WOOLGREAVES.
"You will be better when you have made the effort, mother," said
Marian Ashurst to the widow, one day, when the beauty of the summer
was at its height, and death and grief seemed very hard to bear, in
the face of the unsympathising sunshine. "Don't think I underrate the
effort, for indeed I don't, but you will be better when you have made
it."
"Perhaps so, my dear," said Mrs. Ashurst, with reluctant
submissiveness. "You are right; I am sure you always are right; but it
is so little use to go to any place where one can't enjoy one's self,
and where everybody must see that it is impossible; and you have--you
know----" Her lips trembled, her voice broke. Her little hands, still
soft and pretty, twined themselves together, with an expression of
pain. Then she said no more.
Marian had been standing by the open window, looking out, the side of
her head turned to her mother, who was glancing at her timidly. Now
she crossed the room, with a quick steady step, and knelt down by Mrs.
Ashurst's chair, clasping her hands upon the arm.
"Listen to me, dear," she said, with her clear eyes fixed on her
mother's face, and her voice, though softened to a tone of the utmost
tenderness, firm and decided. "You must never forget that I know
exactly what and how much you feel, and that I share it all" (there
was a forlornness in the girl's face which bore ample testimony to the
truth of what she said) "when I tell you, in my practical way, what we
must do. You remember, once, then, you spoke to me about the
Creswells, and I made light of them and their importance and
influence. I would not admit it; I did not understand it. I had not
fully thought about it then; but I admit it now. I understand it now,
and it is my turn to tell you, my dearest mother, that we must be
civil to them; we must take, or seem to take, their offers of
kindness, of protection, of intimacy, as they are made. We cannot
afford to do otherwise, and they are just the sort of people to be
offended with us irreparably, if we did not allow them to extend their
hospitality to us. It is rather officious, rather ostentatious; it has
all the bitterness of making us remember more keenly what they _might_
have done for us, but it _is_ hospitality, and we need it; it _is_ the
promise of further services which we shall require urgently. You must
rouse yourself, mother; this must be your share of helpfulness to me
in the burden of our life. And, after all, what does it matter? What
real difference does it make? My father is as much present to you and
to me in one place as in another. Nothing can alter, or modify, or
soften; nothing can deepen or embitter that truth. Come with me--the
effort will repay itself."
Mrs. Ashurst had begun to look more resolved, before her daughter, who
had spoken with more than her usual earnestness and decision, had come
to an end of her argument. She put her arm round the girl's neck, and
gave her a timid squeeze, and then half rose, as though she were ready
to go with her, anywhere she chose, that very minute. Then Marian,
without asking another word on the subject, busied herself about her
mother's dress, arranging the widow's heavy sombre drapery with a deft
hand, and talking about the weather, the pleasantness of their
projected walk, and the daily dole of Helmingham gossip. Marian cared
little for gossip of any kind herself, but it was a godsend to her
sometimes, when she had particular reasons for not talking to her
mother of the things that were in her mind, and did not find it easy
to invent other things to talk to her about.
The object which Marian had in view just now, and which she had had
some difficulty in attaining, was the inducing of her mother, who had
passed the time since her bereavement in utter seclusion, to accept
the invitation of Mr. Creswell, the owner of Woolgreaves, the local
grandee _par excellence_, the person whose absence Marian had so
lamented on the occasion of her father's illness, to pass "a long day"
with him and his nieces. It was not the first time such an invitation
had reached Mrs. Ashurst. Their rich neighbour, the dead
schoolmaster's friend, had not been neglectful of the widow and her
daughter, but it was the first time Marian had made up her mind that
this advance on his part must be met and welcomed. She had as much
reluctance to break through the seclusion of their life as her mother,
though of a somewhat different stamp; but she had been pondering and
calculating, while her mother had been only thinking and suffering,
and she had decided that it must be done. She did not doubt that she
should suffer more in the acting upon this decision than her mother;
but it was made, and must be acted upon. So Marian took her mother to
Woolgreaves. Mr. Creswell had offered to send a carriage (he rather
liked the use of the indefinite article, which implied the extent of
his establishment) to fetch the ladies, but Marian had declined this.
The walk would do her mother good, and brace her nerves; she meant to
talk to her easily, with seeming carelessness, of the possibilities of
the future, on the way. At length Mrs. Ashurst was ready, and her
daughter and she set forth, in the direction of the distressingly
modern, but really imposing, mansion, which, for the first time, they
approached, unsupported by him, in whose presence it had never
occurred to them to suffer from any feeling of inferiority of position
or means, or to believe that any one could regard them in a slighting
manner.
