"But if ye saw that which no eyes can see,
The inward beauty of her lively spright
Garnished with heavenly gifts of high degree,
Much more, then, would you wonder at the sight."
"I like her, my dear Lawrence," Agatha wrote, a fortnight after
Phillis's arrival. "I like her not only a great deal better than I
expected, but more than any girl I have ever learned to know. She is
innocent, but then innocence is very easily lost; she is fresh, but
freshness is very often a kind of electro-plating, which rubs off and
shows the base metal beneath. Still Phillis's nature is pure gold; of
that I am quite certain; and with sincere people one always feels at
ease.
"We were a little awkward at first, though perhaps the awkwardness was
chiefly mine, because I hardly knew what to talk about. It seemed as
if, between myself and a girl who cannot read or write, there must be
such a great gulf that there would be nothing in common. How conceited
we are over our education! Lawrence, she is quite the best-informed
girl that I know; she has a perfectly wonderful memory; repeats pages
of verse which her guardian taught her by reading it to her; talks
French very well, because she has always had a French maid; plays and
sings by ear; and draws like a Royal Academician. The curious thing,
however, is the effect which her knowledge has had upon her mind. She
knows what she has been told, and nothing more. Consequently her mind
is all light and shade, like a moonlight landscape. She wants
_atmosphere_; there is no haze about her. I did not at all understand,
until I knew Phillis, what a very important part haze plays in our
everyday life. I thought we were all governed by clear and definite
views of duty, religion, and politics. My poor Lawrence, we are all in
a fog. It is only Phillis who lives in the cloudless realms of pure
conviction. In politics she is a Tory, with distinct ideas on the
necessity of hanging all Radicals. As for her religion---- But that
does not concern you, my cousin. Or, perhaps, like most of your class,
you never think about religion at all, in which case you would not be
interested in Phillis's doctrines.
"I took her to church on Sunday. Before the service I read her the
hymns which we were to sing, and after she had criticised the words in
a manner peculiarly her own, I read them again, and she knew those
hymns. I also told her to do exactly as I did in the matter of
uprising and downsitting.
"One or two things I forgot, and in other one or two she made little
mistakes. It is usual, Lawrence, as you may remember, for worshippers
to pray in silence before sitting down. Phillis was looking about the
church, and therefore did not notice my performance of this duty. Also
I had forgotten to tell her that loud speech is forbidden by custom
within the walls of a church. Therefore it came upon me with a shock
when Phillis, after looking round in her quick eager way, turned to me
and said quite aloud, 'This is a curious place! Some of it is pretty,
but some is hideous.'
"It was very true, because the church has a half-a-dozen styles, but
the speech caused a little consternation in the place. I think the
beadle would have turned us out had he recovered his presence of mind
in time. This he did not, fortunately, and the service began.
"No one could have behaved better during prayers than Phillis. She
knelt, listening to every word. I could have wished that her intensity
of attitude had not betrayed a perfect absence of familiarity with
church customs. During the psalms she began by listening with a little
pleasure in her face. Then she looked a little bored; and presently
she whispered to me, 'Dear Agatha, I really must go out if this tune
is not changed.' Fortunately the psalms were not long.
"She liked the hymns, and made no remark upon them, except that one of
the choir-boys was singing false, and that she should like to take him
out of the choir herself, there and then. It was quite true, and I
really feared that her sense of duty might actually impel her to take
the child by the ear and lead him solemnly out of the church.
"During the sermon, I regret to say that she burst out laughing. You
know Phillis's laugh--a pretty rippling laugh, without any malice in
it. Oh, how rare a sweet laugh is! The curate, who was in the
pulpit--a very nice young man, and a gentleman, but not, I must own,
intellectual; and I hear he was plucked repeatedly for his
degree--stopped, puzzled and indignant, and then went on with his
discourse. I looked, I suppose, so horrified that Phillis saw she had
done wrong, and blushed. There were no more _contretemps_ in the
church.
"'My dear Agatha,' she explained, when we came out, 'I suppose I ought
not to have laughed. But I really could not help it. Did you notice
the young gentleman in the box? He was trying to act, but he spoke the
words so badly, just as if he did not understand them. And I laughed
without thinking. I am afraid it was very rude of me.'
