"WHAT WAS A SPECK EXPANDS INTO A STAR."
"Had the landlady of the house in Great Ormond Street been anybody in
the world except my old nurse, I doubt if any philanthropic purpose
would have inspired me with the boldness to carry through the work
I had undertaken. To appear before the average lodging-house keeper
within half an hour of midnight, and with such a _protégée_ as
Esperanza Campbell upon my hands, would have required the courage
of a lion; and I was at that time a particularly shy and sensitive
young man, brought up in the retirement of a country house and in the
society of a mother whom I loved very dearly, but, as we are told to
love God, with fear and trembling. My constitutional shyness, the
natural outcome of narrow surroundings, had kept me from making friends
at the University, and I believe it was sheer pity that had prompted
Gerald Standish to take me under his wing. His kindness was rewarded by
finding me a likable companion, whose character supplied some of the
qualities which were wanting in his bright and buoyant disposition. We
were real friends; and remained friends until the end of his too-brief
life.
"So much to explain that it was only my confidence in my old nurse's
indulgence which enabled me to cut the knot of the difficulty in
disposing of Esperanza Campbell.
"My faithful Martha and her excellent husband were sleeping the sleep
of the just in a ground-floor room at the back of the house, while
their maid-servant slumbered still more soundly in a back attic.
Happily Martha was a light sleeper, had trained herself to wake at
the lightest cry in seasons of measles or whooping-cough, teething or
infantile bronchitis; so my second application to the bell and knocker
brought a prompt response. Bolts were drawn, a key was turned, a chain
was unfastened, the door was opened a couple of inches, and a timid
voice asked what was wanted.
"'It is I, Martha, George Beresford. I've brought you a lodger.'
"'Oh, come now, Mr. George, that's one of your jokes. You've been to
the theatre, and you're playing a trick upon me. Go home now, do, like
a dear young gentleman, and come and have a cup of tea with me some
afternoon when you've got half an hour to spare.'
"'Martha, you are keeping a very sweet young lady out in the cold. For
goodness' sake, open the door, and let me explain matters.'
"'Can't she take her in?' asked Gerald, impatiently, from the cab.
"Martha opened the door, and exhibited herself reluctantly in her
casual costume of flannel dressing-gown and tartan shawl.
"'What _do_ you mean, Mr. George? What can you mean by wanting
lodgings for a young lady at this time of night?'
"'Sounds queer, don't it?' said Gerald, who had bounded up the steps
and burst into the wainscoted hall, lighted only by the candle Martha
was carrying. 'The fact is, we're in a difficulty, and Mr. Beresford
assures me you can get us out of it.'
"And then in fewest words and with most persuasive manner he explained
what we wanted, a home and a protector for a blameless young girl
whom the force of circumstances had flung upon our hands at half-past
eleven o'clock in the evening. Somehow we must get rid of her. She was
a gentleman's daughter, and we could not take her to the workhouse.
Reputation, hers and ours, forbade that we should take her to an hotel.
"Not a word did Gerald say about table-turning or spirit-rapping. He
was shrewd enough to guess that any hint at the _séance_ would have
prejudiced honest Martha against our charge.
"'I'm sure I don't know what to do,' said Martha; and I could see that
she was suspicious of Gerald's airy manner, and doubtful even of me.
'My husband's fast asleep. He isn't such a light sleeper as I am. I
don't know what he would say----'
"'Never mind what he would say,' interrupted Gerald. 'What you have
to say is that you'll take Miss Campbell in and give her a tidy room
somewhere--she ain't particular, poor thing!--and make her comfortable
for a week or two while she looks out for a situation.'
"'Oh, she's on the look-out for a situation, is she?' said Martha,
evidently mollified by the idea of a bread-winning young person. 'You
see, Mr. George,' she went on, appealing to me, 'in London one can't
be too particular. This house is what Benjamin and I have to look to
in our old age; we've put our little all into it; and if the young
lady happened to be rather dressy; or sang comic songs; or went to the
theatre in cabs; or had gentlemen leave letters for her; why, it would
just be our ruin. Our first floor is let to one of the most particular
of widow ladies. I don't believe there's a more particular lady in
London.'
"'My dear Martha, do you think I'm a fool or a knave? This girl is a
village organist's daughter----'
"'Ah, Mr. George, they must all begin,' said Martha, shaking her head
philosophically.