Mr. Creswell, of Woolgreaves, had entertained a sincere regard, built
on profound respect, for Mr. Ashurst. He knew the inferiority of his
own mind, and his own education, to those of the man who had
contentedly and laboriously filled so humble a position--one so
unworthy of his talents, as well as he knew the superiority of his own
business abilities, the difference which had made him a rich man, and
which would, under any circumstances, have kept Mr. Ashurst poor. He
was a man possessed of much candour of mind and sound judgment; and
though he preferred, quite sincerely, the practical ability which had
made him what he was, and heartily enjoyed all the material advantages
and pleasures of his life, he was capable of profound admiration for
such unattainable things as taste, learning, and the indefinable moral
and personal elements which combine to form a scholar and a gentleman.
He was a commonplace man in every other respect than this, that he
most sincerely despised and detested flattery, and was incapable of
being deceived by it. He had not failed to understand that it would
have been as impossible to James Ashurst to flatter as to rob him; and
for this reason, as well as for the superiority he had so fully
recognised, he had felt warm and abiding friendship for him, and
lamented his death, as he had not mourned any accident of mortality
since the day which had seen his pretty young wife laid in her early
grave. Mr. Creswell, a poor man in those days, struggling manfully
very far down on the ladder, which he had since climbed with the ease
which not unfrequently attends effort, when something has happened to
decrease the value of success, had loved his pretty, uneducated, merry
little wife very much, and had felt for a while after she died, that
he was not sure whether anything was worth working or striving for.
But his constitutional activity of mind and body had got the better of
that sort of feeling, and he had worked and striven to remarkably
good purpose; but he had never asked another woman to share his
fortunes.
This was not altogether occasioned by lingering regret for his pretty
Jenny. He was not of a sentimental turn of mind, and he might even
have been brought to acknowledge, reluctantly, that his wife would
probably have been much out of place in the fine house, and at the
head of the luxurious establishment which his wealth had formed. She
was humbly born, like himself, had not been ambitious, except of love
and happiness, and had had no better education than enabled her to
read and write, not so perfectly as to foster in her a taste for
either occupation. If Mr. Creswell had a sorrowful remembrance of her
sometimes, it died away with the reflection that she had been happy
while she lived, and would not have been so happy now. His continued
bachelor estate was occasioned rather by his close and engrossing
attention to the interests of his business, and, perhaps, also to the
narrow social circle in which he lived. Pretty, uneducated, simple
young country women will retain their power of pleasing men who have
acquired education, and made money, and so elevated themselves far
above their original station; but the influence of education and
wealth upon the tastes of men of this sort is inimical to the chances
of the young women of the classes in society among which they
habitually find their associates. The women of the "well-to-do" world
are unattractive to those men, who have not been born in it. Such men
either retain the predilections of their youth for women like those
whose girlhood they remember, or cherish ambitious aspirations towards
the inimitable, not to be borrowed or imported, refinement of the
women of social spheres far above them.
The former was Mr. Creswell's case, in as far as anything except
business can be said to have been active in his affairs. The "ladies"
in the Helmingham district were utterly uninteresting to him, and he
had made that fact so evident long ago that they had accepted it; of
course regarding him as an "oddity," and much to be pitied; and since
his nieces had taken up their abode, on the death of their father, Mr.
Creswell's only brother, at Woolgreaves, a matrimonial development in
Mr. Creswell's career had been regarded as an impossibility. The owner
of Woolgreaves was voted by general feminine consent "a dear old
thing," and a very good neighbour, and the ladies only hoped he might
not have trouble before him with "that pickle, young Tom," and were
glad to think no poor woman had been induced to put herself in for
such a life as that of Tom's step-mother would have been.