"I tried to explain things to her, but it is difficult, because
sometimes you do not quite know her point of view.
"Next day the curate called. To my vexation Phillis apologised.
Without any blushes she went straight to the point.
"'Forgive me,' she said. 'I laughed at you yesterday in church; I am
very sorry for it.'
"He was covered with confusion, and stammered something about the
sacred building.
"'But I never was in a church before,' she went on.
"'That is very dreadful!' he replied. 'Mrs. L'Estrange, do you not
think it is a very dreadful state for a young lady?'
"Then she laughed again, but without apologising.
"'Mr. Dyson used to say,' she explained to me, 'that everybody's
church is in his own heart. He never went to church, and he did not
consider himself in a dreadful state at all, poor dear old man.'
"If she can fall back on an axiom of Mr. Abraham Dyson's, there is no
further argument possible.
"The curate went away. He has been here several times since, and I am
sure that I am not the attraction. We have had one or two little
afternoons on the lawn, and it is pretty to see Phillis trying to take
an interest in this young man. She listens to his remarks, but they
fail to strike her; she answers his questions, but they seem to bore
her. In fact, he is much too feeble for her; she has no respect for
the cloth at all; and I very much fear that what is sport to her is
going to be death to him. Of course, Lawrence, you may be quite sure
that I shall not allow Phillis to be compromised by the attentions of
any young man--yet. Later on we shall ask your views.
"Her guardian must have been a man of great culture. He has taught her
very well, and everything. She astonished the curate yesterday by
giving him a little historical essay on his favourite Laud. He
understood very little of it, but he went away sorrowful. I could read
in his face a determination to get up the whole subject, come back,
and have it out with Phillis. But she shall not be dragged into an
argument, if I can prevent it, with any young man. Nothing more easily
leads to entanglements, and we must be ambitious for our Phillis.
"'It is a beautiful thing!' she said the other day, after I had been
talking about the theory of public worship--'a beautiful thing for the
people to come together every week and pray. And the hymns are sweet,
though I cannot understand why they keep on singing the same tune, and
that such a simple thing of a few notes.'
"The next Sunday I had a headache, and Phillis refused to go to church
without me. She spent the day drawing on the bank of the river.
"Mrs. Cassilis has been to call upon us. Victoria was never a great
friend of mine when she was young, and I really like her less now. She
was kind to Phillis, and proposed all sorts of hospitalities, which we
escaped for the present. I quite think that Phillis should be kept out
of the social whirl for a few months longer.
"Victoria looked pale and anxious. She asked after you in her iciest
manner; wished to know where you were; said that you were once one of
her friends; and hoped to see you before long. She is cold by nature,
but her coldness was assumed here, because she suddenly lost it. I am
quite sure, Lawrence, that Victoria Pengelley was once touched, and by
you. There must have been something in the rumours about you two, four
years ago. Lazy Lawrence! It is a good thing for you that there was
nothing more than rumour.
"We were talking of other things--important things, such as Phillis's
wardrobe, which wants a great many additions--when Victoria _a
propos_ of nothing, asked me if you were changed at all. I said no,
except that you were more confirmed in laziness. Then Phillis opened
her portfolio, where she keeps her diary after her own fashion, and
showed the pencil sketch she has made of your countenance. It is a
good deal better than any photograph, because it has caught your
disgraceful indolence, and you stand confessed for what you are. How
the girl contrives to put the _real_ person into her portraits, I
cannot tell. Victoria took it, and her face suddenly softened. I have
seen the look on many a woman's face. I look for it when I suspect
that one of my young friends has dropped head over ears in love; it
comes into her eyes when young Orlando enters the room, and then I
know and act accordingly. Poor Victoria! I ought not to have told you,
Lawrence, but you will forget what I said. She glanced at the portrait
and changed colour. Then she asked Phillis to give it to her. 'You can
easily make another,' she said, 'and I will keep this, as a specimen
of your skill and a likeness of an old friend.'
"She kept it, and carried it away with her.
"I have heard all about the Coping-stone. What a curious story it is!
