HAPPY DAYS
And now Philip seemed as prosperous as his heart could desire. The
business flourished, and money beyond his moderate wants came in. As
for himself he required very little; but he had always looked
forward to placing his idol in a befitting shrine; and means for
this were now furnished to him. The dress, the comforts, the
position he had desired for Sylvia were all hers. She did not need
to do a stroke of household work if she preferred to 'sit in her
parlour and sew up a seam'. Indeed Phoebe resented any interference
in the domestic labour, which she had performed so long, that she
looked upon the kitchen as a private empire of her own. 'Mrs
Hepburn' (as Sylvia was now termed) had a good dark silk gown-piece
in her drawers, as well as the poor dove-coloured, against the day
when she chose to leave off mourning; and stuff for either gray or
scarlet cloaks was hers at her bidding.
What she cared for far more were the comforts with which it was in
her power to surround her mother. In this Philip vied with her; for
besides his old love, and new pity for his aunt Bell, he never
forgot how she had welcomed him to Haytersbank, and favoured his
love to Sylvia, in the yearning days when he little hoped he should
ever win his cousin to be his wife. But even if he had not had these
grateful and affectionate feelings towards the poor woman, he would
have done much for her if only to gain the sweet, rare smiles which
his wife never bestowed upon him so freely as when she saw him
attending to 'mother,' for so both of them now called Bell. For her
creature comforts, her silk gowns, and her humble luxury, Sylvia did
not care; Philip was almost annoyed at the indifference she often
manifested to all his efforts to surround her with such things. It
was even a hardship to her to leave off her country dress, her
uncovered hair, her linsey petticoat, and loose bed-gown, and to don
a stiff and stately gown for her morning dress. Sitting in the dark
parlour at the back of the shop, and doing 'white work,' was much
more wearying to her than running out into the fields to bring up
the cows, or spinning wool, or making up butter. She sometimes
thought to herself that it was a strange kind of life where there
were no out-door animals to look after; the 'ox and the ass' had
hitherto come into all her ideas of humanity; and her care and
gentleness had made the dumb creatures round her father's home into
mute friends with loving eyes, looking at her as if wistful to speak
in words the grateful regard that she could read without the poor
expression of language.
She missed the free open air, the great dome of sky above the
fields; she rebelled against the necessity of 'dressing' (as she
called it) to go out, although she acknowledged that it was a
necessity where the first step beyond the threshold must be into a
populous street.
It is possible that Philip was right at one time when he had thought
to win her by material advantages; but the old vanities had been
burnt out of her by the hot iron of acute suffering. A great deal of
passionate feeling still existed, concealed and latent; but at this
period it appeared as though she were indifferent to most things,
and had lost the power of either hoping or fearing much. She was
stunned into a sort of temporary numbness on most points; those on
which she was sensitive being such as referred to the injustice and
oppression of her father's death, or anything that concerned her
mother.
She was quiet even to passiveness in all her dealings with Philip;
he would have given not a little for some of the old bursts of
impatience, the old pettishness, which, naughty as they were, had
gone to form his idea of the former Sylvia. Once or twice he was
almost vexed with her for her docility; he wanted her so much to
have a will of her own, if only that he might know how to rouse her
to pleasure by gratifying it. Indeed he seldom fell asleep at nights
without his last thoughts being devoted to some little plan for the
morrow, that he fancied she would like; and when he wakened in the
early dawn he looked to see if she were indeed sleeping by his side,
or whether it was not all a dream that he called Sylvia 'wife.'
He was aware that her affection for him was not to be spoken of in
the same way as his for her, but he found much happiness in only
being allowed to love and cherish her; and with the patient
perseverance that was one remarkable feature in his character, he
went on striving to deepen and increase her love when most other men
would have given up the endeavour, made themselves content with half
a heart, and turned to some other object of attainment. All this
time Philip was troubled by a dream that recurred whenever he was
over-fatigued, or otherwise not in perfect health. Over and over
again in this first year of married life he dreamt this dream;
perhaps as many as eight or nine times, and it never varied. It was
always of Kinraid's return; Kinraid was full of life in Philip's
dream, though in his waking hours he could and did convince himself
by all the laws of probability that his rival was dead. He never
remembered the exact sequence of events in that terrible dream after
he had roused himself, with a fight and a struggle, from his
feverish slumbers. He was generally sitting up in bed when he found
himself conscious, his heart beating wildly, with a conviction of
Kinraid's living presence somewhere near him in the darkness.
