The Winter passed slowly, as Winters do, especially in the silence of
the country, where little happens to mark their course. The Autumnal
fall of leaves lasted long, but at length cleared off with the fogs and
damps of November, leaving the lawn and Priory Lane outside free from
the faded garments of the limes and beeches. Slowly, slowly the earth
turned to the deepest dark of Winter, and turned back again
imperceptibly toward the sun. The rich brown fields turned up their
furrows to the darkening damp and whitening frost, and lay still,
resting from their labors, waiting for the germs to come. The trees
stood out bare against the sky, betraying every knob and twist upon
their branches; big lumps of gray mistletoe hung in the apple-trees that
bordered Priory Lane; and here and there a branch of Lombardy poplar,
still clothed with a few leaves, turning their white lining outward,
threw itself up against the blue sky like a flower. The Austin Chantry
was getting nearly finished, all the external work having been done some
time ago. It was hoped that the ornamentation within would be completed
in time for Christmas, when the chaplain, who was likewise to be the
curate, and save (though Mr. Gerard mentioned this to no one) sixty
pounds a year to the vicar, was to begin the daily service. This
chaplain was a nephew of Dr. Richard’s, a good young man of very High
Church views, who was very ready to pray for the souls of the Austin
family without once thinking of the rubrics. Mr. Gerard did not care for
a man of such pronounced opinions; and good little Dr. Richard, even
after family feeling had led him to recommend his nephew, was seized
with many pangs as to the young Ritualist’s effect upon the parish.
“He will do what Miss Augustine wants, which is what I never would have
done,” said the warden of the Almshouses. “He thinks he is a better
Churchman than I am, poor fellow! but he is very careless of the
Church’s directions, my dear; and if you don’t attend to the rubrics,
where are you to find rest in this world? But he thinks he is a better
Churchman than I.”
“Yes, my dear, the rubrics have always been your great standard,” said
the good wife; but as the Rev. Mr. Wrook was related to them by her
side, she was reluctant to say anything more.
Thus, however, it was with a careful and somewhat anxious brow that Dr.
Richard awaited the young man’s arrival. He saved Mr. Gerard the best
part of a curate’s salary, as I have said. Miss Augustine endowed the
Chantry with an income of sixty pounds a year; and with twenty or thirty
pounds added to that, who could object to such a salary for a curacy in
a country place? The vicar’s purse was the better for it, if not
himself; and he thought it likely that by careful processes of
disapproval any young man in course of time might be put down. The
Chantry was to be opened at Christmas; and I think (if it had ever
occurred to her) that Miss Augustine might then have been content to
sing her _Nunc Dimittis_; but it never did occur to her, her life being
very full, and all her hours occupied. She looked forward, however, to
the time when two sets of prayers should be said every day for the
Austins with unbounded expectation.
Up to the middle of November, I think, she almost hoped (in an abstract
way, meaning no harm to her nephew) that something might still happen to
Herbert; for Giovanna, who went with her to the Almshouse service every
morning to please her, seemed endowed with heavenly dispositions, and
ready to train up her boy--who was a ready-made child, so to speak, and
not uncertain, as any baby must be who has to be born to parents not yet
so much as acquainted with each other--to make the necessary sacrifice,
and restore Whiteladies to the Church. This hope failed a little after
November, because then, without rhyme or reason, Giovanna tired of her
devotions, and went to the early service no longer; though even then
Miss Augustine felt that little Jean (now called Johnny) was within her
own power, and could be trained in the way in which he should go; but
anyhow, howsoever it was to be accomplished, no doubt the double prayers
for the race would accomplish much, and something at the sweetness of
an end attained stole into Augustine’s heart.
The parish and the neighborhood also took a great interest in the
Chantry. Such of the neighbors as thought Miss Augustine mad, awaited,
with a mixture of amusement and anxiety, the opening of this new chapel,
which was said to be unlike anything seen before--a miracle of
ecclesiastical eccentricity; while those who thought her papistical
looked forward with equal interest to a chance of polemics and
excitement, deploring the introduction of Ritualism into a quiet corner
of the country, hitherto free of that pest, but enjoying unawares the
agreeable stimulant of local schism and ecclesiastical strife. The taste
for this is so universal that I suppose it must be an instinct of human
nature, as strong among the non-fighting portion of the creation as
actual combat is to the warlike. I need not say that the foundress of
the Chantry had no such thoughts; her object was simple enough; but it
was too simple--too onefold (if I may borrow an expressive word from my
native tongue: ae-fauld we write it in Scotch) for the apprehension of
ordinary persons, who never believe in unity of motive. Most people
thought she was artfully bent on introducing the confessional, and all
the other bugbears of Protestantism; but she meant nothing of the kind:
she only wanted to open another agency in heaven on behalf of the
Austins, and nothing else affected her mind so long as this was secured.
