A VISITOR.
That evening all things had recommenced to be at Mount as----‘they
could never be again,’ as Anne said: that is, the habits of the first
week of mourning had been laid aside, the ladies had come downstairs,
and appeared at table, and everything returned to its use and wont. Mr.
Mountford’s place was left vacant at the table. Heathcote would not take
it, though he had been assured, with tears, that the family would wish
it so to be, and that no one would feel wounded by his assumption of his
rights. ‘I will sit where I have always sat if you will let me,’ he
said, putting himself at Mrs. Mountford’s right hand. Thus he sat
between her and Rose, who was pleased by what she thought the preference
he showed her. Rose dearly liked to be preferred--and, besides,
Heathcote was not to be despised in any way. Grave thoughts of uniting
the property had already entered her little head. He was not young,
indeed he was distinctly old in Rose’s juvenile eyes, but she said to
herself that when a man has so much in his favour a trifling matter like
age does not count. She was very serious, what her mother called
practical, in her ways of thinking: and the importance of uniting the
property affected Rose. Therefore she was glad that he seemed to like
her best, to choose her side of the table. Anne sat opposite,
contemplating them all serenely, meeting Heathcote’s eyes without any
shyness, which was more than he could boast in respect to her. He
scarcely addressed her at all during the time of dinner, and he never,
she perceived, broached to her stepmother or sister the question which
he had discussed with her with so much vehemence. At dinner Anne felt
herself at leisure--she was able to look at him and observe him, as she
had never done before. He had a very handsome face, more like the ideal
hero of a book than anything that is usually met with in the world. His
eyes were large and dark; his nose straight; his hair dark, too, and
framing his face as in a picture. ‘I do not like handsome men,’ Anne
said to herself. She smiled when the thought had formed in her mind,
smiled at herself. Cosmo was not handsome; he was of no particular
colour, and had no very striking features. People said of him that he
was gentlemanlike. It was the only thing to say. But here was a face
which really was beautiful. Beauty! in a man she said to herself! and
felt that she disliked it. But she could not but look at him across the
table. She could not lift her eyes without seeing him. His face was the
kind of face that it was natural to suppose should express fine
sentiments, high-flown, Anne said to herself, she whom everybody else
called high-flown. But he listened with a smile to Rose who was not of
that constitution of mind.
After dinner, when the ladies were alone in the drawing-room, Anne made
their cousin’s proposal known to them: that they should continue to live
at Mount, paying him rent according to Mr. Loseby’s suggestion. She did
not herself wish to accept this proposal--but a kind of opposition was
roused in her by the blank manner in which it was listened to. She had
been struggling against a guilty sense of her own private inclination to
go to London, to be in the same place with her lover--but she did not
see why _they_ should wish the same thing. There seemed to Anne to be a
certain impertinence in any inclination of theirs which should turn the
same way. What inducement had they to care for London, or any change of
residence? Though they were virtually backing her up, yet she was angry
with them for it. ‘I thought you would be sure to wish to stay,’ she
said.
‘You see, Anne,’ said Mrs. Mountford, with some hesitation, ‘it is not
now as it was before; when we were all happy together, home was home.
But now, after all we have gone through--and things would not be the
same as before--your sister wants a change--and so do you----’
‘Do not think of me,’ said Anne, hastily.
‘But it is my duty to think of you, too. Rose has always been delicate,
and the winters at Mount are trying, and this year, of course, you would
have no variety, no society. I am sure it is very kind of Heathcote: but
if we could get a comfortable little house in town--a change,’ said Mrs.
Mountford, growing bolder, ‘would do us all good.’
‘Oh, don’t let us stay at Mount!’ cried Rose. ‘In the wet, cold winter
days it is terrible. I have never liked Mount in winter. Do let us get
away now that we can get away. I have never seen anything. Let us go to
town till the spring, and then let us go abroad.’
‘That is what I should like,’ said Mrs. Mountford, meekly. ‘Change of
air and scene is always recommended. You are very strong, Anne, you
don’t feel it so much--you could go on for ever; but people that are
more delicately organised, people who _feel_ things more, can’t just
settle down after trouble like ours. We ought to move about a little and
have thorough change of scene.’
Anne was amazed at herself for the annoyance, the resentment, the
resistance to which she felt herself moved. It was simple perversity,
she felt, for in her heart she wanted to move, perhaps more than they
did--and she had a reason for her wish--but they had none. It was mere
wanton desire for change on their part. She was angry, though she saw
how foolish it was to be angry. ‘It was extremely kind of Heathcote to
make such a proposal,’ she said.
