In all relationships, as I have already said--and it is not an original
saying--there is one who is active and one who is passive,--“_L’unqui
baise et l’autre qui tend la joue_,” as the French say, with their
wonderful half-pathetic, half-cynic wisdom. Between the two sisters of
Whiteladies it was Augustine who gave the cheek and Susan the kiss, it
was Augustine who claimed and Susan who offered sympathy; it was
Augustine’s affairs, such as they were, which were discussed. The
younger sister had only her own fancies and imaginations, her charities,
and the fantastic compensations which she thought she was making for the
evil deeds of her family, to discuss and enlarge upon; whereas the elder
had her mind full of those mundane matters from which our cares
spring--the management of material interests--the conflict which is
always more or less involved in the government of other souls. She
managed her nephew’s estate in trust for him till he came of age,--if he
should live to come of age, poor boy; she managed her own money and her
sister’s, which was not inconsiderable; and the house and the servants,
and in some degree the parish, of which Miss Susan was the virtual
Squire. But of all this weight of affairs it did not occur to her to
throw any upon Augustine. Augustine had always been spared from her
youth up--spared all annoyance, all trouble, everybody uniting to shield
her. She had been “delicate” in her childhood, and she had sustained a
“disappointment” in youth--which means in grosser words that she had
been jilted, openly and disgracefully, by Farrel-Austin, her cousin,
which was the ground of Susan Austin’s enmity to him. I doubt much
whether Augustine herself, whose blood was always tepid and her head
involved in dreams, felt this half so much as her family felt it for
her--her sister especially, to whom she had been a pet and a plaything
all her life, and who had that half-adoring admiration for her which an
elder sister is sometimes seen to entertain for a younger one whom she
believes to be gifted with that beauty which she knows has not fallen to
her share. Susan felt the blow with an acute sense of shame and wounded
pride, which Augustine herself was entirely incapable of--and from that
moment forward had constituted herself, not only the protector of her
sister’s weakness, but the representative of something better which had
failed her, of that admiration and chivalrous service which a beautiful
woman is supposed to receive from the world.
It may seem a strange thing to many to call the devotion of one woman to
another chivalrous. Yet Susan’s devotion to her sister merited the
title. She vowed to herself that, so far as she could prevent it, her
sister should never feel the failure of those attentions which her lover
ought to have given her--that she should never know what it was to fall
into that neglect which is often the portion of middle-aged women--that
she should be petted and cared for, as if she were still the favorite
child or the adored wife which she had been or might have been. In doing
this Susan not only testified the depth of her love for Augustine, and
indignant compassion for her wrongs, but also a woman’s high ideal of
how an ideal woman should be treated in this world. Augustine was
neither a beautiful woman nor an ideal one, though her sister thought
so, and Susan had been checked many a time in her idolatry by her idol’s
total want of comprehension of it; but she had never given up her plan
for consoling the sufferer. She had admired Augustine as well as loved
her; she had always found what she did excellent; she had made
Augustine’s plans important by believing in them, and her opinions
weighty, even while, within herself, she saw the plans to be
impracticable and the opinions futile. The elder sister would pause in
the midst of a hundred real and pressing occupations, a hundred weighty
cares, to condole with, or to assist, or support, the younger, pulling
her through some parish imbroglio, some almshouse squabble, as if these
trifling annoyances had been affairs of state. But of the serious
matters which occupied her own mind, she said nothing to Augustine,
knowing that she would find no comprehension, and willing to avoid the
certainty that her sister would take no interest in her proceedings.
Indeed, it was quite possible that Augustine might have gone further
than mere failure of sympathy; Susan knew very well that she would be
disapproved of, perhaps censured, for being engrossed by the affairs of
this world. The village people, and everybody on the estate, were, I
think, of the same opinion. They thought Miss Susan “the hard
one”--doing her ineffable injustice, one of those unconsidered wrongs
that cut into the heart. At first, I suppose, this had not been the
state of affairs--between the sisters, at least; but it would be
difficult to tell how many disappointments the strong and hard Susan had
gone through before she made up her mind never to ask for the sympathy
which never came her way. This was her best philosophy, and saved her
much mortification; but it cost her many trials before she could make up
her mind to it, and had not its origin in philosophy at all, but in much
wounding and lacerating of a generous and sensitive heart.