Occasionally Sylvia was disturbed by his agitation, and would
question him about his dreams, having, like most of her class at
that time, great faith in their prophetic interpretation; but Philip
never gave her any truth in his reply.
After all, and though he did not acknowledge it even to himself, the
long-desired happiness was not so delicious and perfect as he had
anticipated. Many have felt the same in their first year of married
life; but the faithful, patient nature that still works on, striving
to gain love, and capable itself of steady love all the while, is a
gift not given to all.
For many weeks after their wedding, Kester never came near them: a
chance word or two from Sylvia showed Philip that she had noticed
this and regretted it; and, accordingly, he made it his business at
the next leisure opportunity to go to Haytersbank (never saying a
word to his wife of his purpose), and seek out Kester.
All the whole place was altered! It was new white-washed, new
thatched: the patches of colour in the surrounding ground were
changed with altered tillage; the great geraniums were gone from the
window, and instead, was a smart knitted blind. Children played
before the house-door; a dog lying on the step flew at Philip; all
was so strange, that it was even the strangest thing of all for
Kester to appear where everything else was so altered!
Philip had to put up with a good deal of crabbed behaviour on the
part of the latter before he could induce Kester to promise to come
down into the town and see Sylvia in her new home.
Somehow, the visit when paid was but a failure; at least, it seemed
so at the time, though probably it broke the ice of restraint which
was forming over the familiar intercourse between Kester and Sylvia.
The old servant was daunted by seeing Sylvia in a strange place, and
stood, sleeking his hair down, and furtively looking about him,
instead of seating himself on the chair Sylvia had so eagerly
brought forward for him.
Then his sense of the estrangement caused by their new positions
infected her, and she began to cry pitifully, saying,--
'Oh, Kester! Kester! tell me about Haytersbank! Is it just as it
used to be in feyther's days?'
'Well, a cannot say as it is,' said Kester, thankful to have a
subject started. 'They'n pleughed up t' oud pasture-field, and are
settin' it for 'taters. They're not for much cattle, isn't
Higginses. They'll be for corn in t' next year, a reckon, and
they'll just ha' their pains for their payment. But they're allays
so pig-headed, is folk fra' a distance.'
So they went on discoursing on Haytersbank and the old days, till
Bell Robson, having finished her afternoon nap, came slowly
down-stairs to join them; and after that the conversation became so
broken up, from the desire of the other two to attend and reply as
best they could to her fragmentary and disjointed talk, that Kester
took his leave before long; falling, as he did so, into the formal
and unnaturally respectful manner which he had adopted on first
coming in.
But Sylvia ran after him, and brought him back from the door.
'To think of thy going away, Kester, without either bit or drink;
nay, come back wi' thee, and taste wine and cake.'
Kester stood at the door, half shy, half pleased, while Sylvia, in
all the glow and hurry of a young housekeeper's hospitality, sought
for the decanter of wine, and a wine-glass in the corner cupboard,
and hastily cut an immense wedge of cake, which she crammed into his
hand in spite of his remonstrances; and then she poured him out an
overflowing glass of wine, which Kester would far rather have gone
without, as he knew manners too well to suppose that he might taste
it without having gone through the preliminary ceremony of wishing
the donor health and happiness. He stood red and half smiling, with
his cake in one hand, his wine in the other, and then began,--
'Long may ye live,
Happy may ye he,
And blest with a num'rous
Pro-ge-ny.'
'Theere, that's po'try for yo' as I larnt i' my youth. But there's a
deal to be said as cannot be put int' po'try, an' yet a cannot say
it, somehow. It 'd tax a parson t' say a' as a've getten i' my mind.
It's like a heap o' woo' just after shearin' time; it's worth a
deal, but it tak's a vast o' combin', an' cardin', an' spinnin'
afore it can be made use on. If a were up to t' use o' words, a
could say a mighty deal; but somehow a'm tongue-teed when a come to
want my words most, so a'll only just mak' bold t' say as a think
yo've done pretty well for yo'rsel', getten a house-full o'
furniture' (looking around him as he said this), 'an' vittle an'
clothin' for t' axing, belike, an' a home for t' missus in her time
o' need; an' mebbe not such a bad husband as a once thought yon man
'ud mak'; a'm not above sayin' as he's, mebbe, better nor a took him
for;--so here's to ye both, and wishin' ye health and happiness, ay,
and money to buy yo' another, as country folk say.'
