Produced by Col Choat. HTML version by Al Haines.
[Updater's note: In Volume I, Chapters VIII and IX both have the same
title: "Peggy Walker's Adventures". This was confirmed with the
source book.]
Mr. Hogarth's Will
by
Catherine Helen Spence
CONTENTS
TOC here!!
Volume I.
Chapter I.
The Will
In a large and handsomely-furnished room of a somewhat old-fashioned
house, situated in a rural district in the south of Scotland, was
assembled, one day in the early summer of 185-, a small group in deep
mourning.
Mr. Hogarth, of Cross Hall, had been taken suddenly ill a few days
previously, and had never recovered consciousness so far as to be able
to speak, though he had apparently known those who were about him, and
especially the two orphan nieces whom he had brought up as his
daughters. He had no other near relations whom any one knew of, and had
never been known to regret that the name of Hogarth, of Cross Hall, was
likely to become extinct. He had the reputation of being the most
eccentric man in the country, and was thought to be the most
inconsistent.
With the highest opinion possible of women, and the greatest pleasure
in their society, he had never married; and with the greatest affection
for his nieces, and the greatest theoretical confidence in them, he had
hedged them about with countless laws and restrictions, and had
educated them in a way quite different from the training of young
ladies of their rank and prospects. He had succeeded two childless
elder brothers in the possession of the estate; and Jane and Alice
Melville were the only children of his only sister, who had been dead
for fifteen years.
The funeral had just taken place, and the two girls had been summoned
into the drawing-room to hear the will read by Mr. MacFarlane, the
Edinburgh lawyer, who had drawn it out. They found in the room Mr.
Baird, their uncle's medical attendant, and a stranger whom they had
never seen before--a tall, grave-looking man of about thirty-four,
whose mourning was new, and who showed a deep interest in what was
going on.
Both the man of law and the man of medicine looked nervous and
embarrassed, and delayed proceeding to business as long as they
possibly could; fumbling with knots of red tape; opening the closed
curtains to admit a little more light, and then closing them again, as
if the light was too strong; so that the sisters had time to look at
the stranger, and to wonder who he was and what his business could be
there. He also seemed to be taking notes of the young ladies in a
quiet, timid manner.
At last the will was opened, and after the usual preamble, the lawyer's
voice seemed to break a little. He cleared his throat, and continued in
a lower tone----
"As I have come to the conclusion that the minds of men and women are
radically the same, and as I believe that if the latter are trained in
the same way as the former they will be equally capable of making their
own way in the world, I have acted upon this principle in the education
of my two beloved nieces, Jane and Alice Melville, the only surviving
children of my sister Mary Hogarth; and as I foresee that if I were to
leave them wealthy heiresses my purpose would be completely thwarted,
by Jane losing her independent character, and Alice sinking into a
confirmed invalid, and by both being to a dead certainty picked up by
needy spendthrifts, who will waste their fortunes and break their
hearts, as their father, George Melville, served my poor foolish
sister, I hereby convey and dispose all my property, whatsoever and
wheresoever, heritable and moveable, to Francis Ormistown, otherwise
Hogarth, at present head clerk in the Bank of Scotland, who is my son
by a private irregular marriage contracted with Elizabeth Ormistown, on
the ninth day of July, 18--, and who is my heir-at-law, though he would
find it difficult to prove his claim, as he knows nothing of the
relation between us, and as the only party besides myself cognizant of
the marriage dares not come forward to prove it, but whose progress I
have watched with interest, who has made an honourable position for
himself, without any assistance from me beyond a good education, who
has served faithfully, and who is likely to rule uprightly, who has
raised himself from nameless poverty, and whom, therefore, I judge to
be worthy of wealth and honour: Provided always, that he shall pay to
Jane and Alice Melville, my beloved nieces aforesaid, the sum of twelve
pounds a year each, in quarterly payments in advance, for three years
following my decease, when such payments shall cease, as by that time I
believe they will be independent in circumstances: Provided also that
he shall give to the said Jane and Alice Melville, the furniture and
personal effects belonging to them, as mentioned more particularly in
the schedule marked A, appended to this instrument; and that he shall
give to the said Jane and Alice Melville no further assistance either
in money or in money's worth, directly or indirectly, whatsoever: Also
providing that the said Francis Ormistown, otherwise Hogarth, shall not
marry either of his cousins; the marriage of such near relations being
mischievous and improper.
"In case of any of these provisions being disregarded by the said
Francis Ormistown, otherwise Hogarth, all my heritable and moveable
property shall be divided among certain benevolent institutions, in the
order and manner set forth in the schedule marked with the letter B.
"All these provisions I have made, as being the best for my surviving
relatives; and I believe they will eventually acknowledge them to be
such."
It would be hard to say which of the three parties interested, felt
most astonishment at this extraordinary will. Jane Melville stood rigid
and silent, with her face flushed and her eyes filled with tears, which
she would not let fall. Alice's face lost all colour, and she seemed
ready to faint. But the greatest excitement was shown by the fortunate
legatee. He shook from head to foot, steadying himself on the
table--looked from the two girls to the two gentlemen with bewildered
eyes--and said at last with difficulty, in a low, soft, tremulous
voice----
"Was Mr. Hogarth in his senses when he made this will?"
"A little excited, but indisputably in full possession of his senses,
strange as the will appears," said Mr. MacFarlane, the lawyer; "and Mr.
Baird will corroborate my opinion."
Mr. Baird bowed his head affirmatively. "Quite true--his head was quite
clear at the time. The will was made six weeks ago, and you, Miss
Melville, know how well he was then. Very grieved, indeed--most
inconceivable conduct--cruel--inconsiderate. I feel deeply for your
disappointment. Try not to give way, Miss Alice--or perhaps you had
better give way, it may relieve you. Mr. MacFarlane tells me that he
remonstrated with Mr. Hogarth. Most painful duty--must obey
instructions, of course. Your uncle seemed like adamant. I pity you
with all my heart."
"And so do I, with all my heart," said Mr. MacFarlane.
"And does no one pity me?" said the low voice of the heir to all; but
it was unheeded, for Alice had fainted. Her sister and Mr. Baird laid
her on the sofa, and applied the usual restoratives.
Mr. MacFarlane began to speak in an undertone, to the new master, of
the extent and value of the property he had thus suddenly come into
possession of, and congratulated him rather stiffly on the turn of
fortune that had raised him from a life of labour and comparative
poverty to ease and affluence; but his embarrassment was nothing
compared to that of the man whom he addressed. Francis Hogarth looked
round the spacious room, and out of the window to the pleasant
shrubbery and smooth-shaven lawn, and shuddered when he thought of the
two young cousins, brought up apparently in the lap of luxury, who were
to be turned out upon the world with 12 pounds a-year for three years.
The elder sister seemed to have a vigorous and robust constitution, but
the younger looked delicate. He saw, in his mind's eye, two
governesses, dragging out a weary and monotonous existence, far from
each other, while he, possessed of superabundance, was debarred from
helping them.
He advanced timidly to the sofa. Alice, who had recovered
consciousness, covered her face with both her hands, and sobbed aloud.
Jane turned towards him a glance, not of reproach, but of pity. He felt
it, and took her hand.
"Believe me, Miss Melville, no one can regret this extraordinary will
as I do. I will overturn it, if I possibly can."
"You cannot," said Jane; "it is quite in keeping with all my uncle's
ideas--quite consistent with all he has told us over and over again. He
had many strange notions, but he was generally in the right, and it MAY
prove to be so now." The sigh that accompanied these words told how
faint her hopes were.
"It has been positive unkindness to bring you up as he did, and now to
throw you upon the world. My beginning was different. How could he
expect the same success for you--women, too?"
"And are women so inferior, then? It was my uncle's cherished belief
that they were not. He said he never saw a woman take up man's work
without succeeding in it. I must try to show that I will be no
exception. He was not unkind to take us on our mother's death from a
careless and unprincipled father, to bring us into a quiet and happy
home, to educate us to the best of his judgment, to be always kind,
always reasonable. Ah, no, my dear uncle, though this seems very hard,
it was not meant for unkindness!"
"It is cruel, cruel," said Alice. "He must have been mad. What will
become of us? What will become of us?"
At this burst of despair from Alice, Jane's courage gave way, and the
heavy tears rolled down her cheeks. "Elsie, darling, at the worst we
can only die, and we are not afraid of death. But no, we shall live to
conquer all this yet."
"You cannot as yet lay any plan," said Mr. Macfarlane. "Mr.
Ormistown--Mr. Hogarth, I should say--is in no hurry to take
possession. You can have a month to look about you, and there is no
saying what may turn up in a month."
"Certainly," said the new cousin; "I am sure I should be most happy to
give the young ladies accommodation in this large house for as long as
they please, if that is not forbidden by the will."
"A permanent residence is clearly forbidden; for no assistance, beyond
the small money payment specified, Can be offered or accepted; but I
think a month to remain and to collect all their wardrobe and personal
property may be permitted."
"I ought to return to the bank, and work till they find a substitute,
and will leave my cousins the undisturbed possession of Cross Hall for
a month. In the meantime, I feel as if my presence must be a painful
intrusion. I must leave you."
"Perhaps," said Jane, "though you cannot give us money, you may be able
to give us advice. You are going to Edinburgh; you may see or hear of
something we could do."
"I should be most happy to do so. What line of life should you like to
enter on?"
"Anything we could make a living by."
"Then I suppose a governess's situation?"
"I might teach boys, but I have not learned what would qualify me to
instruct girls. But I do thoroughly understand bookkeeping, write a
good hand, have gone through Euclid, and know as much of the classics
as nine out of ten young men in my rank of life. But my uncle cared
very little for the classics. I know a good deal of chemistry and
mineralogy, but uncle was most pleased with my bookkeeping. How did you
get on when you began to work for yourself?"
"I entered the bank as a junior clerk, at the age of sixteen, and got
30 pounds for the first two years. An unknown friend--I know now who he
was--who had paid for my education and all other expenses previously,
sent me 12 pounds a year for three years to help out my earnings."
"And you could live on that?" said Jane.
"I did live on it somehow," said Francis. "My coats were very
threadbare and my meals scanty, but I weathered these three years, and
then I got a good step, and crept up gradually. I have been now in this
same bank for seventeen years, and am at present in the receipt of 250
pounds a year, thinking myself rich and fortunate;--now I am rich and
unfortunate. Why did not my father leave me to the career I had made
for myself, and you to the inheritance you had been brought up to
expect?"
"Thirty pounds a year to begin with," said Jane, half aloud; "250
pounds after seventeen years' work. Very sweet--all one's own earning.
I am not afraid, only let Elsie keep up heart."
"I cannot," said Elsie; "I'll be dead long before seventeen years are
over."
"I will take good care of you," said Jane.
"How are you to take good care either of yourself or of me if we are
starving?" said Elsie, with a fresh burst of tears.
"We will do our best. So you are going, Mr. Hogarth. Write to me if you
can hear of anything for me. I will be much obliged to you. Good-bye."
Jane shook hands with her cousin kindly, and soon after Mr. MacFarlane,
and Mr. Baird also, withdrew, leaving the sisters alone. Elsie wept
till she was completely exhausted, while her sister sat at the table
with pen and ink and paper before her, but writing nothing.
After a while Elsie started up from the sofa. "Jane," said she, "if we
were to marry, it would put an end to all this perplexity. It was
strange that uncle put in the clause forbidding us to marry that man.
Neither of us would demean ourselves so much, but uncle disliked the
marriage of near relatives. How strange that so little is said about
the mother. I could not look at him, but you did. Is he like his
father? My uncle was a very handsome man; I fancy this man is plain."
"I see little or no likeness to my uncle, but he is by no means
plain-looking."
"Will he get into society? Do they consider such people legitimate?"
"The marriage was irregular, but legal," said Jane. "I see now the
cause my uncle had to dislike the Scotch marriage law. He must have
been made very miserable from some unguarded words spoken or written;
but this does not prevent his son taking the position of a legitimate
heir. He is quiet and unassuming, and will take a very good place in
society."
"It was well," said Elsie, with a faint laugh, "that this clause was
inserted, for you seem to be in some danger."
"Not at all; but we were thrown together in very extraordinary
circumstances, and I could not help feeling for his position as he felt
for ours. Nor could I help asking for advice from him. I agree with my
uncle about cousins. He was right there, as he always used to be. At
least, he brought me up to think like him, and I can scarcely believe
that what he has now done is wrong."
"But, Jane, setting this cousin out of the way, what do you think of
William Dalzell?"
"I was just thinking of him when you spoke," said Jane, resolutely.
"Uncle must have had him in his mind when he mentioned fortune-hunters
in his will, for he never seemed to like him coming here so often; and
just six weeks ago I had been going out riding with him every day. You
said you were not well, and would not accompany us. I suppose I was
giving him what people consider a great deal of encouragement. If my
uncle had said plainly that he disapproved of the intimacy, I wonder if
I would have given it up? Perhaps not--one does not like to be dictated
to. It appeared to myself so strange that he should prefer me to you.
And now I recollect that my uncle must have paid his last visit to
Edinburgh just before he made his will; and there he would see this
young man filling his place in the world so well, while I was behaving
so foolishly. The contrast must have struck him, and he certainly has
put an end to everything between Mr. Dalzell and myself."
"Oh, Jane, he is no fortune-hunter; this will make no change. If you
marry him you must take me home with you, and tell him it is what I
deserve for standing his friend so well."
"My dearest Elsie, you have talked a great deal about Mr. Dalzell, and
I have rather foolishly listened to it, but that must be stopped now. I
know he is poor; he thought to better himself by a wealthy marriage;
and perhaps if I had been left now with 20,000 pounds, with nothing to
do and nothing to think of, his agreeable qualities----"
"Well, you own he has agreeable qualities."
"Yes; I have always owned it--they might have induced me to marry him;
and you, as the possessor of other 20,000 pounds, would have been a
most welcome inmate of our house until you chose for yourself your own
home. But now, Elsie, I know William Dalzell is not the man to encumber
himself with a penniless wife and a penniless sister-in-law."
"He is not mercenary--I am sure he is not," said Elsie with animation.
"Perhaps he is not positively mercenary; but after all am I worthy of
the sacrifice? Look at me, Elsie; even your sisterly partiality cannot
make a beauty of me. My turn of mind is not suited to his; I have
always felt that; and, above all, I am not very fond of him."
"Not very!"
"No; I have liked him a good deal; but now in this crisis, when we have
to begin life in earnest--when I am puzzling myself how to find food
and clothing and shelter for you and me--I feel as if Mr. Dalzell's
past attentions belonged to another world altogether, so I am putting
them aside completely."
"Ah! but Jane, only listen to me. If he were to come now, and lay
himself and all that he has at your feet, that would prove that he was
no fortune-hunter, but a real true lover, as I always believed him to
be."
"He will not do it," said Jane, quietly; and she now began to make some
memoranda.
"We have no ornaments, Elsie," said she, sadly.
"No; I never heard you regret the want of them before."
"I should like to have something to sell. Emilia Chalmers has 200
pounds worth of jewellery, most of it left by her aunt. If we had so
much, we might convert it into money, and might stock a little shop."
"A shop!" said Elsie, shuddering.
"Why not? One is more independent keeping a shop than in a governess's
situation, and there my business knowledge would be of use. It is wrong
and absurd to have a terror of a shop."
"I cannot help feeling a great repugnance to shopkeeping."
"Then would you rather be a governess, supposing you were capable?"
"Oh, Jane, that is such a hard life. I should be separated from you;
and then one is worried by the children, and snubbed by the parents,
sneered at by servants, and ignored by visitors."
"Then dressmaking? You work beautifully."
"The late hours, and the close rooms; do you think I could stand it?"
"I am a little afraid for you," said Jane, thoughtfully. "What would
you like to do?"
"Why, I have never thought of doing anything but being with you,
working a little, reading a little, going out a little, and having
nobody over me but you, my own darling sister. It stuns me to be told
that I must go to work for a livelihood."
"I hope we may be able to live together as you hoped, eventually; but
in the meantime we must both put our shoulders to the wheel."
"Have we no friends who would give us a home--at least for a while,
till we get accustomed to the thought of hard work?" said Elsie.
"We have no relations, and we have made but few friends. I fear no one
would come forward to help us now that we need help so much. It is a
pity that my uncle kept us so much to himself, and that we were so
fully occupied with our own home duties that we had little or no time
for society. Now we have no capital for a start, and no friends to help
us on, only our talents and our education--a small stock-in-trade, I
fear."
In the course of the afternoon the man-servant, James, announced that
Mr. Dalzell was below, and that he sent his compliments and wished to
know how the young ladies were.
It was not the first visit since Mr. Hogarth's death. He had paid a
visit of condolence on the following day, and had never been so
affectionate or impressive in his manner to Jane as on that occasion.
"Show Mr. Dalzell upstairs, James," said Jane; "I think I should like
to see him."
The man looked somewhat intelligent, and obeyed.
"I cannot see anybody--I am not fit to be seen," said Elsie, retreating
in haste from the room; "and indeed, Jane, I wonder at you wishing to
see him so soon after this dreadful news."
"He has been at the funeral, I suppose. It is very proper of him to
inquire for us, and very imperative that we should understand each
other;--the sooner the better. But do not stay if you do not like. I
should prefer to see him alone."
Mr. Dalzell was shown into the darkened drawing-room, where he was some
time in discovering that Miss Melville was alone. A few of the kind
commonplaces which had been so successful on his previous
visit--remarks on the loss she had sustained, on the excellent
character of her deceased uncle, and on the necessity of bearing the
blow with fortitude, which her strong mind was quite capable of--were
made by Mr. Dalzell in unconsciousness that they fell very differently
on Jane's ears now. Jane asked for his mother, and heard that she was
very well, and sent her kindest regards and condolences, and hoped that
the Misses Melville would be able to see her on the following day.
"Were there many people at the funeral?" asked Jane.
"Oh yes, a great man; Mr. Hogarth was so extensively known, and so much
respected."
"Were there any strangers?"
"Several--to me," said Dalzell.
"Did you observe no one in particular?"
"Yes, a gentleman from Edinburgh, said to be a PROTEGE of your uncle's,
who took rather a prominent place on account of there being no male
relative surviving."
"Have you heard," said Jane, with an effort--"have you heard anything
of the will?"
"Nothing whatever--did not think it proper or delicate to inquire,
though I saw Mr. MacFarlane after it had been read. It is a matter of
no consequence to me how Mr. Hogarth has left his property. My feelings
will be quite the same towards----"
"Stop," said Jane; "my uncle has left his entire fortune to this
stranger from Edinburgh, who is his son by a private marriage. Elsie
and I have had an education, and must make the best we can of it."
"Miss Melville, this is incredible--quite incredible. You are merely
trying me. Mr. Hogarth was incapable of such madness and injustice. It
is not treating me well to play upon me in this way."
"In proof of what I say, here is a certified copy of the will--the
final will--executed six weeks ago, when, as you know, my uncle was
perfectly well both in body and mind. It is incontestable."
The bewildered young man tried to read the paper put into his hand, but
he could not follow the written words. Jane's sad face and her manner
convinced him, however, that she was telling him the truth.
"Now," said Jane kindly, "you have talked a great deal of nonsense to
me when my position was very different; but I am quite aware that
things are altogether changed. I will not feel at all hurt or angry
about it. We part perfectly good friends. But you cannot afford to
marry a wife without money, and I should be sorry to be a burden to any
man."
William Dalzell looked at the girl he had fancied himself in love with
for the last few months, and felt that his love had not been of a very
deep or absorbing character. If the two girls had been equal favourites
of their uncle's, his choice would have fallen on Elsie, who was
prettier, more elegant, more yielding, and, as he thought, more
affectionate. Her impulsive and confiding manner, her little
enthusiasms, her blunders, were to him more charming than Jane's steady
good sense and calm temper. Jane never wanted advice or assistance; she
was too independent in mind, and too robust in body, to care much about
little attentions, though she had become accustomed to his in the
course of time, and as there was no other person to compare him with,
had allowed herself to think a good deal of him. Mr. Hogarth had always
shown so marked a preference for Jane, and had so often expressed
displeasure and impatience at Elsie's deficiencies; his property, not
being entailed, was entirely at his own disposal, so that it was
probable that Jane would be left the larger share of it, while if he
made love to Alice it was quite possible that she would be disinherited
altogether, for he knew that he was not a favourite with the old
gentleman. He did not think that anything could shake Mr. Hogarth's
confidence in Jane, and he had been very careful in feeling his ground
sure before he made a formal proposal. He had tried to persuade himself
that Jane's face was charming, though not regularly handsome; so it was
to some people, but he had not eyes to see the charm. Her figure was
undeniably fine, her temper good, her principles to be depended on. Her
education had been peculiar, and singularly secular--his mother had
felt a little shocked at her want of religion--but then Mr. Hogarth was
very odd, and when she was married she would see things differently;
and on the whole Mrs. Dalzell felt that her handsome son had chosen
with great prudence and good sense in fixing his affections upon the
elder and the favorite niece. His small property was heavily
encumbered, and such a marriage would make him hold up his head again
in the country. Mrs. Dalzell's attentions to Jane had been nearly as
assiduous as her son's, and to the motherless girl they were quite as
welcome; and she had shown so much affection for Alice, too, that both
sisters had been very much captivated with her.
William Dalzell felt Jane's kindly-meant speech as a sort of reproach.
He would have preferred to make a speech himself, and to have seen her
more agitated. Though he had never thought himself very much in love,
he believed he had inspired a strong love, and that it would be very
hard for Jane to give him up. But things were completely taken out of
his hands; she did not even now, in the first pain of parting, dream of
breaking her heart. She was his superior, painfully his superior, and
he did not like it.
"You are quite right, Miss Melville," said he; "what you say is quite
true. I am involved and embarrassed, and could not offer you anything
worth having."
"And I will make my own way in the world," said Jane; "and, William
Dalzell, do not be hurt if I give you one friendly piece of advice on
parting--try to make your own way in the world too. Shake yourself
clear of your own embarrassments by your own industry--a far better way
than by marrying a rich wife."
She looked very kindly at the young man as she spoke, but he did not
take the advice in the friendly spirit in which it was given. He
answered rather shortly, that he dared to say he would do as well as
other people, and then began to ask what she knew about the heir, if
she had ever seen him before, or heard Mr. Hogarth speak of him. She
answered----
"No, never; but I cannot answer questions. I cannot converse rationally
any longer. You had better go away, Mr. Dalzell, and let me have a
little rest, for I am rather weary."
The young gentleman stumbled down stairs, and rode home ruminating over
the downfall of all his cherished expectations; while Jane said to
herself, "It is over, and it is better so. He really is a smaller
character than I thought he was."
Chapter II.
Disappointment and Hope; Prose and Poetry
When Jane Melville told her cousin that her uncle had been always kind
and always reasonable, she expressed her own opinion, for she had loved
and honoured him so much that she felt no hardship in doing everything
he wished; but no one else in the house or in the neighbourhood would
have endorsed that opinion. When the rumour spread far and wide that he
had disinherited his nieces, in the expectation that the education he
had given them would enable them to provide handsomely for themselves,
the servants and workpeople about shook their heads, and said it was
"aye weel kenned that the auld laird had a bee in his bonnet;" while
the class with whom Mr. Hogarth associated on more equal terms
declared; that this last eccentricity of affection (for it was all done
out of pure love), surpassed all his other oddities with regard to the
girls, which had long been the talk of the whole country.
They had, as Jane sadly confessed, made but few friends. Their uncle's
reasonable prejudices extended to morning visits, which he called a
frivolous waste of time; and he had a similar dislike to evening
parties; not on account of a puritanic disapproval of dancing, or of
young people of different sexes meeting and having opportunities of
getting acquainted with each other, but the hours were so irrational,
and the conventional dress so unbecoming and dangerous to health, that
he had prohibited Jane and Elsie from accepting the invitations that
were showered on them when they had given up lessons and were supposed
to be ready to come out. If people would meet at six, and break up
before twelve, and wear dresses fashioned like their ordinary attire,
Mr. Hogarth saw no objection to evening parties. He had invited the
neighbours to such a party, and mentioned in his note of invitation the
conditions on which it was to be attended. A good many had accepted,
partly from curiosity, and partly from a wish to be friendly; but, in
spite of really good arrangements and an excellent supper, the party
was not such a success as to be repeated often by Mr. Hogarth, and was
never imitated by any of his guests.
The Misses Melville danced well, walked well, and rode admirably; they
spent several hours every day in the open air; had learnt to swim, and
to shoot both with bow and arrow and with rifle. Their physical
education had been excellent, and had probably saved Elsie's life, for
she was extremely delicate when young, but had gained strength as she
grew up.
Their book education had been chiefly conducted by an old gentleman,
who had lived for eight years in their house as tutor, and they had
spent several winters in Edinburgh, to attend classes and lectures. No
money, no care, and no time had been spared on their education, so that
it was rather a pity that, in the eyes of the world, it was so
unsatisfactory when completed. Both had gone through the same routine;
for Mr. Hogarth seemed to think that education made characters, instead
of merely drawing out what there is in the original material, and he
was disappointed that the uniformity of the training had not produced
two characters more similar than those of Jane and Elsie. Jane's
tendencies were to the practical and the positive; and she gladly
availed herself of her uncle's whim to educate her like a man of
business, regretting none of the accomplishments and showy acquirements
which are too apt to be considered the principal part of female
education. Expecting that she would be left in possession of
considerable property, and virtually the guardian of her younger
sister, she saw a fitness and propriety in her being taught the
management of money, the science of agriculture, the care of an
establishment, and the accurate keeping of accounts.
Elsie would have preferred another training, but it was not given to
her; and though she made but a lame attempt to follow Jane's footsteps,
and acquired only a superficial knowledge of what her sister was the
perfect mistress of, her uncle believed that, bad as she was, she would
have been much worse if she had not been forced into rational studies.
Though she was not a marvel of solidity, she still had as good a
knowledge of accounts, general information, history, and science, as is
possessed by many boys who get on very well in business or in
professions, when once set fairly to work.
Mr. Hogarth had no great opinion of the value of teaching languages,
and thought that a knowledge of things was of far more importance than
a knowledge of the names of things. The girls had learned, however, a
good deal of Latin and Greek from Mr. Wilson, their tutor, who thought
it a pity that Jane's fine abilities should not have a classical
education; and he had induced Mr. Hogarth to agree to it by the
argument that these languages are invaluable for the ready and correct
understanding of all scientific terms. French and Italian the girls
themselves were anxious to learn; and as they had been promised a
continental tour some fine summer, their uncle thought they might be
useful acquirements then, so they had lessons from the best masters in
Edinburgh, and profited by them. And here for the first time Elsie's
progress had been far greater than Jane's. Mr. Hogarth had himself
spent a good deal of time in his youth in France; but he had a higher
opinion of French society than of French literature, and he thought
that from the lips of brilliant Parisian women they would learn more of
the spirit of the language and of the people than from the books they
studied in classes or read at home.
Elsie had a natural taste for music, and a remarkably sweet voice in
speaking, which, if it had been cultivated, would have made her an
excellent singer; but her uncle was sure that to indulge her with a
musical education would only weaken her mind. Mr. Hogarth had seen no
good come of music. A taste for singing and a fine voice had been the
ruin of thousands--they had been most mischievous to Elsie's own
father, and they had been the chief fascinations which had won upon his
dear sister Mary. She and George Melville had sung duets together, and
from that had been led to try a duet through life; and a very sad and
inharmonious life they had made of it.
So poor Elsie's natural tastes were discouraged and thwarted; and after
the positive lessons were over, and her education was said to be
finished, she felt vacuity and ennui when Jane rejoiced in full
employment. The housekeeping was ostensibly taken by the sisters in
alternate weeks; but though Jane relinquished the keys for the stated
period, she never relinquished the superintendence. She remembered what
Elsie forgot; she looked forward where Elsie would have scrambled in
the best way she could through the passing hour, and constantly
thinking for her and remedying her blunders. Elsie was apt to forget
that any responsibility rested on herself.
Nothing in their singular training was considered odder than that,
while they were educated in a more masculine manner than most boys,
they were obliged at the same time to make a greater proportion of
their own clothes than any girls of their own rank or circumstances,
and that they had been carefully and systematically taught to make them
in the best manner possible. The only instructions which they had
received from one of their own sex had been given to them by an
excellent plain needlewoman, a first-class dressmaker, and a
fashionable milliner; and in the last two branches Elsie's taste had
made her excel her sister even more than in French and Italian.
At the time of their uncle's death, Jane was twenty-three years old,
and Elsie two years younger. They had but very recently given up
regular study, for their uncle thought girls were far too soon
"finished", as it is called, and turned out in a very incomplete state
of mental and moral development. He would not let them think themselves
educated till they had seen more of the world than could be done in
Edinburgh, which was a city he had rather a contempt for, as a mere
provincial capital, too superstitious and narrow-minded for his taste.
Paris and London were the schools for men, and therefore, according to
his notions, for women also; but when the time arrived for the tour on
the Continent and the winter in London, which had been promised to the
girls, he felt his health had given way, though he had no positive
illness, and delayed leaving home till the following year, when he
hoped to be able to enjoy it, and to show all he meant to show to the
girls without fatigue or indifference. If he had been able to go with
them on the previous year, as had been arranged, he would probably have
left his fortune otherwise, for Mr. Dalzell's attentions had only been
of recent date.
As the news of the will spread, every one said they really ought to
call on the Melvilles, poor things; but no one was in a hurry to
perform so disagreeable a duty. Mrs. Dalzell was so astounded by the
change that was made in her son's prospects, and so embarrassed lest
she should be looked to for assistance in the present urgent
necessities of the girls, that though she had been by far the most
intimate and cordial of their friends, she was not the first to visit
them. Three or four matrons had come and gone, who had made but short
calls, and who had taken refuge in commonplace inquiries as to how and
when Mr. Hogarth had been first taken ill, and at what hour he died,
but had given very little sympathy, and no advice. The minister of the
parish had called, as in duty bound, on the day after the funeral, and
surprised both Jane and Elsie by a style of conversation very different
from any they had ever heard from his lips. In his previous visits to
Cross Hall he had never talked of anything but the weather, and crops,
and the news of the neighbourhood. His tastes, his studies, his
politics, and his faith were so opposite to those of Mr. Hogarth that
there was no safety, and likely to be no pleasure, in conversation that
left the neutral ground he took. But now, when the eccentric and
sceptical Mr. Hogarth had crowned all this sins by an act of such
injustice to his nieces, and they were in affliction from bereavement
and poverty, he wished to give them spiritual comfort, and to teach
them something that he knew had been omitted in their education; but he
couched his consolation in language that seemed strangely unfamiliar to
the girls he addressed, and when he spoke of crosses to be borne, that
God has made crooks in every lot that no man may make straight--when he
dwelt upon the temptations of riches, and the difficulty with which the
rich can enter the kingdom of Heaven, and hoped that his young friends
would see the hand of God in this trying dispensation, and would follow
humbly His leading--Jane, who hoped to conquer her difficulties, and
did not mean to succumb to them, did not feel much comforted or edified
by the well-meant exhortation. Both girls felt pained, too, by the
reflections he cast on their late uncle, and by the warning to be
prepared for sudden death, as this had been an instance of the Master
coming when no one was looking for Him, and when the loins were not
girt, nor the light burning. Both girls had loved their uncle; and even
though Elsie felt that he had been often hard to her, and that the will
was not a just one, she could not bear the idea that Mr. Herries
suggested of his probable place in the future state, while Jane felt
indignant.
