Indeed Lady Peacock, with whom we exchanged calls, made no secret of her

compassion when she found how many parties the ladies were _not_ going

to; and Ellen’s own relations, the Lesters, would have taken her out

almost every night if she had not staunchly held to her promise to her

mother not to go out more than three evenings in the week, for Mrs.

Fordyce knew her to be delicate, and feared late hours for her. The

vexation her cousins manifested made her feel the more bound to give them

what time she could, at hours when Griffith was not at liberty. She did

not like them to be hurt, and jealous of us, or to feel forsaken, and she

tried to put her affection for us on a different footing by averring that

‘it was not the same kind of thing—Emily was her sister.’

One day she had gone to luncheon with the Lesters in Cavendish Square,

and was to be called for in the carriage by me, on the way to take up the

other two ladies, who were shopping in Regent Street.

Ellen came running downstairs, with her cheeks in a glow under the pink

satin lining of her pretty bonnet, and her eyes sparkling with

indignation, which could not but break forth.

‘I don’t know how I shall ever go there again!’ she exclaimed; ‘they have

no right to say such things!’ Then she explained. Mary and Louisa had

been saying horrid things about Griffith—her Griff! It was always their

way. Think how Horace had made her treat Clarence! It was their way and

habit to tease, and call it fun, and she had never minded it before; but

this was too bad. Would not I put it in her power to give a flat

contradiction, such as would make them ashamed of themselves?

Contradict what?

Then it appeared that the Misses Lester had laughed at her, who was so

very particular and scrupulous, for having taken up with a regular young

man about town. Oh no, _they_ did not think much of it—no doubt he was

only just like other people; only the funny thing was that it should be

Ellen, for whom it was always supposed that no saint in the calendar, no

knight in all the Waverley novels, would be good enough! And then, on

her hot desire to know what they meant, they quoted John, the brother in

the Guards, as having been so droll about poor Ellen’s perfect hero, and

especially at his straight-laced Aunt Fordyce having been taken in,—but

of course it was the convenience of joining the estates, and it was

agreeable to see that your very good folk could wink at things like other

people in such a case. Then, when Ellen fairly drove her inquiries home,

in her absolute trust of confuting all slanders, she was told that

Griffith did, what she called ‘all sorts of things—billiards and all

that.’ And even that he was always running after a horrid Lady Peacock,

a gay widow.

‘They went on in fun,’ said Ellen, ‘and laughed the more when—yes, I am

afraid I did—I lost my temper. No, don’t say I well might, I know I

ought not; but I told them I knew all about Lady Peacock, and that you

were all old friends, even before he rescued her from the Bristol riots

and brought her home to Chantry House; and that only made Mary merrier

than ever, and say, “What, another distressed damsel? Take care, Ellen;

I would not trust such a squire of dames.” And then Louisa chimed in,

“Oh no, you see this Peacock dame was only conducted, like Princess

Micomicona and all the rest of them, to the feet of his peerless

Dulcinea!” And then I heard the knock, and I was never so glad in my

life!’

‘Well!’ I could not help remarking, ‘I have heard of women’s

spitefulness, but I never believed it till now.’

‘I really don’t think it was altogether what you call malice, so much as

the Lester idea of fun,’ said Ellen, recovering herself after her

outpouring. ‘A very odd notion I always thought it was; and Mary and

Louisa are not really ill-natured, and cannot wish to do the harm they

might have done, if I did not know Griff too well.’

Then, after considering a little, she said, blushing, ‘I believe I have

told you more than I ought, Edward—I couldn’t help having it out; but

please don’t tell any one, especially that shocking way of speaking of

mamma, which they could not really mean.’

‘No one could who knew her.’

‘Of course not. I’ll tell you what I mean to do. I will write to Mary

when we go in, and tell her that I know she really cares for me enough to

be glad that her nonsense has done no mischief, and, though I was so

foolish and wrong as to fly into a passion, of course I know it is only

her way, and I do not believe one word of it.’

Somehow, as she looked with those radiant eyes full of perfect trust, I

could not help longing not to have heard Peter Robson’s last night’s

complaint; but family feeling towards outsiders overcomes many a

misgiving, and my wrath against the malignity of the Lesters was quite as

strong as if I had been devoid of all doubts whether Griff wore to all

other eyes the same halo of pure glory with which Ellen invested him.

Such doubts were very transient. Dear old Griff was too delightful, too

bright and too brave, too ardent and too affectionate, not to dispel all

clouds by the sunshine he carried about with him. If rest and reliance

came with Clarence, zest and animation came with Griffith. He managed to

take the initiative by declining to remain any longer with the Robsons,

saying they had been spoilt by such a model lodger as Clarence, who would

let Gooch feed him on bread and milk and boiled mutton, and put on his

clean pinafore if she chose to insist; whereas her indignation, when

Griff found fault with the folding of his white ties, amounted to ‘_Et tu

Brute_,’ and he really feared she would have had a fit when he ordered

devilled kidneys for breakfast. He was sure her determination to tuck

him up every night and put out his candle was shortening her life; and he

had made arrangements to share the chambers of a friend who had gone

through school and college with him. There was no objection to the

friend, who had stayed at Chantry House and was an agreeable, lively,

young man, well reported of, satisfactorily connected, fairly

industrious, and in good society, so that Griff was likely to be much

less exposed to temptation of the lower kinds than when left to his own

devices, or only with Clarence, who had neither time nor disposition to

share his amusements.

There was a scene with my father, but in private; and all that came to

general knowledge was that Griff felt himself injured by any implication

that he was given to violent or excessive dissipation, such as could

wreck Ellen’s happiness or his own character.

He declared with all his heart that immediate marriage would be the best

thing for both, and pleaded earnestly for it; but my father could not

have arranged for it even if the Fordyces would have consented, and there

were matters of business, as well as other reasons, which made it

inexpedient for them to revoke their decision that the wedding should not

take place before Ellen was of age and Griffith called to the bar.

So we took our young ladies home, loaded with presents for their beloved

school children, of whom Emily said she dreamt, as the time for seeing

them again drew near. After all the London enjoyment, it was pretty to

see the girls’ delight in the fresh country sights and sounds in full

summer glory, and how Ellen proved to have been hungering after all her

dear ones at home. When we left her at her own door, our last sight of

her was in her father’s arms, little Anne clinging to her dress, mother

and grandfather as close to her as could be—a perfect tableau of a joyous

welcome.

CHAPTER XXIX.

LOVE AND OBEDIENCE.

‘Unless he give me all in change

I forfeit all things by him;

The risk is terrible and strange.’

MRS. BROWNING.

YOU will be weary of my lengthiness; and perhaps I am lingering too long

over the earlier portion of my narrative. Something is due to the

disproportion assumed in our memories by the first twenty years of

existence—something, perhaps, to reluctance to passing from comparative

sunshine to shadow. There was still a period of brightness, but it was

so uneventful that I have no excuse for dwelling on it further than to

say that Henderson, our excellent curate, had already made a great

difference in the parish, and it was beginning to be looked on as almost

equal to Hillside. The children were devoted to Emily, who was the

source of all the amenities of their poor little lives. The needlework

of the school was my mother’s pride; and our church and its services,

though you would shudder at them now, were then thought presumptuously

superior ‘for a country parish.’ They were a real delight and blessing

to us, as well as to many more of the flock, who still, in their old age,

remember and revere Parson Henderson as a sort of apostle.

The dawning of the new Poor-Law led to investigations which revealed the

true conditions of the peasant’s life—its destitution, recklessness, and

dependence. We tried to mend matters by inducing families to emigrate,

but this renewed the distrust which had at first beheld in the schools an

attempt to enslave the children. Even accounts, sent home by the

exceptionally enterprising who did go to Canada, were, we found, scarcely

trusted. Amos Bell, who would have gone, if he had not been growing into

my special personal attendant, was letter-writer and reader to all his

relations, and revealed to us that it had been agreed that no letter

should be considered as genuine unless it bore a certain private mark.

To be sure, the accounts of prosperity might well sound fabulous to the

toilers and moilers at home. Harriet Martineau’s _Hamlets_, which we

lent to many of our neighbours, is a fair picture of the state of things.

We much enjoyed those tales, and Emily says they were the only political

economy she ever learnt.

The model arrangements of our vestries led to a summons to my father and

the younger Mr. Fordyce to London, to be examined on the condition of the

pauper, and the working of the old Elizabethan Poor-Law.

They were absent for about a fortnight of early spring, and Emily and I

could not help observing that our mother was unusually uncommunicative

about my father’s letters; and, moreover, there was a tremendous

revolution of the furniture, a far more ominous token in our household

than any comet.

The truth came on us when the two fathers returned. Mine told me himself

that Frank Fordyce was so much displeased with Griffith’s conduct that he

had declared that the engagement could not continue with his consent.

This from good-natured, tender-hearted Parson Frank!

I cried out hotly that ‘those Lesters’ had done this. They had always

been set against us, and any one could talk over Mr. Frank. My father

shook his head. He said Frank Fordyce was not weak, but all the stronger

for his gentleness and charity; and, moreover, that he was quite right—to

our shame and grief be it spoken—quite right.

It was true that the first information had been given by Sir Horace

Lester, Mrs. Fordyce’s brother, but it had not been lightly spoken like

the daughter’s chatter; and my father himself had found it only too true,

so that he could not conscientiously call Griffith worthy of such a

creature as Ellen Fordyce.

Poor Griff, he had been idle and impracticable over his legal studies,

which no persuasion would make him view as otherwise than a sort of

nominal training for a country gentleman; nor had he ever believed or

acted upon the fact that the Earlscombe property was not an unlimited

fortune, such as would permit him to dispense with any profession, and

spend time and money like the youths with whom he associated. Still,

this might have been condoned as part of the effervescence which had

excited him ever since my father had succeeded to the estate, and

patience might still have waited for greater wisdom; but there had been

graver complaints of irregularities, which were forcing his friend to

dissolve partnership with him. There was evidence of gambling, which he

not only admitted, but defended; and, moreover, he was known at parties,

at races, and at the theatre, as one of the numerous satellites who

revolved about that gay and conspicuous young fashionable widow, Lady

Peacock.

‘Yes, Frank has every right to be angry,’ said my father, pacing the

room. ‘I can’t wonder at him. I should do the same; but it is

destroying the best hope for my poor boy.’

Then he began to wish Clarence had more—he knew not what to call it—in

him; something that might keep his brother straight. For, of course, he

had talked to Clarence and discovered how very little the brothers saw of

one another. Clarence had been to look for Griff in vain more than once,

and they had only really met at a Castleford dinner-party. In fact,

Clarence’s youthful spirits, and the tastes which would have made him

companionable to Griff, had been crushed out of him; and he was what more

recent slang calls ‘such a muff,’ that he had perforce drifted out of our

elder brother’s daily life, as much as if he had been a grave senior of

fifty. It was, as he owned, a heavy penalty of his youthful fall that he

could not help his brother more effectually.

It appeared that Frank Fordyce, thoroughly roused, had had it out with

Griffith, and had declared that his consent was withdrawn and the

engagement annulled. Griff, astounded at the resolute tone of one whom

he considered as the most good-natured of men, had answered hotly and

proudly that he should accept no dismissal except from Ellen herself, and

that he had done no more than was expected of any young man of position

and estate. On the other indictment he scorned any defence, and the two

had parted in mutual indignation. He had, however, shown himself so much

distressed at the threat of being deprived of Ellen, that neither my

father nor Clarence had the least doubt of his genuine attachment to her,

nor that his attentions to Lady Peacock were more than the effect of old

habit and love of amusement, and that they had been much exaggerated. He

scouted the bare idea of preferring her to Ellen; and, in his second

interview with my father, was ready to make any amount of promises of

reformation, provided his engagement were continued.

This was on the last evening before leaving town, and he came to the

coach-office looking so pale, jaded, and unhappy that Parson Frank’s kind

heart was touched; and in answer to a muttered ‘I’ve been ten thousand

fools, sir, but if you will overlook it I will try to be worthy of her,’

he made some reply that could be construed into, ‘If you keep to that,

all may yet be well. I’ll talk to her mother and grandfather.’

Perhaps this was cruel kindness, for, as we well knew, Mrs. Fordyce was

far less likely to be tolerant of a young man’s failings than was her

husband; and she was, besides, a Lester, and might take the same view.

