to find men that were lost, and +take them home." + +"He can't well find one more lost than I am! But how am I to +believe it? How can it be true? It's ages since he was here, if +ever he was at all, and there hasn't been a sign of him ever +since, all the time!" + +"There you may be quite wrong. I think I could find you some who +believe him just as near them now as ever he was to his own +brothers--believe that he hears them when they speak to him, and +heeds what they say." + +"That's bosh. You would have me believe against the evidence of +my senses!" + +"You must have strange senses, Mr. Redmain, that give you +evidence where they can't possibly know anything! If that man +spoke the truth when he was in the world, he is near us now; if +he is not near us, there is an end of it all." + +"The nearer he is, the worse for me!" sighed Mr. Redmain. + +"The nearer he is, the better for the worst man that ever +breathed." + +"That's queer doctrine! Mind you, I don't say it mayn't be all +right. But it does seem a cowardly thing to go asking him to save +you, after you've been all your life doing what ought to damn +you--if there be a hell, mind you, that is." + +"But think," said Mary, "if that should be your only chance of +being able to make up for the mischief you have done? No +punishment you can have will do anything for that. No suffering +of yours will do anything for those you have made suffer. But it +is so much harder to leave the old way than to go on and let +things take their chance!" + +"There may be something in what you say; but still I can't see it +anything better than sneaking, to do a world of mischief, and +then slink away into heaven, leaving all the poor wretches to +look after themselves." + +"I don't think Jesus Christ is worse pleased with you for feeling +like that," said Mary. + +"Eh? What? What's that you say?--Jesus Christ worse pleased with +me? That's a good one! As if he ever thought about a fellow like +me!" + +"If he did not, you would not be thinking about him just this +minute, I suspect. There's no sense in it, if he does not think +about you. He said himself he didn't come to call the righteous, +but sinners to repentance." + +"I wish I could repent." + +"You can, if you will." + +"I can't make myself sorry for what's gone and done with." + +"No; it wants him to do that. But you can turn from your old +ways, and ask him to take you for a pupil. Aren't you willing to +learn, if he be willing to teach you?" + +"I don't know. It's all so dull and stupid! I never could bear +going to church." + +"It's not one bit like that! It's like going to your mother, and +saying you're going to try to be a good boy, and not vex her any +more." + +"I see. It's all right, I dare say! But I've had as much of it as +I can stand! You see, I'm not used to such things. You go away, +and send Mewks. Don't be far off, though, and mind you don't go +home without letting me know. There! Go along." + +She had just reached the door, when he called her again. + +"I say! Mind whom you trust in this house. There's no harm in +Mrs. Redmain; she only grows stupid directly she don't like a +thing. But that Miss Yolland!--that woman's the devil. I know +more about her than you or any one else. I can't bear her to be +about Hesper; but, if I told her the half I know, she would not +believe the half of that. I shall find a way, though. But I am +forgetting! you know her as well as I do--that is, you would, if +you were wicked enough to understand. I will tell you one of +these days what, I am going to do. There! don't say a word. I +want no advice on _such_ things. Go along, and send Mewks." + +With all his suspicion of the man, Mr. Redmain did not suspect +_how_ false Mewks was: he did not know that Miss Yolland had +bewitched him for the sake of having an ally in the enemy's camp. +All he could hear--and the dressing-room door was handy--the +fellow duly reported to her. Already, instructed by her fears, +she had almost divined what Mr. Redmain meant to do. + +Mary went and sat on the lowest step of the stair just outside +the room. + +"What are you doing there?" said Lady Margaret, coming from the +corridor. + +"Mr. Redmain will not have me go yet, my lady," answered Mary, +rising. "I must wait first till he sends for me." + +Lady Margaret swept past her, murmuring, "Most peculiar!" Mary +sat down again. + +In about an hour, Mewks came and said his master wanted her. + +He was very ill, and could not talk, but he would not let her go. +He made her sit where he could see her, and now and then +stretched out his hand to her. Even in his pain he showed a +quieter spirit. "Something may be working--who can tell!" thought +Mary. + +It was late in the afternoon when at length he sought further +conversation. + +"I have been thinking, Mary," he said, "that if I do wake up in +hell when I die, no matter how much I deserve it, nobody will be +the better for it, and I shall be all the worse." + +He spoke with coolness, but it was by a powerful effort: he had +waked from a frightful dream, drenched from head to foot. Coward? +No. He had reason to fear. + +"Whereas," rejoined Mary, taking up his clew, "everybody will be +the better if you keep out of it--everybody," she repeated, "-- +God, and Jesus Christ, and all their people." + +"How do you make that out?" he asked. "God has more to do than +look after such as me." + +"You think he has so many worlds to look to--thousands of them +only making? But why does he care about his worlds? Is it not +because they are the schools of his souls? And why should he care +for the souls? Is it not because he is making them children--his +own children to understand him and be happy with his happiness?" + +"I can't say I care for his happiness. I want my own. And yet I +don't know any that's worth the worry of it. No; I would rather +be put out like a candle." + +"That's because you have been a disobedient child, taking your +own way, and turning God's good things to evil. You don't know +what a splendid thing life is. You actually and truly don't know, +never experienced in your being the very thing you were made +for." + +"My father had no business to leave me so much money." + +"You had no business to misuse it." + +"I didn't _quite_ know what _I_ was doing." + +"You do now." + +Then came a pause. + +"You think God hears prayer--do you?" + +"I do." + +"Then I wish you would ask him to let me off--I mean, to let me +die right out when I do die." What's the good of making a body +miserable?" + +"That, I am sure it would be of no use to pray for. He certainly +will not throw away a thing he has made, because that thing may +be foolish enough to prefer the dust-hole to a cabinet." + +"Wouldn't you do it now, if I asked you?" + +"I would not. I would leave you in God's hands rather than inside +the gate of heaven." + +"I don't understand you. And you wouldn't say so if you cared for +me! Only, why should you care for me?" + +"I would give my life for you." + +"Come, now! I don't believe that." + +"Why, I couldn't be a Christian if I wouldn't!" + +"You are getting absurd!" he cried. But he did not look exactly +as if he thought it. + +"Absurd!" repeated Mary. "Isn't that what makes _him_ our +Saviour? How could I be his disciple, if I wouldn't do as he +did?" + +"You are saying a good deal!" + +"Can't you see that I have no choice?" + +"_I_ wouldn't do that for anybody under the sun!" + +"You are not his disciple. You have not been going about with +him." + +"And you have?" + +"Yes--for many years. Besides, I can not help thinking there is +one for whom you would do it." + +"If you mean my wife, you never were more mistaken. I would do +nothing of the sort." + +"I did not mean your wife. I mean Jesus Christ." + +"Oh, I dare say! Well, perhaps; if I knew him as you do, and if I +were quite sure he wanted it done for him." + +"He does want it done for him--always and every day--not for his +own sake, though it does make him very glad. To give up your way +for his is to die for him; and, when any one will do that, then +he is able to do everything for him; for then, and not till then, +he gets such a hold of him that he can lift him up, and set him +down beside himself. That's how my father used to teach me, and +now I see it for myself to be true." + +"It's all very grand, no doubt; but it ain't nowhere, you know. +It's all in your own head, and nowhere else. You don't, you +_can't_ positively believe all that!" + +"So much, at least, that I live in the strength and hope it gives +me, and order my ways according to it." + +"Why didn't you teach my wife so?" + +"I tried, but she didn't care to think. I could not get any +further with her. She has had no trouble yet to make her listen." + +"By Jove! I should have thought marrying a fellow like me might +have been trouble enough to make a saint of her." + +It was impossible to fix him to any line of thought, and Mary did +not attempt it. To move the child in him was more than all +argument. + +A pause followed. "I don't love God," he said. + +"I dare say not," replied Mary. "How should you, when you don't +know him?" + +"Then what's to be done? I can't very well show myself where I +hate the master of the house!" + +"If you knew him, you would love him." + +"You are judging by yourself. But there is as much difference +between you and me as between light and darkness." + +"Not quite that," replied Mary, with one of those smiles that +used to make her father feel as if she were that moment come +fresh from God to him. "If you knew Jesus Christ, you could not +help loving him, and to love him is to love God." + +"You wear me out! Will you never come to the point? _Know Jesus +Christ!_ How am I to go back two thousand years?" + +"What he was then he is now," answered Mary. "And you may even +know him better than they did at the time who saw him; for it was +not until they understood him better, by his being taken from +them, that they wrote down his life." + +"I suppose you mean I must read the New Testament?" said Mr. +Redmain, pettishly. + +"Of course!" answered Mary, a little surprised; for she was +unaware how few have a notion what the New Testament is, or is +meant for. + +"Then why didn't you say so at first? There I have you! That's +just where I learn that I must be damned for ever!" + +"I don't mean the Epistles. Those you can't understand--yet." + +"I'm glad you don't mean _them._ I hate them." + +"I don't wonder. You have never seen a single shine of what they +are; and what most people think them is hardly the least like +them. What I want you to read is the life and death of the son of +man, the master of men." + +"I can't read. I should only make myself twice as ill. I won't +try." + +"But I will read to you, if you will let me." + +"How comes it you are such a theologian? A woman is not expected +to know about that sort of thing." + +"I am no theologian. There just comes one of the cases in which +those who call themselves his followers do not believe what the +Master said: he said God hid these things from the wise and +prudent, and revealed them to babes. I had a father who was child +enough to know them, and I was child enough to believe him, and +so grew able to understand them for myself. The whole secret is +to do the thing the Master tells you: then you will understand +what he tells you. The opinion of the wisest man, if he does not +do the things he reads, is not worth a rush. He may be partly +right, but you have no reason to trust him." + +"Well, you shall be my chaplain. To-morrow, if I'm able to +listen, you shall see what you can make of the old sinner." + +Mary did not waste words: where would have been the use of +pulling up the poor spiritual clodpole at every lumbering step, +at any word inconsistent with the holy manners of the high +countries? Once get him to court, and the power of the presence +would subdue him, and make him over again from the beginning, +without which absolute renewal the best observance of religious +etiquette is worse than worthless. Many good people are such +sticklers for the proprieties! For myself, I take joyous refuge +with the grand, simple, every-day humanity of the man I find in +the story--the man with the heart like that of my father and my +mother and my brothers and sisters. If I may but see and help to +show him a little as he lived to show himself, and not as church +talk and church ways and church ceremonies and church theories +and church plans of salvation and church worldliness generally +have obscured him for hundreds of years, and will yet obscure him +for hundreds more! + +Toward evening, when she had just rendered him one of the many +attentions he required, and which there was no one that day but +herself to render, for he would scarcely allow Mewks to enter the +room, he said to her: + +"Thank you; you are very good to me. I shall remember you. Not +that I think I'm going to die just yet; I've often been as bad as +this, and got quite well again. Besides, I want to show that I +have turned over a new leaf. Don't you think God will give me one +more chance, now that I really mean it? I never did before." + +"God can tell whether you mean it without that," she answered, +not daring to encourage him where she knew nothing. "But you said +you would remember me, Mr. Redmain: I hope you didn't mean in +your will." + +"I did mean in my will," he answered, but in a tone of +displeasure. "I must say, however, I should have preferred you +had not _shown_ quite such an anxiety about it. I sha'n't be +in my coffin to-morrow; and I'm not in the way of forgetting +things." + +"I _beg_ you," returned Mary, flushing, "to do nothing of +the sort. I have plenty of money, and don't care about more. I +would much rather not have any from you." + +"But think how much good you might do with it!" said Mr. Redmain, +satirically. "--It was come by honestly--so far as I know." + +"Money can't do half the good people think. It is stubborn stuff +to turn to any good. And in this case it would be directly +against good." + +"Nobody has a right to refuse what comes honestly in his way. +There's no end to the good that may be done with money--to judge, +at least, by the harm I've done with mine," said Mr. Redmain, +this time with seriousness. + +"It is not in it," persisted Mary. "If it had been, our Lord +would have used it, and he never did." + +"Oh, but he was all an exception!" + +"On the contrary, he is the only man who is no exception. We are +the exceptions. Every one but him is more or less out of the +straight. Do you not see?