They had both hoped for some help and comfort from Mrs. Dalzell; but
when her visit was so long delayed, their expectations fell
considerably. Jane had become so tired of the useless kind of
condolence that was offered, that she determined to ask for advice from
the next person who came, and that happened to be Mrs. Dalzell. She
spoke a little more freely and kindly to the girls than other people
had done; but still she was keeping serious difficulties at arm's
length, when Jane turned rather sharply round on her with the abrupt
question----
"What do you think we ought to do, Mrs. Dalzell?"
"Indeed, I cannot say, Miss Melville. This most unaccountable conduct
of Mr. Hogarth's has taken us all by surprise, so much that I can think
of nothing but overturning the will. I am sure when William told me of
the extraordinary disposition of the property, I felt--I cannot tell
you how I felt. Such a shocking thing to leave all to a son whom nobody
ever heard of before, and to leave his sister's children destitute. You
certainly have a claim on the heir, for a maintenance at least. He
should be made to refund a part of the spoil."
"He would if he could, but it is forbidden. There is no help in that
way," said Jane. "But employment, Mrs. Dalzell; can you suggest any
employment for us?"
Mrs. Dalzell hesitated. "Mrs. Chalmers is in need of a finishing
governess for Emma and Robina; but I am afraid neither of you two young
ladies would suit her, for we cannot get music-masters here, and one
must have a governess who has a good knowledge of music. If Mr. Maxwell
had not just engaged a tutor for his boys, you might have perhaps
undertaken that place, Miss Melville."
"I think I might," said Jane.
"Would it not be pleasanter, if we have to take situations, to go to a
distance," said Elsie. "I do not think I could I bear you or myself to
be near Cross Hall when everything is so changed."
"It would be more agreeable, I have no doubt, Miss Elsie; and I cannot
help thinking that in such a place as Edinburgh or Glasgow, where there
are masters and mistresses for everything, you could get on by having
classes, or engaging as teachers at some institution. In the country we
want governesses and schoolmistresses to know everything a girl ought
to learn."
"Is there nothing but teaching that we can do?" said Jane.
"Well, you know there is nothing that a gentlewoman can turn to in such
circumstances as yours but teaching, and I would be very glad indeed to
see you both in nice comfortable situations. By-the-by, Miss Elsie, I
copied into my album the very sweet verses you sent me, and have
brought them back to you. Are they really your own? William says he
thinks they are."
"Yes," said Elsie, "they are original."
"Well, I could not have thought it; they are extremely pretty."
"By-the-by," said Jane, "do you not know Miss Thomson, Mrs. Dalzell? My
uncle always spoke of her with respect and admiration, as an instance
of the skill and success with which a woman can conduct masculine
avocations. A gentlewoman-farmer, and a thriving one. I wish we had
known her."
"Oh, yes. I do know Miss Thomson. Of course we are not exactly in the
same position, we being proprietors, while she is only a farmer; but
she is a most excellent and estimable woman in her way, though she is a
bit of a character. She is now growing old, and not so active as she
has been."
"She is said to be a benevolent and a kind-hearted, as well as a clever
woman," said Jane.
"Oh, yes; and well she may be liberal, for she has made money, and has
not the status to keep up that old country families must maintain."
"I wonder if she would engage me as her helper, and teach me farming. I
know a good deal of theoretical agricultural chemistry. Will you be so
good as give me a letter of introduction to her; I should feel greatly
obliged to you."
Mrs. Dalzell willingly granted this small request, and felt much
disposed to magnify its importance. It would be a good thing if,
without any trouble or sacrifice on her own part, she could aid her
dear young friends by bringing them into contact with a person who was
more able to further their views than herself. She was sure that Miss
Thomson was the very person to apply to, for of course she would take
an interest in a young lady so unfortunately situated. It was so well
thought of on Miss Melville's part; but then Miss Melville was always
so quick and sensible. The letter of introduction was written, and then
Mrs. Dalzell took leave.
Next day Elsie was languidly reading the local weekly journal, when she
came upon a paragraph which related to themselves. Mr. Hogarth's will
was described and commented on. There was congratulation for the heir
and commiseration for the nieces.
"Oh, Jane," said she, "is it not dreadful to be brought before the
public in this way; everybody must be talking about us, and of course
everybody has got hold of the story of William Dalzell and you too. I
am glad they did not put that in the newspapers, at any rate. Every one
will think that he gave you up, and will fancy you are so distressed
about it."
"We cannot help either what people think or what they say. I do not
wonder at the COURIER making a long paragraph on the subject, for they
have not had such an interesting piece of local news since Mr. Fisher
committed suicide."
"I do not like the appearance of my own name in print," said Elsie.
"It is a very pretty name, nevertheless, and would look as well on the
title-page of a book as any I know--only in a newspaper you do not like
it," said Jane. "I must bid you good-bye for a few hours now, for I am
going to Miss Thomson's. I am going to ride, and will not be very long."
Miss Thomson had just taken up the local newspaper after her morning
ride over the farm, and had read the peculiarly interesting paragraph
relating to Mr. Hogarth's will, when Mrs. Dalzell's note was put into
her hands, and Miss Melville was announced.
Miss Thomson was a very fine-looking old lady, with keen, though also
kind grey eyes, looking out from rather shaggy eyebrows, and an open
frank smile on her mouth. The colour of health still bloomed on a cheek
that had seen sixty summers and winters, and the elasticity of youth
had only been transformed into the dignity and repose of a green old
age. It is better to be at the head of the commonalty than dragging in
the rear of the gentry, and for substantial comfort, liberal
housekeeping, generous almsgiving, and frank hospitality, the farmhouse
of Allendale was out and out superior to the mansion of Moss Tower,
where the Dalzells had lived for at least two centuries.
As Mrs. Dalzell's note had been introductory and not explanatory, Miss
Thomson could not guess the cause of the unexpected visit. She,
however, kindly welcomed Miss Melville, and asked her to sit down,
which Jane did with an ease and youthful dignity that was as suitable
to her time of life as Miss Thomson's at three-score.
"I have called, madam," said Jane, "because I have always admired you,
and wished to know you; and also because at this critical juncture I
have thought that your advice would be far more valuable to me than
that of people who have never made an effort or conquered an obstacle.
You know our position"--and she glanced at the open newspaper.
"Yes, I do. I feel both surprised and grieved at your uncle's
extraordinary settlement," said Miss Thomson.
"My uncle always used to point to you as an instance of what women
could do if they tried, and I am sure he must have had you in his eye
when he felt so sure of my success in life. Could you, would you teach
me to farm, and I will keep your books, write your letters, manage your
household, be your factotum, if you will allow me. I have studied
agricultural chemistry, and if you would permit me to learn from you
the practical details of farming operations, I might really be of use
to you."
Miss Thomson shook her head. "My dear girl, you do not know what you
ask. Without capital, and a large capital, no one need think of taking
a farm in Scotland; and all those things that you offer to do for me
are precisely the things that I can do for myself, and I hope will be
able to do for the next ten years. I should be better for an assistant,
it is true, but it must be some one who can ride to market, buy stock,
sell to butchers, take or let grass parks, and oversee my working farm
steward, for I am getting rather old for such long rides as I have been
in the habit of taking on the farm. And, my poor girl, anxious as I am
to befriend you in your straits, and to encourage your honest ambition,
I have nephews and nieces, and grand-nephews and grand-nieces of my
own, who have all claims upon me. My two married sisters have large
families, and not very much to keep them on, so I have to help in
various ways. Do as you like, the burden of bringing up the next
generation is pretty equally divided among us, and I am only thankful
that Providence has so prospered me that I can be of use of the young
people. I have arranged that my nephew, John Forrester, is to come and
do for me what I cannot so well manage without help; and as I have no
idea of falling behind the high farming of the times, I have given him
a thorough course of the agricultural chemistry, so much in fashion,
before he tries the practical branch of the science. I hope he will not
be too new-fangled and upsetting altogether with his theories; but he
is a good lad in the main, and I think he will do. Besides John, I have
to help his brother James to begin business, and I have two nieces
whose education I am making more thorough than their parents could
afford to do."
"So you have no room for me," said Jane. "I should have known it. I
have no claim on any one, not a relation in the world but a sister,
less fit to cope with it than myself, and a cousin, newly found under
sad circumstances, and tied down not to assist us. But could you not
give us any encouragement, for that is what I want most? Your own
experience----"
"My own experience is very different from what yours can be. My father
died in the early years of a long lease of twenty-one years, when he
had laid out several thousands, all the capital he had, and all he
could raise, upon the land, hoping to get it out again with interest
and a large profit, for the farm was a fine one, though it had been
badly managed before. He had no son to take up the lease; and had
things been wound up, and the lease sold, there would have been a heavy
loss. I believed that I could manage the concern, and got leave from
the landlord, rather as a favour, to continue on Allendale. I was
industrious and methodical, and reduced the expenses of management
below what they had been in my father's time, and consequently made
more money than even he could have made of it. My landlord willingly
took me again for a tenant when the lease was expired, particularly as
I offered as much as any one for it. The value of the lease, stock, and
crop, that I began business with, could not have been less for me to
keep than 5,000 pounds, though if they had been sold they might have
brought only half that amount. You see I had a good start. I like the
work, and it likes me. I am a richer, a happier, and a more useful
woman, than I could have been if I had had 20,000 pounds all left me in
a lump."
"This is very different, indeed, from our case," said Jane. "It is the
want of capital that I feel so very hard. I could make something of
capital."
"I suppose that for you, Miss Melville, with nothing but youth, health,
and a stout heart, there is nothing but a governess's situation to be
thought of. Society seems to say to gentlewomen who have not enough to
live on, 'Teach or marry;' and the governess market and the marriage
market are both sadly overstocked. People have not all got a taste for
either alternative. Here am I, a sensible, well-disposed woman, but yet
I never could teach in my life, and I never had any wish to marry."
"The world is large," said Jane; "there are thousands of fields of
labour. Uncle did not wish us to be governesses, I am quite sure; he
did not educate us for it; and I do not think he wished us to marry
either."
"He should have left you a small competence--not enough to tempt
others, but to save you from being tempted yourself," said Miss Thomson.
"I dare say he made a great mistake; but I think he fancied that the
strong necessity for effort would stimulate us to exertion. To vegetate
on a small annuity would not be so pleasant as to earn even the same
income for ourselves," said Jane.
"Well, my dear girl, I do not fear for you, though things look so very
gloomy at present. You have got the stuff in you. There is promise of
success in your step and voice--in your quick eye and honest smile. Is
your sister like yourself?--no; you said she was less fit for the life
that is before you; that is a pity."
"It is; but we love each other so dearly--we are all the world to each
other."
"Well, that is good for both of you; love is just as great a necessity
as air or food. I cannot help thinking that you should try your luck in
Edinburgh; you are more likely to find what will suit you there than in
a country side, like this of Swinton. Have you any friends there?"
"None to rely upon," said Jane.
"Your cousin that has come into such an inheritance, does he seem
friendly?"
"Very much so, but he is forbidden to give us help."
"In money, perhaps; but it would be only right if he would take some
trouble to make inquiries, and speak for you to any one he thinks could
employ you. It would be a satisfaction to his own mind, besides."
"I have a letter from him this morning, saying that he has heard of
something that he fears is not good enough for me, or either of us, and
urging me to come to Edinburgh, to see for myself, offering me or both
of us, if we are so inclined, the hospitality of his humble home, as he
calls it. I cannot afford to go to a hotel, and we have no friend to
whose house we could go uninvited, so I feel inclined to accept the
invitation."
"You had better do so, Miss Melville; and as it may be a while before
you meet with work, and as travelling about to look for it costs money,
you will be so good as to take this, with my best wishes," said Miss
Thomson, opening her desk and taking out a five-pound note and handing
it to Jane, who, though she had fancied she never could have accepted
money from a stranger, felt this to be offered so frankly and kindly,
that she thanked Miss Thomson and took it.
"This is the best sign of you yet--no foolish pride--no flying in my
face with indignant disclaiming of what people call charity, and
throwing the bit of paper on the carpet for the lass to sweep out, but
a sensible and reasonable way of taking from a fellow-creature what she
would take as pleasantly from you if she needed it and you had it to
spare. You will do, Miss Melville; only mind, as the old Scotch proverb
has it, 'You must set a stout heart to a stey brae'."
On Jane's return to Cross Hall she found her sister in very much better
spirits than when she set out for Allendale. An idea had struck Elsie,
consequent partly on the remark Jane had made about her name looking
well on the title-page of a book, and partly on her seeing in the
Poet's Corner of the SWINTON COURIER some verses very inferior to her
own which Mrs. Dalzell had returned to her. She was a poet; and what
was there to hinder her from distinguishing herself in the literary
world by thoughts that breathe and words that burn; and also from
earning in this pleasant way a handsome income. Hope arose out of the
vision; the fanciful and fragile mind that every one had despised and
undervalued might, perhaps, do greater things than Jane's clear head
and busy hands. Never had her ideas flowed more rapidly, or her words
arranged themselves so well. She began by bewailing her own sad fate,
the loss of fortune, and the desertion of friends; and the sincerity of
her feelings made it feel like an inspiration. Things that appeared to
her to be new thoughts crowded on her, and before Jane's return she had
finished a short poem very much to her own satisfaction.
She would scarcely wait to hear the result of her sister's visit to
Miss Thomson, but impetuously and affectionately made Jane sit down to
listen to her lay.
"I wish I were a good judge, Elsie. It seems to me to be very pretty.
Here and there I would alter a word; but, on the whole, I think you
have succeeded," was the welcome criticism.
"You think so; and you are so prosaic. I feel as if I could go on for
ever writing. Don't you think you have seen worse verses printed, not
in a newspaper, but in a book?"
"I read so little of that kind of literature; but I am sure you often
read pieces to me, from both newspapers and books, that do not interest
me half so much."
"Oh, Jane, I count so much on your good opinion, because I know that
you will give it honestly, and because I think if I can please you I
may please anybody." And Elsie looked so animated, so joyous, and so
spiritual, that Jane's hopes rose. She, indeed, was no judge of poetry,
but anything that could give courage and hope to her sister's mind must
be a good thing.
"You must persevere, my dear. It will do yourself good, if no other
good comes of it," said she.
"But other good is sure to come of it, Jane. Do not such things get
printed, and of course the writer is paid for them? I can write so
fast; and now I know some of the real trials of life, I can speak from
experience."
"And you are the type of the bulk of the poetry-reading public," said
Jane thoughtfully. "The lady readers, I mean; generous, impulsive, and
romantic; you ought to know what will suit the public taste. I wish you
all success. But I have failed in my object, and have been advised to
go to Edinburgh. You saw I had a letter this morning from Mr. Hogarth,
with an invitation for both of us to come and live at his house, and
look about us. You would not like to go?"
"No, Jane, I would far rather stay here and write; but it would be
uncomfortable for you to go by yourself. I will go, if you very much
wish it."
"No, my dear, if you think this writing is to be your vocation, it is
not necessary for you to look for a situation, and I do not mind going
by myself, only I feared you would be unhappy alone."
"I will be quite happy. I must have something better than this done
while you are away."
"I must write to my cousin, accepting the invitation, and telling him
when to expect me. The sooner I can go the better."
Chapter III.
Closed Doors
Francis Hogarth was waiting for Jane at the railway station, and as
they walked together to his house in the outskirts of the town, she
eagerly asked him about the situation he had heard of that he feared
would not suit.
Her cousin hesitated a little, for it seemed so far below her deserts
and her capabilities; but Mr. Rennie, the manager of the bank in which
he had so long been employed, had told him that the ---- Institution,
the principal asylum for the insane in Scotland, and an admirably
managed establishment, wanted a second matron; and that from the
accounts he had heard of Miss Melville's practical talents, it was
probable that she would be the very person to fill the situation well.
Jane eagerly asked after the duties and the salary, but Francis could
not give her all the particulars she desired. Mr. Rennie was to see one
of the Directors of the ---- Institution on that evening, and was to
make inquiries; he had some influence with one or two of the directors,
and would use it in Miss Melville's favour if she was disposed to apply
for it. It was expected that there would be at least fifty applications
for it, and a little interest was a good auxiliary even to the greatest
merits in the world. The duties, so far as Francis knew them, were the
active superintendence of a large number of female servants, and the
charge of all the stores, both of food and clothing, required for a
household of several hundreds, who could none of them think for
themselves. He did not know if she would come much in contact with the
patients; he hoped not, for he thought it would be a sufficiently
exhausting and anxious life without that. He had heard that the
institution parted with the present occupant of the situation for
incompetence--that there had been both waste and peculation.
"I feel sure that my superintendence of my uncle's household, and my
knowledge of accounts, should enable me to fill such a situation well,
and from the number of applications, and the responsible nature of the
duties, the salary should be handsome," said Jane. "I think I should
send in an application, and I feel obliged both to Mr. Rennie and you
for the suggestion. The establishment is well managed; you know it is
one of those to which my uncle's property was to go in case you
disobeyed his injunctions. He had a high opinion of the kind and
rational treatment of the patients there. I do not see any objection to
mingling with them either. I might be very useful."
"It seems a throwing away of your talents and acquirements, to make a
mere housekeeper of you," said Francis.
"It is not such an insignificant office after all. What contributes to
the comfort and happiness of a family every day, and all day long, is
surely as valuable a thing as much book-learning; and to keep such a
large establishment going smoothly and satisfactorily requires much
care and thought, and a particular kind of talent, which I think I
possess, and which such a life will develop. When can I see Mr. Rennie,
and when can I send in my application?"
"Mr. Rennie particularly desires to see you to-morrow morning; and if
you like the prospect he holds out, your application can be sent in
immediately."
When they reached the small but prettily situated cottage occupied by
Francis, Jane was agreeably struck with the comfort and neatness of
everything about it. The furniture, without being costly, was good of
its kind; the very excellent collection of books was methodically
arranged in ample book-shelves, and carefully preserved by glass doors;
the bright fire in the grate--for though it was called summer, it was
but a bleak cold day in Edinburgh; and the respectable-looking
middle-aged woman who had just laid the cloth for dinner, and now
brought it in; all gave an air of comfort and repose to a dwelling much
humbler than she had been accustomed to live in, but far better than
any she could hope for a while to occupy. There were on a side table a
few costly articles of VERTU, and a magnificent folio of engravings,
which had been bought by Mr. Hogarth since his accession to fortune;
but substantial comfort had been attained long before.
Jane was rather surprised to see the large proportion of poetry and
fiction that filled the book-shelves. Little did Mr. Hogarth the elder
suppose that the bank clerk, whose outer life was so satisfactorily
practical, had an inner life whose elements were as fanciful and unreal
as poor Elsie's. His taste was certainly more severe and fastidious
than hers, for he was older, and had read more; but his love, both of
art and poetry, was very strong, and had been to him in his long
solitary struggle with fortune a constant and unfailing pleasure. He
had found in them some amends for the want of relatives and the want of
sympathy; and now his heart turned with strong affection to both of his
cousins, and especially to the one who treated him with so much
delicacy of feeling and such generous confidence. It was like finding a
long-lost sister; there was so much to ask and to answer on either
side. Jane liked to talk of her uncle; and Francis' curiosity about his
unknown father, whom he had only occasionally seen at long intervals as
a stranger who took a little interest in him, was satisfied by her
clear and graphic descriptions of his opinions, his talk, and his
habits; whilst she, beginning a new life, and doubtful of the issue,
eagerly asked of his early experiences, and liked to chronicle every
little step in a steady and well-deserved progress.
Though Jane had such a practical turn of mind, and such an excellent
education, it must not be supposed that she knew much of the world.
Educate women as you will, that knowledge is rarely attained at
twenty-three; and she had lived so much in a Utopia of her own,
fancying that things that were right were always expedient, and that
they should always be valued for their intrinsic worth, that she did
not see the difficulties of her situation as clearly as many people who
had not half her understanding. She and her uncle had been too apt to
talk of things as they ought to be, and not as they actually were. With
all Jane's quiet good sense, there were points on which she could be
enthusiastic, and on this evening the successful cousin was struck by
the warm expressions of an optimism in which he could not share,
uttered by one who had good cause for complaint and dissatisfaction.
When the cousins went together to the Bank of Scotland on the following
day, and were shown into Mr. Rennie's private room, Jane's hopes were
somewhat damped by the details she received about the situation. The
duties were even greater than she had supposed, consisting in the
active and complete superintendence of a great many female servants,
and a slighter control over a still larger number of female keepers,
who also acted as housemaids and chambermaids; the control of the
workroom, so as to see that there was no waste, extravagance, or
pilfering there; the arrangements necessary in the cooking and
distribution of such large quantities of food, so that each should have
enough, and yet that there should be no opportunity of theft; and the
watchfulness required to prevent any of the girls employed in the
establishment from flirting with any of the convalescent gentlemen. The
wages given by the directors had been too low to keep servants long in
the place, or to secure a good class of girls who would be above
dishonesty or other weaknesses; and this made the duties of their
superintendent particularly irksome; while there was a good deal to be
done for the patients themselves, though not so much by the second as
by the upper matron.
All this seemed a formidable amount of work for one head and one pair
of eyes to do; and when Jane was told that the salary was 30 pounds
a-year, and that so many applications had been and were likely to be
sent in, that great interest was necessary for success, she was by no
means so decided on sending in hers. Even the privileges annexed to the
situation, of a small bedroom for herself, and a parlour shared by two
others, with a fortnight's holidays in the year, though very necessary
to prevent the second matron being removed speedily into one of the
wards, did not seem so tempting as to revive Jane's last night's
enthusiasm.
"Surely," said she, "the payment is very small for the work and the
responsibility."
"There is so much competition for a thing of this kind," said Mr.
Rennie. "There are so many women in Scotland who have too little to
live on, or nothing at all, that they will gladly snatch at anything
that will give them food and lodging, and the smallest of salaries. I
know of a situation of 12 pounds a-year that received forty-five
applications from reduced gentlewomen. The payment is never in
proportion to the work."
"But the work has been badly done hitherto, I understand," said Jane.
"It is not having too little to live on that makes a woman fit for such
a situation as this. Why do not they raise the salary and insist on
higher qualifications?"
"I cannot tell why they do not, but so it is," said Mr. Rennie.
"Is there any chance of rising from second to first matron?" asked
Jane. "That is worth 90 pounds, you say."
"In the course of fifteen or twenty years, perhaps; but the duties are
very distinct at present, and require different kinds of talent."
"Yes," said Jane; "and great interest with the directors might get a
new person in, and fifteen or twenty years' services would have less
weight. I do not feel inclined to work twenty years for 30 pounds even
with a better chance of 90 pounds at last than is offered here. It is
at best a prison life, too; not the life I had hoped for, nor what I am
best fitted for. My cousin's place is filled up here, I understand."
"Every one below Mr. Ormistown has got a step, and we only want a
junior clerk. No doubt we will have plenty of applicants."
"Will you take me?" said Jane. "Do not shake your head, Mr. Rennie.
Cousin Francis, speak a word for me; I am quite fit for the situation."
"If you could do anything to further Miss Melville's views in any way
you would lay me under a deep and lasting obligation, Mr. Rennie," said
Francis. "I have most unconsciously done both of my cousins a great
injury, which I am not allowed to repair. My late father had as much
confidence in this young lady's talents and qualifications as he had in
mine. I know she is only too good for the situation she asks for."
Mr. Rennie was disposed to try to please Mr. Hogarth. He had always had
a high opinion of him, and had great confidence in his judgment and
integrity. He was to take the chair at a dinner given to the whole bank
staff by this man who had advanced all his subordinates one step, and
left them pleased and hopeful; and he could make the usual
complimentary speeches with more sincerity than is common at public
dinners. He had also introduced the new laird of Cross Hall to his wife
and family on equal terms, and they had been very much pleased with
him. But when Miss Melville again gravely asked for the vacant
clerkship, his habitual courtesy could scarcely prevent him from
laughing outright.
"It would never do, my dear madam," said he; "young ladies have quite a
different sphere from that of ledgers and pass-books."
"But I would do the work," said Jane, opening a ponderous volume that
lay on the manager's table, and running up a column of figures with a
rapidity and precision which he could not but admire. Then on a piece
of loose paper she wrote in a beautiful, clear, businesslike hand an
entry as she would put it in the book, showing that she perfectly well
understood the RATIONALE of the Dr. and the Cr. side of the ledger; and
then gravely turning to Mr. Rennie, she asked him why she would not do.
"It is not the custom, my dear young lady; I can get young men in
plenty who want the place."
"I have no doubt that you can, but I want it too; and, in consideration
of the prejudice against my sex, I will take the place, and accept the
salary you would give to a raw lad of sixteen, though I am an educated
and experienced woman of twenty-three. I want something that I can rise
by. I could be satisfied with the career of my cousin, without the
fortune at the end. Young women in Paris are clerks and bookkeepers;
why should they not be so here?"
"France is not Scotland, or Auld Reekie Paris. We consider our customs
very much better than the French. Why, you know quite well it would
never do. You would turn the heads of all my clerks, and make them idle
away their time and neglect their work. You do not see the danger of
the thing."
"No, I do not," answered Jane. "Do I look like a person who would turn
any man's head? If I do such mischief, turn me off; but I ask, in the
name of common sense and common justice, a fair trial. If I do not give
satisfaction I will stand the consequences."
The serious earnestness with which Jane pleaded for so strange an
employment--the matter-of-fact way in which she stood upon her
capabilities, without regarding suitabilities--impressed Francis
Hogarth while it embarrassed Mr. Rennie. It was impossible to
out-reason so extraordinary an applicant, but it was still more
impossible to grant her request. Skilled as the banker was in the
delicate and difficult art of saying "No," it had to be said oftener
and more distinctly to Jane Melville than to the most pertinacious of
customers, to whom discount must be refused.
"I admire your spirit, Miss Melville. If one thing cannot be
accomplished you must try another. But in an establishment like this,
you see, I could not possibly take you in. A private employer might
admire your undoubted ability; but I am responsible to a Board of
Directors, and they would decidedly oppose such an innovation. Your
sex, you are aware, are not noted for powers of secrecy. I dare say it
is a prejudice; but bank directors and bank customers have prejudices,
and no one likes any additional chance of having his affairs made
public."
"You know you are talking nonsense, my good sir," said Jane. "It is
because women have never had any responsibilities that they have been
supposed to be unworthy of trust. Where they have been honoured with
confidence they have been quite as faithful to it as any men."
"But, my dear madam," said Mr. Rennie, "what would be the consequence
if all the clever women like yourself were to thrust themselves into
masculine avocations? Do you not see that the competition would reduce
the earnings of men, and then there would be fewer who could afford to
marry? The customs of society press hard upon the exceptional women who
court a wider field of usefulness, but I believe the average happiness
is secured by----"
"By a system that makes forty-five educated women eager to give their
life's work for 12 pounds a-year, and fifty applying for the
magnificent salary of 30 pounds for a most exhausting and responsible
situation. These are not all exceptional women, Mr. Rennie, but many of
the average women whose happiness you are so careful of. You know there
are enormous numbers of single women and widows in this country who
must be supported, either by their own earnings or by those of the
other sex, for they MUST live, you know."
Mr. Rennie smiled at Jane's earnestness.
"You smile, 'ON NE VOIT PAS LA NECESSITE'," said Jane. "I dare say it
would really be better for us to die."
"I am sure nothing was further from my lips than either the language or
the sentiment. I think your case especially hard--ESPECIALLY hard."
"I thought it was, till I heard of these numerous applications; and the
sad thing to me is, that it is NOT especially hard. Some innovation
must be made: have you and your directors not the courage to begin? I
am willing to endure all the ridicule that may be cast on myself."
"There are other departments of business where your unquestionable
abilities and skill might be employed and well paid for; but here, I
must repeat, it is impossible--impossible--perfectly impossible. Mr.
Hogarth is going to favour us with his company this evening, and Mrs.
Rennie and my daughter Eliza would be most happy to see you. I would
like to introduce my daughter to a young lady who knows business so
well. You will be good enough to pardon my necessary incivility: most
painful to me it has been to refuse your request, backed by such
excellent reasons,--but you will accompany Mr. Hogarth, and show you
are not unforgiving."
Jane accepted the invitation willingly. Francis was not pressed for
time; the bank had released him without the usual notice, so he offered
to accompany his cousin wherever she chose to go to.
"Do you think," said she, when they were again in the street, "that I
could get employment with any bookseller or publisher? I will try that
next. Will you go with me to a respectable house in that line of
business?"
There was no situation vacant for any one in the first two
establishments they called at. In the third there was a reader wanted
to correct manuscripts and proofs, and as Mr. Hogarth was supposed to
be the person applying for the employment, he was asked his
qualifications. When he somewhat awkwardly put forward Miss Melville,
the publisher respectfully but firmly declined to engage her.
"Whatever I could or could not do--whatever salary I might ask--you
object on account of my being a woman?" said Jane.
"Just so," said the publisher; "it is not the custom of the trade to
employ LADIES OF THE PRESS. You do not know the terms or the routine of
the business."
"I suppose I could learn them in an hour or two; but I see you do not
wish to employ me, even if I had them at my finger-ends. Do you employ
women in no way in your large establishment?"
"Yes, as authors; for we find that many books written by ladies sell
quite as well as others."
"But in no other way?"
"Only in this," said the publisher, taking the cousins into a small
room at the back of his large front shop, where eight or ten
nice-looking girls were busily engaged in stitching together pamphlets
and sheets to be ready for the bookbinder. "It is light work; they have
not such long hours or such bad air, nor do they need much taste or
skill as dressmakers do."
"So their wages are proportionally lower," said Jane.
"Just so," said the publisher; "and quite right they should be so."
"Of course; but do they not rise from stitching to bookbinding?"
"Ah! that is man's work. I have bookbinders on the premises, to finish
the work that the girls have begun."
"And they spend their lives in this stitching--no progress--no
improvement--mere mechanical drudgery."
"Yes; and in time they get very expert. You would be amazed at the
rapidity with which they turn the work out of their hands. The division
of labour reduces the price of binding materially."
"No doubt--for you have girls at low wages to do what is tedious, and
men at higher to do what is artistic; that is a very fair division of
labour," said Jane, bitterly.
"Nay, nay; I believe our profession, or rather trade, is more liberal
to the sex than any other. Write a good book, and will give you a good
price for it: design a fine illustration, and that has a market value
independent of sex."
"I can neither write nor draw," said Jane, "but I would fain have been
a corrector of the press; from that I might have risen to criticism,
and become a reader and a judge of manuscript; but I see the case is
hopeless. I suppose it is not you, but society who is to blame. Perhaps
I may be reduced to the book-stitching yet; if so, will you give me a
trial? In the meantime, I wish you good morning."
