AYALA AND HER AUNT MARGARET.
Till the last moment for going Ayala seemed to be childish,
triumphant, and indifferent. But, till that last moment, she was
never alone with Lucy. It was the presence of her aunt and cousins
which sustained her in her hardihood. Tom was never there,--or
so rarely as not to affect her greatly. In London he had his own
lodgings, and was not encouraged to appear frequently till Ayala
should have gone. But Aunt Emmeline and Gertrude were perseveringly
gracious, and even Augusta had somewhat relaxed from her wrath. With
them Ayala was always good-humoured, but always brave. She affected
to rejoice at the change which was to be made. She spoke of Lucy's
coming and of her own going as an unmixed blessing. This she did so
effectually as to make Aunt Emmeline declare to Sir Thomas, with
tears in her eyes, that the girl was heartless. But when, at the
moment of parting, the two girls were together, then Ayala broke
down.
They were in the room, together, which one had occupied and the other
was to occupy, and their boxes were still upon the floor. Though less
than six months had passed since Ayala had come among the rich things
and Lucy had been among the poor, Ayala's belongings had become
much more important than her sister's. Though the Tringles had been
unpleasant they had been generous. Lucy was sitting upon the bed,
while Ayala was now moving about the room restlessly, now clinging
to her sister, and now sobbing almost in despair. "Of course I know,"
she said. "What is the use of telling stories about it any longer?"
"It is not too late yet, Ayala. If we both go to Uncle Tom he will
let us change it."
"Why should it be changed? If I could change it by lifting up my
little finger I could not do it. Why should it not be you as well
as me? They have tried me, and,--as Aunt Emmeline says,--I have not
suited."
"Aunt Dosett is not ill-natured, my darling."
"No, I dare say not. It is I that am bad. It is bad to like pretty
things and money, and to hate poor things. Or, rather, I do not
believe it is bad at all, because it is so natural. I believe it is
all a lie as to its being wicked to love riches. I love them, whether
it is wicked or not."
"Oh, Ayala!"
"Do not you? Don't let us be hypocritical, Lucy, now at the last
moment. Did you like the way in which they lived in Kingsbury
Crescent?"
Lucy paused before she answered. "I like it better than I did," she
said. "At any rate, I would willingly go back to Kingsbury Crescent."
"Yes,--for my sake."
"Indeed I would, my pet."
"And for your sake I would rather die than stay. But what is the good
of talking about it, Lucy. You and I have no voice in it, though
it is all about ourselves. As you say, we are like two tame birds,
who have to be moved from one cage into another just as the owner
pleases. We belong either to Uncle Tom or Uncle Dosett, just as they
like to settle it. Oh, Lucy, I do so wish that I were dead."
"Ayala, that is wicked."
"How can I help it, if I am wicked? What am I to do when I get there?
What am I to say to them? How am I to live? Lucy, we shall never see
each other."
"I will come across to you constantly."
"I meant to do so, but I didn't. They are two worlds, miles asunder.
Lucy, will they let Isadore Hamel come here?" Lucy blushed and
hesitated. "I am sure he will come."
Lucy remembered that she had given her friend her address at Queen's
Gate, and felt that she would seem to have done it as though she
had known that she was about to be transferred to the other uncle's
house. "It will make no difference if he does," she said.
"Oh, I have such a dream,--such a castle-in-the-air! If I could think
it might ever be so, then I should not want to die."
"What do you dream?" But Lucy, though she asked the question, knew
the dream.
"If you had a little house of your own, oh, ever so tiny; and if you
and he--?"
"There is no he."
"There might be. And, if you and he would let me have any corner for
myself, then I should be happy. Then I would not want to die. You
would, wouldn't you?"
"How can I talk about it, Ayala? There isn't such a thing. But
yet,--but yet; oh, Ayala, do you not know that to have you with me
would be better than anything?"
"No;--not better than anything;--second best. He would be best. I do
so hope that he may be 'he.' Come in." There was a knock at the door,
and Aunt Emmeline, herself, entered the room.
"Now, my dears, the horses are standing there, and the men are coming
up for the luggage. Ayala, I hope we shall see you very often. And
remember that, as regards anything that is unpleasant, bygones shall
be bygones." Then there was a crowd of farewell kisses, and in a few
minutes Ayala was alone in the carriage on her road up to Kingsbury
Crescent.
The thing had been done so quickly that hitherto there had hardly
been time for tears. To Ayala herself the most remarkable matter in
the whole affair had been Tom's persistence. He had, at last, been
allowed to bring them home from Rome, there having been no other
gentleman whose services were available for the occasion. He had been
watched on the journey very closely, and had had no slant in his
favour, as the young lady to whom he was devoted was quite as anxious
to keep out of his way as had been the others of the party to
separate them. But he had made occasion, more than once, sufficient
to express his intention. "I don't mean to give you up, you know," he
had said to her. "When I say a thing I mean it. I am not going to be
put off by my mother. And as for the governor he would not say a word
against it if he thought we were both in earnest."
