In a few days Miss Monro obtained a most satisfactory reply to her letter
of inquiries as to whether a daily governess could find employment in
East Chester. For once the application seemed to have come just at the
right time. The canons were most of them married men, with young
families; those at present in residence welcomed the idea of such
instruction as Miss Monro could offer for their children, and could
almost answer for their successors in office. This was a great step
gained. Miss Monro, the daughter of a precentor to this very cathedral,
had a secret unwillingness to being engaged as a teacher by any wealthy
tradesman there; but to be received into the canons' families, in almost
any capacity, was like going home. Moreover, besides the empty honour of
the thing, there were many small pieces of patronage in the gift of the
Chapter--such as a small house opening on to the Close, which had
formerly belonged to the verger, but which was now vacant, and was
offered to Miss Monro at a nominal rent.
Ellinor had once more sunk into her old depressed passive state; Mr. Ness
and Miss Monro, modest and undecided as they both were in general, had to
fix and arrange everything for her. Her great interest seemed to be in
the old servant Dixon, and her great pleasure to lie in seeing him, and
talking over old times; so her two friends talked about her, little
knowing what a bitter, stinging pain her "pleasure" was. In vain Ellinor
tried to plan how they could take Dixon with them to East Chester. If he
had been a woman it would have been a feasible step; but they were only
to keep one servant, and Dixon, capable and versatile as he was, would
not do for that servant. All this was what passed through Ellinor's
mind: it is still a question whether Dixon would have felt his love of
his native place, with all its associations and remembrances, or his love
for Ellinor, the stronger. But he was not put to the proof; he was only
told that he must leave, and seeing Ellinor's extreme grief at the idea
of their separation, he set himself to comfort her by every means in his
power, reminding her, with tender choice of words, how necessary it was
that he should remain on the spot, in Mr. Osbaldistone's service, in
order to frustrate, by any small influence he might have, every project
of alteration in the garden that contained the dreadful secret. He
persisted in this view, though Ellinor repeated, with pertinacious
anxiety, the care which Mr. Johnson had taken, in drawing up the lease,
to provide against any change or alteration being made in the present
disposition of the house or grounds.
People in general were rather astonished at the eagerness Miss Wilkins
showed to sell all the Ford Bank furniture. Even Miss Monro was a little
scandalized at this want of sentiment, although she said nothing about
it; indeed justified the step, by telling every one how wisely Ellinor
was acting, as the large, handsome, tables and chairs would be very much
out of place and keeping with the small, oddly-shaped rooms of their
future home in East Chester Close. None knew how strong was the instinct
of self-preservation, it may almost be called, which impelled Ellinor to
shake off, at any cost of present pain, the incubus of a terrible
remembrance. She wanted to go into an unhaunted dwelling in a free,
unknown country--she felt as if it was her only chance of sanity.
Sometimes she thought her senses would not hold together till the time
when all these arrangements were ended. But she did not speak to any one
about her feelings, poor child; to whom could she speak on the subject
but to Dixon? Nor did she define them to herself. All she knew was,
that she was as nearly going mad as possible; and if she did, she feared
that she might betray her father's guilt. All this time she never cried,
or varied from her dull, passive demeanour. And they were blessed tears
of relief that she shed when Miss Monro, herself weeping bitterly, told
her to put her head out of the post-chaise window, for at the next
turning of the road they would catch the last glimpse of Hamley church
spire.
Late one October evening, Ellinor had her first sight of East Chester
Close, where she was to pass the remainder of her life. Miss Monro had
been backwards and forwards between Hamley and East Chester more than
once, while Ellinor remained at the parsonage; so she had not only the
pride of proprietorship in the whole of the beautiful city, but something
of the desire of hospitably welcoming Ellinor to their joint future home.
"Look! the fly must take us a long round, because of our luggage; but
behind these high old walls are the canons' gardens. That high-pitched
roof, with the clumps of stonecrop on the walls near it, is Canon
Wilson's, whose four little girls I am to teach. Hark! the great
cathedral clock. How proud I used to be of its great boom when I was a
child! I thought all the other church clocks in the town sounded so
shrill and poor after that, which I considered mine especially. There
are rooks flying home to the elms in the Close. I wonder if they are the
same that used to be there when I was a girl. They say the rook is a
very long-lived bird, and I feel as if I could swear to the way they are
cawing. Ay, you may smile, Ellinor, but I understand now those lines of
Gray's you used to say so prettily--
"I feel the gales that from ye blow.
