REVERIES.
No sooner had Nan come back to Brighton again, and been installed once
more in her former position, than the whole house seemed to be pervaded
by a quite new sense of satisfaction, the cause of which was not even
guessed at. The wheels of the domestic machinery worked far more
smoothly; even the servants seemed to partake of the general brightness
and cheerfulness. Edith, the stupid sister, put it down to the
Christmas-time, and congratulated herself on her evergreens on the
walls. Mr. Tom observed that the house was far better managed when Nan
was at home: that meant that he found his slippers when he wanted them,
and that there was always a taper on the chimneypiece in the
billiard-room. Lady Beresford had all her little whims attended to; and
as for Madge, that young lady was greatly delighted to have a safe and
sure confidante. For she was much exercised at this time both with her
fears about Mr. Hanbury, who followed her about like a ghost, kept
silent by the dread of Vice-Chancellors and tipstaffs, and her vain
little hopes about Captain Frank King, whose intentions were scarcely a
matter of doubt. Nan listened in her grave, sweet way that had earned
for her, from Madge, the name of 'Old Mother Nan;' and then would say
some nice thing to her sister; and then would carry her away on some
charitable enterprise.
For this was the Christmas time; and what with continual choral
services, and evergreens, and unearthly music in the still cold nights,
there was a sort of exaltation in the air; and Nan wished to be
practical. In consequence, Lady Beresford was gravely oppressed.
'I do believe, Nan,' she said, vexedly, one morning as she was writing
out a cheque--'I do believe your only notion of Christianity is the
giving away coals.'
'And a very good notion too,' said Tom, who would allow no one to say
anything against Nan.
But then came that fateful letter from Frank King. It arrived on a
January morning--on a clear and brilliant forenoon, just as Nan and her
younger sister were going out for a walk, tempted by the sunlight and
the colours of the sea. Madge herself took it from the postman at the
door; glanced at the address, hastily opened the envelope, and guessed
at, rather than read, the contents.
'Oh, Nan,' she said hurriedly, 'wait a moment. There is
something--something I want to speak to you about--come into the
dining-room--oh, do you know what this is, Nan?--Captain King has
written.'
'Yes, dear,' said Nan, calmly and kindly, as she followed her into the
empty dining-room.
'I must not show you the letter, must I?' said the younger sister,
eagerly, though she was herself still reading and re-reading it. 'But
you know what it is, Nan. And I must send an answer--oh, dear, what
shall I do?'
'You ought to know, Madge,' her sister said. 'You were not unprepared,
surely. I thought you expected it. I thought you would have had your
mind made up.'
'But it is so dreadful--so sudden--so terrible! Look at my hands--I am
all shaking. Oh, Nan, what would you do--what would you do if you were
me?'
Nan seemed to be thinking of something far away; it was after a second
that she recalled herself to this question, and then she answered with
some astonishment--
'Don't you know your own mind, Madge?'
'Well, I do in a way,' said the younger sister, still staring at the
letter. 'I like him well enough. I think it would do very well; and
there would be no trouble with any one. I am sorry for that poor fellow
Hanbury; but what _is_ the use of his hanging about, and keeping one
nervous? There is no use in it all--nothing but bother. And I know
Captain King is very fond of me, and I think he would be very kind; and
you know he is not going to sea again. And mamma would be pleased. Do
you think I should go to her now?'
'What is the use of going to any one until you know what your mind is?'
If the unhappy Hanbury could only have seen his sweetheart at this
moment--staring blankly at the open letter, with a doubt on her face
which was most probably inspired by some vague and tender recollection
of himself! What might not have happened if only he could have
intervened at this crisis, and appealed to her with eyes and speech, and
implored her to defy these terrible authorities in London? But Madge
kept looking at the letter; and then she shut it together; and then she
said with decision--
'I think it's the best thing I can do. Wait a minute, Nan; I'll go and
tell mamma.'
When she came downstairs again she was quite radiant and eager in her
joy.
'Oh, I'm so glad it's all settled and over. I'm so glad there'll be no
more worry and bother. And really Captain King is one of the
nicest-looking men we know--Edith has always said so--and he is so quiet
and pleasant in his manner, and very amusing too: that is because he has
no pretence. And grateful for small kindnesses; I suppose being so long
at sea, and not seeing so many people, he hasn't got blase. Then he
never pretends to be bored--but why are you so solemn, Nan; doesn't it
please you?'
Nan kissed her sister.
'I hope you will be very happy, dear,' she said, in her grave, kind way.
'Then I suppose I must answer his letter at once,' continued Madge, in
her excited way. 'But how am I to do it, Nan? See how my fingers are
all shaking; I couldn't write. And it would take me a month to find out
what to say--and here you are being kept in, when you are always wanting
to be out in the open air----'
'Oh, don't mind me, Madge. I will stay in with pleasure, if you want
me.'
