MARIAN.
The little child who was so long prayed for, and who came at last in
answer to James Ashurst's fervent prayers, had nothing during her
childhood to distinguish her from ordinary children. It is scarcely
worthy of record that her mother had a hundred anecdotes illustrative
of her precocity, of her difference from other infants, of certain
peculiarities never before noticed in a child of tender years. All
mothers say these things whether they believe them or not, and Mrs.
Ashurst, stretched on her sick-couch, did believe them, and found in
watching what she believed to be the abnormal gambols of her child, a
certain relief from the constant, dreary, wearing pain which sapped
her strength, and rendered her life void and colourless and
unsatisfactory. James Ashurst believed them fervently; even if they
had required a greater amount of credulity than that which he was
blessed with, he, knowing it gave the greatest pleasure to his wife,
would have stuck to the text that Marian was a wonderful, "really, he
might say, a very wonderful child." But he had never seen anything of
childhood since his own, which he had forgotten, and the awakening of
the commonest faculties in his daughter came upon him as extraordinary
revelations of subtle character, which, when their possessor had
arrived at years of maturity, would astonish the world. The Helmingham
people did not subscribe to these opinions. Most of them had children
of their own, who, they considered, were quite as eccentric, and odd,
and peculiar as Marian Ashurst. "Not that I'm for 'lowin that to be
pert and sassy one minute, and sittin' mumchance wi'out sa much as a
word to throw at a dog the next, is quite manners," they would say
among themselves; "but what's ye to expect? Poor Mrs. Ashurst layin'
on the brode of her back, and little enough of that, poor thing, and
that poor feckless creature, the schoolmaster, buzzed i' his 'ed wi'
book larnin' and that! A pretty pair to bring up such a tyke as Miss
Madge!"
That was in the very early days of her life. As the "tyke" grew up she
dropped all outward signs of tykishness, and seemed to be endeavouring
to prove that eccentricity was the very last thing to be ascribed to
her. The Misses Lewin, whose finishing-school was renowned throughout
the county, declared they had never had so quick or so hardworking a
pupil as Miss Ashurst, or one who had done them so much credit in so
short a time. The new rector of Helmingham declared that he should not
have known how to get through his class and parish work had it not
been for the assistance which he had received from Miss Ashurst at
times when--when really--well, other young ladies would, without the
slightest harm to themselves, be it said, have been enjoying
themselves in the croquet-ground. When the wardrobe woman retired from
the school to enter into the bonds of wedlock with the drill-sergeant
(whose expansive chest and manly figure, when going through the
"exercise without clubs," might have softened Medusa herself), Marian
Ashurst at once took upon herself the vacant situation, and resolutely
refused to allow any one else to fill it. These may have been put down
as eccentricities; they were evidences of odd character certainly not
usually found in girls of Marian's age, but they were proofs of a
spirit far above tykishness. All her best friends, except, of course,
the members of her family whose views regarding her were naturally
extremely circumscribed, noticed in the girl an exceedingly great
desire for the acquisition of knowledge, a power of industry and
application quite unusual, an extraordinary devotion to anything she
undertook, which suffered itself to be turned away by no temptation,
to be wearied by no fatigue. Always eager to help in any scheme,
always bright-eyed and clear-headed and keen-witted, never unduly
asserting herself, but always having her own way while persuading her
interlocutors that she was following their dictates, the odd shy child
grew up into a girl less shy, indeed, but scarcely less odd. And
certainly not lovable: those who fought her battles most strongly--and
even in that secluded village there were social and domestic battles,
strong internecine warfare, carried on with as much rancour as in the
great city itself--were compelled to admit there was "a something" in
her which they disliked, and which occasionally was eminently
repulsive.
This something had developed itself strongly in the character of the
child, before she emerged into girlhood; and though it remained vague
as to definition, while distinct as to impression in the minds of
others, Marian herself understood it perfectly, and could have told
any one, had she chosen, what it was that made her unlike the other
children, apart from her being brighter and smarter than they, a
difference which she also perfectly understood. She would have said,
"I am very fond of money, and the others are not; they are content to
have food and clothes, but I like to see the money that is paid for
them, and to have some of it, all for myself, and to heap it up and
look at it, and I am not satisfied as they are, when they have what
they want--I want better things, nicer food, and smarter clothes, and
more than them, the money. I don't say so, because I know papa hasn't
got it, and so he cannot give it to me; but I wish he could. There is
no use talking and grumbling about things we cannot have; people laugh
at you, and are glad you are so foolish when you do that, so I say
nothing about it, but I wish I was rich."
