HOLY ST. FRANCIS, WHAT A CHANGE IS HERE.
If when in cheerless wanderings dull and cold,
A sense of human kindliness hath found us,
We seem to have around us
An atmosphere all gold.
--A. Clough.
Twelve o'clock is striking in a bare room full of sunshine. A woman, who
is spending her twelfth year in bed, is eating tripe out of a basin;
another sitting by the fire is dining off gruel; beds and women
alternate all down the ward; two nurses are coming and going, one of
them with a black eye. Little garlands of paper, cleverly cut out,
decorate the place in honour of some Royal birthday. Two little flags
are stuck up against the wall and flying triumphantly from the farther
end of the room. A print of the Royal Family, brilliantly coloured, is
also pinned up. Mrs. Fane is walking down the middle of the workhouse
infirmary with a basket on her arm, when one of the old women puts out a
wrinkled hand to call her back.
'Ain't we grand, mum?' says the old woman, looking up. 'It does us all
good;' and she nods and goes on with her gruel again.
'How is Betty Hodge to-day?' says Mrs. Fane. The old woman points
significantly.
All this time some one has been lying quite still at the further end of
the room, covered by a sheet.
'At eight o'clock this morning she went off werry comfortable,' says the
old woman. 'Mrs. Baker she is to scrub the steps now; the matron sent
word this morning.'
That is all. In this infirmary of the workhouse it is a matter of course
that people should die. It does not mean a black carriage, nodding
feathers, nor blinds drawn, and tombstones with inscriptions. It means,
ease at last, release from the poor old body that used to scrub the
steps so wearily day after day. There it was, quite still in the
sunshine, with the garlands on the wall.
'_I_ shan't be long,' said the old tripe-woman, sententiously. 'She has
been expecting to go for months. A friend has sent her a shroud and some
silver paper ready cut; she says it is all ready, and she has seen the
priest.'
'Ah! Mrs. Blaney, you are a sufferer,' says the nurse with the black
eye. 'She can't eat, mum, but she likes her cup of tea;' and the nurse,
who also likes her cup of tea, eyes the little packet which she sees
coming out of Mrs. Fane's basket, and fetches a canister, into which she
elaborately shakes the refreshing shower.
Mrs. Fane hurries on, for she has a guest at home expecting her, and a
tea-party organising for that afternoon, and she has still a visit to
pay in the men's ward. Some one brought her a message--a man called
Smith wanted to speak to her; and she walked along the whitewashed walls
and past check blue counterpanes, looking for her petitioner. By one of
the high windows of the ward lay a brown haggard face, with a rough
chin, and the little old slip-shod messenger pointed to attract Mrs.
Fane's attention. She remembered the man at once. He had come to see her
not long before. She had sent him some money to Paris--his own money,
that he had given to a nurse to keep. Mrs. Fane looked with her kind
round eyes into the worn face that tried to upraise itself to greet her.
'I am sorry to see you here,' she said. 'Did you not find your friends?'
'Gone to America,' gasped the man.
'You know I have still got some of your money,' said Mrs. Fane, sitting
down by the bedside.
'It were about that I made so bold as to hask for to see you, mum,' said
the man. 'I have a boy at Dartford,' he went on, breathing painfully.
'He ain't a good boy, but I've wrote to him to go to you, and if you
would please keep the money for him, mum--three pound sixteen the
Reverend calc'lated it--with what you sent for my journey here. I had
better have stopped where I was and where the young lady found me. Lord!
what a turn she giv' me. I know'd it was all up when I seed her come
in.'
He was muttering on vacantly, as people do who are very weak. Mrs.
Fane's kind heart ached for his lonely woebegone state. She took his
hand in hers--how many sick hands had she clasped in her healing
palm--but poor Smith was beyond her help.
'I see a young fellow that died beside me at the battle of the Alma,'
said Smith, 'and when that young lady came up, as you might be, it
brought it all back as it might be now. He was a gentleman, they said;
he weren't half a bad chap.'
