The White House did not stand on the Green, but on one of the roads
leading out of it, at a short distance from that centre of the world. It
looked large from outside--something between a mansion and a
cottage--and within was full of useless passages, confused little rooms,
and bits of staircases on which the unaccustomed passenger might break
his neck with ease, and a general waste of space and disorder of
arrangement which pleased the antiquary as quaint, but was much less
desirable practically than artistically. There were two sitting-rooms,
which were large and low, with raftered roofs, and small, deep-set
windows overgrown with creepers; and there was a garden, almost as
rambling as the house itself, and surrounded by old walls and hedges
which effectually shut out every view, except into its own grassy, mossy
depths. Some former enterprising inhabitant had introduced into the
drawing-room one long French window, by which there was a practicable
exit into the garden; and this was the only modern point in the house.
Some people said it spoilt the room, which otherwise would have been
perfect; but it was a great convenience and comfort to the Damerels in
summer, at least. The house was somewhat damp, somewhat weedy, rather
dark; but it was roomy, and more like a house in which gentlefolks could
melt away into penury than a pert little new brick house in a street. It
was very cheap; for it had various disadvantages, into which I am not
called upon to enter. Mrs. Damerel, whose house had always been the
perfection of houses, with every new sanitary invention, was glad to put
up with these drawbacks for the sake of the low rent--so vast and so
many are the changes which absence of money makes. Before Christmas Day
they had all the old furniture--save some special pieces of _virtu_,
graceful old cabinets, mirrors, and ornamental things, which were
sold--arranged and adapted, and settled down in tolerable comfort. The
boys, when they came from school, looked with doubtful faces at the
change, especially Reginald, who was humiliated by it, and found fault
with the room allotted to him, and with the deficiencies of service.
“Poor! why are we poor? It must be some one’s fault,” said this boy to
his sister Agatha, who cried, and declared passionately that she wished
he had not come back, but had gone to his fine godfather, whom he was
always talking of. When an invitation arrived for him from his
godfather, some days later, I think they were all glad; for Reginald was
very like his father, and could not bear anything mean or poor. The
number of servants had dwindled to one, who made believe to be of all
work, and did a little of everything. Except in the case of those lucky
families who abound in fiction, and now and then, _par exception_, are
to be found in ordinary life, who possess a faithful and devoted and
all-accomplished woman, who, for love of them, forsakes all hopes of
bettering herself, and applies at once genius and knowledge to the
multifarious duties of maid-of-all-work--this class of functionary is as
great a trouble to her employers as to herself; and to fall back upon
attendance so uninstructed and indifferent is one of the hardest
consequences of social downfall. The girls had to make up Mary Jane’s
deficiencies in the White House; and at first, as they were not used to
it, the results were but little consolatory. Even Bertie, perhaps,
though a good son and a good boy, was not sorry to get back to school,
and to the society of his friends, after these first holidays, which had
not been happy ones. Poor children! none of them had ever known before
what it was to do without what they wanted, and to be content with the
bare necessaries of life.
All the same, a shower of cards from all the best people about came
pouring down upon the new dwellers in the White House, and were taken in
by Mary Jane between a grimy finger and thumb to the drawing-room, where
the rumble of the departing carriages excited Agatha and Patty, at
least, if no one else. And all the people on the Green made haste to
call to express their sympathy and friendliness. Mrs. Wodehouse was the
only one who did not ask to see Mrs. Damerel; but even she did not lose
a day in calling; and, indeed, it was while on her way from the White
House that for the first time she met Rose, who had been out about some
business for her mother, and who, with her black veil over her face, was
straying slowly home. Mrs. Wodehouse said “Good morning,” with a
determination to hold by her formula and not be tempted into kindness;
but when the girl put back her veil and showed her pale face, the good
woman’s heart melted in spite of herself.
[Illustration: THEY WERE INTERRUPTED BY A THIRD PERSON WHO HAD COME
ALONG THE ROAD.]
