THAT RAINY SUNDAY.
"He hath put the world in their hearts."
This is how that had come about which was such a trouble and oppression
to Emily.
Emily was walking to church on a Sunday morning, just three weeks before
John Mortimer's first call upon her.
Her little nephew, Dorothea's child, was four days old. He had spent
many of his new-found hours sleeping in her arms, while she cherished
him with a keen and painful love, full of sweet anguish and unsatisfied
memories.
The tending of this small life, which in some sort was to be a
plenishing for her empty heart, had, however, made her more fully alive
than usual to the loneliness of her lot, and as she walked on through a
fir-wood, in the mild weather, everything seemed also to be more alive,
waking, and going to change. The lights that slanted down were more
significant. The little shaded hollows were more pathetic, but on the
whole it seemed as if the best part of the year was coming on for the
world. It made her heart ache to feel or fancy how glad the world was,
and how the open sky laughed down upon it in helpful sympathy. The old
question presents itself over and over again to be answered,--What is it
that gives us so much joy in looking at earth and air and water?
We love a landscape, but not merely because remoteness makes blue the
distant hills, as if the sky itself having come down, we could look
through a portion of it, as through a veil. It is not the vague
possibility of what may be shrouded in the blue that stirs our hearts.
We know that if we saw it close it would be set full of villages, and
farmhouses, lanes and orchards, and furrowed fields; no other, and not
fairer than we have near.
Is it what we impart, or impute to nature from ourselves, that we
chiefly lean upon? or does she truly impart of what is really in her to
us?
What delight we find in her action, what sentiment in her rest! What
passion we impute to her changes, what apathy of a satisfying calming
sort to her decline!
If one of us could go to another world, and be all alone in it, perhaps
that world would appear to be washed perfectly clean of all this kind of
beauty, though it might in itself and for itself be far more beautiful
than ours.
Who has not felt delight in the grand movements of a thunder-storm, when
the heavens and earth come together, and have it out, and seem to feel
the better for it afterwards, as if they had cleared off old scores? The
sight of noble wrath, and vehement action, cannot only nerve the
energetic; they can comfort those obliged to be still. There is so
little these may do, but the elements are up and doing; and they are in
some sort theirs.
And who does not like to watch the stately white cloud lying becalmed
over the woods, and waiting in a rapture of rest for a wind to come and
float it on? Yet we might not have cared to see the cloud take her rest,
but for the sweetness of rest to ourselves. The plough turned over on
one side under a hedge, while the ploughman rests at noon, might hint to
us what is the key-note of that chord which makes us think the rest of
the cloud so fair.
If the splendour of some intense passion had never suddenly glorified
the spread-out ether of time in which our spirits float, should we feel
such a strange yearning on looking at a sunset, with its tender
preliminary flush, and then the rapid suffusions of scarlet and growth
of gold? If it is not ourselves that we look at then, it is at one of
the tokens and emblems which claim a likeness with us, a link to hold us
up to the clear space that washes itself so suddenly in an elixir costly
as the golden chances of youth, and the crimson rose of love. With what
a sigh, even youth itself will mark that outpouring of coloured glory!
It whelms the world and overcomes the sky, and then, while none
withstand it, and all is its own, it will change as if wearied, and on a
sudden be over; or with pathetic withdrawal faint slowly away.
Her apathy, too--her surrender, when she has had everything, and felt
the toil in it, and found the hurry of living. The young seldom perceive
the apathy of nature; eyes that are enlightened by age can often see her
quiet in the autumn, folding up her best things, as they have done, and
getting ready to put them away under the snow. They both expect the
spring.
Emily was thinking some such thoughts as these while she walked on to
the small country church alone. She went in. This was the first Sunday
after the funeral of old Augustus Mortimer. A glance showed her that
John was at church, sitting among his children.
The Mortimers were much beloved thereabout. This was not the place where
the old man had worshipped, but a kindly feeling towards his son had
induced the bringing out of such black drapery as the little church
possessed. It was hung round the pulpit, and about the wall at the back
of his pew; and as he sat upright, perfectly still, and with his face
set into a grave, immobile expression, the dark background appeared to
add purity to the fair clear tints of his hair and complexion, and make
every line of his features more distinct.
