When Miss Hilary reached home Elizabeth opened the door to her; the
parlor was deserted.
Miss Leaf had gone to lie down, and Miss Selina was away to see the
Lord Mayor's Show with Mr. Peter Ascott.
"With Mr. Peter Ascott!" Hilary was a little surprised; but on second
thoughts she found it natural; Selina was glad of any amusement--to
her, not only the narrowness but the dullness of their poverty was
inexpressibly galling. "She will be back to dinner, I suppose?"
"I don't know," said Elizabeth briefly.
Had Miss Hilary been less preoccupied, she would have noticed
something not quite right about the girl--something that at any other
time would have aroused the direct question, "What is the matter,
Elizabeth?" For Miss Hilary did not consider it beneath her dignity
to observe that things might occasionally go wrong with this solitary
young woman, away from her friends, and exposed to all the annoyances
of London lodgings; that many trifles might happen to worry and
perplex her. If the mistress could not set them right, she could at
least give the word of kindly sympathy, as precious to "a poor
servant" as to the Queen on her throne.
This time, however, it came not, and Elizabeth disappeared below
stairs immediately.
The girl was revolving in her own mind a difficult ethical question.
To-day, for the first time in her life, she had not "told Miss Hilary
every thing." Two things had happened, and she could not make up her
mind as to whether she ought to communicate them.
Now Elizabeth had a conscience, by nature a very tender one, and
which, from circumstances, had been cultivated into a much higher
sensitiveness than, alas! is common among her class, or, indeed, in
any class. This, if an error, was Miss Hilary's doing; it probably
caused Elizabeth a few more miseries, and vexations, and painful
shocks in the world than she would have had had she imbibed only the
ordinary tone of morality, especially the morality of ordinary
domestic servants; but it was an error upon which, in summing up her
life, the Recording Angel would gravely smile.
The first trial had happened at breakfast time. Ascott, descending
earlier than his wont, had asked her. Did any gentleman, short and
dirty, with a hooked nose, inquire for him yesterday?
Elizabeth thought a minute, and recollected that some person
answering the above not too flattering description had called, but
refused to leave his name, saying he did not know the ladies, but was
a particular friend of Mr. Leaf's.
Ascott laughed. "So he is--a very particular friend; but my aunts
would not fancy him, and I don't want him to come here. Say, if he
calls, that I'm gone out of town."
"Very well, sir. Shall you start before dinner?" said Elizabeth,
whose practical mind immediately recurred to that meal, and to the
joint, always contrived to be hot on the days that Ascott dined at
home.
He seemed excessively tickled. "Bless you, you are the greatest
innocent! Just say what I tell you, and never mind--hush! here's Aunt
Hilary."
And Miss Hilary's anxious face, white with long wakefulness, had put
out of Elizabeth's head the answer that was coming; indeed the matter
slipped from her mind altogether, in consequence of another
circumstance which gave her much more perplexity.
During her young mistress's absence, supposing Miss Selina out too,
and Miss Leaf up stairs, she had come suddenly into the parlor
without knocking. There, to her amazement, she saw Miss Selina and
Mr. Ascott standing, in close conversation, over the fire. They were
so engrossed that they did not notice her, and she shut door again
immediately. But what confounded her was, that she was certain,
absolutely certain, Mr. Ascott had his arm round Miss Selina's waist!
Now that was no business of hers, and yet the faithful domestic was a
good deal troubled; still more so, when, by Miss Leaf's excessive
surprise at hearing of the visitor who had come and gone, carrying
Miss Selina away to the city, she was certain the elder sister was
completely in the dark as to any thing going to happen in the family.
Could it be a wedding? Could Miss Selina really love, and be
intending to marry, that horrid little man? For strange to say, this
young servant had, what many a young beauty of rank and fashion has
not, or has lost forever--the true, pure, womanly creed, that loving
and marrying are synonymous terms; that to let a man put his arm
round your waist when you do not intend to marry him, or to intend to
marry him for money or any thing else when you do not really love
him, are things quite impossible and incredible to any womanly mind.