'Who are you speaking of?' said Mrs. Fane, not quite following.
'They called him George--George Vance,' said the man; 'but that were not
his name no more than Smith is mine.'
'I have heard of a man of that name who was wounded at the Alma; I did
not know that he had died there,' said Mrs. Fane. Her hand began to
tremble a little, but she spoke very quietly.
Smith hesitated for a minute, then he looked up into the clear
constraining eyes that seemed to him to be expecting his answer. 'It
ain't no odds to me now,' he said, hoarsely, whether I speak the
tru--uth or not; you're a lady, and will keep the money safe for my poor
lad. Captain Henley he offered a matter o' twenty pound if we found poor
Vance alive. He were a free-handed chap were poor Vance. We know'd he
would not grudge the money.... And when the Roosians shot him, poor
fellow, it wasn't no odds to him.
Mrs. Fane looking round saw the chaplain passing, and she whispered to
the old attendant to bring him to her.
'And so you said that you had found him alive, I suppose?' said Mrs.
Fane, quickly guessing at the truth.
'Well, mum, you ain't far wrong,' said Smith, looking at his thin brown
fingers. 'There was another chap of our corps died on the way to the
ships. It were a long way to carry them down to the shore: we changed
their names. We didn't think we had done no great harm; for twenty pound
is twenty pound; but I have heard as how a fortune was lost thro' it
all--a poor chap like me has no fortune to lose.'
'It was the young lady you saw who lost her fortune,' said Mrs. Fane,
controlling herself, and trying to hide her agitation. 'You did her
great injury, you see, though you did not mean it. But you can repair
this wrong. I think you will like to do so,' she said, 'and--and--we
shall all be very much obliged to you.' 'Mr. Morgan,' Mrs. Fane
continued, turning to the chaplain, who had come up to the bedside,
'here is a poor fellow who wishes to do us a service, and to make a
statement, and I want you to take it down.' She had writing materials in
her basket. She often wrote the sick people's letters for them.
'What is it, my man?' said the chaplain; but as he listened his face
changed. He gave one amazed and significant glance at Mrs. Fane, then
biting his lips and trying to seem unmoved, he wrote and signed the
paper; Mrs. Fane signed it; and then, at her request, poor bewildered
Smith feebly scrawled his name. He did it because he was told: he did
not seem to care much one way or another for anything more.
'Joe can tell you all about it,' he said. 'Joe Carter--he has took his
discharge. I don't know where he is--Liverpool may be.'
John Morgan could hardly contain his excitement, and his umbrella
whirled like a mill, as he left the workhouse. 'You _are_ a good woman;
you _have_ done a good morning's work,' said the chaplain, as he came
away with Mrs. Fane; 'say nothing more at present. We must find out this
Joe who was with him. Whatever we do let us be silent, and keep this
from that wretched, scheming girl.'
Afterwards, it turned out, that it would have been better far if John
Morgan had spoken openly at the time; but his terror of Rhoda's schemes
was so great that he felt that if she only knew all, she would lay hands
on Joe, carry off Smith himself, make him unsay all he had said. 'There
is no knowing what that woman may not do,' said Morgan. 'She wrote to
me; I have not answered the letter. Do you know that the marriage is
actually fixed? I am very glad that you have got Dolly away from that
adder's nest.'
'So am I,' said Mrs. Fane, beaming for an instant; she had long ago
taken Dolly to her heart with a confused feeling of some maternal fibre
strung, of something more tender and more enduring than the mere
friendship between a girl and an older woman.
I cannot help it if most of those who knew my Dolly persisted in
spoiling her. She wanted every bit of kindness and sunshine that came in
her way. And yet she was free from the strain that had wrenched her poor
little life, she need no longer doubt her own feelings, nor blind
herself to that which she would so gladly escape.