And while she looked from time to time at this face, the same thing
occurred to her, as does to us in looking at nature; either she
perceived something she had never known of or looked for before, or she
imparted to his manhood something from the tenderness of her womanhood,
and mourned with him and for him.
For this was what she saw, that in spite of the children about him (all
in deep mourning), his two tall young daughters and his sweet little
girls and boys, there was a certain air of isolation about him, a sort
of unconsciousness of them all as he towered above them, which gave him
a somewhat desolate effect of being alone. The light striking down upon
his head and the mourning drapery behind him, made every shadow of a
change more evident. She knew how the withdrawal of this old father
weighed on his heart, and his attitude was so unchanging, and his
expression so guarded, that she saw he was keeping watch over his
self-possession, and holding it well in hand.
All this appeared so evident to her that she was relieved, as the
service went on, to find him still calm and able to command himself, and
keep down any expression of trouble and pain. He began to breathe more
freely too; but Emily felt that he would not meet any eyes that day, and
she looked at him and his children many times.
In the middle of the sermon a dark cloud came over, and before the
service was finished it poured with rain. Emily was not going back to
her brother's house; she had only the short distance to traverse that
led to her own, and she did not intend to speak to the Mortimers; so she
withdrew into the porch, to wait there till they should have passed out
by the little door they generally used. They scarcely ever had out a
carriage on Sunday, for John preserved many of his father's habits,
without, in all cases, holding the opinions which had led to them.
That day, however, the servants brought a carriage, and as the little
girls were carried to it under umbrellas they caught sight of Emily, and
to her annoyance, she presently saw John advancing to her. She had
already begun to walk when he met her, and, sheltering her with his
umbrella, proposed to take her home in the carriage; but she declined;
she felt the oppression and sadness of his manner, and knew he did not
want her company. "I would much rather walk," she declared.
"Would you?" he said, and waved to the men to take the carriage on.
"Well, it is not far;" and he proceeded to conduct her. Indeed there was
nothing else for him to do, for she could not hold up her umbrella. He
gave her his arm, and for two or three minutes the wind and the rain
together made her plenty of occupation; but when they got under the
shelter of the cliff-like rock near her house she felt the silence
oppressive, and thinking that nothing to the purpose, nothing touching
on either his thoughts or her own, would be acceptable, she said, by way
of saying something,--
"And so Valentine is gone! Has he written from Melcombe to you, John?"
"No," John answered, and added, after another short silence, "I feel the
loss of his company; it leaves me the more alone."
Then, to her surprise, he began at once to speak of this much-loved old
man, and related two or three little evidences of his kindness and
charity that she liked to hear, and that it evidently was a relief to
him to tell. She was just the kind of woman unconsciously to draw forth
confidences, and to reward them. Something poignant in his feeling was
rather set forth than concealed by his sober, self-restrained ways and
quiet words; it suited Emily, and she allowed herself to speak with that
tender reverence of the dead which came very well from her, since she
had loved him living so well. She was rather eloquent when her feelings
were touched, and then she had a sweet and penetrative voice. John liked
to hear her; he recalled her words when he had parted with her at her
own door, and felt that no one else had said anything of his father that
was half so much to his mind. It was nearly four weeks after this that
Emily fully confessed to herself what had occurred.
The dinner, after John Mortimer withdrew that day and Emily made to
herself this confession, was happily relieved by the company of three or
four neighbours, otherwise the hostess might have been made to feel very
plainly that she had displeased her guest. But the next morning Justina,
having had time to consider that Emily must on no account be annoyed,
came down all serenity and kindliness. She was so attentive to the lame
old aunt, and though the poor lady, being rather in pain, was decidedly
snappish, she did not betray any feeling of disapproval.
"Ay," said Miss Christie to herself when the two ladies had set off on
their short walk, "yon's not so straightforward and simple as I once
thought her. Only give her a chance, and as sure as death she'll get
hold of John, after all."
Emily and Justina went across the fields and came to John's garden, over
the wooden bridge that spanned the brook.