Abusing the Lesters was our great resource; for we did not believe either

the sailor or the guardsman to be immaculate, and we knew them to be

jealous. We had to remain in ignorance of what we most wished to know,

for Ellen was kept away from us, and my mother would not let Emily go in

search of her. Only Anne, who was a high-spirited, independent little

person, made a sudden rush upon me as I sat in the garden. She had no

business to be so far from home alone; but, said she, ‘I don’t care, it

is all so horrid. Please, Edward, is it true that Griff has been so very

wicked? I heard the maids talking, and they said papa had found out that

he was a bad lot, and that he was not to marry Ellen; but she would stick

to him through thick and thin, like poor Kitty Brown who would marry the

man that got transported for seven years.’ ‘Will he be transported,

Edward? and would Ellen go too, like the “nut-brown maid?” Is that what

she cries so about? Not by day, but all night. I know she does, for her

handkerchief is wet through, and there is a wet place on her pillow

always in the morning; but she only says, “Never mind,” and nobody _will_

tell me. They only say little girls should not think about such things.

And I am not so very little. I am eight, and have read the _Lay of the

Last Minstrel_ and I know all about people in love. So you might tell

me.’

I relieved Anne’s mind as to the chances of transportation, and, after

considering how many confidences might be honourably exchanged with the

child, I explained that her father thought Griff had been idle and

careless, and not fit as yet to be trusted with Ellen.

Her parish experience came into play. ‘Does papa think he would be like

Joe Sparks? But then gentlemen don’t beat their wives, nor go to the

public-house, nor let their children go about in rags.’

I durst not inquire much, but I gathered that there was a heavy shadow

over the house, and that Ellen was striving to do as usual, but breaking

down when alone. Just then Parson Frank appeared. Anne had run away

from him while on a farming inspection, when the debate over the turnips

with the factotum had become wearisome. He looked grave and sorrowful,

quite unlike his usual hearty self, and came to me, leaning over my

chair, and saying, ‘This is sad work, Edward’; and, on an anxious venture

of an inquiry for Ellen, ‘Poor little maid, it is very sore work with

her. She is a good child and obedient—wants to do her duty; but we

should never have let it go on so long. We have only ourselves to

thank—taking the family character, you see’—and he made a kindly gesture

towards me. ‘Your father sees how it is, and won’t let it make a split

between us. I believe that not seeing as much of your sister as usual is

one of my poor lassie’s troubles, but it may be best—it may be best.’

He lingered talking, unwilling to tear himself away, and ended by

disclosing, almost at unawares, that Ellen had held out for a long time,

would not understand nor take in what she was told, accepted nothing on

Lester authority, declared she understood all about Lady Peacock, and

showed a strength of resistance and independence of view that had quite

startled her parents, by proving how far their darling had gone from them

in heart. But they still held her by the bonds of obedience; and, by

dealing with her conscience, her mother had obtained from her a piteous

little note—

‘MY DEAR GRIFFITH—I am afraid it is true that you have not always

seemed to be doing right, and papa and mamma forbid our going on as

we are. You know I cannot be disobedient. It would not bring a

blessing on you. So I must break off, though—’

The ‘though’ could be read through an erasure, followed by the initials,

E. M. F.—as if the dismal conclusion had been felt to be only too

true—and there followed the postscript, ‘Forgive me, and, if we are

patient, it may come right.’

This letter was displayed, when, on the ensuing evening, it brought Griff

down in towering indignation, and trying to prove the coercion that must

have been exercised to extract even thus much from his darling. Over he

went headlong to Hillside to insist on seeing her, but to encounter a

succession of stormy scenes. Mrs. Fordyce was the most resolute, but was

ill for a week after. The old Rector was gentle, and somewhat overawed

Griff by his compassion, and by representations that were only too true;

and Parson Frank, with his tender heart torn to pieces, showed symptoms

of yielding another probation.

The interview with Ellen was granted. She, however, was intrenched in

obedience. She had promised submission to the rupture of her engagement,

and she kept her word,—though she declared that nothing could hinder her

love, and that she would wait patiently till her lover had proved

himself, to everybody’s satisfaction, as good and noble as she knew him

to be. When he told her she did not love him she smiled. She was sure

that whatever mistakes there might have been, he would give no further

occasion against himself, and then every one would see that all had been

mere misunderstanding, and they should be happy again.

Such trust humbled him, and he was ready to make all promises and

resolutions; but he could not obtain the renewal of the engagement, nor

permission to correspond. Only there was wrung out of Parson Frank a

promise that if he could come in two years with a perfectly unstained,

unblotted character, the betrothal might be renewed.

We were very thankful for the hope and motive, and Griff had no doubts of

himself.

‘One can’t look at the pretty creature and think of disappointing her,’

he said. ‘She is altered, you know, Ted; they’ve bullied her till she is

more ethereal than ever, but it only makes her lovelier. I believe if

she saw me kill some one on the spot she would think it all my

generosity; or, if she could not, she would take and die. Oh no! I’ll

not fail her. No, I won’t; not if I have to spend seven years after the

model of old Bill, whose liveliest pastime is a good long sermon, when it

is not a ghost.’

CHAPTER XXX.

UNA OR DUESSA.

‘Soone as the Elfin knight in presence came

And false Duessa, seeming ladye fayre,

A gentle husher, Vanitie by name,

Made roome, and passage did for them prepare.’

SPENSER.

THE two families were supposed to continue on unbroken terms of

friendship, and we men did so; but Mrs. Fordyce told my mother that she

had disapproved of the probation, and Mrs. Winslow was hurt. Though the

two girls were allowed to be together as usual, it was on condition of

silence about Griff; and though, as Emily said, they really had not been

always talking about him in former times, the prohibition seemed to weigh

upon all they said.

Old Mr. Fordyce had long been talking of a round of visits among

relations whom he had not seen for many years; and it was decided to send

Ellen with him, chiefly, no doubt, to prevent difficulties about Griffith

in the long vacation.

There was no embargo on the correspondence with my sister, and letters

full of description came regularly, but how unlike they were to our

journal. They were clear, intelligent, with a certain liveliness, but no

ring of youthful joy, no echo of the heart, always as if under restraint.

Griff was much disappointed. He had been on his good behaviour for two

months, and expected his reward, and I could not here repeat all that he

said about her parents when he found she was absent. Yet, after all, he

got more pity and sympathy from Parson Frank than from any one else.

That good man actually sent a message for him, when Emily was on honour

to do no such thing. Poor Emily suffered much in consequence, when she

would neither afford Griff a blank corner of her paper, nor write even a

veiled message; while as to the letters she received and gave to him,

‘what was the use,’ he said, ‘of giving him what might have been read

aloud by the town-crier?’

‘You don’t understand, Griff; it is all dear Ellen’s conscientiousness—’

‘Oh, deliver me from such con-sci-en-tious-ness,’ he answered, in a tone

of bitter mimicry, and flung out of the room leaving Emily in tears.

He could not appreciate the nobleness of Ellen’s self-command and the

obedience which was the security of future happiness, but was hurt at

what he thought weak alienation. One note of sympathy would have done

much for Griff just then. I have often thought it over since, and come

to the conclusion that Mrs. Fordyce was justified in the entire

separation she brought about. No one can judge of the strength with

which ‘true love’ has mastered any individual, nor how far change may be

possible; and, on the other hand, unless there were full appreciation of

Ellen’s character, she might only have been looked on as—

‘Puppet to a father’s threat,

Servile to a shrewish tongue.’

Yet, after all, Frank Fordyce was very kind to Griff, making himself as

much of a medium of communication as he could consistently with his

conscience, but of course not satisfying one who believed that the

strength of love was to be proved not by obedience but disobedience.

Ellen’s letters showed increasing anxiety about her grandfather, who was

not favourably affected by the change of habits, consequent on a long

journey, and staying in different houses. His return was fixed two or

three times, and then delayed by slight attacks of illness, till at last

he became anxious to get home, and set off about the end of September;

but after sleeping a night at an inn at Warwick, he was too ill to

proceed any farther. His old man-servant was with him; but poor Ellen

went through a great deal of suspense and responsibility before her

parents reached her. The attack was paralysis, and he never recovered

the full powers of mind or body, though they managed to bring him back to

Hillside—as indeed his restlessness longed for his native home. When

once there he became calmer, but did not rally; and a second stroke

proved fatal just before Easter. He was mourned alike by rich and poor,

‘He _was_ a gentleman,’ said even Chapman, ‘always the same to rich or

poor, though he was one of they Fordys.’

My father wrote to summon both his elder sons to the funeral at Hillside,

and in due time Clarence appeared by the coach, but alone. He had gone

to Griffith’s chambers to arrange about coming down together, but found

my father’s letter lying unopened on the table, and learnt that his

brother was supposed to be staying at a villa in Surrey, where there were

to be private theatricals. He had forwarded the letter thither, and it

would still be possible to arrive in time by the night mail.

So entirely was Griff expected that the gig was sent to meet him at seven

o’clock the next morning, but there was no sign of him. My father and

Clarence went without him to the gathering, which showed how deeply the

good old man was respected and loved.

It was the only funeral Clarence had attended except Miss Newton’s

hurried one, and his sensitive spirit was greatly affected. He had

learnt reserve when amongst others, but I found that he had a strong

foreboding of evil; he tossed and muttered in his sleep, and confessed to

having had a wretched night of dreams, though he would not describe them

otherwise than that he had seen the lady whose face he always looked on

as a presage of evil.

Two days later the _Morning Post_ gave a full account of the amateur

theatricals at Bella Vista, the seat of Benjamin Bullock, Esquire, and

the Lady Louisa Bullock; and in the list of _dramatis personæ_, there

figured Griffith Winslow, Esquire, as Captain Absolute, and the fair and

accomplished Lady Peacock as Lydia Languish.

Amateur theatricals were much less common in those days than at present,

and were held as the _ne plus ultra_ of gaiety. Moreover, the Lady

Louisa Bullock was noted for fashionable extravagance of the

semi-reputable style; and there would have been vexation enough at

Griffith’s being her guest, even had not the performance taken place on

the very day of the funeral of Ellen’s grandfather, so as to be an

outrage on decorum.

At the same time, there came a packet franked by a not very satisfactory

peer, brother to Lady Louisa. My father threw a note over to Clarence,

and proceeded to read a very properly expressed letter full of apologies

and condolences for the Fordyces.

‘He could not have got the letter in time’ was my father’s comment.

‘When did you forward the letter? How was it addressed? Clarence, I

say, didn’t you hear?’

Clarence lifted up his face from his letter, so much flushed that my

mother broke in—‘What’s the matter? A mistake in the post-town would

account for the delay. Has he had the letter?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Not in time—eh?’

‘I’m afraid,’ and he faltered, ‘he did.’

‘Did he or did he not?’ demanded my mother.

‘What does he say?’ exclaimed my father.

‘Sir’ (always an unpropitious beginning for poor Clarence), ‘I should

prefer not showing you.’

‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed my mother: ‘you do no good by concealing it!’

‘Let me see his letter,’ said my father, in the voice there was no

gainsaying, and absolutely taking it from Clarence. None of us will ever

forget the tone in which he read it aloud at the breakfast-table.

‘DEAR BILL—What possessed you to send a death’s-head to the feast?

The letter would have bitten no one in my chambers. A nice scrape I

shall be in if you let out that your officious precision forwarded

it. Of course at the last moment I could not upset the whole affair

and leave Lydia to languish in vain. The whole thing went off

magnificently. Keep counsel and no harm is done. You owe me that

for sending on the letter.—Yours,

‘J. G. W.’

Clarence had not read to the end when the letter was taken from him.

Indeed to inclose such a note in a dispatch sure to be opened _en

famille_ was one of Griffith’s haphazard proceedings, which arose from

the present being always much more to him than the absent. Clarence was

much shocked at hearing these last sentences, and exclaimed, ‘He meant it

in confidence, papa; I implore you to treat it as unread!’

My father was always scrupulous about private letters, and said, ‘I beg

your pardon, Clarence; I should not have forced it from you. I wish I

had not seen it.’

My mother gave something between a snort and a sigh. ‘It is right for us

to know the truth,’ she said, ‘but that is enough. There is no need that

they should know at Hillside what was Griffith’s alternative.’

