CONTAINS A FEW DETAILS.
IN an old second-hand bookshop in London, an old man sat reading
Gibbon's History of Rome. He did not put down his book when the postman
brought him a letter. He just glanced indifferently at the letter, and
impatiently at the postman. Zerviah Holme did not like to be interrupted
when he was reading Gibbon; and as he was always reading Gibbon, an
interruption was always regarded by him as an insult.
About two hours afterwards, he opened the letter, and learnt that his
niece, Bernardine, had arrived safely in Petershof, and that she
intended to get better and come home strong. He tore up the letter,
and instinctively turned to the photograph on the mantelpiece. It was
the picture of a face young and yet old, sad and yet with possibilities
of merriment, thin and drawn and almost wrinkled, and with piercing eyes
which, even in the dull lifelessness of the photograph, seemed to be
burning themselves away. Not a pleasing nor a good face; yet intensely
pathetic because of its undisguised harassment.
Zerviah looked at it for a moment.
"She has never been much to either of us," he said to himself. "And yet,
when Malvina was alive, I used to think that she was hard on Bernardine.
I believe I said so once or twice. But Malvina had her own way of
looking at things. Well, that is over now."
He then, with characteristic speed, dismissed all thoughts which did not
relate to Roman History; and the remembrance of Malvina, his wife, and
Bernardine, his niece, took up an accustomed position in the background
of his mind.
Bernardine had suffered a cheerless childhood in which dolls and toys
took no leading part. She had no affection to bestow on any doll, nor
any woolly lamb, nor apparently on any human person; unless, perhaps,
there was the possibility of a friendly inclination towards Uncle
Zerviah, who would not have understood the value of any deeper feeling,
and did not therefore call the child cold-hearted and unresponsive, as
he might well have done.
This she certainly was, judged by the standard of other children; but
then no softening influences had been at work during her tenderest
years. Aunt Malvina knew as much about sympathy as she did about the
properties of an ellipse; and even the fairies had failed to win little
Bernardine. At first they tried with loving patience what they might do
for her; they came out of their books, and danced and sang to her, and
whispered sweet stories to her, at twilight, the fairies' own time. But
she would have none of them, for all their gentle persuasion. So they
gave up trying to please her, and left her as they had found her,
loveless. What can be said of a childhood which even the fairies have
failed to touch with the warm glow of affection?
Such a little restless spirit, striving to express itself now in this
direction, now in that; yet always actuated by the same constant force,
_the desire for work_. Bernardine seemed to have no special wish to be
useful to others; she seemed just to have a natural tendency to work,
even as others have a natural tendency to play. She was always in
earnest; life for little Bernardine meant something serious.
Then the years went by. She grew up and filled her life with many
interests and ambitions. She was at least a worker, if nothing else;
she had always been a diligent scholar, and now she took her place as an
able teacher. She was self-reliant, and, perhaps, somewhat conceited.
But, at least, Bernardine the young woman had learnt something which
Bernardine the young child had not been able to learn: she learnt how
to smile. It took her, about six and twenty years to learn; still,
some people take longer than that; in fact, many never learn. This is
a brief summary of Bernardine Holme's past.
Then, one day, when she was in the full swing of her many engrossing
occupations: teaching, writing articles for newspapers, attending
socialistic meetings, and taking part in political discussions--she was
essentially a modern product, this Bernardine--one day she fell ill.
She lingered in London for some time, and then she went to Petershof.