‘I don’t say it was not kind, Anne--but he feels that he cannot keep it
up. He does not like the idea of leaving the place all dismantled and
uninhabited. You may tell him I will leave the furniture; I should not
think of taking it away, just at present. I think we should look about
us,’ said Mrs. Mountford, ‘before we settle anywhere; and select a
really good place--which Mount would never be,’ she added, with a little
shaking out of her crape, ‘for us, in our changed circumstances. It may
be very kind of Heathcote--but I don’t see that we can do it. It would
be too much to expect.’
And Anne was silenced, not knowing what pleas to bring forward for the
defeat of the cause which was her own cause; but she was angry that
they should presume to think so _too_. What was town to them? They had
no one in it to make that great wilderness feel like home. They had no
inducement that she knew of. She felt reluctant to be happy by such
unreasonable means.
Keziah, the little maid to whom Anne had, during the interval since she
was last mentioned, imparted a great deal of very energetic advice as to
the duty of holding fast to her lover, and taking no thought of
interest, had red eyes that night when she came to put her mistress’s
things away. Anne was very independent. She did not require much actual
service. It was Rose who benefited by Keziah’s services in this respect.
But when she was dismissed by Rose she came into the room where Anne sat
writing, and instead of doing her work as usual with noiseless speed,
and taking herself away, she hovered about for a long time, poking the
fire, arranging things that had no particular need of arranging, and
crossing and re-crossing Anne’s point of view. She had red eyes, but
there was in her little person an air of decision that was but seldom
apparent there. This Anne perceived, when, attracted at length by these
manœuvres, she put away her writing and looked up. ‘Keziah,’ she said,
‘how are things going? I can’t help thinking you have something to say
to me to-night.’
‘Yes, Miss Anne,’ said the girl, very composedly: ‘I have got something
to say--I wanted you to know, as you’ve always been so kind and taken an
interest--people has the same sort of feelings, I suppose, whether
they’re quality or whether they’re common folks----’
‘That is very true, Keziah. I suspect we are all of the same flesh and
blood.’
‘Don’t you laugh at me, Miss Anne. Miss Anne, I would like to tell you
as I’ve made up my mind to-night.’
‘I hope you have made a right decision, Keziah,’ said Anne, with some
anxiety, feeling suspicious of the red eyes.
‘Oh, I’m not afraid of its being _right_, Miss Anne. If it wasn’t
right,’ said the little girl, with a wan smile, ‘I don’t think as it
would be as hard. I’d have settled sooner if it hadn’t been for thinking
what Jim would say,’ she added, a tear or two coming to dilate her eyes;
‘it wasn’t for myself. If you do your duty, Miss Anne, you can’t do no
more.’
‘Then, Keziah, you have been talked over,’ said Anne, with some
indignation, rising up from her desk. ‘Worth has been worrying you, and
you have not been able to resist her. Why did you not tell her, as I
told you, to come and have it out with me?’
‘I don’t know what good that would have done, Miss Anne. It was me that
had to settle after all.’
‘Of course it was you that had to settle. Had it been anyone else I
should not have lost all this time, I should have interfered at once.
Keziah, do you know what you are doing? A young girl like you, just my
age--(but I am not so young, I have had so much to think of, and to go
through), to sell herself to an old man.’
‘Miss Anne, I’m not selling myself,’ said Keziah, with a little flush of
resentment. ‘He hasn’t given me anything, not so much as a ring--I
wouldn’t have it of him--I wouldn’t take not a silver thimble, though
he’s always teasing--for fear you should say---- Whatever anyone may
think, they can’t say as I’ve sold myself,’ said Keziah proudly. ‘I
wouldn’t take a thing from him, not if it was to save his life.’
‘This is mere playing upon words, Keziah,’ said Anne, towering over the
victim in virtuous indignation. ‘Old Saymore is well off and poor Jim
has nothing. What do you call that but selling yourself? But it is not
your doing! it is Worth’s doing. Why doesn’t he marry _her_? It would be
a great deal more suitable than marrying you.’
‘He don’t seem to see that, Miss Anne,’ said Keziah with a demure half
curtsey: a certain comic sense of the absurdity of marrying the aunt
when the niece was by, crept into the profound seriousness of her looks.
That anybody should suppose old Saymore would marry Worth gave the girl
a melancholy amusement in spite of herself.
‘She would be far more suitable,’ cried Anne in her impetuous way. ‘I
think I’ll speak to them both and set it before them. It would be a
thousand times more suitable. But old Saymore is too old even for Worth:
what would he be for you?’