‘I would not add a pang to that dear girl’s grief,’ said my father; ‘but

I see the Fordyces were right. I shall never do anything to bring these

two together again.’

My mother chimed in with something about preferring Lady Peacock and the

Bella Vista crew to Ellen and Hillside, which made us rush into the

breach with incoherent defence.

‘I know how it was,’ said Clarence. ‘His acting is capital, and of

course these people could not spare him, nor understand how much it

signified that he should be here. They make so much of him.’

‘Who do?’ asked my mother. ‘Lady Peacock? How do you know? Have you

been with them?’

‘I have dined at Mr. Clarkson’s,’ Clarence avowed; and, on further

pressure, it was extracted that Griffith—handsome, and with talents such

as tell in society—was a general favourite, and much engrossed by people

who found him an enlivenment and ornament to their parties. There had

been little or nothing of late of the former noisy, boyish dissipation;

but that the more fashionable varieties were getting a hold on him became

evident under the cross-questioning to which Clarence had to submit.

My father said he felt like a party to a falsehood when he sent Griff’s

letter up to Hillside, and he indemnified himself by writing a letter

more indignant—not than was just, but than was prudent, especially in the

case of one little accustomed to strong censure. Indeed Clarence could

not restrain a slight groan when he perceived that our mother was shut up

in the study to assist in the composition. Her denunciations always

outran my father’s, and her pain showed itself in bitterness. ‘I ought

to have had the presence of mind to refuse to show the letter,’ he said;

‘Griff will hardly forgive me.’

Ellen looked very thin, and with a transparent delicacy of complexion.

She had greatly grieved over her grandfather’s illness and the first

change in her happy home; and she must have been much disappointed at

Griffith’s absence. Emily dreaded her mention of the subject when they

first met.

‘But,’ said my sister, ‘she said no word of him. All she cared to tell

me was of the talks she had with her grandfather, when he made her read

his favourite chapters in the Bible; and though he had no memory for

outside things, his thoughts were as beautiful as ever. Sometimes his

face grew so full of glad contemplation that she felt quite awestruck, as

if it were becoming like the face of an angel. It made her realise, she

said, “how little the ups and downs of this life matter, if there can be

such peace at the last.” And, after all, I could not help thinking that

it was better perhaps that Griff did not come. Any other sort of talk

would have jarred on her just now, and you know he would never stand much

of that.’

Much as we loved our Griff, we had come to the perception that Ellen was

a treasure he could not esteem properly.

The Lester cousins, never remarkable for good taste, forced on her the

knowledge of his employment. Her father could not refrain from telling

us that her exclamation had been, ‘Poor Griff, how shocked he must be!

He was so fond of dear grandpapa. Pray, papa, get Mr. Winslow to let him

know that I am not hurt, for I know he could not help it. Or may I ask

Emily to tell him so?’

I wish Mrs. Fordyce would have absolved her from the promise not to

mention Griff to us. That innocent reliance might have touched him, as

Emily would have narrated it; but it only rendered my father more

indignant, and more resolved to reserve the message till a repentant

apology should come. And, alas! none ever came. Just wrath on a

voiceless paper has little effect. There is reason to believe that Griff

did not like the air of my father’s letter, and never even read it. He

diligently avoided Clarence, and the pain and shame his warm heart must

have felt only made him keep out of reach.

CHAPTER XXXI.

FACILIS DESCENSUS.

‘The slippery verge her feet beguiled;

She tumbled headlong in.’

GRAY.

ONE of Griffith’s briefest notes in his largest hand announced that he

had accepted various invitations to country houses, for cricket matches,

archery meetings, and the like; nor did he even make it clear where his

address would be, except that he would be with a friend in Scotland when

grouse-shooting began.

Clarence, however, came home for a brief holiday. He was startled at the

first sight of Ellen. He said she was indeed lovelier than ever, with an

added sweetness in her clear eyes and the wild rose flush in her delicate

cheek; but that she looked as if she was being refined away to nothing,

and was more than ever like the vision with the lamp.

Of course the Fordyces had not been going into society, though Ellen and

Emily were as much together as before, helping one another in practising

their school children in singing, and sharing in one another’s studies

and pursuits. There had been in the spring a change at Wattlesea; the

old incumbent died, and the new one was well reported of as a very

earnest hardworking man. He seemed to be provided with a large family,

and there was no driving into Wattlesea without seeing members of it

scattered about the place.

The Fordyces being anxious to show them attention without a regular

dinner-party, decided on inviting all the family to keep Anne’s ninth

birthday, and Emily and Martyn were of course to come and assist at the

entertainment.

It was on the morning of the day fixed that a letter came to me whose

contents seemed to burn themselves into my brain. Martyn called across

the breakfast-table, ‘Look at Edward! Has any one sent you a young

basilisk?’

‘I wish it was,’ I gasped out.

‘Don’t look so,’ entreated Emily. ‘Tell us! Is it Griff?’

‘Not ill-hurt?’ cried my mother. ‘Oh no, no. Worse!’ and then somehow I

articulated that he was married; and Clarence exclaimed, ‘Not the

Peacock!’ and at my gesture my father broke out. ‘He has done for

himself, the unhappy boy. A disgraceful Scotch marriage. Eh?’

‘It was his sense of honour,’ I managed to utter.

‘Sense of fiddlestick!’ said my poor father. ‘Don’t stop to excuse him.

We’ve had enough of that! Let us hear.’

I cannot give a copy of the letter. It was so painful that it was

destroyed; for there was a tone of bravado betraying his uneasiness, but

altogether unbecoming. All that it disclosed was, that some one staying

in the same house had paid insulting attentions to Lady Peacock; she had

thrown herself on our brother’s protection, and after interfering on her

behalf, he had found that there was no means of sheltering her but by

making her his wife. This had been effected by the assistance of the

lady of the house where they had been staying; and Griffith had written

to me two days later from Edinburgh, declaring that Selina had only to be

known to be loved, and to overcome all prejudices.

‘Prejudices,’ said my father bitterly. ‘Prejudices in favour of truth

and honour.’

And my mother uttered the worst reproach of all, when in my agitation, I

slipped and almost fell in rising—‘Oh, my poor Edward! that I should have

lived to think yours the least misfortune that has befallen my sons!’

‘Nay, mother,’ said Clarence, putting Martyn toward her, ‘here is one to

make up for us all.’

‘Clarence,’ said my father, ‘your mother did not mean anything but that

you and Edward are the comfort of our lives. I wish there were a chance

of Griffith redeeming the past as you have done; but I see no hope of

that. A man is never ruined till he is married.’

At that moment there was a step in the hall, a knock at the door, and

there stood Mr. Frank Fordyce. He looked at us and said, ‘It is true

then.’

‘To our shame and sorrow it is,’ said my father. ‘Fordyce, how can we

look you in the face?’

‘As my dear good friend, and my father’s,’ said the kind man, shaking him

by the hand heartily. ‘Do you think we could blame you for this youth’s

conduct? Stay’—for we young ones were about to leave the room. ‘My poor

girl knows nothing yet. Her mother luckily got the letter in her

bedroom. We can’t put off the Reynoldses, you know, so I came to ask the

young people to come up as if nothing had happened, and then Ellen need

know nothing till the day is over.’

‘If I can,’ said Emily.

‘You can be capable of self-command, I hope,’ said my mother severely,

‘or you do not deserve to be called a friend.’

Such speeches might not be pleasant, but they were bracing, and we all

withdrew to leave the elders to talk it over together, when, as I

believe, kind Parson Frank was chiefly concerned to argue my parents out

of their shame and humiliation.

Clarence told us what he knew or guessed; and we afterwards understood

the matter to have come about chiefly through poor Griff’s weakness of

character, and love of amusement and flattery. The boyish flirtation

with Selina Clarkson had never entirely died away, though it had been

nothing more than the elder woman’s bantering patronage and easy

acceptance of the youth’s equally gay, jesting admiration. It had,

however, involved some raillery on his attachment to the little

Methodistical country girl, and this gradually grew into jealousy of

her—especially as Griff became more of a man, and a brilliant member of

society. The detention from the funeral had been a real victory on the

widow’s part, and the few times when Clarence had seen them together he

had been dismayed at the _cavaliere serviente_ terms on which Griff

seemed to stand; but his words of warning were laughed down. The rest

was easy to gather. He had gone about on the round of visits almost as

an appendage to Lady Peacock, till they came to a free and easy house,

where her coquetry and love of admiration brought on one of those

disputes which rendered his championship needful; and such defence could

only have one conclusion, especially in Scotland, where hasty private

marriages were still legal. What an exchange! Only had Griff ever

comprehended the worth of his treasure?

Emily went as late as she could, that there might be the less chance of a

tête-à-tête, in which she might be surprised into a betrayal of her

secret: indeed she only started at last when Martyn’s impatience had

become intolerable.

What was our amazement when, much earlier than we expected, we saw Mr.

Fordyce driving up in his phaeton, and heard the story he had to tell.

Emily’s delay had succeeded in bringing her only just in time for the

luncheon that was to be the children’s dinner. There was a keen-looking,

active, sallow clergyman, grizzled, and with an air of having seen much

service; a pale, worn wife, with a gentle, sensible face; and a

bewildering flock of boys and girls, all apparently under the command of

a very brisk, effective-looking elder sister of fourteen or fifteen, who

seemed to be the readiest authority, and to decide what and how much each

might partake of, among delicacies, evidently rare novelties.

The day was late in August. The summer had broken; there had been rain,

and, though fine, the temperature was fitter for active sports than

anything else. Croquet was not yet invented, and, besides, most of the

party were of the age for regular games at play. Ellen and Emily did

their part in starting these—finding, however, that the Reynolds boys

were rather rough, in spite of the objurgations of their sister, who

evidently thought herself quite beyond the age for romps. The sports led

them to the great home-field on the opposite slope of the ridge from our

own. The new farm-buildings were on the level ground at the bottom to

the right, where the declivity was much more gradual than to the left,

which was very steep, and ended in furze bushes and low copsewood. It

was voted a splendid place for hide-and-seek, and the game was soon in

such full career that Ellen, who had had quite running enough, could fall

out of it, and with her, the other two elder girls. Emily felt Fanny

Reynolds’ presence a sort of protection, ‘little guessing what she was up

to,’ to use her own expression. Perhaps the girl had not earlier made

out who Emily was, or she had been too much absorbed in her cares; but,

as the three sat resting on a stump overlooking the hill, she was

prompted by the singular inopportuneness of precocious fourteen to

observe, ‘I ought to have congratulated you, Miss Winslow.’

Emily gabbled out, ‘Thank you, never mind,’ hoping thus to put a stop to

whatever might be coming; but there was no such good fortune. ‘We saw it

in the paper. It is your brother, isn’t it?’

‘What?’ asked unsuspicious Ellen, thinking, no doubt, of some fresh glory

to Griffith.

And before Emily could utter a word, if there were any she could have

uttered, out it came. ‘The marriage—John Griffith Winslow, Esquire,

eldest son of John Edward Winslow of Chantry House, to Selina, relict of

Sir Henry Peacock and daughter of George Clarkson, Esquire, Q.C. I

didn’t think it could be you at first, because you would have been at the

wedding.’

Emily had not even time to meet Ellen’s eyes before they were startled by

a shriek that was not the merry ‘whoop’ and ‘I spy’ of the game, and,

springing up, the girls saw little Anne Fordyce rushing headlong down the

very steepest part of the slope, just where it ended in an extremely

muddy pool, the watering-place of the cattle. The child was totally

unable to stop herself, and so was Martyn, who was dashing after her.

Not a word was said, though, perhaps, there was a shriek or two, but the

elder sisters flew with one accord towards the pond. They also were some

way above it, but at some distance off, so that the descent was not so

perpendicular, and they could guard against over-running themselves.

Ellen, perhaps from knowing the ground better, was far before the other

two; but already poor little Anne had gone straight down, and fallen flat

on her face in the water, Martyn after her, perhaps with a little more

free will, for, though he too fell, he was already struggling to lift

Anne up, and had her head above water, when Ellen arrived and dashed in

to assist.

