There is no such picturesque incident in life as the sudden changes of
fortune which make a complete revolution in the fate of families or
individuals without either action or merit of their own. That which we
are most familiar with is the change from comfort to poverty, which so
often takes place, as it had done with the Damerels, when the head of a
house, either incautious or unfortunate, goes out of this world, leaving
not only sorrow but misery behind him, and the bereavement is
intensified by social downfall and all the trials that accompany loss of
means. But for the prospect of Mr. Incledon’s backing up, this would
have implied a total change in the prospects and condition of the entire
household, for all hope of higher education must have been given up for
the boys; they must have dropped into any poor occupation which happened
to be within their reach, with gratitude that they were able to maintain
themselves; and as for the girls, what could they do, poor children,
unless by some lucky chance of marriage? This poor hope would have given
them one remaining chance not possible to their brothers; but, except
that, what had they all to look forward to? This was Mrs. Damerel’s
excuse for urging Rose’s unwilling consent to Mr. Incledon’s proposal.
But lo! all this was changed as by a magician’s wand. The clouds rolled
off the sky, the sunshine came out again, the family recovered its
prospects, its hopes, its position, its freedom, and all this in a
moment. Mrs. Damerel’s old uncle Edward had been an original who had
quarrelled with all his family. She had not seen him since she was a
child, and none of her children had seen him at all--and she never knew
exactly what it was that made him select her for his heir. Probably it
was pity; probably admiration for the brave stand she was making against
poverty--perhaps only caprice, or because she had never asked anything
from him; but, whatever the cause was, there was the happy result. In
the evening anxiety, care, discouragement, bitter humiliation, and pain;
in the morning sudden ease, comfort, happiness--for, in the absence of
anything better, it is a great happiness to have money enough for all
your needs, and to be able to give your children what they want, and pay
your bills and owe no man anything. In the thought of being rich enough
to do all this Mrs. Damerel’s heart leapt up in her breast, like the
heart of a child. Next moment she remembered, and with a pang of sudden
anguish asked herself, oh, why--why had not this come sooner, when _he_,
who would have enjoyed it so much, might have had the enjoyment? This
feeling, sprang up by instinct in her mind, notwithstanding her bitter
consciousness of all she had suffered from her husband’s carelessness
and self-regard--for love is the strangest of all sentiments, and can
indulge and condemn in a breath, without any sense of inconsistency.
This was the pervading thought in Mrs. Damerel’s mind as the news spread
through the awakened house, making even the children giddy with hopes of
they knew not what. How _he_ would have enjoyed it all--the added
luxury, the added consequence! far more than she would have enjoyed it,
notwithstanding that it came to her like life to the dying. She had
taken no notice of Rose’s exclamation, nor of the flush of joy which the
girl betrayed. I am not sure, indeed, that she observed them, being
absorbed in her own feelings, which come first even in the most
generous minds, at such a crisis and revolution of fate.
As for Rose, it was the very giddiness of delight that she felt,
unreasoning and even unfeeling. Her sacrifice had become
unnecessary--she was free! So she thought, poor child, with a total
indifference to honor and her word which I do not attempt to excuse. She
never once thought of her word, or of the engagement she had come under,
or of the man who had been so kind to her, and loved her so faithfully.
The children had holiday on that blessed morning, and Rose ran out with
them into the garden, and ran wild with pure excess of joy. This was the
first day that Mr. Nolan had visited them since he went to his new
duties, and as the curate came into the garden, somewhat tired after a
long walk, and expecting to find his friends something as he had left
them--if not mourning, yet subdued as true mourners continue after the
sharpness of their grief is ended--he was struck with absolute dismay to
meet Rose, flushed and joyous, with one of the children mounted on her
shoulders, and pursued by the rest, in the highest of high romps, the
spring air resounding with their shouts. Rose blushed a little when she
saw him. She put down her little brother from her shoulder, and came
forward beaming with happiness and kindness.
“Oh, how glad I am that you have come to-day,” she said, and explained
forthwith all the circumstances with the frank diffuse explanatoriness
of youth. “Now we are rich again; and oh, Mr. Nolan, I am so happy!” she
cried, her soft eyes glowing with an excess of light which dazzled the
curate.
People who have never been rich themselves, and never have any chance of
being rich, find it difficult sometimes to understand how others are
affected in these unwonted circumstances. He was confounded by her frank
rapture, the joy which seemed to him so much more than was necessary.
“I’m glad to see you so happy,” he said, bewildered; “no doubt money’s a
blessing, and ye’ve felt the pinch, my poor child, or ye wouldn’t be so
full of your joy.”