"'She is in mourning for her father--an orphan--friendless and
unhappy----'
"'As for conduct, propriety, and all that kind of thing, I'll answer
for her as if she were my own sister,' put in Gerald, in his splendidly
reckless way; 'and that being the case, I hope you are not going to
keep the poor young lady sitting out there in a cold cab till to-morrow
morning.'
"Martha listened to Gerald, and looked at me.
"'If you're sure it's all right, Mr. George,' she murmured, 'I'd do
anything in the world to oblige you; but this house is our all----'
"'Yes, yes,' Gerald exclaimed impatiently. 'You told us that before.
Bring her in, George. It's all settled.'
"This was a happy stroke, for old Martha would have stood in the hall
with her guttering candle and in her deshabille of flannel and tartan
debating the matter for another quarter of an hour; but when I brought
the pale girl in her black frock up the steps, and handed her into the
old woman's care, the motherly heart melted in a moment, and hesitancy
was at an end.
"'Poor young thing; why, she's little more than a child! How pale and
cold you look, poor dear. I'll go down and light a bit of fire and warm
a cup of broth for you. My second floor left the day before yesterday.
I'll soon get the bedroom ready for you.'
"'That's as it should be,' said I. 'You'll find yourself safe and
comfortable here, Miss Campbell, with the kindest woman I know. I'll
call in a few days, and see how you are getting on.'
"I slipped a couple of sovereigns into my old nurse's palm as I wished
her good night. The cabman brought in the poor little wooden trunk,
received a liberal fare, and went his way in peace, while Gerald and
I walked to the Tavistock, glad to cool down after the evening's
excitement.
"'What an adventure!' said he. 'Of course I always knew it was humbug,
but I never thought it was quite such transparent humbug.'
"'That girl would have taken any one in,' said I.
"'What, because she's young and pretty, after a rather sickly fashion?'
"'No, because she was so thoroughly in earnest, and believed in the
thing herself.'
"'You really think she was a dupe and not an accomplice?'
"'I am sure of it. Her distress was unmistakable. And at her age, and
with her imaginative nature----'
"'What did you know of her nature?' he asked sharply.
"The question and his manner of asking it pulled me up suddenly, as a
dreamer of morning dreams is awakened by the matter-of-fact voice of
the servant who comes to call him.
"What did I know of her? What assurance had I that her sobs and
lamentation, her pathetic story of the father so loved and mourned,
were not as spurious as the rest of the show, as much a cheat as the
iron rod and the leather strap? How did I know? Well, I could hardly
have explained the basis of my conviction, but I did know; and I would
have staked my life upon her honesty and her innocence.
"I woke next morning to a new sense of responsibility. I had taken this
helpless girl's fate into my hands, and to me she must look for aid in
chalking out a path for herself. I had to find her the means of earning
her daily bread, reputably, and not as a drudge. The problem was
difficult of solution. I had heard appalling descriptions of the lot of
the average half-educated governess--the life harder, the pay less,
than a servant's. Yet what better than a nursery governess could this
girl be? at her age, and with her attainments, which I concluded were
not above the ordinary schoolgirl's. The look-out was gloomy, and I
was glad to shut my eyes to the difficulties of the situation, telling
myself that my good Martha would give the poor child a comfortable home
upon very moderate terms--such terms as I could afford to pay out of my
very moderate allowance, and that in a month or two something--in the
language of the immortal Micawber--would turn up.
* * * * *
"There was but another week of the Long, a week which under ordinary
conditions I should have spent with my widowed mother at her house in
the country, but which I decided to spend in London, accepting Gerald's
invitation to share his rooms in Arundel Street, and do a final round
of the theatres; an invitation I had previously declined. During that
week I was often in Great Ormond Street, and contrived to learn a
great deal more about Esperanza's character and history. Of her history
all she had to tell; of her character, which to me seemed transparent
as a forest streamlet, all I could divine. I called in Ormond Street on
the second day of her residence there, and found good Nurse Martha in
the best possible humour. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and she
insisted that I should stop for a cup of tea, and as tea-making--that
is to say, the art of producing a better cup of tea than anybody else
could produce from the same cannister, kettle, and teapot--had always
been a special talent of Martha's, I was glad to accept her hospitality.
"Miss Campbell had gone for a little walk round the squares, she
informed me.