--he is the very one we must all come to +be the same as, or perish! No, Mr. Redmain! don't leave me any +money, or I shall be altogether bewildered what to do with it. +Mrs. Redmain would not take it from me. Miss Yolland might, but I +dared not give it to her. And for societies, I have small faith +in them." + +"Well, well! I'll think about it," said Mr. Redmain, who had now +got so far on the way of life as to be capable of believing that +when Mary said a thing she meant it, though he was quite +incapable of understanding the true relations of money. Few +indeed are the Christians capable of that! The most of them are +just where Peter was, when, the moment after the Lord had honored +him as the first to recognize him as the Messiah, he took upon +him to object altogether to his Master's way of working salvation +in the earth. The Roman emperors took up Peter's plan, and the +devil has been in the church ever since--Peter's Satan, whom the +Master told to get behind him. They are poor prophets, and no +martyrs, who honor money as an element of any importance in the +salvation of the world. Hunger itself does incomparably more to +make Christ's kingdom come than ever money did, or ever will do +while time lasts. Of course money has its part, for everything +has; and whoever has money is bound to use it as best he knows; +but his best is generally an attempt to do saint-work by devil- +proxy. + +"I can't think where on earth-you got such a sackful of +extravagant notions!" Mr. Redmain added. + +"I told you before, sir, I had a father who set me thinking!" +answered Mary. + +"I wish I had had a father like yours," he rejoined. + +"There are not many such to be had." + +"I fear mine wasn't just what he ought to be, though he can't +have been such a rascal as his son: he hadn't time; he had his +money to make." + +"He had the temptation to make it, and you have the temptation to +spend it: which is the more dangerous, I don't know. Each has led +to many crimes." + +"Oh, as to crimes--I don't know about that! It depends on what +you call crimes." + +"It doesn't matter whether men call a deed a crime or a fault; +the thing is how God regards it, for that is the only truth about +it. What the world thinks, goes for nothing, because it is never +right. It would be worse in me to do some things the world counts +perfectly honorable, than it would be for this man to commit a +burglary, or that a murder. I mean my guilt might be greater in +committing a respectable sin, than theirs in committing a +disreputable one." + +Had Mary known anything of science, she might have said that, in +morals as in chemistry, the qualitative analysis is easy, but the +quantitative another affair. + +The latter part of this conversation, Sepia listening heard, and +misunderstood utterly. + +All the rest of the day Mary was with Mr. Redmain, mostly by his +bedside, sitting in silent watchfulness when he was unable to +talk with her. Nobody entered the room except Mewks, who, when he +did, seemed to watch everything, and try to hear everything, and +once Lady Margaret. When she saw Mary seated by the bed, though +she must have known well enough she was there, she drew herself +up with grand English repellence, and looked scandalized. Mary +rose, and was about to retire. But Mr. Redmain motioned her to +sit still. + +"This is my spiritual adviser, Lady Margaret," he said. + +Her ladyship cast a second look on Mary, such as few but her +could cast, and left the room. + +On into the gloom of the evening Mary sat. No one brought her +anything to eat or drink, and Mr. Redmain was too much taken up +with himself, soul and body, to think of her. She was now past +hunger, and growing faint, when, through the settled darkness, +the words came to her from the bed: + +"I should like to have you near me when I am dying, Mary." + +The voice was a softer than she had yet heard from Mr. Redmain, +and its tone went to her heart. + +"I will certainly be with you, if God please," she answered. + +"There is no fear of God," returned Mr. Redmain; "it's the devil +will try to keep you away. But never you heed what any one may do +or say to prevent you. Do your very best to be with me. By that +time I may not be having my own way any more. Be sure, the first +moment they can get the better of me, they will. And you mustn't +place confidence in a single soul in this house. I don't say my +wife would play me false so long as I was able to swear at her, +but I wouldn't trust her one moment longer. You come and be with +me in spite of the whole posse of them." "I will try, Mr. +Redmain," she answered, faintly. "But indeed you must let me go +now, else I may be unable to come to-morrow." + +"What's the matter?" he asked hurriedly, half lifting his head +with a look of alarm. "There's no knowing," he went on, muttering +to himself, "what may happen in this cursed house." + +"Nothing," replied Mary, "but that I have not had anything to eat +since I left home. I feel rather faint." + +"They've given you nothing to eat!" cried Mr. Redmain, but in a +tone that seemed rather of satisfaction than displeasure. "Ring-- +no, don't." + +"Indeed, I would rather not have anything now till I get home," +said Mary. "I don't feel inclined to eat where I am not welcome." + +"Right! right! right!" said Mr. Redmain. "Stick to that. Never +eat where you are not welcome. Go home directly. Only say when +you will come to-morrow." + +"I can't very well during the day," answered Mary. "There is so +much to be done, and I have so little help. But, if you should +want me, I would rather shut up the shop than not come." + +"There is no need for that! Indeed, I would much rather have you +in the evening. The first of the night is worst of all. It's then +the devils are out.--Look here," he added, after a short pause, +during which Mary, for as unfit as she felt, hesitated to leave +him, "--being in business, you've got a lawyer, I suppose?" + +"Yes," she answered. + +"Then you go to him to-night the first thing, and tell him to +come to me to-morrow, about noon. Tell him I am ill, and in bed, +and particularly want to see him; and he mustn't let anything +they say keep him from me, not even if they tell him I am dead." + +"I will," said Mary, and, stroking the thin hand that lay outside +the counterpane, turned and left him. + +"Don't tell any one you are gone," he called after her, with a +voice far from feeble. "I don't want any of their damned +company." + + + + +CHAPTER LIII. + +A FRIEND IN NEED. + + +Mary left the house, and saw no one on her way. But it was +better, she said to herself, that he should lie there untended, +than be waited on by unloving hands. + +The night was very dark. There was no moon, and the stars were +hidden by thick clouds. She must walk all the way to Testbridge. +She felt weak, but the fresh air was reviving. She did not know +the way so familiarly as that between Thornwick and the town, but +she would enter the latter before arriving at the common. + +She had not gone far when the moon rose, and from behind the +clouds diminished the darkness a little. The first part of her +journey lay along a narrow lane, with a small ditch, a rising +bank, and a hedge on each side. About the middle of the lane was +a farmyard, and a little way farther a cottage. Soon after +passing the gate of the farmyard, she thought she heard steps +behind her, seemingly soft and swift, and naturally felt a little +apprehension; but her thoughts flew to the one hiding-place for +thoughts and hearts and lives, and she felt no terror. At the +same time something moved her to quicken her pace. As she drew +near the common, she heard the steps more plainly, still soft and +swift, and almost wished she had sought refuge in the cottage she +had just passed--only it bore no very good character in the +neighborhood. When she reached the spot where the paths united, +feeling a little at home, she stopped to listen. Behind her were +the footsteps plain enough! The same moment the clouds thinned +about the moon, and a pale light came filtering through upon the +common in front of her. She cast one look over her shoulder, saw +something turn a corner in the lane, and sped on again. She would +have run, but there was no place of refuge now nearer than the +corner of the turnpike-road, and she knew her breath would fail +her long before that. How lonely and shelterless the common +looked! The soft, swift steps came nearer and nearer. + +Was that music she heard? She dared not stop to listen. But +immediately, thereupon, was poured forth on the dim air such a +stream of pearly sounds as if all the necklaces of some heavenly +choir of woman-angels were broken, and the beads came pelting +down in a cataract of hurtless hail. From no source could they +come save the bow and violin of Joseph Jasper! Where could he be? +She was so rejoiced to know that he must be somewhere near, that, +for very delight of unsecured safety, she held her peace, and had +almost stopped. But she ran on again. She was now nigh the ruined +hut with which my narrative has made the reader acquainted. In +the mean time the moon had been growing out of the clouds, +clearer and clearer. The hut came in sight. But the look of it +was somehow altered--with an undefinable change, such as might +appear on a familiar object in a dream; and leaning against the +side of the door stood a figure she could not mistake for another +than her musician. Absorbed in his music, he did not see her. She +called out, "Joseph! Joseph!" He started, threw his bow from him, +tucked his violin under his arm, and bounded to meet her. She +tried to stop, and the same moment to look behind her. The +consequence was that she fell--but safe in the smith's arms. That +instant appeared a man running. He half stopped, and, turning +from the path, took to the common. Jasper handed his violin to +Mary, and darted after him. The chase did not last a minute; the +man was nearly spent. Joseph seized him by the wrist, saw +something glitter in his other hand, and turned sick. The fellow +had stabbed him. With indignation, as if it were a snake that had +bit him, the blacksmith flung from him the hand he held. The man +gave a cry, staggered, recovered himself, and ran. Joseph would +have followed again, but fell, and for a minute or two lost +consciousness. When he came to himself, Mary was binding up his +arm. + +"What a fool I am!" he said, trying to get up, but yielding at +once to Mary's prevention. "Ain't it ridic'lous now, miss, that a +man of my size, and ready to work a sledge with any smith in +Yorkshire, should turn sick for a little bit of a job with a +knife? But my father was just the same, and he was a stronger man +than I'm like to be, I fancy." + +"It is no such wonder as you think," said Mary; "you have lost a +good deal of blood." + +Her voice faltered. She had been greatly alarmed--and the more +that she had not light enough to get the edges of the wound +properly together. + +"You've stopped it--ain't you, miss?" + +"I think so." + +"Then I'll be after the fellow." + +"No, no; you must not attempt it. You must lie still awhile. But +I don't understand it at all! That cottage used to be a mere +hovel, without door or window! It can't be you live in it?" + +"Ay, that I do! and it's not a bad place either," answered +Joseph. "That's what I went to Yorkshire to get my money for. +It's mine--bought and paid for." + +"But what made you think of coming here?" + +"Let's go into the smithy--house I won't presume to call it," +said Joseph, "though it has a lean-to for the smith--and I'll +tell you everything about it. But really, miss, you oughtn't to +be out like this after dark. There's too many vagabonds about." + +With but little need of the help Mary yet gave him, Joseph got +up, and led her to what was now a respectable little smithy, with +forge and bellows and anvil and bucket. Opening a door where had +been none, he brought a chair, and making her sit down, began to +blow the covered fire on the hearth, where he had not long before +"boiled his kettle" for his tea. Then closing the door, he +lighted a candle, and Mary looking about her could scarcely +believe the change that had come upon the miserable vacuity. +Joseph sat down upon his anvil, and begged to know where she had +just been, and how far she had run from the rascal. When he had +learned something of the peculiar relations in which Mary stood +to the family at Durnmelling, he began to think there might have +been something more in the pursuit than a chance ruffianly +assault, and the greater were his regrets that he had not secured +the miscreant. + +"Anyhow, miss," he said, "you'll never come from there alone in +the dark again!" + +"I understand you, Joseph," answered Mary, "for I know you would +not have me leave