“How pale you are!” she said. “Oh, Rose! and how is your mother?” she
added hastily, trying to save herself from the overflowing of
tenderness which came upon her unawares.
“Are you going to see her?” said Rose.
“I have been to call; I did not, of course, expect she would see me. And
how do you like the White House? I hope you have not been ill; you do
not look so fresh as when I saw you last.”
“It is very nice,” said Rose, answering the first question; “though it
feels damp just at first; we all think we shall soon get used to it. It
is a long time since I saw you last.”
This was said with a little piteous smile which made Mrs. Wodehouse’s
resolution “never to forgive” become more and more hard to keep.
“I could not think I was wanted,” she said with an effort to appear
short and stern, “or I should have gone to your mother before now.”
“Why?” asked Rose, with a wondering glance; and then, as there was a
dead pause, which was awkward, she said, softly: “I hope you have news
from--your son?”
“Oh, yes; I have news from him. He is always very good in writing. There
never was a kinder boy to his mother. He never forgets me; though there
are many people who would fain get his attention. Edward is always
finding friends wherever he goes.”
“I am glad,” said poor Rose.
“Plenty of friends! I have nothing but good news of him. He writes in
the best of spirits. Oh, Rose!” cried Mrs. Wodehouse, hurriedly running
one subject into another with breathless precipitancy, “how could you be
so heartless--so unkind--as not to come down-stairs when I asked you to
bid my poor boy good-by?”
A flush of color came upon Rose’s pale face; it made her look like
herself again. “I could not,” she said; “do not be angry. I have so
wanted to tell you. There was nobody there but me, and he held my hand,
and would not let me leave him. I could not. Oh! how glad I am that you
have asked me! It was not my fault.” Her father’s name brought the big
tears to her eyes. “Poor papa!” she added, softly, with an instinctive
sense that he needed defence.
Whether Mrs. Wodehouse would have taken her to her arms forthwith on the
open Green in the wintry afternoon light, if no one had disturbed them,
I cannot tell; but, just as she was putting out her hands to the girl,
they were interrupted by a third person, who had been coming along the
road unnoticed, and who now came forward, with his hat in his hand, and
with the usual inquiry about her mother to which Rose was accustomed.
The sound of his voice made Mrs. Wodehouse start with suppressed anger
and dismay; and Rose looked out from the heavy shadow of the crape veil,
which showed the paleness of her young face, as if under a penthouse or
heavy-shaded cavern. But she was not pale at that moment; a light of
emotion was in her face. The tears were hanging on her eyelashes; her
soft lip was quivering. Mr. Incledon thought that grief and downfall had
done all that the severest critic could have desired for her young
beauty. It had given tenderness, expression, feeling to the blooming
rose face, such as is almost incompatible with the first radiance of
youth.
“Would Mrs. Damerel see me, do you think?” he asked; “or is it too early
to intrude upon her? It is about business I want to speak.”
“I will ask,” said Rose. “But if it is about business she will be sure
to see you. She says she is always able for that.”
“Then I will say good-by,” said Mrs. Wodehouse, unreasonably excited and
angry, she could scarcely tell why. She made a step forward, and then
came back again with a little compunction, to add, in an undertone: “I
am glad we have had this little explanation. I will tell him when I
write, and it will please him, too.”
“You have not been quarrelling with Mrs. Wodehouse, that you should have
little explanations?” said Mr. Incledon, as he walked along to the White
House by Rose’s side.
“Oh, no! it was nothing;” but he saw the old rose flush sweep over the
cheeks which had half relapsed into paleness. What was it? and who did
Mrs. Wodehouse mean to write to? and what was she glad about? These
foolish questions got into the man’s head, though they were too
frivolous to be thought of. She took him into the drawing-room at the
White House, which was almost dark by this time, it was so low; and
where the cheery glimmer of the fire made the room look much more
cheerful than it ever was in the short daylight, through the many
branches that surrounded the house. Mrs. Damerel was sitting alone there
over the fire; and Rose left him with her mother, and went away, bidding
Agatha watch over the children that no one might disturb mamma. “She is
talking to Mr. Incledon about business,” said Rose, passing on to her
own room; and Agatha, who was sharp of wit, could not help wondering
what pleasant thing had happened to her sister to make her voice so soft
and thrilling. “I almost expected to hear her sing,” Agatha said
afterwards; though indeed a voice breaking forth in a song, as all their
voices used to do, six months ago, would have seemed something impious
at this moment, in the shadow that lay over the house.