The pond began by being shallow, but the bottom sloped down into a deep

hollow, and was besides covered several feet deep with heavy

cattle-trodden mire and weeds, in which it was almost impossible to gain

a footing, or to move. By the time Emily and Miss Reynolds had come to

the brink, Ellen and Martyn were standing up in the water, leaning

against one another, and holding poor little Anne’s head up—all they

could do. Ellen called out, ‘Don’t! don’t come in! Call some one! The

farm! We are sinking in! You can’t help! Call—’

The danger was really terrible of their sinking in the mud and weeds, and

being sucked into the deep part of the pool, and they were too far in to

be reached from the bank. Emily perceived this, and ran as she had never

run before, happily meeting on the way with the gentlemen, who had been

inspecting the new model farm-buildings, and had already taken alarm from

the screams.

They found the three still with their heads above water, but no more, for

every struggle to get up the slope only plunged them deeper in the

horrible mud. Moreover, Fanny Reynolds was up to her ankles in the mud,

holding by one of her brothers, but unable to reach Martyn. It seems she

had had some idea of forming a chain of hands to pull the others out.

Even now the rescue was not too easy. Mr. Fordyce hurried in, and took

Anne in his arms; but, even with his height and strength, he found his

feet slipping away under him, and could only hand the little insensible

girl to Mr. Reynolds, bidding him carry her at once to the house, while

he lifted Martyn up only just in time, and Ellen clung to him. Thus

weighted, he could not get out, till the bailiff and another man had

brought some faggots and a gate that were happily near at hand, and

helped him to drag the two out, perfectly exhausted, and Martyn hardly

conscious. They both were carried to the Rectory,—Ellen by her father,

Martyn by the foreman,—and they were met at the door by the tidings that

little Anne was coming to herself.

Indeed, by the time Mr. Fordyce had put on dry clothes, all three were

safe in warm beds, and quite themselves again, so that he trusted that no

mischief was done; though he decided upon fetching my mother to satisfy

herself about Martyn. However, a ducking was not much to a healthy

fellow like Martyn, and my mother found him quite fit to dress himself in

the clothes she brought, and to return home with her. Both the girls

were asleep, but Ellen had had a shivering fit, and her mother was with

her, and was anxious. Emily told her mother of Fanny Reynolds’

unfortunate speech, and it was thought right to mention it. Mrs. Fordyce

listened kindly, kissed Emily, and told her not to be distressed, for

possibly it might turn out to have been the best thing for Ellen to have

learnt the fact at such a moment; and, at any rate, it had spared her

parents some doubt and difficulty as to the communication.

CHAPTER XXXII.

WALY, WALY.

‘And am I then forgot, forgot?

It broke the heart of Ellen!’

CAMPBELL.

CLARENCE and Martyn walked over to Hillside the first thing the next

morning to inquire for the two sisters. As to one, they were quickly

reassured, for Anne was in the porch feeding the doves, and no sooner did

she see them than out she flew, and was clinging round Martyn’s neck, her

hat falling back as she kissed him on both cheeks, with an eagerness that

made him, as Clarence reported, turn the colour of a lobster, and look

shy, not to say sheepish, while she exclaimed, ‘ Oh, Martyn! mamma says

she never thanked you, for you really and truly did save my life, and I

am so glad it was you—’

‘It was not I, it was Ellen,’ gruffly muttered Martyn.

‘Oh yes! but papa says I should have been smothered in that horrid mud,

before Ellen could get to me if you had not pulled me up directly.’

The elders came out by this time, and Clarence was able to get in his

inquiry. Ellen had had a feverish night, and her chest seemed oppressed,

but her mother did not think her seriously ill. Once she had asked, ‘Is

it true, what Fanny Reynolds said?’ and on being answered, ‘Yes, my dear,

I am afraid it is,’ she had said no more; and as the Fordyce habit of

treating colds was with sedatives, her mother thought her scarcely awake

to the full meaning of the tidings, and hoped to prevent her dwelling on

them till she had recovered the physical shock. Having answered these

inquiries, the two parents turned upon Martyn, who, in an access of

shamefacedness, had crept behind Clarence and a great orange-tree, and

was thence pulled out by Anne’s vigorous efforts. The full story had

come to light. The Reynolds’ boys had grown boisterous as soon as the

restraint of the young ladies’ participation had been removed, and had,

whether intentionally or not, terrified little Anne in the chases of

hide-and-seek. Finally, one of them had probably been unable to

withstand the temptation of seeing her timid nervous way of peeping and

prying about; and had, without waiting to be properly found, leapt out of

his lair with a roar that scared the little girl nearly out of her wits,

and sent her flying, she knew not whither. Martyn was a few steps

behind, only not holding her hand, because the other children had derided

her for clinging to his protection. He had instantly seen where she was

going, and shouted to her to stop and take care; but she was past

attending to him, and he had no choice but to dart after her, seeing what

was inevitable; while George Reynolds had sense to stop in time, and seek

a safer descent. Had Martyn not been there to raise the child instantly

from the stifling mud, her sister could hardly have been in time to save

her.

Mrs. Fordyce tearfully kissed him; her husband called him a little hero,

as if in joke, then gravely blessed him; and he looked, Clarence related,

as if he had been in the greatest possible disgrace.

It was the second time that one of us had saved a life from drowning, but

there was none of the exultation we had felt that time before in London.

It was a much graver feeling, where the danger had really been greater,

and the rescue had been of one so dear to us. It was tempered likewise

by anxiety about our dear Ellen—ours, alas, no longer! She was laid up

for several days, and it was thought better that she should not see Emily

till she had recovered; but after a week had passed, her father drove

over to discuss some plans for the Poor-Law arrangements, and begged my

sister to go back in the carriage and spend the day with his daughter.

We brothers could now look forward to some real intelligence; we became

restless; and in the afternoon Clarence and I set out with the

donkey-chair on the woodland path to meet Emily. We gained more than we

had hoped, for as we came round one of the turns in the winding path, up

the hanging beech-wood, we came on the two friends—Ellen, a truly

Una-like figure, in her white dress with her black scarf making a sable

stole. Perhaps we betrayed some confusion, for there was a bright flush

on her cheeks as she came towards us, and, standing straight up, said,

‘Clarence, Edward, I am so glad you are here; I wanted to see you. I

wanted—to say—I know he could not help it. It was his generosity—helping

those that need it; and—and—I’m not angry. And though that’s all over,

you’ll always be my brothers, won’t you?’

She held her outstretched hands to us both. I could not help it, I drew

her down, and kissed her brow; Clarence clasped her other hand and held

it to his lips, but neither of us could utter a word.

She turned back and went quietly away through the wood, while Emily sank

down under the beech-tree in a paroxysm of grief. You may see which it

was, for Clarence cut out ‘E. M. F., 1835’ upon the bark. He soothed and

caressed poor Emily as in old nursery troubles; and presently she told us

that it would be long before we saw that dear one again, for Mrs. Fordyce

was going to take her away on the morrow.

Mrs. Fordyce had seen Emily in private, before letting her go to Ellen.

There was evidently a great wish to be kind. Mrs. Fordyce said she could

never forget what she owed to us all, and could not think of blaming any

of us. ‘But,’ she said, ‘you are a sensible girl, Emily,’—‘how I hate

being called a sensible girl,’ observed the poor child, in

parenthesis,—‘and you must see that it is desirable not to encourage her

to indulge in needless discussion after she once understands the facts.’

She added that she thought a cessation of present intercourse would be

wise till the sore was in some degree healed. She had not been satisfied

about her daughter’s health for some time, and meant to take her to Bath

the next day to consult a physician, and then decide what would be best.

‘And, my dear,’ she said, ‘if there should be a slackening of

correspondence, do not take it as unkindness, but as a token that my poor

child is recovering her tone. Do not discontinue writing to her, but be

guarded, and perhaps less rapid, in replying.’

It was for her friendship that poor Emily wept so bitterly—the first

friendship that had been an enthusiasm to her; looking at it as a cruel

injustice that Griff’s misdoing should separate them. The prediction

that all might be lived down and forgotten was too vague and distant to

be much consolation; indeed, we were too young to take it in.

We had it all over again in a somewhat grotesque form when, at another

turn in the wood, we came upon Martyn and Anne, loaded with treasures

from their robbers’ cave, some of which were bestowed in my chair, the

others carried off between Anne and her not very willing nursery-maid.

Anne kissed us all round, and augured cheerfully that she should lay up a

store of shells and rocks by the seaside to make ‘a perfect Robinson

Crusoe cavern,’ she said, ‘and then Clarence can come and be the

Spaniards and the savages. But that won’t be till next summer,’ she

added, shaking her head. ‘I shall get Ellen to tell Emily what shells I

find, and then she can tell Martyn; for mamma says girls never write to

boys unless they are their brothers! And now Martyn will never be my

brother,’ she added ruefully.

‘You will always be our darling,’ I said.

‘That’s not the same as your sister,’ she answered. However, amid

auguries of the combination of robbers and Robinson Crusoe, the parting

was effected, and Anne borne off by the maid; while we had Martyn on our

hands, stamping about and declaring that it was very hard that because

Griff chose to be a faithless, inconstant ruffian, all his pleasure and

comfort in life should be stopped! He said such outrageous things that,

between scolding him and laughing at him, Emily had been somewhat cheered

by the time we reached the house.

My father had written to Griffith, in his first displeasure, curt wishes

that he might not have reason to repent of the step he had taken, though

he had not gone the right way to obtain a blessing. As it was not

suitable that a man should be totally dependent on his wife, his

allowance should be continued; but under present circumstances he must

perceive that he and Lady Peacock could not be received at Chantry House.

We were shown the letter, and thought it terribly brief and cold; but my

mother said it would be weak to offer forgiveness that was not sought,

and my father was specially exasperated at the absence of all contrition

as to the treatment of Ellen. All Griff had vouchsafed on that head

was—the rupture had been the Fordyces’ doing; he was not bound. As to

intercourse with him, Clarence and I might act as we saw fit.

‘Only,’ said my father, as Clarence was leaving home, ‘I trust you not to

get yourself involved in this set.’

Clarence gave a queer smile, ‘They would not take me as a gift, papa.’

And as my father turned from the hall door, he laid his hand on his

wife’s arm, and said, ‘Who would have told us what that young fellow

would be to us.’

She sighed, and said, ‘He is not twenty-three; he has plenty of money,

and is very fond of Griff.’

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE RIVER’S BANK.

‘And my friend rose up in the shadows,

And turned to me,

“Be of good cheer,” I said faintly,

For He called thee.’

B. M.

MR. FORDYCE waited at Hillside till after Sunday, and then went to Bath

to hear the verdict of the physician. He returned as much depressed as

it was in his sanguine nature to be, for great delicacy of the lungs had

been detected; and to prevent the recent chill from leaving permanent

injury, Ellen must have a winter abroad, and warm sea or mountain air at

once. Whether the disease were constitutional and would have come on at

all events no one could tell.

Consumption was much less understood half a century ago; codliver oil was

unknown; and stethoscopes were new inventions, only used by the more

advanced of the faculty. The only escape poor Parson Frank had from

accepting the doom was in disbelieving that a thing like a trumpet could

really reveal the condition of the chest. Moreover, Mrs. Fordyce had had

a brother who had, under the famous cowhouse cure, recovered enough to

return home, and be killed by the upsetting of a stage coach.

Mrs. Fordyce took her daughter to Lyme, and waited there till her husband

had found a curate and made all arrangements. It must have been very

inconvenient not to come home; but, no doubt, she wanted to prevent any

more partings. Then they went abroad, travelling slowly, and seeing all

the sights that came in their way, to distract Ellen’s thoughts. She was

not allowed to hear what ailed her; but believed her languor and want of

interest in everything to be the effect of the blow she had received,

struggling to exert herself, and to enter gratefully into the enjoyments

provided for her. She was not prevented from writing to Emily; indeed,

no one liked to hinder anything she wished, but they were guide-book

letters, describing all she saw as a kind of duty, but scarcely

concealing the trouble it was to look. Such sentences would slip out as

‘This is a nice quiet place, and I am happy to say there is nothing that

one ought to see.’ Or, ‘I sat in the cathedral at Lucerne while the

others were going round. The organ was playing, and it was such rest!’

Or, again, after a day on the Lago di Como, ‘It was glorious, and if you

and Edward were here, perhaps the beauty would penetrate my sluggish

soul!’