doing what I can for the poor man up there, +because of a little danger in the way." + +"No, that I wouldn't, miss. That would be as much as to say you +would do the will of God when the devil would let you. What I +mean is, that here am I--your slave, or servant, or soldier, or +whatever you may please to call me, ready at your word." + +"I must not take you from your work, you know, Joseph." + +"Work's not everything, miss," he answered; "and it's seldom so +pressing but that--except I be shoeing a horse--I can leave it +when I choose. Any time you want to go anywhere, don't forget as +you've got enemies about, and just send for me. You won't have +long to wait till I come. But I am main sorry the rascal didn't +have something to keep him in mind of his manners." + +Part of this conversation, and a good deal more, passed on their +way to Testbridge, whither, as soon as Joseph seemed all right, +Mary, who had forgotten her hunger and faintness, insisted on +setting out at once. In her turn she questioned Joseph, and +learned that, as soon as he knew she was going to settle at +Testbridge, he started off to find if possible a place in the +neighborhood humble enough to be within his reach, and near +enough for the hope of seeing her sometimes, and having what help +she might please to give him. The explanation afforded Mary more +pleasure than she cared to show. She had a real friend near her-- +one ready to help her on her own ground--one who understood her +because he understood the things she loved! He told her that +already he had work enough to keep him going; that the horses he +once shod were always brought to him again; that lie was at no +expense such as in a town; and that he had plenty of time both +for his violin and his books. + +When they came to the suburbs, she sent him home, and went +straight to Mr. Brett with Mr. Redmain's message. He undertook to +be at Durnmelling at the time appointed, and to let nothing +prevent him from seeing his new client. + + + + +CHAPTER LIV. + +THE NEXT NIGHT. + + +Mr. Bratt found no difficulty in the way of the interview, for +Mr. Redmain had given Mewks instructions he dared not disobey: +his master had often ailed, and recovered again, and he must not +venture too far! As soon as he had shown the visitor into the +room he was dismissed, but not before he had satisfied himself +that he was a lawyer. He carried the news at once to Sepia, and +it wrought no little anxiety in the house. There was a will +already in existence, and no ground for thinking a change in it +boded anything good. Mr. Mortimer never deigned to share his +thoughts, anxieties, or hopes with any of his people; but the +ladies met in deep consultation, although of course there was +nothing to be done. The only operative result was that it let +Sepia know how, though for reasons somewhat different, her +anxiety was shared by the others: unlike theirs, her sole desire +was--_not_ to be mentioned in the will: that could only be +for the sake of leaving her a substantial curse! Mr. Redmain's +utter silence, after, as she well knew, having gathered damning +facts to her discredit, had long convinced her he was but biding +his time. Certain she was he would not depart this life without +leaving his opinion of her and the proofs of its justice behind +him, carrying weight as the affidavit of a dying man. Also she +knew Hesper well enough to be certain that, however she might +delight in oppostion to the desire of her husband, she would for +the sake of no one carry that opposition to a point where it +became injurious to her interests. Sepia's one thought therefore +was: could not something be done to prevent the making of another +will, or the leaving of any fresh document behind him? What he +might already have done, she could nowise help; what he might yet +do, it would be well to prevent. Once more, therefore, she +impressed upon Mewks, and that in the names of Mrs. Redmain and +Lady Margaret, as well as in her own person, the absolute +necessity of learning as much as possible of what might pass +between his master and the lawyer. + +Mewks was driven to the end of his wits, and they were not a few, +to find excuses for going into the room, and for delaying to go +out again, while with all his ears he listened. But both client +and lawyer were almost too careful for him; and he had learned +positively nothing when the latter rose to depart. He instantly +left the room, with the door a trifle ajar, and listening +intently, heard his master say that Mr. Brett must come again the +next morning; that he felt better, and would think over the +suggestions he had made; and that he must leave the memoranda +within his reach, on the table by his bedside. Ere the lawyer +issued, Mewks was on his way with all this to his tempter. + +Sepia concluded there had been some difference of opinion between +Mr. Redmain and his adviser, and hoped that nothing had been +finally settled. Was there any way to prevent the lawyer from +seeing him again? Could she by any means get a peep at the +memoranda mentioned? She dared not suggest the thing to Hesper or +Lady Malice--of all people they were those in relation to whom +she feared their possible contents--and she dared not show +herself in Mr. Redmain's room. Was Mewks to be trusted to the +point of such danger as grew in her thought? + +The day wore on. Toward evening he had a dreadful attack. Any +other man would have sent before now for what medical assistance +the town could afford him, but Mr. Redmain hated having a +stranger about him, and, as he knew how to treat himself, it was +only when very ill that he would send for his own doctor to the +country, fearing that otherwise he might give him up as a +patient, such visits, however well remunerated, being seriously +inconvenient to a man with a large London practice. But now Lady +Margaret took upon herself to send a telegram. + +An hour before her usual time for closing the shop, Mary set out +for Durnmelling; and, at the appointed spot on the way, found her +squire of low degree in waiting. At first sight, however, and +although she was looking out for him, she did not certainly +recognize him. I would not have my reader imagine Joseph one of +those fools who delight in appearing something else than they +are; but while every workman ought to look a workman, it ought +not to be by looking less of a man, or of a _gentleman_ in +the true sense; and Joseph, having, out of respect to her who +would honor him with her company, dressed himself in a new suit +of unpretending gray, with a wide-awake hat, looked at first +sight more like a country gentleman having a stroll over his +farm, than a man whose hands were hard with the labors of the +forge. He took off his hat as she approached--if not with ease, +yet with the clumsy grace peculiar to him; for, unlike many whose +manners are unobjectionable, he had in his something that might +be called his own. But the best of it was, that he knew nothing +about his manners, beyond the desire to give honor where honor +was due. + +He walked with her to the door of the house; for they had agreed +that, from whatever quarter had come the pursuit, and whatever +might have been its object, it would be well to show that she was +attended. They had also arranged at what hour, and at what spot +close at hand, he was to be waiting to accompany her home. But, +although he said nothing about it, Joseph was determined not to +leave the place until she rejoined him. + +It was nearly dark when he left her; and when he had wandered up +and down the avenue awhile, it seemed dark enough to return to +the house, and reconnoiter a little. + +He had already made the acquaintance of the farmer who occupied a +portion of the great square, behind the part where the family +lived: he had had several of his horses to shoe, and had not only +given satisfaction by the way in which he shod them, but had +interested their owner with descriptions of more than one rare +mode of shoeing to which he had given attention; he was, +therefore, the less shy of being discovered about the place. + +From the back he found his way into the roofless hall, and there +paced quietly up and down, measuring the floor, and guessing at +the height and thickness of the walls, and the sort of roof they +had borne. He noted that the wall of the house rose higher than +those of the ruin with which it was in contact; and that there +was a window in it just over one of those walls. Thinking whether +it had been there when the roof was on, he saw through it the +flickering of a fire, and wondered whether it could be the window +of Mr. Redmain's room. + +Mary, having resolved not to give any notice of her arrival, if +she could get in without it, and finding the hall-door on the +latch, entered quietly, and walked straight to Mr. Redmain's +bedroom. When she opened the door of it, Mewks came hurriedly to +meet her, as if he would have made her go out again, but she +scarcely looked at him, and advanced to the bed. Mr. Redmain was +just waking from the sleep into which he had fallen after a +severe paroxysm. + +"Ah, there you are!" he said, smiling her a feeble welcome. "I am +glad you are come. I have been looking out for you. I am very +ill. If it comes again to-night, I think it will make an end of +me." + +She sat down by the bedside. He lay quite still for some time, +breathing like one very weary. Then he seemed to grow easier, and +said, with much gentleness: + +"Can't you talk to me?" + +"Would you like me to read to you?" she asked. + +"No," he answered; "I can't bear the light; it makes my head +furious." + +"Shall I talk to you about my father?" she asked. + +"I don't believe in fathers," he replied. "They're always after +some notion of their own. It's not their children they care +about." + +"That may be true of some fathers," answered Mary; "but it is not +the least true of mine." + +"Where is he? Why don't you bring him to see me, if he is such a +good man? He might be able to do something for me." + +"There is none but your own father can do anything for you," said +Mary. "My father is gone home to him, but if he were here, he +would only tell you about _him_." + +There was a moment's silence. + +"Why don't you talk?" said Mr. Redmain, crossly. "What's the good +of sitting there saying nothing! How am I to forget that the pain +will be here again, if you don't say a word to help me?" + +Mary lifted up her heart, and prayed for something to say to the +sad human soul that had never known the Father. But she could +think of nothing to talk about except the death of William +Marston. So she began with the dropping of her watch, and, +telling whatever seemed at the moment fit to tell, ended with the +dream she had the night of his funeral. By that time the hidden +fountain was flowing in her soul, and she was able to speak +straight out of it. + +"I can not tell you, sir," she said, closing the story of her +dream, "what a feeling it was! The joy of it was beyond all +expression." + +"You're not surely going to offer me a dream in proof of +anything!" muttered the sick man. + +"Yes," answered Mary--"in proof of what it can prove. The joy of +a child over a new toy, or a colored sweetmeat, shows of what +bliss the human soul is made capable." + +"Oh, capable, I dare say!" + +"And more than that," Mary went on, adding instead of replying, +"no one ever felt such gladness without believing in it. There +must be somewhere the justification of such gladness. There must +be the father of it somewhere." + +"Well! I don't like to say, after your kindness in coming here to +take care of me, that you talk the worst rubbish I ever heard; +but just tell me of what use is it all to me, in the state I am +in! What I want is to be free of pain, and have some pleasure in +life--not to be told about a father." + +"But what if the father you don't want is determined you shall +not have what you do want? What if your desire is not worth +keeping you alive for? And what if he is ready to help your +smallest effort to be the thing he wants you to be--and in the +end to give you your heart's desire?" + +"It sounds very fine, but it's all so thin, so up in the clouds! +It don't seem to have a leg to stand upon. Why, if that were +true, everybody would be good! There would be none but saints in +the world! What's in it, I'm sure I don't know." + +"It will take ages to know what is in it; but, if you should die +now, you will be glad to find, on the other side, that you have +made a beginning. For my part, if I had everything my soul could +desire, except God with me, I could but pray that he would come +to me, or not let me live a moment longer; for it would be but +the life of a devil." + +"What do you mean by a devil?" + +"A power that lives against its life," said Mary. + +Mr. Redmain answered nothing. He did not perceive an atom of +sense in the words. They gave him not a glimmer. Neither will +they to many of my readers; while not a few will think they see +all that is in them, and see nothing. + +He was silent for a long time--whether he waked or slept she +could not tell. + +The annoyance was great in the home conclave when Mewks brought +the next piece of news--namely, that there was that designing +Marston in the master's room again, and however she got into the +house he was sure _he_ didn't know. + +"All the same thing over again, miss!--hard at it a-tryin' to +convert 'im!