Elizabeth got tea ready with unwonted diligence and considerable
excitement. Any visitor was a rare occurrence in this very quiet
family; but a gentleman visitor--a young gentleman too--was a
remarkable fact, arousing both interest and curiosity. For in the
latter quality this girl of seventeen could scarcely be expected to
be deficient; and as to the former, she had so completely identified
herself with the family she served, that all their concerns were her
concerns also. Her acute comments on their few guests, and on their
little scholars, sometimes amused Hilary as much as her criticisms on
the books she read. But as neither were ever put forward intrusively
or impertinently, she let them pass, and only laughed over them with
Johanna in private.
In speaking of these said books, and the questions they led to, it
was not likely but that mistress and maid--one aged twenty-two, and
the other seventeen--should occasionally light upon a subject rather
interesting to women of their ages, though not commonly discussed
between mistresses and maids. Nevertheless, when it did come in the
way, Miss Hilary never shirked it, but talked it out, frankly and
freely, as she would to any other person.
"The girl has feelings and notions on the matter, like all other
girls, I suppose," reasoned she to herself; "so it is important that
her notions should be kept clear, and her feelings right. It may do
her some good, and save her from much harm."
And so it befell that Elizabeth Hand, whose blunt ways, unlovely
person, and temperament so oddly nervous and reserved, kept her from
attracting any "sweetheart" of her own class, had unconsciously
imbibed her mistress's theory of love. Love, pure and simple, the
very deepest and highest, sweetest and most solemn thing in life: to
be believed in devoutly until it came, and when it did come, to be
held to, firmly, faithfully, with a single-minded, settled constancy,
till death. A creed, quite impossible, many will say, in this
ordinary world, and most dangerous to be put into the head of a poor
servant. Yet a woman is but a woman, be she maid-servant or queen;
and if, from queens to maid-servants, girls were taught thus to think
of love, there might be a few more "broken" hearts perhaps, but there
would certainly be fewer wicked hearts; far fewer corrupted lives of
men, and degraded lives of women; far fewer unholy marriages, and
desolated, dreary, homeless homes.
Elizabeth, having cleared away her tea-things, stood listening to the
voices in the parlor, and pondering. She had sometimes wondered in
her own mind that no knight ever came to carry off her charming
princess--her admired and beloved Miss Hilary. Miss Hilary, on her
part, seemed totally indifferent to the youths at Stowbury; who
indeed were, Elizabeth allowed, quite unworthy her regard. The only
suitable lover for her young mistress must be somebody exceedingly
grand and noble--a compound of the best heroes of Shakespeare, Scott,
Fenimore Cooper, Maria Edgeworth, and Harriet Martineau. When this
strange gentleman appeared--in ordinary coat and hat, or rather
Glengary bonnet, neither particularly handsome nor particularly tall,
yet whose coming had evidently given Miss Hilary so much pleasure,
and who, once or twice while waiting at tea, Elizabeth fancied she
had seen looking at Miss Hilary as nobody ever looked before--when
Mr. Robert Lyon appeared on the horizon, the faithful "bower maiden"
was a good deal disappointed.
She had expected something better; at all events, something
different. Her first brilliant castle in the air fell, poor lass! but
she quickly built it up again, and, with the vivid imagination of her
age, she mapped out the whole future, ending by a vision of Miss
Hilary, all in white, sweeping down the Terrace in a carriage and
pair--to fortune and happiness; leaving herself, though with a sore
want at her heart, and a great longing to follow, to devote the
remainder of her natural life to Miss Johanna.
"Her couldna do without somebody to see to her--and Miss Selina do
worrit her so." muttered Elizabeth, in the excitement of this
Almaschar vision, relapsing into her old provincialisms. "So, even if
Miss Hilary axes me to come, I'll stop, I reckon. Ay, I'll stop wi'
Miss Leaf."
This valorous determination taken, the poor maid servant's dream was
broken by the opening of the parlor door, and an outcry of Ascott's
for his coat and gloves, he having to fetch his aunts home at nine
o'clock, Mr. Lyon accompanying him. And as they all stood together at
the front door, Elizabeth overheard Mr. Lyon say something about what
a beautiful night it was.