Having ended his oration, much to his own satisfaction, Kester
tossed off his glass of wine, smacked his lips, wiped his mouth with
the back of his hand, pocketed his cake, and made off.
That night Sylvia spoke of his visit to her husband. Philip never
said how he himself had brought it to pass, nor did he name the fact
that he had heard the old man come in just as he himself had
intended going into the parlour for tea, but had kept away, as he
thought Sylvia and Kester would most enjoy their interview
undisturbed. And Sylvia felt as if her husband's silence was
unsympathizing, and shut up the feelings that were just beginning to
expand towards him. She sank again into the listless state of
indifference from which nothing but some reference to former days,
or present consideration for her mother, could rouse her.
Hester was almost surprised at Sylvia's evident liking for her. By
slow degrees Hester was learning to love the woman, whose position
as Philip's wife she would have envied so keenly had she not been so
truly good and pious. But Sylvia seemed as though she had given
Hester her whole affection all at once. Hester could not understand
this, while she was touched and melted by the trust it implied. For
one thing Sylvia remembered and regretted--her harsh treatment of
Hester the rainy, stormy night on which the latter had come to
Haytersbank to seek her and her mother, and bring them into
Monkshaven to see the imprisoned father and husband. Sylvia had been
struck with Hester's patient endurance of her rudeness, a rudeness
which she was conscious that she herself should have immediately and
vehemently resented. Sylvia did not understand how a totally
different character from hers might immediately forgive the anger
she could not forget; and because Hester had been so meek at the
time, Sylvia, who knew how passing and transitory was her own anger,
thought that all was forgotten; while Hester believed that the
words, which she herself could not have uttered except under deep
provocation, meant much more than they did, and admired and wondered
at Sylvia for having so entirely conquered her anger against her.
Again, the two different women were divergently affected by the
extreme fondness which Bell had shown towards Hester ever since
Sylvia's wedding-day. Sylvia, who had always received more love from
others than she knew what to do with, had the most entire faith in
her own supremacy in her mother's heart, though at times Hester
would do certain things more to the poor old woman's satisfaction.
Hester, who had craved for the affection which had been withheld
from her, and had from that one circumstance become distrustful of
her own power of inspiring regard, while she exaggerated the delight
of being beloved, feared lest Sylvia should become jealous of her
mother's open display of great attachment and occasional preference
for Hester. But such a thought never entered Sylvia's mind. She was
more thankful than she knew how to express towards any one who made
her mother happy; as has been already said, the contributing to Bell
Robson's pleasures earned Philip more of his wife's smiles than
anything else. And Sylvia threw her whole heart into the words and
caresses she lavished on Hester whenever poor Mrs. Robson spoke of
the goodness and kindness of the latter. Hester attributed more
virtue to these sweet words and deeds of gratitude than they
deserved; they did not imply in Sylvia any victory over evil
temptation, as they would have done in Hester.
It seemed to be Sylvia's fate to captivate more people than she
cared to like back again. She turned the heads of John and Jeremiah
Foster, who could hardly congratulate Philip enough on his choice of
a wife.
They had been prepared to be critical on one who had interfered with
their favourite project of a marriage between Philip and Hester;
and, though full of compassion for the cruelty of Daniel Robson's
fate, they were too completely men of business not to have some
apprehension that the connection of Philip Hepburn with the daughter
of a man who was hanged, might injure the shop over which both his
and their name appeared. But all the possible proprieties demanded
that they should pay attention to the bride of their former shopman
and present successor; and the very first visitors whom Sylvia had
received after her marriage had been John and Jeremiah Foster, in
their sabbath-day clothes. They found her in the parlour (so
familiar to both of them!) clear-starching her mother's caps, which
had to be got up in some particular fashion that Sylvia was afraid
of dictating to Phoebe.