The publisher smiled and nodded. "A most eccentric young woman, and, I
daresay, a deserving one; but she takes hold of the world at the wrong
end," said he, as she went out to pursue her inquiry elsewhere.
"Now," said Jane, "I can release you, for I will make my next
application myself. If I fail here I really will be surprised, for I
make it to one who knows me."
Mrs. Dunn, the head of the dressmaking and millinery establishment
where the Miss Melvilles had been initiated into these arts, had been
very handsomely paid for instructing them, had always praised Jane's
industry and Elsie's taste, and had held them up as patterns for all
her young people. Of course she knew, as all the world knew, that they
had been disinherited by their uncle, but she fancied they had other
influential friends or relatives; so when Miss Melville was announced,
she thought more of an order for mourning then of a request for
employment. But the young lady, in her own plain way, went at once to
the point.
"You were accustomed at the time I was with you to have a bookkeeper,
who came regularly to make up your bills and your accounts. Have you
the same arrangement still?"
"Yes, and the same gentleman; a first-rate hand at his figures;
employed by many beside me," said Mrs. Dunn.
"Then he cannot miss one customer. Will you give the business to me on
the same terms, for the sake of old times?"
"To you, Miss Melville! it is not worth your having. It is only by his
having so many that he makes it pay, though he is as good an accountant
as any in Edinburgh."
"I might in time get a good many too. Surely women might put all their
work in the way of their own sex. I am quite competent; I convinced a
bank manager to-day that I was fit for a situation in his
establishment, but he did not like the idea of taking a young woman
amongst his clerks. You can have no objection on that score. You know I
will be quiet, careful, and methodical."
Mrs. Dunn was very sorry, but really nobody ever thought of having
young ladies to make up their books. It was not the custom of any
trade. A gentleman coming in gave confidence both to herself and to the
public; and she had no fault to find with Mr. McDonald--a most
gentlemanly man, with a wife and family, too--it would not be fair to
part with him without any cause. And, indeed, the business was not what
it used to be--it needed the most careful management to get along, and
she could not risk having a change in her establishment just at
present; perhaps by-and-by.
"While grass grows horses starve," said Jane. "If I establish a
reputation and get employment from others you could not object to me.
Everyone is alike; neither man nor woman will give me a chance.
"I cannot blame you, Mrs. Dunn, for thinking and acting so much like
other people."
"I am sure it would be better for you to take a nice comfortable
situation; but I thought you had friends. If there was any other way
that I could serve you in I would be so happy. If you had asked to be
taken into the work-room--but I suppose you look higher."
"I do not know how low I may look ere long, Mrs. Dunn. It is quite
possible I may trouble you again, but in the meantime----"
"In the meantime I want you to come into the show-room and see the new
sleeve just out from Paris--it would improve the dress you have on
amazingly. I suppose that was made in Swinton. And you must see
Mademoiselle; she is with us still, and as positive as ever; and many
of the young people you will recognise. How we have all talked about
you and Miss Alice lately. It was such an extraordinary settlement!"
Jane forced herself into the show-room, listened mechanically to the
exclamations and remarks of Mademoiselle, the forewoman, shook hands
with all the work-girls she had known, looked with vacant eyes on the
new sleeve, and heard its merits descanted on very fully; then went
back into Mrs. Dunn's parlour, and had a glass of ginger wine and a
piece of seed-cake with her; after which she took leave, and Mrs. Dunn
felt satisfied, for she had paid Miss Melville a great deal of
attention in spite of her altered circumstances.
"Where am I to go to now?" said Jane to herself as she again trod the
pavement of Princes Street and walked along it, then turned up into the
quieter parts of the town where professions are carried on. She passed
by shops, and warehouses, banks and insurance companies' offices,
commission agencies, land agencies, lawyer's offices.
"Every one seems busy, every place filled, and there appears to be no
room for me," she said to herself. "I must try Mr. MacFarlane, however;
he knows something of me, and will surely feel friendly. I hope he will
not be so much astonished at my views as other people have been."
Mr MacFarlane, however, was quite as much surprised as Mr. Rennie, or
the publisher, when Jane asked him for employment as a copying or
engrossing clerk, either indoors or out of doors. He was quite as much
disposed to exaggerate the difficulties she herself would feel from not
understanding the forms of law, or not being able to write the
particular style of caligraphy required for legal instruments. He had
heard of the singular education Henry Hogarth, an old crony and
contemporary of his own, had given to his nieces, and as his own
old-bachelor crotchets lay in quite another direction, he had never
thought of that education doing anything but adding to their
difficulties, and preventing them from getting married. When the girls
had been left in poverty he only thought of their trying for the nice
quiet situations that every one recommended, but which seemed so hard
to obtain, and then sinking into obscure old maidenhood in the bosom of
a respectable family. When Jane mentioned the matronship, Mr.
MacFarlane strongly advised her to apply for it, for the salary was
more than she could look for in a situation, and she would probably be
more independent. But as for him employing a girl as a law-writer, what
would the profession say to that? It was quite out of the question.
"I fear I have no turn for teaching, but I suppose I must try for
something better than a situation. Could I not get up classes?"
"Oh! yes, certainly--classes if you feel competent."
"Not quite for French or Italian. My uncle was never satisfied with our
accent; and we must advertise French acquired on the Continent
now-a-days, if we want to succeed in Edinburgh. The things I could
teach best--English grammar and composition, writing and arithmetic,
history, and the elements of science--are monopolized by men; but I
must make an effort. I am sorry my dear old friend, Mr. Wilson, is no
more, he would have recommended me strongly; but I will go to Mr. Bell.
I studied under him for four winters, and though I am threatening him
with competition, I know I was his favourite pupil, and I hope he will
help me. I never would encroach on his field if I could find any
elbow-room elsewhere."
This was another long walk, and to no purpose, for Mr. Bell was away
from home, in bad health, for an indefinite period, leaving his classes
in the care of a young man, who had been strongly recommended to him.
The other masters she had had were not likely to take nearly so much
interest in her as Mr. Bell; but she was resolved to leave no stone
unturned, and went to see several of them. They gave Miss Melville very
faint hopes of success. Edinburgh was overdone with masters and
mistresses, rents were very high, and classes the most uncertain things
possible. But she might apply at one of the institutions. Thither she
went, and found that her want of accomplishments prevented her from
getting a good situation; and her want of experience was objected to
for any situation at all. With a few more lessons, and a little
training, she might suit by-and-by.
She was glad that those long walks and many interviews occupied the
whole day till the time Francis had appointed for dinner; she had not
courage to face the empty house and the respectable woman-servant till
she was sure her cousin would be at home to receive her. Heartsick,
weary, and footsore she felt, when she reached the cottage where
Francis was standing at the door to welcome her return.
"Well, friend," said he, "what news?"
"No good news. I suppose I must advertise. Perhaps there is one person
in England or Scotland who would fancy I was worth employing, even
though I am apparently very much at a discount."
"Are you much disheartened?"
"I am very tired," said she; "Rome was not built in a day. I was a fool
to expect success at once."
"You are not too tired to go to Mrs. Rennie's with me this evening. I
have ordered a carriage to call for us."
"Thank you, I will need it, and my dinner, too, in spite of the wine
and cake at Mrs. Dunn's."
Her cousin's quiet sympathy and kindness soothed the girl's aching and
anxious heart; she told him her experiences; and though he was not very
much surprised at the result, he felt keenly for her disappointment.
She had brought a little piece of needlework to fill up vacant hours,
and after dinner she took it out, and soothed her excited feelings by
the quiet feminine employment. There was an hour or more to be passed
before the carriage came for them, and Francis sat on the other side of
the fire cutting the leaves of a new book, and occasionally reading a
passage that struck him. Had any one looked in at the time, he could
not have guessed at the grief and anxiety felt by both of the cousins.
No; it was like a quiet domestic picture of no recent date, not likely
to be soon ended. Jane's sad face lighted up with an occasional smile
at something said or something read; and Francis Hogarth saw more
beauty in her countenance that evening than William Dalzell had ever
seen in all the days he had spent with the supposed heiress whom he
meant to marry.
Chapter IV.
An Evening At Mr. Rennie's
After an hour spent in this quiet way, Jane Melville was sufficiently
rested and tranquillized to go among strangers, in spite of her knowing
the idle curiosity with which she was likely to be regarded. There was
a small party at Mr. Rennie's; but excepting herself and the ladies of
the family, it was composed entirely of gentlemen. Now that Mr. Hogarth
had come into a good landed property, he had spent more than one
evening in the family of the bank manager, and had been discovered to
be presentable anywhere; that he had very tolerable manners and good
literary taste; and both Mrs. and Miss Rennie recollected well how
often papa had spoken highly of him when he was only a clerk in the
bank. Miss Rennie was about nineteen, the eldest of the family, rather
pretty, slightly romantic, and a little fond of showing off her
extensive acquaintance with modern literature. Her interest in Mr.
Hogarth was great, though of recent date; and now to see one of the
cousins whom he was forbidden to marry, on pain of losing all his
newly-acquired wealth and consequence, was an exciting thing to a young
lady who had suffered much from want of excitement. Her father had been
able to tell her nothing of Miss Melville s personal appearance, though
he had dwelt upon her abilities and her eccentric character, and told
her age. Among the party was the publisher to whom Jane had applied for
a situation, who had contributed his share of information about her; a
young Edinburgh advocate, who had not very much to do at the bar; a
Leith merchant, an old gentleman of property in the neighbourhood of
the city, and two college students, all anxious to see people who were
so much talked about.
"Decidedly plain and common-looking, and looks twenty-seven at least,"
was Miss Rennie's verdict on seeing Miss Melville.
"Plain, but uncommon-looking," was the opinion of the gentlemen on the
subject. The open, intelligent, and womanly expression of
countenance--the well-turned neck and shoulders--the easy,
well-proportioned figure--though not of the slight ethereal style which
Mr. Hawthorne admires, but rather of the healthy, well-developed
flesh-and-blood character of British feminine beauty--might redeem a
good deal of irregularity of features.
Though her self-possession had been sorely tried on this day, though
she had been disappointed, and was now worn out and perplexed, and
though her faith in human nature had been shaken, she made an effort to
recover the equanimity necessary for such an evening as this, and
succeeded. Her quiet and lady-like manner surprised Mr. Rennie; he had
thought her masculine in the morning. She listened with patience and
pleasure to Miss Rennie's playing and singing, and then looked over
some books of engravings and prints with the old gentleman, who was a
connoisseur. And when the advocate and the publisher, between whom
there seemed to be a good understanding, entered into conversation on
literary matters, and successful and unsuccessful works, she, thinking
of her sister and her hopes, listened most attentively.
"Well," said the legal gentleman, "I like smart, clever writing, and
don't object to a little personality now and then. It pays, too."
"Those things certainly take well," said the publisher, "but there are
other things that take better."
"What are they?"
"Not at all in your way, Mr. Malcolm; but yet at the present time there
is nothing that pays so well as an exciting religious novel on
evangelical principles. Make all your unbelievers and worldly people
villians, and crown your heroine, after unheard-of perils and
persecutions, with the conversion of her lover, or the lover with the
conversion of the heroine--the one does nearly as well as the other;
but do not let them marry before conversion, on any account. Settle the
hero down in the ministry, to which he dedicates talents that you may
call as splendid as you please; make your fashionable conversation of
your worldly people slightly blackguardly, and that of your pets very
inane, with spots of religion coming out very strong now and then, and
you will have more readers than Dickens, Bulwer, or Thackeray.
Well-meaning mothers will put the book without fear into the hands of
their daughters. It is considered harmless Sunday reading for those who
find Sunday wearisome, and it is thought an appropriate birth-day
present for young people of both sexes. I dare say these books are
harmless enough, but their success is wonderfully disproportioned to
their merits. They must be such easy writing, too, for you need never
puzzle yourself as to whether it would be natural or consistent for
such a character to steal, or for another to murder. 'The heart is
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,' and the novelist
at least takes no pains to know it."
"You fire me with a noble zeal and emulation," said Mr. Malcolm. "Is it
true that the trumpery thing my sister Anne tormented me to order from
you last week has gone through five editions?"
"Just about to bring out a sixth," said the publisher; "and the curious
thing is that it is not at all exciting: but these American domestic
quasi-religious novels (though novel is not a proper term for them) are
the rage at present. If one could trust to their details of every-day
life being correct, they might be useful as giving us the Americans
painted by themselves; but there is so much that is false and
improbable in plot and character, that one is tempted to doubt even the
cookery, of which we have QUANTUM SUFF."
"The conversation is the greatest twaddle I ever saw," said Mr.
Malcolm. "If the American people talk like that, how fatiguing it would
be to live among them! I could not write so badly, or such bad English.
I must take a successful English novel as my model."
"Mr. Malcolm is literary himself," said Miss Rennie, who had left the
two students to amuse each other, and now joined the more congenial
group. "He writes such clever things in magazines, Miss Melville, I
quite delight to come on anything of his, they are so amusing."
"Miss Rennie, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for your good opinion.
Then you like my style? Do you hear that, you ogre? Publishers, you
know, Miss Melville, are noted for living upon the bones of unfortunate
authors, and never saying grace either before or after the meal. This
Goth, this Vandal, this Jacob Tonson, has had the barbarity to find
fault with the last thing I put into the "Mag"."
"Well, I thought you had never done anything so good. It was so funny;
papa laughed till he shook the spectacles off his face, and then all
the children laughed too."
"Listen, thou devourer of innocents, thou fattener on my labour and
groans. My work was good, and my style better, fashionable as Miss
Rennie's flounces, and piquant as the sauce we will have from our host
at supper."
"The style has been fashionable," said the publisher, "but it is
getting overdone. Everybody is trying the allusive style now, and
wandering from the subject in hand to quote a book, or to refer to
something very remotely connected with it. Every word or sentence is
made a peg to hang something else on. Our authors are too fond of
showing off reading or curious information; the style of the old
essayists----"
"Bald and tame, with very little knowledge of the finer shades of
character," interrupted Mr. Malcolm. "I wonder why you, as a critic,
can compare our brilliant modern literature to such poor performances."
"They have their deficiencies, certainly; but there was a simplicity
and directness in these old writings that we would do well to imitate."
"I had better imitate the style of the paying article at present, and
write an evangelical novel. I had better read up in it; but the unlucky
thing is that they invariably put me to sleep; so perhaps I would do
better to trust to my own original genius, and begin in an independent
manner."
"Is it not a treat," whispered Miss Rennie to Jane, "to get a peep
behind the scenes in this way? Mr. Malcolm is quite a genius. I am sure
he could write anything; but he really ought not to go to sleep over
those charming books. He is such a severe critic, I am quite afraid of
him."
"Then you write yourself?" said Jane.
"Oh! how foolish of me to let you know in such a silly way. I write
nothing to speak of. I never thought any one would take me for an
authoress. But I do so doat on poetry, and it seems so natural to
express one's feelings in verse--not for publication, you know--only
for my friends. Once or twice--but this is a great secret--I have had
pieces brought out in the 'Ladies' Magazine.' If you read it, you may
have seen them; they had the signature of Ella--a pretty name, is it
not?--more uncommon than my own."
"Is it a fair question," said Jane, anxiously; "but did you receive
anything for your verses?"
"You have such a commercial turn of mind, Miss Melville, as papa says,
that you really ought to be in business. No; I did not receive or,
indeed, did I wish for any payment. I would mix no prose with my
poetry."
"You are not in need of money," said Jane, with a slight sigh; and she
turned to the publisher, and asked if he brought out new poems as well
as new novels.
"Poetry is ticklish stuff to go off, particularly in Edinburgh," said
he. "I am very shy of it, except in bringing out cheap editions of
poems of established reputation, or reprints of American poets."
"Where there is no copyright to be paid for," said Mr. Malcolm; "I know
the tricks of the trade."
Mrs. Rennie had asked Jane to play and sing, which she could not do,
and then had engaged in conversation with Mr. Hogarth for a
considerable time. Now she supposed Jane must fancy she was not
receiving sufficient attention from her hostess, considering that she
was the only lady guest, so she came forward, and withdrew her from the
animated conversation of the gentlemen, and proceeded to entertain her
in the best way that she could. Her younger children (not her youngest,
for they were in bed) were gathered around her, and the conversation
was somewhat desultory, owing to their interruptions and little
delinquencies. It was now getting time for them, too, to go to bed, and
it was not without repeated orders from mamma, supported at last by a
forcible observation from papa, that they bade the company good-night,
and retired. They were all very nice-looking children, and not
ill-disposed, though somewhat refractory and dilatory about the vexed
question of going to bed.
Talking to them and about them naturally brought up the subject of
education; and Jane timidly inquired if Mrs. Rennie was in want of a
governess, or if she knew any one who was.
"No; the children are all at school or under masters--the best masters
in Edinburgh--for Mr. Rennie is extravagant in the matter of education.
The children get on better--there is more emulation; and then there is
such a houseful of ourselves, that we would not know where to put a
governess, though it might otherwise be an economy," said Mrs. Rennie.
"I should like to have classes," said Jane--trying to speak boldly for
herself; "to teach what I have learned under the same masters whom you
are so pleased with--English philologically, with the practice of
composition, writing, arithmetic, and mathematics. I can get
certificates of my competency from the professors under whom I have
studied. I must leave the neighbourhood of Swinton, where there is no
field for me, and start in this line; my sister can assist me, I have
no doubt."
"I never heard of such a thing, Miss Melville; you had much better take
a situation. The worry and uncertainty of taking rooms and paying rent,
when there are so many masters that you cannot expect but a very few
pupils, would wear you out in a twelvemonth. If I were to send you my
two girls--and I am sure I have every reason to be satisfied with their
present teachers--what would they do for you? Oh, no, Miss Melville.
Take my advice, and get a nice quiet situation, or go into a school,
where you might take music lessons in exchange for what you can teach
now."
"I am too old to learn music," said Jane, "and I have no natural talent
for it. As for a nice quiet situation, where am I to get it?"
"Surely, Miss Melville, you must have many friends, from the position
you have held in ----shire; you must know many leading people. Consult
with them. I am sure they would never advise you to take such a risk; I
cannot conscientiously advise you to do it myself. Mr. Rennie was
telling me about the matronship of the ---- Institution. Don't you
think that would be better? The salary is not high, but there is no
risk. I know one of the house-surgeons very well, and I know he says
everything is very comfortable, and he is one of the pleasantest men I
know."
"I am reconsidering the matter," said Jane. "I suppose if I make up my
mind to it, the sooner I apply the better."
"I should say so," said Mrs. Rennie. "I am sure Mr. Rennie will give
you all his influence, for he says you appear to be such a capable
person. He told us all about your turn for figures and ledgers, and
that sort of thing."
"I have naturally strong nerves, too," said Jane.
"Oh, they say it is nothing being in such a place, when you once get
used to it."
"But what would become of my poor sister?" said Jane. "We did so much
wish to be together; and in such a situation I could see so little of
her."
"That would be the case in any situation; and what is there to prevent
her from getting one for herself?"
"Just as much and more than prevents me. Still, twenty-four and thirty
pounds a year would keep her tolerably comfortable till she can get
employment or meets with success otherwise," said Jane, half thinking
aloud. "I think I will write out my application when we get home
to-night."
"Where are you staying--in Edinburgh?" asked Mrs. Rennie.
"At my cousin's."
"At Mr. Hogarth's?--you do not mean to say so!"
"He asked me to come and stay with him while I inquired about this
situation, or anything else that might appear to be better. You know I
cannot afford to take lodgings or live at a hotel, and no one else
thought of offering me a home."
"It was very kind and well-meant on his part, no doubt; but it was
scarcely advisable on yours to accept it."
"I spoke to Miss Thomson about it, and she saw no objection."
"Miss Thomson of Allendale: very likely she did not--she is used to do
just as she pleases, and never minds what the world thinks."
"She was the only person who gave me either help, encouragement, or
advice. I thought all she said was right and reliable. You do not know
what it is to me, who have no relation in the world but Elsie, to find
a cousin. He seems like a brother to me, and I know he feels like one.
If it had been in his power to give me money to engage a lodging,
perhaps he would have done so, but it is money assistance that is so
strictly forbidden by the will."
"If he had only spoken to some experienced friend on the subject--if he
had only spoken to ME--I am sure it could have been better managed. In
the meantime, if you have no objection to sharing Eliza's room, we will
be glad to keep you here for the remainder of your stay in Edinburgh.
You had better not go home with your cousin to-night."
Jane paused for a few minutes--many bitter thoughts passed through her
mind. "I am much obliged to you for your kind offer, but I do not think
I can accept it. If I have made a mistake, it has been committed
already, and cannot be undone. To-night, I will write my application to
the directors of the ---- Asylum; tomorrow I will be on my way to Cross
Hall. I cannot, after such a day as this, collect my thoughts
sufficiently in a strange house, among strangers, to do myself justice
in my application, nor can I bear to let my cousin know that his
brotherly kindness, and my sisterly confidence, may be misunderstood
and misinterpreted. I have no mother, and no adviser. I had feared that
perhaps the direct or indirect assistance of food and lodging for two
days might peril my cousin's inheritance,--though Miss Thomson thought
there was no danger of that either,--but I never imagined that any one
would think the less of me for accepting it. If you do not tell him, he
need never know it; for I am sure it was the last idea he could have
entertained."
What sad earnest eyes Jane turned on Mrs. Rennie!--she could not help
being touched with her expression and her appeal. A vision of her own
Eliza--without friends--without a mother--doing something as
ill-advised, and feeling very acutely when a stranger told her of it,
gave a distinctness to Jane's present suffering that, without that
little effort of imagination, she could not have realized. Besides, she
had a great wish to think highly of Mr. Hogarth, and to please him; and
the certainty that he would be extremely pained and, perhaps, offended
by her suggestion that he had compromised his cousin's position by his
good-natured invitation, had its influence.
"What you say is very reasonable, Miss Melville, but you forget that
to-morrow is Sunday. You would not travel on the Sabbath, I hope?"
"I seem to have forgotten the days of the week in this terrible whirl,"
said Jane. "I would rather not travel on Sunday, but this seems a case
of necessity."
"Not so," said Mrs. Rennie, kindly. "Come and go to church with us
to-morrow forenoon, and dine with us; if you feel then that you would
prefer to stay here, you can easily manage to do so without making your
cousin suspect anything. If you still are anxious to go home, you can
do that on Monday morning; but I fancy Tuesday is quite early enough to
send in your application."
"Thank you, Mrs. Rennie," said Jane. "I am very much obliged to you
indeed for your kindness, and I think I will avail myself of it; but
to-night--to-night--I must have some quiet and solitude."
"I have been somehow or other separated from you all the evening," said
Francis, as they were on their way home. "Have you enjoyed it at all?
It was hard for you to have to see so many strangers after so trying a
day."
"Rather hard," said Jane, with quivering lips. "Life altogether is much
harder than I had imagined it to be. I want Elsie very much to-night;
but I will see her as soon as I can possibly get home."
"You do not mean to go so soon? you have done nothing satisfactory as
yet. We must make attempts in some other direction."
"I have made up my mind," said Jane; "I will apply for the situation I
despised this morning. People outside of asylums seem to be as mad and
more cruel. I will write my application to-night, and it will go by the
first post."
"Do not be so precipitate; there is no need to apply before Tuesday,
and I believe even Wednesday would do. Spend the intervening days in
town; something suitable may be advertised in newspapers. You have not
yet applied at any registry offices. You said Rome was not built in a
day, yet a day's failure makes you despair. Do not lose heart all at
once, my dear cousin. Though I never had anything half so hard to bear
or to anticipate as you have now, I have had my troubles, and have got
over them, as you will in the end."
The tone of Francis' voice gave Jane a little courage; but she was
resolute in writing out her application before she went to bed. It was
beautifully written and clearly expressed. She asserted her
qualifications with firmness, and yet with modesty, and gave
satisfactory references to prove her own statements. Of all the
applicants, she was the youngest; but Francis was sure that her letter
would be the best of the fifty.
Though Jane thought this decisive step would set her mind at rest,
sleep was impossible to her after such excitement, fatigue, and
disappointment; and the solitude she had longed for only gave her leave
to turn over all the painful circumstances of her position without let
or hindrance. Never had she felt so bitterly towards her uncle. In vain
did she try to recall his past kindness to soften her heart towards
him; for all pleasant memories only deepened the gloom of her present
friendless, hopeless poverty; and the prospect of her inevitable
separation from Elsie, which had never been distinctly apprehended
before, was the saddest of all the thoughts that haunted the night
watches.
Francis had been invited with Jane to spend the day with the Rennies,
and the cousins went to church with the family. Jane heard none of the
sermon nor of the service generally. She had not been in the habit of
paying much attention at church, and there was nothing at all striking
or impressive in the preacher's voice or manner, or in the substance of
his discourse, to arrest a languid or preoccupied listener. Jane was
thinking about the Asylum, and about how much or how little it needed
to make people mad--if they were often cured--and if they relapsed--a
great part of the time; and when Miss Rennie asked her how she liked
the sermon, Jane could not tell whether she liked it or not. Mr. and
Mrs. Rennie confessed that Mr. M---- was nothing of a preacher, but he
was a very good man and a private friend. They liked to go to their own
regular parish church, and did not run after celebrated preachers;
though Eliza was a great admirer of eloquence, and was very often
straying from her own place of worship to go with friends and
acquaintances to hear some star or another, quite indifferent as to
whether he were of the Establishment or of the Free Kirk, or of some
other dissenting persuasion.
The conversation at Mr. Rennie's all Sunday afternoon was much more on
churches, sermons, and ministers, than any Jane had ever heard before.
She had never seen anything of the religious world, as it is called,
and felt herself very much behind the company in information. Her
cousin Francis was much better acquainted with the subject; he seemed
to have heard every preacher in Edinburgh, and to know every one of
note in the kingdom.
Mrs. Rennie, apparently in a casual manner, asked Jane to make her
house her home while she remained in Edinburgh; and the invitation was
accepted with the same indifferent tone of voice, which concealed great
anxiety at heart.
"I should like my cousin to accompany me to my unfashionable chapel,"
said Francis. "Will you either join us or excuse us for the evening, as
it is the only opportunity I may have for a long time to take Miss
Melville there? Miss Rennie, you are the only one likely to have
curiosity enough to try a new church."
"I am sorry I cannot go this evening, for I have promised to go to St.
George's, to hear Mr. C----, with Eleanor Watson and her brother. You
had better come with me; it is the last Sunday he is to preach in
Edinburgh," said Miss Rennie.
"You must excuse me this once," said Mr. Hogarth; "I have a great wish
that Miss Melville should hear my minister. At any other time I will be
at your command."
Miss Rennie could not disappoint either Eleanor or Herbert Watson, or
herself; so Francis and Jane went alone to the little chapel.
"It will do you good to hear a good sermon, and I expect that you will
hear one."
The idea of getting any good at church was rather new to Jane; but on
this occasion, for the first time in her life, she felt real meaning in
religious worship. Never before had she felt the sentiment of
dependence, which is the primary sentiment of religion. She had been
busy, and prosperous, and self-reliant; all she said and did had been
considered good and wise; her position was good, her temper even, and
her pleasures many. Now she was baffled and defeated on every
side--disappointed in the present, and fearful of the future.
Prayer acquired a significance she had never seen in it before; the
tone of the prayer, too, was different from the set didactic utterances
too often called prayer, in which there is as much doctrine and as
little devotion as extempore prayer is capable of. It was not
expostulatory either, as if our Heavenly Father needed much urging to
make Him listen to our wants and our aspirations, but calm, trusting,
and elevated, as if God was near, and not far off from any one of His
creatures--as if we could lay our griefs and our cares, our joys and
our hopes, at His feet, knowing that we are sure of His blessing. Was
this union with God, then, really possible? Was there an inner life
that could flow on smoothly and calmly heavenward, in spite of the
shocks, and jars, and temptations of the outer life? Could she learn to
see and acknowledge God's goodness even in the bitterness of the cup
that was now at her lips?
It was no careless or preoccupied listener who followed point after
point of the sermon on the necessity of suffering for the perfecting of
the Christian character. The thoughts were genuine thoughts, not
borrowed from old books, but worked out of the very soul of the
preacher; and the language, clear, vigorous, and modern, clothed these
thoughts in the most impressive manner. There were none of the
conventionalisms of the pulpit orator, who often weakens the strongest
ideas by the hackneyed or obsolete phraseology he uses.
"Thank you, cousin Francis," said Jane, as they walked back to Mr.
Rennie's together. "This is, indeed, medicine to a mind diseased. I
will make my inquiries as I ought to do tomorrow; but if I fail I will
send in my application; and if I succeed there, I will go to this
asylum in a more contented spirit. It appears as if it were to be my
work, and with God's help I will do it well."
Jane began her next day's work by calling on her Edinburgh
acquaintances, and then went to the registry offices; but Monday's
inquiries were no more successful than Saturday's; so she dropped her
letter in the post, and felt as many people, especially women, do when
an important missive has left them for ever to go to the hands to which
it is addressed. It seems so irrevocable, they doubt the wisdom of the
step and fear the consequences.
When Jane reached home and told her sister of the application she had
sent in, Elsie was horrified at the prospect, and shook her sister's
courage still more by the pictures she conjured up of Jane's life at
such a place, and of her own without the one dearest to her heart; but
after she had said all she could in that way, it occurred to her that
if her poems succeeded, as she had no doubt they would, Jane's slavery
need but be shortlived. Her work had made great progress during the
short time of her sister's absence, and she continued to apply to it
with indefatigable industry. Scarcely would the ardent girl allow
herself to think of anything but what to write;--the tension was too
severe, but Elsie would take nothing in moderation.
Chapter V.
A Humble Friend
The last week of the Misses Melville's stay at Cross Hall had begun
before Jane heard of the result of her application for the matronship
of the ---- Institution. Mr. Rennie then wrote to her that the
directors had appointed a widow, very highly recommended, and
apparently very well qualified. Miss Melville's letter had received
careful attention, and had favourably impressed all the directors; but
her youth and her being unmarried were great objections to her, while
the kind of housekeeping she had conducted at her uncle's was not
likely to be the best school for the management of an establishment of
this kind. Mr. Rennie was very sorry for Miss Melville's
disappointment, but he could not suggest any other situation likely to
suit her.
Elsie jumped for joy when she heard of Jane's rejection, and kissed her
sister over and over again. "We shall not be parted, darling; you will
not go to slave among strangers and to be terrified by mad people. I
cannot--really, I cannot do without you--you are my muse and my critic,
as well as my best friend and adviser."
Jane was not quite so much exhilarated by her failure as her sister;
but Elsie's extravagant delight comforted her not a little. While they
were talking over this matter, Jane was called away to receive the
linen from the laundress for the last time, and to bid her good-bye.
Peggy Walker was somewhat of an authority in the district--a travelled
woman, who had been in Australia and back again, and was now living
with a family of orphan nephews and nieces, and an old man, their
grandfather. Public rumour pronounced her a niggardly woman, for though
she had property she worked as hard as if she had nothing, and took the
bread out of other folk's mouths; but as she was really an excellent
laundress, she had the best custom in the neighbourhood, and her
honesty, her punctuality, and her homely civility, had made her a great
favourite with Jane Melville.