"It would do you no harm, Miss Hilary; will you walk with us?"
"If you like."
Hilary went up stairs for her bonnet and shawl; but when, a minute or
two after, Elizabeth followed her with a candle, she found her
standing in the centre of the room, all in the dark, her face white
and her hands trembling.
"Thank you, thank you!" she said mechanically, as Elizabeth folded
and fastened her shawl for her--and descended immediately. Elizabeth
watched her take, not Ascott's arm, but Mr. Lyon's, and walk down the
terrace in the starlight.
"Some'at's wrong. I'd like to know who's been a-vexin' of her,"
thought fiercely the young servant.
No, nobody had been "a-vexing" her mistress. There was nobody to
blame; only there had happened to Hilary one of those things which
strike like a sword through a young and happy heart, taking all the
life and youth out of it.
Robert Lyon had, half an hour ago, told her--and she had had to hear
it as a piece of simple news, to which she had only to say,
"Indeed!"--that to day and to-morrow were his two last days at
Stowbury--almost his last in England. Within a week he was to sail
for India.
There had befallen him what most people would have considered a piece
of rare good fortune. At the London University, a fellow student,
whom he had been gratuitously "coaching" in Hindostanee, fell ill,
and was "thrown upon his hands." as he briefly defined services which
must have been great, since they had resulted in this end. The young
man's father--a Liverpool and Bombay merchant--made him an offer to
go out there, to their house, at a rising salary of 300 rupees a
month for three years; after the third year to become a junior
partner; remaining at Bombay in that capacity for two years more.
This he told to Hilary and Ascott in almost as few words as I have
here put it--for brevity seemed a refuge to him. It was also to one
of them. But Ascott asked so many questions that his aunt needed to
ask none. She only listened, and tried to take all in, and understand
it, that is, in a consecutive, intelligent, business shape, without
feeling it. She dared not let herself feel it, not for a second, till
they were out, arm-in-arm, under the quiet winter stars. Then she
heard his voice asking her, "So you think I was right?"
"Right?" she echoed mechanically.
"I mean in accepting that sudden chance, and changing my whole plan
of life. I did not do it--believe me--without a motive."
"What motive?" she would once unhesitatingly have asked; now she could
not.
Robert Lyon continued speaking, distinctly and yet in an undertone,
that though Ascott was walking a few yards off, Hilary felt was meant
for her alone to hear.
"The change is, you perceive, from the life of a student to that of a
man of business. I do not deny that I preferred the first. Once upon
a time to be a fellow in a college, or a professor, or the like, was
my utmost aim and I would have half killed myself to attain it. Now,
I think differently."
He paused, but did not seem to require an answer, and it did not
come.
"I want, not to be rich but to get a decent competence, and to get it
as soon as I can. I want not to ruin my health with incessant study.
I have already injured it a good deal."
"Have you been ill? You never said so."
"Oh no, it was hardly worth while. And I knew an active life would
soon set me right again. No fear! there's life in the old dog yet. He
does not wish to die. But," Mr. Lyon pursued, "I have had a 'sair
fecht' the last year or two. I would not go through it again, nor see
any one dear to me go through it. It is over, but it has left its
scars. Strange! I have been poor all my life, yet I never till now
felt an actual terror of poverty."
Hilary shrank within herself; less even at the words than at
something in their tone--something hard, nay fierce; something at
once despairing and aggressive.
"It is strange," she said; "such a terror is not like you. I feel
none; I can not even understand it."
"No, I knew you could not," he muttered; and was silent.
So was Hilary. A vague trouble came over her. Could it be that he,
Robert Lyon, had been seized with the _auri sacra fames_, which he had
so often inveighed against and despised? that his long battle with
poverty had caused in him such an overweening desire for riches that,
to obtain them, he would sacrifice every thing else, exile himself to
a far country for years, selling his very life and soul for gold?
Such a thought of him was so terrible--that is, would have been were
it tenable--that Hilary for an instant felt herself shiver all over.
The next she spoke out--in justice to him she forced herself to speak
out--all her honest soul.