--And where's the use, you know, miss? If a man like +my master's to be converted and get off, I don't for my part see +where's the good o' keepin' up a devil." + +"I am quite of your opinion, Mewks," said Sepia. + +But in her heart she was ill at ease. + +All day long she had been haunted with an ever-recurring +temptation, which, instead of dismissing it, she kept like a dog +in a string. Different kinds of evil affect people differently. +Ten thousand will do a dishonest thing, who would indignantly +reject the dishonest thing favored by another ten thousand. They +are not sufficiently used to its ugly face not to dislike it, +though it may not be quite so ugly as their _protege_. A man +will feel grandly honest against the dishonesties of another +trade than his, and be eager to justify those of his own. Here +was Sepia, who did not care the dust of a butterfly's wing for +causing any amount of family misery, who would without a pang +have sacrificed the genuine reputation of an innocent man to save +her own false one--shuddering at an idea as yet bodiless in her +brain--an idea which, however, she did not dismiss, and so grew +able to endure! + +I have kept this woman--so far as personal acquaintance with her +is concerned--in the background of my history. For one thing, I +am not fond of _post-mortem_ examinations; in other words, I +do not like searching the decompositions of moral carrion. +Analysis of such is, like the use of reagents on dirt, at least +unpleasant. Nor was any true end to be furthered by a more vivid +presentation of her. Nosology is a science doomed, thank God, to +perish! Health alone will at last fill the earth. Or, if there +should be always the ailing to help, a man will help them by +being sound himself, not by knowing the ins and outs of disease. +Diagnosis is not therapy. + +Sepia was unnatural--as every one is unnatural who does not set +his face in the direction of the true Nature; but she had gone +further in the opposite direction than many people have yet +reached. At the same time, whoever has not faced about is on the +way to a capacity for worse things than even our enemies would +believe of us. + +Her very existence seemed to her now at stake. If by his dying +act Mr. Redmain should drive her from under Hesper's roof, what +was to become of her! Durnmelling, too, would then be as +certainly closed against her, and she would be compelled to take +a situation, and teach music, which she hated, and French and +German, which gave her no pleasure apart from certain strata of +their literature, to insolent girls whom she would be constantly +wishing to strangle, or stupid little boys who would bore her to +death. Her very soul sickened at the thought--as well it might; +for to have to do such service with such a heart as hers, must +indeed be torment. All hope of marrying Godfrey Wardour would be +gone, of course. Did he but remain uncertain as to the truth or +falsehood of a third part of what Mr. Redmain would record +against her, he would never meet her again! + +Since the commencement of this last attack of Mr. Redmain's +malady, she had scarcely slept; and now what Mewks reported +rendered her nigh crazy. For some time she had been generally +awake half the night, and all the last night she had been +wandering here and there about the house, not unfrequently +couched where she could hear every motion in Mr. Redmain's room. +Haunted by fear, she in turn haunted her fear. She could not keep +from staring down the throat of the pit. She was a slave of the +morrow, the undefined, awful morrow, ever about to bring forth no +one knows what. That morrow could she but forestall! + +If any should think that anxiety and watching must have so +wrought on Sepia that she came to be no longer accountable for +her actions, I will not oppose the kind conclusion. For my own +part, until I shall have seen a man absolutely one with the +source of his being, I do not believe I shall ever have seen a +man absolutely sane. What many would point to as plainest proofs +of sanity, I should regard as surest signs of the contrary. + +A sign of my own insanity is it? + +Your insanity may be worse than mine, for you are aware of none, +and I with mine do battle. I believe all insanity has moral as +well as physical roots. But enough of this. There are questions +we can afford to leave. + +Sepia had got very thin during these trying days. Her great eyes +were larger yet, and filled with a troubled anxiety. Not +paleness, for of that her complexion was incapable, but a dull +pallor possessed her cheek. If one had met her as she roamed the +house that night, he might well have taken her for some naughty +ancestor, whose troubled conscience, not yet able to shake off +the madness of some evil deed, made her wander still about the +place where she had committed it. + +She believed in no supreme power who cares that right should be +done in his worlds. Here, it may be, some of my unbelieving +acquaintances, foreseeing a lurid something on the horizon of my +story, will be indignant that the capacity for crime should be +thus associated with the denial of a Live Good. But it remains a +mere fact that it is easier for a man to commit a crime when he +does not fear a willed retribution. Tell me there is no merit in +being prevented by fear; I answer, the talk is not of merit. As +the world is, that is, as the race of men at present is, it is +just as well that the man who has no merit, and never dreamed of +any, should yet be a little hindered from cutting his neighbor's +throat at his evil pleasure.--No; I do not mean hindered by a +lie--I mean hindered by the poorest apprehension of the grandest +truth. + +Of those who do not believe, some have never had a noble picture +of God presented to them; but whether their phantasm is of a mean +God because they refuse him, or they refuse him because their +phantasm of him is mean, who can tell? Anyhow, mean notions must +come of meanness, and, uncharitable as it may appear, I can not +but think there is a moral root to all chosen unbelief. But let +God himself judge his own. + +With Sepia, what was _best_ meant what was best for her, and +_best for her_ meant _most after her liking_. + +She had in her time heard a good deal about _euthanasia_, +and had taken her share in advocating it. I do not assume this to +be anything additional against her; one who does not believe in +God, may in such an advocacy indulge a humanity pitiful over the +irremediable ills of the race; and, being what she was, she was +no worse necessarily for advocating that than for advocating +cremation, which she did--occasionally, I must confess, a little +coarsely. But the notion of _euthanasia_ might well work for +evil in a mind that had not a thought for the case any more than +for the betterment of humanity, or indeed for anything but its +own consciousness of pleasure or comfort. Opinions, like drugs, +work differently on different constitutions. Hence the man is +foolish who goes scattering vague notions regardless of the soil +on which they may fall. + +She was used to asking the question, What's the good? but always +in respect of something she wanted out of her way. + +"What's the good of an hour or two more if you're not enjoying +it?" she said to herself again and again that Monday. "What's the +good of living when life is pain--or fear of death, from which no +fear can save you?" But the question had no reference to her own +life: she was judging for another--and for another not for his +sake, or from his point of view, but for her own sake, and from +where she stood. + +All the day she wandered about the house, such thoughts as these +in her heart, and in her pocket a bottle of that concentrated +which Mr. Redmain was taking much diluted for medicine. But she +_hoped not to have to use it_. If only Mr. Redmain would +yield the conflict, and depart without another interview with the +lawyer! + +But if he would not, and two drops from the said bottle, not +taken by herself, but by another, would save her, all her life to +come, from endless anxiety and grinding care, from weariness and +disgust, and indeed from want; nor that alone, but save likewise +that other from an hour, or two hours, or perhaps a week, or +possibly two weeks, or--who could tell?--it might be a month of +pain and moaning and weariness, would it not be well?--must it +not be more than well? + +She had not learned to fear temptation; she feared poverty, +dependence, humiliation, labor, _ennui_, misery. The thought +of the life that must follow and wrap her round in the case of +the dreaded disclosure was unendurable; the thought of the +suggested frustration was not _so_ unendurable--was not +absolutely unendurable--was to be borne--might be permitted to +come--to return--was cogitated--now with imagined resistance, now +with reluctant and partial acceptance, now with faint resolve, +and now with determined resolution--now with the beaded drops +pouring from the forehead, and now with a cold, scornful smile of +triumphant foil and success. + +Was she so very exceptionally bad, however? You who hate your +brother or your sister--you do not think yourself at all bad! But +you are a murderer, and she was only a murderer. You do not feel +wicked? How do you know she did? Besides, you hate, and she did +not hate; she only wanted to take care of herself. Lady Macbeth +did not hate Duncan; she only wanted to give her husband his +crown. You only hate your brother; you would not, you say, do him +any harm; and I believe you would not do him mere bodily harm; +but, were things changed, so that hate-action became absolutely +safe, I should have no confidence what you might not come to do. +No one can tell what wreck a gust of passion upon a sea of hate +may work. There are men a man might well kill, if he were +anything less than ready to die for them. The difference between +the man that hates and the man that kills may be nowhere but in +the courage. These are _grewsome_ thinkings: let us leave +them--but hating with them. + +All the afternoon Sepia hovered about Mr. Rcdmain's door, down +upon Mewks every moment he appeared. Her head ached; she could +hardly breathe. Rest she could not. Once when Mewks, coming from +the room, told her his master was asleep, she crept in, and, +softly approaching the head of the bed, looked at him from +behind, then stole out again. + +"He seems dying, Mewks," she said. + +"Oh, no, miss! I've often seen him as bad. He's better." + +"Who's that whispering?" murmured the patient, angrily, though +half asleep. + +Mewks went in, and answered: + +"Only me and Jemima, sir." + +"Where's Miss Marston?" + +"She's not come yet, sir." + +"I want to go to sleep again. You must wake me the moment she +comes." + +"Yes, sir." + +Mewks went back to Sepia. + +"His voice is much altered," she said. + +"He most always speaks like that now, miss, when he wakes--very +different from I used to know him! He'd always swear bad when he +woke; but Miss Marston do seem t' 'ave got a good deal of that +out of him. Anyhow, this last two days he's scarce swore enough +to make it feel home-like." + +"It's death has got it out of him," said Sepia. "I don't think he +can last the night through. Fetch me at once if--And don't let +that Marston into the room again, whatever you do." + +She spoke with the utmost emphasis, plainly clinching +instructions previously given, then went slowly up the stair to +her own room. Surely he would die to-night, and she would not be +led into temptation! She would then have but to get a hold of the +paper! What a hateful and unjust thing it was that her life +should be in the power of that man--a miserable creature, himself +hanging between life and death!--that such as he should be able +to determine her fate, and say whether she was to be comfortable +or miserable all the rest of a life that was to outlast his so +many years! It was absurd to talk of a Providence! She must be +her own providence! + +She stole again down the stair. Her cousin was in her own room +safe with a novel, and there was Mewks fast asleep in an easy- +chair in the study, with the doors of the dressing-room and +chamber ajar! She crept into the sick-room. There was the tumbler +with the medicine! and her fingers were on the vial in her +pocket. The dying man slept. + +She drew near the table by the bed. He stirred as if about to +awake. Her limbs, her brain seemed to rebel against her will.