She was a little disturbed at her visitors discovering her at this
employment; but she was on her own ground, and that gave her
self-possession; and she welcomed the two old men so sweetly and
modestly, and looked so pretty and feminine, and, besides, so
notable in her handiwork, that she conquered all their prejudices at
one blow; and their first thought on leaving the shop was how to do
her honour, by inviting her to a supper party at Jeremiah Foster's
house.
Sylvia was dismayed when she was bidden to this wedding feast, and
Philip had to use all his authority, though tenderly, to make her
consent to go at all. She had been to merry country parties like the
Corneys', and to bright haymaking romps in the open air; but never
to a set stately party at a friend's house.
She would fain have made attendance on her mother an excuse; but
Philip knew he must not listen to any such plea, and applied to
Hester in the dilemma, asking her to remain with Mrs. Robson while he
and Sylvia went out visiting; and Hester had willingly, nay, eagerly
consented--it was much more to her taste than going out.
So Philip and Sylvia set out, arm-in-arm, down Bridge Street, across
the bridge, and then clambered up the hill. On the way he gave her
the directions she asked for about her behaviour as bride and most
honoured guest; and altogether succeeded, against his intention and
will, in frightening her so completely as to the grandeur and
importance of the occasion, and the necessity of remembering certain
set rules, and making certain set speeches and attending to them
when the right time came, that, if any one so naturally graceful
could have been awkward, Sylvia would have been so that night.
As it was, she sate, pale and weary-looking, on the very edge of her
chair; she uttered the formal words which Philip had told her were
appropriate to the occasion, and she heartily wished herself safe at
home and in bed. Yet she left but one unanimous impression on the
company when she went away, namely, that she was the prettiest and
best-behaved woman they had ever seen, and that Philip Hepburn had
done well in choosing her, felon's daughter though she might be.
Both the hosts had followed her into the lobby to help Philip in
cloaking her, and putting on her pattens. They were full of
old-fashioned compliments and good wishes; one speech of theirs came
up to her memory in future years:--
'Now, Sylvia Hepburn,' said Jeremiah, 'I've known thy husband long,
and I don't say but what thou hast done well in choosing him; but if
he ever neglects or ill-uses thee, come to me, and I'll give him a
sound lecture on his conduct. Mind, I'm thy friend from this day
forrards, and ready to take thy part against him!'
Philip smiled as if the day would never come when he should neglect
or ill-use his darling; Sylvia smiled a little, without much
attending to, or caring for, the words that were detaining her,
tired as she was; John and Jeremiah chuckled over the joke; but the
words came up again in after days, as words idly spoken sometimes
do.
Before the end of that first year, Philip had learnt to be jealous
of his wife's new love for Hester. To the latter, Sylvia gave the
free confidence on many things which Philip fancied she withheld
from him. A suspicion crossed his mind, from time to time, that
Sylvia might speak of her former lover to Hester. It would be not
unnatural, he thought, if she did so, believing him to be dead; but
the idea irritated him.
He was entirely mistaken, however; Sylvia, with all her apparent
frankness, kept her deep sorrows to herself. She never mentioned her
father's name, though he was continually present to her mind. Nor
did she speak of Kinraid to human being, though, for his sake, her
voice softened when, by chance, she spoke to a passing sailor; and
for his sake her eyes lingered on such men longer than on others,
trying to discover in them something of the old familiar gait; and
partly for his dead sake, and partly because of the freedom of the
outlook and the freshness of the air, she was glad occasionally to
escape from the comfortable imprisonment of her 'parlour', and the
close streets around the market-place, and to mount the cliffs and
sit on the turf, gazing abroad over the wide still expanse of the
open sea; for, at that height, even breaking waves only looked like
broken lines of white foam on the blue watery plain.
She did not want any companion on these rambles, which had somewhat
of the delight of stolen pleasures; for all the other respectable
matrons and town-dwellers whom she knew were content to have always
a business object for their walk, or else to stop at home in their
own households; and Sylvia was rather ashamed of her own yearnings
for solitude and open air, and the sight and sound of the
mother-like sea. She used to take off her hat, and sit there, her
hands clasping her knees, the salt air lifting her bright curls,
gazing at the distant horizon over the sea, in a sad dreaminess of
thought; if she had been asked on what she meditated, she could not
have told you.