A momentary bliss bestow,
And breathe a second spring."
Now, dear, you must get out. This flagged walk leads to our front-door;
but our back rooms, which are the pleasantest, look on to the Close, and
the cathedral, and the lime-tree walk, and the deanery, and the rookery."
It was a mere slip of a house; the kitchen being wisely placed close to
the front-door, and so reserving the pretty view for the little dining-
room, out of which a glass-door opened into a small walled-in garden,
which had again an entrance into the Close. Upstairs was a bedroom to
the front, which Miss Monro had taken for herself, because as she said,
she had old associations with the back of every house in the High-street,
while Ellinor mounted to the pleasant chamber above the tiny drawing-room
both of which looked on to the vast and solemn cathedral, and the
peaceful dignified Close. East Chester Cathedral is Norman, with a low,
massive tower, a grand, majestic nave, and a choir full of stately
historic tombs. The whole city is so quiet and decorous a place, that
the perpetual daily chants and hymns of praise seemed to sound far and
wide over the roofs of the houses. Ellinor soon became a regular
attendant at all the morning and evening services. The sense of worship
calmed and soothed her aching weary heart, and to be punctual to the
cathedral hours she roused and exerted herself, when probably nothing
else would have been sufficient to this end.
By-and-by Miss Monro formed many acquaintances; she picked up, or was
picked up by, old friends, and the descendants of old friends. The grave
and kindly canons, whose children she taught, called upon her with their
wives, and talked over the former deans and chapters, of whom she had
both a personal and traditional knowledge, and as they walked away and
talked about her silent delicate-looking friend Miss Wilkins, and perhaps
planned some little present out of their fruitful garden or bounteous
stores, which should make Miss Monro's table a little more tempting to
one apparently so frail as Ellinor, for the household was always spoken
of as belonging to Miss Monro, the active and prominent person. By-and-
by, Ellinor herself won her way to their hearts, not by words or deeds,
but by her sweet looks and meek demeanour, as they marked her regular
attendance at cathedral service: and when they heard of her constant
visits to a certain parochial school, and of her being sometimes seen
carrying a little covered basin to the cottages of the poor, they began
to try and tempt her, with more urgent words, to accompany Miss Monro in
her frequent tea-drinkings at their houses. The old dean, that courteous
gentleman and good Christian, had early become great friends with
Ellinor. He would watch at the windows of his great vaulted library till
he saw her emerge from the garden into the Close, and then open the
deanery door, and join her, she softly adjusting the measure of her pace
to his. The time of his departure from East Chester became a great blank
in her life, although she would never accept, or allow Miss Monro to
accept, his repeated invitations to go and pay him a visit at his country-
place. Indeed, having once tasted comparative peace again in East
Chester Cathedral Close, it seemed as though she was afraid of ever
venturing out of those calm precincts. All Mr. Ness's invitations to
visit him at his parsonage at Hamley were declined, although he was
welcomed at Miss Monro's, on the occasion of his annual visit, by every
means in their power. He slept at one of the canon's vacant houses, and
lived with his two friends, who made a yearly festivity, to the best of
their means, in his honour, inviting such of the cathedral clergy as were
in residence: or, if they failed, condescending to the town clergy. Their
friends knew well that no presents were so acceptable as those sent while
Mr. Ness was with them; and from the dean, who would send them a hamper
of choice fruit and flowers from Oxton Park, down to the curate, who
worked in the same schools as Ellinor, and who was a great fisher, and
caught splendid trout--all did their best to help them to give a welcome
to the only visitor they ever had. The only visitor they ever had, as
far as the stately gentry knew. There was one, however, who came as
often as his master could give him a holiday long enough to undertake a
journey to so distant a place; but few knew of his being a guest at Miss
Monro's, though his welcome there was not less hearty than Mr.
Ness's--this was Dixon. Ellinor had convinced him that he could give her
no greater pleasure at any time than by allowing her to frank him to and
from East Chester. Whenever he came they were together the greater part
of the day; she taking him hither and thither to see all the sights that
she thought would interest or please him; but they spoke very little to
each other during all this companionship. Miss Monro had much more to
say to him. She questioned him right and left whenever Ellinor was out
of the room. She learnt that the house at Ford Bank was splendidly
furnished, and no money spared on the garden; that the eldest Miss
Hanbury was very well married; that Brown had succeeded to Jones in the
haberdasher's shop. Then she hesitated a little before making her next
inquiry:
"I suppose Mr. Corbet never comes to the Parsonage now?"
