"A month ago, and I was happy! No,
Not happy--yet encircled by deep joy,
Which, though 'twas all around, I could not touch.
But it was ever thus with Happiness:
It is the gay to-morrow of the mind,
That never comes."
BARRY CORNWALL.
Sleep, which proverbially forsakes the wretched, paid but little court
to me that first night in my new home; my swollen eyelids were sullied
with too many tears, in truth, to win his favorable regard; but toward
morning, exhaustion and unconsciousness came compassionately to relieve
the misery and wakefulness that had guarded my pillow all night; and the
dull light of a winter morning, struggling in through the half-drawn
curtains, was the next summons that I had to consciousness again. I
started up, aroused more fully by a sharp pain in my arm, that had
momentarily been growing harder, till it had succeeded, with the aid of
the advancing daylight, in waking me thoroughly. It was some seconds
before I knew what it was caused by; the bracelet on the arm that had
been under my head had been pushed up from the wrist, and in that way,
had grown tighter and tighter, till, indeed, the pain had been
unendurable. It brought Mr. Rutledge's words to my mind strangely
enough; with a blush of shame and pleasure, I bent over the souvenir; "I
will never doubt again," I whispered, sincerely repentant. Heaviness had
endured, bitterly, for the night, but joy, or a faint and tiny promise
of it, had as surely come in the morning; and with energy and something
like happiness, I set myself to make the best of my little room, and my
new position. No Kitty to braid my hair, no Kitty to unpack my trunk;
so the sooner I got used to performing those little offices for myself,
the better, decidedly.
"Something to do" was the kindest boon that could have been given me,
and as such, I received it, and before the house was astir at all, I had
unpacked my trunk, arranged my books upon the table, my dresses in the
wardrobe, and the little knick-knacks that were regarded as decorative,
on the mantelpiece and under the dressing-glass. The crayon-sketch never
saw the daylight in Gramercy Square. A stolen look at it, now and then,
under the half-raised lid of my trunk, was all I ever ventured on.
Mine was not a very cheerful or attractive room, certainly; but I should
soon be used to it, I reflected, and it would seem nice enough. Then I
drew up the shades, and looked out with much interest upon my first
daylight-view of the great metropolis. Certainly, the wrong side of city
houses is no more advantageous a view of them than is the wrong side of
other fabrics; and in proportion as the velvet is rich and gorgeous, so
is the reverse dull and plain. My room being in the rear of the house, I
of course had the benefit of the wrong side of the neighboring houses;
which, I will do them the justice to say, were as dismal and
unpretending as houses need be. They had all of them, with one consent,
put their best foot foremost; the gorgeous foot presented to the street,
was of brown stone, plate glass, and carving; the slip-shod foot left in
the background, was dingy for want of paint, unsightly with
clothes-lines and ash-barrels, neglected and forlorn. However, I thought
cheerfully, some strange comfort attends even so exalted a state as "two
pair back;" there was an unlimited view of the sky, much greater than
the lower rooms could command. Indeed, when there was anything but
lead-color overhead, I concluded that these windows must be very
cheerful. The spire of a church, however, not far off (which, I was
happy to observe, had no wrong side), was the one grace of the
prospect. It would not do to think of the way in which the mists were
rolling up from the lake, this grey, hazy morning, nor how the pines on
its bank were reflected in its still surface; nor, indeed, at all of the
scene, bold and picturesque even in its wintry desolation, that had met
my waking vision for the last few happy weeks.
Late breakfasts were apparently the order of the day in this
establishment; the hands of my watch were creeping around toward nine
o'clock, and still no indication of the approach of that meal. Beyond
the occasional smothered sound of a broom or duster in the hall, there
had been nothing to suggest that any one was awake throughout the house,
except a fretful little voice that I had heard at intervals since dawn,
in the room next mine. Listening very attentively, I found that it
proceeded from the young troublesome, whose picture had been so
feelingly drawn for me last night by Grace. She was evidently
importuning Félicie to get up and dress her; and the tone, peevish and
whining as it was, had a sort of pathos for me, remembering, as I too
distinctly did, the cruel punishment that it is to a child to lie in bed
after being once thoroughly awake. For two hours, little Esther had been
tossing about, and crying to get up, and the only response she had
received from her nurse, had been now and then a sleepy growl or an
impatient threat. Injustice always irritated me; besides, I had a
curiosity to see this child, who evidently met with so little favor, and
time was hanging rather heavy on my hands just then, so I went to the
door that communicated with the nursery, and opening it softly, looked
in. The shutters being darkened, it was still not many removes from
dawn, and I could but dimly make out the dimensions of the large,
scantily furnished room; but there was light enough for me to see the
figure of the child, sitting up in her little bed, crying piteously,
"_Lève-toi, Félicie, j'ai si froid._"
She stopped suddenly on seeing me, and looked up in my face as I
approached her.
