Our little journey was arranged by Aunt Milly in the most comfortable
way she could think of for us. Harry would not consent to let her send
the carriage all the way. The railway was close to us, and it passed
about two miles from the Park, where there was a little station; and the
carriage was to meet us there. It was a very short journey, certainly;
but I remember when we were all in the train,--all--every one of us,--a
family entire and close together,--and especially at the moment when we
were passing through the tunnel, and felt in the darkness more entirely
separated from the world,--a sudden thought seized upon me: “Oh, if we
were only going on, anywhere, anywhere to the end of the world!”
Plunging through the darkness, with Harry sitting close by me, and baby
on my knee, and nobody able to approach or stop us--going on all
together! All sorts of people have their fancies, no doubt. I daresay
mine were very homely ones; but I shall never forget the strange thrill
that came upon my heart as this wild possibility seized me. When we came
slowly into the daylight, and the train stopped, and the door of the
carriage flew open, and dear Aunt Milly herself appeared to welcome us,
I woke up with a little shiver into real life again. Ah me! one cannot
dart into the bowels of the earth and hide one’s self. But life and duty
somehow looked cold at me with their piercing daylight eyes after that
thought.
Everything familiar stopped short and broke off when we got into the
carriage. Aunt Milly was not a great lady. I don’t think anything could
ever have made her a great lady; but it was clear she had been a person
of consideration for many a year. I never had been in such a carriage
before; indeed, I don’t think I had ever been in any carriage but a
public one, for, of course, Aunt Connor was not rich enough to have a
carriage of her own. But when I sat down by Aunt Milly’s side, I could
not help feeling immediately that it all belonged to me. It was a
strange feeling, and indeed, if nobody will be shocked, it was a very
pleasing feeling. Instead of making me discontented, somehow it quite
reconciled me to being poor. My own opinion is, that people of good
family, or whatever is equivalent to good family,--people that know they
belong to a higher class, whether other people know it or not,--always
bear poverty best. It does not humiliate them as it does people who have
always been poor. I think I could have stood any remarks upon my bonnet,
or even baby’s pelisse, with great equanimity after my visit to the
Park; being poor looked so much more like an accidental circumstance
after that. Perhaps I don’t explain very well what I mean, so I will
just state it plainly, and then you may understand, or disagree with it,
just as you choose. The higher one’s rank is, the better one can bear
being poor. There! it is not the common opinion, but I believe it all
the same for that.
And here was the Park, the very same great modern house that stood
(leaning on the trees) in poor papa’s drawing, with two wings drawn out
from the main body of the building, and a curious archway and a little
paved court at the side before you came to the great door. We went to
the great door as we were strangers, and I could see the grave face of
my omnibus acquaintance peeping through a round bow-window close to the
door before he admitted us, very solemnly and with profoundest abstract
air. I wonder if he could remember us. His face looked as blankly
respectful as if any idea on any subject whatever would somehow be
unbecoming the dignity of the Park. Aunt Milly, who had gradually become
fidgety, now took hold of my hand and drew me forward quickly. I went
with her, a little astonished, but with no clear idea where I was going.
She took me into a very long, very large room, with a great many tall
windows on one side, a room so big as to look a perfect maze of
furniture to me. I saw nobody in it, and did not think of it as being a
room in common use. She had brought me to see some picture, no doubt.
But Aunt Milly hurried me up this long room, with her hand upon my
wrist, to a screen that seemed drawn so as to shelter one side of the
fireplace. When we came in front of this, I was greatly startled to see
a lady, with large knitting-pins in her hands, rise slowly from an
arm-chair. There was nothing extraordinary in her look; she had fine
features, I suppose,--I don’t think I know, very well, what fine
features are,--she had white hair, and a pretty cap with soft-coloured
ribbons, and a strange, _studied_, soft-coloured dress. I noticed all
this unconsciously, in the midst of the nervous and startled sensation
that I had in being brought in front of her so suddenly. She put both
her knitting-pins into one hand, and held out the other to me. Then she
bent forward a little, meaning me to kiss her, which I did with much
awe and with no great sensation of pleasure. Her hand was cold, and so
was her cheek. I could scarcely help shrinking away from her touch. Then
she spoke, and I, being quite unprepared for it, was still more
startled. Her voice was a kind of whisper, very strange and unpleasant;
all the s’s came out sharp, with a kind of hiss. I suppose it was
because she was so entirely used to it herself that Aunt Milly never
mentioned it to me.
“So you are Richard Mortimer’s daughter?” she said. “Sit down: I am very
glad to see you. It is I that have been so anxious about finding you for
some time past. But where is your husband? I want him to come as well as
you.”
“He is in the hall. He will be here presently, Sarah,” said Aunt Milly.
“I told Ellis to show him in, and the dear baby, too; but I could not
keep back Milly from you for a moment. I knew you would be anxious to
see her at once.”
“I wish to see her husband too,” said Miss Mortimer. “So your name is
Milly? Because it was our principal family name, I suppose? Your father
was a great man for family matters, because _his_ father was such a
leveller; otherwise I should have thought he would have called you after
me.”
Why, I wondered? but indeed I had very little inclination to speak.
“I want to see your husband particularly. I should like you to live
here. Milly says he is going to the Crimea,” said Miss Mortimer. “I hope
he’s a reasonable man. Why shouldn’t he leave the army at once? _I_ want
him here. You were not the heir to an estate like the Park when he got
orders for the Crimea. I see no reason in the world why he should not
sell out and stay at home.”
I think she went on saying more, but I did not hear her; the great room
swam in my eyes; she seemed all fading away into pale circles. I lost
hold of the chair or something I was standing by. I don’t remember
anything else till I felt some water dashed on my face, and gradually
the pale circles cleared away, and I was in the same room again. I had
no idea what had happened to me. I was lying on a sofa, though, now,
with my face all wet, and a dreadful singing and buzzing in my ears, and
Harry was there. I found out I had fainted. I never did such a thing in
all my life before; how very foolish of me! and just when she was
talking, too, about that--that chance. I caught hold of Harry’s fingers
tight: “Go and speak to her!” I cried out. I could not keep still until
he went, for I could see the screen, and knew she was there.
When he disappeared behind the screen, and when, after a moment, Aunt
Milly followed, always keeping her eyes on me, I lay perfectly still,
grasping my two hands in each other. My mind was all seething up, as if
in a fever, round what she had said. I was conscious of nothing else. I
could not hear what they were saying now for the noise in my ears; but
as I lay still a strange succession of feelings came over me. It was
like so many breezes of wind, each cooler,--nay, I mean colder,--than
the other. First it occurred to me what other people would say of him,
of Harry, whom no one now durst breathe a doubt upon; then I thought of
him fighting with himself for my sake, trying to put down his manhood
and his honour to save breaking his wife’s heart; then I came to myself
last of all. Would I? could I? I groaned aloud in my anguish. Oh,
Russian woman, what would _you_ say? There are plenty to be killed and
sacrificed. Shall we let our children’s fathers go, to be lost in that
smoke and battle? Harry burst out to me from behind the screen when I
was in this darkness. I never saw him look as he looked then. He took my
two hands and cried out in an appeal and remonstrance, “Milly, do _you_
say so?” looking down at me with his eyes all in a blaze. I could not
bear it. I put him away--thrust him away. They say I cried out to God in
my despair. I cannot tell anything that I said but “Go!” Oh, Russian
woman, I wonder if you made up your mind as I did! No, not if it were to
break my heart; we could die, all of us, when the good Lord pleased; but
the good Lord never pleased that one of us should make the other fail.