"'She doesn't care about going out,' explained Martha; 'she'd rather
sit over a book or play the harmonium. But I told her she must take an
airing for her health's sake.'
"I was disappointed at not finding Esperanza in the tidy back parlour
to which Nurse Martha ushered me--a room of exemplary neatness and
snugness, enlivened by those living presences which always make for
cheerfulness--vulgar as we may deem them--a glass tank of gold fish,
a canary bird, and a magnificent tabby cat, sleek, clean, luxuriously
idle, in purring contemplation of the bright little fire in the
old-fashioned grate, that grate with hobs which reminded me of my
nursery deep in the heart of the country.
"'Now you sit down in Blake's armchair, Mr. George, and let's have
a talk over missy. I shouldn't have taken those two sovereigns from
you the night before last if I hadn't been all of a muddle with the
suddenness of the thing. I don't want to be paid in advance for doing a
kindness to a helpless girl.'
"'No, Martha; but since the helpless girl was on my hands, it's only
right I should pay you somehow, and we may as well settle that question
at once, as it may be several weeks before Miss Campbell is able to
find a suitable situation.'
"'Several months, more likely. Do you know how young she is, Mr.
George?'
"'Eighteen.'
"'Eighteen last birthday--only just turned eighteen, and she's much
younger than most girls of eighteen in all her ways and thoughts. She's
clever enough with her hands, poor child. Nothing lazy or lolloping
about her--made her own bed and swept and tidied her own room without
a word from me; but there's a helplessness somewhere. I believe the
weakness is in her thoughts. I don't know how she'll ever set about
getting a situation--I don't know what kind of situation she's fit for.
She's much too young and too pretty for a governess.'
"'Not too young for a nursery-governess, surely.'
"'A nursery-governess means a nursery-maid without a cap, Mr. George. I
shouldn't like to see her brought to that. I've taken to her already.
Benjamin says, with her sweet voice and pretty face, she ought to go on
the stage.'
"I was horrified at the idea.
"'Martha, how can you speak of such a thing? Have you any idea of what
the life of a theatre means for an inexperienced girl--for a beautiful
girl, most of all?'
"'Oh, I've heard there are temptations; but a prudent young woman can
take care of herself anywhere, Mr. George; and an imprudent young woman
will go wrong in a country parsonage, or in a nunnery. If Miss Campbell
is to earn her own living, she'll have to face dangers and temptations,
go where she may. She'll have to take care of herself, poor child.
There'll be nobody else to take care of her. I've heard that young
women are well looked after in the better class of theatres--at Mr.
Charles Kean's, for instance. I knew a young person that used to walk
on in _Louis the Eleventh_--dressed as a page, in blue and gold--and
she told me that Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean was _that_ particular----'
"'The Keans are making a farewell tour in Australia, and will never go
into management again, Martha. You are talking nonsense.'
"Poor Martha looked crestfallen at this reproof.
"'I dare say I am, Mr. George; but, for all that, I don't think Miss
Campbell will ever do much as a governess. It isn't in her. There's a
helplessness, and a bendingness, and droopingness, if I may say so,
about her character that won't do for a governess. The only mistress
that would keep her is the kind of mistress that would make a slave of
her.'
"'Hard lines,' I said, getting up and walking about the little back
parlour.
"It was a third room quite at the back of the substantial Georgian
house; and there was scant space for my restlessness between the old
square piano, which served as a sideboard, and the fireplace by which
my dear old Martha sat looking at me with a perturbed countenance.
"I began to think I had let myself in for a bad thing. What was I to do
with this girl, whose fate I had in some measure taken into my hands?
It had seemed easy enough to bring her to this quiet shelter, which she
might leave in a week or so, braced up and ready to fight her battle
of life--the battle we all have to fight somehow--a self-supporting
young woman. Self-supporting, that was the point. I now remembered with
terror that there is a large class of persons upon this earth whom not
even the scourge of poverty can make self-supporting; a vast multitude
of feeble souls who resign themselves from the beginning of things to
drift upon the stream of life, and are never known to strike out and
swim for any shore, and so drift down to the ocean of death. Of these
are the poor relations for whom something is for ever being done, and
who never do anything for themselves; of these the feeble scions of
patrician family trees, who are always waiting for sinecures under
Government.
"God help her, poor soul, if she was one of these invertebrates; and
God help me in my responsibility towards her.