Ellen’s sluggish soul!—when we remembered her keen ecstasy at the Valley

of Rocks.

Those letters were our chief interest in an autumn which seemed dreary to

us, in spite of friendly visitors; for had not our family hope and joy

been extinguished? There was no direct communication with Griffith after

his unpleasant reply to my father’s letter; but Clarence saw the newly

married pair on their return to Lady Peacock’s house in London, and

reported that they were very kind and friendly to him, and gave him more

invitations than he could accept. Being cross-examined when he came home

for Christmas, he declared his conviction that Lady Peacock had married

Griff entirely from affection, and that he had been—well—flattered into

it. They seemed very fond of each other now, and were launching out into

all sorts of gaieties; but though he did not tell my father, he confided

to me that he feared that Griffith had been disappointed in the amount of

fortune at his wife’s disposal.

It was at that Christmas time, one night, having found an intrusive cat

upon my bed, Clarence carried her out at the back door close to his room,

and came back in haste and rather pale. ‘It is quite true about the lady

and the light being seen out of doors,’ he said in an awe-stricken voice,

‘I have just seen her flit from the mullion room to the ruin.’

We only noted the fact in that ghost-diary of ours—we told nobody, and

looked no more. We already believed that these appearances on the lawn

must be the cause that every window, up to the attics on the garden side

of the house, were so heavily shuttered and barred that there was no

opening them without noise. Indeed, those on the ground floor had in

addition bells attached to them. No doubt the former inhabitants had

done their best to prevent any one from seeing or inquiring into what was

unacknowledged and unaccountable. It might be only a coincidence, but we

could not help remarking that we had seen and heard nothing of her during

the engagement which might have united the two families; though, of

course, it would be ridiculous to suppose her cognisant of it, like the

White Lady of Avenel, dancing for joy at Mary’s marriage with Halbert

Glendinning.

The Fordyces had settled at Florence, where they suffered a great deal

more from cold than they would have done at Hillside; and there was such

a cessation of Ellen’s letters that Emily feared that Mrs. Fordyce had

attained her wish and separated the friends effectually. However, Frank

Fordyce beguiled his enforced leisure with long letters to my father on

home business, Austrian misgovernment, and the Italian Church and people,

full of shrewd observations and new lights; and one of these ended thus,

‘My poor lassie has been in bed for ten days with a severe cold. She

begs me to say that she has begun a letter to Emily, and hopes soon to

finish it. We had thought her gaining ground, but she is sadly pulled

down. _Fiat voluntas_.’

The letter, which had been begun, never came; but, after three long

weeks, there was one from the dear patient herself, mentioning her

illness, and declaring that it was so comfortable to be allowed to be

tired, and to go nowhere and see nothing except the fragment of beautiful

blue sky, and the corner of a campanile, and the flowers Anne brought in

daily.

As soon as she could be moved, they took her to Genoa, where she revived

enough to believe that she should be well if she were at home again, and

to win from her parents a promise to take her to Hillside as soon as the

spring winds were over. So anxious was she that, as soon as there was

any safety in travelling, the party began moving northwards, going by sea

to Marseilles to avoid the Corniche, so early in the year. There were

many fluctuations, and it was only her earnest yearning for home and

strong resolution that could have made her parents persevere; but at last

they were at Hillside, just after Whitsuntide, in the last week of May.

Frank Fordyce walked over to see us on the very evening after their

arrival. He was much altered, his kindly handsome face looked almost as

if he had gone through an illness; and, indeed, apart from all his

anxiety and sorrow, he had pined in foreign parts for his human flock, as

well as his bullocks and his turnips. He had also read, thought, and

observed a great deal, and had left his long boyhood behind him, during a

space for study and meditation such as he had never had before.

He was quite hopeless of his daughter’s recovery, and made no secret of

it. In passing through London the best advice had been taken, but only

to obtain the verdict that the case was beyond all skill, and that it was

only a matter of weeks, when all that could be done was to give as much

gratification as possible. The one thing that Ellen did care about was

to be at home—to have Emily with her, and once more see her school

children, her church, and her garden. Tired as she was she had sprung up

in the carriage at the first glimpse of Hillside spire, and had leant

forward at the window, nodding and smiling her greetings to all the

villagers.

She had been taken at once to her room and her bed, but her father had

promised to beg Emily to come up by noon on the morrow. Then he sat

talking of local matters, not able to help showing what infinite relief

it was to him to be at home, and what music to his ears was the

Somersetshire dialect and deep English voice ‘after all those thin,

shrill, screeching foreigners.’

Poor Emily! It was in mingled grief and gladness that she set off the

next day, with the trepidation of one to whom sickness and decay were

hitherto unknown. When she returned, it was in a different mood, unable

to believe the doctors could be right, and in the delight of having her

own bright, sweet Ellen back again, all herself. They had talked, but

more of home and village than of foreign experiences; and though Ellen

did not herself assist, she had much enjoyed watching the unpacking of

the numerous gifts which had cost a perfect fortune at the Custom House.

No one seemed forgotten—villagers, children, servants, friends. Some of

these tokens are before me still. The Florentine mosaic paper-weight she

brought me presses this very sheet; the antique lamp she gave my father

is on the mantelpiece; Clarence’s engraving of Raffaelle’s St. Michael

hangs opposite to me on the wall. Most precious in our eyes was the

collection of plants, dried and labelled by herself, which she brought to

Emily and me—poor mummies now, but redolent of undying affection. Her

desire was to bestow all her keepsakes with her own hands, and in most

cases she actually did so—a few daily, as her strength served her. The

little figures in costume, coloured prints, Swiss carvings, French

knicknacks, are preserved in many a Hillside cottage as treasured relics

of ‘our young lady.’ Many years later, Martyn recognised a Hillside

native in a back street in London by a little purple-blue picture of

Vesuvius, and thereby reached the soft spot in a nearly dried-up heart.

So bright and playful was the dear girl over all her old familiar

interests that we inexperienced beings believed not only that the wound

to her affections was healed, but that she either did not know or did not

realise the sentence that had been pronounced on her; but when this was

repeated to her mother, it was met by a sad smile and the reply that we

only saw her in her best hours. Still, through the summer, it was

impossible to us to accept the truth; she looked so lovely, was so

cheerful, and took such delight in all that was about her.

With the first cold, however, she seemed to shrivel up, and the bad

nights extended into the days. Emily ascribed the change to the lack of

going out into the air, and always found reasons for the increased

languor and weakness; till at last there came a day when my poor little

sister seemed as if the truth had broken upon her for the first time,

when Ellen talked plainly to her of their parting, and had asked us both,

‘her dear brother and sister,’ to be with her at her Communion on All

Saints’ Day.

She had written a little letter to Clarence, begging his forgiveness for

having cut him, and treated him with the scorn which, I believe, was the

chief fault that weighed upon her conscience; and, hearing my father’s

voice in the house, she sent a message to beg him to come and see her in

her mother’s dressing-room—that very window where I had first heard her

voice, refusing to come down to ‘those Winslows.’ She had sent for him

to entreat him to forgive Griffith and recall the pair to Chantry House.

‘Not now,’ she said, ‘but when I am gone.’

My father could deny her nothing, though he showed that the sight of her

made the entreaty all the harder to him; and she pleaded, ‘But you know

this was not his doing. I never was strong, and it had begun before.

Only think how sad it would have been for him.’

My father would have promised anything with that wasted hand on his,

those fervent eyes gazing on him, and he told her he would have given his

pardon long ago, if it had been sought, as it never had been.

‘Ah! perhaps he did not dare!’ she said. ‘Won’t you write when all this

is over, and then you will be one family again as you used to be?’

He promised, though he scarcely knew where Griffith was. Clarence,

however, did. He had answered Ellen’s letter, and it had made him ask

for a few days’ leave of absence. So he came down on the Saturday, and

was allowed a quarter of an hour beside Ellen’s sofa in the Sunday

evening twilight. He brought away the calm, rapt expression I had

sometimes seen on his face at church, and Ellen made a special entreaty

that he might share the morrow’s feast.

There are some things that cannot be written of, and that was one. Still

we had not thought the end near at hand, though on Tuesday morning a

message was sent that Ellen was suffering and exhausted, and could not

see Emily. It was a wild, stormy day, with fierce showers of sleet, and

we clung to the hope that consideration for my sister had prompted the

message. In the afternoon Clarence battled with a severe gale, made his

way to Hillside, and heard that the weather affected the patient, and

that there was much bodily distress. For one moment he saw her father,

who said in broken accents that we could only pray that the spirit might

be freed without much more suffering, ‘though no doubt it is all right.’

Before daylight, before any one in the house was up, Clarence was

mounting the hill in the gusts that had done their work on the trees and

were subsiding with the darkness. And just as he was beginning the

descent, as the sun tipped the Hillside steeple with light, he heard the

knell, and counted the twenty-one for the years of our Ellen—for ours she

will always be.

‘Somehow,’ he told me, ‘I could not help taking off my hat and giving

thanks for her, and then all the drops on all the boughs began sparkling,

and there was a hush on all around as if she were passing among the

angels, and a thrush broke out into a regular song of jubilee!’

CHAPTER XXXIV.

NOT IN VAIN.

‘Then cheerly to your work again,

With hearts new braced and set

To run untired love’s blessed race,

As meet for those who face to face

Over the grave their Lord have met.’

KEBLE.

THAT dying request could not but be held sacred, and overtures were made

to Griffith, who returned an odd sort of answer, friendly and

affectionate, but rather as if my father were the offending party in need

of forgiveness. He and his wife were obliged for the invitation, but

could not accept it, as they had taken a house near Melton-Mowbray for

the hunting season, and were entertaining friends.

In some ways it was disappointing, in others it was a relief, not to have

the restraint of Lady Peacock’s presence during the last days we were to

have with the Fordyces. For a fresh loss came upon us. Beachharbour was

a fishing-village on the north-western coast, which, within the previous

decade, had sprung into importance, on the one hand as a fashionable

resort, on the other as a minor port for colliers. The living was

wretchedly poor, and had been held for many years by one of the old

inferior stamp of clergy, scarcely superior in habits or breeding to the

farmers, and only outliving the scandals of his youth to fall into a

state of indolent carelessness. It was in the gift of a child, for whom

Sir Horace Lester was trustee, and that gentleman had written, about a

fortnight before Ellen’s death, to consult Mr. Fordyce on its disposal,

declaring the great difficulties and deficiencies of the place, which

made it impossible to offer it to any one without considerable private

means, and also able to attract and improve the utterly demoralised

population. He ended, almost in joke, by saying, ‘In fact, I know no one

who could cope with the situation but yourself; I wish you could find me

your own counterpart, or come yourself in earnest. It is just the air

that suits my sister—bracing sea-breezes; the parsonage, though a

wretched place, is well situated, and she would be all the stronger; but

in poor Ellen’s state there is no use in talking of it, and besides I

know you are wedded to your fertile fields and Somersetshire clowns.’

That letter (afterwards shown to us) had worked on Mr. Fordyce’s mind

during those mournful days. He was still young enough to leave behind

him Parson Frank and the ‘squarson’ habits of Hillside in which he had

grown up; and the higher and more spiritual side of his nature had been

fostered by the impressions of the last year. He was conscious, as he

said, that his talk had been overmuch of bullocks, and that his farm had

engrossed him more than he wished should happen again, though a change

would be tearing himself up by the roots; and as to his own people at

Hillside, the curate, an active young man, had well supplied his place,

and, in his _truly_ humble opinion, though by no means in theirs,

introduced several improvements even in that model parish.

What had moved him most, however, was a conversation he had had with

Ellen, with whom during this last year he had often held deep and serious

counsel, with a growing reverence on his side. He had read her uncle’s

letter to her, and to his great surprise found that she looked on it as a

call. Devotedly fond as she herself was of Hillside, she could see that

her father’s abilities were wasted on so small a field, in a manner

scarcely good for himself, and she had been struck with the greater force

of his sermons when preaching to educated congregations abroad. If no

one else could or would take efficient charge of these Beachharbour

souls, she could see that it would weigh on his conscience to take

comparative ease in his own beloved meadows, among a flock almost his

vassals. Moreover, she relieved his mind about her mother. She had

discovered, what the good wife kept out of sight, that the north-country

woman never could entirely have affinities with the south, and she had

come to the conclusion that Mrs. Fordyce’s spirits would be heavily tried

by settling down at Hillside in the altered state of things.