A creed somewhat out of date, and perhaps existing only in stray
nooks of the world; but thank God! it does exist. Hilary had it, and
she had taught it to Elizabeth.
"I wonder whether Miss Hilary knows of this? I wonder what she would
say to it?"
And now arose the perplexing ethical question aforesaid, as to
whether Elizabeth ought to tell her.
It was one of Miss Hilary's doctrines--the same for the kitchen as
for the parlor, nay, preached strongest in the kitchen, where the
mysteries of the parlor are often so cruelly exposed--that a secret
accidentally found out should be kept as sacred as if actually
confided; also, that the secret of an enemy should no more be
betrayed than that of a beloved and trusting friend.
"Miss Selina isn't my enemy," smiled Elizabeth: "but I'm not overfond
of her, and so I'd rather not tell of her, or vex her if I can help
it. Any how, I'll keep it to myself for a bit."
But the secret weighed heavily upon her, and besides, her honest
heart felt a certain diminution of respect for Miss Selina. What
could she see to like in that common looking, commonplace man, whom
she could not have met a dozen times, of whose domestic life she knew
nothing, and whose personality Elizabeth, with the sharp observation
often found in her class, probably because coarse people do not care
to hide their coarseness from servants, had speedily set down at her
own valuation--
"Neither carriage nor horses, nor nothing, will ever make him a
gentleman?"
He, however, sent Miss Selina home magnificently in the said
carriage; Ascott with her, who had been picked up somewhere in the
City and who came in to his dinner, without the slightest reference
to going "out of town."
But in spite of her Lord Mayor's Show, and the great attention which
she said she had received from "various members of the Common Council
of the City of London," Miss Selina was, for her, meditative, and did
not talk quite so much as usual. There was in the little parlor an
uncomfortable atmosphere, as if all of them had something on their
minds. Hilary felt the ice must be broken, and if she did not do it
nobody else would. So she said, stealing her hand into Johanna's
under shelter of the dim fire-light, "Selina, I wanted to have a
little family consultation. I have just received an offer."
"An offer!" repeated Miss Selina, with a visible start. "Oh, I
forgot; you went to see your friend, Miss Balquidder, this morning.
Did you get any thing out of her? Has she any nephews and nieces
wanting a governess?"
"She has no relations at all. But I will just tell you the story of
my visit."
"I hope it's interesting," said Ascott, who was lying on the sofa,
half asleep, his general habit after dinner. He woke, however, during
his Aunt Hilary's relation, and when she reached its climax, that the
offer was for her to manage a stationer's shop, he burst out heartily
laughing:
"Well, that is a rich idea. I'll come and buy of you. You'll look so
pretty standing behind a counter."
But Selina said, angrily, "You cannot even think of such a thing. It
would be a disgrace to the family."
"No," said Hilary, clasping tightly her eldest sister's hand--they
two had already talked the matter over: "I can not see any disgrace.
If our family is so poor that the women must earn their living as
well as the men, all we have to see is that it should be honestly
earned. What do you say, Ascott?"
She looked earnestly at him; she wanted sorely to find out what he
really thought.
But Ascott took it, as he did every thing, very easily. "I don't see
why Aunt Selina should make such a fuss. Why need you do anything,
Aunt Hilary? Can't we hold out a little longer, and live upon tick
till I get into practice? Of course, I shall then take care of you
all; I'm the head of the family. How horribly dark this room is!"
He started up, and gave the fire a fierce poke, which consumed in
five minutes a large lump of coal that Hilary had hoped--oh, cruel,
sordid economy--would have lasted half the evening.
She broke the uneasy silence which followed by asking Johanna to give
her opinion.
Johanna roused herself and spoke:
"Ascott says right; he is the head of the family, and, by-and-by. I
trust will take care of us all. But he is not able to do it now, and
meantime we must live."
"To be sure, we must Auntie."
"I mean, my boy, we must live honestly; we must not run into debt:"
and her voice sharpened as with the reflected horror of her young
days--if, alas! there ever had been any youth for Henry Leaf's eldest
daughter. "No, Ascott, out of debt out of danger. For myself"--she
laid her thin old fingers on his arm, and looked up at him with a
pitiful mixture of reliance and hopelessness--"I would rather see you
breaking stones in the road than living like a gentleman, as you call
it, and a swindler, as I call it, upon other people's money."
