Mrs. Lowndes, with the consciousness that she was faithfully performing
her duty and giving satisfaction to her mistress, when an incident
occurred, which showed her more clearly than ever the importance of
having a character for truthfulness and honesty.
"Why, there's your bell and my bell a-ringing together, and rung so
loud, too! What can missus want us both for at once?" exclaimed Martha,
the housemaid, to Norah, who was helping her, as usual, to make the bed
in the little girl's room. Martha's manner was flurried and frightened.
"We'd better go and answer the bells directly," said Norah. "I hope
and trust that nothing's the matter with dear little missy!"
The two maids entered the dining-room together. Mr. Lowndes was seated
in his large red arm-chair, with his feet on the fender, and his
spectacles on his nose, apparently engaged in studying the _Times_.
Mrs. Lowndes, a large, tall, and rather formidable-looking lady,
dressed in a very stiff silk, sat, even more erect than usual, at
the breakfast-table, on which she was resting her folded hands. She
had a peculiarly deep-toned voice, and the voice sounded deeper, her
manners seemed sterner than Norah had ever thought them before, as she
addressed the young maid with the question, "Did you enter my room this
morning?"
"Yes, ma'am, to put by your comb and brush."
"And when?"
"Just the minute after you had left it."
"Did you see a sovereign on the dressing-table?" asked the lady, with
the air of a magistrate questioning a witness.
"No, indeed, ma'am, I did not," said Norah.
"Did _you_ see one when you tidied my room?" Mrs. Lowndes turned her
keen gray eyes upon Martha, to whom this last question was addressed.
"No, I never saw a sovereign, nor nothing like it, ma'am; I could take
my oath that I did not. I did not so much as enter the room till Norah
had been there, and gone out again."
Mrs. Lowndes looked very grave, and somewhat perplexed. "I certainly
left a sovereign on that table when I came down to breakfast, and
an hour afterwards it as certainly was gone. There are only two
individuals who could have entered, and did enter, that room during my
absence, and both deny having seen the money. I cannot doubt that one
of them is uttering a falsehood, and that she who utters it is also the
thief."
The idea of being suspected of such a crime as theft covered the face
of Norah with crimson; she attempted to speak, but could not bring out
a word.
"O ma'am!" exclaimed Martha, in alarm; "Norah went in first; you heard
her own that she went in the first."
"I never saw the sovereign," gasped Norah.
[ILLUSTRATION: "I'll be bound that Norah never touched the gold," said
the gentleman. p. 143.]
Mr. Lowndes, who had every now and then been glancing up over the
_Times_, which he held in his hand, now laid it down on his knee, and
wheeled round on his arm-chair a little, so as to face the two maids.
"I'll be bound that Norah never touched the gold," said the gentleman,
who had once been a magistrate. "When I was at B----, about three years
ago, my poor sister placed in my hands a bag of money, which had been
picked up by Norah, her maid, in the street, and given over into her
charge. _A bag of sovereigns_," repeated Mr. Lowndes, emphatically.
"Now, no one in his senses would believe that a girl, who would not
take eight sovereigns dropped in the street by a stranger, would rob
her mistress, betray her trust, and forfeit her own good character, by
stealing _one_, which was certain to be missed and sought after." And,
having thus given his decided opinion, Mr. Lowndes again took up his
_Times_, and wheeled his chair round to the fire.
"And O mamma!" exclaimed little Selina, running forward from a corner
of the room in which she had been standing, a deeply interested
spectator of all that had passed, "Norah _could not_ have taken the
money, because she says that she never saw it. Norah always tells the
truth," pleaded the eager little witness, whose presence in the room
had been until now forgotten by her mother. "When I broke the tumbler,
Martha said, 'Never mind, miss, you need say nothing about it;' but
Norah told me never to hide anything from you, for it was always best
to speak out the truth boldly: and I did what Norah said, and you were
not very angry, mamma."
"I am never very angry except where there is deceit and dishonesty,"
said the lady, fondly stroking back the light ringlets from the brow of
her darling.
"And you are sure that Norah did not take the money, mamma, for she
_said_ that she did not even see it."