Mr. Creswell's only brother had belonged, not to the "well-to-do"
community, but, on the contrary, to that of the "neer-do-weels," and
he had died without a shilling, heavily in debt, and leaving two
helpless girls--sufficiently delicately nurtured to feel their
destitution with keenness amounting to despair, and sufficiently
"fashionably," _i.e_. ill, educated to be wholly incapable of helping
themselves--to the mercy of the world. The contemplation of this
contingency, for which he had plenty of leisure, for he died of a
lingering illness, did not appear to have distressed Tom Creswell. He
had believed in "luck" all his life, with the touching devotion of a
selfish man who defines "luck" as the making of things comfortable for
himself, and is not troubled with visions of, after him, the modern
version of the deluge, which takes the squalid form of the
pawnbroker's and the poor-house; and "luck" had lasted his time. It
had even survived him, so far as his children were concerned, for his
brother, who had quarrelled with him, more from policy and of
deliberate interest, regarding him as a hopeless spendthrift, the
helping of whom was a useless extravagance, than from anger or
disgust, came to the aid of the widow and her children, when he found
that things were very much worse than he had supposed they would prove
to be.
Mrs. Tom Creswell afforded a living example of her husband's "luck."
She was a mild, gentle, very silly, very self-denying, estimable
woman, who laved the "ne'er-do-weal" so literally with all her heart
that when he died she had not enough of that organ left to go on
living with. She did not see why she should try, and she did not try,
but quietly died in a few months, to the astonishment of rational
people, who declared that Tom Creswell was a "good loss," and had
never been of the least use either to himself or any other human
being. What on earth was the woman about? Was she such an idiot as not
to see his faults? Did she not know what a selfish, idle, extravagant,
worthless fellow he was, and that he had left her to either pauperism
or dependence on any one who would support her, quite complacently? If
such a husband as _he_ was--what she had seen in him beyond his
handsome face and his pleasant manner, _they_ could not tell--was to
be honoured in this way, gone quite daft about, in fact, they really
could not perceive the advantage to men in being active, industrious,
saving, prudent, and domestic. Nothing could be more true, more
reasonable, more unanswerable, or more ineffectual. Mrs. Tom
Creswell did not dispute it; she patiently endured much bullying by
strong-minded, tract-dropping females of the spinster persuasion; she
was quite satisfied to be told she had proved herself unworthy of a
better husband. She did not murmur as it was proved to her, in the
fiercest forms of accurate arithmetic, that her Tom had squandered
sums which might have provided for her and her children decently, and
had not even practised the poor self-denial of paying for an insurance
on his life. She contradicted no one, she rebuked no one, she asked
forbearance and pity from no one; she merely wept and said she was
sure her brother-in-law would be kind to the girls, and that she would
not like to be a trouble to Mr. Creswell herself, and was sure her Tom
would not have liked her to be a trouble to Mr. Creswell.
On this point the brother of the "departed saint," as the widow called
the amiable idler of whose presence she considered the world unworthy,
by no means agreed with her. Mr. Creswell was of opinion that so long
as trouble kept clear of Tom, Tom would have been perfectly
indifferent as to where it lighted. But he did not say so. He had not
much respect for his sister-in-law's intellect, but he pitied her, and
he was not only generous to her distress, but also merciful to her
weakness. He offered her a home at Woolgreaves, and it was arranged
that she should "try" to go there, after a while. But she never tried,
and she never went; she "did not see the good of" anything; and in six
months after Tom Creswell's death his daughters were settled at
Woolgreaves, and it is doubtful whether the state of orphanhood was
ever in any case a more tempered, modified misfortune than in theirs.
Thus the family party at the handsome house, which Mrs. Ashurst and
her daughter were about to visit, was composed of Mr. Creswell, his
son Tom, a specimen of the schoolboy class, of whom this history has
already afforded a glimpse, and the Misses Creswell, the Maude and
Gertrude of whom Marian had, in her grief, spoken in terms of sharp
and contemptuous disparagement which, though not entirely censurable,
judged from her point of view, were certainly not altogether deserved.
Mr. Creswell earnestly desired to befriend the visitor and her
daughter. Gertrude Creswell thought it would be very "nice" to be
"great friends" with that clever Miss Ashurst, and had, with all the
impulsiveness of generous girlhood, exulted in the idea of being, in
her turn, able to extend kindness to people in need of it, even as she
and her sister had been. But Maude, who, though her actual experience
of life had been identical with her sister's, had more natural
intuition and caution, checked the enthusiasm with which Gertrude drew
this picture.
"We must be very careful, Gerty dear," she said; "I fancy this clever
Miss Ashurst is very proud. People say you never find out the nature
of any one until trouble brings it to the light. It would never do to
let her think one had any notion of doing her services, you know. She
might not like it from us; uncle's kindness to them is a different
thing; but we must remember that _we_ are, in reality, no better off
than she is."