"I was an only son; the heir to a small estate in Suffolk, and an
income of something under three thousand a year. I was not quite
twenty years of age, and I had to maintain myself at the most
expensive college in Cambridge on an allowance that many of the rich
young men with whom I associated would have considered abject penury. I
was not in a fast set. I did not hunt--indeed, with my modest income,
hunting would have been impossible; but I was not without tastes which
absorbed money; the love of choice books and fine engravings, the fancy
for curios picked up here or there, the presence of which gave interest
to my rooms, and, perhaps, helped to reconcile me to many long hours
within closed doors. I had hitherto been most careful to live within
my income, for I knew that it was as much as my mother could afford to
give me, taking into consideration her devotion to the estate which
was to be mine by-and-by, and the maintenance and improvement of which
had been to her as a religion. Her model cottages, her home-farm,
the village church, to whose every improvement her purse had largely
contributed, these were the sources of expenditure which kept her
comparatively poor, and which forbade any kind of extravagance on my
part.
"All these facts were in my mind that afternoon as I paced the narrow
bounds of old Martha's sitting-room.
"'She will have to get her living,' I said severely, as the result of
these meditations, which showed me no surplus income for philanthropy.
"Had my mother been as some men's mothers, I might naturally have
contemplated shifting the burden upon her shoulders. I might have told
her Esperanza's story, and handed Esperanza over to her care as freely
as if I had picked up a stray cat or dog. But my mother was not one of
those soft, impressionable women who are always ready to give the reins
to sentiment. She was a good woman, and devoted much of her life and
means to doing good, but her benevolence was restricted to the limits
of her parish. She would hardly listen to a tale of sorrow outside her
own village.
"'We have so much to do for our own people, George,' she used to tell
me; 'it is folly to be distracted by outside claims. Here we know our
return for every shilling we give. We know the best and the worst about
those we help.'
"Were I to tell her Esperanza's story, her suggestions for helping me
out of my difficulty would be crueller than old Martha's. She would be
for sending the girl into service as a housemaid, or for getting her an
assisted passage to the Antipodes on an emigrant ship.
"Martha came to my rescue in my trouble now as she had done many a
time when I wore a kilt, and when my naked knees had come into abrupt
collision with a gravel path or a stony beach.
"'She'll have to be older and wiser before she gets her own living, Mr.
George,' said Martha; 'but don't you trouble about her. As long as I've
a bed or a sofa to spare, she can stop with me and Benjamin. Her bite
and sup won't hurt us, poor thing, and I don't want sixpence from you.
She shall stop here free gratis, Mr. George, till she finds a better
home.'
"I gave my old nurse a hug, as if I had been still the boy in the
Macdougal kilt.
"'No, no, Martha; I'm not going to impose on your generosity. I shall
be able to pay you _something_. Only I thought you might want two or
three pounds a week for her board, and I could not manage that for an
indefinite period."
"'Two or three pounds! Lor, Mr. George, if that's your notion of
prices, Cambridge land-ladies must be 'arpies. Why, I only get two
guineas for my drawing-room floor, as a permanency, and lady-tenants
even begrudge half a crown extra for kitchen fire. Let her stop here as
long as she likes, Mr. George, and never you think about money. It's
only her future I'm thinking of, for there's a helplessness about her
that----Ah, there she is,' as the hall door slowly opened. 'I gave her
my key. She's quite one of us already.'
"She came quietly into the room, and took my offered hand without
shyness or embarrassment. She was pale still, but the fresh air had
brought a faint tint of rose into the wan cheeks. She looked even
younger and more childlike to-day in her shabby mourning frock and poor
little black straw hat than she had looked the night before last. Her
strong emotion then had given more of womanliness to the small oval
face. To-day there was a simplicity in her aspect, as of a trusting
child who took no thought of the future, secure in the kindness of
those about her.
"I thought of a sentence in the gospel. 'Consider the lilies how they
grow.' This child had grown up like a lily in the mild atmosphere of
domestic love, and had been the easy dupe of a delusion which appealed
to her affection for the dead.
"'I called to see if you were quite comfortable and at home with Mrs.
Blake,' I said, far more embarrassed by the situation than Esperanza
was.