“Oh, Mr. Nolan, how I have felt it!” she said, her eyes filling with
tears. A cloud fell over her face for the space of a moment, and then
she laughed and cried out joyously, “but thank Heaven that is all over
now.”
Mrs. Damerel was writing in the drawing-room, writing to her boys to
tell them the wonderful news. Rose led the visitor in, pushing open the
window which opened on the garden. “I have told him all about it, and
how happy we are,” she said, going up to her mother with all the
confidence of happiness, and giving her, with unwonted demonstration, a
kiss upon her forehead, before she danced out again to the sunny garden.
Mrs. Damerel was a great deal more sober in her exultation, which
relieved the curate. She told him how it had all come about, and what a
deliverance it was; then cried a little, having full confidence in his
sympathy, over that unremovable regret that it had not come sooner. “How
happy it would have made him--and relieved all his anxiety about us,”
she said. Mr. Nolan made some inarticulate sound, which she took for
assent; or, at least, which it pleased her to mistake for assent. In her
present mood it was sweet to think that her husband had been anxious,
and the curate knew human nature too well to contradict her. And then
she gave him a little history of the past three months during which he
had been absent, and of Rose’s engagement and all Mr. Incledon’s good
qualities. “He would have done anything for us,” said Mrs. Damerel; “but
oh, how glad I am we shall not want anything--only Rose’s happiness,
which in his hands is secure.”
“Mr. Incledon!” said the curate, with a little wonder in his voice. “Ah,
and so that is it. I thought it couldn’t be nothing but money that made
the child so pleased.”
“You thought she looked very happy?” said the mother, with a sudden
fright.
“Happy! she looked like her name--nothing is so happy as that but the
innocent creatures of God; and sure I did her injustice thinking ’twas
the money,” the curate said, with mingled compunction and wonder; for
the story altogether sounded very strange to him, and he could not but
marvel at the thought that Mr. Incledon’s love, once so evidently
indifferent to her, should light such lamps of joy now in Rose’s eyes.
Mrs. Damerel changed the subject abruptly. A mist of something like care
came over her face. “I have had a great deal of trouble and much to
think about since I saw you,” she said; “but I must not enter upon that
now that it is over. Tell me about yourself.”
He shrugged his shoulders as he told her how little there was to tell. A
new parish, with other poor folk much like those he had left, and other
rich folk not far dissimilar--the one knowing as little about the other
as the two classes generally do. “That is about all my life is ever
likely to be,” he said, with a half smile, “between the two, with no
great hold on either. I miss Agatha, and Dick, and little Patty--and you
to come and talk to most of all,” he said, looking at her with an
affectionate wistfulness which went to her heart. Not that Mr. Nolan was
“in love” with Mrs. Damerel, as vulgar persons would say, laughing; but
the loss of her house and society was a great loss to the middle-aged
curate, never likely to have a house of his own.
“We must make it up as much as we can by talking all day long now you
are here,” she said, with kind smiles; but the curate, though he was
fond of her, was quick to see that she avoided the subject of Mr.
Incledon, and was ready to talk of anything rather than that; though,
indeed, the first love and first proposed marriage in a family has
generally an interest exceeding everything else to the young heroine’s
immediate friends.
They had the merriest dinner at two o’clock, according to the habit of
their humility, with roast mutton, which was the only joint Mary Jane
could not spoil; simple fare, which contented the curate as well as a
French chef could have done. He told them funny stories of his new
people, at which the children shouted with laughter, and described the
musical parties at the vicarage, and the solemn little dinners, and all
the dreary entertainments of a small town. The White House had not heard
so much innocent laughter, so many pleasant foolish jokes, for
years--and I don’t think that Rose had ever so distinguished herself in
the domestic circle. She had been generally considered too old for fun
among the children--too dignified, more on mamma’s side--giving herself
up to poetry and other such solemn occupations; but to-day the
suppressed fountain burst forth. Even Mrs. Damerel did not escape the
infection of that laughter which rang like silver bells. The deep
mourning they all wore, the poor little rusty black frocks trimmed still
with crape, perhaps reproached the laughter now and then; but fathers
and mothers cannot expect to be mourned for a whole year, and, indeed,
the rector, to these little ones at least, had not been much more than a
name.
“Rose,” said Mrs. Damerel, when the meal was over, and they had returned
into the drawing-room, “I think we had better arrange to go up to town
one of these days to see about your things. I have been putting off, and
putting off, on account of our poverty; but it is full time to think of
your trousseau now.”
Rose stood still as if she had been suddenly struck by some mortal blow.
She looked at her mother with eyes opening wide, lips falling apart, and
a sudden deadly paleness coming over her face. From the fresh sweetness
of that rose tint which had come back to her she became all at once
ashy-gray, like an old woman. “My--what, mamma?” she faltered, putting
her hands upon the table to support herself. “I--did not hear--what you
said.”
