When change of fortune had reduced the Kelletts so low that Sybella was
driven to become a daily governess, her hard fate had exacted from her
about the very heaviest of all sacrifices. It was not, indeed, the life
of unceasing toil,--dreary and monotonous as such toil is,--it was not
the humility of a station for which the world affords not one solitary
protection,--these were not what she dreaded; as little was it the
jarring sense of dependence daily and hourly imposed. No, she had
courage and a high determination to confront each and all of these. The
great source of her suffering was in the loss of that calm and unbroken
quiet to which the retired habits of a remote country-house had so long
accustomed her. With scarcely anything which could be called a society
near them, so reduced in means as to be unable to receive visitors at
home, Kellett's Court had been for many years a lonely house. The days
succeeded each other with such similarity that time was unfelt, seasons
came and went, and years rolled on unconsciously. No sights nor sounds
of the great world without invaded these retired precincts. Of the
mighty events which convulsed the politics of states,--of the great
issues that engaged men's minds throughout Europe,--they heard
absolutely nothing. The passing story of some little incident of cottier
life represented to them all that they had of news; and thus time glided
noiselessly along, till they came to feel a sense of happiness in that
same unbroken round of life.
They who have experienced the measured tread of a conventual
existence--where the same incidents daily recur at the same periods,
where no events from without obtrude, where the passions and the
ambitions and cares of mankind have so little of reality to the mind
that they fail to impress with any meaning--are well aware that in the
peaceful calm of spirit thus acquired there is a sense of happiness,
which is not the less real that it wears the semblance of seriousness,
almost of sadness.
In all that pertained to a sombre monotony, Kellett's Court was a
convent. The tall mountains to the back, the deep woods to the front,
seemed barriers against the world without; and there was a silence and
a stillness about the spot as though it were some lone island in a vast
sea, where no voyagers ever touched, no traveller ever landed. This same
isolation, strong in its own sense of security, was the charm of the
place, investing it with a kind of romance, and imparting to Sybella's
own life a something of storied interest. The very few books the house
contained she had read and re-read till she knew them almost by heart.
They were lives of voyagers,--hardy men of enterprise and daring, who
had pushed their fortunes in far-away lands,--or else sketches of life
and adventure in distant countries.
The annals of these sea-rovers were full of all the fascination of which
gorgeous scenery and stirring incident form the charm. There were lands
such as no painter's genius ever fancied, verdure and flowers of more
than fairy brilliancy, gold and gems of splendor that rivalled Aladdin's
cave, strange customs, and curious observances mingled with deeds of
wildest daring, making up a succession of pictures wherein the mind
alternated between the voluptuous repose of tropical enjoyment and the
hair-breadth 'scapes of buccaneering existence. The great men whose
genius planned, and whose courage achieved, these enterprises, formed
for her a sort of hero-worship. Their rough virtues, their splendid
hospitality, their lion-hearted defiance of danger, were strong appeals
to her sympathy, while in their devoted loyalty she found a species of
chivalry that elevated them in her esteem. Woman-like, too, she inclined
to make success the true test of greatness, and glorified to herself
those bold spirits who never halted nor turned aside when on their
road to victory. The splendid self-dependence of such men as Drake and
Dampier struck her as the noblest attribute of mankind; that resolute
trust in their own stout hearts imparted to them a degree of interest
almost devotional; and over and over did she bethink her what a glorious
destiny it would have been to have had a life associated and bound up
with some such man as one of these. The very contest and controversy his
actions would have evoked, heightened the illusion, and there savored
of heroism in sharing a fame that flung down its proud defiance to the
world.
Estrangement from the world often imparts to the stories of the past, or
even to the characters of fiction, a degree of interest which, by those
engaged in the actual work of life, is only accorded to their friends or
relatives; and thus, to this young girl in her isolation, such names as
Raleigh and Cavendish--such characters as Cromwell, Lorenzo de' Medici,
and Napoleon--stood forth before her in all the attributes of well-known
individuals. To have so far soared above the ordinary accidents of life
as to live in an atmosphere above all other men,--to have seen the world
and its ways from an eminence that gave wider scope to vision and more
play to speculation,--to have meditated over the destinies of
mankind from the height of a station that gave control over their
actions,--seemed so glorious a privilege that the blemishes and even the
crimes of men so gifted were merged in the greatness of the mighty task
they had imposed upon themselves; and thus was it that she claimed
for these an exemption from the judgments that had visited less
distinguished wrong-doers most heavily. “How can I, or such as I am,
pronounce upon one like this man? What knowledge have I of the conflict
waged within his deep intelligence? How can I fathom the ocean of his
thoughts, or even guess at the difficulties that have opposed, the
doubts that have beset him? I can but vaguely fashion to myself the
end and object of his journey; how, then, shall I criticise the road by
which he travels, the halts he makes, the devious turnings and windings
he seems to fall into?” In such plausibilities she merged every scruple
as to those she had deified to her own mind. “Their ways are not our
ways,” said she; “their natures are as little our natures.”
From all the dreamland of these speculations was she suddenly and rudely
brought to face the battle of life itself, an humble soldier in the
ranks. No longer to dwell in secret converse with the mighty spirits
who had swayed their fellow-men, she was now to enter upon that path
of daily drudgery whose direst infliction was the contact with that
work-o'-day world wherewith she had few sympathies.
Mrs. Hawkshaw had read her advertisement in a morning paper, and sent
for her to call upon her. Now Mrs. Hawkshaw was an alderman's lady, who
lived in a fine house, and had fine clothes and fine servants and fine
plate, and everything, in short, fine about her but a fine husband, for
he was a rough, homespun, good-natured sort of man, who cared little for
anything save a stocking-factory he owned at Balbriggan, and the stormy
incidents that usually shook the “livery” he belonged to.