"But I ain't in earnest," said Ayala; "or rather, I am very much in
earnest."
"So am I. That's all I've got to say just at present." From this
there grew up within her mind a certain respect for the "lout,"
which, however, made him more disagreeable to her than he might have
been had he been less persistent.
It was late in the afternoon, not much before dinner, when Ayala
reached the house in Kingsbury Crescent. Hitherto she had known
almost nothing of her Aunt Dosett, and had never been intimate even
with her uncle. They, of course, had heard much of her, and had been
led to suppose that she was much less tractable than the simple Lucy.
This feeling had been so strong that Mr. Dosett himself would hardly
have been led to sanction the change had it not been for that promise
from Sir Thomas that he would not withdraw the provision he had made
for Ayala, and would do as much for Lucy if Lucy should become an
inmate of his family. Mrs. Dosett had certainly been glad to welcome
any change, when a change was proposed to her. There had grown up
something of affection at the last moment, but up to that time she
had certainly disliked her niece. Lucy had appeared to her to be at
first idle and then sullen. The girl had seemed to affect a higher
nature than her own, and had been wilfully indifferent to the little
things which had given to her life whatever interest it possessed.
Lucy's silence had been a reproach to her, though she herself had
been able to do so little to abolish the silence. Perhaps Ayala might
be better.
But they were both afraid of Ayala,--as they had not been afraid of
Lucy before her arrival. They made more of preparation for her in
their own minds, and, as to their own conduct, Mr. Dosett was there
himself to receive her, and was conscious in doing so that there had
been something of failure in their intercourse with Lucy. Lucy had
been allowed to come in without preparation, with an expectation that
she would fall easily into her place, and there had been failure.
There had been no regular consultation as to this new coming, but
both Mr. and Mrs. Dosett were conscious of an intended effort.
Lady Tringle and Mr. Dosett had always been Aunt Emmeline and
Uncle Reginald, by reason of the nearness of their relationship.
Circumstances of closer intercourse had caused Sir Thomas to be Uncle
Tom. But Mrs. Dosett had never become more than Aunt Dosett to either
of the girls. This in itself had been matter almost of soreness to
her, and she had intended to ask Lucy to adopt the more endearing
form of her Christian name; but there had been so little endearment
between them that the moment for doing so had never come. She was
thinking of all this up in her own room, preparatory to the reception
of this other girl, while Mr. Dosett was bidding her welcome to
Kingsbury Crescent in the drawing-room below.
Ayala had been dissolved in tears during the drive round by
Kensington to Bayswater, and was hardly able to repress her sobs as
she entered the house. "My dear," said the uncle, "we will do all
that we can to make you happy here."
"I am sure you will; but--but--it is so sad coming away from Lucy."
"Lucy I am sure will be happy with her cousins." If Lucy's happiness
were made to depend on her cousins, thought Ayala, it would not be
well assured. "And my sister Emmeline is always good-natured."
"Aunt Emmeline is very good, only--"
"Only what?"
"I don't know. But it is such a sudden change, Uncle Reginald."
"Yes, it is a very great change, my dear. They are very rich and we
are poor enough. I should hardly have consented to this, for your
sake, but that there are reasons which will make it better for you
both."
"As to that," said Ayala, stoutly, "I had to come away. I didn't
suit."
"You shall suit us, my dear."
"I hope so. I will try. I know more now than I did then. I thought I
was to be Augusta's equal."
"We shall all be equal here."
"People ought to be equal, I think,--except old people and young
people. I will do whatever you and my aunt tell me. There are no
young people here, so there won't be any trouble of that kind."
"There will be no other young person, certainly. You shall go
upstairs now and see your aunt."
Then there was the interview upstairs, which consisted chiefly in
promises and kisses, and Ayala was left alone to unpack her boxes and
prepare for dinner. Before she began her operations she sat still for
a few moments, and with an effort collected her energies and made her
resolution. She had said to Lucy in her passion that she would that
she were dead. That that should have been wicked was not matter of
much concern to her. But she acknowledged to herself that it had been
weak and foolish. There was her life before her, and she would still
endeavour to be happy though there had been so much to distress her.
She had flung away wealth. She was determined to fling it away still
when it should present itself to her in the shape of her cousin Tom.