“You’ll find me in the garden, ladies, when you want me,” said the
curate, with a man’s usual cowardice, “bolting” as he himself expressed
it, through the open window.
Mrs. Damerel looked up from where she had seated herself at the table,
and looked her daughter in the face.
“Your trousseau,” she said, calmly, “what else should it be?”
Rose gave a great and sudden cry. “That’s all over, mamma, all over,
isn’t it?” she said, eagerly; then hastening round to her mother’s side,
fell on her knees by her chair, and caught her hand and arm, which she
embraced and held close to her breast. “Mamma! speak to me--it’s all
over--all over! You said the sacrifices we made would be required no
longer. It is not needed any more, and it’s all over. Oh, say so, with
your own lips, mamma!”
“Rose, are you mad?” said her mother, drawing away her hand; “rise up,
and do not let me think my child is a fool. Over! Is honor over, and the
word you have pledged, and the engagement you have made?”
“Honor!” said Rose, with white lips; “but it was for you I did it, and
you do not require it any more.”
“Rose,” cried Mrs. Damerel, “you will drive me distracted. I have often
heard that women have no sense of honor, but I did not expect to see it
proved in your person. Can you go and tell the man who loves you that
you will not marry him because we are no longer beggars? He would have
helped us when we were penniless--is that a reason for casting him off
now?”
Rose let her mother’s hand go, but she remained on her knees by the side
of the chair, as if unable to move, looking up in Mrs. Damerel’s face
with eyes twice their usual size.
“Then am I to be none the better--none the better?” she cried piteously;
“are they all to be saved, all rescued, except me?”
“Get up, Rose,” said Mrs. Damerel impatiently, “and do not let me hear
any more of this folly. Saved! from an excellent man who loves you a
great deal better than you deserve--from a lot that a queen might
envy--everything that is beautiful and pleasant and good! You are the
most ungrateful girl alive, or you would not venture to speak so to me.”
Rose did not make any answer. She did not rise, but kept still by her
mother’s side, as if paralyzed. After a moment Mrs. Damerel, in angry
impatience, turned from her and resumed her writing, and there the girl
continued to kneel, making no movement, heart-stricken, turned into
marble. At length, after an interval, she pulled timidly at her mother’s
dress, looking at her with eyes so full of entreaty, that they forced
Mrs. Damerel, against her will, to turn round and meet that pathetic
gaze.
“Mamma,” she said, under her breath, her voice having failed her, “just
one word--is there no hope for me, can you do nothing for me? Oh, have a
little pity! You could do something if you would but try.”
“Are you mad, child?” cried the mother again--“do something for you?
What can I do? You promised to marry him of your own will; you were not
forced to do it. You told me you liked him not so long ago. How does
this change the matter, except to make you more fit to be his wife? Are
you mad?”
“Perhaps,” said Rose softly; “if being very miserable is being mad, then
I am mad, as you say.”
“But you were not very miserable yesterday; you were cheerful enough.”
“Oh, mamma, then there was no hope,” cried Rose, “I had to do it--there
was no help; but now hope has come--and must every one share it, every
one get deliverance, but me?”
“Rose,” said Mrs. Damerel, “when you are Mr. Incledon’s wife every one
of these wild words will rise up in your mind and shame you. Why should
you make yourself unhappy by constant discussions? you will be sorry
enough after for all you have allowed yourself to say. You have promised
Mr. Incledon to marry him and you must marry him. If I had six times
Uncle Ernest’s money it would still be a great match for you.”
“Oh, what do I care for a great match!”
“But I do,” said Mrs. Damerel, “and whether you care or not has nothing
to do with it. You have pledged your word and your honor, and you cannot
withdraw from them. Rose, your marriage is fixed for the end of July. We
must have no more of this.”
“Three months,” she said, with a little convulsive shudder. She was
thinking that perhaps even yet something might happen to save her in so
long a time as three months. “Not quite three months,” said Mrs.
Damerel, whose thoughts were running on the many things that had to be
done in the interval. “Rose, shake off this foolish repining, which is
unworthy of you, and go out to good Mr. Nolan, who must be dull with
only the children. Talk to him and amuse him till I am ready. I am going
to take him up to Whitton to show him the house.”