Phillis talks quite gravely of the irreparable injury to the science
of Female Education involved in the loss of that precious chapter. Mr.
Jagenal is of opinion that without it the Will cannot be carried out,
in which case Mr. Cassilis will get the money. I sincerely hope he
will. I am one of those who dislike, above all things, notoriety for
women, and I should not like our Phillis's education and its results
made the subject of lawyers' wit and rhetoric in the Court of
Chancery. Do you know Mr. Gabriel Cassilis? He is said to be the
cleverest man in London, and has made an immense fortune. I hope
Victoria is happy with him. She has a child, but does not talk much
about it.
"I have been trying to teach Phillis to read. It is a slow process,
but the poor girl is very patient. How we ever managed to 'worry
through,' as the Americans say, with such a troublesome acquirement, I
cannot understand. We spend two hours a day over the task, and are
still in words of one syllable. Needless to tell you that the
lesson-book--'First Steps in Reading'--is regarded with the most
profound contempt, and is already covered with innumerable drawings in
pencil.
"Notes in music are easier. Phillis can already read a little, but the
difficulty here is, that if she learns the air from the notes, she
knows it once for all, and further reading is superfluous. Now, little
girls have as much difficulty in playing notes as in spelling them
out, so that they have to be perpetually practising the art of
reading. I now understand why people who teach are so immeasurably
conceited. I am already so proud of my superiority to Phillis in being
able to read, that I feel my moral nature deteriorating. At least, I
can sympathise with all school-masters, from the young man who holds
his certificated nose high in the air, to Dr. Butler of Harrow, who
sews up the pockets of his young gentlemen's trousers.
"Are you tired of my long letter? Only a few words more.
"I have got a music and a singing master for Phillis. They are both
delighted with her taste and musical powers. Her voice is very sweet,
though not strong. She will never be tempted to rival professional
people, and will always be sure to please when she sings.
"I have also got an artist to give her a few lessons in the management
of her colours. He is an elderly artist, with a wife and bairns of his
own, not one of the young gentlemen who wear velvet coats and want to
smoke all day.
"You must yourself get a horse for her, and then you can come over and
ride with her. At present she is happy in the contemplation of the
river, which exercises an extraordinary power over her imagination.
She is now, while I write, sitting in the shade, singing to herself in
solitude. Beside her is the sketch-book, but she is full of thought
and happy to be alone. Lawrence, she is a great responsibility, and it
is sad to think that the Lesson she most requires to learn is the
Lesson of distrust. She trusts everybody, and when anything is done or
said which would arouse distrust in ourselves, she only gets puzzled
and thinks of her own ignorance. Why cannot we leave her in the
Paradise of the Innocent, and never let her learn that every stranger
is a possible villain? Alas, that I must teach her this lesson; and
yet one would not leave her to find it out by painful experience! My
dear Lawrence, I once read that it was the custom in savage times to
salute the stranger with clubs and stones, because he was sure to be
an enemy. How far have we advanced in all these years? You sent
Phillis to me for teaching, but it is I who learned from her. I am a
worldly woman, cousin Lawrence, and my life is full of hollow shams.
Sometimes I think that the world would be more tolerable were all the
women as illiterate as dear Phillis.
"Do not come to see her for a few days yet, and you will find her
changed in those few things which wanted change."
Sitting in solitude? Gazing on the river? Singing to herself? Phillis
was quite otherwise occupied, and much more pleasantly.
She had been doing all these things, with much contentment of soul,
while Agatha was writing her letters. She sat under the trees upon the
grass, a little straw hat upon her head, letting the beauty of the
season fill her soul with happiness. The sunlit river rippled at her
feet; on its broad surface the white swans lazily floated! the soft
air of early summer fanned her cheek: the birds darted across the
water as if in ecstasy of joy at the return of the sun--as a matter of
fact they had their mouths wide open and were catching flies; a lark
was singing in the sky; there were a blackbird and a thrush somewhere
in the wood across the river: away up the stream there was a fat old
gentleman sitting in a punt; he held an umbrella over his head,
because the sun was hot, and he supported a fishing-rod in his other
hand. Presently he had a nibble, and in his anxiety he stood up the
better to manoeuvre his float; it was only a nibble, and he sat down
again. Unfortunately he miscalculated the position of the chair, and
sat upon space, so that he fell backwards all along the punt. Phillis
heard the bump against the bottom of the boat, and saw a pair of fat
little legs sticking up in the most comical manner; she laughed, and
resolved upon drawing the fat old gentleman's accident as soon as she
could find time.