There were six little Hawkshaws to be governed and geographied and
catechised, and civilized in all the various forms by which untaught
humanity is prepared for the future work of life; there were rudiments
of variously colored knowledge to be imparted, habits instilled, and
tempers controlled, by one who, though she brought to her task the
most sincere desire to succeed, was yet deep in a world of her own
thoughts,--far lost in the mazy intricacies of her own fancies. That
poor Miss Kellett, therefore, should pass for a very simple-minded, good
creature, quite unfit for her occupation, was natural enough; and that
Mrs. Hawkshaw should “take her into training” was almost an equally
natural consequence.
“She seems to be always like one in a dream, my dear,” said Mrs.
Hawkshaw to her husband. “The children do exactly as they please; they
play all false, and she never corrects them; they draw landscapes in
their copy-books, and she says, 'Very nicely done, darlings.'”
“Her misfortunes are preying upon her, perhaps.”
“Misfortunes! why, they have been in poverty this many a year. My
brother Terry tells me that the Kelletts had n't above two hundred a
year, and that latterly they lost even this.”
“Well, it is a come-down in the world, anyhow,” said Hawkshaw, sighing,
“and I must say she bears it well.”
“If she only feels it as little as she appears to do everything else,
the sacrifice doesn't cost her much,” said the lady, tartly. “I told her
she was to come here last Sunday and take charge of the children; she
never came; and when I questioned her as to the reason, she only smiled
and said, 'She never thought of it; in fact, she was too happy to be
alone on that day to think of anything.' And here she comes now, nearly
an hour late.” And, as she spoke, a weary step ascended the steps to the
door, and an uncertain, faltering hand raised the knocker.
“It is nigh eleven o'clock, Miss Kellett,” said Mrs. Hawkshaw, as she
met her on the stairs.
“Indeed--I am so sorry--I must have forgotten--I don't think I knew the
hour,” said the other, stammeringly.
“Your hour is ten, Miss Kellett.”
“I think so.”
“How is your father, Miss Kellett?” asked the alderman, abruptly, and
not sorry to interpose at the juncture.
“He is well, sir, and seems very happy,” said she, gratefully, while her
eyes lighted up with pleasure.
“Give him my regards,” said Hawkshaw, good-naturedly, and passed down
the stairs; while his wife coldly added,--
“The children are waiting for you,” and disappeared.
With what determined energy did she address herself now to her
task,--how resolutely devote her whole mind to her duty. She read and
heard and corrected and amended with all the intense anxiety of one
eager to discharge her trust honestly and well. She did her very utmost
to bring her faculties to bear upon every detail of her task; and it
was only when one of the girls asked who was he whose name she had
been writing over and over again in her copy-book, that she forgot her
self-imposed restraint, and in a fervor of delight at the question,
replied, “I 'll tell you, Mary, who Savonarola was.”
In all the vigor of true narrative power, the especial gift of those
minds where the play of fancy is only the adornment of the reasoning
faculty, she gave a rapid sketch of the prophet priest, his zeal, his
courage, and his martyrdom; with that captivating fascination which is
the firstborn of true enthusiasm, she awakened their interest so deeply
that they listened to all she said as to a romance whose hero had won
their sympathies, and even dimly followed her as she told them that
such men as this stood out from time to time in the world's history
like great beacons blazing on a rocky eminence, to guide and warn their
fellow-men. That in their own age characters of this stamp were either
undervalued or actually depreciated and condemned, was but the common
lot of humanity; their own great destinies raised them very often above
the sympathies of ordinary life, and men caught eagerly at the blemishes
of those so vastly greater than themselves,--hence all the disesteem
they met with from contemporaries.
“And are there none like this now, Miss Bella?” asked one of the girls;
“or is it that in our country such are not to be met with?”
“They are of every land and of every age; ay, and of every station!
Country, time, birth have no prerogative. At one moment the great light
of the earth has been the noblest born in his nation, at another a
peasant,--miles apart in all the accidents of fortune, brothers by the
stamp which makes genius a tie of family. To-morrow you shall hear of
one, the noblest-hearted man in all England, and yet whose daily toil
was the vulgar life of an exciseman. This great man's nature is known to
us, teaching men a higher lesson than all that his genius has bequeathed
us.”
In the willingness with which they listened to her, Bella found fresh
support for her enthusiasm. If, therefore, there was this solace to the
irksome nature of her task, it rendered that task itself more and more
wearisome and distasteful. Her round of duty led her amongst many who
did not care for these things; some heard them with apathy, others with
even mockery. How often does it happen in life that feelings which if
freely expanded had spread themselves broadly over the objects of the
world, become by repression compressed into principles!
This was the case with her; the more opposition thwarted, the more
resolutely was she bent on carrying out her notions. All her reading
tended to this direction, all her speculation, all her thought.
“There must be men amongst us even now,” said she, “to whom this great
prerogative of guidance is given; superior minds who feel the greatness
of their mission, and, perhaps, know how necessary it is to veil their
very ascendancy, that they may exercise it more safely and more widely.
What concession may they not be making to vulgar prejudice, what
submission to this or that ordinance of society? How many a devious
path must they tread to reach that goal that the world will not let them
strive for more directly; and, worse than all, through what a sea of
misrepresentation, and even calumny, must they wade? How must
they endure the odious imputations of selfishness, of pride, of
hard-heartedness, nay, perhaps, of even crime? And all this without the
recognition of as much as one who knows their purpose and acknowledges
their desert.”