Gertrude reddened. She had not spoken with the remotest idea of
patronage of Miss Ashurst in her mind, and her sister's warning pained
her. Gertrude had a dash of her father's _insouciance_ in her, though
in him it had been selfish joviality, and in her it as only happy
thoughtlessness. It had occurred to Gertrude, more than once before
to-day, to think she should like to be married to some one whom she
could love very much indeed, and away from this fine place, which did
not belong to them, though her uncle was very kind, in a home of her
awn. Maude had a habit of saying and looking things which made
Gertrude entertain such notions; and now she had, with the best
intentions, injured her pleasure in the anticipation of the visit of
Mrs. Ashurst and Marian.
It was probably this little incident which lent the slight touch of
coldness and restraint to the manner of Gertrude Creswell which Marian
instantly felt, and which she erroneously interpreted. When they had
met formerly, there had been none of this hesitating formality.
"These girls don't want us here?" said Marian to herself; "they grudge
us their uncle's friendship, lest it should take a form which would
deprive them of any of his money."
Perhaps Marian was not aware of the resolve, lurking in her heart even
then, that such was precisely the form which that friendship should be
made to take. The evil warp in her otherwise frank and noble mind told
in this. Gertrude Creswell, to whom in particular she imputed
mercenary feeling, and the forethought of a calculating jealousy, was
entirely incapable of anything of the kind, and was actuated wholly by
her dread that Marian should misinterpret any premature advance
towards intimacy on her part as an impertinence. Thus the foundation
of a misunderstanding between the two was laid.
Marian's thoughts had been busy with the history of the sisters, as
she and her mother approached Woolgreaves. She had heard her father
describe Tom Creswell and his wife, and dwell upon the fortunate
destiny which had transferred Maude and Gertrude to their uncle's
care. She thought of all that now with bitterness. The contrast
between her father's character, life, and fate, and the character,
life, and fate of Tom Creswell, was a problem difficult to solve, hard
to endure. Why had the measure been so differently--she would, she
_must_ say so unjustly--meted to these two men? Her fancy dwelt on
every point in that terrible difference, lingered around the two
deathbeds, pictured the happy, sheltered, luxurious, unearned security
of those whom the spendthrift had left uncared for, and the harsh,
gloomy future before her mother and herself, in which only two things,
hard work and scanty means, were certain, which had been the vision
her father must have seen of the fate of those he loved, when he, so
fitted to adorn an honoured and conspicuous position, had died, worn
out in the long vain strife with poverty. Here were the children of
the man who had lived utterly for self, and the widow and child of the
"righteous," who had done his duty manfully from first to last. Hard
and bitter were Marian's reflections on this contrast, and earnestly
did she wish that some speedy means of accelerating by efforts of her
own the fulfilment of those promises of Providence, in which she felt
sometimes tempted to put little faith, might arise.
"I suppose he was not exactly 'forsaken,'" said the girl in her mind
as she approached the grand gates of Woolgreaves, whose ironmongery
displayed itself in the utmost profusion, allied with artistic designs
more sumptuous than elegant, "and that no one will see us 'begging
our bread;' but there is only meagre consolation to me in this, since
he had not what might--or all their service is a pretence, all their
'opinions' are lies--have saved him, and I see little to rejoice in in
being just above the begging of bread."
"They have done a great deal to the place since we were here, Marian,"
said Mrs. Ashurst, looking round admiringly upon the skilful gardening
and rich display of shrubs and flowers and outdoor decorations of all
kinds. "It must take a great many hands to keep this in order. Not so
much as a leaf or a pebble out of its place."
"They say there are four gardeners always employed," said Marian. "I
wish we had the money it costs; we needn't wish Midsummer-day further
off then. But here is Mr. Creswell, coming to meet us."
Marian Ashurst was much more attractive in her early womanhood than
she had promised to be as a very young girl, and the style of her face
and figure was of the kind which is assisted in its effect by a
somewhat severe order of costume. She was not beautiful, not even
positively handsome, and it is possible she might have looked
commonplace in the ordinary dress of young women of limited means,
where cheap material and coarse colouring must necessarily be used. In
her plain attire of deep mourning, with no ornament save one or two
trinkets of jet which had been her mother's, Marian Ashurst looked far
from commonplace, and remarkably ladylike. The strongly defined
character in her face, the composure of her manner, the quietness of
her movements, were not the charms which are usually associated with
youth, but they were charms, and her host was a person to whom they
were calculated to prove especially charming. Except in his generally
benevolent way of entertaining a kindly regard for his friend's
daughter, Mr. Creswell had never noted nor taken any particular notice
of Marian Ashurst; but she had not been an hour in his house before
she impressed herself upon him as being very different from all the
other girls of his acquaintance, and much more interesting than his
nieces.