"I do believe that this going abroad to make a fortune, which young
men so delight in, is often a most fatal mistake. They give up far
more than they gain--country, home, health. I think a man has no
right to sell his life any more than his soul for so many thousands a
year."
Robert Lyon smiled--"No, and I am not selling mine. With my temperate
habits I have as good a chance of health at Bombay as in
London--perhaps better. And the years I must be absent I would have
been absent almost as much from you--I mean they would have been
spent in work as engrossing and as hard. They will soon pass, and
then I shall come home rich--rich. Do you think I am growing
mercenary?"
"No."
"Tell me what you do think about me?"
"I--can not quite understand."
"And I cannot make you understand. Perhaps I will, some day when I
come back again. Till then, you must trust me, Hilary."
It happens occasionally, in moments of all but tolerable pain, that
some small thing, a word, a look, a touch of a hand, lets in such a
gleam of peace that nothing ever extinguishes the light of it: it
burns on for years and years, sometimes clear, sometimes obscured,
but as ineffaceable from life and memory as a star from its place in
the heavens. Such, both then, and through the lonely years to come,
were those five words, "You must trust me. Hilary."
She did; and in the perfection of that trust her own separate
identity, with all its consciousness of pain, seemed annihilated; she
did not think of herself at all, only of him, and with him, and for
him. So, for the time being, she lost all sense of personal
suffering, and their walk that night was as cheerful and happy as if
they were to walk together for weeks and months and years, in
undivided confidence and content, instead of its being the last--the
very last.
Some one has said that all lovers have, soon or late, to learn to be
only friends: happiest and safest are those in whom the friendship is
the foundation--always firm and ready to fall back upon, long after
the fascination of passion dies. It may take a little from the
romance of these two if I own that Robert Lyon talked to Hilary not a
word about love, and a good deal about pure business, telling her all
his affairs and arrangements, and giving her as clear an idea of his
future life as it was possible to do within the limits of one brief
half hour.
Then casting a glance round, and seeing that Ascott was quite out of
ear-shot, he said, with that tender fall of the voice that felt, as
some poet hath it,
"Like a still embrace,"
"Now tell me as much as you can about yourself."
At first there seemed nothing to tell; but gradually he drew from
Hilary a good deal. Johanna's feeble health, which caused her
continuing to teach to be very unadvisable; and the gradual
diminishing of the school--from what cause they could not
account--which made it very doubtful whether some change would not
soon or late be necessary.
What this change should be she and Mr. Lyon discussed a little--as
far as in the utterly indefinite position of affairs was possible.
Also, from some other questions of his, she spoke to him about
another dread which had lurked in her mind, and yet to which she
could give no tangible shape, about Ascott. He could not remove it,
he did not attempt; but he soothed it a little, advising with her as
to the best way of managing the willful lad. His strong, clear sense,
just judgment, and, above all, a certain unspoken sense of union, as
if all that concerned her and hers he took naturally upon himself as
his own, gave Hilary such comfort that, even on this night, with a
full consciousness of all that was to follow, she was happy--nay, she
had not been so happy for years. Perhaps (let the truth be told), the
glorious truth of true love, that its recognition, spoken or silent,
constitutes the only perfect joy of life that of two made perhaps she
had never been so really happy since she was born.
The last thing he did was to make her give him an assurance that in
any and all difficulty she would apply to him.
"To me, and to no one else, remember. No one but myself must help
you. And I will, so, long as I am alive. Do you believe this?"
She looked up at him by the lamp light, and said, "I do."
"And you promise?"
"Yes."
Then they loosed arms, and Hilary knew that they should never walk
together again till--when and how?
Returning, of course, he walked with Miss Leaf; and throughout the
next day, a terribly wet Sunday, spent by them entirely in the little
parlor, they had not a minute of special or private talk together. He
did not seem to wish it; indeed, almost avoided it.
Thus slipped away the strange, still day--a Sunday never to be
forgotten. At night, after prayers were, over, Mr. Lyon rose
suddenly, saying he must leave them now; he was obliged to start from
Stowbury at daybreak.
"Shall we not see you again?" asked Johanna.
"No. This will be my last Sunday in England. Good-by!"