"'Yes, indeed I am,' she answered in her sad sweet voice. 'It is so
nice to be with some one so kind and clean and comfortable. The Frau
was not _very_ unkind; but she was so dirty. She gave us such horrid
things to eat--the smell of them made me ill--and then she said I was
affected and silly, and the Herr used to say I might starve if I could
not eat their food. It made me think of my happy home with father,
and our cosy little tea-table beside the fire. We did not always have
dinner,' she added naively; 'neither of us cared much for that.'
"She hung over old Martha's shoulder with affectionate familiarity, and
the horny old hand which had led my infant steps was held up to clasp
hers, and the withered old face smiled.
"'See how she gets round us,' said Martha, nodding at me. 'Benjamin is
just as bad. And you should hear her play the 'armonian of an evening,
and sing 'Abide with me.' You'd hardly hear her without shedding tears.'
"'Do you think you can be happy here for a few weeks?' I asked.
"'Yes, as happy as I can be anywhere without father. I dreamt of him
last night--such a vivid dream. I know he was near me. It was something
more than a dream. I heard his voice close beside my pillow calling
my name. I know his spirit was in the room. It isn't because the Herr
and his wife were cheats that there is _no_ link between the living
and the dead. I know there is a link,' she insisted passionately, her
eyes brimming with sudden tears. 'They are not dead--those we dearly
love--only removed from us. The clay is gone; the soul is hovering
near, blessing, comforting us.'
"She sobbed out her grief, hiding her face upon Martha's substantial
shoulder. I could speak no word of consolation; nor would I for worlds
have argued against this fond hallucination, the dream of sorrowing
love.
"'I shall not see thee. Dare I say
No spirit ever brake the band
That stays him from the native land,
Where first he walk'd when clasp't in clay?
No visual shade of some one lost,
But he, the Spirit himself, may come
Where all the nerve of sense is numb;
Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost.'
"I quoted those lovely lines in a low voice as I walked softly up and
down the darkening room; and then there was silence save for soothing
wordless murmurs from Martha, such murmurs as had served to hush my own
baby sorrows.
"'There's the kettle just on the boil,' cried the great soul, cheerily,
when Esperanza's sobs had ceased; 'and I know Mr. George must be
wanting his cup of tea.'
"She rose and bustled about in her dear old active way. She lit a
lamp--an inartistic cheap paraffin-lamp, but the light was cheerful.
The tea-table arranged by Martha was the picture of neatness. She set
Esperanza the feminine task of making toast. The poor child had the
prettiest air of penitence as she kissed Martha's hand, and then knelt
meekly down, with the fireglow crimsoning the alabaster face and neck,
and shining on the pale gold hair and rusty black frock.
"'I'm afraid I'm very troublesome,' she said apologetically; 'but,
indeed, I'm very grateful to you, sir, for taking care of me that
dreadful night, and to dear Mrs. Blake for all her kindness to me.'
"'Mrs. Blake is the quintessence of kindness. I am very glad to think
you can live happily here until she or I can find some nice situation
for you.'
"She had been smiling softly over her task, but her face clouded in an
instant.
"'A situation. That's what everybody said at Besbery! We must find her
a situation. And then Miss Grimshaw wanted me to be a dressmaker.'
"'You shall not be a dressmaker. I promise that.'
"'But, oh, what am I to be? I don't know half enough for a governess.
I couldn't teach big girls German and French and drawing. I couldn't
teach little boys Latin. And that's what everybody wants of a
governess. I've read the advertisements in the newspapers.'
"'And as to being a nursery-governess, why, it's negro slavery!' said
Martha.
"'I wouldn't mind the drudgery, only I hate children!" said Esperanza.
"This avowal shocked me. I looked at the soft, childlike countenance,
and the speech seemed incongruous.
"'I have never had anything to do with children since my sister Lucy
died,' she explained. 'I shouldn't understand them, and they would
laugh at me and my fancies. After Lucy's death, I lived alone with
father, always alone, he and I. The harmonium and the organ in the
church close by were our only friends. Our clergyman was just civil to
father, but I don't think he ever liked him. I heard him once tell the
Bishop that his organist was an eccentricity. An eccentricity! That was
all he could say about my father, who was ever so much cleverer than
he.'
"She said this with pride, almost with defiance, looking me in the
face as if she were challenging me to dispute the fact.
"'Was your father very clever?' I asked her, keenly interested in any
glimpses of her history.