'But you shan't stay in on my account, dear Mother Nan--not a bit of
it--not for all the men in the world. And yet I ought to send him a
message. I ought to write.'
'I think, Madge,' the elder sister said, slowly, 'if that is any trouble
to you, you might send him a message he would understand, without your
writing much--a flower, perhaps----'
'But what sort of flower?' said the younger sister, eagerly.
Nan's face flushed somewhat, and she seemed embarrassed and slow to
answer.
'You--you should know yourself,' she said, turning her eyes aside. 'Any
flower, perhaps--a bit of--of forget-me-not----'
'Of course that would do very well; but where could you get
forget-me-nots just now?'
Nan again hesitated; she seemed to be forcing herself to speak.
'There's a little bit in a button-hole in ----'s window,' she said, at
last; 'I saw it there yesterday at least.'
'Dear Mother Nan,' said Madge, enthusiastically, 'you are as clever as
twenty Vice-Chancellors! We will walk along at once, and see if it is
still there. And in the meantime I will write a word on a sheet of
paper--I can manage that anyway--and you might address an envelope----'
'Oh no, I couldn't do that,' said Nan, inadvertently shrinking back.
'Very well, I will struggle through it,' said Madge, blithely; and she
went and got writing-materials, and scrawled the few words necessary.
They went out into the beautiful clear cold morning, and walked along
through the crowd of promenaders with their fresh-coloured faces and
furs telling of the wintry weather. And in due course of time they
arrived at the florist's window, and found the bit of forget-me-not
still in the little nosegay. Madge made no secret of her intention.
She opened up the nosegay on the counter of the shop; took out the piece
of forget-me-not; put it in the folded sheet of paper; and then
carefully--but with fingers no longer trembling--closed the envelope.
When they had come out again, and gone and posted the letter, they found
themselves at a standstill.
'Now I know you would like a longer walk, Nan,' said the younger sister,
'and I am sure you won't mind if I go back at once. I do so want to
write a long letter to Mary. And I haven't told Edith yet, you know.'
To this also Nan consented; and so Madge departed. Nan, left to
herself, looked for a moment or two, somewhat wistfully, at the far
breadths of the shining water; and then turned and walked slowly and
thoughtfully along one of the wider thoroughfares leading up from the
sea. The world seemed too bright and eager and busy out here; she
wished to be alone, and in the dusk; and in this thoroughfare there was
a church, spacious and gloomy, that was kept open all the week round.
Half unconsciously to herself she walked in that direction. So absorbed
was she that, when she reached the entrance, she scarcely perceived that
there were some persons standing about. From the clear light of the sun
she passed into a long covered way that was almost dark; there was a low
sound of music issuing from the building; it was a refuge she was
seeking; and she vaguely hoped that there would be few people within.
But just as she gained the entrance proper, and was about to enter the
dark and dusky place before her, behold! here was a great smiling throng
coming along the aisle, headed by a bridegroom and a white-clothed
bride. The music that was gaily pealing through the building was the
'Wedding March' that no familiarity robs of its majestic swing and
melody. Nan had suddenly a sort of guilty self-consciousness. She felt
she had no business even to look on at bridal processions. She passed
in by another door into that space of dark and empty pews; and very soon
the bridal people were all gone from the place, and apparently no one
was left but the white-surpliced performers at the organ in the choir.
That choir was a beautiful thing away beyond the dusk. The sunlight
entering by the stained-glass windows filled it with a softly golden
glory; so that the splendours of the altar, and the tall brass
candlesticks, and the seven swinging lamps, and the organ itself, were
all suffused with it, and seemed to belong to some other world far away.
And then, after the 'Wedding March' was over, there was a pause of
silence, and a slight sound of feet in the echoing building behind; and
then the music began again--something distant, and sad, and yearning,
like the cry of a soul seeking for light in the dark, for comfort in
despair. Nan, in her solitary pew, bowed her head and covered her face
with her hands. This music was less picturesque, perhaps, than that she
had heard in the cathedral at Lucerne, but it had more of a human cry in
it; it was an appeal for guidance--for light--for light in the darkness
of the world. The tears were running down Nan's face. And then there
came into a neighbouring pew a woman dressed in a peculiar costume, all
in black; and she, too, knelt down, and covered her face with her hands.
And Nan would fain have gone to her and said--
'Oh, sister, take me with you and teach me. You have chosen your path
in the world--the path of charity and good-will and peace; let me help
you; let me give myself to the poor and the sick. There must be
something somewhere for me to do in the world. Take me into your
sisterhood; I am not afraid of hardship; let me be of some little use to
those who are wretched and weary in heart.'