Mr. Incledon was nearly an hour “talking business” with Mrs. Damerel,
during which time they sat in the firelight and had no candles, being
too much interested in their conversation to note how time passed. Mrs.
Damerel said nothing about the business when the children came in to
tea--the homely and inexpensive meal which had replaced dinner in the
White House. Her eyes showed signs of tears, and she was very quiet, and
let the younger ones do and say almost what they pleased. But if the
mother was quiescent, Rose, too, had changed in a different way. Instead
of sitting passive, as she usually did, it was she who directed Agatha
and Patty about their lessons, and helped Dick, and sent the little ones
off at their proper hour to bed. There was a little glimmer of light in
her eyes, a little dawn of color in her cheek. The reason was nothing
that could have been put into words--a something perfectly baseless,
visionary, and unreasonable. It was not the hope of being reconciled to
Edward Wodehouse, for she had never quarrelled with him; nor the hope of
seeing him again, for he was gone for years. It was merely that she had
recovered her future, her imagination, her land of promise. The
visionary barrier which had shut her out from that country of dreams had
been removed--it would be hard to say how; for good Mrs. Wodehouse
certainly was not the door-keeper of Rose’s imagination, nor had it in
her power to shut and open at her pleasure. But what does how and why
matter in that visionary region? It was so, which is all that need be
said. She was not less sorrowful, but she had recovered herself. She was
not less lonely, nor did she feel less the change in her position; but
she was once more Rose, an individual creature, feeling the blood run in
her veins, and the light lighten upon her, and the world spread open
before her.
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free--
I suppose this was how she felt. She had got back that consciousness
which is sometimes bitter and sometimes sad, but without which we cannot
live--the consciousness that she was no shadow in the world, but
herself; no reflection of another’s will and feelings, but possessor of
her own.
When her mother and she were left alone, Rose got up from where she was
sitting and drew a low chair, which belonged to one of the children, to
her mother’s knee. Mrs. Damerel, too, had watched Agatha’s lingering
exit with some signs of impatience, as if she, too, had something to
say; but Rose had not noticed this, any more than her mother had noticed
the new impulse which was visible in her child. The girl was so full of
it that she began to speak instantly, without waiting for any question.
“Mamma,” she said, softly, “I have not been a good daughter to you; I
have left you to take all the trouble, and I have not tried to be of
use. I want to tell you that I have found it out, and that I will try
with all my heart to be different from to-day.”
“Rose, my dear child!”--Mrs. Damerel was surprised and troubled. The
tears, which rose so easily now, came with a sudden rush to her eyes.
She put her arms around the girl, and drew her close, and kissed her. “I
have never found fault with you, my darling,” she said.
“No, mamma; and that makes me feel it more. But it shall be different; I
am sorry, more sorry than I can tell you; but it shall be different from
to-day.”
“But, Rose, what has put this into your head to-day?”
A wavering blush came and went upon Rose’s face. She had it almost in
her heart to tell her mother; but yet there was nothing to tell, and
what could she say?
“I--can’t tell, mamma. It is mild and like spring. I think it was being
out, and hearing people speak--kindly”--
Here Rose paused, and, in her turn, let fall a few soft tears. She had
gone out very little, scarcely stirring beyond the garden, since her
father’s death, and Mrs. Damerel thought it was the mere impulse of
reviving life; unless indeed--
“My dear, did Mr. Incledon say anything to you!” she asked, with a vague
hope.