"I am sure," answered the lady decidedly, "as sure of her innocence
as I am of your own." Bending her keen eyes on Martha, she continued,
sternly, "You had better do what you can to repair your fault by a
frank confession."
"Indeed, indeed, ma'am, but I never saw, or touched, or thought of
the sovereign; it's very hard that it should be put upon me," cried
Martha, bursting into passionate tears. "I was not the first to enter
into that room; I don't see why _I_ am suspected."
"And yet I cannot but feel suspicions so strong," said the lady, "that
I cannot retain in my household one in whom my confidence is lost."
"I hope, I hope, ma'am, you are not going to send me away without a
character!" sobbed Martha, while Selina's heart was so much touched by
her sorrow, that the child could scarcely forbear from crying herself.
"I shall tell the exact truth to any lady who may inquire for your
character. I shall mention why I send you away, but I shall add that
you were not the first to enter the room, and that I have no proof that
you touched the money."
"But, mamma, mamma, if she's sorry, if she will promise never to do it
again, won't you try her a little longer?" cried the tender-hearted
Selina.
"No, my child," replied Mrs. Lowndes; "had I no other cause for
displeasure against her, I would never have any one near you on whose
word I could not depend. A girl who would teach my daughter to hide
anything from her parent is not likely to be very open when the fault
committed is her own."
The maids were then dismissed from the dining-room. How different were
the feelings of the two as they quitted it! Norah hurried upstairs to
her own little chamber, and, falling on her knees, fervently thanked
her heavenly Father for having preserved that character which was to
her more precious than life. She remembered the struggle in her own
mind about that very same bag of sovereigns to which Mr. Lowndes had
referred. She had found it just at the time when her uncle's influence
was beginning to tell powerfully upon her, when she was seeking with
earnest prayer to give herself wholly to the Lord, and live as a child
of God and heir of heaven should live. That had been a turning-point
in the life of Norah. She had then by faith resisted the devil, and he
had fled. Had she yielded to that temptation, and a very strong one
it had been, the whole course of her life would have been altered.
Now, against suspicious appearances, her word was trusted at once; her
character was spotless in the eyes of her master and mistress, a great
danger had safely been passed, and the heart of the young servant-maid
overflowed with thanksgiving to God.
XV.
Norah's Story Continued.
_Let him who thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall._ Norah was
soon to experience how much needed is this warning from the Scriptures.
A few days before the dishonest Martha left Mrs. Lowndes's service, as
Norah was returning home after making some little purchases for her
mistress, on turning a corner she came suddenly upon an old friend,
and gave an exclamation of pleasure at a meeting so unexpected and so
pleasant.
"Milly--Oh, I'm so delighted to see you!" cried Norah, shaking her
friend by both hands. Had they not been in a street, she would have
warmly embraced her. For had not Milly, when housemaid to Mrs. Lane,
shown her kindness in many ways; had she not helped her to nurse
Norah's dying mother, and sat up all night with Mrs. Peele when the
girl's strength had given way? There were very few indeed whom Norah
regarded with so much affection as she did the kind-hearted Milly.
"Who would have thought of seeing you here in London!" continued Norah,
whose face was beaming with pleasure. "I have not met you since your
marriage. What has brought you and your husband up to town?"
"My husband,--don't talk of him!" cried Milly, in a tone of anguish
which startled Norah. Then looking closer into the face of her friend,
Norah could see a sad change there. The features of Milly Bligh had
grown sharper and thinner; there were furrows on her brow which Norah
had never seen there before. She observed now, also, what in the
excitement of first meeting her friend she had not noticed, that the
dress of Milly looked shabby: though it was winter-time, she wore a
thin shawl, which was quite insufficient to protect her from the cold.
"Why--what--has he"--a feeling of delicacy prevented Norah from
finishing the sentence.
"_Deserted me!_" moaned Milly, as if to utter these two words was to
wring blood from her heart. "O Norah, if you knew what I've had to
bear! But it's all over now,--I don't know where he is,--I'm never like
to see him again!"