-- +But what folly it was! the man was not for this world a day +longer; what could it matter whether he left it a few hours +earlier or later? The drops on his brow rose from the pit of his +agony; every breath was a torture; it were mercy to help him +across the verge; if to more life, he would owe her thanks; if to +endless rest, he would never accuse her. + +She took the vial from her pocket. A hand was on the lock of the +door! She turned and fled through the dressing-room and study, +waking Mewks as she passed. He, hurrying into the chamber, saw +Mary already entered. + +When Sepia learned who it was that had scared her, she felt she +could kill her with less compunction than Mr. Redmain. She hated +her far worse. + +"You _must_ get the viper out of-the house, Mewks," she +said. "It is all your fault she got into the room." + +"I'm sure I'm willing enough," he answered, "--even if it wasn't +you as as't me, miss! But what am I to do? She's that brazen, you +wouldn' believe, miss! It wouldn' be becomin' to tell you what I +think that young woman fit to do." + +"I don't doubt it," responded Sepia. "But surely," she went on, +"the next time he has an attack, and he's certain to have one +soon, you will be able to get her hustled out!" + +"No, miss--least of all just then. She'll make that a pretense +for not going a yard from the bed--as if me that's been about him +so many years didn't know what ought to be done with him in his +paroxes of pain better than the likes of her! Of all things I do +loathe a row, miss--and the talk of it after; and sure I am that +without a row we don't get her out of that room. The only way is +to be quiet, and seem to trust her, and watch for the chance of +her going out--then shut her out, and keep her out." + +"I believe you are right," returned Sepia, almost with a hope +that no such opportunity might arrive, but at the same time +growing more determined to take advantage of it if it should. + +Hence partly it came that Mary met with no interruption to her +watching and ministering. Mewks kept coming and going--watching +her, and awaiting his opportunity. Mr. Redmain scarcely heeded +him, only once and again saying in sudden anger, "What can that +idiot be about? He might know by this time I'm not likely to want +_him_ so long as _you_ are in the room!" + +And said Mary to herself: "Who knows what good the mere presence +of one who trusts may be to him, even if he shouldn't seem to +take much of what she says! Perhaps he may think of some of it +after he is dead--who knows?" Patiently she sat and waited, full +of help that would have flowed in a torrent, but which she felt +only trickle from her heart like a stream that is lost on the +face of the rock down which it flows. + +All at once she bethought herself, and looked at her watch: +Joseph had been waiting for her more than an hour, and would not, +she knew, if he stopped all night, go away without her! And for +her, she could not forsake the poor man her presence seemed to +comfort! He was now lying very still: she would slip out and send +Joseph away, and be back before the patient or any one else +should miss her! + +She went softly from the room, and glided down the stairs, and +out of the house, seeing no one--but not unseen: hardly was she +from the room, when the door of it was closed and locked behind +her, and hardly from the house, when the house-door also was +closed and locked behind her. But she heard nothing, and ran, +without the least foreboding of mishap, to the corner where +Joseph was to meet her. + +There he was, waiting as patiently as if the hour had not yet +come. + +"I can't leave him, Joseph. My heart won't let me," she said. "I +can not go back before the morning. I will look in upon you as I +pass." + +So saying, and without giving him time to answer, she bade him +good night, and ran back to the house, hoping to get in as before +without being seen. But to her dismay she found the door already +fast, and concluded the hour had arrived when the house was shut +up for the night. She rang the bell, but there was no answer--for +there was Mewks himself standing close behind the door, grinning +like his master an evil grin. As she knocked and rang in vain, +the fact flashed upon her that she was intentionally excluded. +She turned away, overwhelmed with a momentary despair. What was +she to do? There stood Joseph! She ran back to him, and told him +they had shut her out. + +"It makes me miserable," she went on, "to think of the poor man +calling me, and me nowhere to answer. The worst of it is, I seem +the only person he has any faith in, and what I have been telling +him about the father of us all, whose love never changes, will +seem only the idler tale, when he finds I am gone, and nowhere to +be found--as they're sure to tell him. There's no saying what +lies they mayn't tell him about my going! Rather than go, I will +sit on the door-step all night, just to be able to tell him in +the morning that I never went home." + +"Why have they done it, do you think? asked Joseph. + +"I dare hardly allow myself to conjecture," answered Mary. "None +of them like me but Jemima--not even Mrs. Redmain now, I am +afraid; for you see I never got any of the good done her I +wanted, and, till something of that was done, she could not know +how I felt toward her. I shouldn't a bit wonder if they fancy I +have a design on his money--as if anybody fit to call herself a +woman would condescend to such a thing! But when a woman would +marry for money, she may well think as badly of another woman." + +"This is a serious affair," said Joseph. "To have a dying man +believe you false to him would be dreadful! We must find some way +in. Let us go to the kitchen-door." + +"If Jemima happened to be near, then, perhaps!" rejoined Mary; +"but if they want to keep me out, you may be sure Mewks has taken +care of one door as well as another. He knows I'm not so easy to +keep out." + +"If you did get in," said Joseph, speaking in a whisper as they +went, "would you feel quite safe after this?" + +"I have no fear. I dare say they would lock me up somewhere if +they could, before I got to Mr. Redmain's room: once in, they +would not dare touch me." + +"I shall not go out of hearing so long as you are in that house," +said Joseph, with decision. "Not until I have you out again do I +leave the premises. If anything should make you feel +uncomfortable, you cry out, miss, and I'll make a noise at the +door that everybody at Thornwick over there shall hear me." + +"It is a large house, Joseph: one might call in many a part of +it, and never be heard out of doors. I don't think you could hear +me from Mr. Redmain's room," said Mary, with a little laugh, for +she was amused as well as pleased at the protection Joseph would +give her; "it is up two flights, and he chose it himself for the +sake of being quiet when he was ill." + +As she spoke, they reached the door they sought--the most likely +of all to be still open: it was fast and dark as if it had not +been unbolted for years. One or two more entrances they tried, +but with no better success. + +"Come this way," whispered Joseph. "I know a place where we shall +at least be out of their sight, and where we can plan at our +leisure." + +He led her to the back entrance to the old hall. Alas! even that +was closed. + +"This _is_ disappointing," he said; "for, if we were only in +there, I think something might be done." + +"I believe I know a way," said Mary, and led him to a place near, +used for a wood-shed. + +At the top of a great heap of sticks and fagots was an opening in +the wall, that had once been a window, or perhaps a door. + +"That, I know, is the wall of the tower," she said; "and there +can be no difficulty in getting through there. Once in, it will +be easy to reach the hall--that is, if the door of the tower is +not locked." + +In an instant Joseph was at the top of the heap, and through the +opening, hanging on, and feeling with his feet. He found footing +at no great distance, and presently Mary was beside him. They +descended softly, and found the door into the hall wide open. + +"Can you tell me what window is that," whispered Joseph, "just +above the top of the wall?" + +"I can not," answered Mary. "I never could go about this house as +I did about Mr. Redmain's; my lady always looked so fierce if she +saw me trying to understand the place. But why do you ask?" + +"You see the flickering of a fire? Could it be Mr. Redmain's +room?" + +"I can not tell. I do not think it. That has no window in this +direction, so far as I know. But I could not be certain." + +"Think how the stairs turn as you go up, and how the passages go +to the room. Think in what direction you look every corner you +turn. Then you will know better whether or not it might be." + +Mary was silent, and thought. In her mind she followed every turn +she had to take from the moment she entered the house till she +got to the door of Mr. Redmain's room, and then thought how the +windows lay when she entered it. Her conclusion was that one side +of the room must be against the hall, but she could remember no +window in it. + +"But," she added, "I never was in that room when I was here +before, and, the twice I have now been in it, I was too much +occupied to take much notice of things about me. Two windows, I +know, look down into a quiet little corner of the courtyard, +where there is an old pump covered with ivy. I remember no +other." + +"Is there any way of getting on to the top of that wall from this +tower?" asked Joseph. + +"Certainly there is. People often walk round the top of those +walls. They are more than thick enough for that." + +"Are you able to do it?" + +"Yes, quite. I have been round them more than once. But I don't +like the idea of looking in at a window." + +"No more do I, miss; but you must remember, if it is his room, it +will only be your eyes going where the whole of you has a right +to be; and, if it should not be that room, they have driven you +to it: such a necessity will justify it." + +"You must be right," answered Mary, and, turning, led the way up +the stair of the tower, and through a gap in the wall out upon +the top of the great walls. + +It was a sultry night. A storm was brooding between heaven and +earth. The moon was not yet up, and it was so dark that they had +to feel their way along the wall, glad of the protection of a +fence of thick ivy on the outer side. Looking down into the court +on the one hand, and across the hall to the lawn on the other, +they saw no living thing in the light from various windows, and +there was little danger of being discovered. In the gable was +only the one window for which they were making. Mary went first, +as better knowing the path, also as having the better right to +look in. Through the window, as she went, she could see the +flicker, but not the fire. All at once came a great blaze. It +lasted but a moment--long enough, however, to let them see +plainly into a small closet, the door of which was partly open. + +"That is the room, I do believe," whispered Mary. "There is a +closet, but I never was in it." + +"If only the window be not bolted!" returned Joseph. + +The same instant Mary heard the voice of Mr. Redmain call in a +tone of annoyance--"Mary! Mary Marston! I want you. Who is that +in the room?--Damn you! who are you?" + +"Let me pass you," said Joseph, and, making her hold to the ivy, +here spread on to the gable, he got between Mary and the window. +The blaze was gone, and the fire was at its old flicker. The +window was not bolted. He lifted the sash. A moment and he was +in. The next, Mary was beside him. + +Something, known to her only as an impulse, induced Mary to go +softly to the door of the closet, and peep into the room. She saw +Hesper, as she thought, standing--sidewise to the closet--by a +chest of drawers invisible from the bed. A candle stood on the +farther side of her. She held in one hand the tumbler from which, +repeatedly that evening, Mary had given the patient his medicine: +into this she was pouring, with an appearance of care, something +from a small dark bottle. + +With a sudden suspicion of foul play, Mary glided swiftly into +the room, and on to where she stood. It was Sepia! She started +with a smothered shriek, turned white, and almost dropped the +bottle; then, seeing who it was, recovered herself. But such a +look as she cast on Mary! such a fire of hate as throbbed out of +those great black eyes! Mary thought for a moment she would dart +at her. But she turned away, and walked swiftly to the door. +Joseph, however, peeping in behind Mary, had caught a glimpse of +the bottle and tumbler, also of Sepia's face. Seeing her now +retiring with the bottle in her hand, he sprang after her, and, +thanks to the fact that she had locked the door, was in time to +snatch it from her. She turned like a wild beast, and a terrible +oath came hissing as from a feline throat. When, however, she +saw, not Mary, but the unknown figure of a powerful man, she +turned again to the door and fled. Joseph shut and locked it, and +went back to the closet. Mary drew near the bed. + +"Where have you been all this time?" asked the patient, +querulously; "and who was that went out of the room just now? +What's all the hurry about?" + +Anxious he should be neither frightened nor annoyed, Mary replied +to the first part of his question only. + +"I had to go and tell a friend, who was waiting for me, that I +shouldn't be home to-night. But here I am now, and I will not +leave you again." + +"How did the door come to be locked? And who was that went out of +the room?" + +While he was thus questioning, Joseph crept softly out of the +window; and all the rest of the night he lay on the top of the +wall under it. + +"It was Miss Yolland," answered Mary. + +"What business had she in my room?" + +"She shall not enter it again while I am here." + +"Don't let Mewks in either," he rejoined. "I heard the door +unlock and lock again: what did it mean?" + +"Wait till to-morrow. Perhaps we shall find out then." + +He was silent a little. + +"I must get out of this house, Mary," he sighed at length. + +"When the doctor comes, we shall see," said Mary. + +"What! is the doctor coming? I am glad of that. Who sent for +him?" "I don't know; I only heard he was coming." + +"But your lawyer, Mary--what's his name?--will be here first: +we'll talk the thing over with him, and take his advice. I feel +better, and shall go to sleep again." + +All night long Mary sat by him and watched. Not a step, so far as +she knew, came near the door; certainly not a hand was laid upon +the lock. Mr. Redmain slept soundly, and in the morning was +beyond a doubt better. + +But Mary could not think of leaving him until Mr. Brett came. At +Mr. Redmain's request she rang the bell. Mewks made his +appearance, with the face of a ghost. His master told him to +bring his breakfast. + +"And see, Mewks," he added, in a tone of gentleness that +terrified the man, so unaccustomed was he to such from the mouth +of his master--"see that there is enough for Miss Marston as +well. She has had nothing all night. Don't let my lady have any +trouble with it.