A DARK HOUR.
"I should go one evening, if I were you: it is easy to see that Mrs.
Cheyne has taken a fancy to you," said Nan, who was much interested by
this recital; but to this Phillis replied, with a very decided shake
of the head,--
"I shall do nothing of the kind; I was not made to be a fine lady's
_protegee_. If she patronized me, I should grow savage and show my
teeth; and, as I have no desire to break the peace, we had better
remain strangers. Dear Magdalene certainly has a temper!" finished
Phillis, with a wicked little sneer.
Nan tried to combat this resolution, and used a great many arguments:
she was anxious that Phillis should avail herself of this sudden fancy
on the part of Mrs. Cheyne to lift herself and perhaps all of them
into society with their equals. Nan's good sense told her that though
at present the novelty and excitement of their position prevented them
from realizing the full extent of their isolation, in time it must
weigh on them very heavily, and especially on Phillis, who was bright
and clever and liked society; but all her words were powerless against
Phillis's stubbornness: to the White House she could not and would not
go.
But one evening she changed her mind very suddenly, when a note from
Miss Mewlstone reached her. A gardener's boy brought it: "it was very
particular, and was to be delivered immediate to the young lady," he
observed, holding the missive between a very grimy finger and thumb.
"MY DEAR YOUNG LADY,--
"Pride is all very well, but charity is often best in the long run,
and a little kindness to a suffering human being is never out of place
in a young creature like you.
"Poor Magdalene has been very sadly for days, and I have got it into
my stupid old head--that is always fancying things--that she has been
watching for folks who have been too proud to come, though she would
die sooner than tell me so; but that is her way, poor dear!
"It is ill to wake at nights with nothing but sad thoughts for
company, and it is ill wearing out the long days with only a silly old
body to cheer one up; and when there is nothing fresh to say, and
nothing to expect, and not a footstep or a voice to break the silence,
then it seems to me that a young voice--that is, a kind voice--would
be welcome. Take this hint, my dear, and keep my counsel, for I am
only a silly old woman, as she often says.
"Yours,
Bathsheba Mewlstone."
"Oh, I must go now!" observed Phillis, in an embarrassed voice, as she
laid this singular note before Nan.
"Yes, dear; and you had better put on your hat at once, and Dulce and
I will walk with you as far as the gate. It is sad for you to miss the
scramble on the shore; but, when other people really want us, I feel
as though it were a direct call," finished Nan, solemnly.
"I am afraid there is a storm coming up," replied Phillis, who had
been oppressed all day by the heavy thundery atmosphere: she had
looked so heated and weary that Nan had proposed a walk by the shore.
Work was pouring upon them from all sides: the townspeople, envious of
Mrs. Trimmings's stylish new dress, were besieging the Friary with
orders, and the young dressmakers would have been literally
overwhelmed with their labors, only that Nan, with admirable
foresight, insisted on taking in no more work than they felt
themselves able to complete.
"No," she would say to some disappointed customer, "our hands are full
just now, and we cannot undertake any more orders at present: we will
not promise more than we can perform. Come to me again in a
fortnight's time, and we will willingly make your dress, but now it is
impossible." And in most cases the dress was brought punctually at the
time appointed.
Phillis used to grumble a little at this.
"You ought not to refuse orders, Nan," she said, rather fretfully,
once. "Any other dressmaker would sit up half the night rather than
disappoint a customer."
"My dear," Nan returned, in her elder-sisterly voice, which had always
a great effect on Phillis, "I wonder what use Dulce and you would be
if you sat up sewing half the night, and drinking strong tea to keep
yourselves awake? No, there shall be no burning the candles at both
ends in this fashion; please God we will keep our health, and our
customers; and no one in their senses could call us idle. Why, we are
quite the fashion! Mrs. Squails told me yesterday that every one in
Hadleigh was wild to have a gown made by the 'lady dressmakers.'"
"Oh, I daresay!" replied Phillis, crossly, for the poor thing was so
hot and tired that she could have cried from pure weariness and
vexation of spirit: "but we shall not be the fashion long when the
novelty wears off; people will call us independent, and get tired of
us; and no wonder, if they are to wait for their dresses in this
way."
Nan's only answer was to look at Phillis's pale face in a pitying way;
and then she took her hand, and led her to the corner, where her
mother's Bible always lay, and then with ready fingers turned to the
well known-passage, "Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labor
unto the evening."
"Well, Nan, what then?"
"Evening is for rest,--for refreshment of mind and body: I will not
have it turned into a time of toil. I know you, Phillis; you would
work till your poor fingers got thin, and your spirits were all
flattened out, and every nerve was jarring and set on edge; and you
would call that duty! No, darling,--never! Dulce shall keep her roses,
and we will have battledore and shuttlecock every evening; but, if I
have to keep the key of the work-room in my pocket, you and Dulce
shall never enter it after tea." And Nan's good sense, as usual,
carried the day.