Therefore she did not breathe a word to her sister about the present
annoyance and anxiety in her mind. When it was their hour to go
upstairs--and everything was done like clock-work at Whiteladies--she
went with Augustine to her room, as she always did, and heard over again
for the third or fourth time the complaint of the rudeness of the
butler, Stevens, who did not countenance Augustine’s “ways.”
“Indeed, he is a very honest fellow,” said Miss Susan, thinking bitterly
of Farrel-Austin and of the last successful stroke he had made.
“He is a savage, he is a barbarian--he cannot be a Christian,” Miss
Augustine had replied.
“Yes, yes, my dear; we must take care not to judge other people. I will
scold him well, and he will never venture to say anything disagreeable
to you again.”
“You think I am speaking for myself,” said Augustine. “No, what I feel
is, how out of place such a man is in a household like ours. You are
deceived about him now, and think his honesty, as you call it, covers
all his faults. But, Susan, listen to me. Without the Christian life,
what is honesty? Do you think _it_ would bear the strain if
temptation--to any great crime, for instance--”
“My dear, you are speaking nonsense,” said Miss Susan.
“That is what I am afraid of,” said her sister solemnly. “A man like
this ought not to be in a house like ours; for you are a Christian,
Susan.”
“I hope so at least,” said the other with a momentary laugh.
“But why should you laugh? Oh, Susan! think how you throw back my
work--even, you hinder my atonement. Is not this how all the family have
been--treating everything lightly--our family sin and doom, like the
rest? and you, who ought to know better, who ought to strengthen my
hands! perhaps, who knows, if you could but have given your mind to it,
we two together might have averted the doom!”
Augustine sat down in a large hard wooden chair which she used by way of
mortification, and covered her face with her hands. Susan, who was
standing by holding her candle, looked at her strangely with a half
smile, and a curious acute sense of the contrast between them. She stood
silent for a moment, perhaps with a passing wonder which of the two it
was who had done the most for the old house; but if she entertained this
thought, it was but for the moment. She laid her hand upon her sister’s
shoulder.
“My dear Austine,” she said, “I am Martha and you are Mary. So long as
Martha did not find fault with her sister, our good Lord made no
objection to her housewifely ways. So, if I am earthly while you are
heavenly, you must put up with me, dear; for, after all, there are a
great many earthly things to be looked after. And as for Stevens, I
shall scold him well,” she added with sudden energy, with a little
outburst of natural indignation at the cause (though innocent) of this
slight ruffling of the domestic calm.
The thoughts in her mind were of a curious and mixed description as she
went along the corridor after Augustine had melted, and bestowed, with a
certain lofty and melancholy regret, for her sister’s imperfections, her
good-night kiss. Miss Susan’s room was on the other side of the house,
over the drawing-room. To reach it she had to go along the corridor,
which skirted the staircase with its dark oaken balustrades, and thence
into another casemented passage, which led by three or four oaken steps
to the ante-room in which her maid slept, and from which her own room
opened. One of her windows looked out upon the north side, the same
aspect as the dining-hall, and was, indeed, the large casement which
occupied one of the richly-carved gables on that side of the house. The
other looked out upon the west side, over the garden, and facing the
sunset. It was a large panelled room, with few curtains, for Miss Susan
loved air. A shaded night-lamp burned faintly upon a set of carved oaken
drawers at the north end, and the moonlight slanting through the western
window threw two lights, broken by the black bar of the casement, on the
broad oak boards--for only the centre of the room was carpeted. Martha
came in with her mistress, somewhat sleepy, and slightly injured in her
feelings, for what with Everard’s visits and other agitations of the
day, Miss Susan was half an hour late. It is not to be supposed that
she, who could not confide in her sister, would confide in Martha; but
yet Martha knew, by various indications, what Augustine would never have
discovered, that Miss Susan had “something on her mind.” Perhaps it was
because she did not talk as much as usual, and listened to Martha’s own
remarks with the indifference of abstractedness; perhaps because of the