The afternoon was very still; the blackbird carolled in the trees, and
the "wise thrush" repeated his cheerful philosophy; the river ran with
soft whispers along the bank; and Phillis began to look before her
with eyes that saw not, and from eyelids that, in a little, would
close in sleep.
Then something else happened.
A boat came suddenly up the river, close to her own bank. She saw the
bows first, naturally; and then she saw the back of the man in it.
Then the boat revealed itself in full, and Phillis saw that the crew
consisted of Jack Dunquerque. Her heart gave a great leap, and she
started from the Sleepy Hollow of her thoughts into life.
Jack Dunquerque was not an ideal oar, such as one dreams of and reads
about. He did not "grasp his sculls with the precision of a machine,
and row with a grand long sweep which made the boat spring under his
arms like a thing of life"--I quote from an author whose name I have
forgotten. Quite the contrary; Jack was rather unskilful than
otherwise; the ship in which he was embarked was one of those crank
craft consisting of a cedar lath with crossbars of iron; it was a boat
without outriggers, and he had hired it at Richmond. He was not so
straight in the back as an Oxford stroke! and he bucketed about a good
deal, but he got along.
Just as he was nearing Phillis he fell into difficulties, in
consequence of one oar catching tight in the weeds. The effect of this
was, as may be imagined, to bring her bows on straight into the bank.
In fact, Jack ran the ship ashore, and sat with the bows high on the
grass just a few inches off Phillis's feet. Then he drew himself
upright, tried to disentangle the oar, and began to think what he
should do next.
"I wish I hadn't come," he said aloud.
Phillis laughed silently.
Then she noticed the painter in the bows though she did not know it by
that name. Painters in London boats are sometimes longish ropes, for
convenience of mooring. Phillis noiselessly lifted the cord and tied
it fast round the trunk of a small elder-tree beside her. Then she sat
down again and waited. This was much better fun than watching an
elderly gentleman tumbling backwards in a punt.
Jack, having extricated the scull and rested a little, looked at his
palms, which were blistering under the rough exercise of rowing, and
muttered something inaudible. Then he seized the oars again and began
to back out vigorously.
The boat's bows descended a few inches, and then, the painter being
taut, moved no more.
Phillis leaned forward, watching Jack with a look of rapturous
delight.
"Damn the ship!" said Jack softly, after three or four minutes'
strenuous backing.
"Don't swear at the boat, Jack," Phillis broke in, with her low laugh
and musical voice.
Jack looked round. There was his goddess standing on the bank,
clapping her hands with delight. He gave a vigorous pull, which drove
the boat half-way up to shore and sprang out.
"Jack, you must not use words that sound bad. Oh, how glad I am to see
you! I think you look best in flannels, Jack."
"You here, Phil? I thought it was a mile higher up."
"Did you know where I was gone to?"
"Yes, I found out. I asked Colquhoun, and he told me. But he did not
offer to introduce me to Mrs. L'Estrange; and so I thought I would--I
thought that perhaps if I rowed up the river, you know, I might
perhaps see you."
"O Jack," she replied, touched by this act of friendship, "did you
really row up in the hope of seeing me? I am so glad. Will you come in
and be introduced to Agatha,--that is, Mrs. L'Estrange? I have not yet
told her about you, because we had so many things to say."
"Let us sit down and talk a little first. Phil, you look even better
than when you were at Carnarvon Square. Tell me what you are doing."
"I am learning to read for one thing; and, Jack, a much more important
thing, I am taking lessons in water-colour drawing. I have learned a
great deal already, quite enough to show me how ignorant I have been.
But, Jack, Mr. Stencil cannot draw so well as I can, and I am glad to
think so."
