A STUPID CHAPTER.
Before proceeding with my own story, I must mention that my father took
every means in his power to find out something about the woman and the gang
of gypsies to which she appeared to belong. I believe he had no definite
end in view further than the desire to be able at some future time to enter
into such relations with her, for her own and her daughter's sake,--if,
indeed, Theodora were her daughter,--as might be possible. But, the very
next day, he found that they had already vanished from the place; and all
the inquiries he set on foot, by means of friends and through the country
constabulary, were of no avail. I believe he was dissatisfied with himself
in what had occurred, thinking he ought to have laid himself out at the
time to discover whether she was indeed the mother, and, in that case, to
do for her what he could. Probably, had he done so, he would only have
heaped difficulty upon difficulty; but, as it was, if he was saved from
trouble, he was not delivered from uneasiness. Clearly, however, the child
must not be exposed to the danger of the repetition of the attempt; and the
whole household was now so fully alive to the necessity of not losing sight
of her for a moment, that her danger was far less than it had been at any
time before.
I continued at the Hall for six weeks, during which my husband came several
times to see me; and, at the close of that period, took me back with him
to my dear little home. The rooms, all but the study, looked very small
after those I had left; but I felt, notwithstanding, that the place was
my home. I was at first a little ashamed of the feeling; for why should I
be anywhere more at home than in the house of such parents as mine? But I
presume there is a certain amount of the queenly element in every woman, so
that she cannot feel perfectly at ease without something to govern, however
small and however troublesome her queendom may be. At my father's, I had
every ministration possible, and all comforts in profusion; but I had no
responsibilities, and no rule; so that sometimes I could not help feeling
as if I was idle, although I knew I was not to blame. Besides, I could not
be at all sure that my big bear was properly attended to; and the knowledge
that he was the most independent of comforts of all the men I had ever come
into any relation with, made me only feel the more anxious that he should
not be left to his own neglect. For although my father, for instance, was
ready to part with any thing, even to a favorite volume, if the good reason
of another's need showed itself, he was not at all indifferent in his own
person to being comfortable. One with his intense power of enjoying the
gentleness of the universe could not be so. Hence it was always easy to
make him a little present; whereas I have still to rack my brains for weeks
before my bear's birthday comes round, to think of something that will
in itself have a chance of giving him pleasure. Of course, it would be
comparatively easy if I had plenty of money to spare, and hadn't "to muddle
it all away" in paying butchers and bakers, and such like people.
So home I went, to be queen again. Friends came to see me, but I returned
few of their calls. I liked best to sit in my bedroom. I would have
preferred sitting in my wonderful little room off the study, and I tried
that first; but, the same morning, somebody called on Percivale, and
straightway I felt myself a prisoner. The moment I heard the strange voice
through the door, I wanted to get out, and could not, of course. Such a
risk I would not run again. And when Percivale asked me, the next day, if
I would not go down with him, I told him I could not bear the feeling of
confinement it gave me.
"I did mean," he said, "to have had a door made into the garden for you,
and I consulted an architect friend on the subject; but he soon satisfied
me it would make the room much too cold for you, and so I was compelled to
give up the thought."
"You dear!" I said. That was all; but it was enough for Percivale, who
never bothered me, as I have heard of husbands doing, for demonstrations
either of gratitude or affection. Such must be of the mole-eyed sort, who
can only read large print. So I betook myself to my chamber, and there sat
and worked; for I did a good deal of needle-work now, although I had never
been fond of it as a girl. The constant recurrence of similar motions of
the fingers, one stitch just the same as another in countless repetition,
varied only by the bother when the thread grew short and would slip out of
the eye of the needle, and yet not short enough to be exchanged with still
more bother for one too long, had been so wearisome to me in former days,
that I spent half my pocket-money in getting the needle-work done for me
which my mother and sister did for themselves. For this my father praised
me, and my mother tried to scold me, and couldn't. But now it was all so
different! Instead of toiling at plain stitching and hemming and sewing,
I seemed to be working a bit of lovely tapestry all the time,--so many
thoughts and so many pictures went weaving themselves into the work; while
every little bit finished appeared so much of the labor of the universe
actually done,--accomplished, ended: for the first time in my life, I began
to feel myself of consequence enough to be taken care of. I remember
once laying down the little--what I was working at--but I am growing too
communicative and important.