“Mr. Incledon? Oh, no! except to ask me if you would see him--on
business. What was his business?” said innocent Rose, looking up into
her mother’s face.
“Rose,” said Mrs. Damerel, “I was just about to speak to you on a very
important matter when you began. My dear, I must tell you at once what
Mr. Incledon’s business was. It was about you.”
“About me?” All the color went out of Rose’s face in a moment; she
recollected the visit to Whitton, and the sudden light that had flashed
upon her as he and she looked at the picture together. She had forgotten
all about it months ago, and indeed had never again thought of Mr.
Incledon. But now in a moment her nerves began to thrill and her heart
to beat; yet she herself, in whom the nerves vibrated and the heart
throbbed, to turn to stone.
“Rose, you are not nervous or silly like many girls, and you know now
what life is--not all a happy dream, as it sometimes seems at the
beginning. My dear, I have in my hand a brighter future than you ever
could have hoped for, if you will have it. Mr. Incledon has asked my
leave to ask you to be his wife. Rose”--
“Me! his wife!” Rose clutched at her mother’s hand and repeated these
words with a pant of fright; though it seemed to her the moment they
were said as if she had all her life known they were coming, and had
heard them a hundred times before.
“That is what he wants, Rose. Don’t tremble so, nor look at me so
wildly. It is a wonderful thing to happen to so young a girl as you. He
is very good and very kind, and he would be, oh! of so much help to all
your family; and he could give you everything that heart can desire, and
restore you to far more than you have lost; and he is very fond of you,
and would make you an excellent husband. I promised to speak to you,
dear. You must think it over. He does not wish you to give him an answer
at once.”
“Mamma,” said Rose, hoarsely, with a sudden trembling which seemed to
reach into her very heart, “is it not better to give an answer at once?
Mamma, I am not fond of him. I think it would be best to say so now.”
“You are not fond of him? Is that all the consideration you give such a
question? You do not intend _that_ for an answer, Rose?”
“Oh, mamma, is it not enough? What more answer could I give? I am not
fond of him at all. I could not pretend to be. When it is an answer like
that, surely it is best to give it now.”
“And so,” said her mother, “you throw aside one of the best offers that
ever a girl received, with less thought on the subject than you would
give to a cat or a dog! You decide your whole future without one
thought. Rose, is this the helpfulness you have just promised me? Is
this the thoughtfulness for yourself and all of us that I have a right
to expect?”
Rose did not know what to reply. She looked at her mother with eyes
suddenly hollowed out by fear and anxiety and trouble, and watched every
movement of her lips and hands with a growing alarm which she could not
control.
“You do not speak? Rose, Rose, you must see how wrong you would be to
act so hastily. If it were a question of keeping or sending away a
servant, nay, even a dog, you would give more thought to it; and this is
a man who loves, who would make you happy. Oh, do not shake your head!
How can a child of your age know? A man who, I am sure, would make you
happy; a man who could give you everything and more than everything,
Rose. I cannot let you decide without thought.”
“Does one need to think?” said Rose, slowly, after a pause. “I do not
care for him, I cannot care for him. You would not have me tell a lie?”
“I would have you deny yourself,” cried her mother; “I would have you
think of some higher rule than your own pleasure. Is that the best
thing in the world, to please yourself? Oh, I could tell you stories of
that! Why are we in this poor little house with nothing? why is my poor
Bertie dependent upon my brother, and you girls forced to work like
maid-servants, and our life all changed? Through self-indulgence, Rose.
Oh! God forgive me for saying it, but I must tell the truth. Through
choosing the pleasure of the moment rather than the duties that we
cannot shake off; through deciding always to do what one liked rather
than to do what was right. Here are eight of you children with your
lives blighted, all that one might be pleasant and unburdened. I have
suffered under it all my life. Not anything wrong, not anything wicked,
but only, and always and before everything, what one liked one’s self.”
Mrs. Damerel spoke with a passion which was very unlike her usual calm.