But, by-and-by, the time came when she was a prisoner in the house;
a prisoner in her room, lying in bed with a little baby by her
side--her child, Philip's child. His pride, his delight knew no
bounds; this was a new fast tie between them; this would reconcile
her to the kind of life that, with all its respectability and
comfort, was so different from what she had lived before, and which
Philip had often perceived that she felt to be dull and restraining.
He already began to trace in the little girl, only a few days old,
the lovely curves that he knew so well by heart in the mother's
face. Sylvia, too, pale, still, and weak, was very happy; yes,
really happy for the first time since her irrevocable marriage. For
its irrevocableness had weighed much upon her with a sense of dull
hopelessness; she felt all Philip's kindness, she was grateful to
him for his tender regard towards her mother, she was learning to
love him as well as to like and respect him. She did not know what
else she could have done but marry so true a friend, and she and her
mother so friendless; but, at the same time, it was like lead on her
morning spirits when she awoke and remembered that the decision was
made, the dead was done, the choice taken which comes to most people
but once in their lives. Now the little baby came in upon this state
of mind like a ray of sunlight into a gloomy room.
Even her mother was rejoiced and proud; even with her crazed brain
and broken heart, the sight of sweet, peaceful infancy brought light
to her. All the old ways of holding a baby, of hushing it to sleep,
of tenderly guarding its little limbs from injury, came back, like
the habits of her youth, to Bell; and she was never so happy or so
easy in her mind, or so sensible and connected in her ideas, as when
she had Sylvia's baby in her arms.
It was a pretty sight to see, however familiar to all of us such
things may be--the pale, worn old woman, in her quaint,
old-fashioned country dress, holding the little infant on her knees,
looking at its open, unspeculative eyes, and talking the little
language to it as though it could understand; the father on his
knees, kept prisoner by a small, small finger curled round his
strong and sinewy one, and gazing at the tiny creature with
wondering idolatry; the young mother, fair, pale, and smiling,
propped up on pillows in order that she, too, might see the
wonderful babe; it was astonishing how the doctor could come and go
without being drawn into the admiring vortex, and look at this baby
just as if babies came into the world every day.
'Philip,' said Sylvia, one night, as he sate as still as a mouse in
her room, imagining her to be asleep. He was by her bed-side in a
moment.
'I've been thinking what she's to be called. Isabella, after mother;
and what were yo'r mother's name?'
'Margaret,' said he.
'Margaret Isabella; Isabella Margaret. Mother's called Bell. She
might be called Bella.'
'I could ha' wished her to be called after thee.'
She made a little impatient movement.
'Nay; Sylvia's not a lucky name. Best be called after thy mother and
mine. And I want for to ask Hester to be godmother.'
'Anything thou likes, sweetheart. Shall we call her Rose, after
Hester Rose?'
'No, no!' said Sylvia; 'she mun be called after my mother, or thine,
or both. I should like her to be called Bella, after mother, because
she's so fond of baby.'
'Anything to please thee, darling.'
'Don't say that as if it didn't signify; there's a deal in having a
pretty name,' said Sylvia, a little annoyed. 'I ha' allays hated
being called Sylvia. It were after father's mother, Sylvia Steele.'
'I niver thought any name in a' the world so sweet and pretty as
Sylvia,' said Philip, fondly; but she was too much absorbed in her
own thoughts to notice either his manner or his words.
'There, yo'll not mind if it is Bella, because yo' see my mother is
alive to be pleased by its being named after her, and Hester may be
godmother, and I'll ha' t' dove-coloured silk as yo' gave me afore
we were married made up into a cloak for it to go to church in.'
'I got it for thee,' said Philip, a little disappointed. 'It'll be
too good for the baby.'
'Eh! but I'm so careless, I should be spilling something on it? But
if thou got it for me I cannot find i' my heart for t' wear it on
baby, and I'll have it made into a christening gown for mysel'. But
I'll niver feel at my ease in it, for fear of spoiling it.'
'Well! an' if thou does spoil it, love, I'll get thee another. I
make account of riches only for thee; that I may be able to get thee
whativer thou's a fancy for, for either thysel', or thy mother.'
She lifted her pale face from her pillow, and put up her lips to
kiss him for these words.
Perhaps on that day Philip reached the zenith of his life's
happiness.