--Stop," he cried, as Mewks was going, "I won't +have you touch it either; I am fastidious this morning. Tell the +young woman they call Jemima to come here to Miss Marston." + +Mewks slunk away. Jemima came, and Mr. Redmain ordered her to get +breakfast for himself and Mary. It was done speedily, and Mary +remained in the sick-chamber until the lawyer arrived. + + + + +CHAPTER LV. + +DISAPPEARANCE. + + +"I am afraid I must ask you to leave us now, Miss Marston," said +Mr. Brett, seated with pen, ink, and paper, to receive his new +client's instructions. + +"No," said Mr. Redmain; "she must stay where she is. I fancy +something happened last night which she has got to tell us +about." + +"Ah! What was that?" asked Mr. Brett, facing round on her. + +Mary began her story with the incident of her having been pursued +by some one, and rescued by the blacksmith, whom she told her +listeners she had known in London. Then she narrated all that had +happened the night before, from first to last, not forgetting the +flame that lighted the closet as they approached the window. + +"Just let me see those memoranda," said Mr. Brett to Mr. Redmain, +rising, and looking for the paper where he had left it the day +before. + +"It was of that paper I was this moment thinking," answered Mr. +Redmain. + +"It is not here!" said Mr. Brett. + +"I thought as much! The fool! There was a thousand pounds there +for her! I didn't want to drive her to despair: a dying man must +mind what he is about. Ring the bell and see what Mewks has to +say to it." + +Mewks came, in evident anxiety. + +I will not record his examination. Mr. Brett took it for granted +he had deliberately and intentionally shut out Mary, and Mewks +did not attempt to deny it, protesting he believed she was boring +his master. The grin on that master's face at hearing this was +not very pleasant to behold. When examined as to the missing +paper, he swore by all that was holy he knew nothing about it. + +Mr. Brett next requested the presence of Miss Yolland. She was +nowhere to be found. The place was searched throughout, but there +was no trace of her. + +When the doctor arrived, the bottle Joseph had taken from her was +examined, and its contents discovered. + +Lady Malice was grievously hurt at the examination she found had +been going on. + +"Have I not nursed you like my own brother, Mr. Redmain?" she +said. + +"You may be glad you have escaped a coroner's inquest in your +house, Lady Margaret!" said Mr. Brett. + +"For me," said Mr. Redmain, "I have not many days left me, but +somehow a fellow does like to have his own!" + +Hesper sought Mary, and kissed her with some appearance of +gratitude. She saw what a horrible suspicion, perhaps even +accusation, she had saved her from. The behavior and +disappearance of Sepia seemed to give her little trouble. + +Mr. Brett got enough out of Mewks to show the necessity of his +dismissal, and the doctor sent from London a man fit to take his +place. + +Almost every evening, until he left Durnmelling, Mary went to see +Mr. Redmain. She read to him, and tried to teach him, as one +might an unchildlike child. And something did seem to be getting +into, or waking up in, him. The man had never before in the least +submitted; but now it looked as if the watching spirit of life +were feeling through the dust-heap of his evil judgments, low +thoughts, and bad life, to find the thing that spirit had made, +lying buried somewhere in the frightful tumulus: when the two met +and joined, then would the man be saved; God and he would be +together. Sometimes he would utter the strangest things--such as +if all the old evil modes of thinking and feeling were in full +operation again; and sometimes for days Mary would not have an +idea what was going on in him. When suffering, he would +occasionally break into fierce and evil language, then be +suddenly silent. God and Satan were striving for the man, and +victory would be with him with whom the man should side. + +For some time it remained doubtful whether this attack was not, +after all, going to be the last: the doctor himself was doubtful, +and, having no reason to think his death would be a great grief +in the house, did not hesitate much to express his doubt. And, +indeed, it caused no gloom. For there was little love in the +attentions the Mortimers paid him; and in what other hope could +Hesper have married, than that one day she would be free, with a +freedom informed with power, the power of money! But to the +mother's suggestions as to possible changes in the future, the +daughter never responded: she had no thought of plans in common +with her. + +Strange rumors came abroad. Godfrey Wardour heard something of +them, and laughed them to scorn. There was a conspiracy in that +house to ruin the character of the loveliest woman in creation! +But when a week after week passed, and he heard nothing of or +from her, he became anxious, and at last lowered his pride so far +as to call on Mary, under the pretense of buying something in the +shop. + +His troubled look filled her with sympathy, but she could not +help being glad afresh that he had escaped the snares laid for +him. He looked at her searchingly, and at last murmured a request +that she would allow him to have a little conversation with her. + +She led the way to her parlor, closed the door, and asked him to +take a seat. But Godfrey was too proud or too agitated to sit. + +"You will be surprised to see me on such an errand, Miss +Marston!" he said. + +"I do not yet know your errand," replied Mary; "but I may not be +so much surprised as you think." + +"Do not imagine," said Godfrey, stiffly, "that I believe a word +of the contemptible reports in circulation. I come only to ask +you to tell me the real nature of the accusations brought against +Miss Yolland: your name is, of course, coupled with them." + +"Mr. Wardour," said Mary, "if I thought you would believe what I +told yon, I would willingly do as you ask me. As it is, allow me +to refer you to Mr. Brett, the lawyer, whom I dare say you know." + +Happily, the character of Mr. Brett was well known in Testbridge +and all the country round; and from him Godfrey Wardour learned +what sent him traveling on the Continent again--not in the hope +of finding Sepia. What became of her, none of her family ever +learned. + +Some time after, it came out that the same night on which the +presence of Joseph rescued Mary from her pursuer, a man speaking +with a foreign accent went to one of the surgeons in Testbridge +to have his shoulder set, which he said had been dislocated by a +fall. When Joseph heard it, he smiled, and thought he knew what +it meant. + +Hesper was no sooner in London, than she wrote to Mary, inviting +her to go and visit her. But Mary answered she could no more +leave home, and must content herself with the hope of seeing Mrs. +Redmain when she came to Durnmelling. + +So long as her husband lived, the time for that did not again +arrive; but when Mary went to London, she always called on her, +and generally saw Mr. Redmain. But they never had any more talk +about the things Mary loved most. That he continued to think of +those things, she had one ground of hoping, namely, the kindness +with which he invariably received her, and the altogether gentler +manner he wore as often and as long as she saw him. Whether the +change was caused by something better than physical decay, who +knows save him who can use even decay for redemption? He lived +two years more, and died rather suddenly. After his death, and +that of her father, which followed soon, Hesper went again to +Durnmelling, and behaved better to her mother than before. Mary +sometimes saw her, and a flicker of genuine friendship began to +appear on Hesper's part. + +Mr. Turnbull was soon driving what he called a roaring trade. He +bought and sold a great deal more than Mary, but she had business +sufficient to employ her days, and leave her nights free, and +bring her and Letty enough to live on as comfortably as they +desired--with not a little over, to use, when occasion was, for +others, and something to lay by for the time of lengthening +shadows. + +Turnbull seemed to hare taken a lesson from his late narrow +escape, for he gave up the worst of his speculations, and +confined himself to "_genuine business-principles_"--the +more contentedly that, all Marston folly swept from his path, he +was free to his own interpretation of the phrase. He grew a rich +man, and died happy--so his friends said, and said as they saw. +Mrs. Turnbull left Testbridge, and went to live in a small +county-town where she was unknown. There she was regarded as the +widow of an officer in her Majesty's service, and, as there was +no one within a couple of hundred miles to support an assertion +to the contrary, she did not think it worth her while to make +one: was not the supposed brevet a truer index to her +consciousness of herself than the actual ticket by ill luck +attached to her--Widow of a linen-draper? + +George carried on the business; and, when Mary and he happened to +pass in the street, they nodded to each other. + +Letty was diligent in business, but it never got into her heart. +She continued to be much liked, and in the shop was delightful. +If she ever had another offer of marriage, the fact remained +unknown. She lived to be a sweet, gracious little old lady--and +often forgot that she was a widow, but never that she was a wife. +All the days of her appointed time she waited till her change +should come, and she should find her Tom on the other side, +looking out for her, as he had said he would. Her mother-in-law +could not help dying; but she never "forgave" her--for what, +nobody knew. + +After a year or so, Mrs. Wardour began to take a little notice of +her again; but she never asked her to Thornwick until she found +herself dying. Perhaps she then remembered a certain petition in +the Lord's prayer. But will it not be rather a dreadful thing for +some people if they are forgiven as they forgive? + +Old Mr. Duppa died, and a young man came to minister to his +congregation who thought the baptism of the spirit of more +importance than the most correct of opinions concerning even the +baptizing spirit. From him Mary found she could learn, and would +be much to blame if she did not learn. From him Betty also heard +what increased her desire to be worth something before she went +to rejoin Tom. + +Joseph Jasper became once more Mary's pupil. She was now no more +content with her little cottage piano, but had an instrument of +quite another capacity on which to accompany the violin of the +blacksmith. + +To him trade came in steadily, and before long he had to build a +larger shoeing-shed. From a wide neighborhood horses were brought +him to be shod, cart-wheels to be tired, axles to be mended, +plowshares to be sharpened, and all sorts of odd jobs to be done. +He soon found it necessary to make arrangement with a carpenter +and wheelwright to work on his premises. Before two years were +over, he was what people call a flourishing man, and laying by a +little money. + +"But," he said to Mary, "I can't go on like this, you know, miss. +I don't want money. It must be meant to do something with, and I +must find out what that something is." + + + + +CHAPTER LVI. + +A CATASTROPHE. + + +One winter evening, as soon as his work was over for the day, +Joseph locked the door of his smithy, washed himself well, put on +clean clothes, and, taking his violin, set out for Testbridge: +Mary was expecting him to tea. It was the afternoon of a holiday, +and she had closed early. + +Was there ever a happier man than Joseph that night as he strode +along the footpath? A day of invigorating and manly toil behind +him, folded up in the sense of work accomplished; a clear sky +overhead, beginning to breed stars; the pale amber hope of +to-morrow's sunrise low down in the west; a frosty air around him, +challenging to the surface the glow of the forge which his day's +labor had stored in his body; his heart and brain at rest with +his father in heaven; his precious violin under his arm; before +him the welcoming parlor, where two sweet women waited his +coming, one of them the brightest angel, in or out of heaven, to +him; and the prospect of a long evening of torrent-music between +them--who, I repeat, could have been more blessed, heart, and +soul, and body, than Joseph Jasper? His being was like an all- +sided lens concentrating all joys in the one heart of his +consciousness. God only knows how blessed he could make us if we +would but let him! He pressed his violin-case to his heart, as if +it were a living thing that could know that he loved it. + +Before he reached the town, the stars were out, and the last of +the sunset had faded away. Earth was gone, and heaven was all. +Joseph was now a reader, and read geology and astronomy: "I've +got to do with them all!" he said to himself, looking up. "There +lie the fields of my future, when this chain of gravity is +unbound from my feet! Blessed am I here now, my God, and blessed +shall I be there then." + +When he reached the suburbs, the light of homes was shining +through curtains of all colors. "Every nest has its own birds," +said Joseph; "every heart its own joys!" Just then, he was in no +mood to think of the sorrows. But the sorrows are sickly things +and die, while the joys are strong divine children, and shall +live for evermore. + +When he reached the streets, all the shops he passed were closed, +except the beer-shops and the chemists'. "The nettle and the +dock!" said Joseph. + +When he reached Mary's shop, he