Ascott sprang up, coloring violently. "You use strong language, Aunt
Johanna. Never mind. I dare say you are right. However, it's no
business of mine. Good-night, for I have an engagement."
Hilary said, gravely, she wished he would stay and join in the family
consultation.
"Oh no; I bate talking over things. Settle it among yourselves. As I
said, it isn't my business."
"You don't care, then, what becomes of us all? I sometimes begin to
think so."
Struck by the tone, Ascott stopped in the act of putting on his lilac
kid gloves. "What have I done? I may be a very bad fellow, but I'm
not quite so bad as that. Aunt Hilary."
"She didn't mean it, my boy," said Aunt Johanna, tenderly.
He was moved, more by the tenderness than the reproach. He came and
kissed his eldest aunt in that warm-hearted, impulsive way, which had
won him forgiveness for many a boyish fault. It did so now.
"I know I'm not half good enough to you, Auntie, but I mean to be. I
mean to work hard, and be a rich man some day; and then you may be
sure I shall not let my Aunt Hilary keep a shop. Now, good-night, for
I must meet a fellow on business--really business--that may turn out
good for us all, I assure you."
He went away whistling, with that air of untroubled, good-natured
liveliness peculiar to Ascott Leaf, which made them say continually
that he was "only a boy," living a boy's life, as thoughtless and as
free. When his handsome face disappeared the three women sat down
again round the fire.
They made no comments on him whatever; they were women, and he was
their own. But--passing him over as if he had never existed--Hilary
began to explain to her sisters all particulars of her new scheme for
maintaining the family. She told these details in a matter of-fact
way, as already arranged; and finally hoped Selina would make no more
objections.
"It is a thing quite impossible," said Selina, with dignity.
"Why impossible? I can certainly do the work; and it can not make me
less of a lady. Besides, we had better not be ladies if we can not be
honest ones. And, Selina, where is the money to come from? We have
none in the house; we can not get any till Christmas."
"Opportunities might occur. We have friends."
"Not one in London; except, perhaps, Mr. Ascott, and I would not ask
him for a farthing. You don't see, Selina, how horrible it would be
to be helped, unless by some one dearly loved. I couldn't bear it!
I'd rather beg, starve: almost steal!"
"Don't be violent, child."
"Oh, but it's hard!" and the cry of long-smothered pain burst out.
"Hard enough to have to earn one's bread in a way one doesn't like;
harder still to have to be parted from Johanna from Monday morning
till Saturday night. But it must be, I'll go. It's a case between
hunger, debt, and work: the first is unpleasant, the second
impossible, the third is my only alternative. You must consent,
Selina, for I will do it."
"Don't!" Selina spoke more gently, and not without some natural
emotion. "Don't disgrace me, child; for I may as well tell you--I
meant to do so to-night--Mr. Ascott has made me an offer of marriage,
and I--I have accepted it." Had a thunder-bolt fallen in the middle
of the parlor at No. 15, its inmates--that is, two of them--could not
have been more astounded.
No doubt this surprise was a great instance of simplicity on their
part. Many women would have prognosticated, planned the thing from
the first; thought it a most excellent match; seen glorious visions
of the house in Russell Square, of the wealth and luxury that would
be the portion of "dear Selina," and the general benefit that the
marriage would be to the whole Leaf family.
But these two were different from others. They only saw their sister
Selina, a woman no longer young, and not without her peculiarities,
going to be married to a man she knew little or nothing about--a man
whom they themselves had endured rather than liked, and for the sake
of gratitude. He was trying enough merely as a chance visitor; but to
look upon Mr. Ascott as a brother-in-law, as a husband-- "Oh, Selina!
you can not be in earnest?"
"Why not? Why should I not be married as well as my neighbors?" said
she, sharply.
Nobody arguing that point, both being indeed too bewildered to argue
at all, she continued, majestically,
"I assure you, sisters, there could not be a more unexceptionable
offer. It is true, Mr. Ascott's origin was rather humble; but I can
overlook that. In his present wealth, and with his position and
character, he will make the best of husbands."