The sunny sloping garden was full of spring flowers. Vines, not yet in
leaf, were trained all over the back of the house, clematis and jasmine,
climbing up them and over them, were pouring themselves down again in
great twisted strands; windows peeped out of ivy, and the old red-tiled
roof, warm and mossy, looked homely and comfortable. A certain air of
old-fashioned, easy comfort pervaded the whole place; large bay windows,
with little roofs of their own, came boldly forth, and commanded a good
view of other windows--ivied windows that retired unaccountably. There
were no right lines. Casements at one end of the house showed in three
tiers, at the other there were but two. The only thing that was
perfectly at ease about itself, and quite clear that it ought to be
seen, was the roof. You could not possibly make a "stuck-up" house, or a
smart villa, or a modern family house of one that had a roof like that.
The late Mrs. Mortimer had wished it could be taken away. She would have
liked the house to be higher and the roof lower. John, on the other
hand, delighted in his roof, and also in his stables, the other
remarkable feature of the place.
As the visitors advanced, children's voices greeted them; the little
ones were running in and out; they presently met and seized Mrs. Walker,
dancing round her, and leading her in triumph into the hall. Then
Justina observed a good-sized doll, comfortably put to bed on one of the
hall chairs, and tightly tucked up in some manifest pinafores; near it
stood a child's wheel-barrow, half full of picture-books. "I shall not
allow that sort of litter here when I come, as I hope and trust I soon
shall do," thought Justina. "Children's toys are all very well in their
proper places."
Then Justina, who had never been inside the house before, easily induced
the children to take her from room to room, of those four which were
thoroughfares to one another. Her attentive eyes left nothing unnoticed,
the fine modern water-colour landscapes on the walls of one, the
delicate inlaid cabinets in another. Then a library, with a capital
billiard-table, and lastly John's den. There was something about all
these rooms which seemed to show the absence of a woman. They were not
untidy, but in the drawing-room was John's great microscope, with the
green-shaded apparatus for lighting it; the books also from the library
had been allowed to overflow into it, and encroach upon all the tables.
The dining-room alone was as other people's dining-rooms, but John's
own den was so very far gone in originality and strangeness of litter,
that Justina felt decidedly uneasy when she saw it; it made manifest to
her that her hoped-for spouse was not the manner of man whom she could
expect to understand; books also here had accumulated, and stood in rows
on chairs and tables and shelves; pipes were lying on the stone
chimneypiece, sharing it with certain old and new, beautiful and ugly
bronzes; long papers of genealogies and calculations in John's
handwriting were pinned against the walls; various broken bits of
Etruscan pottery stood on brackets here and there. It seemed to be the
owner's habit to pin his lucubrations about the place, for here was a
vocabulary of strange old Italian words, with their derivations, there a
list of peculiarities and supposed discoveries in an old Norse dialect.
Emily in the meantime had noticed the absence of the twins; it was not
till lunch was announced, and she went back into the dining-room that
she saw them, and instantly was aware that something was amiss.
Justina advanced to them first, and the two girls, with a shyness very
unusual with them, gave her their hands, and managed, but not without
difficulty, to escape a kinder salutation.
And then they both came and kissed Emily, and began to do the honours of
their father's table. There was something very touching to her in that
instinct of good breeding which kept them attentive to Miss Fairbairn,
while a sort of wistful sullenness made the rosy lips pout, and their
soft grey eyes twinkle now and then with half-formed tears.
Justina exerted herself to please, and Emily sat nearly silent. She saw
very plainly that from some cause or other the girls were looking with
dread and dislike on Justina as a possible step-mother. The little ones
were very joyous, very hospitable and friendly, but nothing could warm
the cold shyness of Gladys and Barbara. They could scarcely eat
anything; they had nothing to say.
It seemed as if, whatever occurred, Justina was capable of construing it
into a good omen. Somebody must have suggested to these girls that their
father meant to make her his second wife. What if he had done it
himself? Of course, under the circumstances, her intelligence could not
fail to interpret aright those downcast eyes, those reluctant answers,
and the timid, uncertain manner that showed plainly they were afraid of
her. They did not like the notion, of course, of what she hoped was
before them. That was nothing; so, as they would not talk, she began to
devote herself to the younger children, and with them she got on
extremely well.