"I fear it must be good-bye this time, Peggy," said she; "next week's
washing must be given to other hands."
"Eh, now, Miss Jean, ye dinna say so. I heard the new man was coming to
the Hall, but no just so very soon as that. But ye are no going out of
the place for good?"
"For good or ill, Peggy, we leave Cross Hall next Thursday."
"And where are you going to?"
"I wish I knew."
"Preserve us, Miss Jean! Are you and Miss Elsie, poor bit thing,
unacquainted with where you are going to?"
"It is only too true."
"Well, I am going to leave the place too; but I ken well where I am
going, and that is to Edinburgh."
"Why are you leaving Swinton? I thought you were doing very well here."
"I don't say that I have any cause to complain of my prosperity here;
but, you see, Tam is wild to learn the engineering, and he wants to go
to Edinburgh, where he thinks he will learn it best; and I don't like
to let him go by himsel', for though he is no a bad laddie, he is the
better of a home and a head to it, and I would like to keep my eye on
him. Grandfather makes no objections, and the bairns are all keen for
Edinburgh, so I am going to flit next week. As for leaving this place,
I am sure I have been growled at quite enough about coming from
Australia and taking work away from my old neighbours, so I will try my
luck where I don't know who I am taking custom from. I've been in and
got a house and a mangle in a nice quiet part of the town, no owre far
from Tam's place where he is going to work, and a healthy bit it looks,
too."
"Peggy, I wish I had your confidence and your reason for confidence. I,
too, want to go to Edinburgh to try my luck there; but though my uncle
spent quite a fortune on my education, and though I did my best to
profit by it, I really can see no way of making my living."
"Hout tout," said Peggy, "no fear of you making a living, you could do
that as well as me; but it is more than a living for yourself you are
wanting; you are thinking of Miss Elsie, poor bit lassie, and would
fain work for two. I mind well when my sister left the bairns to my
care with her dying breath, I felt my heart owre grit. It was more than
I, a single woman, with but seven pounds by the year of wages, could
hope to do, to keep the bit creatures; but yet it was borne on my mind
that I was to do it, and God be praised that He has given me the
strength and the opportunity, and it is little burden they have been to
any other body; and in due time, when they have got learning enough,
and are come the length to get the passage, I will take them back with
me to Melbourne, where their prospects will be better than in the old
country."
"Oh, Peggy! would Australia suit us? Would you advise us to go there?"
"No, Miss Melville, I scarcely think so. For the like of me it is the
best place in the world; for the like of you I cannot be at all clear
about it. I'll tell you my story some day, but not now, for I am
pressed for time, getting everything in readiness for the flitting; and
I want time to collect my thoughts; my memory is none of the best. But,
Miss Melville, if I am not making too free, I have a little room in my
new house that I would be blithe to let you and Miss Elsie have, and
you could stay there quietly till something turns up for you."
"If we can afford the rent."
"Oh, the rent!" said Peggy; "you need not think about the rent, if you
could only give the lasses a lesson in sewing (for I'm no very skilful
with the needle, and my hands are so rough with the washing and
dressing that the thread aye hanks on my fingers), and make out my
washing bills for my Customers that are not so methodical as yourself.
As for writing and counting, it is my abomination. There need no rent
pass between us."
"Thank you, Peggy, thank you; that will suit us nicely. But tell me,
can we--that is, Elsie and me--can we live in Edinburgh on twenty-four
pounds a-year?"
"I have known many a family brought up decently on as little, or even
less," said Peggy; "but then they were differently bred from you and
could live hard. Porridge and potatoes, and muslin kail, with a salt
herring now and then."
"Well, porridge and potatoes it shall be," said Jane, "for three years,
and then starvation, if the world pleases."
"If God pleases, Miss Jane; the chief thing is for us to place our
trust in Him," said Peggy.
"You are right, Peggy, I suppose; but it is hard to unlearn so much old
schooling and to accept of new teachings. Did your faith support you
when you were perplexed and disappointed--when friends were unfaithful,
and the world hard and cruel?"
"My trials have not been just like yours; but whatever God sent, He
gave me strength to bear; and it will be the same with you, Miss Jean,
if you put yourself humbly in His hands. But the auld laird cared for
none of these things; though I am sure when he left you so poorly
provided for in this world, he behoved to have given you a good hold of
the hope of a better;--besides that, it makes us contented with a very
humble lot here below. I am, maybe, too free-spoken, Miss Jean, but I
mean no disrespect."
"No offence can be taken where none is meant, Peggy; and friends are
too scarce with us now for us to reject any good advice. I am very glad
to know that we can subsist on our income, for I have not been
accustomed to deal with such small sums."
"You have wealth of clothes, no doubt; enough to last you for a while;
so there need be no outlay for that."
"And we have our own furniture--too much, I suppose for your little
room. We can sell the overplus when a push comes. I do not think
anything could suit us better than your kind offer."
"I have heard," said Peggy, "that the folk hereabouts think you will be
getting up a subscription."
"They are very much mistaken," said Jane; "the hardest living is
preferable to that. I wish you could say that Melbourne, or any part of
Australia, would do for us. Everybody was surprised when you returned
to Swinton so suddenly."
"Well, I could send the bairns more money from Melbourne than I can
make for them here, and no doubt the folk thought me foolish to leave
such a place; but what good was the money to the poor things when there
was no management, for the old man is but silly, and the bairns had
mostly the upper hand of him, though whiles they did catch it. I have
had my own ado with Tam for the last two years. I think I have got the
victory now; but I must try and keep it. So, as grandfather dreads the
water, I think I will stop in this country while he is to the fore, and
meantime the lads and lasses must have their schooling and Tam his
trade. But I keep on clavering about my own concerns, while you are in
doubt and difficulties about yours. When do you leave Cross Hall?"
"I should like to leave on Wednesday, for my cousin comes to take
possession on that day, and Elsie cannot bear any one to see us bidding
farewell to our dear old home."
"I cannot just flit before Thursday."
"Well, I suppose we must stay to welcome the new owner; I have no
objection to doing so."
"It may be painful to your feelings, Miss Melville, but yet I think it
would be but right. There are things you may mention to the new man
that would do good to them that are left behind you. That poor blind
widow, Jeanie Weir, that you send her dinner to every day, would miss
her dole if it was not kept up; and I know there are more than her that
you want to speak a good word for. I hear no ill of this Maister
Francis; and though we all grudge him the kingdom he has come into, it
may be that he will rule it worthily."
Chapter VI.
A Bundle Of Old Letters
Elsie had a headache when Francis came to take possession of his new
home, and scarcely made her appearance; but Jane, who felt none of her
sister's shrinking from him, showed him over the house, and told him
how it had been managed, hoped he would keep the present servants, and
particularly recommended to his care the gardener, who, though rather
superannuated and rheumatic, had been forty years in the service of the
family, and understood the soil and the treatment of it very well.
He was not only glad to hear what she said, but was resolved to be
guided by it, and took a memorandum of her poor pensioners, that they,
at least, should not suffer by Mr. Hogarth's will.
Then she walked with him over the grounds, and pointed out what
improvements her uncle had made, and what more he had contemplated
making. She was rather deficient in taste for rural beauty. She loved
Cross Hall because it was her home, and because she had been happy
there, rather than because she fully appreciated the loveliness of the
situation and the prospect. Her cousin, townsman as he was, had far
more natural taste. It was romantically situated, and the grounds were
beautifully laid out; there were pretty hamlets in the distance,
gentlemen's country seats embowered in trees, green cornfields, merry
brooks, and winding valleys. Francis' eyes and heart were filled with
the exceeding beauty of the landscape.
"You must be very sorry to leave all this Jane," he said.
"I believe that is the least of my troubles. I am more sorry to leave
these;" and she led him to the stables, and showed him the two
beautiful horses she and her sister had been accustomed to ride. "You
will be kind to them for our sakes, and the dogs, too. I am--we are
both--very concerned to part with the dogs."
"Should you not like to take any of them with you?" said Francis,
eagerly.
"No, no; dogs such as these would be a nuisance in a crowded little
room in Edinburgh, and I do not think they would like such a life, for
their own part. You will take better care of them than we could
possibly do. But I forget: you have, perhaps, as little affection for
animals as I have taste for scenery."
"I am not naturally fond of pets--which is rather strange; for my
solitary life should have made me attach myself to the lower animals.
But perhaps I am not naturally affectionate. I must cultivate this
deficient taste, however; and be assured that anything you have loved
will always be cherished by me; and every wish that you may express, or
that I can even guess at, that I am allowed to gratify, I will be only
too happy to do so. It has been a strange and stormy introduction we
have had to each other; but I am so grateful to you for not hating me,
that I chafe still the more at the cruel way in which my hands are
tied. I have consulted several eminent lawyers in the hope of being
enabled to overturn my father's will, but without success. If a man is
not palpably mad he may make as absurd a settlement of his own property
as he pleases; and your assertion of your uncle's peculiar opinions
tends to support the validity of the testament. Though no one thinks
that the disposition of the money will serve the end Mr. Hogarth
intended, yet he believed it would, and the spirit and intention of the
will must be carried out. Oh, my father! why did you not give me a
little love in your lifetime instead of this cursed money after your
death?"
"Cousin," said Jane cheerfully, "I believe you will make a good use of
this money. As my uncle says, you have served well, and should be able
to rule justly and kindly. I do not think so much about the improvement
of the property by your taste as of the care you will take of the
condition of the people upon it. This last month has been a hard, but a
useful school to me. I have thought more of the real social
difficulties of this crowded country than ever I did before. Bringing
my own talents and acquirements into the market, and finding myself
elbowed out by competition, I think of those who have to do the real
hard necessary work of the world with more sympathy and more respect.
Not that I ever despised them--you must not imagine me to be so
hard-hearted as that; but my feeling for them is deepened and
heightened wonderfully of late. Now they are apt to say that PARVENUS
are of all men the most exacting and the most purse-proud; and that a
mistress who has been a servant is harsher to her female dependants
than one who has been accustomed to keep domestics all her life. It is
difficult for me to conceive this; but there must be truth in it, or it
would not be a proverb in all languages. You will be an exception,
Francis. You will have my uncle's real kindness without his crotchets
and his dictatorial manner. You must not be offended if I call you a
parvenu in spite of your birth. You have come suddenly into wealth that
you were not brought up to expect."
"If I do not recollect my past life, I will certainly remember your
present advice whenever I am tempted to think too much of myself and
too little of others."
"Everything is to lead to the perfecting of your character, you see,"
said Jane.
"I cannot bear even improvement at the expense of any one's suffering
but my own," said Francis.
"I have been thinking so much about that sermon I heard at your church.
I do not know that the preacher brought out the particular point; but
we are made such dependent beings, not only on God, but on each other,
that we do indirectly profit by what we do not purchase by our own
effort or pains. We would not choose to have it so; but when Providence
brings on ourselves or others sorrows we grieve for, we are right to
draw from them all the good we can. It is something if my uncle's
rather unjust will has given you property with a sobered sense of its
privileges and a strong sense of its duties--something to set against
Elsie's sufferings and mine. And, besides, the loss of it has done me
one great benefit."
"Tell me what," said Francis, eagerly.
"It is quite possible, though I cannot tell how probable, that I might
have married a man to whom I am not well suited in any respect, and who
was still less adapted to make me happy if I had not been disinherited.
I am thus frank with you, cousin Francis, for I should like to give you
all the consolation I can."
"And you have been deserted by a lover, as well as impoverished; and
you ask me to take consolation from it."
"No, no; nothing so bad as that. I only explained matters to him, and
we parted. I am very glad of it. Be you the same," said Jane, looking
frankly and cheerfully in her cousin's face, and the cloud passed off
it.
"Your sister has no affair of this kind?"
"No; nothing," said Jane.
"And yet she seems to suffer more."
"Not now; she is busy writing a volume of poems that is to make our
fortune. Dear Elsie! I hope it may."
"Poems--well, she may succeed; but I have more hope of you than of her."
"Because you know me better; but yet my efforts have all been very
fruitless. I am not a judge of poetry, though I like what Elsie writes.
I wished her to consent to my taking your opinion as to her verses, but
she shrank from it with most unaccountable and, as I thought,
unreasonable fear. I wonder how she can bring her work before the
public if she dreads one critic."
"It is very natural, Jane. Among the public there may be some to
admire, and some to depreciate; but the one critic to whom the author
submits his work may be of the latter class, and there seems to be no
refuge from him. It is curious to see the revelations of the inner self
that some authors make to the world--revelations that they would often
shrink from making to their nearest friends. They appeal to the few in
the world who sympathise with them, and disregard the censure of all
the rest. And recollect that, though to you I am a friend, your sister
has seen very little of me, and her first impression was exceedingly
painful. If you have told her I am a good judge of poetry, she will be
all the more averse to submit her compositions to my criticism, for my
opinion might bias yours, and yours is her greatest comfort and
encouragement. No one can wish her success more earnestly than I do.
But for yourself, what are your present intentions?"
"If it were not for leaving Elsie, I might try for a situation as
housekeeper in a large establishment; I know I am fully competent for
that. I should prefer something by which I could rise, but the choice
may not be given to me. We go to Edinburgh tomorrow. I do not think the
small room we are going to will hold all the furniture we are entitled
to, so will you be good enough to let what we cannot accommodate remain
at Cross Hall till we can send for it?"
"Certainly; you had better lock up your room with your own things in
it, and take the key," said Francis.
"No, no; I am housekeeper enough to know that all rooms must have
occasional air and sunshine. I can trust either yourself or the
housemaid with the key, knowing well that everything will be kept safe."
"Where are you going to live?"
"With a very humble friend in ---- Street."
"That is very near where my earliest recollections of life in Edinburgh
found me situated."
"Do you remember your mother at all?"
"I am not quite sure; but I think I have some shadowy recollection of a
place before I came to Edinburgh, where I think I was with my mother."
"Do you think she is alive now?"
"Mr. MacFarlane says he believes she is. Do you think I should try to
discover her?"
"Alive all these years, and never taking any care or notice of you!
Very unmotherly on her part!" said Jane, thoughtfully.
"No one knows how she may be situated--her relations with my father
must have been very miserable. I cannot tell who was most to blame--but
if she were in distress, and I could help her, I am not forbidden to do
that, though Mr. MacFarlane strongly advises me to make no inquiry."
"I think, if she hears of your inheriting Cross Hall, she is likely to
come forward if she needs assistance, and you certainly should give it."
"I wish very much to look over Mr. Hogarth's private papers. Mr.
MacFarlane has given me the keys of all his repositories. I
particularly wish you to go over them all with me, as there may be many
that concern you far more than myself. Could you spare me a few hours
to-day for that purpose? I am in hopes that we may find some clue to
this marriage, and perhaps some hint that might guide me in my conduct
to my mother, supposing she is still alive. If I could find anything
that would upset or modify the will, I am sure your happiness in the
discovery would be less than mine."
The long and patient search which extended over the greater part of two
days discovered nothing whatever at all definite with regard to
Francis' birth. No scrap of writing could be found that could be
supposed to be from his mother. An old bundle of papers marked outside,
"Francis' school bills, &c." was all that rewarded their search, and
they gave no information except that his education had cost his father
a considerable sum of money.
A packet of letters in a female hand, with a French post-mark, was
eagerly opened by the cousins, and contained a number of long and
confidential letters from a Marguerite de Vericourt, which extended
over a number of years, and stopped at the year when Jane and Elsie
came to live with their uncle. Jane's knowledge of French was better
than her cousin's, and the sight of the words "LE PAUVRE FRANCOIS"
arrested her attention in the first she opened. "We have come to
something at last," said she, and she translated the passage, "'I am
glad to hear that the poor Francis is doing so well at school--surely
you must learn to love him a little now. My Arnauld grows very
intelligent; and Clemence, with no teaching but my own, makes rapid
progress.' That is all; your name is not mentioned again in this
letter. We must go on to the next."
Letter after letter was glanced over, and then translated, because
though there was little mention of the poor Francis, but such a short
allusion to something Mr. Hogarth had written about him as was found in
the first letter, there was much that was very interesting in them all.
They were written with that curious mixture of friendship and love, so
natural and easy to Frenchwomen, and so difficult to Englishwomen.
Madame de Vericourt appeared to be a widow with two children, a boy and
girl. Her letters showed her to be a capable and cultivated woman,
passionately attached to her children, living much in society for part
of the year in Paris, but spending the summer in a country chateau,
where she became a child again with the little ones. She wrote about
her affairs, and her children's, as if she were in the habit of
transacting business, and thoroughly understood it, and as if she knew
Mr. Hogarth's whole history and circumstances, and took a very
affectionate interest in them. She reminded him frequently of
conversations they had had together, of long walks and excursions they
had taken in company; her children sent messages to her good friend,
and she took notice of expressions in his letters which had pleased or
disappointed her.
For herself, she had been unhappily married when extremely young; but
before the correspondence had begun she had been for some years a
widow, and she was fully aware of the position of Mr. Hogarth. The most
interesting letter of all was the last, which appeared to have been
written in answer to his, telling of his resolution to adopt his
sister's children; and she seemed very much delighted at the idea.
"Since you say that you cannot bring yourself to love the poor Francis,
whom, nevertheless, my heart yearns after, and of whom I love to hear
even the meagre details you give to me, I rejoice, my friend, that you
have made a home for your sister's sweet little girls. You must have
something to love. Ah! to me my Arnauld and my Clemence brought
unspeakable comfort. I do not think of them as Philippe de Vericourt's
children; they are the children whom God have given to me. I do not
watch fearfully, lest his ungovernable temper and his selfish soul
should be reproduced in them. I trust that God will make them good and
happy, and aid me in my efforts towards that end. You cannot separate
the idea of Francis from that of the woman who cheated you, and did not
love you; who has blighted your hopes of domestic happiness; and who
still, even from a distance, has the power to threaten you with
exposing the disgrace that you are connected with her. I am sorry that
you cannot feel as I do; but if you can love these little girls, it may
make you softer towards him. When you wrote to me of your poor Mary's
sad death, and of the sadder life that had preceded it, I began to
wonder whether, after all, your system of free choice in marriage
produces greater happiness or greater misery than ours of a marriage
settled by our parents.
"I recollect how bitterly I felt that I had been made over, without my
wishes or tastes being consulted, to a man who cared so little for my
happiness; but at least I had no illusion to be dispelled; I did not
marry as your sister did, hoping to find Elysium, and landing in
hopeless misery; and yet my parents loved me after their fashion. I
have often thought that those whom we love, and who love us, have far
more power to injure us than those who hate us; but, alas! neither
friends nor enemies can injure us more than we do ourselves. Your
sister Mary had the disenchantment to go through; I had to chafe at the
coercion; while you, my friend, had to muse bitterly on the consequence
of one rash speech of your own, which chained you to an unworthy and
detested wife.
"I think we need a future state that we may do justice to ourselves in
it quite as much as to repair the wrongs we may have done to others.
Which of us has really made the best of himself or herself? I really
try now for the sake of my children to be cheerful; but sad and bitter
memories are too deeply interwoven with my being for me to succeed as I
should wish. If I live, I hope that the fate of my Clemence may be
happier than her mother's, so far as the state of society in France
will allow of it: I will give her a choice, and, at any rate, a power
of refusing even what appears to me to be a suitable marriage; for no
doubt it is better for an intelligent and responsible human being to
choose its own destiny, and to run its own risks. I fancy that the
mistake in your English society is, that your girls have apparently the
freedom of choice without being trained to make good use of it. If your
sister Mary was as inexperienced and as ignorant as I was at the time
when my parents gave me to M. de Vericourt, she could not distinguish
between the selfish fortune-hunter and the true lover; the conventional
manners were all the same, and she chose for herself a life of misery.
Your interference only roused the spirit of opposition, and without
preventing the marriage, made your brother-in-law regard you with more
dislike and suspicion. Ah! my friend, when I see a young girl about to
be married, my heart is full of anxieties for her--I know the risk she
runs. But I did not feel them much for myself. I grew into the
knowledge of my unhappiness as I grew in knowledge of what might have
been; but the recluse life of a French girl prevents her from expecting
much from marriage but an increase of consequence. With us it is a step
from tutelage to liberty--from nonentity to importance. It cannot be
quite so much so in England; but, from the greater prevalence of
celibacy, it has even more ECLAT and prestige than here, where marriage
is the rule. The TROUSSEAU, the presents, the congratulations, the
going into society under the interesting circumstances of an
engagement, must divert a girl's attention from the really serious
nature of the connection she is forming.
"You will have pleasure in educating your little girls. Make them
strong in body and independent in mind if you can. They are likely to
be handsome, intelligent, and, if you continue to be prejudiced against
poor Francis, rich. Give them more knowledge and more firmness than
their poor mother had. I have no doubt that they will grow up good, for
you will be kind to them. Girls all turn out well if you give them good
training in a happy home; but as for happiness, that depends so much on
their choice in marriage, that all you have done for them may be thrown
away, if you do not educate them to be something more than amiable and
pleasing companions. They must be trained to feel that they are
responsible beings: let their reading be as various, their education as
comprehensive, as you would give to boys of their rank. You know that
ignorance is not innocence, and that some knowledge of the world is
necessary to all of us if we are to pass safely through it. I am glad
to hear that Jane so much resembles you, and that Alice is so like her
mother, and that you find their dispositions amiable and remarkably
sincere.
"I have told you that I have difficulties with Clemence in the matter
of truthfulness. She cannot bear to say or to do what she fancies will
be disagreeable or painful to any one. She fears, if she does so, that
she will not be loved; but I think I am succeeding in convincing her
that we must learn to bear pain, and occasionally to inflict it. When I
stood over her last night with a cup of bitter medicine she drank it
like an angel, and I said to her, 'My love, I taste this bitter taste
with you, and would rather that I had not to give it to you; but if I,
or any one whom you love, needs it, you must learn the courage to
present it.'
"Arnauld disobeyed my orders one day last week, and played with his
ball in the drawing-room, and broke a vase that I prized highly.
Clemence took the blame on herself, for she thought I should be less
displeased with her than with her brother; but she was not sufficiently
skilful to hide the truth. Her BONNE was enraptured with her
generosity, and embraced her with the EMPRESSEMENT which is so
ridiculous to your insular ideas; but Clemence saw that I was not
pleased.
"'Mamma,' said she, 'is it not right I should bear something for
Arnauld? I thought you would be so angry with him.'
"'More angry than he deserves?' said I.
"'No, mamma; but I thought he would feel it so much: and even if you
were as angry with me, and punished me as severely as you would have
chastised him, I should have felt that I did not deserve it.''
"'And that, on the contrary, you were very generous?'
"'Yes, mamma.'
"'Then Arnauld would have escaped altogether, and you would have borne
any pain like a martyr?'
"'But would not Arnauld have loved me for it?'
"'I do not know, Clemence,' said I, 'He knew, when he did the mischief,
that I would be displeased, and it is just and right that he should
take the consequences. A noble soul feels a certain satisfaction in
bearing deserved punishment, but it can never rejoice in the punishment
of another for its fault. I know you meant kindly; but, my love, you
should make no unnecessary sacrifices. Providence will bring to you
many opportunities of giving up your wishes, and of bearing a great
deal for others, but it must never be done at the sacrifice of truth.'
"Clemence was much impressed with what I said to her; and Arnauld, too,
seemed to feel that it would have been mean to have taken advantage of
his sister's mistaken generosity. I labour to make them think for
themselves, for I often fear that my life will not be spared to guide
them much longer. When you come again to France, bring with you your
little girls. I have spoken to my children about them, and they are
eager to become acquainted with them."
At the end of this letter was written, in Mr. Hogarth's hand-writing,
"Died, October 14th, 18-," shortly after the date of the letter.
"I wish," said Jane, "that my uncle had shown me these letters; but I
suppose there are some things that one cannot tell to another person."
"There is no encouragement here to induce me to make inquiries about my
mother," said Francis. "I think, for the present, I will let the matter
rest."
Chapter VII.
Up And Down
When Jane had spoken of 20,000 pounds each, as the probable fortune of
herself and her sister, if their uncle had made his will in their
favour, she rather under than over estimated the value of Mr. Hogarth's
property. She had expected that many legacies to old servants and
bequests to several charitable institutions might have been left, and
there still would have been that handsome sum for his adopted children.
Francis Hogarth found that he had come into possession of a compact
little estate in a very fine part of the country, a small part of which
estate had been farmed by the proprietor, who had tried various
experiments on it with various success. There was also money invested
in the funds, and money laid out in railway shares, as well as a
considerable sum in the bank for any present necessity, or to be spent
in the improvement of the property.
Elsie had expressed a doubt of her cousin's getting into society; but
there appeared to be no likelihood of any of the country gentry looking
down on the new laird of Cross Hall. The visiting acquaintance of
people of sufficient standing in and about Swinton had consisted of
twenty-four marriageable ladies and only four marriageable gentlemen,
even including William Dalzell, who was known to be both poor and
extravagant, and an old bachelor-proprietor, nearly as old as Mr.
Hogarth, senior, and as unlikely to marry. Parties in the country were
greatly indebted to striplings and college students home for holidays
to represent the male sex. They could dance, and could do a little
flirtation, and thought much more of themselves than they ought to do;
but as for marrying, that was out of the question. An exchange of two
heiresses for one heir of Cross Hall could not but be considered to be
an advantageous one. It was not in human nature that the young ladies
themselves, and their fathers and mothers, and party-givers generally,
should not be eager to know Francis Hogarth, and be more than civil to
him. The court that is paid to any man who is believed to be in a
position to marry, is one of the most distressing features in British
society; it is most mischievous to the one sex, and degrading to the
other. Long, long may it be before we see anything like it in the
Australian colonies!
No doubt, if it is excusable anywhere, it is so in country or
provincial society in Scotland. "We cannot help spoiling the men"--says
a distressed party-giver in these latitudes, conscious that this state
of things is not right, and half-ashamed of herself for giving in to
it--"there are really so few of them." The sons of families of the
middle and upper classes as they grow up are sent out to India, to the
army, to America, or to the Australian colonies. Even when they do not
leave the kingdom, they leave the neighbourhood, and go to large towns,
where they may practise a profession or enter into business with some
chance of success. Their sisters remain at home with no business, no
profession, no object in life, and no hope of any change except through
marriage. Many of their contemporaries never return, but settle in the
colonies or die there; but, if they do return with money--perhaps with
broken constitutions and irritable tempers from India--they still
consider themselves too young to look at the women with whom they
flirted and danced before they left the old country, and select some
one of a different generation, who was perhaps a baby at that time.
Fathers and mothers see too clearly the advantages of an establishment
to object to the disparity of years and the state of the liver, while
the girl, fluttered into importance (as Madame de Vericourt says) by
presents, and jewels, and shawls, thinks herself a most fortunate
woman, particularly if she is not required to go to India, but can have
a good position at home.
So when a young man, not more than thirty-four, rather handsome, of
good character, and apparently good temper, intelligent and agreeable,
who went to church the first Sunday after he came to Cross Hall, and
who was the legitimate heir to the old family of Hogarth, came to
settle in the county as a neighbour, his having been clerk in a bank
for eighteen years was not looked on as a drawback. He was all the more
likely to take good care of his money now he had got it; and calls and
invitations came from every quarter. Mr. and Mrs. Rennie, who had had
visions of his being exactly the person to suit their Eliza, had a
month's start of the country neighbours; but they feared the result of
his being thrown among such families as the Chalmerses, the Maxwells,
the Crichtons, and the Jardines. He had asked the Rennies to pay him a
visit at Cross Hall in the autumn, when they always took a run to the
country or to the seaside, and had accompanied his invitation with a
request, that if his cousins came to Edinburgh, the Rennies would show
them some kindness and attention, which they readily promised to do.
If Mrs. Rennie had known his secret feelings towards the country
families, she might have set her mind at rest as to their rivalry; but
Francis was very reserved, and his training had not led him to place
confidence in any one, till his heart had recently opened to his cousin
Jane. He received the visits of his new neighbours civilly, and
accepted their invitations; but the conduct of these people towards the
disinherited girls made him secretly repel their advances towards his
prosperous self. It appeared to show such barefaced worldliness and
selfishness, that he shrank from the most insinuating speeches and the
most flattering attentions.
He did not know how much of the coldness of Jane and Elsie's old
neighbours proceeded from the dislike and suspicion with which Mr.
Hogarth's religious opinions, or rather his religious scepticism, was
regarded in a particularly orthodox district. They had exchanged formal
visits, and had invited each other to large parties, because not to do
so would have been unneighbourly; but with none of the people about
Swinton had there ever been any familiar intimacy. Jane and Elsie were
supposed to be deeply tinged with their uncle's heresies, and they were
such very strange girls, having been so strangely brought up; and
having no mother or female relative to exert any influence, their uncle
had brought them up like boys, which everybody thought very improper.
Emilia Chalmers, who was musical, could not get on with them at all;
the three Miss Jardines, who were very amiable girls, with nothing in
them, could not tell whether to call them blues or hoydens; their Latin
and algebra on the one hand, and their swimming-bath, and their riding
about the country without a groom on the other, made them altogether so
unfeminine. Their uncle thought they were quite able to take care of
themselves and of each other, and fancied more mischief might arise
from the attendance of a groom than could result from his absence; and
the girls cared for no company in their rides till William Dalzell had
offered his escort and made himself so agreeable.
Miss Maxwell and the Crichtons had failed to make either Jane or Elsie
take any interest in a theological dispute on a point of doctrine
between some neighbouring ministers which was agitating all Swinton at
the time; and when at last Jane was forced to give an opinion on one
side or the other, she gave it quite on the contrary side from the
right one, so that they were sure the girls were quite as bad as their
uncle. Both girls had been educated to express themselves very clearly
and decidedly; whereas, as Emilia Chalmers says, whenever a young lady
gives an opinion it should always be delivered SOTTO VOCE, that is,
under the powers of the performer's voice, to borrow an image from her
musical vocabulary. Even if she does know a thing very well, she should
keep her knowledge in the background; there is a graceful timidity that
is far more attractive than such unladylike confidence.
"Depend upon it, gentlemen do not like it," Miss Jardine would say. "If
Jane Melville were not an heiress, do you think William Dalzell would
submit to her airs? I know him better than that."
But, yet, when the girls were shown to be no heiresses, every one was
very sorry for them. If a subscription had been got up to assist them
in their difficulties, there was no one who would not have given
something. Even the Misses Crichton and Miss Maxwell would have
subscribed as much as they did to the Foreign Missions, and that was no
inconsiderable sum; and if Jane and Elsie had thrown themselves on the
compassion of the neighbourhood, there were many who would have offered
them a temporary home. But they preserved their independent spirit even
though they were not heiresses, and could not sue in FORMA PAUPERIS. It
was a subject of much conversation that the Misses Melville had
preferred to go with Peggy Walker, the laundress, to some poor place in
the old town of Edinburgh, to making any application for assistance to
people of their own sphere. What they could do under Peggy's auspices
was not likely to be of a very brilliant description.