After this talk, Mr. Fordyce had suggested a possible incumbent to his

brother-in-law, but left the matter open; and when Sir Horace came down

to the funeral, it was more thoroughly discussed; and, as soon as Mrs.

Fordyce saw that departure would not break her husband’s heart, she made

no secret of the way that both her opinion and her inclinations lay. She

told my mother that she had always believed her own ill-health was caused

by the southern climate, and that she hoped that Anne would grow up

stronger than her sister in the northern breezes.

Poor little Anne! Of all the family, to her the change was the greatest

grief. The tour on the Continent had been a dull affair to her; she was

of the age to weary of long confinement in the carriage and in strange

hotels, and too young to appreciate ‘grown-up’ sights. Picture-galleries

and cathedrals were only a drag to her, and if the experiences that were

put into Rosella’s mouth for the benefit of her untravelled sisters could

have been written down, they would have been as unconventional as Mark

Twain’s adventures. Rosella went through the whole tour, and left a leg

behind in the hinge of a door, but in compensation brought home a Paris

bonnet and mantle. She seemed to have been her young mistress’s chief

comfort, next to an occasional game of play with her father, or a walk,

looking in at the shop windows and watching marionettes, or, still

better, the wonderful sports of brown-legged street children, without

trying to make her speak French or Italian—in her eyes one of the

inflictions of the journey, in those of her elders the one benefit she

might gain. She had missed the petting to which she had been accustomed

from her grandfather and from all of us; and she had absolutely counted

the days till she could get home again, and had fallen into dire disgrace

for fits of crying when Ellen’s weakness caused delays. Martyn’s

holidays had been a time of rapture to her, for there was no one to

attend much to her at home, and she was too young to enter into the

weight of anxiety; so the two had run as wild together as a gracious

well-trained damsel of ten and a fourteen-year-old boy with tender

chivalry awake in him could well do. To be out of the way was all that

was asked of her for the time, and all old delights, such as the robbers’

cave, were renewed with fresh zest.

‘It was the sweetest and the last.’

And though Martyn was gone back to school, the child felt the wrench from

home most severely. As she told me on one of those sorrowful days, ‘She

did think she had come back to live at dear, dear little Hillside all the

days of her life.’ Poor child, we became convinced that this vehement

attachment to Griffith’s brothers was one factor in Mrs. Fordyce’s desire

to make a change that should break off these habits of intimacy and

dependence.

Pluralities had not become illegal, and Frank Fordyce, being still the

chief landholder in Hillside, and wishing to keep up his connection with

his people, did not resign the rectory, though he put the curate into the

house, and let the farm. Once or twice a year he came to fulfil some of

a landlord’s duties, and was as genial and affectionate as ever, but more

and more absorbed in the needs of Beachharbour, and unconsciously showing

his own growth in devotion and activity; while he brought his splendid

health and vigour, his talent, his wealth, and, above all, his winning

charm of manner and address, to that magnificent work at Beachharbour,

well known to all of you; though, perhaps, you never guessed that the

foundation of all those churches and their grand dependent works of

piety, mercy, and beneficence was laid in one young girl’s grave. I

never heard of a fresh achievement there without remembering how the

funeral psalm ends with—

‘Prosper Thou the work of our hands upon us,

O prosper Thou our handiwork.’

And Emily? Her drooping after the loss of her friend was sad, but it

would have been sadder but for the spirit Ellen had infused. We found

the herbs to heal our woe round our pathway, though the first joyousness

of life had departed. The reports Mr. Henderson and the Hillside curate

brought from Oxford were great excitements to us, and we thought and

puzzled over church doctrine, and tried to impart it to our scholars. We

I say, for Henderson had made me take a lads’ class, which has been the

chief interest of my life. Even the roughest were good to their helpless

teacher, and some men, as gray-headed as myself, still come every Sunday

to read with Mr. Edward, and are among the most faithful friends of my

life.

CHAPTER XXXV.

GRIFF’S BIRD.

‘Shall such mean little creatures pretend to the fashion?

Cousin Turkey Cock, well may you be in a passion.’

_The Peacock at Home_.

IT was not till the second Christmas after dear Ellen Fordyce’s death

that my eldest brother brought his wife and child to Chantry House, after

an urgent letter to Lady Peacock from my mother, who yearned for a sight

of Griffith’s boy.

I do not wish to dwell on that visit. Selina, or Griff’s bird, as Martyn

chose to term her, was certainly handsome and stylish; but her complexion

had lost freshness and delicacy, and the ladies said her colour was

rouge, and her fine figure due to other female mysteries. She meant to

be very gracious, and patronised everybody, especially Emily, who, she

said, would be quite striking if not sacrificed by her dress, and whom

she much wished to take to London, engaging to provide her with a husband

before the season was over, not for a moment believing my mother’s

assurance that it would be a trial to us all whenever we had to resign

our Emily. Nay, she tried to condole with the poor moped family slave,

and was received with such hot indignation as made her laugh, for, to do

her justice, she was good-natured and easy-tempered. However, I saw less

of her than did the others, for I believe she thought the sight of me

made her ill. Griff, poor old fellow, was heartily glad to be with us

again, but quite under her dominion. He had lost his glow of youth and

grace of figure, his complexion had reddened, and no one would have

guessed him only a year older than Clarence, whose shoulders did indeed

reveal something of the desk, but whose features, though pale, were still

fair and youthful. The boy was another Clarence, not so much in

compliment to his godfather as because it was the most elegant name in

the family, and favoured an interesting belief, current among his

mother’s friends, that the king had actually stood sponsor to the uncle.

Poor little man, his grandmother shut herself into the bookroom and

cried, after her first sight of him. He was a wretched, pinched morsel

of humanity, though mamma and Emily detected wonderful resemblances; I

never saw them, but then he inherited his mother’s repulsion towards me,

and roared doubly at the sight of me. My mother held that he was the

victim of Selina’s dissipations and mismanagement of herself and him, and

gave many matronly groans at his treatment by the smart, flighty nurse,

who waged one continual warfare with the household.

Accustomed to absolute supremacy in domestic matters, it was very hard

for my mother to have her counsels and experience set at naught, and, if

she appealed to Griff, to find her notions treated with the polite

deference he might have shown to a cottage dame.

A course of dinner-parties could not hinder her ladyship from finding

Chantry House insufferably dull, ‘always like Sunday;’ and, when she

found that we were given to Saints’ Day services, her pity and

astonishment knew no bounds. ‘It was all very well for a poor object

like Edward,’ she held, ‘but as to Mr. Winslow and Clarence, did they go

for the sake of example? Though, to be sure, Clarence might be a Papist

any day.’

Popery, instead of Methodism, was just beginning to be the bugbear set up

for those whom the world held to be ultra-religious, and my mother was so

far disturbed at our interest in what was termed Oxford theology that the

warning would have alarmed her if it had come from any other quarter.

However, Lady Peacock was rather fond of Clarence, and entertained him

with schemes for improving Chantry House when it should have descended to

Griffith. The mullion rooms were her special aversion, and were all to

be swept away, together with the vaultings and the ruin—‘enough to give

one the blues, if there were nothing else,’ she averred.

We really felt it to the credit of our country that Sir George Eastwood

sent an invitation to an early dance to please his young daughters; and

for this our visitors prolonged their stay. My mother made Clarence go,

that she might have some one to take care of her and Emily, since Griff

was sure to be absorbed by his lady. Emily had not been to a ball since

those gay days in London with Ellen. She shrank back from the contrast,

and would have begged off; but she was told that she must submit; and

though she said she felt immeasurably older than at that happy time, I

believe she was not above being pleased with the pale pink satin dress

and wreath of white jessamine, which my father presented to her, and in

which, according to Martyn, she beat ‘Griff’s bird all to shivers.’

Clarence had grown much less bashful and embarrassed since the Tooke

affair had given him a kind of position and a sense of not being a

general disgrace. He really was younger in some ways at five-and-twenty

than at eighteen; he enjoyed dancing, and especially enjoyed the

compliments upon our sister, whom in our usual fashion we viewed as the

belle of the ball. He was standing by my fire, telling me the various

humours of the night, when a succession of shrieks ran through the house.

He dashed away to see what was the matter, and returned, in a few

seconds, saying that Selina had seen some one in the garden, and neither

she nor mamma would be satisfied without examination—‘though, of course,

I know what it must be,’ he added, as he drew on his coat.

‘Bill, are you coming?’ said Griff at the door. ‘You needn’t, if you

don’t like it. I bet it is your old friend.’

‘I’m coming! I’m coming! I’m sure it is,’ shouted Martyn from behind,

with the inconsistent addition, ‘I’ve got my gun.’

‘Enough to dispose of any amount of robbers or phantoms either,’ observed

Griff as they went forth by the back door, reinforced by Amos Bell with a

lantern in one hand and a poker in the other.

My father was fortunately still asleep, and my mother came down to see

whether I was frightened.

She said she had no patience with Selina, and had left her to Emily and

her maid; but, before many words had been spoken, they all came creeping

down after her, feeling safety in numbers, or perhaps in her entire

fearlessness. The report of a gun gave us all a shock, and elicited

another scream or two. My mother, hoping that no one was hurt, hastened

into the hall, but only to meet Griff, hurrying in laughing to reassure

us with the tidings that it was only Martyn, who had shot the old

sun-dial by way of a robber; and he was presently followed by the others,

Martyn rather crestfallen, but arguing with all his might that the

sun-dial was exactly like a man; and my mother hurried every one off

upstairs without further discussion.

Clarence was rather white, and when Martyn demanded, ‘Do you really think

it was the ghost? Fancy her selection of the bird!’ he gravely answered,

‘Martyn, boy, if it were, it is not a thing to speak of in that tone.

You had better go to bed.’

Martyn went off, somewhat awed. Clarence was cold and shivering, and

stood warming himself. He was going to wind up his watch, but his hand

shook, and I did it for him, noting the hour—twenty minutes past one.

It appeared that Selina, on going upstairs, recollected that she had left

her purse in Griff’s sitting-room before going to dress, and had gone in

quest of it. She heard strange shouts and screams outside, and, going to

one of the old windows, where the shutters were less unmanageable than

elsewhere, she beheld a woman rushing towards the house pursued by at

least a couple of men. Filled with terror she had called out, and nearly

fainted in Griff’s arms.

‘It agrees with all we have heard before,’ said Clarence, ‘the very day

and hour!’

‘As Martyn said, the person is strange.’

‘Villagers, less concerned, have seen the like,’ he said; ‘and, indeed,

all unconsciously poor Selina has cut away the hope of redress,’ he

sighed. ‘Poor, restless spirit! would that I could do anything for her.’

‘Let me ask, do you ever see her now?’

‘N-no, I suppose not; but whenever I am anxious or worried, the trouble

takes her form in my dreams.’

Lady Peacock had soon extracted the ghost story from her husband, and,

though she professed to be above the vulgar folly of belief in it, her

nerves were so upset, she said, that nothing would have induced her to

sleep another night in the house. The rational theory on this occasion

was that one of the maids must have stolen out to join in the Christmas

entertainment at the Winslow Arms, and been pursued home by some tipsy

revellers; but this explanation was not productive of goodwill between

the mother and daughter-in-law, since mamma had from the first so

entirely suspected Selina’s smart nurse as actually to have gone straight

to the nursery on the plea of seeing whether the baby had been

frightened. The woman was found asleep—apparently so—said my mother, but

all her clothes were in an untidy heap on the floor, which to my mother

was proof conclusive that she had slipped into the house in the

confusion, and settled herself there. Had not my mother with her own

eyes watched from the window her flirtations with the gardener, and was

more evidence requisite to convict her? Mamma entertained the hope that

her proposal would be adopted of herself taking charge of her grandson,

and fattening his poor little cheeks on our cows’ milk, while the rest of

the party continued their round of visits.