Keziah looked at her young mistress with eyes full of very mingled
feelings. The possibility of being delivered by the simple expedient of
a sudden match got up by the tormentors themselves gave her a
half-frightened visionary hope, but it was mixed with a half-offended
sentiment of proprietorship which she could scarcely acknowledge: old
Saymore belonged to her. She would have liked to get free from the
disagreeable necessity of marrying him, but she did not quite like the
idea of seeing him married off to somebody else under her very eyes.
‘It’s more than just that, Miss Anne,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘All
of us in the house are thinking of what is likely to happen, and Mr.
Saymore, he says he will never take another place after having been so
long here. And he has a good bit of money laid by, Miss Anne,’ said
Keziah, not without pride. ‘And Mr. Goodman, of the “Black Bull” at
Hunston, he’s dead. That’s where we’re thinking of settling. I know how
to keep the books and make up the bills, and mother she would be in the
kitchen, and such a fine opening for the boys. I don’t know what I
shouldn’t deserve if I were to set up myself against all that. And it
isn’t myself neither,’ said Keziah. ‘I should be ashamed to make a fuss
for me. I have always told you that, Miss Anne. I hope I’m not one as
would go against my duty. It’s Jim I’ve always thought upon. Men folks
are more wilful than women. They are more used to get their own way. If
he was to go to the bad, Miss Anne, and me the cause of it----’
Here Keziah broke down, and wept without any further attempt to restrain
her tears.
‘I don’t understand you,’ cried Anne impetuously. ‘You pretend to be
sorry for him, and this is how you treat him. But leave Jim to take care
of himself, Keziah. Let us think of you. This is what I call going to
the bad. Poor Jim might take to drinking, perhaps, and ruin himself--but
I don’t think that is so much going to the bad as to love one man and
marry another. That is the worst of sin,’ said the girl, with cheeks and
eyes both flaming. ‘It is treachery, it is falsehood, it is dishonour,
to you and to everyone concerned.’
Poor little Keziah quailed before this outburst. She shrank back with a
look of pain as if she feared her mistress’s wrath would take some
tangible form. She cried bitterly, sobbing aloud, ‘You’ve got no call to
be angry, Miss Anne. You didn’t ought to be angry, Miss Anne. I’m
a-going to do my duty; it’s nothing but my duty as I’m going to do!’
Anne felt, when the interview was over, that she had in all probability
done more harm than good. She had frightened Keziah, and made her cling
all the more to the comfort which sprang from a settled resolution, and
she had even stimulated that resolve by the prick of opposition which
moves the meekest of natures. She had made Keziah feel herself wronged,
her sacrifice unappreciated, her duty misconceived, and the girl had
fallen back with all the more confidence on the approval of her (as
Anne thought) worldly-minded aunt, and the consolation of the old
bridegroom, who, though he was old, was a great man in the servants’
hall--great as the butler and head of the establishment downstairs, and
still more great as the prospective landlord of the ‘Black Bull’ at
Hunston. To be the future mistress of such a place was a glory enough to
turn a girl’s head. Keziah went away crying, and feeling that she had
not deserved the cruel ‘scolding’ administered by Miss Anne. She going
to the bad! when she was doing her duty in the highest and most
superlative way, and had hanging over her head, almost touching it, the
crown of that landlady’s cap, with the most becoming ribbons, which
ranks like the strawberry leaves of another elevation in the
housekeeper’s room and the servants’ hall.
It was the morning after this that Cosmo arrived. Anne was going
downstairs to a morning’s work with Mr. Loseby, thoughtful and serious
as she always was now; but by this time all the strangeness of her
position was over; she had got used to it and even reconciled to it. She
had work to do, and a position in the world which was all that one
wanted for happiness. Indeed, she was better off, she said to herself,
than if she had been in her natural position. In that case, in all
probability, she would have had someone else to do for her what she was
now to do for Rose, and her occupation would have been gone. She felt
that she had passed into the second chapter of life--as if she had
married, she said to herself with a passing blush--though so different.
She had real work to do in the world, not make-believe, but actual--not
a thing she could throw aside if she pleased, or was doing only for
amusement. Perhaps it requires a whole life of leisure, and ideas shaped
by that exemption from care which so often strikes the generous mind as
ignoble, which made her appreciate so highly this fine burden of real
unmistakable work, not done to occupy her time merely, but because it
had to be done. She prepared herself for it, not only without pain but
with actual pleasure. But on her way down to the library, where Mr.