It is not to be supposed that Peggy Walker was not as good a judge of
orthodoxy as the Misses Crichton and Miss Maxwell, but she had not so
great a horror of the family at Cross Hall as they had; she had been
for several years out of her own parish and country, and had learned
some toleration. As she said, the old laird was a just man and a kind
one, and until he made his will she had no fault to find with him; and
as for the young ladies, they were just the cleverest and the
tenderest-hearted to the poor of all the gentry in the country-side.
Many a tale of distress had Peggy told them, and had never failed to
find the girls open their purses, or go to see the poor people. They
had a liberal allowance, and had no extravagant tastes in dress; but
their charities had been so extensive that at the time of their uncle's
death, there was no great balance in either girl's hands. They knew
that Peggy was no niggardly woman, but a most liberal one according to
her means and her opportunities--that she gave personal services out of
a very busy life, and money, too, out of an income that had many claims
on it.
The house-servants and the labourers in Mr. Hogarth's immediate
employment were very sad at parting with the young ladies, who had
always been so kind and so considerate. If the neighbours had thought
the girls proud, none of the servants did. If Francis had not tried
hard to please them all, and to make them feel that he regarded them
for the sake of those who had been before him, it would not have been
likely that he would have gained their good opinion; but he succeeded
in doing so.
Peggy Walker thought she had got into a very snug and comfortable
dwelling in a flat in ---- Street, and when she gave what she
considered the most cheerful-looking apartment to the young ladies as
their sleeping-room, she certainly did all she could for their
accommodation. The old man, Thomas Lowrie, was particularly pleased
with the look-out to the street. He could sit in his own chair and see
all the bustle of life going on below, and made little complaint of the
noise at first. The five children thought there was nothing so charming
as running up and down the common stair, and were quite proud of their
elevated position in the world; but the Misses Melville could not but
feel an immense difference between their own ideas of comfort and those
of the humble family with whom they lived. The floors were clean, and
the stairs, too, after a fashion; but the coarse dark-coloured boards
could not be made to look white. The walls which Peggy's own hands had
sized of a dark-brown colour looked rough, and cracked, and gloomy.
They were aware that their scanty means did not allow them to indulge
in any separate meals or attendance, and Jane and Elsie began as they
meant to go on, and shared the homely meals in the homely home. They
had never thought that they had any luxurious tastes; but the very
plain fare and the inelegant service seemed to take away even the
natural healthy appetite of youth. The noise of the children, and the
querulous voice of their grandfather, with Peggy's sharp, decisive
remarks, were all different from the respectful silence with which they
had been attended at Cross Hall. Peggy was anxious to make the girls as
happy as she could, and feared that they must feel this a downcome; but
her hands were full of work, and her head of cares. She had made her
venture in the world, too, and, with so many dependent on her, it was a
considerable risk. They could not help admiring the wonderful patience
which she had with the old man, who was not her own father, but merely
the father-in-law of her dead sister. She allowed him a weekly modicum
of snuff, and was particular that Tom, or one of the others, should
read the Bible or the news to him in a clear, distinct voice, that the
old man might be able to hear all of it. In all little things she gave
way to him, but in all great and grave matters she judged and acted for
herself, whatever grumbling might follow. Over the children she kept a
very careful watch; and even when she was absent on necessary business,
her influence was felt in the household.
After the first day was over, and the girls had gone to their own room
for the evening, Elsie broke out with----
"Jane, this is dreadful! How different from what I imagined poor
people's lives to be! Nothing beautiful or graceful about it. Poets and
novelists write such fine things about poverty and honest toil, and
throw a halo of romance about them."
"Yet Peggy is above the average--far above the average," said Jane,
thoughtfully; "these children are better taught and better mannered
than three-fourths of the peasantry in Scotland, but yet it is a great
change to us, a very great change."
"I am sure they might be a great deal better than they are. Oh, Jane, I
really can eat nothing served up as it is done here; and that grumbling
old man's Kilmarnock nightcap, and his snuff, are enough to disgust
one. Even at tea did you notice Peggy stirring the teacup with such
vigour, and balancing her saucer in the palm of her hand?"
"I never fancied there was so much in little things," said Jane; "but
we must get over our fastidiousness--we must indeed. It is a pity we
were brought up so softly and delicately, though we thought we were so
remarkably hardened by our uncle's training."
"I cannot even write to-night," said Elsie. "Everything looks so sordid
and miserable, and the town here is so dirty and mean."
"We must walk out to-morrow a good long way--you know what beautiful
walks we used to have all around Edinburgh. We must breathe fresh air
and poetical inspiration."
"I wish I could write," said Elsie, turning over her sheets of
manuscript. "I have been able to write a little every day since I
began, no matter how grieved or anxious I have been. Who is it says
that genius is nothing but industry? and I have been so industrious! I
must try to write to-night; we are settled as far as we can expect to
be settled for some time, and I ought to begin as I mean to go on."
"No, my dear, you feel disappointed and disenchanted to-night; do not
think of writing. Your work ought to be done at your best moments.
To-morrow is a new day, and I believe it will be a fine one: sleep till
to-morrow."
"But I cannot sleep either."
"Rest, then, as I mean to do."
A little tap at the door announced Peggy.
"Is there anything I can do for you, young ladies?"
"Nothing, thank you, Peggy, but come in," said Jane.
She entered, and found Elsie hurriedly gathering together her
manuscript, with a heightened colour and some agitation. Love letters
were the only conceivable cause of a girl's blushing over anything she
had been writing, to Peggy's unsophisticated mind. "I should not
interrupt you, Miss Elsie; I did not know you had letters to write."
"It is not letters," said Jane; "she is writing a book."
"A book! Well, that is not much in my line; but no doubt books are
things that are wanted in the world, or there would not be such
printing-houses and grand shops for making and selling them. And you
are expecting to get a price for that, Miss Elsie?"
"I hope so."
"Well, it is more genteel work than what I have been used to; but the
pen was always a weariness to me. I thought shame of myself when I was
in Australia, that I could write nothing to the bit creatures that I
was spending my life for, but just that I was weel, and hoped they were
the same, and bidding them be good bairns, and obedient and dutiful to
their grandfather and grandmother, and that they should mind what the
master said to them at school; and then I would send kind regards to
two or three folk in the countryside, and signed myself their
affectionate aunt, Margaret Walker. But, dear me! I should have said
fifty things forbye that senseless stuff. I am thinking, Miss Jane and
Miss Elsie, that if they had been your nephews and nieces, and you had
been parted from them by all these thousands of miles of land and
water, that your letters would have been twice as often and ten times
as long, full of good advice and loving words. I have heard bonnie
letters read to me. I marvelled greatly at them--everything so smooth
and so distinct, just as if the two were not far apart, but had come
together for an hour or so, and the one just spoke by word of mouth all
that the other wanted most to hear. I would like the bairns learned to
write well and fast, for when the pen is slow, the heart Cannot find
utterance. I have heard worse letters even than my own, full of
repetitions and stupid messages, and nothing said of what the body that
got the letters wanted most to hear. There is a very great odds in
letters, Miss Melville, and mine were so useless and so bare, that I
thought it better to sacrifice a good deal of money and come home to
attend to the bairns myself, and to counsel them by word of mouth."
"Peggy, you have had adventures," said Jane. "I wish you could tell my
sister and me all that happened to you when you were in Australia. Your
life may be useful to us in many ways."
"Not to put into a book, I hope," said Peggy suspiciously. "I have no
will to be put into a book."
"No fear of that," said Elsie.
"It's poetry you're writing, like Robbie Burns's. I can see the lines
are different lengths. I'm thinking you'll have no call to make any
poetry on me, so I may tell you my story. It may make you think on
somebody or something out of your own troubles."
"It was a great wonder to the Swinton people that you returned a single
woman," said Jane. "They say Australia is the country to be married in."
"I might have been married over and over again, up the country, and in
Melbourne too," said Peggy; "but you see I had the thought of the
bairns on my head, and I did not feel free to change my condition. Some
of them said if I likit them well enough I could trust to their doing
better for the young folk than I could myself; but I never let myself
like them well enough to trust them so far, though one or two of them
were very likely men, and spoke very fair."
"Perhaps when you return to Australia you may make it up with one of
them yet," said Elsie, who, in spite, of her depression, felt some
curiosity as to Peggy's love passages.
"The best of them married before I left Melbourne, like a sensible man,
who knew better than to wait on my convenience. I see, Miss Elsie, you
are wondering that the like of me, that never was what you would call
well-favoured, should speak of offers, and sweet-hearts, and such like;
but in Australia it's the busy hand and careful eye that is the great
attraction for a working man. I never had much daffing or nonsense
about me, and did not like any of it in other folk, but I had lots of
sweethearts. But I'll tell you the whole story, as neither of you look
the least sleepy, and if I am owre long about it ye may just tell me
so, and I'll finish it up the morn's night."
So Peggy sat down to tell her tale, while Elsie crept down on a little
footstool, and laid her head in her sister's lap, glad to receive the
fondling which Jane instinctively bestowed on her dependent and
affectionate sister.
Chapter VIII.
Peggy Walker's Adventures
"You see, Miss Jean and Miss Elsie, that my sister Bessie and me were
always very much taken up with one another; she was a good bit aulder
than me, and as my mother died when I was six years old, she was like a
mother to me. I'll no say that she clapped and petted me as you are
doing to your sister, Miss Jean, nor that she had the gentle ways of
speaking that gentlefolks have; but verily to use the words of
Scripture, 'our souls were knit together in love,' and we thought
nothing too great to do or to bear for one another. Bessie was far
bonnier than me, but scarcely so stout; and Willie Lowrie, that had
been at the school with her, and a neighbour's son, courted her, when
they came to man's and woman's estate, for a long time. My father was a
cotter on Sandyknowe farm, a worthy, God-fearing man, but sore
distressed with the rheumatics, that came upon him long before he was
an old man, and often laid him off work. His sons went about their own
business; and he used to say that though they might help him in the way
of money nows and thens, it was from his two lasses that he had the
most comfort. Bessie waited till I was grown up and at service in a
good place, where I pleased the mistress, before she married Willie. My
father went home with her, and lived but three years afterwards, saying
always that Bessie and Willie were good bairns to him, and his grey
hairs went down to the grave in peace.
"But, wae-sakes! bairns came to Bessie thick and fast, and Willie took
a bad cough, and fell into a decline. He just wasted away, and died one
cold winter day, leaving her with four young things, and another
coming. Bessie did not fold her hands in idle lamentation when the
desire of her eyes was removed with a stroke. No, she went to the
outwork, and wrought double hard; owre hard, poor thing, for after
little Willie was born she never looked up. And then and there I vowed
to God and to her that I would do a mother's part by her orphans as
long as life was vouchsafed to me.
"Willie's father and mother had left Sandyknowe, and gone to a place
about forty miles off. They were living poorly enough, but they came to
me in my desolation, and offered to take the bairns if we--that is, my
brothers and me--would help whiles with money to get them through. But,
you see, James and Sandy were married men, with families of their own,
and Robert and Daniel were like to be married soon, and it was borne on
my mind that I was to be the chief person to be depended on.
"I went home to my place at Greenwells. It was a big farmhouse, and I
was kitchenmaid, and had the milking of the kye, and the making of the
butter and cheese to do, and such like, and Mrs. Henderson said that I
was a faithful industrious lass. But, dear me! what was seven pounds by
the year to maintain the bairns? I thought over it and over it on the
Sabbath night after I came home. I tried to read--the 14th of John's
Gospel--but my heart would be troubled and afraid in spite of those
bonnie consoling words. I knew the old people, the Lowries, were not
the best hands for bringing up the bairns, for they were so poor. I had
no money--not a penny--for you may guess that in my sister's straits I
kept none in the shuttle of my chest, and no way of keeping a house
over their heads by myself could I see. Mrs. Henderson came into the
kitchen with Miss Thomson. You know Miss Thomson of Allendale. She was
on a visit to the mistress; they are connections, you know.
"'Well, Peggy,' said Mrs. Henderson, 'I see you are just fretting, as
usual.'
"'I'm no fretting, ma'am, I'm praying,' said I.
"'The best thing you can do,' said Miss Thomson.
"'Of course it is,' said Mrs. Henderson, 'provided it does not hinder
work, and Peggy is neglecting nothing.'
"'I wish, ma'am, that you would let me take the housemaid's place, as
well as my own; I can do more work if you would raise my wages.'
"'Nonsense, Peggy,' said the mistress, 'you are busy from morning till
night; you cannot possibly do more than you are doing now. You cannot
be in two places at once.'
"'No, ma'am, but I could take less sleep. I am stronger than ever I
was; and I have so many to work for. The bairns-maid and me could
manage all the housework.'
"Mrs. Henderson shook her head, and said it was not to be thought of,
but she did not mind raising my wages to eight pounds by the year, for
I was a good servant; and with that I had to be content--at least, I
tried.
"Next day a fat turkey had to be killed and plucked, and I had an old
newspaper to burn for singeing the feathers. I could not but look at
the newspaper, when I had it in my hand, and the first thing that
struck my eye was, that domestic servants, especially if they were
skilful about a dairy, might get a free passage to Melbourne, by
applying to such a person, at such a place, and that their wages when
they got out to Australia would be from sixteen to twenty-five pounds
by the year. It was borne on my mind that I should go to Australia from
the moment I cast eyes on that paragraph in the paper. I did not just
believe everything that was in print, especially in the newspapers,
even in those days; for I knew the real size of the big turnip that was
grown in Mr. Henderson's field, and it was not much more than half what
the 'Courier' had it down for, but I felt convinced that I should
inquire about this matter of free passage to Australia. It was a
providence that Miss Thomson was stopping in the house at the time, for
she was a woman of by-ordinary discretion and great kindness; so I
opened my mind to her, and she said I was right, and gave me a letter
to the agent, who was a far-away cousin of her own, and three pounds in
money forbye, to buy fitting things for the voyage; and she told me how
I was to send money home for the youngsters, and wrote a line to a
friend of hers that lived close to the Lowries, asking her to look
whiles to see that the bairns were well and thriving.
"It is not often that I greet, Miss Jean, but Miss Thomson twice
brought the tears to my eyes, first with her kindness when I left
Scotland, and again with her kindness when I came back, and brought
her, no the silver--I would not shame her with giving back what had
really been life and hope to myself and five orphan bairns--but some
curious birds that I had got up the country, that she sets great store
by. I told her how I had got on, and what had induced me to come back;
I told her that I never could pay back my debt to her, and would not
try to do it, but that if we prospered, there had been much of it her
doing; and she said she admired nothing so much as my resolution and
courage in going to Australia, until she admired still more my
resolution and self-denial in coming back. I do not think much of
flattery, Miss Elsie--they say it is very sweet to the young and the
bonnie--but these words of praise from a good woman like Miss Thomson
made my heart swell and my eyes overflow. You have been at Allendale,
Miss Jean; you must have seen the birds in the lobby."
Jane had been too much engrossed with her own affairs during her only
visit to Miss Thomson to observe Peggy's birds, but she drew a good
omen form the coincidence of Miss Thomson's assistance being given so
frankly to two women both in distress and in doubt.
"How did you like the voyage, Peggy?" asked Jane.
"It is queer how that voyage has faded out of my mind, and yet it was a
long one--over five months; they know the road better now, and do it
quicker. I was not more than four months coming back in a bigger ship.
I mind we had a storm, and all the women on board were awful feared,
and a boy was washed overboard, and there was some ill-blood between
the captain and the doctor; but all that I could think on was to get to
the end of the voyage, and make money to send home to the bairns.
"Well, to Melbourne we got at last, and a shabby place I thought it
looked; but the worst of all was, that such wages as had been spoken of
in the papers were not to be had at all, for if ever the folk there are
in great want of anything, there seems to be abundance of it before it
can be sent out; so I could not get the offer of more than thirteen
pounds, and I mourned over the distance, and the five months lost on
the passage, with such small advantage at the end of it. I said I
wanted a hard place. I had no objections to go to the bush--I dreaded
neither natives, nor snakes, nor bushrangers, but I behoved to make
good wages. I was explaining this at the Agency Labour Office, when a
gentleman came in--an Englishman I knew him to be by his tongue--and he
said----
"'Like all new comers, this young woman is greedy of filthy lucre.'
"'I have come here to better my condition,' said I.
"'And so you will, in time,' said the gentleman, 'but you must not
expect a fortune all at once.'
"'Are you in want of a servant, sir?' said I.
"'Very much; but I don't know that you will suit me.'
"'I'm thinking,' said I, 'that if the mistress were to see me she would
be of a different opinion, sir.'
"'Very likely she would. I dare say Mrs. Brandon would highly approve
of you. Perhaps, after all, you will do. What are you?'
"'Plain cook, laundress, and dairymaid,' said I.
"'Age? Mrs. Brandon would like to know.'
"'Twenty-five. I have got five years' character from one place, and
three from another, and a testimonial from the minister. I may look
rough, with just being off the sea, sir, but I think the mistress will
find out that I am fit for any kind of work. I am not afraid of work or
distance, or solitude, or anything.'
"'You are a trump,' said he, 'a regular brick; but confess that you are
greedy. If I say thirty pounds a year, you will go more than a hundred
miles up the country?' That was a great distance from town in those
days, Miss Jean, though they think nothing of it now. All my
fellow-passengers objected to such distances, but I had no objection.
"'Yes, sir,' said I, cheerfully, 'I will go, and be much beholden to
you for the offer.'
"'And start to-morrow, wages to commence then?' said he.
"'The sooner the better,' said I. 'Only, if I want to send siller to my
friends I may not be able to do it from such a wild place.'
"'I will manage all that for you,' said the gentleman. 'I am accustomed
to do it for one of my shepherds. But recollect you will have to do a
great deal of work for your high wages. The cows are wild, and must be
bailed up and foot-roped. You may get an ugly kick or butt'----
"'As if I had never seen Highland kyloes! I am not at all feared.
Providence will protect me on land, as it has protected me by water.
After five months of the sea, with only a plank between me and
eternity, you cannot terrify me with kye.'
"'We have few conveniences for saving labour; but I see I need not
explain anything to you; you can think of nothing but your thirty
pounds a year; so, Mr. What's-your-name, draw up the agreement for a
year.'
"The agreement was drawn out and signed Walter Brandon and Margaret
Walker, and the next day I was on the road, if road you could call it,
for the like of it you never saw--sometimes rough and tangled,
sometimes soft and slumpy, sometimes scrubby and stony. I marvelled
often that they kept in the tracks. I rode on the top of a dray through
the day, and slept under it at night. There were four men with us; two
of them were inclined to be rough; but I soon let them see that they
would need to keep a civil tongue in their heads to deal with me. We
were nigh a fortnight on the road, but somehow I did not weary of that
as I did of the voyage, for my wages were going on, and something
making for the bairns of that journey."
Chapter IX.
Peggy Walker's Adventures
"It was near dark on a Saturday when we got to Barragong, which was the
name of Mr. Brandon's station. The master had got home long before us,
for he had gone on his horse.
"'Well, Peggy,' said he, as I got off the dray, 'how do you like bush
travelling? Slow, but sure, is it not?'
"'Uncommonly slow,' said I.
"'Why, you have got worse burnt on the top of the dray than even on
shipboard. Spoiled your beauty, Peggy.'
"'My beauty is of no manner of consequence,' said I, 'it has not broke
my work arm, and that is more to the purpose. Will you please, Sir, to
ask the mistress to show me the kitchen?'
"'You ask to see what is not to be seen,' said the master. 'There is no
kitchen to speak of, and as for the mistress, it is a pure invention of
your own.'
"'No mistress?' I gasped out; 'ye spoke of Mrs. Brandon.'
"'It was you that spoke of her, Peggy; and as I hope in time to have
such a person on the premises, I made bold to say that you would suit
her, and in the meantime I dare say we will get on very well. You will
be really the mistress here, for there is not another woman within
twenty miles.'
"I started back, fairly cowed at the thought of being in that wild
place alone, among I knew not how many men of all sorts of characters.
"'It was not fair of you, Sir,' I said; 'I never thought but what you
were married when you took me up so natural.'
"'But really, Peggy, you are the very person we want here, and I can
make it worth your while to stay. You want good wages, and you will get
them; you are not a child, and you can take care of yourself. It is
hard that because I am so unlucky as to have no wife, I am to have
neither cleanliness nor comfort. Make the best of a bad bargain, Peggy;
I confess that your eagerness after good wages led me too far, but I
felt the temptation strong. Try the place for a week, and if you do not
like it, you can go back. Mr. Phillips's drays are going into town, and
if you cannot make up your mind to be contented here, you can return to
Melbourne with them.'
"I took the measure of Mr. Brandon that week, and I came to the
determination that I ought to stay. To be sure it was wrong of him to
fetch me out on false pretences, as it were, but I had walked into the
trap myself, and, as he said, he was in great need of a servant. He
might be weak, but he was not wicked; at least, I felt that I could
hold my own. It was a rough place for a gentleman to live in. Am I
wearying you, young ladies? I could leave off now, and go on the morn's
night."
"I am interested very much in your story," said Elsie.
"And so am I," said Jane. "I know not where fortune, or rather, as you
more properly call it, Providence may send us; and your experience has
a peculiar fascination to me. Do, pray, go on."
"Well, as I was saying, it was a rough place, and he was a gentleman in
his up-bringing and in many of his ways. You would not have believed,
if you had seen him in Melbourne, and heard him speak such English,
that he could go about in an old ragged, dirty shooting-coat, with a
cabbage-tree hat as black as a coal nearly--that he could live in a
slab hut, with a clay, or rather, a dirt floor, and a window-bole with
no glass in it--and that he could have all the cooking and half the
work of the house done at the fireside he sat at, and sit down at a
table without a table-cloth, and drink tea out of tin pannikins. The
notion of getting such wages in a place with such surroundings quite
dumb-founded me; and he had the things too; for by-and-by I found
napery and china in a big chest that I used for a table out of doors;
and bit by bit I made great improvements at Barragong. He gave me one
of the huts for myself, and I was a thought frightened to sleep there
my leafu' lane at first, but I put my trust in my Maker, and He watched
over me. I cooked in my own hut, and settled up the master's. He began
to think that a boarded floor would be an improvement, and he got the
men to saw them up. Hard work it was for them; and ill-coloured boards
they made; but when they were laid down, and a glass window put in, the
master's hut looked more purpose-like.
"I was not feared for the wild kye when I saw that the stockkeeper
would help me to get them into the bail; and when we got a milk-house
dug out of the hill-side, I made grand butter. I'll not soon forget the
day I had my first kirning. The stockkeeper--George Powell was his
name--had got into the dairy, as I thought, to lick the cream, for he
was an awful hand on it; but he kept hanging about, and glowering at
the milk-pans, and then looking at me, till at last he said some
nonsense, and I told him to be off with his daffing; I would tell the
master if he said an uncivil word.
"'I don't mean to be uncivil, Peggy; quite the contrary,' says he.
"'Then what do you mean?' says I, taking his hand off my shoulder, and
driving it bang against the stone slab we put the milk-pans on.
"'I mean, Peggy, will you marry me?' says he; 'that's civil enough,
surely.'
"'No I won't,' says I. 'Thank you for the compliment, all the same, but
I have no wish to change my condition.'
"'Tell that to the marines,' says he. 'If you don't like me, tell me
so; but none of that nonsense.'
"'I like you well enough; but what I say is no nonsense. I do not wish
to change my condition.'
"'It would be a good change for you,' says he. 'I wonder you are not
frightened to stay here a single woman. Now, if you were my wife, I
could protect you;' and he flourished the arm I had given the bang
to--and a goodly arm it was.
"I told him about the bairns, and he just laughed at me. 'We'll see,'
says he. 'We'll see. Wait a little.'
"Well, every kirning that he was not out at a distance on the master's
business, did that man Powell come into the dairy and ask me the same
question, and get the same answer; and three of the shepherds, and a
little imp of a laddie that looked after the horses, made up to me too,
and seemed to think it was not fair that I would choose none of them.
Any woman with a white face might have had as many sweethearts; but I
think it was my managing ways that took Powell's fancy. If a fairy
could only move a lot of the women from the places where they are not
wanted, and put them where they are, there would be a wonderful
thinning taken out of Scotland and planted in Australia. But ye see
there are no fairies; and at such a distance, it costs a lot of money
to move such commodities as single women. I have puzzled my brains
whiles about the matter, Miss Jane, and many a time I have repented
coming back to a place where hands are many and meat is scarce; but it
will not be for long; and in the meantime I try to help all the
distressed bodies that I know about; and that I have kept my five
bairns from being a burden to anybody, is enough work for any woman
either here or in Australia. I'm going off of my story; but the marvel
to me that I was so beset with sweethearts that did not want them,
while so many lasses here never Can see the sight of one, always makes
me think that there should be a medium, and that lasses should neither
be ower much made of or neglected altogether. But to go back to the
bush. I had to rule with a high hand at Barragong, and really to demean
myself as if I were the mistress, to keep folk in their place. But the
worst was to come.
"The master had not been well for a week or so, and I had taken
especial care of him, and got him gruel and such like, that he seemed
very glad of; and he was getting better, and was sitting by the fire
while I was setting down the supper, when he said--No, I cannot tell
you what he said. No; he was not well, and may be did not know exactly
what he was about. I cannot tell his words, though they are burned into
my memory as clear and distinct as though I had heard them but
yesterday, but they were most unbefitting words for him to say or for
me to hear.
"I stood still for a whole minute or more, and looked him in the face.
He did not like the fixed steady way I kept my eyes on him.
"'Say such a thing again if you dare,' said I. 'You had no such thought
in your head or your heart when you brought me out to Barragong. I knew
that by your eyes. You must treat me respectfully if you mean to call
yourself a gentleman.'
"'Don't be so very hot, Peggy. You have made a fellow so comfortable,
that he may be excused for thinking more of you than he used to do,'
says he.
"'Think more of me!' says I; 'you think less of me, or you would not
dare----'
"'What was I to fancy,' says he, 'when you refuse Powell so
pertinaciously, but that you are looking higher?'
"'Mr. Brandon,' says I, 'George Powell is high enough for me, for he
would make me his wife; and if I was free to marry, I would look for no
higher match. But to think that what you offer is higher!--May God
forgive you for the thought!'
"'Why, Peggy, perhaps I may offer higher yet; you are a good and a
clever girl, and will make an admirable wife.'
"'Not to you, sir; nor to any one out of my own station. Do not think
of making a fool of yourself, just because there is nobody here to
compare with homely Peggy Walker.'
"He looked at me more particularly than he had ever done before. I
leaned my hands on the table, and squared my elbows, and spread my
great browned hand and red arms before him. He laughed, and said,
'Peggy, you are right; you are a worthy girl and a clever, and in the
sight of God are worth ten of me; but when I think of taking you home
and presenting you to my mother and sisters as Mrs. Brandon, it is
rather comical. As for anything else, you are too good a girl, and I
will say no more about it, only I wish you would marry Powell and be
done with it.'
"Well, Miss Jean, this was the beginning and the end of it with the
master; but I think that man Powell was my greatest temptation,
especially after Mr. Brandon's words. He really was a protection to me,
for he was always civil and respectful in his language to me, and there
was not one of the men who dared say the thing that would anger him.
But it fell out that I was removed from Barragong before I had given in
to Powell, though I'm not saying what might have happened if I had
stopped there for six months longer.
"The master had a friend, a Mr. Phillips, who lived twenty miles off,
who had more stock and more men on his station than we had at
Barragong;--a nice quiet gentlemanly man, who had done as silly a thing
as Mr. Brandon had half evened himself to. He had married out of his
degree, though he had more temptation to it than the other, for the
lassie was very bonnie, and very young, and I dare say he thought he
could learn her the ways of gentlefolks.
"Be that as it may, the lady, Mrs. Phillips, was expecting her inlying,
and her husband had trysted a skilled nurse from Melbourne, for a
doctor could not be had; but when the appointed time came, the nurse
had made some other engagement, and could not or would not come; nor
did she send a fit person in her place. There was not time to get any
one from Melbourne, and Mr. Phillips came to Barragong and entreated me
to come to his wife, and Mr. Brandon to spare me. I said I had but
little skill, but that I would do the best I could for the poor lady in
her straits, and the master said he would let me go with pleasure if I
would only promise to come back when Mrs. Phillips was well and about
again.
"I thought I had been rather deceived in this instance too, for I
fancied there was no woman about the place but the mistress herself;
but I saw a well-grown strapping lass in the kitchen, and I thought she
might have answered as well me; but I soon found out that though the
woman (Martha they called her) had legs and arms and a goodly body of
her own, she had no more head than a bairn, and would have been a
broken reed to trust to in any time of peril or difficulty.
"It did not seem to me at first that Mrs. Phillips was so unlike a
lady, for she had an English tongue, and she was very well-favoured,
and sat quiet in her seat, and ordered folk about quite natural. She
had been married now well on for a year, and had got used to be the
mistress. But I had not been long there ere I found out her faults and
her failings; and to my mind her husband had but a poor life with her,
though he did seem to be very fond of the young creature, with all her
deficiencies. You see she had not an atom of consideration either for
him or for any other body on the station; she was either too familiar
or too haughty to the girl Martha; as for me, I knew my place better,
and if she did not keep me at my distance, I could mostly keep her at
hers.
"Not many days after I went to the Phillips's, she was taken ill and
safely delivered of a fine lassie. I have seen women make a great fuss
about bairns, till I cannot be surprised at anything they say or do,
but the joy of the father over the wee Emily was beyond anything I ever
saw. To see the great bearded man taking the hour-old infant in his
arms, kissing it over and over again, and speaking to it in the most
daft-like language, and calling on every one to admire its beauty! No
doubt the bairn had as much beauty as a thing of that age can have, but
I don't think any of the men he showed it to admired it much. I know
Powell, for one, when he came with his master's compliments to inquire
for Mrs. Phillips, and may be to have a crack with myself, was not much
taken up with the brat, as he called it. I had it in my arms, and it
was greeting, poor thing, so I had no time to give Powell a word,
except just the message for Mr. Brandon.
"Mrs. Phillips was by no means an easy lady to nurse. I knew well how
strict old Tibbie Campbell, who used to nurse Mrs. Henderson, used to
be about what a lying-in woman should have to eat and drink, and what
care she took that she could catch no cold, and I thought I behoved to
be as particular with Mrs. Phillips; but she would not hear reason. She
said that such a climate as Scotland should be no rule for treatment in
Australia, and she thought she should know her own constitution best,
and what was likely to agree with her; so she would take no telling
from me. As for Mr. Phillips, he would always give her what she wanted
if she teased for it long enough, or if she began to greet, so she
carried her point in spite of my teeth. And, poor thing, she suffered
for it; for she first took the cold, and then the fever; she was out of
her senses for five weeks, and barely escaped with her life. It was a
weary nursing. Mr. Phillips was wonderful in a sick-room, and relieved
me greatly; but I had such an anxious life with the bairn as well as
the mother. He used to beg me, with tears in his eyes, to save the bit
lassie, if it was in my power, and the man's life seemed to hang on the
little one's. His eye was as sharp as a mothers'--sharper than most
mothers'--to notice if Emily looked worse or better. It was a novelty
to me to see such care and thought in a man, not but what it is well a
father's part to care for his own offspring, and to take trouble and
fatigue for them.