The morbid fight was over, and the world was at peace. It was at peace,
but unutterably sad, empty, meaningless. When people complain that their
lives are dull and have no meaning, it is that they themselves have no
meaning. Dolly felt as if she had been in the thick of the fight, and
come away wounded. 'I may as well be here as anywhere else,' she had
said that moonlight evening when poor Jonah had entreated her in vain to
come away with him.
Dolly would not go back to Henley; she had her own reasons for keeping
away. But next morning, when an opportune letter came from Mrs. Fane,
Dolly, who had lain awake all night, went to her mother, who had slept
very comfortably, and said, 'Mamma, if you can spare me, I think I will
go over to England with the Squire and Jonah for a little time, until
the marriage is over.' Mrs. Palmer was delighted. 'To Yorkshire? Yes,
dearest, the very best thing you can do.'
'Not to Henley, mamma,' Dolly said; 'I should like, please, to go to
Mrs. Fane's, if you do not object.'
'What a child you are,' cried Mrs. Palmer; 'you prefer poking yourself
away in that horrid, dismal hospital, when poor Jonah is on his knees to
you to go back to Henley with him.'
'Perhaps that is the reason why I must not go, mamma,' said Dolly,
smiling. 'I must not have any explanations with Jonah.' Mrs. Palmer was
seriously angry, and settled herself down for another nap.
* * * * *
So Dolly came to England one summer's afternoon, escorted by her
faithful knights. All the streets were warm and welcoming; the windows
were open, and the shadows were painting the pretty old towers and
steeples of the city; some glint of an Italian sky had come to visit our
northern world.
John Morgan met her at the train, Mrs. Fane stood on the door-step to
welcome her, the roar of the streets sounded home-like and hopeful once
more.
As for Lady Henley she was furiously jealous when she heard of Dolly in
London, and with Mrs. Fane. She abused her to everybody for a fortnight.
Jonah had come home for two days and then returned to town again. 'That
is all we get of him after all we have gone through,' cried poor Lady
Henley; 'however, perhaps there is a good reason for it, all one wants
is to see one's children happy,' said the little lady to Mr. Redmayne,
who was dining at the Court.
John Morgan lost no time in writing to his confessor, Frank Raban, to
tell him of the strange turn that events had taken. 'I entreat you to
say no word of this to any one,' said Morgan. 'I am afraid of other
influence being brought to bear upon this man that we are in search of,
and it is most necessary that we should neglect no precautions. Dolly's
interests have been too carelessly served by us all.' Raban was rather
annoyed by this sentence in Morgan's letter. What good would it have
done to raise an opposition that would have only pained a person who was
already sorely tried in other ways? Frank somewhat shared Dolly's
carelessness about money, as we know. Perhaps in his secret heart it had
seemed to him that it was not for him to be striving to gain a fortune
for Dolly--a fortune that she did not want. Now he suddenly began to
blame himself and determined to leave no stone unturned to find the
evidence that was wanted. And yet he was more estranged from Dolly at
this moment than he had ever been in his life before. He had purposely
abstained from any communication with her. He knew she was in London and
he kept away.
Frank Raban was a man of a curious doggedness and tenderness of nature.
When he had once set his mind to a thing he went through with his mind.
He could not help himself any more than some people can help being
easily; moved and dissuaded from their own inclinations; only he could
not help listening to the accounts that now reached him of the
catastrophe at Paris, and feeling that any faint persistent hope was now
crushed for ever.
Lady Henley's wishes were apt to colour her impression of events as they
happened. According to her version, it was for Jonah's sake that Dolly
had broken with Robert. It was to Jonah that Dolly had confided her real
reason for parting from her cousin. 'You know it yourself, Squire. It
was painful, but far better than the alternative.'--'Miss Vanborough's
confidences did not extend so far as you imagine, my dear lady,' said
Mr. Anley: 'I must honestly confess that I heard nothing of the sort.'