Rose went out without a word; she went and sat down in the little shady
summer-home where Mr. Nolan had taken refuge from the sun and from the
mirth of the children. He had already seen there was something wrong,
and was prepared with his sympathy: whoever was the offender Mr. Nolan
was sorry for that one; it was a way he had; his sympathies did not go
so much with the immaculate and always virtuous; but he was sorry for
whosoever had erred or strayed, and was repenting of the same. Poor
Rose--he began to feel himself Rose’s champion, because he felt sure
that it was Rose, young, thoughtless, and inconsiderate, who must be in
the wrong. Rose sat down by his side with a heart-broken look in her
face, but did not say anything. She began to beat with her fingers on
the table as if she were beating time to a march. She was still such a
child to him, so young, so much like what he remembered her in
pinafores, that his heart ached for her. “You are in some little bit of
trouble?” he said at last.
“Oh, not a little bit,” cried Rose, “a great, very great trouble!” She
was so full of it that she could not talk of anything else. And the
feeling in her mind was that she must speak or die. She began to tell
her story in the woody arbor with the gay noise of the children close at
hand, but hearing a cry among them that Mr. Incledon was coming, started
up and tied on her hat, and seizing Mr. Nolan’s arm, dragged him out by
the garden door. “I cannot see him to-day!” she cried, and led the
curate away, dragging him after her to a quiet by-way over the fields in
which she thought they would be safe. Rose had no doubt whatever of the
full sympathy of this old friend. She was not afraid even of his
disapproval. It seemed certain to her that he must pity at least if not
help. And to Rose, in her youthful confidence in others, there was
nothing in this world which was unalterable of its nature: no trouble,
except death, which could not be got rid of by the intervention of
friends.
It chilled her a little, however, as she went on, to see the curate’s
face grow longer and longer, graver and graver. “You should not have
done it,” he said, shaking his head, when Rose told him how she had been
brought to give her consent.
“I know I ought not to have done it, but it was not my doing. How could
I help myself? And now, oh, now, dear Mr. Nolan, tell me what to do!
Will _you_ speak to mamma? Though she will not listen to me she might
hear you.”
“But I don’t see what your mamma has to do with it,” said the curate.
“It is not to her you are engaged--nor is it she who has given her word;
you must keep your word, we are all bound to do that.”
“But a great many people don’t do it,” said Rose, driven to the worst of
arguments by sheer despair of her cause.
“_You_ must,” said Mr. Nolan: “the people who don’t are not people to be
followed. You have bound yourself and you must stand by it. He is a good
man and you must make the best of it. To a great many it would not seem
hard at all. You have accepted him, and you must stand by him. I do not
see what else can be done now.”
“Oh, Mr. Nolan, you speak as if I were married, and there was no hope.”
“It is very much the same thing,” said the curate; “you have given your
word. Rose, you would not like to be a jilt; you must either keep your
word or be called a jilt--and called truly. It is not a pleasant
character to have.”
“But it would not be true!”
“I think it would be true. Mr. Incledon, poor man, would have good
reason to think so. Let us look at it seriously, Rose. What is there so
very bad in it that you should do a good man such an injury? He is not
old. He is very agreeable and very rich. He would make you a great lady,
Rose.”
“Mr. Nolan, do you think I care for that?”
“A great many people care for it, and so do all who belong to you. Your
poor father wished it. It had gone out of my mind, but I can recollect
very well now; and your mother wishes it--and for you it would be a
great thing, you don’t know how great. Rose, you must try to put all
this reluctance out of your mind, and think only of how many advantages
it has.”
“I care nothing for the advantages,” said Rose, “the only one thing was
for the sake of the others. He promised to be good to the boys and to
help mamma; and now we don’t need his help any more.”
“A good reason, an admirable reason,” cried the curate with unwonted
sarcasm, “for casting him off now. Few people state it so frankly, but
it is the way of the world.”
Rose gave him a look so full of wondering that the good man’s heart was
touched. “Come,” he said, “you had made up your mind to it yesterday.
It cannot be so very bad after all. At your age nothing can be very bad,
for you can always adapt yourself to what is new. So long as there’s
nobody else in the way that’s more to your mind,” he said, turning upon
her with a penetrating glance.
Rose said nothing in reply. She put up her hands to her face, covering
it, and choking the cry which came to her lips. How could she to a man,
to one so far separated from love and youth as was Mr. Nolan, make this
last confession of all?
The curate went away that night with a painful impression on his mind.
He did not go to Whitton, as Mrs. Damerel had promised, to see Rose’s
future home, but he saw the master of it, who, disappointed by the
headache with which Rose had retreated to her room, on her return from
her walk with the curate, did not show in his best aspect. None of the
party indeed did; perhaps the excitement and commotion of the news had
produced a bad result--for nothing could be flatter or more
deadly-lively than the evening which followed. Even the children were
cross and peevish, and had to be sent to bed in disgrace; and Rose had
hidden herself in her room, and lines of care and irritation were on
Mrs. Damerel’s forehead. The great good fortune which had befallen them
did not, for the moment at least, bring happiness in its train.