"Mr. Brandon, all the time that the mistress was lying between life and
death, was wondrous patient, and never made a complaint for the want of
me, though I am sure things were at sixes and sevens at Barragong; but
when Mrs. Phillips had got the turn, and was able to move about again,
he sent me a message to come back. Well, I had promised, no doubt--and
I had a far easier life at Mr. Brandon's than where I was, and nothing
had ever been said about wages by Mr. Phillips to me--but then the poor
little lassie, it seemed as much as her life was worth to leave her to
her mother and the lass Martha, for they had not the sense of an
ordinary woman between them, and my heart clung to the bit bairn with
great affection.
"One day Powell came over with the spring-cart to fetch me home, and I
was in a swither what to do, for ye don't just like to press services
on folk that do not want them; but by that time Mr. Phillips had got to
know the necessity of the case, and it was only because he wanted the
offer to come from his wife that he had not asked me before; but she
was unreasonable, and he had to do it himself. She did not see why she
and Martha could not manage the baby; she was sure Peggy was no such
marvel; that there was no difficulty in feeding the child; that it was
cruel to put a strange woman over to give her orders, for Peggy was far
too independent for her place; and then Emily would love her nurse
better than her own mother. I know that was the way she went on to Mr.
Phillips, but on this point he was unmovable. When he asked me as a
great favour to stay, I consented for the sake of him and of Emily.
"Powell was very angry at me for stopping, and took quite a spite to
the little lassie that caused my stay. The way he spoke of that bairn
decided me. If he could not be fashed with one, how could he be fashed
with five? I was determined on one thing, that I should not have a
house of my own unless there was room in it, and a welcome in it, for
Bessie's orphans; so it was settled in my mind that day that I never
could be Mrs. Powell.
"I stopped at the Phillips's for more than eighteen months. The
mistress got used to me, and the bairn Emily was as fond of me as bairn
could be. I had more freedom from sweethearts there at first, for the
men were greatly taken up with Martha; but by the time I had been three
months there I had nigh hand as many followers, as she called them, as
she had herself. And followers she might well call them. I could not go
out with the bairn for a walk, or out to the kye, or turn my head any
way, without one or other of them being at my heels. And when Martha
got married to one of the men on the place, which happened ere long, I
seemed to have the whole station bothering me; but I would have nothing
to do with any of them. Mr. Phillips gave more credit than any of the
folk I had ever seen to my yearnings after Bessie's orphans, and my
resolutions to live single for their sake; but he never could see that
they would be such a drawback to any decent man that liked me; but I
knew there were few men so taken up with bairns as he was.
"Well, as I said, Mrs. Phillips, finding I did my work well and
quietly, gave over interfering with me, and seemed to get to like me;
but when her time was drawing near again, she was not disposed to trust
herself to my care altogether, nor, indeed, was I very keen of the
responsibility. She wanted to go to Melbourne, but the master would not
hear of it; and not all her fleeching, nor her tears, nor three days'
sulks, in which she would not open her mouth to him, would make him
give in to that.
"He seemed to have the greatest dread of parting with her, particularly
to go to Melbourne; and it was a busy time of the year, so that he
could not stay with her there. But he said he would go and fetch a
doctor, if one was to be had, and keep him in the house till he was
needed, and for as long as she was in any peril; and with that she
behoved to be contented. He was as good as his word, for he fetched one
from the town. I did not much like the looks of the man, but I said
nothing, and the mistress seemed quite satisfied.
"But Mr. Phillips took me by myself, and says he to me, 'I believe this
man is skilful enough and clever enough, but he has one fault--we must
keep drink from him and him from drink, or we cannot answer for the
consequences. But for this fault he would have had too good a practice
in Melbourne for us to be able to have him for weeks here. There is no
place near where he can get drink, so I think we can easily manage to
keep him all right. We need not tell Mrs. Phillips, Peggy.'
"Well, I kept watch over this Dr. Carter very well for a fortnight or
more, and he seemed to go on all right; but after that time he got very
restless, and I used to hear him walking about at night as if he could
not sleep, and through the day he could not settle to his book as he
used to do at first, or go to take a quiet walk, or ride not over far
from the house, but took little starts and turned back, as if something
was on his mind.
"I misdoubted him, but with all my watching I could see nothing. As ill
luck would have it, the night the mistress was taken ill, and I went to
call him up, there I found this man Carter as drunk as he could be, to
be able to stand, with an empty brandy bottle beside him that he had
knocked the head off. The keys were in my pocket, and not a bottle
missing out of the press. There never was much kept in the house, for
Mr. Phillips was a most moderate man, and tea is the great drink in the
bush; but in case of sickness we aye had some brandy by us. But the
poor deluded man had got one of the men about the place to ride forty
miles to get him this brandy that had just come at the time when he was
especially needed to be sober. I told him the lady was wanting him, and
Mr. Phillips and me shook him up; and he half came to himself; and if
the mistress had not smelt the drink so strong upon him, she might not
have known. She had another fine lassie, and all was going on very
well, for the mistress was more reasonable. She had bought her
experience very dear the time before, and would take a telling. When
the doctor had got over his drinking fit he was very penitent, and
spoke quite feelingly on the subject. Mr. Phillips turned off the man
that had fetched him the brandy, and told all the men on the station
the reason why. The man Carter did not want for skill, nor for kindness
either, when he was sober; so, as we were more fearful for the
fortnight after than the fortnight before the birth, we just kept him
on. Little Harriett was a fortnight old, and the mistress was doing so
nicely that Mr. Phillips thought he might leave us for one of his
out-stations, where he was wanted, and said he would not be home for
two or three days. And then the poor demented creature of a drunken
doctor contrived again to get hold of drink, and was far more
outrageous this time. Mrs. Phillips was lying on the sofa in the
parlour, when he came in and terrified her by roaring for more brandy;
and when I came in to settle him, he grippit me by the arm and
threatened me with I don't know what, if I refused him. The mistress
entreated me to turn him out of doors--and so I did. He got on a horse
of the master's--I marvelled how he kept his seat--and set off, and I
felt easy in my mind.
"But I had just got the mistress quieted down, when the native boy Jim,
that was always doing odd jobs about the place, came running past the
window with such a look of terror on his face that I saw something was
wrong. I ran out quick but quietly, to ask what was the matter.
"'Fire! Peggy,' says he; and then, sure enough, I looked out, and the
grass was on fire, but very far off, and a strong wind blowing it right
to the slab huts on the head station with their thatch roofs. Nothing
could save us if it came near, and as I have told you it was a busy
time, and the men were all hither and thither, and nobody left on the
place but Martha, and Jim, and myself, and the mistress ill, and two
infants, as I may say, for Emily was not thirteen months old. The only
thing that could be done was to burn a broad ring round the houses, as
I had seen done at Barragong; but that craved wary watching. By good
luck the bairns were both sleeping, and Mrs. Phillips resting quiet, so
I called Martha and Jim, and said we must take wet bags and green
boughs and beat the fire out as we burned. Jim was as quick and clever
as need be, and set about in earnest; but Martha said she could do
nothing for terror, and prayed me to remember her situation.
"'Your situation,' says I, 'will be far worse if you don't bestir
yourself for your own safety. If you won't lend a hand for the sake of
your poor helpless mistress and the innocent bairns, you behove to do
it for the sake of your own four quarters.' So she got more reasonable,
and helped us somewhat, but it was close work, for the fire was near.
It was all that poor wretch of a doctor's doing, too, for he had been
trying to smoke, and had dropped his lighted pipe in the dry withered
grass, and it blazed up like wild; he got out of it, for he was
travelling against the wind, while we were in full waft of it. I
thought the wind and the fire would beat us, and was like to throw up
the work in despair, when I saw a man on horseback galloping for dear
life. I thought it was the master at first, but it was Mr. Brandon, and
he was nigh hand as good, for he fell to, and worked with all his
might, and with his help we saved the house, and all the precious ones
in it. In time the men dropped in, and they set about working to save
the run, but if the wind had not providentially changed at night, they
would scarcely have been able to save it. As it was, there was
thousands of acres of land laid bare, and a flock of sheep killed; the
poor beasts have not the sense to run away out of the fire.
"Oh! the appearance of the place that night was awful to behold; and
just before the wind chopped round the master came home, riding like
fury.
"'We are all safe,' said I, as I ran to meet him, and I saw his face by
the light of the blazing fires around us was as pale as death. 'Mrs.
Phillips and the bairns are not a hair the worse. Thank God for all his
mercies!'
"'Thank God!' said he, 'thank God! Now they are preserved, I can bear
the loss of anything else!'
"He came to his wife, and kissed her and the bairns with solemn, and,
as I thought, with pathetic thankfulness. I was afraid she would be
sorely upset with the terrible events of the day, and I never closed my
eyes that night, but sat up by her bedside lest she should take a bad
turn; but she did not seem any the worse of it, and both her and the
bairns got on brawly. The loss of the sheep was no such great matter in
these times, for there was so little market for them, that we had to
boil them down for the sake of the tallow--that could be sent to
England. Times were changed before I left the colony, for the diggings
made a great demand for sheep and cattle to kill; but when I was up the
country the waistrie of flesh was sinful to behold. I have many a day
sinsyne thought on the beasts and the sheep that were slaughtered there
for the working men, and how the bits that they threw about or left on
their plates might be a good dinner for many a hungry stomach in
Scotland.
"Well, after I had been more than a year and a half at Mr. Phillips's,
my wages just running on as they had done at Mr. Brandon's, and five
pounds sent every quarter, as opportunity offered, for the bairns, I
heard word of a cousin of William Lowrie's coming out to Melbourne, to
follow his trade of a stone-mason there, and I had a strong desire to
see him, to ask after my orphans; for if my letters to them were but
poor, the letters I got back were no better, so my heart was set on
seeing Sandy Lowrie, who had lived close by, and knew the bairns well.
It chanced that Mr. Phillips had a man and his wife on the station at
the time that had no family. The man was nothing of a hand at work, but
the wife was one of those bright, clever, cheery little Englishwomen
that can turn hand to anything, and had such a fine temper--nothing
ever could put her out. So, as she could do for the mistress as well as
myself, I asked leave from the master and Mrs. Phillips to go to the
town and see Sandy. The mistress was fashious, for she did not like
anybody about her to please themselves, and she had got used to me, as
I said before; but the master was as reasonable as she was the contrary.
"He said to me, the day before I left, 'Peggy, I owe you a great debt.
You have saved the life of my wife and children.'
"'Under Providence, sir,' said I.
"'Under Providence, of course,' said he; 'but I fear Providence would
have done little for them if Martha had been the only instrument
Providence had at hand to use, so I am over head and ears in debt to
you.'
"'No, Mr. Phillips,' said I, 'my work you have paid me well for; my
kindness you have returned with kindness and consideration such as I
never hoped to meet with in a strange land. If I have nursed and cared
for your children you have comprehended my love for my own poor bairns;
and this permission to visit Melbourne, that I may hear about them, is
a great favour, and one I will never forget to be grateful for.'
"'You are not to let me off in this way,' said he. 'You will find a
hundred pounds lying in the bank to your credit, which, as you are a
prudent woman, you may be trusted to invest yourself in any way that
you may judge best for yourself or the orphans. My idea is that you may
take a little shop, and this sum would stock it. I could assist you
with my name further than the sum of money I have given to you, if it
is necessary.'
"It flashed on my mind that this was a grand opening; but it seemed so
selfish and greedy-like to take advantage of his kindness, and to leave
him, and Mrs. Phillips, and the bairns, to further my own plans. I said
as much to him, but he would not hear of a refusal.
"'You never can manage to do much for the children at service, for all
your wages, except your own necessary expenses, goes home and is spent;
but by having a little business, you may save more than you could send
to them now, and get them a better education, and give them a better
start. No doubt we will miss you here; but Mrs. Bennett is a very
excellent person, and now I hear that Dr. Grant is going to buy Mr.
McDougall's station, only fifteen miles off, we can get him to come on
an emergency, though he says he would rather not practise. I will not
say that we can do very easily without you, but we must not keep you
always here.'
"The kindness of Mr. Phillips I will never forget. Well, it was done
all as he planned it. I went to Melbourne and saw Sandy Lowrie, and he
gave me good accounts of the bairns, as growing in stature, and Tam and
Jamie keen of their learning, but the old woman, their grandmother, he
said was sore failed, and no likely to be long spared.
"I took a little shop at a low rent, in a little village, a bit out of
the town, for I was frightened to incur much risk, and I set up on my
own footing, with 'M. Walker, general store,' over my door-cheek.
"I was doing a decent business, in a small way, among poor people
mostly; and I set my face very steady against giving credit, for two
reasons--first, that I was not clever enough to keep accounts; and
besides that, it just does working folk harm to let them take on. At a
time of sickness I might break through my rule, but at no other time.
All the folk about me called me Miss Walker, very much to my surprise;
and as I was thought to be making money, I had no want of sweethearts.
After I had gone on for some years the diggings broke out, and there
was an awful overturn of everything in Melbourne. I made a lot of
money, and I bought the shop from the landlord, and was very proud to
get my title-deed written out on parchment, and to see myself a woman
of landed heritable property; and then I made my will, too, for I had
something to leave. I never was doing better in business in my life
than when Robbie Lowrie, a brother of Sandy's, came out to go to the
diggings, and maybe with an eye to make up to myself; but the news he
brought me made me change all my plans and return to Scotland. He told
me that the grandmother was dead, and that the old man, who never had
half the gumption of his wife, was not able to control the five
youngsters; so that they were getting out their heads at no allowance.
Tam, in particular, he said, was a most camsteery callant; but the old
man, he said, was fairly off all work, and not one of his own bairns
were either able or willing to help him, and I knew that he had an
awful horror of the sea. So I let my shop, and sold the stock for time;
and indeed the payments have no been owre regular, and the man that
took it is still in my debt. I found the grandfather and the bairns
were really as Robbie had said, and I have had my own work to set
things to rights. They were in debt, too, though I had sent them double
the money after I had the shop than before; but they just thought that
a rich auntie in Australia was a mine of wealth, and the folk very
unwisely gave them trust whenever they asked it. But they were doing
very weel at the school, and I find it a hantle cheaper to give them
learning here than in Melbourne; so it answers me better to bide here
than to take them out, even if grandfather would agree. He was good to
me and mine in my straits, and I cannot think to leave the old man now.
"But what with the rent and the schooling, and one thing and another, I
found that the rent of my bit shop would not pay all expenses, so I
took in washing and dressing for the folk about Swinton. I was aye
clever at it, and I got a great inkling about clear-starching and fine
dressing from that Mrs. Bennett, at Mr. Phillips's station, for she was
a particular good laundress. A body learns at all hands if one has only
the will. And ye see, now, it seemed better for Tam and the rest that I
should try my luck in a bigger place, and I hope I may not repent of it.
"That's all my story. It's no much tell; but yet, ye see that none of
my brothers have been burdened with my bairns. I have done it all
myself."
Jane sat silent a few moments after Peggy had finished her narrative,
and then thanked her gravely and earnestly for it. Elsie, too, had been
much interested in the adventures of this clever, upright woman, and
was only sorry it could not be available--neither incident nor
sentiment--for her poetry.
"Now, I have kept you up long enough, young ladies. If what I have said
gives you any heart, I will be glad. I hope you will sleep well, and
have lucky dreams; so good-night."
Chapter X.
Elsie's Literary Venture, and Its Success
Elsie Melville found the second day in ---- Street better than the
first. An early walk with Jane restored her to her equilibrium, and she
sat down to write in her own room with more rapidity than before; while
Jane went out and made inquiries at registry offices, or anywhere else
that was likely to lead to employment; but day after day passed without
success. Rather than do nothing, she assisted Peggy in the lighter
parts of her work, made clothes for the children, and helped them with
their lessons in the evening. Peggy was astonished at the progress
which they all made with such assistance, and particularly delighted
with the great influence Jane had over Tom. As she grew accustomed to
the ways of the house, she learned to endure the noise patiently, and
she found these five young Lowries really interesting and remarkably
intelligent. Tom especially was eager for knowledge, and his trade,
which he entered into with all his heart, was calling out all his
abilities and all his ambition. There were many things that he had
difficulty in getting information about, for he was but a young
apprentice, and the journeymen and older apprentices wanted him to wait
on them rather than to learn the business. But he was not to be kept
back in that way; he was determined to find things out for himself, and
in every difficulty he found help and sympathy from Jane Melville. Her
out-of-the-way knowledge made her a most useful auxiliary, and she
rejoiced that there was one person in the world that she could assist
with it. She did not forget Peggy's wish about the quick writing, and
taught those peasant children to express themselves fluently on paper.
Their manners were improved under her influence, and what was still
uncouth or clumsy she learned to bear with.
Another resource to lighten the weight of anxiety and disappointment
was found in Peggy's extraordinary gift in finding out distressed
people, which even in her new residence, did not desert her. Jane, who
had been accustomed to put her hand in her purse for the benefit of
Peggy's proteges, felt at first very grieved that she had nothing to
give, but she learned that a great deal of good can be done with very
little money, and satisfied herself by giving sympathy, personal
services, and advice. It was astonishing what good advice she gave to
other people for bettering their prospects, while she seemed quite
unable to do anything for herself. But so long as Elsie was busy and
hopeful with her poems, Jane could not bear to leave her; if they
failed, they must try what they could do separately. In the meantime,
she was more disposed to try classes than anything else, for her
experience with the Lowries proved to her that she could teach clever
children, at any rate, with success; but as she could not get the
promise of any pupils of the rank and circumstances that could make
them pay, she hesitated about incurring any risk.
Elsie had completed poems sufficient to fill a small volume before her
sister had seen any opening for herself. It was with some strong
agitation on Jane's part, and still stronger on Elsie's, that they
presented themselves to the publisher who had said he would give a good
price for a good book written by a woman, and offered him the
manuscript for publication. Alas! tastes differ as to what is a good
book, and in nothing is there so much disparity of opinion as in the
article of poetry. He did not give much encouragement to the sisters,
but said he would read over the manuscript and give an answer in ten
days. Any one who has ever written with the hope of publishing can
fancy Elsie's feeling during these ten days. Her own verses rang in her
ears; she recollected passages she might have altered and improved, and
wondered if they would strike the critic as faulty; then again she
recalled passages which she fancied could not be improved, and hoped he
would not skip them; now she would sit idle in the thought that, until
she saw there was a market for her productions, there was no necessity
for multiplying them; then again she would work with redoubled industry
to see if she had not quite exhausted her fancy and her powers.
The final verdict was unfavourable:--"There is some sweetness of
versification and of expression in Miss Melville's poems, but they are
unequal, and want force and interest. They never would become popular,
so that I feel obliged to decline the publication. Poetry is at all
times heavy stock, unless by authors of established reputation."
Elsie sat sad and dispirited at this her first failure, but her sister
comforted her by saying that Edinburgh was not the best market for
anything new--London was the place where a new author had some chance.
Elsie easily caught at the hope, and retouched some of her most
imperfect pieces before sending them to a great London house. To
publisher after publisher the manuscript was sent, and after due time
occupied in reading it, the parcel returned with the disappointing
note----
"Mr. B----'s compliments, and he begs to decline with thanks Miss
Melville's poems, as, in the opinion of his literary adviser, they
could not answer the purpose of publication."
Or----
"Messrs. H----, B----, & Co.'s compliments, and though they are
overstocked with poetry, they have read carefully Miss Melville's
poems, but find them of the most unmarketable kind, so beg to decline
publication."
Or----
"Messrs. S----, E----, & Co.'s compliments, and they regret that the
subjective character of all Miss Melville's poems will make them
uninteresting to the general reader. They therefore regret that they
cannot bring them out."
When the notes were as brief as the foregoing samples, the pain was not
so severe as in the last which Elsie received, in which a careful but
most cutting criticism accompanied the refusal. There is no doubt that
Elsie's poems were crude, but she had both fancy and feeling. With more
knowledge of life and more time, she was capable of producing something
really worth reading and publishing. If there had been no talent in her
verses, she would not have had a reading from so many good publishing
houses; but she did not know enough of the trade to know this, and her
humiliation at her repeated disappointments was exceedingly bitter.
There is no species of composition that should be less hurried than
poetry. Even if it is struck off in a moment of inspiration, it should
not be published then, but laid aside for alteration and polishing
after a considerable time has elapsed; and much of our best poetry has
been very slowly composed, even at first. Our poor little Elsie had
prepared by great industry her volume of poems in less than four
months, and had not taken time to reconsider them. They were not
narrative pieces, in which the interest of the story carries you along
in reading, whether the diction is perfected or not, but mostly short
lyrical poems, and contemplative pieces, which are always much more
effective when found amongst other descriptions of poetry or in a
magazine, than when collected together in a volume. They were generally
sad, a common fault with poetesses; but poor Elsie had more excuse for
taking that tone than many others who have done so.
She had to mourn the loss of fortune and the coldness of friends; the
conduct of William Dalzell to her sister had made a deeper impression
on her mind than on that of Jane. She had more capacity of suffering
than Jane had, and when she took the pen in her hand, she felt that her
life--and all life--was full of sorrow. Jane had induced Elsie to
accompany her to the chapel, where she herself had learned her first
lesson of submission and of Christian hope; but even in religion Elsie
inclined to the contemplative and the tender rather than to the active
and the cheerful side of it. She looked with far more intense longing
to the Heaven beyond the earth than Jane did, and had not the interest
in the things about her to make the dreariness of her daily life
endurable. Her poetry had been her one resource; and that appeared to
be very weak and contemptible in the opinion of those who ought to know.
Whether the literary taster for the publisher last applied to was less
engrossed with business than the others, or whether he thought it would
do the aspiring poetess good to show her her faults, I cannot tell, but
he wrote a long letter of critical remarks. There was one ballad--an
idealization of the incident in Jane's life which had so much impressed
Elsie, in which William Dalzell was made more fascinating and more
faithless, and Jane much more attached to him than in reality--which
this correspondent said was good, though the subject was hackneyed, but
on all the others the sweeping scythe of censure fell unsparingly. "Her
poems," he said, "were very tolerable, and not to be endured;"
mediocrity was insufferable in poetry. The tone of them was unhealthy,
and would feed the sentimentalism of the age, which was only another
name for discontent. If poetesses went on as they were doing
now-a-days, and only extracted a wail from life, the sooner they gave
up their lays the better. The public wanted healthy, cheerful, breezy
poetry, with a touch of humour here and there, and a varied human
interest running through it--a fit companion to the spirited novels of
Charles Kingsley, then at the height of his fame. If poets were to
teach the world, as they boasted that they were, they should not shut
themselves up, and practise variations on the one poor tune, "I am
miserable; I am not appreciated; the world is not worthy of me;" but go
forth to the world and learn that there are nobler subjects for poetry
than themselves. Then, with regard to Elsie's diction and rhymes, this
critic selected a number of the most faulty and imperfect verses for
censure, and Elsie had the miserable satisfaction of having to
acknowledge that they deserved it. I have little doubt that the critic
thought he was giving the poetess a good lesson; but if he had seen the
suffering that his letter caused, and the youth and inexperience, and
the sad circumstances of the poor girl who received it, he would have
repented somewhat of his very clever and satirical letter.
Heartsick and humbled, Elsie lost hope, and health, and spirits. She
wrapped the rejected manuscript in brown paper, and put it in the
farthest corner of one of her drawers. She was only prevented from
committing it to the flames by Jane's interference.
"Now," said she, "I must be as busy as you. Peggy must teach me to
iron--surely I can learn to do that--and let me make Nancy's frock.
But, after all, Jane, this will not do for a continuance; we must seek
for employment somewhere. I have spent a good deal of time over this
useless work, and postages have come heavy on our small means. I must
try to earn something."
The heavy tears fell fast on the frock as the girl worked at it; the
listless hands dropped their hold of it occasionally, and she was lost
in bitter thoughts. She however finished it, and then busied herself
with a new bonnet for Peggy, which was to be made not at all
fashionable, but big and rather dowdy. Elsie's taste rebelled a little
at the uncongenial task; but she was doing her best to please Peggy
when the postman delivered two letters to Jane--one from Francis, and
the other from Mrs. Rennie. Francis' letters had been frequent, and had
been a little interesting even to Elsie, and this one was more so than
usual. He was coming to Edinburgh for a week or two, and meant to see
them as much as possible during his stay. He was to be at a party at
the Rennies' on New Year's Day, and his cousins were to be invited
also; he trusted to meet them there. The Rennies had occasionally
called, and shown the girls more kindness than any of their Swinton
friends, or their other Edinburgh acquaintances. They had spent a
fortnight, in autumn, at Cross Hall, and had enjoyed it very much.
The note from Mrs. Rennie contained an invitation for both sisters to
this party; and to girls who had been shut up so many months with no
society but that of Peggy and her relations, the prospect of spending
one evening among their equals in social position was very pleasant.
Jane anticipated pleasure, besides, from seeing and talking with her
cousin about everything and everybody in and about Cross Hall, as well
as about a tour on the Continent which he had taken. Even Elsie's face
brightened a little as she gave the last loving touches to her sister's
dress, and said that she had never seen her look better, though she was
a little thinner and paler than she used to be--to Elsie's eyes she was
quite as pretty.
Chapter XI.
Some Grave Talk In Gay Company
Francis had hoped to see his cousins before he met them at the party,
but when he called at Peggy Walker's he found that they were out taking
their customary long walk, so he met them in Mrs. Rennie's drawing-room
for the first time. Certainly the two girls in mourning were not the
plainest-looking in the room. Neither sister was beautiful, but Elsie
was very nearly so, and her recent suffering had thrown more intensity
into her expression, and made her look more lovely than ever. But it
was to Jane that Francis' eyes turned affectionately and anxiously, and
he grieved to see the traces of weariness, of care, and he even
thought, of tears, on the face which to him was the most interesting in
the world. He shook hands with her warmly, and looked inquiringly in
her face, and then drew her into a quiet corner in a window-seat, where
they could talk without being much observed. Elsie did not sit beside
them, but left them to their own conversation, assured that she would
hear all that she cared to know by-and-by; yet she was not neglected,
for Miss Rennie had taken a great fancy to her, and was determined, if
possible, to get her partners. At Mrs. Rennie's parties there never was
any scarcity of gentlemen, for they had an extensive family connection,
and Mr. Rennie was a kind and hospitable man, who had a large
acquaintance in the city. Miss Rennie had judged hardly of Jane's
personal appearance at first sight, but she thought Elsie a most
elegant and interesting creature.
"We have written so often and so fully to each other that I fancy that
we have little to say now we meet," said Jane, smiling.
"We have written so much to each other that we have all the more to
say, Jane," said her cousin. "I never get a letter from you without its
making me wish to talk over it with you. You have no news, however, I
suppose?"
"No news," said Jane. "I wrote to you of Elsie's last bitter
disappointment. It was a cruel letter; she felt it all the more,
because she says it is all true. But, really, Francis, I think her
poetry did not deserve it. She has never mentioned her verses since."
"And for yourself, you can see no prospect?"
"It seems impossible to get up the classes that I hoped for. I think I
must take to Mrs. Dunn's and the dressmaking, for we cannot go on as we
are doing."
"Ah! Jane, my cup of prosperity has very many bitter drops in it."
"And mine of adversity has much that is salutary and even sweet in it.
Do not think me so very unhappy. If any one had told me beforehand of
these months that I have passed since my uncle's death, I should have
thought them absolutely intolerable, and would have preferred death.
But there is no human lot without its mitigations and ameliorations.
God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. I am not happy, perhaps; but I
am not miserable. I have not to live with people whom I despise, for
there never was a more estimable woman than Peggy Walker, or more
promising children than her nephews and nieces. You cannot fancy what
interest I feel in Tom, and how I am ambitious for him. He will make a
figure in the world, and I will help him to do so. We women have no
career for ourselves, and we must find room for ambition somewhere. I
have no brother and no husband, and I find myself building castles in
the air for Tom Lowrie and for you, Francis; for you are proving
yourself the good master, the conscientious steward of the bounties of
Providence that I hoped you would be; and is that nothing to be glad
of? I know I look sad, but do not fancy me always in this mood; if you
saw me in the evenings with Tom, and Nancy, and Jamie, and Jessie, and
Willie, you would see how cheerful I can be. Here, I am reminded too
painfully of what I have lost; there, I feel that I have gained
somewhat."
"You want to relieve my mind, my generous cousin, by making the best of
your very hard lot."
"Every lot has its best side," said Jane, "and it is only by looking
steadily at it that one can obtain courage to bear the worst. I see
this in visiting the very poor people whom I wrote to you about. Some
people are querulous in comparative comfort; others have the most
astonishing powers of cheerful endurance. I have learned upon how very
little the human soul can be kept in working order from a poor
rheumatic and bed-ridden old woman, who is so grateful for the use of
one hand while she is helpless otherwise, and who has had a very bad
husband, and several very careless and cold-hearted children; but she
has one son who comes to see her regularly once every three months, and
brings her the scanty pittance on which she subsists; and surely I,
with youth, and health, and work to do, should try to be cheerful, even
though the work is not such as I could prefer.---- And you have been in
France as well as England since I saw you last in August. I want to
hear further particulars of your travels, since you say that you have
more to give. They interested you very much, particularly those in
France."
"Very much, indeed; all the more as I acquired the language. I wrote to
you that I met with Clemence de Vericourt, now Madame Lenoir."
"Is she handsome?" asked Jane.
"No; I thought her almost ugly till she opened her mouth, and then I
forgot it, and felt the charm of the most winning manner and the most
brilliant conversational power in the world. Frenchwomen are not to
compare with Englishwomen for beauty, but they can be irresistible
without it."
"How did you get an introduction to her?" asked Jane.
"French society is more accessible than it is here; but I met with a
French gentleman in a CAFE who had known my father, and who recognized
my name, who introduced me to a good many very pleasant salons, and to
Madame Lenoir's among others. Arnauld is dead; he fell in Algeria. His
sister speaks of him with the tenderest affection."
"Is she happily married? After all her mother's solicitude, it would be
hard if she too were sacrificed."
"So far as I can see, she appears to be happy. The husband is of
suitable years and good character; not so brilliant as his wife. But
really what Madame de Girardin says appears to me to be true, that
French women are superior to their so-called lords and masters. It is
strange to me, who have been always so shy, and so shut out from
society, to be introduced--or rather plunged--into so much of it."
"Had you not society of your own when you were in the bank--your
fellow-clerks and their wives and sisters?"
"I had little intimacy with any of them, and was particularly in want
of acquaintances among the other sex. A man with no relations who
recognized his existence, and who is conscious of the doubtfulness of
his birth, as I was, does not like to push himself into society in a
country like this of Scotland, where family connections are overrated.
Now, every one seems to think that being owned by my father in his will
quite sufficient, while I am more ashamed in my secret soul of my birth
than I ever was."