"Is this my little cousin Essie?" I said, sitting down on the bed and
taking one of her icy little hands in mine. Cold she certainly was; the
fire had gone out entirely, and she had been sitting up undressed so
long, that her teeth were chattering and her lips fairly blue. I kissed
her wet cheeks, and giving her to understand that this was her new
cousin, asked if she was not going to be very fond of me? She looked
more amazed than before, but beyond a cessation of her tears, she made
no attempt at a rejoinder. I rubbed her hands, and tried to warm her
cold little feet, talking to her kindly all the time.
"Is this your dressing-gown, Essie?" I asked, taking up a little blue
flannel garment from the foot of the bed. She nodded an assent, and I
put it around her.
"Now," I continued, taking her up in my arms, "will you go into my room
and get warm by my fire?"
"Yes," said Esther, laconically. So picking up her shoes and stockings,
I raised her in my arms and carried her into the other room. She was
between five and six years old, but so slight and childish that her
weight was nothing. I sat down by the fire and held her in my lap, while
I put on her shoes and stockings, and warmed her into something like
animation.
"So Félicie wouldn't wake up," I said, at length.
I had touched the right chord; the vehement childish sense of wrong was
stirred, and with eager, blundering earnestness, she detailed her
grievances. Félicie never would wake up; Félicie wouldn't give her a
drink of water some nights when she was _so_ thirsty; Félicie left her
alone sometimes when it was _so_ dark; and Félicie was cross, and
Félicie was wicked, and, in fine, she hated her.
I shook my head at this, and gave her a little moral lecture upon the
wickedness of hating nurses, further illustrating and embellishing my
subject by the story of a little girl who had once indulged in that
dreadful passion, and had come to a very sad end in consequence. The
moral lecture, I am afraid, was overlooked; but the story was most
greedily received, and I was obliged to succeed it with another and
another, before I could induce her to go and get her clothes, and let me
put them on for her. When she was nearly dressed, Félicie woke up, and
not finding her young charge in bed, was somewhat startled and
unmistakably angry, and in no dulcet tones was calling her name, when
she looked into my room, and, on seeing me, sank suddenly into a softer
strain, and apologized for oversleeping: she had had such a wakeful
night, was not well, etc., and would Mademoiselle Esther come and have
her hair brushed now?
Mademoiselle Esther, a moment before the quietest, gentlest child alive,
had, at the sound of that voice, flushed up into angry defiance, and
planting herself at my side, met her nurse's advance with a very ugly
scowl. She wouldn't go and have her hair brushed; she didn't want a nice
clean apron on; she didn't care if she was late for breakfast; and
Félicie, though she never lost the bland tone she had assumed, looked
malignant enough to have "shaken her out of her shoes and stockings." At
length I persuaded her to submit to Félicie's proposals, and be made
ready to go down to breakfast with me, and she held very firm possession
of my hand, as, after the bell had rung, we descended the stairs.
My aunt was already below; Grace and Josephine straggled in after long
intervals; indeed, we were half through breakfast before they came down.
My aunt looked charmingly in her fresh morning dress and pretty cap, was
very kind, gave Esther and me her cheek to kiss, and, after reading the
paper, talked to me somewhat. Esther seemed not to have much appetite;
but having set her heart upon a roll and some cold chicken, her mamma
had graciously allowed her to be gratified, and she was very tranquilly
eating her breakfast, when the entrance of Grace, who made some teasing
little gesture as she passed, made her pout and whine, and disturbed her
serenity considerably. It was not, however, till Grace, calling to the
servant for some marmalade, suggested a forbidden dainty to her mind,
and she exclaimed, "I want marmalade, too," that the worst came.