Lady Peacock, however, treated it as a personal imputation that _her_

nurse should be accused instead of any servant of Mrs. Winslow’s own,

though, as Griff observed, not only character, but years and features

might alike acquit them of any such doings; but even he could not laugh

long, for it was no small vexation to him that such offence should have

arisen between his mother and wife. Of course there was no open

quarrel—my mother had far too much dignity to allow it to come to

that—but each said in private bitter things of the other, and my lady’s

manner of declining to leave her baby at Chantry House was almost

offensive.

Poor Griffith, who had been growing more like himself every day, tried in

vain to smooth matters, and would have been very glad to leave his child

to my mother’s management, though, of course, he acquitted the nurse of

the midnight adventure. He privately owned to us that he had no opinion

of the woman, but he defended her to my mother, in whose eyes this was

tantamount to accusing her own respectable maids, since it was incredible

that any rational person could accept the phantom theory.

Gladly would he have been on better terms, for he had had to confess that

his wife’s fortune had turned out to be much less than common report had

stated, or than her style of living justified, and that his marriage had

involved him in a sea of difficulties, so that he had to beg for a larger

allowance, and for assistance in paying off debts.

The surrender of the London house and of some of the chief expenses were

made conditions of such favours, and Griffith had assented gratefully

when alone with his father; but after an interview with his wife,

demonstrations were made that it was highly economical to have a house in

town, and horses, carriages, and servants and that any change would be

highly derogatory to the heir of Earlscombe and the sacred wishes of the

late Sir Henry Peacock.

In fact, it was impressed on us that we were mere homely, countrified

beings, who could not presume to dictate to her ladyship, but who had ill

requited her condescension in deigning to beam upon us.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

SLACK WATER.

‘O dinna look, ye prideful queen, on a’ aneath your ken,

For he wha seems the farthest _but_ aft wins the farthest _ben_,

And whiles the doubie of the schule tak’s lead of a’ the rest:

The birdie sure to sing is the gorbal of the nest.

‘The cauld, grey, misty morn aft brings a sunny summer day;

The tree wha’s buds are latest is longest to decay;

The heart sair tried wi’ sorrow still endures the sternest test:

The birdie sure to sing is the gorbal of the nest.

‘The wee wee stern that glints in heaven may be a lowin’ sun,

Though like a speck of light it seem amid the welkin dun;

The humblest sodger on the field may win a warrior’s crest:

The birdie sure to sing is the gorbal of the nest.’

_Scotch Newspaper_.

THE wickedness of the nurse was confirmed in my mother’s eyes when the

doom on the first-born of the Winslows was fulfilled, and the poor little

baby, Clarence, succumbed to a cold on the chest caught while his nurse

was gossiping with a guardsman.

He was buried in London. ‘It was better for Selina to get those things

over as quickly as possible,’ said Griff; but Clarence saw that he

suffered much more than his wife would let him show to her. ‘It is so

bad for him to dwell on it,’ she said. ‘You see. I never let myself

give way.’

And she was soon going out, nearly as usual, till their one other infant

came to open its eyes only for a few hours on this troublesome world, and

owe its baptism to Clarence’s exertions. My mother, who was in London

just after, attending on the good old Admiral’s last illness, was greatly

grieved and disgusted with all she heard and saw of the young pair, and

that was not much. She felt their disregard of her uncle as heartless,

or rather as insulting, on Selina’s part, and weak on Griff’s; and on all

sides she heard of their reckless extravagance, which made her forebode

the worst.

All these disappointments much diminished my father’s pleasure and

interest in his inheritance. He had little heart to build and improve,

when his eldest son’s wife made no secret of her hatred to the place, or

to begin undertakings only to be neglected by those who came after; and

thus several favourite schemes were dropped, or prevented by Griffith’s

applications for advances.

At last there was a crisis. At the end of the second season after their

visit to us, Clarence sent a hasty note, begging my father to join him in

averting an execution in Griffith’s house. I cannot record the

particulars, for just at that time I had a long low fever, and did not

touch my diary for many weeks; nor indeed did I know much about the

circumstances, since my good nurses withheld as much as possible, and

would not let me talk about what they believed to make me worse. Nor can

I find any letters about it. I believe they were all made away with long

ago, and thus I only know that my father hurried up to town, remained for

a fortnight, and came back looking ten years older. The house in London

had been given up, and he had offered a vacant one of our own, near home,

to Griff to retrench in, but Selina would not hear of it, insisting on

going abroad.

This was a great grief to him and to us all. There was only one side of

our lives that was not saddened. Our old incumbent had died about six

months after the Fordyces had gone, and Mr. Henderson had gladly accepted

the living where the parsonage had been built. The lady to whom he had

been so long engaged was a great acquisition. Her home had been at

Oxford; and she was as thoroughly imbued with the spirit that there

prevailed as was the Hillside curate. She talked to us of Littlemore,

and of the sermons there and at St. Mary’s, and Emily and I shared to the

full her hero-worship. It was the nearest compensation my sister had had

for the loss of Ellen, with this difference, that Mrs. Henderson was

older, had read more, and had conversed thoughtfully with some of the

leading spirits in religious thought, so that she opened a new world to

us.

People would hardly believe in our eagerness and enthusiasm over the

revelations of church doctrine; how we debated, consulted our books, and

corresponded with Clarence over what now seems so trite; how we viewed

the _British Critic_ and _Tracts for the Times_ as our oracles, and

worried the poor Wattlesea bookseller to get them for us at the first

possible moment.

Church restoration was setting in. Henderson had always objected to

christening from a slop-basin on the altar, and had routed out a

dilapidated font; and now one, which was termed by the country paper

chaste and elegant, was by united efforts, in which Clarence had the

lion’s share, presented in time for the christening of the first child at

the Parsonage. It is that which was sent off to the Mission Chapel as a

blot on the rest of Earlscombe Church. Yet what an achievement it was

deemed at the time!

The same may be said of most of our doings at that era. We effected them

gradually, and have ever since been undoing them, as our architectural

and ecclesiastical perceptions have advanced. I wonder how the next

generation will deal with our alabaster reredos and our stained windows,

with which we are all as well pleased as we were fifty years ago with the

plain red cross with a target-like arrangement above and below it in the

east window, or as poor Margaret may have been with her livery

altar-cloth. Indeed, it seems to me that we got more delight out of our

very imperfect work, designed by ourselves and sent to Clarence to be

executed by men in back streets in London, costing an immensity of

trouble, than can be had now by simply choosing out of a book of figures

of cut and dried articles.

What an enthusiastic description Clarence sent of the illuminated

commandments in the new Church of St. Katharine in the Regent’s Park!

How Emily and I gloated over the imitation of them when we replaced the

hideous old tables, and how exquisite we thought the initial I, which

irreverent youngsters have likened, with some justice, to an enormous

overfed caterpillar, enwreathed with red and green cabbage leaves!

My mother was startled at these innovations; but my father, who had kept

abreast with the thought of the day, owned to the doctrines as chiming in

with his unbroken belief, and transferred to the improvements in the

church the interest which he had lost in the estate. The farmers had

given up their distrust of him, and accepted him loyally as friend and

landlord, submitting to the reseating of the church, and only growling

moderately at decorations that cost them nothing. Daily service began as

soon as Henderson was his own master, and was better attended than it is

now; for the old people to whom it was a novelty took up the habit more

freely than their successors, to whom the bell has been familiar through

their days of toil. We were too far off to be constant attendants; but

evensong made an object for our airings, and my father’s head, now quite

white, was often seen there. He felt it a great relief amid the cares of

his later years.

Perhaps it was with a view to him that Mr. Castleford arranged that

Clarence should become manager for the firm at Bristol, with a good

salary. The Robsons would not take a fresh lodger—they were getting too

old for fresh beginnings; but they kept their rooms ready for him,

whenever he had to be in town, and Gooch found him a trustworthy widow as

housekeeper. He took a little cottage at Clifton, availing himself of

the coach to spend his Sundays with us; and it was an acknowledged joy to

every one that I should drive to meet him every Saturday afternoon at the

Carpenter’s Arms, and bring him home to be my father’s aid in all his

business, and a most valuable help in Sunday parish work, in which he had

an amount of experience which astonished us.

What would have become of the singing without him? The first hint

against the remarkable anthems had long ago alienated our tuneful choir

placed on high, and they had deserted _en masse_. Then Emily and the

schoolmistress had toiled at the school children, whose thin little pipes

and provincialisms were a painful infliction, till Mrs. Henderson, backed

by Clarence, worked up a few promising men’s voices to support them. We

thought everything but the New and Old Versions smacked of dissent,

except the hymns at the end of the Prayer-book, though we did not go as

far as Chapman, who told Emily he understood as how all the tunes was

tried over in Doctor’s Commons afore they were sent out, and it was not

‘liable’ to change them. One of Clarence’s amusements in his lonely life

had been the acquisition of a knowledge of music, and he had a really

good voice; while his adherence to our choir encouraged other young men

of the farmer and artisan class to join us. Choir, however, did not mean

surplices and cassocks, but a collection of our best voices, male and

female, in the gallery.

Martyn began to be a great help when at home, never having wavered in his

purpose of becoming a clergyman. On going to Oxford, he became imbued

with the influences that made Alma Mater the focus of the religious life

and progress of that generation which is now the elder one. There might

in some be unreality, in others extravagance, in others mere imitation;

but there was a truly great work on the minds of the young men of that

era—a work which has stood the test of time, made saints and martyrs, and

sown the seed whereof we have witnessed a goodly growth, in spite of

cruel shocks and disappointments, fightings within and fears without,

slanders and follies to provoke them, such as we can now afford to laugh

over. With Martyn, rubrical or extra-rubrical observances were the

outlet of the exuberance of youth, as chivalry and romance had been to

us; and on Frank Fordyce’s visits, it was delightful to find that he too

was in the full swing of these ideas and habits, partly from his own

convictions, partly from his parish needs, and partly carried along by

curates fresh from Oxford.

In the first of his summer vacations Martyn joined a reading party, with

a tutor of the same calibre, and assured them that if they took up their

quarters in a farmhouse not many miles by the map from Beachharbour, they

would have access to unlimited services, with the extraordinary luxury of

a surpliced choir, and intercourse with congenial spirits, which to him

meant the Fordyces.

On arriving, however, the bay proved to be so rocky and dangerous that

there was no boating across it, as he had confidently expected. The farm

depended on a market town in the opposite direction, and though the

lights of Beachharbour could be seen at night, there was no way thither

except by a six-miles walk along a cliff path, with a considerable détour

in order to reach a bridge and cross the rapid river which was an element

of danger in the bay, on the north side of the promontory which sheltered

the harbour to the south.

So when Martyn started as pioneer on the morning before the others

arrived, he descended into Beachharbour later than he intended, but still

he was in time to meet Anne Fordyce, a tall, bright-faced girl of

fourteen, taking her after-lessons turn on the parade with a governess,

who looked amazed as the two met, holding out both hands to one another,

with eager joy and welcome.

It was not the same when Anne flew into the Vicarage with the rapturous

announcement, ‘Here’s Martyn!’ The vicar was gone to a clerical meeting,

and Mrs. Fordyce said nothing about staying to see him. The luncheon was

a necessity, but with quiet courtesy Martyn was made to understand that

he was regarded as practically out of reach, and ‘Oh, mamma, he could

come and sleep,’ was nipped in the utterance by ‘Martyn is busy with his

studies; we must not disturb him.’ This was a sufficient intimation that

Mrs. Fordyce did not intend to have the pupils dropping in on her

continually, and making her house their resort; and while Martyn was

digesting the rebuff, the governess carried Anne off to prepare for a

music lesson, and her mother gave no encouragement to lingering or

repeating the visit.

Still Martyn, on his way homewards, based many hopes on the return of Mr.

Fordyce; but all that ensued was, three weeks later, a note regretting

the not having been able to call, and inviting the whole party to a great

school-feast on the anniversary of the dedication of the first of the

numerous new churches of Beachharbour. There was no want of cordiality

on that occasion, but time was lacking for anything beyond greetings and

fleeting exchanges of words. Parson Frank tried to talk to Martyn,

bemoaned the not seeing more of him, declared his intentions of coming to

the farm, began an invitation, but was called off a hundred ways; and

Anne was rushing about with all the children of the place, gentle and

simple, on her hands. Whenever Martyn tried to help her, he was called

off some other way, and engaged at last in the hopeless task of teaching

cricket where these fisher boys had never heard of it.