Not a word was answered; what could be answered? Selina was free to
marry if she liked, and whom she liked. Perhaps, from her nature, it
was idle to expect her to marry in any other way than this; one of
the thousand and one unions where the man desires a handsome,
lady-like wife for the head of his establishment, and the woman
wishes an elegant establishment to be mistress of; so they strike a
bargain--possibly as good as most other bargains.
Still, with one faint lingering of hope, Hilary asked if she had
quite decided.
"Quite. He wrote to me last night, and I gave him his answer this
morning."
Selina certainly had not troubled any body with her "love affairs."
It was entirely a matter of business.
The sisters saw at once that she had made up her mind. Henceforward
there could be no criticism of Mr. Peter Ascott.
Now all was told, she talked freely of her excellent prospects.
"He had behaved handsomely--very much so. He makes a good settlement
on me, and says how happy he will be to help my family, so as to
enable you always to make a respectable appearance."
"We are exceedingly obliged to him."
"Don't be sharp, Hilary. He means well. And he must feel that this
marriage is a sort of--ahem! condescension on my part, which I never
should have dreamed of twenty years ago."
Selina sighed; could it be at the thought of that twenty years ago?
Perhaps, shallow as she seemed, this woman might once have had some
fancy, some ideal man whom she expected to meet and marry; possibly a
very different sort of man from Mr. Peter Ascott. However, the sigh
was but momentary; she plunged back again into all the arrangements
of her wedding, every one of which, down to the wedding-dress, she
had evidently decided.
"And therefore you see," she added, as it the unimportant, almost
forgotten item of discussion had suddenly occurred to her, "it's
quite impossible that my sister should keep a shop. I shall tell Mr.
Ascott, and you will see what he says to it."
But when Mr. Ascott appeared next day in solemn state as an accepted
lover he seemed to care very little about the matter. He thought it
was a good thing for every body to be independent; did not see why
young women--he begged pardon, young ladies--should not earn their
own bread if they liked. He only wished that the shop were a little
further off than Kensington, and hoped the name of Leaf would not be
put over the door.
But the bride-elect, indignant and annoyed, begged her lover to
interfere, and prevent the scheme from being carried out.
"Don't vex yourself, my dear Selina," said he, dryly--how Hilary
started to hear the stranger use the household name--"but I can't see
that it's my business to interfere. I marry you, I don't marry your
whole family."
"Mr. Ascott is quite right; we will end the subject," said Johanna,
with grave dignity while Hilary sat with burning cheeks, thinking
that, miserable as the family had been, it had never till now known
real degradation.
But her heart was very sore that day. It the morning had come the
letter from India never omitted, never delayed; Robert Lyon was
punctual as clock-work in every thing he did. It came, but this month
it was a short and somewhat sad letter--hinting of failing health,
uncertain prospects; full of a bitter longing to come home, and a
dread that it would be years before that longing was realized.
"My only consolation is," he wrote, for once betraying himself a
little, "that however hard my life out here may be, I bear it alone."
But that consolation was not so easy to Hilary. That they two should
be wasting their youth apart, when just a little heap of yellow
coins--of which men like Mr. Ascott had such profusion--would bring
them together; and, let trials be many or poverty hard, give them the
unutterable joy of being once more face to face and heart to
heart--oh, it was sore, sore!
Yet when she went up from the parlor, where the newly-affianced
couple sat together, "making-believe" a passion that did not exist,
and acting out the sham courtship, proper for the gentleman to pay
and the lady to receive--when she shut her bedroom door, and there,
sitting in the cold, read again and again Robert Lyon's letter to
Johanna, so good, so honest; so sad, yet so bravely enduring--Hilary
was comforted. She felt that true love, in its most unsatisfied
longings, its most cruel delays, nay, even its sharpest agonies of
hopeless separation, is sweeter ten thousand times than the most
"respectable" of loveless marriages such as this.
So, at the week's end, Hilary went patiently to her work at
Kensington, and Selina began the preparations for her wedding.