Marian would have made some such answer to any one who should have
endeavoured to get at her mind to find out what that was lurking
there, never clearly seen, but always plainly felt, which made her
"old fashioned," in other than the pathetic and interesting sense in
which that expression has come to be used with reference to children,
before she had entered upon her teens.
A clever mother would have found out this grave and ominous component
of the child's character--would have interpreted the absence of the
thoughtless extravagance, so charming, if sometimes so trying, of
childhood--would have been quick to have noticed that Marian asked,
"What will it cost?" and gravely entered into mental calculation on
occasions when other children would have demanded the purchase of a
coveted article clamorously, and shrieked if it were refused. But Mrs.
Ashurst was not a clever mother--she was only a loving, indulgent,
rather helpless one; and the little Marian's careful ways were such a
practical comfort to her, while the child was young, that it never
occurred to her to investigate their origin, to ask whether such a
very desirable and fortunate effect could by possibility have a
reprehensible, dangerous, insidious cause. Marian never wasted her
pennies, Marian never spoiled her frocks, Marian never lost or broke
anything; all these exceptional virtues Mrs. Ashurst carefully noted
and treasured in the storehouse of her memory. What she did not notice
was, that Marian never gave anything away, never voluntarily shared
any of her little possessions with her playfellows, and, when directed
to do so, complied with a reluctance which all her pride, all her
brave dread of the appearance of being coerced, hardly enabled her to
subdue, and suffered afterwards in an unchildlike way. What she did
not observe was, that Marian was not to be taken in by glitter and
show; that she preferred, from the early days in which her power of
exhibiting her preference was limited by the extent of the choice
which the toy-merchant---who combined hardbake and hairdressing with
ministering to the pleasures of infancy--afforded within the sum of
sixpence. If Marian took any one into her confidence, or asked advice
on such solemn occasions--generally ensuing on a protracted hoarding
of the coin in question--it would not be by the questions, "Is it the
prettiest?" "Is it the nicest?" but, "Do you think it is worth
sixpence?" and the child would look from the toy to the money, held
closely in the shut palm of her chubby hand, with a perturbed
countenance, in which the pleasure of the acquisition was almost
neutralised by the pain of the payment--a countenance in which the
spirit of barter was to be discerned by knowing eyes. But none such
took note of Marian's childhood. The illumination of love is rather
dazzling than searching in the case of mothers of Mrs. Ashurst's
class, and she was dazzled. Marian was perfection in her eyes, and at
an age at wthe inversion of the relations between mother and
daughter, common enough in later life, would have appeared to others
unreasonable, preposterous, Mrs. Ashurst surrendered herself wholly,
happily, to the guidance and the care of her daughter. The inevitable
self-assertion of the stronger mind took place, the inevitable
submission of the weaker. In this instance, a gentle, persuasive,
unconscious self-assertion, a joyful yielding, without one traversing
thought of humiliation or deposition.
Her daughter was so clever, so helpful, so grave, so good; her economy
and management--surely they were wonderful in so young a girl, and
must have come to her by instinct?--rendered life such a different, so
much easier a thing, delicate as she was, and requiring so
disproportionate a share of their small means to be expended on her,
that it was not surprising Mrs. Ashurst should see no possibility of
evil in the origin of such qualities.
As for Marian's father, he was about as likely to discover a comet or
a continent as to discern a flaw in his daughter's moral nature. The
child, so longed for, so fervently implored, remained always, in her
father's sight, Heaven's best gift to him; and he rejoiced
exceedingly, and wondered not a little, as she developed into the girl
whom we have seen beside his death-bed. He rejoiced because she was so
clever, so quick, so ready, had such a masterly mind and happy faculty
of acquiring knowledge; knowledge of the kind he prized and
reverenced; of the kind which he felt would remain to her, an
inheritance for her life. He wondered why she was so strong, for he
knew she did not take the peculiar kind of strength of character from
him or from her mother.