little tap of her foot on the floor, and sound of her voice as she asked
her faithful attendant if she had done yet, while Martha, aggrieved but
conscientious, fumbled with the doors of the wardrobe, in which she had
just hung up her mistress’s gown; perhaps it was the tired way in which
Miss Susan leaned back in her easy chair, and the half sigh which
breathed into her good-night. But from all these signs together Martha
knew, what nothing could have taught Augustine. But what could the maid
do to show sympathy? At first, I am sorry to say, she did not feel much,
but was rather glad that the mistress, who had kept her half an hour
longer than usual out of bed, should herself have some part of the
penalty to pay; but compunctions grew upon Martha before she left the
room, and I think that her lingering, which annoyed Miss Susan, was
partly meant to show that she felt for her mistress. If so, it met the
usual recompense of unappreciated kindness, and at last earned a
peremptory dismissal for the lingerer. When Miss Susan was alone, she
raised herself a little from her chair and screwed up the flame of the
small silver lamp on her little table, and put the double eyeglass which
she used, being slightly short-sighted, on her nose. She was going to
think; and she had an idea, not uncommon to short-sighted people, that
to see distinctly helped her faculties in everything.
She felt instinctively for her eyeglass when any noise woke her in the
middle of the night; she could hear better as well as think better with
that aid. The two white streaks of moonlight, with the broad bar of
shadow between, and all the markings of the diamond panes, indicated on
the gray oaken board and fringe of Turkey carpet, moved slowly along the
floor, coming further into the room as the moon moved westward to its
setting. In the distant corner the night-light burned dim but steady.
Miss Susan sat by the side of her bed, which was hung at the head with
blue-gray curtains of beautiful old damask. On her little table was a
Bible and Prayer Book, a long-stalked glass with a rose in it, another
book less sacred, which she had been reading in the morning, her
handkerchief, her eau-de-cologne, her large old watch in an old stand,
and those other trifles which every lady’s-maid who respects herself
keeps ready and in order by her mistress’s bedside. Martha, too sleepy
to be long about her own preparations, was in bed and asleep almost as
soon as Miss Susan put on her glasses. All was perfectly still, the
world out-of-doors held under the spell of the moonlight, the world
inside rapt in sleep and rest. Miss Susan wrapped her dressing-gown
about her, and sat up in her chair to think. It was a very cosey, very
comfortable chair, not hard and angular like Austine’s, and everything
in the room was pleasant and soft, not ascetical and self-denying. Susan
Austin was not young, but she had kept something of that curious
freshness of soul which some unmarried women carry down to old age. She
was not aware in her innermost heart that she was old. In everything
external she owned her years fully, and felt them; but in her heart she,
who had never passed out of the first stage of life, retained so many of
its early illusions as to confuse herself and bewilder her
consciousness. When she sat like this thinking by herself, with nothing
to remind her of the actual aspect of circumstances, she never could be
quite sure whether she was young or old. There was always a momentary
glimmer and doubtfulness about her before she settled down to the
consideration of her problem, whatever it was--as to which problem it
was, those which had come before her in her youth, which she had
settled, or left to float in abeyance for the settling of
circumstances--or the actual and practical matter-of-fact of to-day. For
a moment she caught her own mind lingering upon that old story between
Augustine and their cousin Farrel, as if it were one of the phases of
that which demanded her attention; and then she roused herself sharply
to her immediate difficulty, and to consider what she was to do.
It is forlorn in such an emergency to be compelled to deliberate alone,
without any sharer of one’s anxieties or confidante of one’s thoughts.
But Miss Susan was used to this, and was willing to recognize the
advantage it gave her in the way of independence and prompt conclusion.
She was free from the temptation of talking too much, of attacking her
opponents with those winged words which live often after the feeling
that dictated them has passed. She could not be drawn into any
self-committal, for nobody thought or cared what was in her mind.