Grace interposes pertly, "You can't have any--mamma says you can't;"
Essie passionately protests, "I will;" mamma sharply interposes, "You
shall not;" a burst of tears from Essie, and a smothered titter from
Grace, then Essie passionately pushes back her plate, and refuses to
touch another mouthful; whereon mamma asserts her authority, and sternly
orders her to resume her biscuit and chicken under pain of banishment.
The sobbing child does not, cannot, _I_ think, obey, and, at the end of
an ominous silence, mamma motions John to remove her from the table,
which is effected after violent resistance and struggling, and amid a
tempest of screams and protestations, exit Essie in the arms of John.
It was well that my aunt did not order me to resume my breakfast. After
that little episode, I am afraid I should have been unable to obey, and
I should not have liked to have been carried out in the arms of John.
Josephine exclaimed upon the nuisance of crying children; Grace laughed
slily, as if she thought it capital fun; mamma sighed over the strange
perverseness and dreadful temper of that child; but my heart ached for
the wretched little exile. How Félicie would gloat over her disgrace, I
knew; how indigestion, injustice, and mortification, would bring on a
fit of the sulks that would last half the day, and pave the way for the
repetition of a similar scene at lunch. Perhaps because I had been a
willful, sensitive, and passionate child myself, I knew how to
appreciate the disadvantages under which poor little Essie labored. I
knew what exquisite tenderness and gentleness were necessary to guard
that sensitiveness from turning into the very gall of bitterness, and
that quick temper from becoming the uncontrollable and damning passion
that would blight her whole life. More watchful care, more prayerful
earnestness, does such a child's rearing require, than if she had been
laid upon her mother's love, a moaning cripple, or a blind and helpless
sufferer. Just as soul is more precious than body, so is the
responsibility heavier, the task more awful, of training and molding
such a sensitive nature, to whose morbid fancy a cold repulse is a cruel
blow, and an impatient word a rankling wound. The tenderest and most
yearning love should surround and guard such a child's career, putting
aside with careful hand the snares and trials that beset the way of
life, till the maturing judgment shall have learned to control the
exaggerated fancy. The winds of heaven should not be suffered to visit
too roughly such a restless and unquiet heart, till the uncertain mists
of dawn and early morning have melted before the clear and certain day.
Between the rough and torturing world and the scared and shrinking soul,
the mother's love should interpose, shielding, soothing, reassuring. God
meant it to be so; may His pity be the guard of the little ones, whom
death, the world, the flesh, or the devil, have defrauded of their
right!
No one could look at my hollow-eyed and puny little cousin, with that
unhappy and unchild-like contraction of the brow, and that troubled
expression of the eyes, without knowing that she was of a nervous
temperament the most excitable and keen, and of a will and temper the
strongest. To Josephine's spirit and Grace's acuteness, she added an
almost morbid sensitiveness and delicacy of organization, of which they
were entirely innocent, and which they could in no way comprehend. That
she did not inherit it from her mother, was pretty evident; Grace was
the nearest copy of the maternal model; "la petite" was altogether a
stranger and an alien, not understood and not attractive. Her mother had
never forgiven her sex; a boy had been the darling wish of both
parents, and this third disappointment had not been graciously received,
at least by the mother; for I believe "the baby" had held a tender part
in her father's heart during the two years of her life which he lived to
see. Perhaps my uncle would have understood the wayward child better
than his wife did, had he lived to see her develop; there must have
been, I was sure, depths of gentleness and tenderness in his heart; for
though he was almost a stranger to me, living as we had done, so far
from the world in which he had held a busy part, still he was my
mother's only brother, and they had never forgotten their early
affection. The recollection of it helped me to bear with patience the
caprices and willfulness of his little daughter; for, pity her as I
might, there was no denying that Esther was a very vexatious and trying
child, and there certainly was a very fair excuse for the disaffection
of the household. How far the household had to thank themselves for it,
however, was another matter, and one which I thought would have repaid
investigation.
The scene consequent upon the Marmalade Act, must have been no novelty
in the Churchill breakfast, for the waves closed over poor Essie's
banishment in an instant, and things resumed their smooth and unruffled
appearance almost immediately. The next disturbance they received, was
in the form of a sharp ring at the bell, which caused Josephine, without
raising her eyes from the paper she was reading, to adjust with better
grace the sweep of her dress upon the carpet, and to present to view an
eighth of an inch more of the rosette on her slipper; while Grace,
looking up from her plate, said saucily:
"What's the use, Joseph? It's too early for anybody but Phil; and you
know you don't care for Phil."