The street chanced to be very quiet; Milly turned, and, as she walked
by the side of her friend, in low earnest tones they went on with their
conversation.
"Then what will you do, my poor dear Milly?" asked Norah, with
heartfelt sympathy and pity.
"I must go into service again. I've come up to London to look out for
a situation. My difficulty is that Mrs. Lane, with whom I lived all my
years of service, is somewhere abroad, I don't know where, and, as I
left her to be married, I did not so much as secure a written character
from her."
"Oh, I'm so glad!" exclaimed Norah, suddenly.
"What,--glad that I've not a corner to turn to?" asked Milly.
"Oh, no, not glad of that, but glad that I may be able to help you.
Mrs. Lowndes--she's my mistress--asked me only this morning if I knew
of any nice housemaid who could take Martha's place. My lady had nearly
fixed on one yesterday, but the character did not suit, so she's in a
hurry to find another."
"Mrs. Lowndes is not likely to take a servant on your recommendation, I
should fear."
"You don't know what confidence she has in me, what trust she puts in
my word," said Norah, with a little natural pride. "If I tell her that
you have been five years in one place, and that I have known you all
the time, and that I'm certain that if your mistress were not abroad,
she would give you a first-rate character, I'm sure--at least I'm
almost sure that she'll take you."
"O Norah, you're like a comforting angel!" cried poor Milly; "if you
only knew what a service you're going to do me! I've been almost in
despair; half of my clothes are in pawn; I thought that I'd never
succeed in getting a respectable place!"
"And this is such a good one!" cried Norah, quite excited with
pleasure; "and how delightful it will be for us both to be always
together! A companion whom I could love as a friend was the only thing
wanting to make me perfectly happy, and there is no one on earth whom
I should so gladly have as my Milly." Norah could hardly refrain from
skipping for joy as she walked.
A thought, however, occurred to her mind, which somewhat damped her
pleasure. "The only thing that makes me afraid that you may not get the
place," she said, "is that I know that Mrs. Lowndes objects to married
servants. I have heard her say myself that she will never engage one,
the husbands give so much trouble."
"I do not even know where mine is," sighed Milly; "but I don't see why
anything at all need be said about my being married."
Norah became very grave. "Would it be right to hide such a fact?" she
said; "would it not be like deceiving my mistress?"
"Well, if you're going to let out a poor friend's secrets, and deprive
her of her best chance of earning her bread in an honest way, you're
not the girl that I took you for," said Milly, with bitterness.
There is no need to relate all the conversation that passed, nor
to tell how Milly tried to persuade Norah, and how Norah tried to
persuade herself, that to suppress the truth was no falsehood; that it
was not in the least necessary that Mrs. Lowndes should ever know that
her housemaid was married. Norah promised to do all that she could to
procure the situation for Milly, and on reaching home at once went to
her lady, and pleaded the cause of her friend.
"Five years in one place,--that looks well," observed Mrs. Lowndes;
"there would at any rate be no harm in my seeing the girl. You have
known her, you say, all your life. You may tell her to call this
evening, and I will judge for myself. It's hard for good servants when
they lose their places by a mistress going abroad."
Norah knew that Milly had not lost her place on account of Mrs. Lane's
going abroad, but she was only too glad that her lady should think so.
We may always suspect that we are in danger of striking against the
iceberg of deceit, when we allow ourselves to _wish_ something to be
believed which we _know_ to be quite untrue.
"Stay," said Mrs. Lowndes, as the eager Norah was about to retire from
the room; "of course your friend is not married?"
Norah was taken by surprise; in an unguarded moment the false "no"
slipped from her tongue, and she passed through the doorway biting her
lip, and wishing--fervently wishing that she had not been betrayed,
even by friendship, into uttering a lie. "But I cannot go back now. Oh,
no!" thought the conscience-stricken girl.
Mrs. Lowndes saw Milly that evening, liked her appearance and manner,
and engaged her as housemaid at once. Norah could not feel as happy as
she would have done had her mind been at rest, but dared not confess
her fault, as she deemed that to do so would be cruelly wronging Milly.