"Indeed!" said Jane, "I thought it would have pleased you to be
acknowledged."
"YOU should see, if the world does not, that if one party has juggled
the other into a marriage, without any love on either side, it may
involve legal succession to property, but does not make the birth a
whit more respectable. I had a mother who did not care for me, and a
father who did his duty, as he fancied, by me, but who disliked me, and
they appear to have hated one another."
"You extorted respect and regard from your father, and you have cause
to be proud of that. If mutual love between parents is to be the great
cause of pride of birth, I, too, have reason to be ashamed of mine, for
I think my mother's love was worn out before many years of married life
were over, and my father's never was anything but self-love and
self-will. But whatever our birth may be, we are all God's children,
and equal in His eyes, in that respect at least.----Did Madame Lenoir
speak to you of her mother?"
"Yes, she did, and recollected that my name was the name of an old and
dear friend of her mother's; so she was especially kind to me for my
father's sake. I saw Madame de Vericourt's portrait, too. She was
prettier than her daughter, at least in repose; but neither of them
were at all like my ideal; for I forgot the French class of face, and
embodied my fancy portraits in an English type."
"You enjoyed French society, then?"
"Very much, indeed. The art of conversing these French people carry to
great perfection. It is not frivolous, though it is light and
sparkling; it is still less argumentative, but it has the knack of
bringing out different opinions and different views of them. We pity
the French for their want of political liberty, but the social freedom
they enjoy is some compensation.---- But what interested me still more
than these brilliant salons, was the tour that I took through the
country, and the careful observation of the condition and prospect of
the small proprietors so numerous in France and Flanders. The contrast
between the French small landowner and the English agricultural
labourer is very great. Nothing has struck me as so pathetic as the
condition of the English farm labourer--so hopeless, so cheerless. Our
Scottish peasants have more education, more energy, and are more
disposed to emigrate. Their wages are fixed more by custom than by
competition, and their independence has not been sapped by centuries of
a most pernicious poor law system; yet, though I think their condition
very much better than those of the same class south of the Tweed, it is
nothing like that of the peasant proprietor."
"They say that small holdings are incompatible with high farming," said
Jane, "and that such a crowded country as Britain must be cultivated
with every advantage of capital, machinery, and intelligence."
"So they say here; but the small proprietors of France and Flanders
will tell another story, for they will give a higher price for land
than the capitalist, and make it pay. The astonishing industry of the
Flemish farmers in reclaiming the worst soil of Europe, and making it
produce the most abundant crops, shows me the fallacy of our insular
notions on that head. I cannot but regret the decrease of the yeomanry
class in Great Britain, and the accumulation of large estates in few
hands. Scotland, for instance, is held by 8000 proprietors or
thereabouts, of whom I am one. I should like to try an experiment. You
know that sand flat, that is worth very little but for scanty pasture,
at the back of the Black Hill, as it is called. I would divide it into
allotments among the most industrious and energetic of my
farm-labourers, and show them the method pursued by the Flemish
farmers, and see if in the course of ten years they are not growing as
good crops as in the most favoured spots on the estate. 'Give a man a
seven years' lease of a garden, he will convert it into a desert; give
him a perpetuity of a rock, he will change it into a garden.' Your
uncle did not think it would pay to reclaim that piece of land; I will
try if our peasants have not the stuff in them to make the most of the
land."
"What an excellent idea!" said Jane.
"I knew you would sympathize with this plan, and with another which I
have also in my head--to build new cottages for all the agricultural
labourers on the estate. It is shameful that while the proprietors'
houses, and the farmers' houses, have been enlarged and improved so
much during the last century, the cottage of the hind and the cotter
should still be of the same miserable description; the partitions to be
made at the labourer's own expense, and too generally done by the
enclosed beds, which are not right things in a sanitary point of view.
The money value of the rent is increased, too, for so many weeks of
reaping in harvest time is worth more now than a century back. I have
got plans for the cottages which I wanted you to look at this morning;
I think they will do."
"You must let Peggy see them; she was brought up in one of those
cottages you speak of, and will know all their deficiencies. It will
set a good example to the neighbourhood," said Jane.
"And, after all, it will not cost me more to build these cottages, and
make thirty families more comfortable and more self-respecting, than it
would to enlarge Cross Hall, as Mr. Chalmers advises me strongly to
do--by building a new wing and adding a conservatory in the place of
your modest little greenhouse. Every one knows I have come to the
estate with money in hand instead of encumbrances to clear off, as so
many proprietors have, so they can think of my spending it in nothing
but in increasing my own comfort or importance. Another reason for my
trying these experiments and improvements is to see if we cannot keep
some of our best people in Scotland. Our picked men, and many of our
picked women, emigrate to America and Australia. The recent emigration
to Australia since the gold-diggings were discovered has been enormous.
It must hurt the general character of the nation that we lose our best
and our ablest as they grow up. I confess that if I were in their place
I should do the same; but let my experiment succeed, it may be
imitated."
"Whether it is imitated or not, it is right to try it. I will watch the
result with the greatest interest. You know nothing could give me
greater pleasure than your success in such a noble work," said Jane,
with sparkling eyes. "My uncle's will is to turn out no mistake."
"We must go over together the names of those I mean to give the
allotments to. You know the people better than I do," said Francis.
"It is not fair that the commonages should be enclosed to enlarge great
estates; the waste lands should belong to the nation, and be given to
the class that needs them most, and that could, perhaps, make most of
them," said Jane. "You are bringing my uncle's theories into practice.
If it were not for Elsie I should have nothing to regret in the
settlement that my uncle made; and, perhaps, there is something
brighter in store for her."
"Has she none of the alleviations that you are so good as to make the
very most of?" asked Francis.
"She has more pleasure naturally in books and in nature than I have,
but at the present time she appears to have to have lost her relish for
both. She has felt that her estimate of her powers has been too great,
and now it is far too humble. For myself, I think just as highly of my
own abilities and acquirements as ever I did. I am sorry that your
minister has left his church, for I hoped to become acquainted with
him; and he looked so cheerful that I thought he might do Elsie good.
This new clergyman does not strike me as being so genial or kindly,
though I certainly like his sermons and his devotional services very
much. It is certainly not the least of the blessings of my adversity
that I have learned to place myself in God's hands, and to feel that he
will do all things well for me."
"Can you not place your sister in the same care?" asked Francis.
"It is easier to trust God for yourself than to trust Him for those
whom we love," said Jane; "but I try hard for that amount of faith.
Elsie is so weary of her life sometimes, it is difficult to give her
courage. This is grave conversation for a dancing party; but you do not
see the incongruity. If we cannot carry our religion into our
amusements, and into our business, it will not be of much use to us."
The sound of a well-known voice arrested Jane's attention: it was that
of William Dalzell, who was shaking hands with Mr., Mrs., and Miss
Rennie very cordially, and then, in an embarrassed manner, doing the
same with Elsie.
"How did our friends get acquainted with Mr. Dalzell?" said Jane.
"When they were visiting me at Cross Hall, we had a gathering of the
neighbouring families, and Mrs. Rennie did the honours for me. Mr.
Dalzell, with his mother, and two young lady cousins, were of the
party. I thought the county people would have held themselves aloof
from the more plebeian society of an Edinburgh banker, but he at least
has condescended to accept Mrs. Rennie's invitation to her own house.
The exclusiveness of classes, and sects, and cliques, is extremely
amusing to me. But I am engaged to dance this dance with Miss Rennie,
so you must excuse me."
As Francis went up to claim Miss Rennie's hand, a gentleman was in the
act of asking it--"I am engaged to Mr. Hogarth--see my card--but as you
are a stranger in Edinburgh, you will be obliged to me for introducing
you to his cousin, one of the sweetest girls in the world, and one
whose story is the most interesting and the most romantic I ever heard.
Oh! Mr. Dalzell, I forgot you."
"This is sad, to be so easily forgotten. I had hoped that my requests
had made more impression," said he.
"I do not think Laura is engaged for this dance. Excuse me a moment
till I ascertain." Miss Rennie walked across the room, leaving William
Dalzell and the stranger together, but she presently returned, with the
assurance that Miss Wilson was disengaged, and would be happy to be
introduced to Mr. Dalzell. Miss Wilson was ward of Mrs. Rennie's, as
Jane had heard, a West Indian heiress, somewhat stupid, and very much
impressed with her own wealth and importance. Miss Rennie had a pitying
sort of liking for her, though sometimes Laura's airs were too much for
her, and they would not speak to each other for a week at a time. She
had just left school, having made all the progress which money without
natural ability or any of the usual incentives to application could
attain, and was to live at the Rennies', which she thought a very dull
place. This large party was the brightest thing in her horizon at
present, and she was looking her best, and took her place in the dance
with one of the handsomest men in the room, with much more animation
than was usual with her.
"Now," said Miss Rennie, "I have done my best for Mr. Dalzell. I must
attend to my other stranger before I fulfil my engagement to you, Mr.
Hogarth, and I hope you will excuse me, when it is to get a partner for
Alice. Miss Melville, I suppose, does not care about dancing, she is so
dreadfully matter-of-fact. I know you have been talking politics, or
something as bad, in that corner all this evening."
So Miss Rennie led the stranger across the room, and introduced Miss
Alice Melville to Mr. Brandon, from Australia.
Chapter XII.
Mr. Brandon In Edinburgh
"You must excuse any blunders I may make in my dancing, Miss Melville,
for I am an old bushman, and have been out of practice for many years,"
said Mr. Brandon.
In spite of Elsie's being an admirable dancer, she was too much excited
to do her best, and the stranger made no great figure in his first
debut in that line. Miss Rennie was inwardly rejoicing that she had
herself got rid of him.
"What part of Australia do you come from?" asked Elsie, in the first
pause.
"From Victoria, as it is called now. It was called Port Phillip when I
went there."
"Have you been long in the colony?"
"A long time--long enough for all my friends to forget me. But yet I
need make no complaint; they have all been very kind; but I think I am
entitled to a spell now."
"To a what?" asked Elsie, to whom the term was new.
"To a rest, or rather a fling--a holiday. Ah! Miss Melville, you can
have no idea what a rough life I have led for many years. You cannot
fancy how delightful, how perfectly beautiful it is to me to be in such
society as this after the Australian bush."
Miss Melville had a better idea than he fancied. It is curious to meet
people as strangers of whom you know a great deal, and when Elsie
looked at the very gentlemanly man beside her, whose dress was
perfectly fashionable, whose air and mien were rather distinguished,
and whose language, in spite of a few colonial colloquialisms, had the
clear, sharp tone and accent which agreeably marks out an educated
Englishman among an assembly of Scotchmen, and recollected the
description of his dress and habitation which Peggy had given, and the
scenes and conversation which she had narrated, she was almost afraid
of betraying her knowledge by her countenance.
"Have you been long home from Australia?" she asked, as a safe question.
"A few months, and am enjoying it intensely."
"And what brings you to Scotland? I suppose your relations are all
English?"
"Oh, an Australian thinks he ought to see the whole of Britain, when he
can visit it so seldom. A man is treated with contempt on his return if
he has not seen the Cumberland lakes and the Scottish Highlands. But I
have relations in Scotland besides;--the old lady sitting by Mrs.
Rennie in black MOIRE (is it that you call it?) is a sort of aunt of
mine, and is connected in some inexplicable way with the Rennies. Your
Scotch cousinships are an absolute mystery to me; it is a pity I cannot
understand them, for I am indebted to them for a great deal of
hospitality and kindness, of which this is one of the most agreeable
instances;"--and Mr. Brandon looked at Elsie as if he meant what he
said.
"It does one good to see a man enjoying a party; our fashionable style
is for the indifferent and the done up," said Elsie, with a smile. "I
do not know if gentlemen enjoy life in spite of that nonchalant or
dismal manner; but I know it is not pleasant for the lookers on."
"I cannot see why they should assume such a disagreeable style of
conduct. To me, you English and Scotch people seem the most enviable in
existence--amusement after amusement, and education, elegance, and
refinement to heighten every enjoyment. I often say to myself, 'Walter
Brandon, my good fellow, this will not last; you must go back to your
stations and your troubles in a few months;' but for the present I am
in Elysium."
By this time they had finished their dance, and were standing beside
Jane. She looked up at him with her steady eyes--"The happiness is in
yourself--not in the country, in the amusements, or in the society. You
have earned a holiday, and you enjoy it."
"All Australians feel the drawbacks of the colonies when they come to
visit England," said Mr. Brandon.
"It depends on their circumstances, whether they do or not. I often
wish that I were there," said Jane.
"And so do I," said Miss Rennie, who with Francis had just joined them.
"There must be a grandeur and a freshness about a new country that we
cannot find here; and those wonderful gold diggings, too, must be the
most interesting objects in nature."
"The very ugliest things you ever saw--and as for grandeur or
freshness, I never saw or felt it. The finest prospect I could see in
Victoria is the prospect of getting out of it, particularly now that
the diggings have spoiled the colony. We cannot forget Old England."
"Oh! of course I like patriotism," said Miss Rennie; "no country can be
to us like the land of our birth."
"But I think we should try to like the land of adoption also," said
Jane. "The Anglo-Saxons have been called the best of colonists, because
they have adapted themselves so well to all sorts of climates and all
sorts of circumstances."
"True--true enough," said Mr. Brandon. "The Adelaide men who came
across to the diggings used to talk with the greatest enthusiasm about
their colony, their farms, their gardens, their houses, their society.
I fancied that it was because they left it for a rougher life, and that
Adelaide was like a little England to them; but, perhaps, the poor
fellows really liked the place. At any rate, almost all of them
returned, though Victoria appeared to be by far the most prosperous
colony. But I made an excellent colonist, in spite of my never becoming
much attached to the place. I adapted myself to sheep wonderfully, and
to black pipes and cabbage-tree hats, and all the other amenities of
bush life; and now, Miss Rennie, will you be good enough to adapt
yourself to me for a quadrille?"
Miss Rennie was not engaged, so she could not refuse. Elsie saw that
her cousin wished to talk to her; she feared it was to be on the
subject which was the most painful of all--her unfortunate poems. She
fancied that he must think her presumptuous in her old ambition, and
dreaded his condolences; so she made some pretext to move away out of
hearing of his conversation with Jane, and stood by the hired
musicians, who were the most unlikely persons in the room to know
anything about her or her disappointment. Standing there, with her
slight and graceful form stooping slightly, and her face cast down,
Miss Rennie again pointed her out to Mr. Brandon, of whose dancing she
was tired, and to whom she wished to talk, asking him if he did not
think her a lovely creature, and explaining the very peculiar
circumstances in which the two girls were placed.
"They have been well educated, papa says, but very peculiarly, so that
their prospects are not the better for it. We live in a frivolous age,
Mr. Brandon. I do not take much interest in Jane, but Elsie is a very
sweet girl."
The Australian settler looked again more closely at Elsie, and
acknowledged to himself, as well as to Miss Rennie, that she was
certainly elegant.
"Shall we go to her now? she looks so deserted, Mr. Brandon. Oh! Mr.
Malcolm, I must introduce you to Miss Melville's sister."
"And co-heiress in misfortune," said the young lawyer, shrugging his
shoulder.
"She is lovely--come," said Miss Rennie. She took both gentlemen across
the room. Elsie started when she saw them coming close up to her.
"Miss Alice Melville--Mr. Malcolm--a successful author. Your sister saw
him here some months ago."
The sight of a successful author was rather too much for Elsie's
present feelings. Her eyes filled with tears, but yet she must speak.
"Yes, Jane told me she had that pleasure," said she.
"Miss Melville is here also, I hope," said Mr. Malcolm.
"Yes, she is talking to--to Mr. Hogarth."
"To Mr. Hogarth? Yes, I see--very good friends they appear to be, in
spite of circumstances. Two superior minds, you see."
"He takes such care of your horses and dogs, Miss Alice; and as for
your room, when mama proposed making it into a card-room, as it was
larger than the library, he looked as black as thunder, and said he
never would have cards played there. It was a Blue Beard's room, so we
got no access to it."
"I thought he would be kind to the animals; he promised as much to
Jane."
"Oh! indeed, he is as good as his word, then," said Miss Rennie. Then,
recollecting that this talk must be painful to the girl, she turned to
Mr. Malcolm, and asked how his evangelical novel was getting on.
"Finished, and in the press by this time."
"Will it be a success? But everything you write is a success, so I need
not ask," said Miss Rennie.
"The pub. says it has not exactly the genuine twang, but I hope no one
will observe that but himself. I have more incidents in it than usual
in works of the class--an elopement, a divorce, a duel, a murder, and a
shipwreck."
"I must have a first reading, recollect. It must be so interesting,"
said Miss Rennie.
"Thrilling, I should say," said Mr. Brandon. "Well, to me there is a
deep mystery in bookmaking. How one thing is to follow another--and
another to lead to another--how everything is to culminate in marriage
or a broken heart, and not a bit of the whole to be true, I cannot
conceive; and as for poetry, it seems to me an absolute impossibility
to make verses rhyme. Can you tell me how it is done, Miss Melville?"
Elsie started. "No, I cannot--I cannot tell."
"You must ask Miss Rennie about poetry," said Mr. Malcolm; "she does
some very excellent things in that way."
"You perfidious creature, I see I must never tell you anything, for you
are sure to come out with it at all times and all places," said Miss
Rennie.
"It is a true bill then," said Mr. Brandon, bowing to the tenth muse.
"I cannot help wondering at you. I must not approach so near you, for
you are so far removed from my everyday prosaic sphere. I must take
shelter with Miss Melville, who knows nothing about the matter. I
cannot comprehend how people can make verses; it cannot be easy at any
time."
"It is sometimes easier than at other," said Miss Rennie. "If the
subject is good the words flow correspondingly fast."
"And what do you consider the best subject,--marrying or burying, love
or despair? I suppose you have tried them all."
"Oh, no. Do not imagine me to be a real author--only an occasional
scribbler. Mr. Malcolm can tell you that I do not write much."
"You must show Mr. Brandon your album," said Mr. Malcolm, "and let him
judge for himself."
"Will you let me see it too?" said Elsie eagerly; "do let me see it."
"You may look over it together," said Miss Rennie good-naturedly,
"though I do not show it to every one. It will perhaps convince Mr.
Brandon that it is nothing so wonderful to write verses, and make him
less distant in his manner. My own pieces are signed Ella."
Miss Rennie's album contained a number of selections from her favourite
poets, but except her own there were no original verses in it. Her
friends preferred copying to composing, and among a very large circle
she was the only one who had tried any independent flight into the
regions of poetry; so that it was natural she should think a good deal
of herself, for every one begged for something of her own to put into
their albums, though they could not reciprocate in kind. Mr. Malcolm
contributed some smart prose pieces; Herbert Watson was clever at
caricatures; Eleanor painted flowers sweetly; while Laura Wilson,
ambitious to have something to show in Miss Rennie's album, had copied
a number of riddles in a very angular hand, which was illegible to an
unpractised eye.
Elsie and Mr. Brandon, however, had got the album to see Ella's verses,
and they turned to them with curiosity and interest. Her quicker eye
and greater experience, both in poetry and in ladies' handwriting, made
her read each piece in less than half the time taken by Mr. Brandon,
and she re-read and scanned every line and weighed every sentiment and
simile while he was making his way to the end.
"Well, really this is remarkably good," said he. "I wonder Miss Rennie
does not publish: she could fill a nice little volume. I am sure I have
seen far worse verses printed. Have not you?"
"Yes," said Elsie. "I believe Miss Rennie has had pieces published in
periodicals, but it is not so easy to get a volume printed."
"Of course, there is a risk; but then the pleasure, the fame, should
count for something. To have one's name on the title-page of a pretty
little volume must be very gratifying to the feelings."
"Oh no, not at all. I do not think so; but I do not know anything about
it. I should not speak."
"You shrink from any publicity; well, I suppose that is very natural,
too, yet I should not think that Miss Rennie does so; and as she is the
author, I am imagining her feelings. What is this other piece
called?--'Life's Journey.' What can Miss Rennie know of life's
journey--staying at home with her father and mother all her short life?"
"If she had been to Australia and back again, she would have been
entitled to speak on the subject," said Elsie.
"But really it is a very pretty piece, after all," said Mr. Brandon,
after he had read it.
"Though written by one who has never been further from home than
Glasgow in her life," said Elsie.
"I do not mean that Miss Rennie's never being out of Scotland should
make her know little; but you young ladies are taken such care of, that
you know very little of what life really is."
"It must be a disadvantage to all female authors," said Elsie, "to know
so little of business and so little of the world. I do not wonder at
men despising women's books."
"Now, Miss Melville, have I really said anything that you should put
such a construction on? If I have, I must ask pardon. I am only
astonished at the extraordinary talent which your sex show in turning
to account their few opportunities; and for my part, I should not like
them to have greater means of knowing the world. I am not a reading
man, by any means. My remarks about books are perfectly worthless, but
I can only say that I think these verses very pretty. I don't know
whether they are subjective or objective--transcendental or
sentimental. In fact, between ourselves, I do not know what the three
first words mean. I can give no reason for my liking them."
"But they please you," said Elsie; "and that is all a poet can wish."
"Oh, I thought the poets of this age gave themselves out as the
teachers of the world; but you take a lower view. I am glad to meet
with some one who is reasonable. The young ladies have all got so
clever, so accomplished, and so scientific since I left England, that I
am a little afraid of them. I hope you are not very accomplished."
"Not at all," said Elsie.
"Don't you play the most brilliant music with great execution?"
"I do not play at all."
"Nor sketch from nature--nor draw from the round--nor paint flowers?"
"Nothing of the kind."
"Then you must have gone in for science, and you are more formidable
than any of the sex."
"My uncle wished me to go in for science, but unluckily I came out
without acquiring it."
"How glad I am to hear it! I can talk to you without being tripped up
at an incorrect date, or an inaccurate scientific or historical fact.
You can warrant yourself safe to let me blunder on?"
"Is it not very good of the young ladies to set you right if you are
wrong, and if they are able to do so?"
"It may be very good for me, but it is not at all agreeable. I cannot
help wondering very much at the industry and perseverance that young
ladies show in becoming so very accomplished. I am sure that many a
lady spends as much time and energy in learning music as would,
directed otherwise, realize a fortune in Australia."
"Yes, many men in Australia have got rich with very little toil," said
Elsie; "but women cannot make fortunes either here or there, I suppose."
"So they content themselves with making a noise," said Mr. Brandon. "I
like some music, Miss Melville; but not the brilliant style. It shows
wonderful powers of manual dexterity, but it does not please me."
"My sister says, she wonders why so many women spend so much time over
the one art in which they have shown their deficiency--that is, music."
"Their deficiency? I think they show their proficiency, only that I do
not care about it; that is probably my fault, and not theirs."
"But Jane says, that as so many thousands--and even millions--of women
are taught music, and not one has been anything but a fourth-rate
composer, it shows a natural incapacity for the highest branch of the
art. In poetry and painting, where the cultivation is far rarer,
greater excellence has been attained by many women. Their inferiority
is certainly not so marked as in music."
"That is rather striking, Miss Melville; but I did not expect such an
admission from such a quarter. I see you are not strong-minded My aunt,
Mrs. Rutherford, and her daughters, have rather been boring me with
their theory of the equality of the sexes: this is a first-rate
argument. Will you take it very much amiss if I borrow your idea, or
rather your sister's, without acknowledgement? I have felt so very
small, because they were always bringing up some instance or other out
of books which I had never read, that to bring forward something as
good as this, might make them have a better opinion of me."
"I am sure neither Jane nor I would care about the appropriation of the
idea, though it seems rather treacherous to put ours into our enemy's
hands."
"Your enemy's!--that is hard language for me. I trusted to your being
friendly."
In spite of Mr. Brandon's expressed admiration for Miss Rennie's
verses, he got soon tired of reading them, and preferred the intervals
of conversation between the pieces. Before they had looked through more
than half of the album, which was a very large one, he proposed to
return to the dancing-room, and Elsie reluctantly left the book on the
library table, hoping to snatch another half-hour to finish it. Miss
Rennie's verses were decidedly inferior to her own;--even her recent
humiliation could not prevent her from seeing this, and she felt a good
deal inspirited.
Several times during the evening, she was on the point of mentioning
Peggy Walker's name to her old master, but she knew too much about them
to be able to do it with ease; she, however, ascertained that he was to
be some time in and about Edinburgh, and learned from Miss Rennie where
Mrs. Rutherford lived, so that she could tell Peggy where she might
find him, if she wished to see him.
In the quadrille which Elsie danced with Mr. Brandon, William Dalzell
and Laura Wilson were at first placed as vis-a-vis, but they moved to
the side, and Elsie had the pleasure of seeing her sister and cousin
instead. But both sisters could not but hear the familiar voice making
the same sort of speeches to Miss Wilson that he had done a few months
ago to Jane. How very poor and hollow they appeared now! Elsie thought
Miss Wilson would just suit him. She was rich enough to make him
overlook her defects of understanding and temper, and what was even
harder to manage, her very ordinary face and figure. There was an easy
solution of Mr. Dalzell's cultivating the acquaintance of the Rennies
in this wished-for introduction to the wealthy ward.
Mr. Dalzell thought he ought to ask Jane to dance once, just to show
that he did not quite forget his old friends. He tried Elsie first, but
she was fortunately engaged to Mr. Malcolm, so he walked slowly to Miss
Melville, and asked her hand in an impressive manner. She willingly
accepted, and spoke to him as she would to any ordinary acquaintance.
He was piqued; he had hoped to have made her a little jealous of his
attentions to Miss Wilson, and tried to get up a little sentimental
conversation about old times, and the rides they used to have, and the
romantic scenery about Cross Hall and Moss Tower, but not the slightest
sigh of regret could his ear catch. He apologized for not having been
to see her, and said his mother regretted that her last visit to
Edinburgh had been so hurried that she had no time. Jane said quietly
that she had not expected to see either of them. Had she not found it
dull living in the Old Town with Peggy Walker?--No, she had never felt
it dull; she had always plenty to do. Was Peggy as much of a character
as ever?--Yes; she was glad to say, Peggy was the same admirable woman
she had always been, and on nearer acquaintance her character became
still more appreciated. The children must be a nuisance?--The children
were particularly fine children, and a great resource to her. He
thought Miss Alice was not looking well. Had she felt the want of the
fresh country air?--For a moment this arrow struck her; a painful
expression passed over her face, but she subdued her feelings
quickly.--Yes, perhaps Alice did suffer from the change; but they were
going to have a week's amusement while their cousin was in town, and
she hoped her sister would be the better for it.
Neither Mr. Dalzell nor Jane were sorry when the dance was ended and
they were relieved of each other's company; and he returned to Miss
Wilson, while she joined Elsie in the library, where she was finishing
her critical reading of Miss Rennie's album, with a better coadjutor
than the Australian settler, in the person of her cousin. She was
rather afraid of him at first, but she found that in general their
opinions were the same as to merits and demerits, and she could not
help owning that it would have been well to have taken him into her
counsels before she tried the public.
"I have been telling Francis," said Jane, "that I am making up my mind
to go to Mrs. Dunn's."
"Then I will go with you, Jane; we must go together; you are not to
have all the drudgery."
"I say I am only making up my mind; it is not made up yet. I will wait
another week before I decide. You are to be in town for a few days,
Francis, and you will see us every day before we go. I wish to have a
little amusement before I settle; so, Elsie, let us arrange. The
theatre to-morrow night, the exhibition on Thursday morning, a concert
on Thursday evening, and on Friday an excursion to Roslin; Saturday I
am not sure about, but we will see when the time comes."
Elsie stared at her sister; it was so unlike Jane to be pining for
amusement. "I do not care for going out, I am so unfit for it. I would
rather stay at home till the time comes to go to Mrs Dunn's."
"No, we will not let you stay and mope at home. If it has somewhat
unsettled my strong nerves to be living as we have done, so that I feel
I must have a change, what will be its effect on you to stay at Peggy's
without me?"
"Your sister would rather not go out with me," said Francis.
"No; I have been unjust and uncharitable to you, but I hope I will not
be so again. Forgive me for the past, and I will promise good behaviour
for the future."
"If you are not too tired in the morning, would not a walk be
pleasant?" said Francis. "I want to show you what strikes me as the
finest view of Edinburgh. I do not expect Jane to appreciate it; but
from your remarks on these verses, I am sure you have an eye for
nature, and a soul for it."
Elsie was pleased, and felt more kindly to her cousin than she had ever
done before. There are times when a little praise, particularly if it
is felt to be deserved, does a sad heart incalculable good. She agreed
to the walk with eagerness, and looked forward to it with hope.
Chapter XIII.
Peggy's Visitors, And Francis' Resolution
The girls were somewhat later in rising on the morning after the party
than usual, and when they got up, they found that Peggy was out on one
of those errands that Jane and Elsie had been accustomed to do for her.
She had got into very good custom, from her real skill and punctuality,
even in the short time that she had tried her luck in Edinburgh; and
this week she had had more work than she could manage. On these
occasions she used to get the assistance of a very poor woman who lived
at a considerable distance, who had once been a neighbour of her sister
Bessie's, and had been kind to Willie when he was in his last illness.
Jane, sometimes with and sometimes without Elsie, had always gone to
tell this woman about the work, but on this occasion Peggy had to take
the long walk herself--not that she grudged it--for to put half-a-crown
in poor Lizzie Marr's pocket was worth a good deal of trouble and
fatigue.
She had returned about twelve o'clock, when the girls were getting
ready to join their cousin in their promised walk, and just as she got
to the top of the stairs, a man's foot was heard at the bottom. They
were going for their bonnets, when a sharp tap was heard at the door,
and Peggy opened it, and they beheld, not Francis, but Mr. Brandon.
"Well, Peggy," said he, "how are you? I thought I could not be mistaken
in those elbows. I have followed you from Prince's Street all this long
way, but you would never turn round, and I could not outstrip you, for
you know we bushmen are no great walkers, and you always were a
wonderful 'Walker' in every sense of the word. And how are you again,
Peggy?"
Peggy shook hands with her old master, and gazed at him with great
surprise.
"Surely, these are not the bairns you used to speak of?" said Mr.
Brandon, looking at the Misses Melville with astonishment quite equal
to hers.
"No; the bairns are all at the school--all but Tam--and he's at his
trade, but they will be here for their dinners directly. These are two
young ladies that have taken a room off me. They are no so well off as
they should be, more's the pity," said Peggy, lowering her voice.
"I met them last night at a party. How do you do, Miss Melville?" said
he, shaking hands with Elsie first, and then with Jane.
"But what brought you here on this day?" said Peggy.
"Just your elbows, Peggy. I was coming to see you at any rate, but I
did not think you were here. You must have shifted your quarters. Here
is your address," said Mr. Brandon, taking out his pocket-book--"'Peggy
Walker, at Mr. Thomas Lowrie's, Swinton, ----shire.' I was going to see
you to-morrow, but you have saved me a journey to no purpose."
"I brought the bairns into the town for better schooling, and on
account of Tam; and grandfather finds it agrees brawly with him, too.
Grandfather," said Peggy, raising her voice, "this is Master Brandon
that you have heard me speak about whiles--the first master I had in
Australia."