"'Yes, I am sure he was clever, much cleverer than the common run of
people. He loved music, and he played beautifully. His touch upon the
old organ made the church music sound angelic. Now and then there was
some one in the church--some stranger--who seemed to understand his
playing, and who was astonished to find such an organist in a village
church--an out-of-the-way village like ours. But for the most part
people took no notice. It didn't seem to matter to them whether the
choir sang well or badly; but when they sang false it hurt father just
like bodily pain.'
"'Did he teach you to play?'
"'A little. But he wasn't fond of teaching. What I know of music I
found out chiefly for myself--just sitting alone at the organ, when I
could get one of the choir boys to blow for me, touching the keys, and
trying the stops, till I learnt something about them. But I play very
badly.'
"'Beautifully! beautifully!' ejaculated Martha. 'You draw tears.'
"'You sang in the choir, I think?' I said.
"'Yes; there were four young ladies, and a lady's-maid with a contralto
voice, and I was the sixth. There were about a dozen men and boys, who
sat on the other side of the chancel. People said it was a good choir
for a village church. Father was so unhappy when we sang badly that we
could not help trying hard to sing well.'
"I remembered those seraphic soprano notes in Handel's thrilling
melody, and I could understand that at least one voice in the choir had
the heavenly ring.
"'Well,' I said at last, 'we must hope for the best. Something may turn
up that will suit you better than governessing. And in the mean time
you can make yourself happy with my old nurse. I can answer for it
she'll never be unkind to you.'
"'I'm sure of that. I would rather stay here and be her servant than go
among strangers.'
"'What, wear an apron and cap and wait upon the lodgers?' I said,
laughing at the absurdity of the idea. She seemed a creature so far
removed from the useful race of neat-handed Phyllises.
"'I should not mind.'
"The clock in the hall struck six, and I had promised Gerald to
be ready for dinner at half-past, as we were to go to a theatre
afterwards--the Adelphi, where Jefferson was acting in _Rip Van
Winkle_. I had to take a hurried leave.
"'Don't you worry yourself about _her_, Mr. George,' said Martha, as
she let me out at the street door; ' I'll keep her as long as ever you
like.'
"I told Martha that I should send her a little money from time to time,
and that I should consider myself in her debt for a pound a week as
long as Miss Campbell stayed with her.
"'She'll want a new frock, won't she?' I asked. 'The one she wears
looks very shabby.'
"'It looks what it is, Mr. George. It's all but threadbare, and it's
the only frock she has in the world, poor child! But don't you trouble
about that either. You gave me two sovereigns. One of those will buy
the stuff, and she and I can make the frock. I've cut out plenty of
frocks in my day. I used to make all your mother's frocks once upon a
time.'
"In the bloom of her youth she had nursed my mother; she had nursed
me in her sturdy middle life; and now in her old age she was ready
and willing to care for this girl for whose fate I had made myself
responsible.
"Gerald received me with his customary cheeriness, though I was ten
minutes after the half-hour, and the fried sole had frizzled itself to
dryness by that delay.
"'I've some good news for you!' he exclaimed, in his exuberant way.
'It's all right.'
"'What's all right?'
"'Your _protégée_. I've written to the parson at Besbery. The story she
told us was gospel truth.'
"'I never thought it was anything else.'
"'Ah, that's because you're over head and ears in love with her,' said
Gerald.
"I felt myself blushing furiously, blushing like a girl whose secret
penchant for the hero of her dreams stands revealed. Of course I
protested that nothing was farther from my thoughts than love; that
I was only sorry for the girl's loneliness and helplessness. Gerald
obviously doubted me; and I had to listen to his sage counsel on the
subject. He was my senior by two years, and claimed to be a man of the
world, while I had been brought up at my mother's apron-string. He
foresaw dangers of which I had no apprehension.
"'There is nothing easier to drop into than an entanglement of that
sort,' he said. 'You had much better fall in love with a ballet-girl.
It may be more expensive for the moment, and there may be a bigger
rumpus about it, but it won't compromise your future.'
"This friendly remonstrance had no effect upon my conduct during the
few remaining days of the long vacation. I went to Ormond Street
a second and a third time in the course of those few days. I took
Esperanza to an afternoon concert at the St. James's Hall, and enjoyed
her ecstasy as she listened to Sainton and Bottesini. For her, music
was a passion, and I believe she sat beside me utterly unconscious of
my existence, with a soul lifted above earth and all earthly feelings.