Mr. Creswell felt rather annoyed with his nieces. They were civil,
certainly; but they did not seem to understand the art of making the
young lady who was visiting them happy and "at home." There was none
of the freemasonry of "the young person" about them. After a while,
Mr. Creswell found that the order of things he had been prepared
for--what he certainly would have taken to be the natural order of
things--was altered, set aside, he did not know how, and that he was
walking along the trim garden-paths, after luncheon, with Miss
Ashurst, while Maude and Gertrude took charge of the visitor to whom
he had meant to devote himself, and were making themselves as amiable
and pleasant to her as they had failed to make themselves to Marian.
Perhaps the fault or the reason was as much on Miss Ashurst's side as
on theirs. Before he had conducted his visitor over all the "show"
portions of the grounds and gardens, Mr. Creswell had arrived at the
conclusion that Marian was a remarkable young woman, with strong
powers of observation, and a decided aptitude for solid and sensible
conversation, which probably explained the coldness towards her of
Maude and Gertrude, who were not remarkable, except for fine
complexions, and hair to correspond, and whose talk was of the most
vapid description, so far as he had had the opportunity of observing.
There was not much of importance in appearance to relate about the
occurrences of a day which was destined to be remembered as very
important by all who passed its hours at Woolgreaves. It had the usual
features of a "long day," spasmodic attacks of animation and lapses of
weariness, a great deal of good eating and drinking, much looking at
pictures and parade-books, some real gratification, and not a little
imperfectly disguised fatigue. It differed in one respect, however,
from the usual history of a "long day." There was one person who was
not glad when it came to an end. That person was Mr. Creswell.
Poor Mrs. Ashurst had found her visit to Woolgreaves much more
endurable than she expected. She had indeed found it almost
pleasurable. She had been amused--the time had passed, the young
ladies had been kind to her. She praised them to Marian.
"They are nice creatures," she said; "really tender-hearted and
sincere. Of course, they are not clever like you, my dear; but then
all girls cannot be expected to be _that_."
"They are very fortunate," said Marian, moodily. "Just think of the
safe and happy life they lead. Living like that _is_ living; _we_ only
exist. They have no want for the present; no anxiety for the future.
Everything they see and touch, all the food they eat, everything they
wear means money."
"Yes," said Mrs. Ashurst; "and after all, money is a great thing. Not,
indeed," she added, with tears in her eyes, "that I could care much
for it now, for it could not, if we had it, restore what we have
lost."
"No," said Marian, frowning, "but it could have saved us from losing
it; it could have preserved love and care, home, position, and
happiness to us. True, mother, money is a great thing."
But Marian's mother was not listening to her. Her mind had returned to
its familiar train of thought again.
Something had been said that day about Mrs. Ashurst's paying
Woolgreaves a longer visit, going for a week or two, of course
accompanied by Marian. Mrs. Ashurst had not decidedly accepted or
negatived the proposition. She felt rather nervous about it herself,
and uncertain as to Marian's sentiments, and her daughter had not
aided her by word or look. Nor did Marian recur to the subject when
she found themselves at home again in the evening. But she remembered
it, and discussed it with herself in the night. Would it be well that
her mother should be habituated to the comforts, the luxuries of such
a house, so unattainable to her at home, so desirable in her state of
broken health and spirits? This was the great difficulty which beset
Marian, and she felt she could not decide it then.
Her long waking reverie of that night did not concern itself with the
people she had been with. It was fully occupied with the place. Her
mind mounted from floor to floor of the handsome house, which
represented so much money, reviewing and appraising the furniture,
speculating on the separate and collective value of the plate, the
mirrors, the hangings, the decorations. Thousands and thousands of
pounds, she thought, hundreds and hundreds of times more money than
she had ever seen, and nothing to do for it all. Those girls who lived
among it, what had they done that they should have all of it? Why had
she, whose mother needed it so much, who could so well appreciate it,
none of it? Marian's last thought 'before she fell asleep that night
was, not only that money was a great thing, but that almost anything
would be worth doing to get money.