Perhaps, however, it is more easy to exercise that casuistry which
self-interest produces even in the most candid mind, when it is not
necessary to put one’s thoughts into words. I cannot tell on what ground
it was that this amiable, and, on the whole, good woman concluded her
opposition to Farrel-Austin, and his undoubted right of inheritance, to
be righteous, and even holy. She resisted his claim--because it was
absolutely intolerable to her to think of giving up her home to him,
because she hated and despised him--motives very comprehensible, but not
especially generous, or elevated in the abstract. She felt, however, and
believed--when she sat down in her chair and put on her glasses to
reflect how she could baffle and overthrow him--that it was something
for the good of the family and the world that she was planning, not
anything selfish for her own benefit. If Augustine in one room planned
alms and charities for the expiation of the guilt of the family, which
had made itself rich by church lands, with the deepest sense that her
undertaking was of the most pious character--Susan in another, set
herself to ponder how to retain possession of these lands, with a
corresponding sense that her undertaking, her determination, were, if
not absolutely pious, at least of a noble and elevated character. She
did not say to herself that she was intent upon resisting the enemy by
every means in her power. She said to herself that she was determined to
have justice, and to resist to the last the doing of wrong, and the
victory of the unworthy. This was her way of putting it to herself--and
herself did not contradict her, as perhaps another listener might have
done. A certain enthusiasm even grew in her as she pondered. She felt no
doubt whatever that Farrel-Austin had gained his point by false
representations, and had played upon the ignorance of the unknown
Austin who had transferred his rights to him, as he said. And how could
she tell if this was the true heir? Even documents were not to be
trusted to in such a case, nor the sharpest of lawyers--and old Mr.
Lincoln, the family solicitor, was anything but sharp. Besides, if this
man in Bruges were the right man, he had probably no idea of what he was
relinquishing. How could a Flemish tradesman know what were the beauties
and attractions of “a place” in the home counties, amid all the wealth
and fulness of English lands, and with all the historical associations
of Whiteladies? He could not possibly know, or he would not give them
up. And if he had a wife, she could not know, or she would never permit
such a sacrifice.
Miss Susan sat and thought till the moonlight disappeared from the
window, and the Summer night felt the momentary chill which precedes
dawn. She thought of it till her heart burned. No, she could not submit
to this. In her own person she must ascertain if the story was true, and
if the strangers really knew what they were doing. It took some time to
move her to this resolution; but at last it took possession of her. To
go and undo what Farrel-Austin had done, to wake in the mind of the
heir, if this was the heir, that desire to possess which is dominant in
most minds, and ever ready to answer to any appeal; she rose almost with
a spring of youthful animation from her seat when her thoughts settled
upon this conclusion. She put out her lamp and went to the window, where
a faint blueness was growing--that dim beginning of illumination which
is not night but day, and which a very early bird in the green covert
underneath was beginning to greet with the first faint twitter of
returning existence. Miss Susan felt herself inspired; it was not to
defeat Farrel-Austin, but to prevent wrong, to do justice, a noble
impulse which fires the heart and lights the eye.
Thus she made up her mind to an undertaking which afterward had more
effect upon her personal fate than anything else that had happened in
her long life. She did it, not only intending no evil, but with a sense
of what she believed to be generous feeling expanding her soul. Her own
personal motives were so thrust out of sight that she herself did not
perceive them--and indeed, had it been suggested to her that she had
personal motives, she would have denied it strenuously. What interest
could she have in substituting one heir for another? But yet Miss
Susan’s blue eyes shot forth a gleam which was not heavenly as she lay
down and tried to sleep. She could not sleep, her mind being excited and
full of a thousand thoughts--the last distinct sensation in it before
the uneasy doze which came over her senses in the morning being a thrill
of pleasure that Farrel-Austin might yet be foiled. But what of that?
Was it not her business to protect the old stock of the family, and keep
the line of succession intact? The more she thought of it, the more did
this appear a sacred duty, worthy of any labor and any sacrifice.