Phillis would much rather have joined her sisters in their walk than
have turned in at the gloomy lodge-gates.
"'All ye who enter here, leave hope behind,'"
she quoted, softly, as she waved her hand to Nan.
The servant who admitted her looked a little dubious over his errand.
"His mistress was in her room," he believed, "and was far too unwell
to see visitors. He would tell Miss Mewlstone, if the young lady liked
to wait; but he was sure it was no use,"--all very civilly said. And
as Phillis persisted in her intention of seeing Mrs. Cheyne, if
possible, he ushered her into the library, a gloomy-looking room, with
closed blinds, one of which he drew up, and then went in search of
Miss Mewlstone.
Phillis did not find her surroundings particularly cheerful. The air
was darkened by the approaching storm. A sullen cloud hung over the
sky. The library windows opened upon the shrubberies. Here the trees
were planted so thickly that their shade obscured much of the light.
The room was so dark that she could only dimly discern the handsome
bindings of the books in the carved oak book-cases. The whole of the
furniture seemed sombre and massive. The chair that the footman had
placed for her was covered with violet velvet, and was in harmony with
the rest of the furniture.
Dreary as the room looked, it was nothing to the shrubbery walk. A
narrow winding path seemed to vanish into utter darkness. In some
places the trees met overhead, so closely had they grown.
"If I were the mistress of the White House," Phillis said to herself,
"I would cut every one of those trees down. They must make this part
of the house quite unhealthy. It really looks like a 'ghost walk' that
one reads about." But scarcely had these thoughts passed through her
mind when she uttered a faint cry of alarm. The dark room, the
impending storm, and her own overwrought feelings were making her
nervous; but actually, through the gloom, she could see a figure in
white approaching.
In another moment she would have sought refuge in the hall, but
contempt at her own cowardice kept her rooted to the spot.
"She was an utter goose to be so startled! It was--yes, of course it
was Mrs. Cheyne. She could see her more plainly now. She would step
through the window and meet her."
Phillis's feelings of uneasiness had not quite vanished. The obscurity
was confusing, and invested everything with an unnatural effect. Even
Mrs. Cheyne's figure, coming out from the dark background, seemed
strange and unfamiliar. Phillis had always before seen her in black;
but now she wore a white gown, fashioned loosely, like a wrapper, and
her hair, which at other times had been most carefully arranged, was
now strained tightly and unbecomingly from her face, which looked
pallid and drawn. She started violently when she saw Phillis coming
towards her, and seemed inclined to draw back and retrace her steps.
It evidently cost her a strong effort to recover herself. She seemed
to conquer her reluctance with difficulty.
"So you have come at last, Miss Challoner," she said, fixing her eyes,
which looked unnaturally bright, on Phillis. Her voice was cold,
almost harsh, and her countenance expressed no pleasure. The hand she
held out was so limp and cold that Phillis relinquished it hastily.
"You said that I should be welcome," she faltered, and trying not to
appear alarmed. She was too young and healthy to understand the
meaning of the word hysteria, or to guess at the existence of nervous
maladies that make some people's lives a long torment to them.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Cheyne's singular aspect filled her with vague
fear. It did not enter into her mind to connect the coming storm with
Mrs. Cheyne's condition, until she hinted at it herself.
"Oh, yes, you are welcome," she responded, wearily. "I have looked for
you evening after evening, but you chose to come with the storm. It is
a pity, perhaps; but then you did not know!"
"What would you have me know?" asked Phillis, timidly.
Mrs. Cheyne shrugged her shoulders a little flightily.
"Oh, you are young!" she returned; "you do not understand what nerves
mean; you sleep sweetly of a night, and have no bad dreams: it does
not matter to you happy people if the air is full of sunshine or
surcharged with electricity. For me, when the sun ceases to shine I am
in despair. Fogs find me brooding. An impending storm suffocates me,
and yet tears me to pieces with restlessness: it drives me hither and
thither like a fallen leaf. I tire myself that I may sleep, and yet I
stare open-eyed for hours together into the darkness. I wonder
sometimes I do not go mad. But there! let us walk--let us walk." And
she made a movement to retrace her steps; but Phillis, with a courage
for which she commended herself afterwards, pulled her back by her
hanging sleeves.
"Oh, not there! it is not good for any one who is sad to walk in that
dark place. No wonder your thoughts are sombre. Look! the heavy
rain-drops are pattering among the leaves. I do not care to get wet:
let us go back to the house."