Josephine gave her a snapping look out of her black eyes, and if there
had been time, no doubt would have made good their promise of a tart
rejoinder, but the opening of the door, and the entrance of the six feet
two inches of manliness, known and described as "Phil," prevented its
consummation. I did not know at the time, but I soon did know, who and
what this privileged Phil was, who was so much at home at my aunt's
house, and so well received and constant a guest.
Philip Arbuthnot was, it appeared, my Aunt Edith's only nephew, and the
most invaluable and untiring of escorts; supplying the place, in short,
only too willingly, of son and brother to his aunt and her unprotected
daughters. In the matter of securing opera boxes and concert tickets,
cashing drafts, looking after the family interest in Wall street, having
a general supervision of the stable, keeping coachman, footman, and
waiter in wholesome awe, and in a thousand other ways, he was of
inestimable service. What the family would have come to without him, is
too painful a speculation to be entered upon unnecessarily. Figaro-ci,
Figaro-là, and Figaro liking nothing better than his occupation. He bent
his whole mind to it; I never could discover that, he had any other
interest or employment in life; lounging around to Gramercy Square after
breakfast, embellishing the library sofa with his listless length till
lunch, while Josephine practised, or my aunt talked business with him.
Then, at one o'clock, after putting them in the carriage (he was not a
ladies' man, and hated morning visits), Phil would lounge back to the
Clarendon, and by dint of a series of smokes in the reading-room, an
hour or so at billiards, and a drive on the road, would manage to get
rid of the day, and, at or about five o'clock, would lounge back again
to Gramercy Square for dinner and the engagements of the evening. He had
been educated at West Point, and though he had not, strictly speaking,
covered himself with glory, at the rather searching examination of that
rigorous old institution, just passing and that was all, they said,
escaping emphatically by the skin of his teeth, still he had been in a
very fair way of promotion, when, just before the departure of his
aunt's family for Europe, he had unexpectedly and abruptly resigned,
and accompanied them. Having inherited a fortune just large enough to
serve as a narcotic to ambition and energy, and just moderate enough to
prevent his playing any prominent part in Vanity Fair, Phil seemed in
the enjoyment of an existence very much to his taste, and entirely
satisfying to him. If, in my crude and enthusiastic view of life, it
struck _me_ as an existence at once debasing to his nature, and
dishonest to his manliness, it was because I had not yet learned that
what one-third of the men, and two-thirds of the women in society look
upon as the proper business of their lives, must, in the nature of
things, be the correct view of the subject. "The night cometh when no
man can work," I thought, in my simplicity; the day, at best, is but a
short and uncertain one; for every soul sent on earth there is a work
allotted; what less than madness is it for the strong man to lie down in
his strength and sleep away this day of grace? Seeing that the undone
work does not fade with the fading daylight, but an evergrowing and
thickening shadow, will horribly increase the blackness of that night;
will be a treasure of wrath against that time of wrath, and the
perdition of such men as have chosen to be ungodly.
Such naïve and unpracticable ideas as these, would, no doubt, have
brought an avalanche of ridicule on my head, had I been unwise enough to
impart any of them to my new friends; but a protective instinct kept me
from such a blunder; and as I hourly saw with clearer eyes the
dissimilarity between them and me, so I hourly grew more reserved and
silent.
"Don't she ever say anything?" I could not help overhearing Phil ask, as
I left the breakfast-room. I longed to hear Josephine's reply; but an
inconvenient sentiment of honor prevented my stopping to listen for it.
I could not, however, avoid being auditor to the lazy laugh that it
elicited from Phil, and the blood mounted to my temples at the sound.
"I wonder if they think me stupid or sulky," I said to myself. "I wonder
if they ever thought how it must feel to be a stranger in the midst of
people who know and understand each other. I wonder if I ever shall be
one of them."