"When shall we be able to go out again for another visit somewhere,
Phil?"
"Ah, I do not know. We shall stay here all the summer, I am sure; and
Agatha talks of going to the seaside in the autumn. I do not think I
shall like the sea so much as I like the river, but I want to see it.
Jack, how is Mr. Gilead Beck? have you seen him lately?"
"Yes, I very often see him. We are great friends. But never mind him,
Phil; go on telling me about yourself. It is a whole fortnight since I
saw you."
"Is it really? O Jack! and we two promised to be friends. There is
pretty friendship for you! I am very happy, Jack. Agatha L'Estrange is
so kind that I cannot tell you how I love her. Lawrence Colquhoun is
her first cousin. I like my guardian, too, very much; but I have not
yet found out how to talk to him. I am to have a horse as soon as he
can find me one; and then we shall be able to ride together, Jack, if
it is not too far for you to come out here."
"Too far, Phil?"
"Agatha is writing letters. Certainly it must be pleasant to talk to
your friends when they are away from you. I shall learn to write as
fast as I can, and then we will send letters to each other. I wonder
if she would mind being disturbed. Perhaps I had better not take you
in just yet."
"Will you come for a row with me, Phil?"
"In the boat, Jack? on the river? Oh, if you will only take me!"
Jack untied the painter, pulled the ship's head round, and laid her
alongside the bank.
"You will promise to sit perfectly still, and not move?"
"Yes, I will not move. Are you afraid for me Jack?"
"A little, Phil. You see, if we were to upset, perhaps you would not
trust yourself entirely to me."
"Yes, I would, Jack. I am sure you would bring me safe to the bank."
"But we must not upset. Now, Phil."
He rowed her upstream. She sat in the stern, and enjoyed the
situation. As in every fresh experience, she was silent, drinking in
the details. She watched the transparent water beneath her, and saw
the yellow-green weeds sloping gently downwards with the current; she
noticed the swans, which looked so tranquil from the bank, and which
now followed the boat, gobbling angrily. They passed the old gentleman
in the punt. He had recovered his chair by this time, and was sitting
in it, still fishing. But Phillis could not see that he had caught
many fish. He looked from under his umbrella and saw them. "Youth and
beauty!" he sighed.
"I like to _feel_ the river," said Phillis, softly. "It is pleasant on
the bank, but it is so much sweeter here. Can there be anything in the
world," she murmured half to herself, "more pleasant than to be rowed
along the river on such a day as this?"
There was no one on the river except themselves and the old angler.
Jack rowed up stream for half a mile or so, and then turned her head
and let her drift gently down with the current, occasionally dipping
the oars to keep way on. But he left the girl to her own thoughts.
"It is all like a dream to me, this river," said Phillis, in a low
voice. "It comes from some unknown place, and goes to some unknown
place."
"It is like life, Phil."
"Yes; we come like the river, trailing long glories behind us--you
know what Wordsworth says--but we do not go to be swallowed up in the
ocean, and we are not alone. We have those that love us to be with us,
and prevent us from getting sad with thought. I have you, Jack."
"Yes, Phil." He could not meet her face, which was so full of
unselfish and passionless affection, because his own eyes were
brimming over with passion.
"Take me in, Jack," she said, when they reached Agatha's lawn. "It is
enough for one day."
She led him to the morning-room, cool and sheltered, where Agatha was
writing the letter we have already read. And she introduced him as
Jack Dunquerque, her friend.
Jack explained that he was rowing up the river, that he saw Miss
Fleming by accident, that he had taken her for a row up the stream,
and so on--all in due form.
"Jack and I are old friends," said Phillis.
Agatha did not ask how old, which was fortunate. But she put aside her
letters and sent for tea into the garden. Jack became more amiable and
more sympathetic than any young man Mrs. L'Estrange had ever known. So
much did he win upon her that, having ascertained that he was a friend
of Lawrence Colquhoun, she asked him to dinner.
Jack's voyage homeward was a joyful one. Many is the journey begun in
joy that ends in sorrow; few are those which begin, as Jack's
bucketing up the river, in uncertainty, and end in unexpected
happiness.