She resolved to be more careful in future; she hoped that this would be
the very last time on which she would be guilty of speaking untruth.
Alas! lies link themselves on one to another like the rings of a chain;
and who that harbors one unconfessed, unforgiven sin dare hope that it
will be _the last_?
Months passed quietly over. Norah now seldom thought of her falsehood.
If she was colder in prayer, if she was less able to lift up her heart
to God, if she took less pleasure in recalling the counsels of her
uncle, she hardly traced these effects to their real cause,--_peace of
conscience forfeited by sin_.
One morning Norah found Milly in her room weeping violently, and
trembling with agitation. An open letter lay on her knee.
"What has happened?" cried Norah, anxiously.
"He's found,--my poor, poor lost one is found!" sobbed Milly; "but he's
in the hospital dying; he wants to see me at once. O Norah, I must go
to him this day! Ask mistress to give me leave for an hour; she's kind,
she'll not have the heart to refuse it!"
"Do you wish me to ask her to let you go to the hospital to see your
_husband_, when she does not know that you have one?" asked Norah,
feeling extremely uneasy at the idea of her falsehood being found out
at last.
"No, no; that would never do, that would get us both into trouble, and,
oh, I've trouble enough already! Go and ask her to let me go to the
hospital to visit a dying _mother_."
Oh! what a tangled web we weave,
When once we practise to deceive!
Norah found herself now in a position of greater temptation than ever.
Milly was in such a state of misery and excitement that Norah dreaded
that any opposition might throw her into a nervous fever. The poor,
anxious wife would listen to no objection, had patience for no scruple,
and was almost wild when Norah showed hesitation about doing her
bidding. Miserable, and hating herself for the deceit into which she
was drawn, Norah went to her mistress and told the falsehood put into
her mouth by Milly.
Mrs. Lowndes was all kindness. Day after day the housemaid was
permitted to go and see her sick mother, carrying sometimes little
delicacies sent from her mistress's table. When Milly, from the effect
of distress and excitement, herself fell ill, Mrs. Lowndes sent Norah
instead of her to the hospital two or three times to see "the poor old
lady," and questioned her on her return as to the sufferer's state.
Thus Norah was led deeper and deeper into deceit. She had to speak
of _her_ illness, _her_ danger, _her_ thanks, when coming from the
death-bed of a young man, and she felt that her whole character was
becoming gradually lowered and degraded. Never since she had first
sought the Lord had Norah been in so low a spiritual state; even to
speak of religion to little Selina appeared to her to be an act of
hypocrisy now. Norah had sometimes a terrible doubt as to whether she
had ever been a Christian at all!
Happily for Norah she was suddenly to be stopped in this downward path.
It was a mercy to be arrested even by a blow.
One afternoon in April the bell summoned Norah to the presence of her
mistress. She went down the stairs with a sinking at the heart, a
feeling of misgiving from which she now very frequently suffered. What
was her alarm, on opening the drawing-room door, to see, seated near
her mistress, the chaplain of the hospital, whom she had met before on
one of her visits to Doyle! Norah dared not even glance at her lady,
but the sound of that terrible, deep-toned voice, so expressive of
subdued indignation, made the wretched Norah guess but too well what
was coming.
"Mr. Chancie has called to ask me to break to my housemaid the news of
the death of her _husband_." There was a marked emphasis on the last
word. "Am I to understand that this is the person whom she, and whom
you have visited again and again, and spoken of repeatedly to me under
the name of her _mother_?"
Norah pressed the nails of her right hand so tightly into the flesh of
the left that traces were left for days!
"Am I to understand," continued the lady, speaking in the same low,
terrible tone, "that you and Milly have deliberately conspired together
for months to deceive the mistress who trusted you?"
Norah wished that she could sink down anywhere out of sight, into the
cellar, or into the grave.
"You leave this house to-morrow," said the lady, who could not but
read confession in the silence of her maid, and her aspect of misery
and shame. "If your family were in London, you should not stay here
for another hour. To think that I should have entrusted my child
to the care of such a"--Norah could not catch the concluding word,
perhaps none was uttered, but her own conscience supplied the blank
with "viper." "Of course you can expect no character from me; your
vile deceit has done much to shake my faith in all my kind; I shall
never trust a servant again as you were trusted by me. I could no more
answer for your honesty now, wretched girl, than I could for your
truth. She who could deliberately carry on such a course of deceit
would be capable of taking my money."