The Chantry, however, afforded a very reasonable excuse to Kate and
Sophy Farrel-Austin for paying a visit to Whiteladies, concerning which
they had heard some curious rumors. Their interest in the place no doubt
had considerably died out of late, since Herbert’s amendment in health
had been proved beyond doubt. Their father had borne that blow without
much sympathy from his children, though they had not hesitated, as the
reader is aware, to express their own sense that it was “a swindle” and
“a sell,” and that Herbert had no right to get better. The downfall to
Farrel-Austin himself had been a terrible one, and the foolish levity of
his children about it had provoked him often, almost past bearing; but
time had driven him into silence, and into an appearance at least of
forgetting his disappointment. On the whole he had no very deadly reason
for disappointment: he was very well off without Whiteladies, and had he
got Whiteladies, he had no son to succeed him, and less and less
likelihood of ever having one. But I believe it is the man who has much
who always feels most deeply when he is hindered from having more.
The charm of adding field to field is, I suppose, a more keen and
practical hunger than that of acquiring a little is to him who has
nothing. Poverty does not know the sweetness that eludes it altogether,
but property is fully aware of the keen delight of possession. The
disappointment sank deep into Farrel-Austin’s heart. It even made him
feel like the victim of retributive justice, as if, had he but kept his
word to Augustine, Herbert might have been killed for him, and all been
well; whereas now Providence preserved Herbert to spite him, and keep
the inheritance from him! It seemed an unwarrantable bolstering up, on
the part of Heaven and the doctors, of a miserable life which could be
of very little good either to its owner or any other; and Farrel-Austin
grew morose and disagreeable at home, by way of avenging himself on some
one. Kate and Sophy did not very much care; they were too independent to
be under his power, as daughters at home so often are under the power of
a morose father. They had emancipated themselves beforehand, and now
were strong in the fortresses of habit and established custom, and those
natural defences with which they were powerfully provided. Rumors had
reached them of a new inmate at Whiteladies, a young woman with a child,
said to be the heir, who very much attracted their curiosity; and they
had every intention of being kind to Herbert and Reine when they came
home, and of making fast friends with their cousins. “For why should
families be divided?” Kate said, not without sentiment. “However
disappointed we may be, we can’t quarrel with Herbert for getting well,
can we, and keeping his own property?” The heroes who assembled at
afternoon tea grinned under their moustachios, and said “No.” These were
not the heroes of two years ago; Dropmore was married among his own
“set,” and Ffarington had sold out and gone down to his estates in
Wales, and Lord Alf had been ruined by a succession of misfortunes on
the turf, so that there was quite a new party at the Hatch, though the
life was very much the same as before. Drags and dinners, and boatings
and races and cricket-matches, varied, when Winter came on, and
according to the seasons, by hunting, skating, dancing, and every other
amusement procurable, went on like clock-work, like treadmill work, or
anything else that is useless and monotonous. Kate Farrel-Austin, who
was now twenty-three in years, felt a hundred and three in life. She had
grown wise, usual (and horrible) conclusion of girls of her sort. She
wanted to marry, and change the air and scene of her existence, which
began to grow tired of her as she of it. Sophy, on her way to the same
state of superannuation, rather wished it too. “One of us ought
certainly to do something,” she said, assenting to Kate’s homilies on
the subject. They were not fools, though they were rather objectionable
young women; and they felt that such life as theirs comes to be
untenable after awhile. To be sure, the young men of their kind, the
successors of Dropmore, etc. (I cannot really take the trouble to put
down these young gentlemen’s names), did carry on for a very long time
the same kind of existence; but they went and came, were at London
sometimes, and sometimes in the country, and had a certain something
which they called duty to give lines, as it were, to their life; while
to be always there, awaiting the return of each succeeding set of men,
was the fate of the girls. The male creatures here, as in most things,
had the advantage of the others; except that perhaps in their
consciousness of the tedium of their noisy, monotonous lot, the girls,
had they been capable of it, had a better chance of getting weary and
turning to better things.