"No, not he. I don't think as how Mr. Ness would have him; but they
write letters to each other by times. Old Job--you'll recollect old Job,
ma'am, he that gardened for Mr Ness, and waited in the parlour when there
was company--did say as one day he heerd them speaking about Mr. Corbet;
and he's a grand counsellor now--one of them as goes about at
assize-time, and speaks in a wig."
"A barrister, you mean," said Miss Monro.
"Ay; and he's something more than that, though I can't rightly remember
what,"
Ellinor could have told them both. They had _The Times_ lent to them on
the second day after publication by one of their friends in the Close,
and Ellinor, watching till Miss Monro's eyes were otherwise engaged,
always turned with trembling hands and a beating heart to the reports of
the various courts of law. In them she found--at first rarely--the name
she sought for, the name she dwelt upon, as if every letter were a study.
Mr. Losh and Mr. Duncombe appeared for the plaintiff, Mr. Smythe and Mr.
Corbet for the defendant. In a year or two that name appeared more
frequently, and generally took the precedence of the other, whatever it
might be; then on special occasions his speeches were reported at full
length, as if his words were accounted weighty; and by-and-by she saw
that he had been appointed a Queen's counsel. And this was all she ever
heard or saw about him; his once familiar name never passed her lips
except in hurried whispers to Dixon, when he came to stay with them.
Ellinor had had no idea when she parted from Mr. Corbet how total the
separation between them was henceforward to be, so much seemed left
unfinished, unexplained. It was so difficult, at first, to break herself
of the habit of constant mental reference to him; and for many a long
year she kept thinking that surely some kind fortune would bring them
together again, and all this heart-sickness and melancholy estrangement
from each other would then seem to both only as an ugly dream that had
passed away in the morning light.
The dean was an old man, but there was a canon who was older still, and
whose death had been expected by many, and speculated upon by some, any
time for ten years at least. Canon Holdsworth was too old to show active
kindness to any one; the good dean's life was full of thoughtful and
benevolent deeds. But he was taken, and the other left. Ellinor looked
out at the vacant deanery with tearful eyes, the last thing at night, the
first in the morning. But it is pretty nearly the same with church
dignitaries as with kings; the dean is dead, long live the dean! A
clergyman from a distant county was appointed, and all the Close was
astir to learn and hear every particular connected with him. Luckily he
came in at the tag-end of one of the noble families in the peerage; so,
at any rate, all his future associates could learn with tolerable
certainty that he was forty-two years of age, married, and with eight
daughters and one son. The deanery, formerly so quiet and sedate a
dwelling of the one old man, was now to be filled with noise and
merriment. Iron railings were being placed before three windows,
evidently to be the nursery. In the summer publicity of open windows and
doors, the sound of the busy carpenters was perpetually heard all over
the Close: and by-and-by waggon-loads of furniture and carriage-loads of
people began to arrive. Neither Miss Monro nor Ellinor felt themselves
of sufficient importance or station to call on the new comers, but they
were as well acquainted with the proceedings of the family as if they had
been in daily intercourse; they knew that the eldest Miss Beauchamp was
seventeen, and very pretty, only one shoulder was higher than the other;
that she was dotingly fond of dancing, and talked a great deal in a _tete-
a-tete_, but not much if her mamma was by, and never opened her lips at
all if the dean was in the room; that the next sister was wonderfully
clever, and was supposed to know all the governess could teach her, and
to have private lessons in Greek and mathematics from her father; and so
on down to the little boy at the preparatory school and the baby-girl in
arms. Moreover, Miss Monro, at any rate, could have stood an examination
as to the number of servants at the deanery, their division of work, and
the hours of their meals. Presently, a very beautiful, haughty-looking
young lady made her appearance in the Close, and in the dean's pew. She
was said to be his niece, the orphan daughter of his brother, General
Beauchamp, come to East Chester to reside for the necessary time before
her marriage, which was to be performed in the cathedral by her uncle,
the new dignitary. But as callers at the deanery did not see this
beautiful bride elect, and as the Beauchamps had not as yet fallen into
habits of intimacy with any of their new acquaintances, very little was
known of the circumstances of this approaching wedding beyond the
particulars given above.