By and by that lady in black rose, went into the open space fronting the
altar, knelt one knee slightly, and then left. Presently Nan followed
her, her head bent down somewhat, and her heart not very light.
Just as she was leaving the interior of the church, some one stepped out
of the vestry, followed her for a second, and then addressed her. She
turned and recognised Mr. Jacomb. He had not been officiating; he was
in ordinary clerical costume; and there was something in the primness of
that costume that suited his appearance. For he was a singularly
clean-looking man; his face smooth shaven; his complexion of the fairest
white and pink; his hair yellow almost to whiteness; his eyes gray,
clear, and kindly. For the rest, he was about six-and-thirty; of
stoutish build; and he generally wore a pleasant and complacent smile,
as if the world had treated him kindly, despite his experiences in that
poor parish in the south-east of London, and as if, whatever might
happen to him, anxiety was not likely to put a premature end to his
existence.
'Dear me,' said he, 'what a coincidence! I saw your sister Madge about
twenty minutes ago. She seemed very happy about something or other.'
'Mr. Jacomb,' said Nan, 'do you know the lady who left a minute ago?'
'No,' said he, wondering a little at the earnestness--or rather the
absentness--of her manner. 'I only caught a glimpse of her. She
belongs to one of the visiting sisterhoods.'
Nan was silent for a second or two.
'You came to the wedding, of course?' continued Mr. Jacomb, cheerfully.
'A capital match, that, for young De la Poer. She will have 18,000
pounds a year when her mother dies; and she is pretty too. She puts a
little side on, perhaps, when she's talking to strangers; but that's
nothing. His brother was at Oxford when I was there, I remember--an
awfully fast fellow; but they say all the sons of clergymen are; the
other swing of the pendulum, you know. There's a medium in all things;
and if one generation gives itself over too much to piety, the next goes
as far the other way. I suppose it's human nature.'
This air of agreeable levity--this odour of worldliness (which was in
great measure assumed)--did not seem to accord well with Nan's present
mood. She was disturbed--uncertain--yearning for something she knew not
what--and the echoes of that strange cry in the music were still in her
soul. Mr. Jacomb's airs of being a man of the world--of being a
clergyman who scorned to attach any esoteric mystery to his cloth, or to
expect to be treated with a particular reverence--might put him on easy
terms of friendship with Nan's sisters; but they only made Nan
regretful, and sometimes even impatient. Did he imagine the assumption
of flippancy made him appear younger than he really was? In any case it
was bad policy so far as Nan was concerned. Nan was a born worshipper.
She was bound to believe in something or somebody. And the story she
had heard of the Rev. Charles Jacomb's assiduous, earnest, uncomplaining
labour in that big parish had at the very outset won for him her great
regard. He did not understand how he was destroying her childlike faith
in him by his saturnine little jokes.
'Mr. Jacomb,' said Nan, timidly, 'I should be so greatly obliged to you
if you could find out something more for me about those sisterhoods.
They must do a great deal of good. And their dress is such a
protection; they can go anywhere without fear of rudeness or insult. I
suppose it is not a difficult thing to get admission----'
He was staring at her in amazement.
'But not for you--not for you!' he cried. 'Why, it is preposterous for
you to think of such a thing. There are plenty who have nothing else in
the world to look forward to. You have all your life before you yet.
My dear Miss Anne, you must not indulge in day-dreams. Look at your
sister Madge. Oh, by-the-way, she said something about your mamma
having sent me a note this morning, asking me to dine with you on Friday
evening; and then remembering, after the note was posted, that on that
evening you had taken a box for the pantomime. Well, there needs be no
trouble about that, if I may join your party to go there also.'
Nan said nothing; but perhaps there was the slightest trace of surprise,
or interrogation in her look. Immediately he said--
'Oh, I very much approve of pantomimes, from a professional point of
view--I do, really. You see, the imagination of most people is very
dull--it wants a stimulus--and I am perfectly certain, if the truth were
known, that the great majority of people in this country have derived
their pictorial notions of heaven from the transformation-scenes in
pantomimes. I am certain of it. John Martin's pictures--the only other
alternative--are not striking enough. So, on the whole, I very much
approve of pantomimes; and I shall be very glad to go with you on
Friday, if I may.'
Nan made some excuse, shook hands with him, and went. She walked home
hurriedly, she knew not why; it almost seemed as though she wanted to
leave something well behind her. And she was very kind to her sisters
for the remainder of that day; but somewhat grave.
Meanwhile, Madge's letter to her married sister in London had been sent.
And the first answer to it was contained in a postscript to a letter
addressed by Mary Beresford to her mother. This was the postscript:--
'_What is this nonsense Madge writes to me about herself and Holford
King? Has Captain King got it into his head that he would like to marry
his deceased wife's sister?_'
Lady Beresford threw the letter aside with a sigh, wishing people would
not write in conundrums.