turned into the court to the +kitchen-door. "Through the kitchen to the parlor!" he said. +"Through the smithy to the presence-chamber! O my God--through +the mud of me, up to thy righteousness!" + +He was in a mood for music--was he not? One might imagine the +violin under his arm was possessed by an angel, and, ignoring his +ears, was playing straight into his heart! + +Beenie let him in, and took him up to the parlor. Mary came half- +way to meet him. The pressure as of heaven's atmosphere fell +around him, calming and elevating. He stepped across the floor, +still, stately, and free. He laid down his violin, and seated +himself where Mary told him, in her father's arm-chair by the +fire. Gentle nothings with a down of rainbows were talked until +tea was over, and then without a word they set to their music-- +Mary and Joseph, with their own hearts and Letty for their +audience. + +They had not gone far on the way to fairyland, however, when +Beenie called Letty from the room, to speak to a friend and +customer, who had come from the country on a sudden necessity for +something from the shop. Letty, finding herself not quite equal +to the emergency, came in her turn to call Mary: she went as +quietly as if she were leaving a tiresome visitor. The music was +broken, and Joseph left alone with the dumb instruments. + +But in his hands solitude and a violin were sure to marry in +music. He began to play, forgot himself utterly, and, when the +customer had gone away satisfied, and the ladies returned to the +parlor, there he stood with his eyes closed, playing on, nor +knowing they were beside him. They sat down, and listened in +silence. + +Mary had not listened long before she found herself strangely +moved. Her heart seemed to swell up into her throat, and it was +all she could do to keep from weeping. A little longer and she +was compelled to yield, and the silent tears flowed freely. +Letty, too, was overcome--more than ever she had been by music. +She was not so open to its influences as Mary, but her eyes were +full, and she sat thinking of her Tom, far in the regions that +are none the less true that we can not see them. + +A mood had taken shape in the mind of the blacksmith, and +wandered from its home, seeking another country. It is not the +ghosts of evil deeds that alone take shape, and go forth to +wander the earth. Let but a mood be strong enough, and the soul, +clothing itself in that mood as with a garment, can walk abroad +and haunt the world. Thus, in a garment of mood whose color and +texture was music, did the soul of Joseph Jasper that evening, +like a homeless ghost, come knocking at the door of Mary Marston. +It was the very being of the man, praying for admittance, even as +little Abel might have crept up to the gate from which his mother +had been driven, and, seeing nothing of the angel with the +flaming sword, knocked and knocked, entreating to be let in, +pleading that all was not right with the world in which he found +himself. And there Mary saw Joseph stand, thinking himself alone +with his violin; and the violin was his mediator with her, and +was pleading and pleading for the admittance of its master. It +prayed, it wept, it implored. It cried aloud that eternity was +very long, and like a great palace without a quiet room. +"Gorgeous is the glory," it sang; "white are the garments, and +lovely are the faces of the holy; they look upon me gently and +sweetly, but pitifully, for they know that I am alone--yet not +alone, for I love. Oh, rather a thousand-fold let me love and be +alone, than be content and joyous with them all, free of this +pang which tells me of a bliss yet more complete, fulfilling the +gladness of heaven!" + +All the time Joseph knew nothing of where his soul was; for he +thought Mary was in the shop, and beyond the hearing of his +pleader. Nor was this exactly the shape the thing took to the +consciousness of the musician. He seemed to himself to be +standing alone in a starry and moonlit night, among roses, and +sweet-peas, and apple-blossoms--for the soul cares little for the +seasons, and will make its own month out of many. On the bough of +an apple-tree, in the fair moonlight, sat a nightingale, swaying +to and fro like one mad with the wine of his own music, singing +as if he wanted to break his heart and have done, for the delight +was too much for mortal creature to endure. And the song of the +bird grew the prayer of a man in the brain and heart of the +musician, and thence burst, through the open fountain of the +violin, and worked what it could work, in the world of forces. "I +love thee! I love thee! I love thee!" cried the violin; and the +worship was entreaty that knew not itself. On and on it went, +ever beginning ere it ended, as if it could never come to a +close; and the two sat listening as if they cared but to hear, +and would listen for ever--listening as if, when the sound +ceased, all would be at an end, and chaos come again. + +Ah, do not blame, thou who lovest God, and fearest the love of +the human! Hast thou yet to learn that the love of the human is +love, is divine, is but a lower form of a part of the love of +God? When thou lovest man, or woman, or child, yea, or even dog, +aright, then wilt thou no longer need that I tell thee how God +and his Christ would not be content with each other alone in the +glories even of the eternal original love, because they could +create more love. For that more love, together they suffered and +patiently waited. He that loveth not his brother whom he hath +seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen? + +A sob, like a bird new-born, burst from Mary's bosom. It broke +the enchantment in which Joseph was bound. That enchantment had +possessed him, usurping as it were the throne of his life, and +displacing it; when it ceased, he was not his own master. He +started--to conscious confusion only, neither knowing where he +was nor what he did. His limbs for the moment were hardly his +own. How it happened he never could tell, but he brought down his +violin with a crash against the piano, then somehow stumbled and +all but fell. In the act of recovering himself, he heard the neck +of his instrument part from the body with a tearing, discordant +cry, like the sound of the ruin of a living world. He stood up, +understanding now, holding in his hand his dead music, and +regarding it with a smile sad as a winter sunset gleaming over a +grave. But Mary darted to him, threw her arms round him, laid her +head on his bosom, and burst into tears. Tenderly he laid his +broken violin on the piano, and, like one receiving a gift +straight from the hand of the Godhead, folded his arms around the +woman--enough, if music itself had been blotted from his +universe! His violin was broken, but his being was made whole! +his treasure taken--type of his self, and a woman given him +instead! + +"It's just like him!" he murmured. + +He was thinking of him who, when a man was brought him to be +delivered from a poor palsy, forgave him his sins. + + + + +CHAPTER LVII. + +THE END OF THE BEGINNING. + + +Joseph Jasper and Mary Marston were married the next summer. Mary +did not leave her shop, nor did Joseph leave his forge. Mary was +proud of her husband, not merely because he was a musician, but +because he was a blacksmith. For, with the true taste of a right +woman, she honored the manhood that could do hard work. The day +will come, and may I do something to help it hither, when the +youth of our country will recognize that, taken in itself, it is +a more manly, and therefore in the old true sense a more +_gentle_ thing, to follow a good handicraft, if it make the +hands black as a coal, than to spend the day in keeping books, +and making up accounts, though therein the hands should remain +white--or red, as the case may be. Not but that, from a higher +point of view still, all work, set by God, and done divinely, is +of equal honor; but, where there is a choice, I would gladly see +boy of mine choose rather to be a blacksmith, or a watchmaker, or +a bookbinder, than a clerk. Production, making, is a higher thing +in the scale of reality, than any mere transmission, such as +buying and selling. It is, besides, easier to do honest work than +to buy and sell honestly. The more honor, of course, to those who +are honest under the greater difficulty! But the man who knows +how needful the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation," knows that +he must not be tempted into temptation even by the glory of duty +under difficulty. In humility we must choose the easiest, as we +must hold our faces unflinchingly to the hardest, even to the +seeming impossible, when it is given us to do. + +I must show the blacksmith and the shopkeeper once more--two +years after marriage--time long enough to have made common people +as common to each other as the weed by the roadside; but these +are not common to each other yet, and never will be. They will +never complain of being _desillusionnes_, for they have +never been illuded. They look up each to the other still, because +they were right in looking up each to the other from the first. +Each was, and therefore each is and will be, real. + +".... The man is honest." "Therefore he will be, Timon." + +It was a lovely morning in summer. The sun was but a little way +above the horizon, and the dew-drops seemed to have come +scattering from him as he shook his locks when he rose. The +foolish larks were up, of course, for they fancied, come what +might of winter and rough weather, the universe founded in +eternal joy, and themselves endowed with the best of all rights +to be glad, for there was the gladness inside, and struggling to +get outside of them. And out it was coming in a divine profusion! +How many baskets would not have been wanted to gather up the +lordly waste of those scattered songs! in all the trees, in all +the flowers, in every grass-blade, and every weed, the sun was +warming and coaxing and soothing life into higher life. And in +those two on the path through the fields from Testbridge, the +same sun, light from the father of lights, was nourishing highest +life of all--that for the sake of which the Lord came, that he +might set it growing in hearts of whose existence it was the very +root. + +Joseph and Mary were taking their walk together before the day's +work should begin. Those who have a good conscience, and are not +at odds with their work, can take their pleasure any time--as +well before their work as after it. Only where the work of the +day is a burden grievous to be borne, is there cause to fear +being unfitted for duty by antecedent pleasure. But the joy of +the sunrise would linger about Mary all the day long in the +gloomy shop; and for Joseph, ho had but to lift his head to see +the sun hastening on to the softer and yet more hopeful splendors +of the evening. The wife, who had not to begin so early, was +walking with her husband, as was her custom, even when the +weather was not of the best, to see him fairly started on his +day's work. It was with something very like pride, yet surely +nothing evil, that she would watch the quick blows of his brawny +arm, as he beat the cold iron on the anvil till it was all aglow +like the sun that lighted the world--then stuck it into the +middle of his coals, and blew softly with his bellows till the +flame on the altar of his work-offering was awake and keen. The +sun might shine or forbear, the wind might blow or be still, the +path might be crisp with frost or soft with mire, but the +lighting of her husband's forge-fire, Mary, without some forceful +reason, never omitted to turn by her presence into a holy +ceremony. It was to her the "Come let us worship and bow down" of +the daily service of God-given labor. That done, she would kiss +him, and leave him: she had her own work to do. Filled with +prayer she would walk steadily back the well-known way to the +shop, where, all day long, ministering with gracious service to +the wants of her people, she would know the evening and its +service drawing nearer and nearer, when Joseph would come, and +the delights of heaven would begin afresh at home, in music, and +verse, and trustful talk. Every day was a life, and every evening +a blessed death--type of that larger evening rounding our day +with larger hope. But many Christians are such awful pagans that +they will hardly believe it possible a young loving pair should +think of that evening, except with misery and by rare compulsion! + +That morning, as they went, they talked--thus, or something like +this: + +"O Mary!" said Joseph, "hear the larks! They are all saying: +'Jo-seph! Jo-seph! Hearkentome, Joseph! Whatwouldyouhavebeenbutfor +Mary, Jo-seph?' That's what they keep on singing, singing in the +ears of my heart, Mary!" + +"You would have been a true man, Joseph, whatever the larks may +say." + +"A solitary melody, praising without an upholding harmony, at +best, Mary!" + +"And what should I have been, Joseph? An inarticulate harmony-- +sweetly mumbling, with never a thread of soaring song!" + +A pause followed. + +"I shall be rather shy of your father, Mary," said Joseph. +"Perhaps he won't be content with me." + +"Even if you weren't what you are, my father would love you +because I love you. But I know my father as well as I know you; +and I know you are just the man it must make him happy afresh, +even in heaven, to think of his Mary marrying. You two can hardly +be of two minds in anything!" + +"That was a curious speech of Letty's yesterday! You heard her +say, did you not, that, if everybody was to be so very good in +heaven, she was afraid it would be rather