That was all he saw of our old friends, and he was much hurt by such

ingratitude. So were we all, and though we soon acquitted the head of

the family of more than the forgetfulness of over occupation, the

soreness at his wife’s coldness was not so soon passed over. Yet from

her own point of view, poor woman, she might be excused for a panic lest

her second daughter might go the way of the first.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

OUTWARD BOUND.

‘As slow our ship her foamy track

Against the wind was cleaving,

Her trembling pennant still looked back

To the dear isle ’twas leaving.

So loath we part from all we love,

From all the links that bind us,

So turn our hearts as on we rove

To those we’ve left behind us.’

T. MOORE.

THE first time I saw Clarence’s _ménage_ was in that same summer of poor

Martyn’s repulse. My father had come in for a small property in his

original county of Shropshire, and this led to his setting forth with my

mother to make necessary arrangements, and then to pay visits to old

friends; leaving Emily and me to be guests to our brother at Clifton.

We told them it was their harvest honeymoon, and it was funny to see how

they enjoyed the scheme when they had once made up their minds to it, and

our share in the project was equally new and charming, for Emily and I,

though both some way on in our twenties, were still in many respects home

children, nor had I ever been out on a visit on my own account. The

yellow chariot began by conveying Emily and me to our destination.

Clifton has grown considerably since those days, and terraces have

swallowed up the site of what the post-office knew as Prospect Cottage,

but we were apt to term the doll’s house, for, as Emily said, our visit

there had something the same effect as a picnic or tea drinking at little

Anne’s famous baby house. In like manner, it was tiny, square, with one

sash-window on each side of the door, but it was nearly covered with

creepers, odds and ends which Clarence brought from home, and induced to

flourish and take root better than their parent stocks. In his nursery

days his precision had given him the name of ‘the old bachelor,’ and he

had all a sailor’s tidiness. Even his black cat and brown spaniel each

had its peculiar basket and mat, and had been taught never to transgress

their bounds or interfere with one another; and the effect of his

parlour, embellished as it was in our honour, was delightful. The

outlook was across the beautiful ravine, into the wooded slopes on the

further side, and, on the other side, down the widening cleft to that

giddy marvel, the suspension bridge, with vessels passing under it, and

the expanse beyond.

Most entirely we enjoyed ourselves, making merry over Clarence’s

housekeeping, employing ourselves after our wonted semi-student,

semi-artist fashion in the morning; and, when our host came home from

business, starting on country expeditions, taking a carriage whenever the

distance exceeded Emily’s powers of walking beside my chair; sketching,

botanising, or investigating church architecture, our newest hobby. I

sketched, and the other two rambled about, measuring and filling up

archæological papers, with details of orientation, style, and all the

rest, deploring barbarisms and dilapidations, making curious and

delightful discoveries, pitying those who thought the Dun Cow’s rib and

Chatterton’s loft the most interesting features of St. Mary’s Redcliff,

and above all rubbing brasses with heel ball, and hanging up their grim

effigies wherever there was a vacant space on the walls of our doll’s

house.

And though we grumbled when Clarence was detained at the office later

than we expected, this was qualified by pride at feeling his importance

there as a man in authority. It was, however, with much dismay and some

inhospitality that we learnt that a young man belonging to the office—in

fact, Mr. Frith’s great-nephew—was coming to sail for Canton in one of

the vessels belonging to the firm, and would have to be ‘looked after.’

He could not be asked to sleep at Prospect Cottage, for Emily had the

only spare bedchamber, and Clarence had squeezed himself into a queer

little dressing closet to give me his room; but the housekeeper (a

treasure found by Gooch) secured an apartment in the next house, and we

were to act hosts, much against our will. Clarence had barely seen the

youth, who had been employed in the office at Liverpool, living with his

mother, who was in ill-health and had died in the last spring. The only

time of seeing him, he had seemed to be a very shy raw lad; but, ‘poor

fellow, we can make the best of him,’ was the sentiment; ‘it is only for

one night.’ However, we were dismayed when, as Emily was in the crisis

of washing-in a sky, it was announced that a gentleman was asking for Mr.

Winslow. Churlishness bade us despatch him to the office, but humanity

prevailed to invite him previously to share our luncheon. Yet we doubted

whether it had not been a cruel mercy when he entered, evidently

unprepared to stumble on a young lady and a deformed man, and stammering

piteously as he hoped there was no mistake—Mr. Winslow—Prospect, etc.

Emily explained, frustrating his desire to flee at once to the office,

and pointing out his lodging, close at hand, whence he was invited to

return in a few minutes to the meal.

We had time for some amiable exclamations, ‘The oaf!’ ‘What a bore!’

‘He has spoilt my sky!’ ‘I shan’t finish this to-day!’ ‘Shall we order

a carriage and take him to the office; we can’t have him on our hands all

the afternoon?’ ‘And we might get the new number of _Nicholas

Nickleby_.’

N.B.—Perhaps it was _Oliver Twist_ or _The Old Curiosity Shop_—I am not

certain which was the current excitement just then; but I am quite sure

it was Mrs. Nickleby who first disclosed to us that our guest had a

splendid pair of dark eyes. Hitherto he had kept them averted in the

studious manner I have often noticed in persons who did not wish to

excite suspicion of staring at my peculiarities; but that lady’s feelings

when her neighbour’s legs came down her chimney were too much for his

self-consciousness, and he gave a glance that disclosed dark liquid

depths, sparkling with mirth. He was one number in advance of us, and

could enlighten us on the next stage in the coming story; and this went

far to reconcile us to the invasion, and to restore him to the proper use

of his legs and arms—and very shapely limbs they were, for he was a slim,

well-made fellow, with a dark gipsy complexion, and intelligent, honest

face, altogether better than we expected.

Yet we could have groaned when in the evening, Clarence brought him back

with tidings that something had gone wrong with the ship. If I tried to

explain, I might be twitted with,

‘The bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes.’

But of course Clarence knew all about it, and he thought it unlikely that

the vessel would be in sailing condition for a week at soonest. Great

was our dismay! Getting through one evening by the help of walking and

then singing was one thing, having the heart of our visit consumed by an

interloper was another; though Clarence undertook to take him to the

office and find some occupation for him that might keep him out of our

way. But it was Clarence’s leisure hours that we begrudged; though truly

no one could be meeker than this unlucky Lawrence Frith, nor more

conscious of being an insufferable burthen. I even detected a tear in

his eye when Clarence and Emily were singing ‘Sweet Home.’

‘Do you know,’ said Clarence, on the second evening, when his guest had

gone to dress for dinner, ‘I am very sorry for that poor lad. It is only

six weeks since he lost his mother, and he has not a soul to care for

him, either here or where he is going. I had fancied the family were

under a cloud, but I find it was only that old Frith quarrelled with the

father for taking Holy Orders instead of going into our house. Probably

there was some imprudence; for the poor man died a curate and left no

provision for his family. The only help the old man would give was to

take the boy into the office at Liverpool, stopping his education just as

he was old enough to care about it. There were a delicate mother and two

sisters then, but they are all gone now; scarlet fever carried off the

daughters, and Mrs. Frith never was well again. He seems to have spent

his time in waiting on her when off duty, and to have made no friends

except one or two contemporaries of hers; and his only belongings are old

Frith and Mrs. Stevens, who are packing him off to Canton without caring

a rap what becomes of him. I know what Mrs. Stevens is at; she comes up

to town much oftener now, and has got her husband’s nephew into the

office, and is trying to get everything for him; and that’s the reason

she wants to keep up the old feud, and send this poor Lawrence off to the

ends of the earth.’

‘Can’t you do anything for him?’ asked Emily. ‘I thought Mr. Frith did

attend to you.’

Clarence laughed. ‘I know that Mrs. Stevens hates me like poison; but

that is the only reason I have for supposing I might have any influence.’

‘And can’t you speak to Mr. Castleford?’

‘Set him to interfere about old Frith’s relations! He would know better!

Besides, the fellow is too old to get into any other line—four-and-twenty

he says, though he does not look it; and he is as innocent as a baby,

indifferent just now to what becomes of him, or whither he goes; it is

all the same to him, he says; there is no one to care for him anywhere,

and I think he is best pleased to go where it is all new. And there, you

see, the poor lad will be left to drift to destruction—mother’s darling

that he has been—just for want of some human being to care about him, and

hinder his getting heartless and reckless!’

Clarence’s voice trembled, and Emily had tears in her eyes as she asked

if absolutely nothing could be done for him. Clarence meant to write to

Mr. Castleford, who would no doubt beg the chaplain at the station to

show the young man some kindness; also, perhaps, to the resident partner,

whom Clarence had looked at once over his desk, but in his rawest and

most depressed days. The only clerk out there, whom he knew, would, he

thought, be no element of safety, and would not like the youth the better

either for bringing his recommendation or bearing old Frith’s name.

We were considerably softened towards our guest, though the next time

Emily came on him he was standing in the hall, transfixed in

contemplation of her greatest achievement in brass-rubbing, a severe and

sable knight with the most curly of nostrils, the stiffest and

straightest of mouths, hair straight on his brows, pointed toes joined

together below, and fingers touching over his breast. There he hung in

triumph just within the front door, fluttering and swaying a little on

his pins whenever a draught came in; and there stood Lawrence Frith,

freshly aware of him, and unable to repress the exclamation, ‘I say!

isn’t he a guy?’

‘Sir Guy de Warrenne,’ began Emily composedly; ‘don’t you see his coat of

arms? “chequy argent and azure.”’

‘Does your brother keep him there to scare away the tramps?’

Emily’s countenance was a study.

The subject of brasses was unfolded to Lawrence Frith, and before the end

of the week he had spent an entire day on his hands and knees, scrubbing

away with the waxy black compound at a figure in the Cathedral—the

office-work, as we declared, which Clarence gave him to do. In fact he

became so thoroughly infected that it was a pity that he was going where

there would be no exercise in ecclesiology—rather the reverse.

Embarrassment on his side, and hostility on ours, may be said to have

vanished under the influence of Sir Guy de Warrenne’s austere

countenance. The youth seemed to regard ‘Mr. Winslow’ in the light of a

father, and to accept us as kindly beings. He ceased to contort his

limbs in our awful presence, looked at me like as an ordinary person, and

even ventured on giving me an arm. He listened with unfeigned pleasure

to our music, perilled his neck on St. Vincent’s rocks in search of

plants, and by and by took to hanging back with Emily, while Clarence

walked on with me, to talk to her out of his full heart about his mother

and sisters.

Three weeks elapsed before the _Hoang-ho_ was ready to sail, and by that

time Lawrence knew that there were some who would rejoice in his success,

or grieve if things went ill with him. Clarence and I had promised him

long home letters, and impressed on him that we should welcome his

intelligence of himself. For verily he had made his way into our hearts,

as a thoroughly good-hearted, affectionate being, yearning for something

to cling to; intelligent and refined, though his recent cultivation had

been restricted, soundly principled, and trained in religious feelings

and habits, but so utterly inexperienced that there was no guessing how

it might be with him when cast adrift, with no object save his own

maintenance, and no one to take an interest in him.

Clarence talked to him paternally, and took him to second-hand shops to

provide a cheap library of substantial reading, engaging to cater for him

for the future, not omitting Dickens; and Emily worked at providing him

with the small conveniences and comforts for the voyage that called for a

woman’s hand. He was so grateful that it was like fitting out a dear

friend or younger brother.

‘I wonder,’ said Clarence, as he walked by my chair on one of the last

days, ‘whether it was altogether wise to have this young Frith here so

much, though it could hardly have been helped.’

To which I rejoined that it could hardly have displeased the uncle, and

that if it did, the youth’s welfare was worth annoying him for.

‘I meant something nearer home,’ said Clarence, and proceeded to ask if I

did not think Lawrence Frith a good deal smitten with Emily.

To me it seemed an idea not worth consideration. Any youth, especially

one who had lived so secluded a life, would naturally be taken by the

first pleasing young woman who came in his way, and took a kindly

interest in him; but I did not think Emily very susceptible, being

entirely wrapped up in home and parish matters; and I reminded Clarence

that she had not been loverless. She had rejected the Curate of

Hillside; and we all saw, though she did not, that only her evident

indifference kept Sir George Eastwood’s second son from making further

advances.