Loseby was waiting her, Anne chanced to cast her eyes out from the end
of the corridor across the park. It was the same window to which she had
rushed to listen to the cry the night her father died. It had been night
then, with a white haze of misty moonlight and great shadows of
blackness. But now it was morning, and the red sunshine lighted up the
hoar frost on the grass, already pursuing it into corners, melting away
the congealed dew upon the herbs and trees. She stood for a moment’s
meditation, still gazing out without any object, scarcely knowing why.
To a thoughtful and musing mind there is a great attraction at a window,
which is a kind of opening in the house and in one’s being, full of long
wistful vistas of inspection into the unseen. But Anne had not been
there many minutes before a cry broke from her lips, and her whole
aspect changed. Charley Ashley was coming along the road which crossed
the park--but not alone. A thrill ran through her from her head to her
feet. In a moment her mind went over the whole of the past fortnight’s
story. Her chill and dumbness of disappointment, which she would not
express even to herself, when he did not come; her acquiescence of
reason (but still with a chill of the heart) in his explanations; the
subdued sense of restraint, and enforced obedience to other rules, not
first or only to those of the heart, and the effort with which she had
bowed herself: her solitude, her longing for support, her uneasiness
every way under the yoke which he had thought it necessary to impose
upon himself and her, all this seemed to pass before her view in a
moment. She had acquiesced; she had even reasoned herself into
satisfaction; but oh! the glorious gleam of approval with which Anne
saw all that she had consented to beforehand in the light of the fact
that now he was here; now he was coming, all reason for his staying away
being over--not hurriedly, as if wishing to chase the recollection of
her father from her mind, or to grudge him that last pre-eminence in the
thoughts of those belonging to him, which is the privilege of every man
who dies. Cosmo had fulfilled every reverent duty towards him who was
his enemy. He had done what it was most difficult to do. He had kept
away till all the rites were accomplished; and now he was coming! All
was over, not one other observance of affection possible; the very widow
coming out again, thinking (a little) of the set of her cap and planning
to go abroad in spring. And now there was no longer any reason why the
lover should stay away. If there is one feeling in the world which is
divine, it is the sense of full approval of those whom one loves most.
To be able with one’s whole heart to consent and know that all they have
done is well, to approve them not with blindness (though that is the
silliest fable) of love, or its short-sightedness, but, on the contrary,
with all its enlightenment in the eyes that cannot be content with less
than excellence: to look on and see everything and approve--this, and
not any personal transport or enjoyment, is heaven. Anne, standing by
the window seeing the two figures come in sight, in a moment felt the
gates of Paradise open before her, and was swept within them by a silent
flood of joy. She approved, making no exception, reserving nothing. As
she walked downstairs, her feet did not seem to touch the ground. What a
poor, small, ignoble little being she had been not to read him all the
time! but now that the illumination had come, and she saw his conduct
from first to last, Anne saw, or thought she saw, that everything was
right, everything noble. She approved, and was happy. She forgot Mr.
Loseby and the morning’s business, and walked towards the hall with a
serene splendour about her, a glory as of the moon and the stars, all
beautiful in reflected light.
There was nobody in the hall, and the kind Curate when he came in did
nothing but pass through it. ‘I suppose I shall find them in the
drawing-room?’ he said, waving his hand and walking past. Anne accepted
the passing greeting gladly. What did she want with Charley? He went
through the hall while the other came to her side.
‘You wanted me, Anne?’
‘Wanted you--oh, how I have wanted you!--there has been so much to do;
but I approve, Cosmo--I approve everything you have done. I feel it
right that I should have stood alone till now. You help me more in doing
my duty, than if you had done all for me. You were right all along, all
through----’
‘Thank you, my dearest,’ he said. ‘But, Anne, I see in what you say that
there have been moments in which you have not approved. This was what I
feared--and it would have been so much easier to do what was pleasant.’
‘No--I do not think there were moments--at least not anything more.
Cosmo, what do you think of me now, a woman without a penny? I wonder if
you approve of me as I approve of you.’
‘I think I do more, dear: I admire, though I don’t think I could have
been so brave myself. If you had not been just the girl you are, I fear
I should have said, Throw me over and let us wait.’
‘You did say it,’ she said in a lower tone; ‘that is the only thing of
all that I do not like in you.’
‘To think you should have undergone such a loss for me!--and I am not
worth it--it humbles me, Anne. I could not believe it was possible. Up
to the last minute I felt it could not be.’
‘I knew it would be,’ she said softly: was not there something else that
Cosmo had to say? She waited for half a minute with a certain
wistfulness in her eyes. The glory of her approval faded a little--a
very little. To be perfect he had to say something more. ‘If thou
wouldst be perfect!’ Was not even the Saviour himself disappointed
(though he knew what was in man) when the young ruler whom he loved at
first sight did not rise to that height which was opened to him? Anne
could not say the same words, but she felt them in her heart. Oh, Cosmo,
if thou wouldst be perfect! but he did not see it, or he did not do it
at least.