My father used often to say that the commonest things in the world were
the loveliest,--sky and water and grass and such; now I found that the
commonest feelings of humanity--for what feelings could be commoner than
those which now made me blessed amongst women?--are those that are fullest
of the divine. Surely this looks as if there were a God of the whole
earth,--as if the world existed in the very foundations of its history
and continuance by the immediate thought of a causing thought. For simply
because the life of the world was moving on towards its unseen goal, and
I knew it and had a helpless share in it, I felt as if God was with me. I
do not say I always felt like this,--far from it: there were times when
life itself seemed vanishing in an abyss of nothingness, when all my
consciousness consisted in this, that I knew I was _not_, and when I could
not believe that I should ever be restored to the well-being of existence.
The worst of it was, that, in such moods, it seemed as if I had hitherto
been deluding myself with rainbow fancies as often as I had been aware
of blessedness, as there was, in fact, no wine of life apart from its
effervescence. But when one day I told Percivale--not while I was thus
oppressed, for then I could not speak; but in a happier moment whose
happiness I mistrusted--something of what I felt, he said one thing which
has comforted me ever since in such circumstances:--
"Don't grumble at the poverty, darling, by which another is made rich."
I confess I did not see all at once what he meant; but I did after thinking
over it for a while. And if I have learned any valuable lesson in my life,
it is this, that no one's feelings are a measure of eternal facts.
The winter passed slowly away,--fog, rain, frost, snow, thaw, succeeding
one another in all the seeming disorder of the season. A good many things
happened, I believe; but I don't remember any of them. My mother wrote,
offering me Dora for a companion; but somehow I preferred being without
her. One great comfort was good news about Connie, who was getting on
famously. But even this moved me so little that I began to think I was
turning into a crab, utterly incased in the shell of my own selfishness.
The thought made me cry. The fact that I could cry consoled me, for how
could I be heartless so long as I could cry? But then came the thought it
was for myself, my own hard-heartedness I was crying,--not certainly for
joy that Connie was getting better. "At least, however," I said to myself,
"I am not content to be selfish. I am a little troubled that I am not
good." And then I tried to look up, and get my needlework, which always did
me good, by helping me to reflect. It is, I can't help thinking, a great
pity that needlework is going so much out of fashion; for it tends more to
make a woman--one who thinks, that is--acquainted with herself than all the
sermons she is ever likely to hear.
My father came to see me several times, and was all himself to me; but
I could not feel quite comfortable with him,--I don't in the least know
why. I am afraid, much afraid, it indicates something very wrong in me
somewhere. But he seemed to understand me; and always, the moment he
left me, the tide of confidence began to flow afresh in the ocean that
lay about the little island of my troubles. Then I knew he was my own
father,--something that even my husband could not be, and would not wish to
be to me.
In the month of March, my mother came to see me; and that was all pleasure.
My father did not always see when I was not able to listen to him, though
he was most considerate when he did; but my mother--why, to be with her was
like being with one's own--_mother_, I was actually going to write. There
is nothing better than that when a woman is in such trouble, except it
be--what my father knows more about than I do: I wish I did know _all_
about it.
She brought with her a young woman to take the place of cook, or rather
general servant, in our little household. She had been kitchen-maid in a
small family of my mother's acquaintance, and had a good character for
honesty and plain cooking. Percivale's more experienced ear soon discovered
that she was Irish. This fact had not been represented to my mother; for
the girl had been in England from childhood, and her mistress seemed
either not to have known it, or not to have thought of mentioning it.
Certainly, my mother was far too just to have allowed it to influence her
choice, notwithstanding the prejudices against Irish women in English
families,--prejudices not without a general foundation in reason. For my
part, I should have been perfectly satisfied with my mother's choice, even
if I had not been so indifferent at the time to all that was going on in
the lower regions of the house. But while my mother was there, I knew well
enough that nothing could go wrong; and my housekeeping mind had never been
so much at ease since we were married. It was very delightful not to
be accountable; and, for the present, I felt exonerated from all
responsibilities.