The Austin Chantry furnished the Farrel-Austins with the excuse they
wanted to investigate Whiteladies and its mysterious guest. They drove
over on a December day, when it was nearly finished, and by right of
their relationship obtained entrance and full opportunity of inspection;
and not only so, but met Miss Augustine there, with whom they returned
to Whiteladies. There was not very much intercourse possible between the
recluse and these two lively young ladies, but they accompanied her
notwithstanding, plying her with mock questions, and “drawing her out;”
for the Farrel-Austins were of those who held the opinion that Miss
Augustine was mad, and a fair subject of ridicule. They got her to tell
them about her pious purposes, and laid them up, with many a mischievous
glance at each other, for the entertainment of their friends. When
Stevens showed them in, announcing them with a peculiar loudness of tone
intended to show his warm sense of the family hostility, there was no
one in the drawing-room but Giovanna, who sat reclining in one of the
great chairs, lazily watching the little boy who trotted about her, and
who had now assumed the natural demeanor of a child to its mother. She
was not a caressing mother even now, and in his heart I do not doubt
Johnny still preferred Cook; but they made a pretty group, the rosy
little fellow in his velvet frock and snow-white pinafore, and Giovanna
in a black dress of the same material, which gave a most appropriate
setting to her beauty. Dear reader, let me not deceive you, or give you
false ideas of Miss Susan’s liberality, or Giovanna’s extravagance. The
velvet was velveteen, of which we all make our Winter gowns, not the
more costly material which lasts you (or lasted your mother, shall we
say?) twenty years as a dinner dress, and costs you twice as many pounds
as years. The Farrel-Austins were pretty girls both, but they were not
of the higher order of beauty, like Giovanna; and they were much
impressed by her looks and the indolent grace of her attitude, and the
easy at-home air with which she held possession of Miss Susan’s
drawing-room. She scarcely stirred when they came in, for her breeding,
as may be supposed, was still very imperfect, and probably her silence
prolonged their respect for her more than conversation would have done;
but the child, whom the visitors knew how to make use of as a medium of
communication, soon produced a certain acquaintance. “Je suis Johnny,”
the baby said in answer to their question. In his little language one
tongue and another was much the same; but in the drawing-room the mode
of communication differed from that in the kitchen, and the child
acknowledged the equality of the two languages by mixing them. “But
mamma say Yan,” he added as an afterthought.
The two girls looked at each other. Here was the mysterious guest
evidently before them: to find her out, her ways, her meaning, and how
she contemplated her position, could not be difficult. Kate was as usual
a reasonable creature, talking as other people talk; while Sophy was the
madcap, saying things she ought not to say, whose luck it was not
unfrequently to surprise other people into similar indiscretions.
“Then this charming little fellow is yours?” said Kate. “How nice for
the old ladies to have a child in the house! Gentlemen don’t always care
for the trouble, but where there are only ladies it is so cheerful; and
how clever he is to speak both English and French.”
Giovanna laughed softly. The idea that it was cheerful to have a child
in the house amused her, but she kept her own counsel. “They teach
him--a few words,” she said, making the w more of a v; and rolling the r
a great deal more than she did usually, so that this sounded like
vorrds, and proved to the girls, who had come to make an examination of
her, that she knew very little English, and spoke it very badly, as they
afterward said.
“Then you are come from abroad? Pray don’t think us impertinent. We are
cousins; Farrel-Austins; you may have heard of us.”
“Yes, yes, I have heard of you,” said Giovanna with a smile. She had
never changed her indolent position, and it gave her a certain pleasure
to feel herself so far superior to her visitors, though in her heart she
was afraid of them, and afraid of being exposed alone to their scrutiny.
Kate looked at her sister, feeling that the stranger had the advantage,
but Sophy broke in with an answering laugh.
“It has not been anything very pleasant you have heard; we can see that;
but we ain’t so bad as the old ladies think us,” said Sophy. “We are
nice enough; Kate is sensible, though I am silly: we are not so bad as
they think us here.”
“I heard of you from my beau-père at Bruges,” said Giovanna. “Jeanot!
’faut pas gêner la belle dame.”
“Oh, I like him,” said Kate. “Then you _are_ from abroad? You are one of
the Austins of Bruges? we are your cousins too. I hope you like England,
and Whiteladies. Is it not a charming old house?”
Giovanna made no reply. She smiled, which might have been assent or
contempt; it was difficult to say which. She had no intention of
betraying herself. Whatever these young women might be, nothing could
put them on her side of the question; this she perceived by instinct,
and heroically refrained from all self-committal. The child by this time
had gone to Sophy, and stood by her knee, allowing himself to be petted
and caressed.
“Oh, what a dear little thing! what a nasty little thing!” said Sophy.
“If papa saw him he would like to murder him, and so should I. I suppose
he is the heir?”
“But M. Herbert lives, and goes to get well,” said Giovanna.
“Yes, what a shame it is! Quel dommage, as you say in French. What right
has he to get well, after putting it into everybody’s head that he was
going to die? I declare, I have no patience with such hypocrisy! People
should do one thing or another,” said Sophy, “not pretend for years that
they are dying, and then live.”
“Sophy, don’t say such things. She is the silliest rattle, and says
whatever comes into her head. To be kept in suspense used to be very
trying for poor papa,” said Kate. “He does not believe still that
Herbert can live; and now that it has gone out of papa’s hands, it must
be rather trying for you.”
“I am not angry with M. Herbert because he gets well,” said Giovanna
with a smile. She was amused indeed by the idea, and her amusement had
done more to dissipate her resentment than reason; for to be sure it was
somewhat ludicrous that Herbert should be found fault with for getting
well. “When I am sick,” she went on, “I try to get better too.”