There was another, however, of the household that I felt pretty sure was
as much a stranger and an alien as I was, though she had spent nearly
six years in it, and I turned my steps naturally to the nursery. Poor
little Essie had, as I expected, fretted and cried herself into a sick
headache, and was sitting sulkily in a remote corner of the room, her
doll untouched beside her, and her hands in her lap. Félicie, sitting by
the window with a sardonic smile on her lips, employed herself about
ripping up an evening dress of Josephine's. I called to Essie to come
into my room; she pouted and averted her head. I made a coaxing promise
of "something pretty," when Félicie interposed "that she was in
disgrace, and perhaps mademoiselle had better not speak to her, as her
mamma had sent her up for a punishment."
"Her mamma did not mean that she should be made unhappy for all the
morning, however," I said, advancing boldly.
"As mademoiselle pleases," answered Félicie, with a very wicked look,
and a very sweet voice.
Esther at length accepted my overtures, and consented to heal her
bosom's woe with a picture-book and a bon-bon out of my trunk. I shut
the door between my room and the nursery very tight, and gradually
Essie's fretful unhappiness relaxed into something like childish
enjoyment, in the comparative cheerfulness of my room, and the exertions
I made for her entertainment. She possessed the characteristic, very
rare and invaluable among children, of being easily amused, and also of
continuing amused for a long while, with the same thing. So it happened,
that the picture-book did not pall upon her taste, nor the bon-bon lose
its charm, for two full hours, and she was still sitting demure as a
kitten beside me, while I worked and occasionally explained to her the
pictures, when Aunt Edith entered. She had evidently forgotten the
occurrence of the morning, and seemed very well pleased to find us both
so well provided for. After looking about the room, and ascertaining
that I had everything that I needed, she sat down by the fire, and
resumed the estimate she had been interrupted in making up last night.
The conscious blood dyed my cheeks, the faltering words found only
awkward and constrained utterance; the more my aunt tried to read me,
the more blurred and unreadable did I become. She tried me upon all
possible questions--school, and its studies and routine; Rutledge, and
my visit there; the journey, and my escort. Upon all points, I was
equally unsatisfactory, and the interview had but one decisive result,
which I attained only by great effort. I had determined that whenever I
should have a chance, I would ask a favor of my aunt; and this appearing
a fitting opportunity, with many misgivings and much trepidation, I
propounded it to her; and was unspeakably relieved and surprised to find
that she not only acquiesced in, but most cordially approved of the
motion. It was to the effect, that for this winter, I should be excused
from going at all into society, and might be allowed to study and
improve myself.
The proposal, I saw, relieved my aunt's mind from some weight that had
encumbered it. She agreed with me most heartily in considering it much
the most judicious course. I was really too young to go into society;
she had never ceased to regret having brought out Josephine so early;
next winter I should be so much better fitted to enjoy it, etc. The
plans for the employment of my time were very soon arranged. I was to
share Grace's French and German lessons, and to read history and
philosophy with her, under the guidance of one Mr. Olman, a young and
inexpensive professor of literature and the belles-lettres, who came
three times a week. My hours of study and recitation were all distinctly
marked out, and it was agreed I should begin that very day. Grace was
sent to bring me her French grammar and show me the lesson, and after
lunch, we were summoned to the study (a small front room on the second
story), to meet Mr. Olman, our literary professor.
Certainly, if I had looked upon Grace as a marvel of sharpness last
night, my respect for her in that regard, suffered no diminution after
seeing the manner in which she slipped through Mr. Olman's literary
fingers, and came out triumphant at the end of the two hours, without
the vaguest idea of what he had been laboring at. She hated history,
philosophy, and the belles-lettres, and never thought of preparing the
abstracts and reviews that he requested; and as he was unspeakably
afraid of her himself, she found no difficulty in eluding the detested
tasks. He was a slim young man, dressing in black and wearing
spectacles--very nervous and very much given to blushing. Indeed, his
face, at the end of the lesson, was ordinarily of a violent _rose de
chine_ color, and his hands so trembling and cold, that it was a great
relief to me when he succeeded in collecting his books and papers and
getting on his overcoat. I never saw so merciless a persecution; the
slyest, "cutest," and the most naïve way of tripping him up in the full
tide of his discourse, and then bewailing her mistake; never by any
chance omitting an opportunity of making him blush and putting him in an
agony of nervousness. I am certain, so acutely did he suffer at her
hands, that if in an unguarded moment he had been brought to acknowledge
who of all others he most detested and dreaded, he would have answered,
unhesitatingly, "my pupil, from two to four, on Monday, Wednesday and
Friday."