"'You were happy while the music lasted,' I said, as we walked back to
Ormond Street, by a longish round, for I chose the quietest streets
rather than the nearest way.
"'More than happy,' she answered softly. 'I was talking with my
father's spirit.'
"'You still believe in the communion of the dead and the living,' I
said, 'in spite of the tricks your German friends played upon you?'
"'Yes,' she answered steadfastly, 'I still believe. I shall always
believe there is a bridge between earth and heaven--between the world
we can see and touch and the world we can only feel with our hearts and
minds. When I hear music like that we heard just now--those long-drawn
singing notes on the violin, those deep organ tones of the 'cello--I
feel myself carried away to a shadowy world where I know my father and
mother are waiting for me. We shall all be together again some day, and
I shall know and understand, and I shall feel her light touch upon my
forehead and my hair as I have felt it so often in my dreams.'
"She broke down, crying softly as she walked by my side. I soothed her
as well as I could, soothed her most when I talked of those she had
lost, questioning her about them. She remembered her mother dimly--a
long, last illness, a pale and wasted face, and gentle hands and loving
arms that used to be folded round her neck as she nestled against
the sick-bed. That sick-room, and the dim light of wintry afternoons,
and the sound of the harmonium as her father played soft music in an
adjoining parlour, were things that seemed to have lasted for years.
She could not look behind them. Her memory of mother and of home
stopped on the threshold of that dimly lighted room.
"Her father was a memory of yesterday. He had been her second self, the
other half of her mind.
"'He believed in ghosts,' she said, 'and in second sight. He has often
told me how he saw my mother coming downstairs to meet him, with a
shroud showing faintly above her white summer gown, the night before
she broke a blood-vessel and took to her bed in her last illness.'
"'An optical delusion, no doubt; but it comes natural to a Scotchman to
believe such things. He should not have told you.'
"'Why not? I like to know that the world we cannot see is near us.
I should have died of loneliness if I had not believed my father's
spirit was still within reach. I don't mind about those people being
impostors. I begin to think that the friends we have lost would hardly
talk to us through the moving up and down of wooden tables. It seems
such a foolish way, does it not?'
"'Worse than foolish; undignified. The ghosts in Virgil move and talk
with a stately grandeur; Shakespeare's ghosts are kingly and awful.
They strike terror. It has remained for the nineteenth century to
imagine ghosts that flit about a shabby parlour and skip from side
to side of the room and flutter round a table, and touch, and rap,
and tap, and pat with viscous hands, like the touch of a toad. Samuel
Johnson would not have sat up a whole night to see a table heaved up
and down, or to be touched on the forehead by a chilly, unknown hand.'
"'I don't care what you say about those things,' she answered
resolutely. 'There is a link between life and death. I don't know what
the link is; but though my father may be dead to all the world besides
he is not dead to me.'
"I did not oppose stubborn common sense to this fond delusion. It might
be good for her to believe in the things that are not. The tender fancy
might bridge over the dark gulf of sorrow. I tried to divert her mind
to lighter subjects--talked to her of this monstrous London of which
she knew nothing, and of which I knew very little.
"On the following evening I took Esperanza and my old nurse to a
theatre, a form of entertainment in which Martha especially delighted.
I was not very happy in my choice of a play. Had I taken my _protégée_
to see Jefferson, she would have been touched and delighted. Unluckily
I chose another theatre where a burlesque was being played which was
just a shade more vulgar than the average burlesque of those days.
Esperanza was puzzled and disgusted. I discovered that her love of
music was an exclusive passion. She cared for nothing else in the way
of art. I tried her with a picture-gallery, only to find her ignorant
and indifferent. Two things only impressed her in the whole of the
National Gallery--a landscape of Turner's, and a portrait by Reynolds,
in which she fancied a resemblance to her father.