Emily's heart yearned with a painful pity that returned upon herself
over the two girls. She saw in what light they regarded the thought of a
stepmother. Her heart ached to think that she had not the remotest
chance of ever standing in such a relation towards them. Yet, in despite
of that, she was full of tender distress when she considered that if
such a blissful possibility could ever draw near, the love of all these
children would melt away. The elder ones would resent her presence, and
teach the younger to read all the writing of her story the wrong way.
They would feel her presence their division from the father whom they
loved. They would brood with just that same sullen love and pouting
tenderness--they would pity, their father just the same, whoever wore
his ring, and reigned over them in his stead.
Emily, as she hearkened to Justina's wise and kindly talk, so well
considered and suitable for the part she hoped to play--Emily began to
pity John herself. She wanted something so much better for him. She
reflected that she would gladly be the governess there, as she could not
be the wife, if that would save John from throwing himself into
matrimony for his children's sake; and yet had she not thought a year
ago that Justina was quite good enough for him? Ah, well! but she had
not troubled herself then to learn the meaning of his voice, and look so
much as once into the depths of his eyes.
Lunch was no sooner over than the children were eager to show the
flowers, and all went out. Barbara and Gladys followed, and spoke when
appealed to; but they were not able to control their shoulders so well
as they did their tongues. Young girls, when reluctant to do any
particular thing, often find their shoulders in the way. These useful,
and generally graceful, portions of the human frame appear on such
occasions to feel a wish to put themselves forward, as if to bear the
brunt of it, and their manner is to do this edgeways.
Emily heard Justina invited to see the rabbits and all the other pets,
and knew she would do so, and also manage to make the children take her
over the whole place, house included. She, however, felt a shrinking
from this inspection, an unwonted diffidence and shyness made her almost
fancy it would be taking a liberty. Not that John would think so. Oh,
no; he would never think about it.
They soon went to look at the flowers; and there was old Swan ready to
exhibit and set off their good points.
"And so you had another prize, Nicholas. I congratulate you," remarked
Emily.
"Well, yes, ma'am, I had another. I almost felt, if I failed, it would
serve me right for trying too often. I said it was not my turn. 'Turn,'
said the umpire; 'it's merit we go by, not turn, Mr. Swan,' said he."
"And poor Raby took a prize again, I hear," said Emily. "That man seems
to be getting on, Swan."
"He does, ma'am; he's more weak than wicked, that man is. You can't make
him hold up his head; and he's allers contradicting himself. He promised
his vote last election to both sides. 'Why,' said I, 'what's the good
of that, William? Folks'll no more pay you for your words when you've
eaten them than they will for your bacon.' But that man really couldn't
make up his mind which side should bribe him. Still, William Raby is
getting on, I'm pleased to say."
Justina had soon seen the flowers enough, and Emily could not make up
her mind to inspect anything else. She therefore returned towards the
library, and Barbara walked silently beside her.
As she stepped in at the open window, a sound of sobbing startled her.
An oil painting, a portrait of John in his boyhood, hung against the
wall. Gladys stood with her face leaning against one of the hands that
hung down. Emily heard her words distinctly: "Oh, papa! Oh, papa! Oh, my
father beloved!" but the instant she caught the sound of footsteps, she
darted off like a frightened bird, and fled away without even looking
found.
Then the twin sister turned slowly, and looked at Emily with entreating
eyes, saying--"Is it true, Mrs. Walker? Dear Mrs. Walker, is it really
true?"
Emily felt cold at heart. How could she tell? John's words went for
nothing; Miss Christie might have mistaken them. She did not pretend to
misunderstand, but said she did not know; she had no reason to think it
was true.
"But everybody says so," sighed Barbara.
"If your father has said nothing--" Emily began.
"No," she answered; her father had said nothing at all; but the mere
mention of his name seemed to overcome her.
Emily sat down, talked to her, and tried to soothe her; but she had no
distinct denial to give, and in five minutes Barbara, kneeling before
her, was sobbing on her bosom, and bemoaning herself as if she would
break her heart.
Truly the case of a step-mother is hard.