Indignant as I felt at Grace, it was no easy matter to keep from
laughing at the results of her pertness and _aplomb;_ and
notwithstanding Mr. Olman was evidently a well-read and cultivated
scholar, I anticipated in these lessons more of pain than of pleasure;
and although I determined to apply myself thoroughly to all he directed,
still, four o'clock was, and would, I feared, continue to be, a release.
At dinner, that evening, Grace gave the bulletin of "Mr. Olman's
latest," and though her mother reproved her, no one thought it necessary
to discourage her by not laughing. Phil's "Ha! ha!" was honest and
unequivocal; he meant, he declared, some day to secrete himself under
the piano, and see Grace put the professor to rout and confusion. He
hated professors, for his part, and he'd like to see 'em all put to rout
and confusion.
"Professors arn't in your line, are they, Phil?" said Grace, with a
laugh.
"I beg, Phil," exclaimed Josephine, "that you'll never present yourself
unexpectedly to that wretched man. I am sure he'd swoon at the sight of
your breadth of shoulder and length of limb. You'd make at least three
of him."
"Say four," put in Grace. "The professor doesn't weigh an ounce over
thirty-five pounds. I asked him, the other day, apropos of ancient
weights and measures, if he'd ever been weighed, and what the result
was."
"You saucy child," said Phil, "I wonder he didn't box your ears."
"No danger of that," responded Grace, complacently. "The professor knows
better than to quarrel with his bread and butter; he knows that pupils
don't grow on every bush, and it would take a great deal more than that
to provoke him into a retort. He only bites his lips, and grows red in
the face, and says, 'This is irrelevant, Miss Churchill.'"
"Upon my word," said Josephine, with a sneer, "by the time the poor man
finishes your education, I think he'll be fit to be translated to his
reward, without any further sojourn in the church militant. No honest
council would deny him canonization after such a fiery trial."
"Poor old Mabire must have a high place by this time, if his reward is
at all proportioned to his sufferings," said Grace, slily. "You
remember, Josephine, how sweet you used to be to that old man? I liked
to listen at the study door, and hear him walk up and down the floor,
and grind his teeth and gasp, 'C'est trop, c'est trop!' I suppose the
bread-and-butter question prevented his speaking to mamma; but, really,
you must confess, he was a victim! Now _I_ never go the lengths of
biting and scratching, but always confine myself to"----
"Grace, _mon ange_," cried Josephine, flushing up angrily, "if you don't
want to be sent to take your meals in the nursery, you had better learn
to be less pert and"----
"Truthful's the word you want, dear," drawled Grace, unconcernedly.
"It's the last word I should think of applying to you," retorted her
sister.
"_Tout doucement, chérie!_" ejaculated Grace, squeezing up her mouth.
But at this juncture, mamma, who had been engaged in opening some notes
and cards of invitation that John had brought in, now becoming aroused
to a sense of the impending storm, came to the rescue, and in a few
cutting words used up everybody present, Phil and myself included, and
restored a forced peace; and during the remainder of the meal, Josephine
sulked, Phil looked heartily distressed, and I felt miserably
uncomfortable, Grace alone preserving an unmoved and complacent
demeanor. It was just as we had finished dessert, that there came a ring
at the bell that made me start. Foolish as it was, I had been listening
to the bell all day, with a vague kind of hope that it would prove of
interest to me; and when John presented a card to my aunt, which
contained the only familiar name to me in this strange place, and, in
fact, the only name I cared to see, I really feared that Grace's quick
ear would catch the loud throbbing of my heart, as she surely did catch
the quick blush on my cheeks.
"It is Mr. Rutledge," said my aunt. "Josephine, will you go into the
parlor, and I will join you in a moment? Phil, may I ask you to look
over that deed we were speaking of this morning? The library is vacant;
I suppose you do not want to be interrupted. And you, young ladies (to
Grace and me), will find a good fire in the study, and an excellent
chance for preparing your German for to-morrow. Mr. Waschlager, you
know, comes at ten on Thursdays."
Josephine, with a coquettish look in the glass, hurried off to the
parlor; Phil accepted his lot with a resigned sigh; Grace grumblingly
obeyed, and I followed her, biting my lips, and struggling to keep back
the tears of disappointment, as I heard, through the half open door, a
familiar voice and laugh, that my homesick ear had been longing for all
day.