“Well, I think it is a shame,” said Sophy. “He ought to think of other
people waiting and waiting, and never knowing what is going to happen.
Oh! Miss Susan, how do you do? We came to ask for you, and when Herbert
and Reine were expected home.”
Miss Susan came in prepared for the examination she had to go through.
Her aspect was cloudy, as it always was nowadays. She had not the
assured air of dignified supremacy and proprietorship which she once had
possessed; but the Farrel-Austins were not penetrating enough to
perceive more than that she looked dull, which was what they scarcely
expected. She gave a glance at Giovanna, still reclining indolently in
her easy chair; and curiously enough, quite against her expectation,
without warning or reason, Miss Susan felt herself moved by something
like a thrill of pleasure! What did it mean? It meant that Farrel’s
girls, whom she disliked, who were her natural enemies, were not fit to
be named in comparison with this young woman who was her torment, her
punishment, her bad angel; but at all events hers, on her side pitted
with her against them. It was not an elevated sort of satisfaction, but
such as it was it surprised her with a strange gleam of pleasure. She
sat down near Giovanna, unconsciously ranging herself on that side
against the other; and then she relapsed into common life, and gave her
visitors a very circumstantial account of Herbert and Reine--how they
had wished to come home at Christmas, but the doctors thought it more
prudent to wait till May. Kate and Sophy listened eagerly, consulting
each other, and comparing notes in frequent looks.
“Yes, poor fellow! of course May will be better,” said Kate, “though I
should have said June myself. It is sometimes very cold in May. Of
course he will always be _very_ delicate; his constitution must be so
shattered--”
“His constitution is not shattered at all,” said Miss Susan, irritated,
as the friends of a convalescent so often are, by doubts of his
strength. “Shattered constitutions come from quite different causes,
Miss Kate--from what you call ‘fast’ living and wickedness. Herbert has
the constitution of a child; he has no enemy but cold, and I hope we can
take care of him here.”
“Oh, Kate meant no harm,” said Sophy; “we know he could never have been
‘fast.’ It is easy to keep straight when you haven’t health for anything
else,” said this well-informed young woman.
“Hush!” said her sister in an audible whisper, catching hold of the baby
to make a diversion. Then Kate aimed her little broadside too.
“We have been so pleased to make acquaintance with madame,” she said,
using that title without any name, as badly instructed people are so apt
to do. “It must be nice for you to feel yourself provided for, whatever
happens. This, I hear, is the little heir?”
“Madame Suzanne,” interrupted Giovanna, “I have told ces dames that I am
glad M. Herbert goes to get well. I hope he will live long and be happy.
Jean, chéri! dis fort ‘Vive M. Herbert!’ as I taught you, that ces dames
may hear.”
Johnny was armed with his usual weapon, the paper-knife, which on
ordinary occasions Miss Susan could not endure to see in his hand; for I
need not say it was her own pet weapon, which Giovanna in her ignorance
had appropriated. He made a great flourish in the air with this
falchion. “Vive M’sieu ’Erbert!” cried the child, his little round face
flushed and shining with natural delight in his achievement. Giovanna
snatched him up on her lap to kiss and applaud him, and Miss Susan, with
a start of wonder, felt tears of pleasure come to her eyes. It was
scarcely credible even to herself.
“Yes, he is the heir,” she said quickly, looking her assailants in the
face, “that is, if Herbert has no children of his own. I am fortunate,
as you say--more fortunate than your papa, Miss Kate.”
“Who has only girls,” said Sophy, coming to the rescue. “Poor papa!
Though if we are not as good as the men, we must be poor creatures,” she
added with a laugh; and this was a proposition which nobody attempted to
deny.
As for Kate, she addressed her sister very seriously when they left
Whiteladies. Things were come to a pass in which active measures were
necessary, and a thorough comprehension of the situation.
“If you don’t make up your mind at once to marry Herbert, that woman
will,” she said to Sophy. “We shall see before six months are out. You
don’t mind my advice as you ought, but you had better this time. I’d
rather marry him myself than let him drop into the hands of an
adventuress like that.”
“Do! I shan’t interfere,” said Sophy lightly; but in her heart she
allowed that Kate was right. If one of them was to have Whiteladies, it
would be necessary to be alert and vigorous. Giovanna was not an
antagonist to be despised. They did not under-value her beauty; women
seldom do, whatever fancy-painters on the other side may say.
Miss Susan, for her part, left the drawing-room along with them, with so
curious a sensation going through her that she had to retire to her room
to get the better of it. She felt a certain thrill of gratefulness,
satisfaction, kindness in the midst of her hatred; and yet the hatred
was not diminished. This put all her nerves on edge like a jarring
chord.