Lady Henley was peremptory. She was not at liberty to show her son's
last letter, but she had _full_ authority for her information. She was
not in the habit of speaking at random. Time would show. Lady Henley
looked obstinate. The Squire seemed annoyed. Frank Raban said nothing;
he walked away gloomily; he came less and less to the Court; he looked
very cross at times, although the work he had taken in hand was
prospering. Whitewashed cottages were multiplying, a cricket-field had
been laid out for the use of the village, Medmere was drained and sown
with turnip-seed. Frank was now supposed to be an experienced
agriculturist. He looked in the _Farmer's Friend_ regularly. Tanner used
to consult him upon a variety of subjects. What was to be done about the
sheep? Pitch plaster was no good, should they try Spanish ointment?
Those hurdles must be seen to, and what about the flues and the grinders
down at the mill?
Notwithstanding these all-absorbing interests, Frank no sooner received
Morgan's letter, with its surprising news, than he started off at once
to concert measures with the Rector. 'Joe' was supposed to be at
Liverpool, and Frank started for Liverpool and spent a fruitless week
looking up all the discharged and invalided soldiers for ten miles
round. He thought he had found some trace of the man he was in search
of, but it was tiresome work, even in Dorothea's interest. John Morgan
wrote that Jonah was in London, kind and helpful. Foolish Frank, who
should have known better by this time, said to himself that they could
have settled their business very well without Jonah's help. Frank did
him justice, and wished him back in Yorkshire. May he be forgiven.
Diffidence and jealousy are human failings, that bring many a trouble in
their train. True love should be far beyond such pitiful preoccupations:
and yet, if ever any man loved any woman honestly and faithfully, Frank
Raban loved Dorothea: although his fidelity may have shown want of
spirit, and his jealousy want of common sense. Dolly had vaguely hoped
that Raban might have written to her, but the jealous thought that she
might show Jonah his letter had prevented him from writing. John Marplot
wrote that Jonah was often in S---- Street. Why did not the good Rector
add that it was Mrs. Fane who asked him to come there? Dolly was rather
provoked when Jonah reappeared time after time; one day he offered
himself to join them in a little expedition that Mrs. Fane had planned.
Mrs. Fane was pleased to welcome the Captain and the Rector too. Six
hours of country were to set John Morgan up for his Sunday services.
Dolly looked pale, some fresh air would do her good, said her friend.
'Do I want to be done good to?' said Dolly, smiling.
Dolly was standing out on the balcony, carefully holding her black silk
dress away from the dusty iron bars. It was a bright gentle-winded
Sunday morning, and the countless bells of the district were jangling
together, and in different notes calling their votaries to different
shrines. The high bell striking quick and clear, the low bell with
melancholy cadence, the old-fashioned parish bell swinging on in a
sing-song way: a little Catholic chapel had begun its chime an hour
before. From the house doors came Sunday folks--children trotting along,
with their best hats and conscious little legs, mammas radiant,
maid-servants running, cabs going off laden. All this cheerful
jingle-jangling filled Dolly's heart with a happy sadness. It was so
long since she had heard it, and it was all so dear and so familiar, as
she stood listening to it all, that it was a little service in her heart
of grateful love, and thanks--for love and for praise; for life to utter
her love, for the peace which had come to her after her many troubles.
She was not more happy outwardly in circumstance, but how much more
happy in herself none but she herself could tell. How it had come about
she could scarcely have explained; but so it was. She had ceased to
struggle; the wild storm in her heart had hushed away; she was now
content with the fate, which had seemed to her so terrible in the days
of her girlhood. Unloved, misunderstood, was this her fate? she had in
some fashion risen above it--and she felt that the same peace and
strength were hers. Peace, she knew not why, strength coming, she
scarcely knew how or whence. It was no small thing to be one voice in
the great chorus of voices, to be one aspiration in the great breath of
life, and to know that her own wishes and her own happiness were not the
sum of all her wants.