Ellinor and Miss Monro sat at their drawing-room window, a little shaded
by the muslin curtains, watching the busy preparations for the marriage,
which was to take place the next day. All morning long, hampers of fruit
and flowers, boxes from the railway--for by this time East Chester had
got a railway--shop messengers, hired assistants, kept passing backwards
and forwards in the busy Close. Towards afternoon the bustle subsided,
the scaffolding was up, the materials for the next day's feast carried
out of sight. It was to be concluded that the bride elect was seeing to
the packing of her trousseau, helped by the merry multitude of cousins,
and that the servants were arranging the dinner for the day, or the
breakfast for the morrow. So Miss Monro had settled it, discussing every
detail and every probability as though she were a chief actor, instead of
only a distant, uncared-for spectator of the coming event. Ellinor was
tired, and now that there was nothing interesting going on, she had
fallen back to her sewing, when she was startled by Miss Memo's
exclamation:
"Look, look! here are two gentlemen coming along the lime-tree walk! it
must be the bridegroom and his friend." Out of much sympathy, and some
curiosity, Ellinor bent forward, and saw, just emerging from the shadow
of the trees on to the full afternoon sunlit pavement, Mr. Corbet and
another gentleman; the former changed, worn, aged, though with still the
same fine intellectual face, leaning on the arm of the younger taller
man, and talking eagerly. The other gentleman was doubtless the
bridegroom, Ellinor said to herself; and yet her prophetic heart did not
believe her words. Even before the bright beauty at the deanery looked
out of the great oriel window of the drawing-room, and blushed, and
smiled, and kissed her hand--a gesture replied to by Mr. Corbet with much
_empressement_, while the other man only took off his hat, almost as if
he saw her there for the first time--Ellinor's greedy eyes watched him
till he was hidden from sight in the deanery, unheeding Miss Monro's
eager incoherent sentences, in turn entreating, apologising, comforting,
and upbraiding. Then she slowly turned her painful eyes upon Miss
Monro's face, and moved her lips without a sound being heard, and fainted
dead away. In all her life she had never done so before, and when she
came round she was not like herself; in all probability the persistence
and wilfulness she, who was usually so meek and docile, showed during the
next twenty-four hours, was the consequence of fever. She resolved to be
present at the wedding; numbers were going; she would be unseen,
unnoticed in the crowd; but whatever befell, go she would, and neither
the tears nor the prayers of Miss Monro could keep her back. She gave no
reason for this determination; indeed, in all probability she had none to
give; so there was no arguing the point. She was inflexible to entreaty,
and no one had any authority over her, except, perhaps, distant Mr. Ness.
Miss Monro had all sorts of forebodings as to the possible scenes that
might come to pass. But all went on as quietly as though the fullest
sympathy pervaded every individual of the great numbers assembled. No
one guessed that the muffled, veiled figure, sitting in the shadow behind
one of the great pillars, was that of one who had once hoped to stand at
the altar with the same bridegroom, who now cast tender looks at the
beautiful bride; her veil white and fairy-like, Ellinor's black and
shrouding as that of any nun.
Already Mr. Corbet's name was known through the country as that of a
great lawyer; people discussed his speeches and character far and wide;
and the well-informed in legal gossip spoke of him as sure to be offered
a judgeship at the next vacancy. So he, though grave, and middle-aged,
and somewhat grey, divided attention and remark with his lovely bride,
and her pretty train of cousin bridesmaids. Miss Monro need not have
feared for Ellinor: she saw and heard all things as in a mist--a dream;
as something she had to go through, before she could waken up to a
reality of brightness in which her youth, and the hopes of her youth,
should be restored, and all these weary years of dreaminess and woe
should be revealed as nothing but the nightmare of a night. She sat
motionless enough, still enough, Miss Monro by her, watching her as
intently as a keeper watches a madman, and with the same purpose--to
prevent any outburst even by bodily strength, if such restraint be
needed. When all was over; when the principal personages of the ceremony
had filed into the vestry to sign their names; when the swarm of
townspeople were going out as swiftly as their individual notions of the
restraints of the sacred edifice permitted; when the great chords of the
"Wedding March" clanged out from the organ, and the loud bells pealed
overhead--Ellinor laid her hand in Miss Monro's. "Take me home," she
said softly. And Miss Monro led her home as one leads the blind.