"Pshaw! what does it matter getting wet?" she returned, with a little
scorn; but nevertheless she suffered Phillis to take her arm and draw
her gently towards the house. Only as they came near the library
window, she pointed to it indignantly. "Who has dared to enter that
room, or open the window! Have I not forbidden over and over again
that that room should be used? Do you think," she continued, in the
same excited way, "that I would enter that room to-night of all
nights! Why, I should hear his angry voice pealing in every corner!
It was a good room for echoes; and he could speak loudly if he chose.
Come away! there is a door I always use that leads to my private
apartments. I am no recluse; but in these moods I do not care to show
myself to people. If you are not afraid, you may come with me, unless
you prefer Miss Mewlstone's company."
"I would rather go with you," returned Phillis, gently. She could not
in truth say she was not afraid; but all the same she must try and
soothe the poor creature who was evidently enduring such torments of
mind: so she followed in silence up the broad oak staircase.
A green-baize door admitted them into a long and somewhat narrow
corridor, lighted up by a row of high narrow windows set prettily with
flower-boxes. Here there were several doors. Mrs. Cheyne paused before
one a moment.
"Look here! you shall see the mysteries of the west wing. This is my
world; downstairs I am a different creature--taciturn, harsh, and
prone to sarcasm. Ask Mr. Drummond what he thinks of me; but I never
could endure a good young man--especially that delicious compound of
the worldling and the saint--like the Reverend Archibald. See here, my
dear: here I am never captious or say naughty things!"
She threw open the door, and softly beckoned to Phillis to enter. It
was a large empty room,--evidently a nursery. Some canaries were
twittering faintly in a gilded cage. There were flowers in the two
windows, and in the vases on the table: evidently some loving hands
had arranged them that very morning. A large rocking-horse occupied
the centre of the floor: a doll lay with its face downwards on the
crimson carpet; a pile of wooden soldiers strutted on their zigzag
platform,--one or two had fallen off; a torn picture-book had been
flung beside them.
"That was my Janie's picture-book," said Mrs. Cheyne, mournfully: "she
was teaching her doll out of it just before she was taken ill. Nothing
was touched; by a sort of inspiration,--a foreboding,--I do not know
what,--I bade nurse leave the toys as they were. 'It is only an
interrupted game: let the darlings find their toys as they put them,'
I said to her that morning. Look at the soldiers, Bertie was always
for soldiers,--bless him!"
Her manner had grown calmer; and she spoke with such touching
tenderness that tears came to Phillis's eyes. But Mrs. Cheyne never
once looked at the girl; she lingered by the table a moment, adjusting
a leaf here and a bud there in the bouquets, and then she opened an
inner door leading to the night-nursery. Here the associations were
still more harrowing. The cots stood side by side under a muslin
canopy, with an alabaster angel between them; the little night-dresses
lay folded on the pillows; on each quilt were the scarlet
dressing-gown and the pair of tiny slippers; the clothes were piled
neatly on two chairs,--a boy's velvet tunic on one, a girl's white
frock, a little limp and discolored, hung over the rails of the
other.
"Everything just the same," murmured the poor mother. "Look here, my
dear,"--with a faint smile--"these are Bertie's slippers: there is the
hole he kicked in them when he was in his tempers, for my boy had the
Cheyne temper. He was Herbert's image,--his very image." She sighed,
paused, and went on: "Every night I come and sit beside their beds,
and then the darlings come to me. I can see their faces--oh, so
plainly!--and hear their voices. 'Good-night, dear mamma!' they seem
to say to me, only Bertie's voice is always the louder."
Her manner was becoming a little excited again; only Phillis took her
hand and pressed it gently, and the touch seemed to soothe her like
magic.
"I am so glad you come here every night," she said, in her sweet,
serious voice, from which every trace of fear had gone. "I think that
a beautiful idea, to come and say your prayers beside one of these
little beds."
"To say my prayers!--I pray beside my darlings' beds!" exclaimed Mrs.
Cheyne, in a startled voice. "Oh no! I never do that. God would not
hear such prayers as mine,--never--never!"
"Dear Mrs. Cheyne, why not?" She moved restlessly away at the
question, and tried to disengage herself from Phillis's firm grasp.
"The Divine Father hears all prayers," whispered the girl.
"All?--but not mine,--not mine, or I should not be sitting here alone.
Do you know my husband left me in anger,--that his last words to me
were the bitterest he ever spoke? 'Good-by, Magdalene: you have made
my life so wretched that I do not care if I never live to set foot in
this house again!' And that to me,--his wedded wife, and the mother of
his children,--who loved him so. Oh, Herbert! Herbert!" and, covering
her face, the unhappy woman suddenly burst into a passion of tears.