‘I cannot understand it yet,’ he went on. ‘Such injustice, such
cruelty--do I pain you, my darling? I cannot help it. If it had been
only the postponement of all our hopes, that would have been bad enough:
but to take your rights from you arbitrarily, absolutely, without giving
you any choice----’
‘I would so much rather you did not speak of it, Cosmo. It cannot be
mended. I have got to accept it and do the best I can,’ she said.
‘You take it like an angel, Anne. I knew you would do that: but I am not
an angel: and to have all our happiness thrust into the distance,
indefinitely, making the heart sick--you must not expect me to take it
so easily. If I had been rich indeed--how one longs to be rich
sometimes!’ he said, almost hurting her with the close clasp of his arm.
Every word he said was true; he loved her even with passion, as he
understood passion. And if he had been rich, Cosmo would have satisfied
that judgment of hers, which once more, in spite of her, was up in the
tribunal, watchful, anxious, not able to blind its eyes.
‘I do not long to be rich,’ she said; ‘little will content me.’
‘My dearest!’ he said with tender enthusiasm, with so much love in his
looks and tone, so much admiration, almost adoration, that Anne’s heart
was put to silence in spite of herself. How is a woman, a girl, to
remain uninfluenced by all these signs of attachment? She could not
repulse them; she could not say, All this is nothing. If thou would’st
be perfect! Her consciousness of something wanting was not put away, but
it was subdued, put down, forced into the shade. How could she insist
upon what was, indeed, the final test of his attachment? how could she
even indicate it? Anne had, in her mind, no project of marriage which
would involve the laying aside of all the active practical duties which
her father had left as his only legacy to her; but that her lover should
take it for granted that her loss postponed all their hopes, was not a
thing which, in itself, was pleasant to think of. She could not banish
this consciousness from her mind. But in those early moments when Cosmo
was so tender, when his love was so evident, how could she hold back and
doubt him? It was easier by far to put a stop upon herself, and to
silence her indefinite, indefinable dissatisfaction. For in every
respect but this Cosmo was perfect. When he presented himself before
Mrs. Mountford his demeanour was everything that could be desired. He
threw himself into all their arrangements, and asked about their plans
with the gentle insistence of one who had a right to know. He promised,
nay offered, at once to begin the search for a house, which was the
first thing to be done. ‘It will be the pleasantest of duties,’ he said.
‘What a difference to my life! It will be like living by the gates of
heaven, to live in the same place with you, to know I may come and see
you: or even come and look at the house you are in.’ ‘Certainly,’ Mrs.
Mountford said afterwards, ‘Mr. Douglas was very nice. I wonder why dear
papa was so prejudiced against him, for, indeed, nothing could be nicer
than the way he talked; and he will be a great help to us in finding a
house.’ He stayed the whole day, and his presence made everything go
smoothly. The dinner-table was absolutely cheerful with the aid of his
talk, his town news, his latest information about everything. He pleased
everybody, even down to old Saymore, who had not admired him before.
Cosmo had to leave next day, having, as he told them, while the courts
were sitting, no possibility of a holiday; but he went charged with many
commissions, and taking the position almost of a member of the family--a
son of the house. Anne walked with him to the village to see him go; and
the walk through the park, though everything was postponed, was like a
walk through Paradise to both. ‘To think that I am going to prepare for
your arrival is something more than words can say,’ he told her as they
parted. ‘I cannot understand how I can be so happy.’ All this lulled her
heart to rest, and filled her mind with sweetness, and did everything
that could be done to hoodwink that judgment which Anne herself would so
fain have blindfolded and drowned. This she did not quite succeed in
doing--but at all events she silenced it, and kept it quiescent. She
began to prepare for the removal with great alacrity and pleasure;
indeed, the thought of it cheered them all--all at least except
Heathcote Mountford, whose views had been so different, and whose
indignation and annoyance, though suppressed, were visible enough. He
was the only one who had not liked Cosmo. But then he did not like the
family plans, nor their destination, nor anything, Rose said with a
little pique. Anne, for her part, avoided Heathcote, and declared to
herself that she could not bear him. What right had he to set up a
tribunal at which Cosmo was judged? That she should do it was bad
enough, but a stranger! She knew exactly what Heathcote thought. Was it
because she thought so, too, that she divined him, and knew what was in
his heart?