dull?" + +"We mustn't make too much of what Letty says, either when she's +merry or when she's miserable. She speaks both times only out of +half-way down." + +"Yes, yes! I wasn't meaning to find any fault with her; I was +only wishing to hear what you would say. For nobody can make a +story without somebody wicked enough to set things wrong in it, +and then all the work lies in setting them right again, and, as +soon as they are set right, then the story stops." + +"There's no thing of the sort in music, Joseph, and that makes +one happy enough." + +"Yes, there is, Mary. There's strife and difference and +compensation and atonement and reconciliation." + +"But there's nothing wicked." + +"No, that there is not." + +"Well!" said Mary, "perhaps it may only be because we know so +little about good, that it seems to us not enough. We know only +the beginnings and the fightings, and so write and talk only +about them. For my part, I don't feel that strife of any sort is +necessary to make me enjoy life; of all things it is what makes +me miserable. I grant you that effort and struggle add +immeasurably to the enjoyment of life, but those I look upon as +labor, not strife. There may be whole worlds for us to help bring +into order and obedience. And I suspect there must be no end of +work in which is strife enough--and that of a kind hard to bear. +There must be millions of spirits in prison that want preaching +to; and whoever goes among them will have that which is behind of +the afflictions of Christ to fill up. Anyhow there will be plenty +to do, and that's the main thing. Seeing we are made in the image +of God, and he is always working, we could not be happy without +work." + +"Do you think we shall get into any company we like up there?" +said Joseph. "I must think a minute. When I want to understand, I +find myself listening for what my father would say. Yes, I think +I know what he would say to that: 'Yes; but not till you are fit +for it; and then the difficulty would be to keep out of it. For +all that is fit must come to pass in the land of fitnesses--that +is, the land where all is just as it ought to be.'--That's how I +could fancy I heard my father answer you." + +"With that answer I am well content," said Joseph.--"But you +don't want to die, do you, Mary?" + +"No; I want to live. And I've got such a blessed plenty of life +while waiting for more, that I am quite content to wait. But I do +wonder that some people I know, should cling to what they call +life as they do. It is not that they are comfortable, for they +are constantly complaining of their sufferings; neither is it +from submission to the will of God, for to hear them talk you +must think they imagine themselves hardly dealt with; they +profess to believe the Gospel, and that it is their only +consolation; and yet they speak of death as the one paramount +evil. In the utmost weariness, they yet seem incapable of +understanding the apostle's desire to depart and be with Christ, +or of imagining that to be with him can be at all so good as +remaining where they are. One is driven to ask whether they can +be Christians any further than anxiety to secure whatever the +profession may be worth to them will make them such." + +"Don't you think, though," said Joseph, "that some people have a +trick of putting on their clothes wrong side out, and so making +themselves appear less respectable than they are? There was my +sister Ann: she used to go on scolding at people for not +believing, all the time she said they could not believe till God +made them--if she had said _except_ God made them, I should +have been with her there!--and then talking about God so, that I +don't see how, even if they could, any one would have believed in +such a monster as she made of him; and then, if you objected to +believe in such a God, she would tell you it was all from the +depravity of your own heart you could not believe in him; and yet +this sister Ann of mine, I know, once went for months without +enough to eat--without more than just kept body and soul +together, that she might feed the children of a neighbor, of whom +she knew next to nothing, when their father lay ill of a fever, +and could not provide for them. And she didn't look for any +thanks neither, except it was from that same God she would have +to be a tyrant from the beginning--one who would calmly behold +the unspeakable misery of creatures whom he had compelled to +exist, whom he would not permit to cease, and for whom he would +do a good deal, but not all that he could. Such people, I think, +are nearly as unfair to themselves as they are to God." + +"You're right, Joseph," said Mary. "If we won't take the +testimony of such against God, neither must we take it against +themselves. Only, why is it they are always so certain they are +in the right?" + +"For the perfecting of the saints," suggested Joseph, with a +curious smile. + +"Perhaps," answered Mary. "Anyhow, we may get that good out of +them, whether they be here for the purpose or not. I remember Mr. +Turnbull once accusing my father of irreverence, because he spoke +about God in the shop. Said my father, 'Our Lord called the old +temple his father's house and a den of thieves in the same +breath.' Mr. Turnbull saw nothing but nonsense in the answer. +Said my father then, 'You will allow that God is everywhere?' 'Of +course,' replied Mr. Turnbull. 'Except in this shop, I suppose +you mean?' said my father. 'No, I don't. That's just why I +wouldn't have you do it.' 'Then you wouldn't have me think about +him either?' 'Well! there's a time for everything.' Then said my +father, very solemnly, 'I came from God, and I'm going back to +God, and I won't have any gaps of death in the middle of my +life.' And that was nothing to Mr. Turnbull either." + +To one in ten of my readers it may be something. + +Just ere they came in sight of the smithy, they saw a lady and +gentleman on horseback flying across the common. + +"There go Mrs. Redmain and Mr. Wardour!" said Joseph. "They're to +be married next month, they say. Well, it's a handsome couple +they'll make! And the two properties together'll make a fine +estate!" + +"I hope she'll learn to like the books he does," said Mary. "I +never could get her to listen to anything for more than three +minutes." + +Though Joseph generally dropped work long before Mary shut the +shop, she yet not unfrequently contrived to meet him on his way +home; and Joseph always kept looking out for her as he walked. + +That very evening they were gradually nearing each other--the one +from the smithy, the other from the shop--with another pair +between them, however, going toward Testbridge--Godfrey Wardour +and Hesper Redmain. + +"How strange," said Hesper, "that after all its chances and +breakings, old Thornwick should be joined up again at last!" + +Partly by a death in the family, partly through the securities +her husband had taken on the property, partly by the will of her +father, the whole of Durnmelling now belonged to Hesper. + +"It is strange," answered Godfrey, with an involuntary sigh. + +Hesper turned and looked at him. + +It was not merely sadness she saw on his face. There was +something there almost like humility, though Hesper was not able +to read it as such. He lifted his head, and did not avoid her +gaze. + +"You are wondering, Hesper," he said, "that I do not respond with +more pleasure. To tell you the truth, I have come through so much +that I am almost afraid to expect the fruition of any good. +Please do not imagine, you beautiful creature! it is of the +property I am thinking. In your presence that would be +impossible. Nor, indeed, have I begun to think of it. I shall, +one day, come to care for it, I do not doubt--that is, when once +I have you safe; but I keep looking for the next slip that is to +come--between my lip and this full cup of hap-piness. I have told +you all, Hesper, and I thank you that you do not despise me. But +it may well make me solemn and fearful, to think, after all the +waves and billows that have gone over me, such a splendor should +be mine!--But, do you really love me, Hesper--or am I walking in +my sleep? I had thought, 'Surely now at last I shall never love +again!'--and instead of that, here I am loving, as I never loved +before!--and doubting whether I ever did love before!" + +"I never loved before," said Hesper. "Surely to love must be a +good thing, when it has made you so good! I am a poor creature +beside you, Godfrey, but I am glad to think whatever I know of +love you have taught me. It is only I who have to be ashamed!" + +"That is all your goodness!" interrupted Godfrey. "Yet, at this +moment, I can not quite be sorry for some things I ought to be +sorry for: but for them I should not be at your side now--happier +than I dare allow myself to feel. I dare hardly think of those +things, lest I should be glad I had done wrong." + +"There are things I am compelled to know of myself, Godfrey, +which I shall never speak to you about, for even to think of them +by your side would blast all my joy. How plainly Mary used to +tell me what I was! I scorned her words! It seemed, then, too +late to repent. And now I am repenting! I little thought ever to +give in like this! But of one thing I am sure--that, if I had +known you, not all the terrors of my father would have made me +marry the man." + +Was this all the feeling she had for her dead husband? Although +Godfrey could hardly at the moment feel regret she had not loved +him, it yet made him shiver to hear her speak of him thus. In the +perfected grandeur of her external womanhood, she seemed to him +the very ideal of his imagination, and he felt at moments the +proudest man in the great world; but at night he would lie in +torture, brooding over the horrors a woman such as she must have +encountered, to whom those mysteries of our nature, which the +true heart clothes in abundant honor, had been first presented in +the distortions of a devilish caricature. There had been a time +in Godfrey's life when, had she stood before him in all her +splendor, he would have turned from her, because of her history, +with a sad disgust. Was he less pure now? He was more pure, for +he was humbler. When those terrible thoughts would come, and the +darkness about him grow billowy with black flame, "God help me," +he would cry, "to make the buffeted angel forget the past!" + +They had talked of Mary more than once, and Godfrey, in part +through what Hesper told him of her, had come to see that he was +unjust to her. I do not mean he had come to know the depth and +extent of his injustice--that would imply a full understanding of +Mary herself, which was yet far beyond him. A thousand things had +to grow, a thousand things to shift and shake themselves together +in Godfrey's mind, before he could begin to understand one who +cared only for the highest. + +Godfrey and Hesper made a glorious pair to look at--but would +theirs be a happy union?--Happy, I dare say--and not too happy. +He who sees to our affairs will see that the _too_ is not in +them. There were fine elements in both, and, if indeed they +loved, and now I think, from very necessity of their two hearts, +they must have loved, then all would, by degrees, by slow +degrees, most likely, come right with them. + +If they had been born again both, before they began, so to start +fresh, then like two children hand in hand they might have run in +through the gates into the city. But what is love, what is loss, +what defilement even, what are pains, and hopes, and +disappointments, what sorrow, and death, and all the ills that +flesh is heir to, but means to this very end, to this waking of +the soul to seek the home of our being--the life eternal? Verily +we must be born from above, and be good children, or become, even +to our self-loving selves, a scorn, a hissing, and an endless +reproach. + +If they had had but Mary to talk to them! But they did not want +her: she was a good sort of creature, who, with all her +disagreeableness, meant them well, and whom they had misjudged a +little and made cry! They had no suspicion that she was one of +the lights of the world--one of the wells of truth, whose springs +are fed by the rains on the eternal hills. + +Turning a clump of furze-bushes on the common, they met Mary. She +stepped from the path. Mr. Wardour took off his hat. Then Mary +knew that his wrath was past, and she was glad. + +They stopped. "Well, Mary," said Hesper, holding out her hand, +and speaking in a tone from which both haughtiness and +condescension had vanished, "where are you going?" + +"To meet my husband," answered Mary. "I see him coming." + +With a deep, loving look at Hesper, and a bow and a smile to +Godfrey, she left them, and hastened to meet her working-man. + +Behind Godfrey Wardour and Hesper Redmain walked Joseph Jasper +and Mary Marston, a procession of love toward a far-off, eternal +goal. But which of them was to be first in the kingdom of heaven, +Mary or Joseph or Hesper or Godfrey, is not to be told: they had +yet a long way to walk, and there are first that shall be last, +and last that shall be first. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mary Marston, by George MacDonald + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY MARSTON *** + +This file should be named mmstn10.txt or mmstn10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, mmstn11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mmstn10a.txt + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks, +Juliet Sutherland and the DP Team + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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