"My last Sunday before term began was spent almost entirely with
Esperanza. I accepted Martha's invitation to partake of her Sunday
dinner, and sat at meat with dear old Benjamin for the first time in my
life, though I had eaten many a meal with his worthy wife in the days
when my legs reached a very little way below the table and my manners
were in sore need of the good soul's supervision--happy childish days,
before governess and lesson-books had appeared upon the scene of my
life; days in which life was one long game of play, interrupted only by
childish illnesses that were like bad dreams, troubled and indistinct
patches on the fair foreground of the childish memory. The good
Benjamin ate his roast beef in a deprecating and apologetic attitude,
sitting, I fear, uncomfortably, on the edge of his chair. Esperanza ate
about as much solid food as a singing bird might have done; but she
looked stronger and in better health than on the night of the _séance_,
and she looked almost happy. After the roast beef and apple-tart, I
took her to an afternoon service at St. Paul's, where the organ-music
filled her with rapture.
"'I shall come here every Sunday,' she said, as we left the cathedral.
"I entreated her not to go so far alone, and warned her that the
streets of London were full of danger for youth and inexperience; but
she laughed at my fears, assuring me that she had walked about the
meadows and coppices round Besbery ever since she could remember, and
no harm had ever befallen her, though there were hardly any people
about. I told her that in London the people were the danger, and
exacted her promise that she would never go beyond the immediate
neighbourhood of Great Ormond Street by herself. I gave her permission
to walk about Queen's Square, Guilford Street, and Mecklenburgh Square.
The neighbourhood was quiet and respectable.
"'I am bound to obey you,' she answered meekly. 'I owe you so much
gratitude for your goodness to me.'
"I protested against gratitude to _me_. The only friend to whom she
owed anything was my dear old nurse.
"I had a great terror of the perils of the London streets for a girl
of her appearance. It was not so much that she was beautiful, but
because of a certain strangeness and exceptional character in her
beauty which would be likely to attract attention and arouse curiosity.
The dreamy look in the large violet eyes, the semi-transparent pallor
which suggested an extreme fragility, the unworldliness of her whole
aspect were calculated to appeal to the worst instincts of the
prowling profligate. She had an air of helplessness which would invite
persecution from the cowardly wretches who make the streets of a great
city perilous for unprotected innocence.
"She was ready to promise anything that would please me.
"'I do not care if I never go out,' she said simply. 'The lady who
lives in the drawing-room has a harmonium, and she has told me I may
play upon it every day--all day long, when she is out; and she has a
great many friends, and visits a good deal.'
"'Oh, but you must go out-of-doors for your health's sake!' I
protested. 'Martha or Benjamin must go with you.'
"'They have no time to go out-of-doors till after dark, poor things!
they are so busy; but they will take me for a walk sometimes of an
evening. I shall make them go out, for their own sakes. You need not
feel anxious about me; you are too kind to think of me at all.'
"I could not help feeling anxious about her. I felt as if I were
responsible for everything that could assail or hurt her; that every
hair of her head was a charge upon my conscience. Her health, her
happiness, her talents and tastes and fancies--it was mine to care
for all these. My _protégée_, Standish called her. In this farewell
walk through the dull Sunday streets, in the dull October twilight, it
seemed as if she were much more than my _protégée_--my dearest, most
sacred care, the purpose and the promise of my life.
"To-night we were to say good-bye. We were to have parted at the door
in Great Ormond Street; but, standing on the doorstep, waiting for the
opening of that inexorable door, which would swallow her up presently,
like a tomb, I felt all at once that I could not sacrifice this last
evening. Standish was dining out. There would only be loneliness and
a roast chicken awaiting me at half-past seven. The chicken might
languish, uneaten; the ghosts might have the dull, commonplace room;
I would finish the evening with Martha's tea and toast, and hear
Esperanza sing her favourite numbers of Handel and Mendelssohn, to the
accompaniment of an ancient Stoddart piano, a relic of the schoolroom
in my Suffolk home, the piano on which my mother took her first
music-lesson.
"It was an evening in Elysium. A back parlour is sometimes large enough
to contain paradise. I did not question my own heart, or analyze my
beatific sensations. I ascribed at least half my happiness to Handel
and Mendelssohn, and that feeling of exaltation which only sacred
music can produce. There were no anxious questionings in my mind till
after I had said good-bye to Esperanza--good-bye, till the third week
in December--and had left the house. Those uneasy questionings were
inspired by my dear old Martha, who opened the hall door for me, and
said gravely, as I shook hands with her--
"'It would never do, Mr. George. I know what kind of lady your mother
is, as well as anybody. It would never do.'
"I did not ask her what it was that would never do; but I carried a new
sense of trouble and difficulty out into the autumn wind.