It was not to be wondered at that these peculiarities of Marian
Ashurst were noticed by the inhabitants of the village where she was
born, and where her childish days had been passed; but it was
remarkable that they were regarded with anything but admiration. For a
keen appreciation of money, and an unfailing determination to obtain
their money's worth, had long been held to be eminently characteristic
of the denizens of Helmingham. The cheesefactor used to declare that
the hardest bargains throughout his county connection were those which
Mrs. Croke, and Mrs. Whicher, and, worst of all, old Mrs. M'Shaw (who,
though Helmingham born and bred, had married Sandy M'Shaw, a Scotch
gardener, imported by old Squire Creswell) drove with him. Not the
very best ale to be found in the cellars of the Lion at Brocksopp (and
they could give you a good glass of ale, bright, beaming, and mellow,
at the Lion, when they choose), not the strongest mahogany-coloured
brandy-and-water, mixed in the bar by the fair hands of Miss Parkhurst
herself, not even the celebrated rum-punch, the recipe of which, like
the songs of the Scandinavian scalds, had never been written out, but
had descended orally to old Tilley, the short, stout, rubicund
landlord--had ever softened the heart of a Helmingham farmer in the
matter of business, or induced him to take a shilling less on a
quarter of wheat, or a truss of straw, than he had originally made up
his mind to sell it at.
"Canny Helmingham" was its name throughout the county, and its people
were proud of it. Mr. Chambré, an earnest clergyman who had succeeded
the old rector, had been forewarned of the popular prejudice, and on
the second Sunday of his ministry addressed his parishioners in a very
powerful and eloquent discourse upon the wickedness of avarice and the
folly of heaping up worldly riches; after which, seeing that the only
effect his sermon had was to lay him open to palpable rudeness, he
wisely concentrated his energies on his translation of Horace's Odes
(which has since gained him such great renown, and of which at least
forty copies have been sold), and left his parishioners' souls to take
care of themselves. But however canny and saving they might be, and
however, sharply they might battle with the cheesefactor and look
after the dairymaid, as behoved farmers' wives in these awful days of
free trade (they had a firm belief in Helmingham that "Cobden," under
which generic name they understood it, was a kind of pest, as is the
smut in wheat, or the tick in sheep), all the principal dames in the
village were greatly shocked at the unnatural love of money which it
was impossible to help noticing in Marian Ashurst.
"There was time enow to think o' they things, money and such-like
fash, when pipple was settled down," as Mrs. Croke said; "but to see
children hardenin' their hearts and scrooin' their pocket-money is
unnatural, to say the least of it!" It was unnatural and unpopular in
Helmingham. Mrs. Croke put such a screw on the cheesefactor, that in
the evening after his dealings with her, that worthy filled the
commercial room at the Lion with strange oaths and modern instances
of sharp dealing in which Mrs. Croke bore away the palm; but she
was highly indignant when Lotty Croke's godmother bought her a
savings-bank, a gray edifice, with what theatrical people call a
practicable chimney, down which the intended savings should be
deposited. Mrs. Whicher's dairymaid, who, being from Ireland, and a
Roman Catholic in faith, was looked upon with suspicion, not to say
fear, in the village, and who was regarded by the farmers as in
constant though secret communication with the Pope of Rome and the
Jesuit College generally, declared that her mistress "canthered the
life out of her" in the matter of small wages and much work; but Mrs.
Whicher's daughter, Emily, had more crimson gowns, and more elegant
bonnets, with regular fields of poppies, and perfect harvests of ears
of corn growing out of them, than any of her compeers, for which
choice articles the heavy bill of Madame Morgan--formerly of Paris,
now of Brocksopp--was paid without a murmur. "It's unnat'ral in a gell
like Marian Ashurst to think so much o' money and what it brings,"
would be a frequent remark at one of those private Helmingham
institutions known as "thick teas." And then Mrs. Croke would say,
"And what like will a gell o' that sort look to marry? Why, a man maun
have poun's and poun's before she'd say 'yea' and buckle to!"
But that was a matter which Marian had already decided upon.