Emily leaned her cheek upon the young upturned forehead. She faltered a
little as she spoke. If her father chose to marry again, had he not a
right? If she loved him, surely she wanted him to be--happy.
"But she is a nasty, nasty thing," sobbed Barbara, with vehement
heavings of the chest and broken words, "and--and--I am sure I hate her,
and so does Gladys, and so does Johnnie too." Then her voice softened
again--"Oh, father, father! I would take such care of the little ones if
you wouldn't do it! and we would never, never quarrel with the
governesses, or make game of them any more."
Emily drew her yet nearer to herself, and said in the stillest, most
matter-of-fact tone--
"Of course you know that you are a very naughty girl, my sweet."
"Yes," said Barbara ruefully.
"And very silly too," she continued; but there was something so tender
and caressing in her manner, that the words sounded like anything but a
reproof.
"I don't think I am silly," said Barbara.
"Yes, you are, if you are really making yourself miserable about an idle
rumour, and nothing more."
"But everybody says it is true. Why, one of Johnnie's schoolfellows, who
has some friends near here, told him every one was talking of it."
"Well, my darling," said Emily with a sigh, "but even if it is true, the
better you take it, the better it will be for you; and you don't want to
make your father miserable?"
"No," said the poor child naively; "and we've been so good--so very
good--since we heard it. But it is so horrid to have a step-mother! I
told you papa had never said anything; but he did say once to Gladys
that he felt very lonely now Grand was gone. He said that he felt the
loss of mamma."
She dried her eyes and looked up as she said these words, and Emily felt
a sharp pang of pity for John. He must be hard set indeed for help and
love and satisfying companionship if he was choosing to suppose that he
had buried such blessings as these with the wife of his youth.
"Oh!" said Barbara, with a weary sigh, "Johnnie does so hate the thought
of it! He wrote us such a furious letter. What was my mother like, dear
Mrs. Walker? It's so hard that we cannot remember her."
Emily looked down at Barbara's dark hair and lucid blue-grey eyes, at
the narrow face and pleasant rosy mouth.
"Your mother was like you--to look at," she answered.
She felt obliged to put in those qualifying words, for Janie Mortimer
had given her face to her young daughter; but the girl's passionate
feelings and yearning love, and even, as it seemed, pity for her father
and herself, had all come from the other side of the house.
Barbara rose when she heard this, and stood up, as if to be better seen
by her who had spoken what she took for such appreciative words, and
Emily felt constrained to take the dead mother's part, and say what it
was best for her child to hear.
"Barbara, no one would have been less pleased than your mother at your
all setting yourselves against this. Write and tell Johnnie so, will
you, my dear?"
Barbara looked surprised.
"She was very judicious, very reasonable; it is not on her account at
all that you need resent your father's intention--if, indeed, he has
such an intention."
"But Johnnie remembers her very well," said Barbara, not at all pleased,
"and she was very sweet and very delightful, and that's why he does
resent it so much."
"If I am to speak of her as she was, I must say that is a state of
feeling she would not have approved of, or even cared about."
"Not cared that father should love some one else!"
The astonishment expressed in the young, childlike face daunted Emily
for the moment.
"She would have cared for your welfare. You had better think of her as
wishing that her children should always be very dear to their father, as
desirous that they should not set themselves against his wishes, and vex
and displease him."
"Then I suppose I'd better give you Johnnie's letter," said Barbara,
"because he is so angry--quite furious, really." She took out a letter,
and put it into Emily's hand. "Will you burn it when you go home? but,
Mrs. Walker, will you read it first, because then you'll see that
Johnnie does love father--and dear mamma too."
Voices were heard now and steps on the gravel. Barbara took up her
eyeglass, and moved forward; then, when she saw Justina, she retreated
to Emily's side with a gesture of discomfiture and almost of disgust.
"Any step-mother at all," she continued, "Johnnie says, he hates the
thought of; but that one--Oh!"
"What a lesson for me!" thought Emily; and she put the letter in her
pocket.
"It's very rude," whispered Barbara; "but you mustn't mind that;" and
with a better grace than could have been expected she allowed Justina to
kiss her, and the two ladies walked back through the fields, the younger
children accompanying them nearly all the way home.