The lines came into her brow which Rose remembered of old, but which the
tranquillity of grief had smoothed out. A hot color mounted to her
cheeks, making a line beneath her eyes. The girl was struck dumb by this
sudden vehemence. Her reason was confused by the mingled truth and
sophistry, which she felt without knowing how to disentangle them, and
she was shocked and wounded by the implied blame thus cast upon him who
had been of late the idol of her thoughts, and whom, if she had once
timidly begun to form a judgment on him, she had long ceased to think of
as anything but perfect.
“Oh! stop, stop! don’t say any more!” she cried, clasping her hands.
“I cannot stop,” said Mrs. Damerel; “not now, when I have begun. I never
thought to say as much to one of his children, and to no other could I
ever speak, Rose. I see the same thing in Reginald, and it makes my
heart sick; must I find it in you too? There are people who are so happy
as to like what they have to do, what it is their duty to do; and these
are the blessed ones. But it is not always, it is not often so in this
life. Dear, listen to what I say. Here is a way by which you may make up
for much of the harm that has been done; you may help all that belong to
you; you may put yourself in a position to be useful to many; you may
gain what men only gain by the labor of their lives; and all this by
marrying a good man whom you will make happy. Will you throw it away
because at the first glance it is not what your fancy chooses? Will you
set your own taste against everybody’s advantage? Oh, my darling, think,
think! Do not let your first motive, in the first great thing you are
called upon to do, be mere self!”
Mrs. Damerel stopped short, with a dry glitter in her eyes and a voice
which was choked and broken. She was moved to the extent of passion--she
who in general was so self-restrained. A combination of many emotions
worked within her. To her mind, every good thing for her child was
contained in this proposal; and in Rose’s opposition to it she saw the
rising of the poisonous monster which had embittered her whole life. She
did not pause to ask herself what there was in the nature of this
sacrifice she demanded, which made it less lawful, less noble, than the
other sacrifices which are the Christian’s highest ideal of duty. It was
enough that by this step, which did not seem to Mrs. Damerel so very
hard, Rose would do everything for herself and much for her family, and
that she hesitated, declined to take it, because it was not pleasant,
because she did not like it. Like it! The words raised a perfect storm
in the breast of the woman who had been made wretched all her life by
her ineffectual struggle against the habitual decision of her husband
for what he liked. She was too much excited to hear what Rose had to
say; if, indeed, poor Rose had anything to say after this sudden storm
which had broken upon her.
“We will speak of it to-morrow, when you have had time to think,” she
said, kissing her daughter, and dismissing her hastily. When Rose had
gone, she fell back into her chair by the waning firelight, and thought
over the many times in her own life when she had battled and had been
worsted on this eternal point of difference between the two classes of
humanity. She had struggled for self-denial against self-indulgence in a
hundred different ways on a hundred fields of battle, and here was the
end of it: a poor old house, tumbling to pieces about her ears, a poor
little pittance, just enough to give her children bread; and for those
children no prospect but toil for which they had not been trained, and
which changed their whole conception of life. Bertie, her bright boy,
for whom everything had been hoped, if her brother’s precarious bounty
should fail, what was there before him but a poor little clerkship in
some office from which he never could rise, and which, indeed, his uncle
had suggested at first as a way of making him helpful to his family. God
help her! This was what a virtuous and natural preference for the things
one liked had brought Mrs. Damerel to; and if her mind took a confused
and over-strained view of the subject, and of the lengths to which
self-denial ought to be carried, was it any wonder? I think there is a
great deal to be said on her side of the case.
Rose, for her part, lit her candle and went up the old stairs--which
creaked under her light foot--with her head bent down, and her heart
stifled under a weight that was too much for her. A cold, cold January
night, the chill air coming in at the old casements, the dark skies
without lending no cheering influence, and no warmth of cheery fires
within to neutralize Nature’s heaviness; an accusation thrown upon her
under which her whole being ached and revolted; a duty set before her
which was terrible to think of; and no one to advise, or comfort, or
help. What was she to do?