He turned excessively pale, shook hands silently with them
all--Hilary last--and almost before they recognized the fact, he was
gone.
With him departed, not all Hilary's peace or faith or courage of
heart, for to all who love truly, while the best beloved lives, and
lives worthily, no parting is hopeless and no grief overwhelming; but
all the brightness of her youth, all the sense of joy that young
people have in loving, and in being beloved again, in fond meetings
and fonder partings, in endless walks and talks, in sweet kisses and
clinging arms. Such happiness was not for her: when she saw it the
lot of others, she said to herself sometimes with a natural sharp
sting of pain, but oftener with a solemn acquiescence, "It is the
will of God; it is the will of God."
Johanna, too, who would have given her life almost to bring some
color back to the white face of her darling, of whom she asked no
questions, and who never complained nor confessed any thing, many and
many a night when Hilary either lay awake by her side, or tossed and
moaned in her sleep, till the elder sister took her in her arms like
a baby--Johanna, too, said to herself, "This is the will of God."
I have told thus much in detail the brief sad story of Hilary's
youth, to show how impossible it was that Elizabeth Hand could live
in the house with these two women without being strongly influenced
by them, as every person--especially every woman--influences for good
or for evil every other person connected with her, or dependent upon
her. Elizabeth was a girl of close observation and keen perception.
Besides, to most people, whether or not their sympathy be universal,
so far as the individual is concerned, any deep affection generally
lends eyes, tact, and delicacy.
Thus when on the Monday morning at breakfast Miss Selina observed,
"What a fine day Mr. Lyon was having for his journey; what a lucky
fellow he was; how he would be sure to make a fortune, and if so, she
wondered whether they should ever see or hear any thing of him
again"--Elizabeth, from the glimpse she caught of Miss Hilary's face,
and from the quiet way in which Miss Leaf merely answered, "Time will
show;" and began talking to Selina about some other
subject--Elizabeth resolved never in any way to make the smallest
allusion to Mr. Robert Lyon. Something had happened, she did not know
what; and it was not her business to find out; the family affairs, so
far as she was trusted with them, were warmly her own, but into the
family secrets she had no right to pry.
Yet, long after Miss Selina had ceased to "wonder" about him, or even
to name him--his presence or absence did not touch her personally,
and she was always the centre of her own small world of interest--the
little maidservant kept in her mind, and pondered over at odd times
every possible solution of the mystery of this gentleman's sudden
visit; of the long wet Sunday when he sat all day talking with her
mistresses in the parlor; of the evening prayer, when Miss Leaf had
twice to stop, her voice faltered so; and of the night when, long
after all the others had gone to bed, Elizabeth, coming suddenly into
the parlor, had found Miss Hilary sitting alone over the embers of
the fire, with the saddest, saddest look! so that the girl had softly
shut the door again without ever speaking to "Missis."
Elizabeth did more; which, strange as it may appear, a servant who is
supposed to know nothing of any thing that has happened can often do
better than a member of the family who knows every thing, and this
knowledge is sometimes the most irritating consciousness a sufferer
has. She followed her young mistress with a steady watchfulness, so
quiet and silent that Hilary never found it out; saved her every
little household care, gave her every little household treat. Not
much to do, and less to be chronicled; but the way in which she did
it was all.
During the long dull winter days, to come in and find the parlor fire
always bright, the hearth clean swept, and the room tidy; never to
enter the kitchen without the servant's face clearing up into a
smile; when her restless irritability made her forget things and grow
quite vexed in the search after them, to see that somehow her shoes
were never misplaced, and her gloves always came to hand in some
mysterious manner--these trifles; in her first heavy days of
darkness, soothed Hilary more than words could tell.
And the sight of Miss Hilary going about the house and school room as
usual, with that poor white face of hers; nay, gradually bringing to
the family fireside, as usual, her harmless little joke, and her
merry laugh at it and herself--who shall say what lessons may not
have been taught by this to the humble servant, dropping deep sown
into her heart, to germinate and fructify, as her future life's needs
required?
It might have been so--God knows! He alone can know, who, through
what (to us) seem the infinite littleness of our mortal existence, is
educating us into the infinite greatness of His and our immortality.