But she had her dreams,--her day-dreams,--those castles in the air
which it had been the delight of her life to construct, and in the
building of which her hours had never run heavy with her. Isadore
Hamel would, of course, come again, and would, of course, marry Lucy,
and then there would be a home for her after her own heart. With
Isadore as her brother, and her own own Lucy close to her, she would
not feel the want of riches and of luxury. If there were only some
intellectual charm in her life, some touch of art, some devotion
to things beautiful, then she could do without gold and silver and
costly raiment. Of course, Isadore would come; and then--then--in the
far distance, something else would come, something of which in her
castle-building she had not yet developed the form, of which she did
not yet know the bearing, or the manner of its beauty, or the music
of its voice; but as to which she was very sure that its form would
be beautiful and its voice full of music. It can hardly be said that
this something was the centre of her dreams, or the foundation of
her castles. It was the extreme point of perfection at which she
would arrive at last, when her thoughts had become sublimated by the
intensity of her thinking. It was the tower of the castle from which
she could look down upon the inferior world below,--the last point
of the dream in arranging which she would all but escape from earth
to heaven,--when in the moment of her escape the cruel waking back
into the world would come upon her. But this she knew,--that this
something, whatever might be its form or whatever its voice, would be
exactly the opposite of Tom Tringle.
She had fallen away from her resolution to her dreams for a time,
when suddenly she jumped up and began her work with immense energy.
Open went one box after another, and in five minutes the room was
strewed with her possessions. The modest set of drawers which was to
supply all her wants was filled with immediate haste. Things were
deposited in whatever nooks might be found, and every corner was
utilized. Her character for tidiness had never stood high. At the
bijou Lucy, or her mother, or the favourite maid, had always been at
hand to make good her deficiencies with a reproach which had never
gone beyond a smile or a kiss. At Glenbogie and even on the journey
there had been attendant lady's maids. But here she was all alone.
Everything was still in confusion when she was called to dinner. As
she went down she recalled to herself her second resolution. She
would be good;--whereby she intimated to herself that she would
endeavour to do what might be pleasing to her Aunt Dosett. She had
little doubt as to her uncle. But she was aware that there had been
differences between her aunt and Lucy. If Lucy had found it difficult
to be good how great would be the struggle required from her!
She sat herself down at table a little nearer to her aunt than her
uncle, because it was specially her aunt whom she wished to win, and
after a few minutes she put out her little soft hand and touched
that of Mrs. Dosett. "My dear," said that lady. "I hope you will be
happy."
"I am determined to be happy," said Ayala, "if you will let me love
you."
Mrs. Dosett was not beautiful, nor was she romantic. In appearance
she was the very reverse of Ayala. The cares of the world, the
looking after shillings and their results, had given her that look of
commonplace insignificance which is so frequent and so unattractive
among middle-aged women upon whom the world leans heavily. But there
was a tender corner in her heart which was still green, and from
which a little rill of sweet water could be made to flow when it
was touched aright. On this occasion a tear came to her eye as
she pressed her niece's hand; but she said nothing. She was sure,
however, that she would love Ayala much better than she had been able
to love Lucy.
"What would you like me to do?" asked Ayala, when her aunt
accompanied her that night to her bed room.
"To do, my dear? What do you generally do?"
"Nothing. I read a little and draw a little, but I do nothing useful.
I mean it to be different now."
"You shall do as you please, Ayala."
"Oh, but I mean it. And you must tell me. Of course things have to be
different."
"We are not rich like your uncle and aunt Tringle."
"Perhaps it is better not to be rich, so that one may have something
to do. But I want you to tell me as though you really cared for me."
"I will care for you," said Aunt Dosett, sobbing.
"Then first begin by telling me what to do. I will try and do it. Of
course I have thought about it, coming away from all manner of rich
things; and I have determined that it shall not make me unhappy. I
will rise above it. I will begin to-morrow and do anything if you
will tell me." Then Aunt Dosett took her in her arms and kissed her,
and declared that on the morrow they would begin their work together
in perfect confidence and love with each other.
"I think she will do better than Lucy," said Mrs. Dosett to her
husband that night.
"Lucy was a dear girl too," said Uncle Reginald.
"Oh, yes;--quite so. I don't mean to say a word against Lucy; but I
think that I can do better with Ayala. She will be more diligent."
Uncle Reginald said nothing to this, but he could not but think that
of the two Lucy would be the one most likely to devote herself to
hard work.
On the next morning Ayala went out with her aunt on the round to the
shopkeepers, and listened with profound attention to the domestic
instructions which were given to her on the occasion. When she came
home she knew much of which she had known nothing before. What was
the price of mutton, and how much mutton she was expected as one of
the family to eat per week; what were the necessities of the house in
bread and butter, how far a pint of milk might be stretched,--with a
proper understanding that her Uncle Reginald as head of the family
was to be subjected to no limits. And before their return from that
walk,--on the first morning of Ayala's sojourn,--Ayala had undertaken
always to call Mrs. Dosett Aunt Margaret for the future.