Norah was utterly unable to speak a word in her own defence; she was
miserable, crushed, almost in despair. Milly was, of course, involved
in the same disgrace as herself, though not so hastily sent out of the
house. Mrs. Lowndes found it more easy to show some indulgence to her,
because she had never placed in her the same absolute trust; she had
never given to Milly the charge of an only, a much-loved child.
Norah wrote off a hasty note to her uncle at Colme, and made her
preparations for leaving her place with an almost bursting heart. One
of her keenest pangs was that caused by the distress of little Selina,
who could not at first be persuaded to believe her dear Norah to be
capable of speaking an untruth.
"You never did tell a story. Oh, I'm sure that you _could not_! Say,
only say that it's all a dreadful mistake!" cried the child, bursting
into tears.
Norah was too wretched to weep; she did not close her eyes all that
night; the house in which she had once been so happy had become to
her now like a stifling prison. Yet she dreaded returning to her
native village; she shrank from meeting the clear blue eye of her
uncle; she felt herself unworthy of any kindness,--she who had sinned
against light, she who had stained her soul with falsehood! Norah's
only comfort was in the thought that at least her course of deception
was over; she need play the hypocrite no longer; prayer was not now a
mockery as it had seemed lately to be. Sin is in itself a thing more
dreadful than the sharpest punishment for sin.
XVI.
Passing Events.
Norah had finished her sad story in tears. Neither Ned Franks nor his
wife had interrupted the thread of it by a single question; they had
sat grave and silent listeners. When all had been confessed, the sailor
gently laid his hand on the shoulder of his sobbing niece. His manner
was subdued and kind.
"Norah, my girl," he said, "let's be thankful that all was brought to
daylight at last. I'd rather have you coming here, even in trouble
and disgrace, than seeming to prosper in a course so dangerous to
your soul. I only wish that your lady had known all through your own
confession, instead of--but let that pass; I trust and believe that
henceforth you will always be true as steel, and avoid the slightest
approach to deceit all the more carefully because of your sufferings
now. I need not say that we will never mention the subject to you
again; you are heartily welcome to stay here as long as you will;
you'll live, please God, to be a comfort and credit to us yet."
Of course there was much gossip in the village as to the cause of
Norah's sudden return. There was a succession of visitors to the
school-house on the following day. Many questions were put to Ned
Franks and Persis, by those who were more curious than kind, as to the
cause of Norah's so unexpectedly leaving her place. Both husband and
wife maintained a resolute silence; they made no evasions, threw out no
hints to mislead.
"People need not trouble themselves about my niece's concerns," was
Ned's rather impatient remark when hard pressed for an answer to some
impertinent question. "She has come to us for quiet and peace, and no
one shall annoy her whilst she is under my roof."
Of course curiosity was not satisfied nor gossip silenced in Colme.
Some of the neighbors guessed that Norah had done something very
foolish or wrong; some that she had had a disappointment in love; but
as no one had the means of proving the truth of his guesses, it might
be hoped that curiosity would at last die out like a fire unsupplied
with fuel. To be exposed to painful remarks, to be viewed with some
suspicion, was the heavy but just penalty which Norah must make up her
mind to pay for her sin.
There were other subjects of interest at that time to divide the
attention of the gossips of Colme,--the illness of the carpenter
Stone, and the accident to Sands's wife, being constant topics of
conversation. Day after day the cottagers saw the poor clerk plodding
on his weary way to the town to visit his suffering Nancy. He looked
neither to the right nor the left, nor even stopped to speak to a
neighbor, and there was always the same unvarying expression of dull
care on his sallow face. On Sundays alone his duties as clerk made it
impossible for the anxious husband to go to the hospital at B----; and
then, as the miller observed, Sands always looked at church like a
condemned man, hearing the sermon preached before his own execution.