Grandfather expressed his sense of the politeness of Mr. Brandon in
coming all that way to see Peggy. Not but what she was a good lass, and
worth going a long journey to have a crack with.
"Well, Peggy," said Mr. Brandon, taking a seat near the fire, "and how
do you like this cold country after so many years in a hot one?"
"The winters are not so bad, but the springs are worse to stand. But if
a body's moving and stirring about they can aye keep heat in them."
"If moving and stirring can keep you warm you will never be cold. But,
Peggy, you will want to hear the news."
"Indeed do I," said Peggy; "the diggings are going on as brisk as ever,
I suppose?"
"Just as brisk, and sheep as dear, and wool steady; so, you see, I've
taken a holiday."
"But you're going back again?"
"I must go back, for I have not made my fortune yet. But, by-the-by, it
is a great pity that you left Melbourne when you did. You would have
been a wealthy woman if you had stayed. There's Powell--was he married
before you went?"
"Ay, he was. I heard word of it in Melbourne."
"Well, he's as flourishing as possible; he will soon be richer than me.
On his own account now. Bought a flock and run, for an old song; cured
the sheep; and is now on the highway to wealth. Ah! Peggy, why were you
not Mrs Powell?"
"It was not to be," said Peggy, calmly; "but has he any bairns?"
"Two, Peggy; and he is very proud of them."
"Ay, ay; a man has need to be proud and pleased with his own. And the
wife?"
"Oh, she's a nice enough person. Getting a little uppish now; but not
the manager you are," said Mr. Brandon. "More given to dress and show,
and that sort of thing. But I have a message for you from Mr. Talbot,
the lawyer, you know, though I dare say he has written to you on the
same subject."
"My man of business," said Peggy, with a little pride. "I have not
heard from him for a long time."
"He is very sorry indeed, that you let the tenant have a right of
purchase to your shop."
"Oh, it is not of much consequence--he never was a saving body; I don't
think he will ever raise the 250 pounds."
"Will he not?--when the place is worth 2,500 pounds now; if he borrows
the money, he will carry out the purchase, and thus you lose the chance
of making a little fortune. He, of course, will keep it on till the end
of the lease, at the low rent he has it at, and then take it up for the
price specified. You cannot think how vexed I felt to hear you had let
this property slip through your fingers."
"It is a pity," said Peggy. "It would really have been a providing for
the bairns; but they must just provide for themselves. I am, at least,
putting them in the way of doing it. The rent comes in regular enough,
and is a help; and the 250 pounds will come in some time, and set us up
in some way of doing."
"250 pounds is not the sum it used to be," said Mr. Brandon; "but, in
your hands, I have no doubt it will be turned to good account."
"Here come the bairns now," said Peggy, as the quick, noisy steps of
the heavily-shod children were heard clattering up the stairs.
"I will now see what you have made so many sacrifices for. Name them as
they come in."
"Tom, Jamie, Nancy, Jessie, Willie."
"A fine lot of youngsters, upon my word, and sure to make good
colonists." And, as he said this, Mr. Brandon saw a tear stand in the
eye of the devoted aunt at his praises of her orphan charge.
"God be praised, they have their health; and on the whole they are good
bairns, though a thought noisy whiles," said she.
"There's a gentleman at the stairfoot," said Tom. "He says he has come
for you and your sister, Miss Melville, and as it was our dinner-time,
he would not come up."
"Bid him walk upstairs, for the dinner's no ready. Mr. Brandon was aye
rather an off-put to work, and ye'll no get your dinner for a good
quarter of an hour yet."
"We are quite ready," said Jane; "We will go at once. It is our cousin,
who was to call for us."
"We may go out to play then for a bit?" said Willie.
"If ye'll no go far, and be sure to be in time for the school."
Francis came up, to be surprised at the sight of Mr. Brandon, and to
receive a hurried explanation of his presence at Peggy Walker's, and
then they went for a walk. By daylight he was struck more with the
change that had shown itself in both of his cousins, and with the poor
home they had to live in. Jane's proposal on the previous night to go
to Mrs. Dunn's had distressed him more than any other of her projects,
and yet he could do nothing to prevent it, unless by making the
sacrifice which my young lady readers think he should have made long
ago, and given up the estate to marry his cousin. "All for love, and
the world well lost," is a fascinating course of procedure in books and
on the stage, but in real life there are a good many things to be
considered. It was only lately that Francis had discovered how very
dear Jane was to him. If such a woman had come across his path when he
was in the bank with his 250 pounds a-year, with any reasonable chance
of obtaining her, he would have exerted every effort and made every
sacrifice to gain such a companion for life. He would have given up all
his more expensive bachelor habits--his book-buying, and his public
amusements, and thought domestic happiness cheaply purchased by such
privations. And if Jane could have shared his brighter fortune, he
would have offered his hand and heart long before. But now, even
supposing that he had contracted no expensive habits, and he found that
he had--that he liked the handsome fortune, and the luxuries annexed to
it--it was not his own personal gratification that he was required to
give up, but the duties, and the opportunities for usefulness that Jane
so highly prized for him. He could not even expect to take as good a
position in the world as he had quitted. His place at the Bank of
Scotland was filled up, and the quixotic step he thought of taking was
not likely to recommend him to business people. And he must prepare not
only for providing for a wife and family, but for Elsie, too; and until
this day Elsie had shrunk from him, and he had rather despised her; but
during their walk he saw the affectionate and sincere nature of Jane's
sister. He thought that he could not only offer her a home, but that he
had some prospect of making it a happy one, which is by far the most
important thing in such matters, and he gradually brought himself to
believe that it was right he should make the sacrifice. Other
opportunities of usefulness might open themselves in some other sphere;
he would give up Cross Hall to the benevolent societies if Jane would
only consent to be his wife. The cousinship he thought no objection;
they were both very healthy in body and in mind, and as unlike each
other in temperament and constitution as if they were not related.
Neither Jane nor Elsie was likely to keep her health at a sedentary
employment; it was the daily long walk that had kept them so well as
they were. It was not right to undervalue private happiness, after all,
for any public object whatever. Here was the best and dearest woman in
the world suffering daily, both in herself and through her sister, and
he could make her happy; he knew that he could do that. If she refused,
however, it would interfere with the warm friendship that he knew to be
her greatest comfort and his own most precious possession; but she
could not, she would not refuse him. He saw the kind look of her eyes;
and felt convinced that though Jane believed it was only friendship,
the knowledge that she was all the world to him would change it into
love. And then to begin life afresh; no longer solitary; no longer
unloved; could he not conquer difficulties even greater than he had
ever to contend with? He did not pay proper attention at the theatre
that night. Jane and her sister were delighted with the performance,
and forgot their daily life in the mimic world before them; but he was
building such castles in the air all the time that he was not able to
criticise the play or the acting, but left that to Elsie, who certainly
did it very well.
Chapter XIV.
Good News For Francis
When the children went out, and the young ladies had gone with their
cousin, Mr. Brandon took the opportunity of asking how it happened that
the Misses Melville were staying with her. She explained their position
in a more matter-of-fact way than Miss Rennie had done on the preceding
night, and then dilated on their virtues, particularly on Jane's.
"So clever, and so sensible, and so willing! There's nothing she does
not understand, and yet, poor thing, she says she must go to the
dressmaking, for with all her by-ordinary talents and her by-ordinary
education, there is not another hand's turn she can get to do. I'm sure
the pains she takes with the bairns at night, I just marvel at it.
There's Tam, she can make him do anything she likes. It is a grand
thing for a laddie when he is just growing to be a man to have such a
woman as Miss Melville to look up to--it makes him have a respect for
women."
"He need look no higher than you, Peggy," said Mr. Brandon.
"Ah! but you see I am not quick at the book learning. I'll no complain
of Tam for want of respect to myself, for he is a good lad, take him
altogether; but then, Miss Jean, she helps him with his problems and
his squares, and runs up whole columns of figures like a lang-legged
spider, and tells him why things should be so and so, and seems as keen
to learn all about the engineering as himself; and she helps Jamie with
the Latin, that he craikit on so lang to let him learn, though for my
part I see little good it will do him, and him only to follow the
joinering and cabinet-making trade; and Tam, he will no be behind, and
he must needs learn it too; and as for her writing, ye could read it at
the other end of the room. And in her uncle's house there was such
order and such government under her eye as there was not to be seen in
another gentleman's house in the country. And yet, poor lassie, she
says there's nothing but the dressmaking for her. And Miss Elsie, too,
writing day and night, and cannot get a bode for her bit poems and
verses, till now she is like to greet her een out over every letter she
gets from London about them. I can see Miss Jean has been egging up Mr.
Hogarth, as they call him--I'm no wishing him any ill, but I wish the
auld laird had made a fairer disposition of his possessions--well, Miss
Jean has been stirring up this Mr. Francis to take them out for the
sake of Elsie, for she is just fading away."
"I like her the best of the two, and she is certainly far the
prettiest. The eldest one is a little too clever for me, and too much
disposed to preach, even in a ball-room."
"Well, I dare say she saw you had had rather little preaching in the
bush, and I am sure you were none the worse of all said to you. But it
makes us the more vexed at losing the real value of my bit property,
for if I had had the twenty-five hundred pounds you speak about we
could have begun business in Melbourne together. She can keep books,
and Miss Elsie has a clever hand at the millinery;--we could have got
on famously. I must let you see the bairns' writingbooks, and the
letters she learns them to write, and their counting-books, too."
Mr. Brandon looked and admired quite to Peggy's satisfaction; and then
he spoke to the old man in a kindly way, calling him Mr. Lowrie, and
saying he had often heard Peggy speak of him at Barragong. How much
pleasure little courtesies like this give to poverty and old age! The
old man's face brightened when he heard that he was known at such a
distance by such a gentleman as this, and he answered Mr. Brandon's
inquiries as to his health and his hearing with eager garrulity.
"Well," said Peggy, "I am no poorer than I was if I had not known about
the bit shop being worth so much; but when I think on Miss Jean and her
sister, and the lift it might have been to them, I think more of it
than I would otherwise do. And now, Mr. Brandon, I'll trouble you to
move from the fireside; I must put out the kail. But you were aye fond
of being in a body's way."
"I have it," said Mr. Brandon; "it will do."
"What will do?"
"You remember the Phillipses?"
"What should ail me to remember them? But I have such a poor head, I
forget to ask the thing I care most about. How's Mr. Phillips, and
how's Emily?"
"All well, and the other four, too."
"And Mrs. Phillips?"
"As well as ever, and handsomer than ever, I think."
"Oh! her looks were never her worst fault. But what did you mean by
saying it would do?"
"The Phillipses came home in the vessel with me, and are settled in
London for good. I think the eldest Miss Melville would be exactly the
sort of person they want to superintend the household, for Mrs.
Phillips has as little turn for management as ever, and there is a
considerable establishment. And, also, she might make Miss Emily and
Miss Harriett attend to their lessons, for, though they have masters or
some such things, they are too much the mistresses of the house to be
controlled by anybody."
"Their father was always very much taken up with these lassies--Emily
used to be like the apple of his eye; and the mistress is too lazy to
cross them either, I'm thinking," said Peggy.
"Just so. If Miss Melville's preaching in season or out of season can
give her a little more sense, I think Phillips will be all the better
for it. She can keep house, admirably, you say; and that she is able to
teach, these children's books testify. Tell Miss Melville to delay her
resolution about the dressmaking till I communicate with Phillips,
which I will do by to-day's post. He is talking of coming up to the
north shortly, principally to visit you, I think, so he may see her,
and can judge for himself. Your account of the young lady seems
everything that can be desired, and Mr. Phillips has such a high
opinion of your judgment that your recommendation will carry great
weight."
"He'll bring Emily with him to see me," said Peggy. "Tell him to be
sure and bring Emily with him. I cannot ask you to take pot-luck with
us."
"No, I thank you; I have just breakfasted. I do not keep such early
hours as I did at Barragong. We turn night into day in these lands of
civilization, and for a change it is remarkably pleasant. But how do
you take to Scotch fare after Australia?" asked Mr. Brandon, eyeing
with astonishment the infinitesimal piece of meat which made the family
broth.
"I did not take quite kindly to the porridge at first, and missed the
meat that we used to have in such abundance; but use is second nature,
and though I whiles look back with regret to the flesh-pots of Egypt, I
have my strength, and I have some prospect of getting back to the land
of wastrie and extravagance, as I aye used to say it was at Barragong;
and Mr. Phillips's place, at Wiriwilta, was worse still. And Mr.
Phillips has made his fortune with all that waste, and with all his
liberality, and a foolish wife, and an expensive family, and is living
in London like a gentleman as he is," said Peggy. "And you really think
he would be glad to have Miss Jean?"
"I have not a doubt of it; but good-bye for the present. I hear your
youngsters rattling upstairs. I will see you again ere long, and must
get better acquainted with them. Good-bye, sir," said Mr. Brandon, to
Thomas Lowrie, who having never been called either Mr. or Sir in his
life before, was lost in astonishment at the remarkably fine manners of
Peggy's old master.
"A very civil-spoken gentleman, Peggy," said he. "It must have been a
pleasure to serve a gentleman of such politeness."
"What a pity," said Peggy to herself, "that I ever should have told the
young ladies that daft-like story about me and the master. I wish I had
bitten my tongue out first. But who was to think of him turning up like
this? And he's just the man for Miss Elsie; but I have made her laugh
at him, and I misdoubt if her proud spirit will bend to him. And after
all, what the worse is he, if she had known nothing about it. And I
dare say all young men are alike; and he's better than the most half of
them. There was Elsie so taken up with that lad Dalzell, that came
courting Miss Jean, and if she had heard half that was said about him,
poor Mr. Brandon would have been a saint in comparison. But an opening
for Miss Jane is aye worth something. To think of her being put under
the like of Mrs. Phillips; and it's like I'll see Emily--a spoiled
bairn, no doubt--but she had naturally a fine disposition, at least
humanly speaking."
It was not in human nature, however, that Peggy should quite lose sight
of her own concerns in her pleasure at the thought of Miss Melville
having something better to do than dressmaking. The recollection of the
years of hard work that had converted her little shop into a freehold,
her old pride in having her title made out on parchment, the hurry she
had been in to get it let, to go home by a particular ship, and the
obstinate way in which her tenant's wife insisted on a right of
purchase, and her own reluctant admission of the clause, thinking that
as the house was not new, 250 pounds was an outside value for it, and
now to think of its being such a kingdom. The town had run up to her
little suburban shop, and far past it; on every side the monster,
Melbourne, had been adding to his extent, and now, on account of the
bit of garden and large yard, that she had thought would be so nice for
the children, when she had them out, and that she had bought very
cheap, the value of her property was increased tenfold--but she was
none the richer. The sacrifice she had made had turned out even greater
than she had expected, and now she could not help thinking of how she
would miss Miss Melville, and what a loss it would be to her bairns;
and how she was to keep Miss Elsie in tolerable spirits without her
sister was another perplexity.
The duties of the day were gone through as usual, however; but when the
children and the old man had gone to bed, Peggy made up her mind to
make a martyr of herself, and to sit up for the young ladies, who had
not been home all day, and with a piece of mending in her hands, which
got on but slowly, she mused on her ill luck. Very tired and sleepy,
and a little out of humour, she was when she opened the door for Jane
and Elsie.
"Well, well! I just hope you're the better of your late hours, though
they are not just what I approve of."
"Only once in a way, Peggy; our holiday will soon be over. But you
should not have sat up for us--promise not to do it again. We have
enjoyed the theatre to-night, have we not, Elsie?"
"Yes, but the disenchantment comes so soon again."
"I have no great opinion of theatres and play-acting, and such like. I
was once in a theatre in Melbourne, though," said Peggy.
"With one of your sweethearts, Peggy?" asked Jane.
"Whisht with your nonsense, Miss Jean; don't be talking of sweethearts
to a douce woman like me," said Peggy, who, nevertheless was rather
proud of her Australian conquests, and liked to hear them alluded to
now and then.
"But how did you like the play?"
"I cannot say I did. To see folk dressed up and painted, rampaging
about and talking havers, just making fools of themselves. A wee
insignificant-looking body setting up to be a king! and the sogers--you
should have seen the sogers, as if they could ever fight."
"It is likely there was nothing very first-rate on the Melbourne boards
at that time, but our play to-night was perfectly well got up," said
Elsie, "and the acting was admirable."
"I'm no clear that at its best the theatre is a fit place for Christian
men and women to frequent," said Peggy.
"You prefer the stern realities of life to its most brilliant
illusions," said Jane.
"Speaking of the realities of life, Mr. Brandon says he knows of
something likely to suit you, Miss Jane," said Peggy.
"Indeed!" said Jane, with an incredulous smile.
"At least, he says you must resolve on nothing till you hear from him.
He is going to write to London to Mr. Phillips."
"Your Mr. Phillips--is he in London?"
"Yes; and Mr. Brandon says they are sorely in need of somebody to keep
the house--for I fancy everything is at rack and manger if Mrs.
Phillips has the management--and to make Emily and Harriett mind their
books, for they are such spoiled bairns. I was showing Mr. Brandon what
you could do with Tam and Nancy and the others, and he says you are
exactly the person that they need; and I can see that it is wondrous
feasible."
"What salary should I ask?" said Jane; "or should I leave it to Mr.
Phillips?"
"You had better leave it to him; he is not such a skinflint as our
benevolent associations. I always found both him and Mr. Brandon
open-handed and willing to pay well for all that was done for them. To
me, Mr. Phillips was most extraordinary liberal."
"Then you think it likely I will get this situation at a respectable
salary?"
"I think you are almost sure of it."
"What good news for Francis, to-morrow!" said Jane.
Volume II.
Chapter I.
How Francis Received The Good News
When Francis, after a night's rest disturbed by thoughts and
calculations as to ways and means, had arrived at the definite
resolution to ask Jane Melville to marry him, he recalled a thousand
signs of her affectionate regard for him--of her understanding his
character as no one ever cared to understand it before--of her sympathy
with all his past life and his present position, which left him no
doubt that she would return his love and accept of him. The home and
the welcome he was prepared to offer to Elsie would plead with her own
heart in his favour. All her theoretical objections as to cousins
marrying (which after all is a very doubtful point, and has much to be
said on both sides); all her ambition for himself would melt away
before the warmth of the truest love and the hope of the happiest home
in the world. And yet she was not to be won entirely, or even chiefly,
by personal pleadings for happiness, or by the feeling that her life
and Elsie's might go on smoothly and cheerfully with him. She was to be
convinced that it was right that she should marry him, and then the
whole of her affectionate and ardent nature would abandon itself to the
pleasure of loving and being beloved. It was because she had no husband
to occupy her heart that she dwelt so fondly on those abstractions of
public duty and social progress, and he would convince her that out of
an aggregate of happy homes a happy people is composed. She had found
opportunities both of gaining knowledge and of doing good in the most
unfavourable circumstances, and she would have more chances as his
wife, with his co-operation and sympathy.
She was not the sort of woman his poetical and artistic dreams had been
wont to draw as the partner of his life; not the lovely, clinging,
dependent girl who would look up to him for counsel and support, but
something better, both in herself and for him, than his fancy had ever
painted. Her powers of sympathy had been increased by her knowledge;
she was as just as she was generous. There was no corner of his heart
he could not lay bare to her; no passage of his past life that he could
not trust to her judging fairly and charitably. Whether he rose or fell
in the world; whether he gained social influence or lost it in the
career that he had again to begin, her foot would be planted firmly
beside his; her insight and sympathy would heighten every enjoyment and
fortify him for every trial. That he felt her to be beautiful, perhaps,
was more in his powers of seeing than in her positive charm of
countenance; but so far as the soul looked through her eyes and
breathed from her lips, she had a sort of beauty that did not weary any
intelligent gazer, and at all events, which could never weary Francis
Hogarth. After all the flattery he had met with since his accession to
fortune, and the conventionalisms of society in which he had been
plunged, he felt the transparent sincerity of Jane's character
something to rest in with perfect confidence and perfect satisfaction.
The most brilliant Frenchwomen had not her earnestness or her power,
though they had far more vivacity, and made their interlocutors more
satisfied with themselves. And Francis felt that he ought to be
married; and how could he ever attach himself sufficiently to any other
woman and not draw comparisons between her and the woman whom his
interest--his worldly interest alone--forbade him to make his wife? He
must learn to love Jane less, or obtain from herself leave to love her
more.
Jane's joyous greeting, when he came to Peggy's for his cousins, to
take them to the Exhibition, startled him not a little; and when she
eagerly told him of Mr. Brandon's views for her future advancement; and
that both he and Peggy had no doubt that she would suit the Phillipses;
and that an answer was sure to be had in a few days, and demanded his
congratulations on her altered prospects; then asked him to submit his
plans for cottages to Peggy's inspection, as she was by far the most
competent judge as to their merits or deficiencies. Old Thomas Lowrie
was also taken into council, and his wondering admiration of the bonny
slated houses was something worth seeing. Peggy's suggestion of the
addition of a little storeroom, in which milk and meal and potatoes
could be kept, was put and carried unanimously. They then went into the
allotment questions, and Jane, Elsie, and Peggy, offered their opinions
as to the fittest persons for the boon, and then began to wonder how
many years it would be before they could make the land pay. All this,
which ought to have gratified Francis--for every man should be glad
when people take an interest in his plans--struck a chill to his heart,
for it boded no good to his new visions.
"You seem to be in great spirits altogether, to-day, Jane," said he.
"How can I help it? The prospect of a situation of fifty or sixty
pounds a year is something overpoweringly delightful to me. If I had
heard of such a thing six months ago, I should have been glad, but now
that I have felt the difficulty of getting any employment whatever, and
feel quite sure that I am fit for this, my only dread is lest Mr.
Phillips may have got another person, or may not like my appearance;
but if he is satisfied to engage me I am determined to save money to
start in business. By and by we are going to join Peggy in Melbourne."
"But your sister--how do you feel about leaving her?"
"I was quite aware that I must leave her if I meant to do anything of
any value for myself."
"I am never going to stand in Jane's light any more," said Elsie. "I am
not so selfish as to regret any piece of good fortune that comes to her
alone."
"And I think of inquiring a little further as to her poems," said Jane.
"Oh, no! that is altogether useless," said Elsie.
"You promised yesterday to let Francis see them to-day, Elsie. We must
have his opinion on this subject. I certainly think I could do more
personally, than by letter, to get them published."
"And Jane always wished so much to see London," said Elsie. "I am so
glad to think she has such a prospect, and from all Peggy's accounts of
Mr. Phillips, he is everything that could be wished. How little we
thought when we listened to her long tale about her taking such care of
Emily and Harriett Phillips, the first night we came to live here, that
she was saving pupils for Jane. It seems like a fate."
"Then what are YOU going to do?" said Francis, who did not seem so much
delighted with Jane's good news as she had expected. "Are you to live
here with Peggy, as before?"
"Not just as before. I am going to Mrs. Dunn's through the day, and
Peggy is good enough to say she will be glad to keep me, though I lose
my better half in Jane. I think I really have some taste and talent for
millinery, and I mean to try to cultivate it; for if we begin business
together in Melbourne, it may be very useful. Jane and I lay awake half
the night, talking over our plans, and I do not see why we should not
make our way in time."
"Then, you are going to forget the Muses altogether, and give your
whole soul to business?"
"Did you not do that every day, cousin Francis, when you were at the
Bank?" said Elsie.
"Perhaps you may write better poetry when you do not make it your day's
work. Do you not think she may, Francis?" said Jane.
"Very probably--very probably she may;" said Francis, thoughtfully, as
if he were weighing the advantages of literature being a staff, over
its being a crutch, but in reality he was not thinking of Elsie or her
verses, at all.
He had prepared himself to make a great sacrifice--to do something very
generous and Quixotic--not altogether uninfluenced by the wish for
personal happiness of the highest kind; but yet he believed that his
chief motives for taking the resolution were the forlorn and hopeless
situation of the two girls. Now they were no longer forlorn or
hopeless. If this situation for Jane was obtained, and Elsie persevered
in her determination to work hard at the perfecting of her taste for
making caps and bonnets, they had a definite plan of life, likely to be
as prosperous as that he could offer to them. And Jane would not accept
of him to-day, though she would probably have done so yesterday. His
plans, his ambitions, were too dear to her to be thrown away lightly,
and he could see nothing but sisterly affection in her eyes. If she
took the position she was entitled to at Mr. Phillips's, she was likely
to meet with some society there, and Mr. Brandon, or some other
Australian settler, not so shy of matrimony without a fortune on the
lady's part, as the middle-class Englishman of this century is, might
see some of the virtues and attractions which he had learned to
love--no one could see so many of them as himself--and might win the
best wife in the world, without being fully conscious of the blessing.
He knew the real strength of his love, when he tried to fancy Jane the
wife of any one else. He almost wished she might fail in her object,
and that Mr. Phillips would decide that she would not suit. He was
selfish enough to hope that she might not be happy there. They must
continue to correspond as frequently and as openly as hitherto. He
would watch for any turn that might offer him hope, and he must be all
the more careful to disguise his real feelings, lest it might prevent
her from expressing herself as frankly as she had done. When a blessing
appears to be lost its value is greatly enhanced, and all the comforts,
and privileges, and opportunities, of his present situation, that he
had made such an effort to give up, seemed to shrink into
insignificance, compared with the domestic happiness that was now
eluding his grasp.
"There was great lamentation among the bairns this morning when I said
something about Miss Jean maybe leaving us; but they took great comfort
from the recollection that they had learned to write so well that they
might send real post letters to her--not mere make-believes--and she
promised to answer them. Tam says if she goes to London she must keep
on the look-out for anything that is in his line, and indeed Miss Jean
said she would. It is a real blessing that penny post. In my young
days, to think of writing back and fore to London about anything ye
wanted to know would have been out of the question for poor folk," said
Peggy.
"You must write to me, too," said Francis, "about all the things and
all the people you see, and how you like them, and if you tire of
London or of teaching--just every mood as you feel it. I do not think
it was quite fair in you always showing me the brightest side of your
life. I do not mean to show you always mine."
"When you are disappointed because the workmen will not build the
cottages fast enough, or because the inhabitants do not keep them as
clean as your fastidious taste thinks necessary, or because the dull
Scottish brain will not readily take up the Flemish or French ideas you
want to engraft in them, you will write all your indignant or disgusted
expressions to me, rather than lose patience with the people
themselves--it is safer. I am prepared for some disappointments, but I
will wait patiently and in hope for the end."
"Did you always have this large amount of public spirit, Jane? It
struck me very forcibly the first evening you spent with me at my
house."
"I think it lay dormant for a few months before my uncle's death," said
Jane, laughing; "but it came out stronger than ever afterwards. Francis
is very grave to-day. I would not trust him with your verses, Elsie;
his criticisms will be far too severe in his present mood."
"But I will trust him just at this very time," said Elsie; "for if this
dull morning has made him a little depressed, perhaps he may feel a
little for me sitting in my cheerless room, without hope and without
society. I beg your pardon, Jane, you are always good and kind, and so
was Peggy, and every one; but it was so dull--so very dull. But what I
mean is, that if Francis is moody and dispirited, as a great many
people are at times, my verses will not seem to him such a wail as to
the busy, merry world we live in. I never saw a more favourable-looking
critic."
Elsie then went to her drawer, and for the first time since she had
tied up her manuscript touched it without a sick pang at her heart. The
very sight of the enveloping brown paper had been odious to her: but
to-day she felt courage enough to untie it, and to select a few of what
she considered her best pieces for her cousin's perusal.
Much depends on the mood of the reader of poetry. Francis did not find
Elsie's sad views of life at all overdrawn, and he pointed out both to
her and to Jane many fine passages, and what he considered to be pretty
images. Here and there he found fault; but, on the whole, he said
Elsie's verses were full of promise, and she only had to wait patiently
for awhile--to observe as well as to reflect, and not to be quite so
subjective--to attain to excellence.
At the Exhibition and at the concert in the evening, Francis had again
to admire the naturally fine taste of his younger cousin, and to lament
with her that none of her talents had been cultivated. According to all
his preconceived fancies, he should have fallen in love with Elsie; but
it was not so. She was a sweet, amiable girl, with a great deal of
quickness and undeveloped talent, but she was chiefly dear to him as
Jane's sister. Elsie felt for the time restored to a better opinion of
herself, and was grateful to the person who thought well of what the
world seemed to despise. She was disposed now to do Francis justice,
and more than justice. Never had she talked with a man of finer taste
or more admirable judgment. She caught another glimpse of William
Dalzell, who was at the concert with the Rennies and Miss Wilson, and
contrasted her old favourite with her new, very much to the
disadvantage of the former.
Francis was aware that this was the person from whose attentions Jane
had been in such danger. He could scarcely conceive the possibility of
a woman of such admirable sense and such penetration as Jane forming an
attachment to one so shallow and so unheroic. He felt himself scarcely
worthy of Jane Melville, and he would never compare himself with the
Laird of Mosstower. But the young people had been thrown together, and
had spent much of their time of meeting in the open air. William
Dalzell was a good rider and a fearless sportsman; he rode a beautiful
horse, and was very careful of it. He appeared to have a good temper,
and his mother worshipped him, while Elsie was never weary of sounding
his praises. Mr. Hogarth was in indifferent health, and was somewhat
exacting at all times. He had not the sympathy with the high spirits of
youth that he had had in former years, so that Jane had enjoyed the
animated rides, where she did most of the talking to a listener, young,
handsome, and determined to be pleased with everything she said and
did. She thought she interested him in her favourite subjects; he had
said that she improved him, and his mother said the same; so that she
rejoined in her influence, which seemed to bear such good results.
Miss Rennie, who had heard when in ----shire, a somewhat exaggerated
account of young Dalzell's attachment to Miss Melville, was very much
disgusted with his conduct, and though his attentions to Laura Wilson
amused her very much, she had a grudge at him for their mercenary
motives. Laura was evidently captivated at first sight; she could speak
of nobody but Mr. Dalzell, and Mr. Rennie as her guardian was a little
alarmed, but on inquiry he found that Moss Tower was not very deeply
dipped after all; Mrs. Dalzell had her jointure off it, but he was an
only son, and any little wildness or extravagance of youth was likely
to be put an end to by marriage. Laura was a somewhat troublesome ward,
so passionate and so self-willed that even at school she had carried
her point against him by sheer determination over and over again, and
he wished heartily to be well freed of her by marriage with a tolerably
respectable man. Her fortune he would secure her future husband from
making ducks and drakes of by settlements, which are generally in
Britain framed as if the future husband was an enemy to be dreaded, and
not a friend to be trusted. For the law as it stands puts such enormous
power, not only over happiness (which is inevitable), but over property
and liberty, into the hands of the husband, to be used against as well
as for the advantage of the wife, that it is only by taking power from
both, and vesting it in trustees, that money can be saved for the wife
and children. In the cases where the marriage is a happy one, the
settlement is a hindrance and a nuisance; but in such cases as that of
William Dalzell and Laura Wilson, it would be prudent to evade the law
of the land, and to preserve the property of the heiress by such means.