Just finished my long letter to Lisabel, and lingered over the
direction, "Mrs. Treherne, Treherne Court."
How strange to think of our Lisa as mistress there. Which she is in
fact, for Lady Treherne, a mild elderly lady, is wholly engrossed in
tending Sir William, who is very infirm. The old people's rule seems
merely nominal--it is Lisabel and Augustus who reign. Their domain is
a perfect palace--and what a queen Miss Lis must look therein! How well
she will maintain her position, and enjoy it too! In her case, are no
poetical sufferings from haughty parents, delighted to crush a poor
daughter-in-law=
````"With the burthen of an honour
````Unto which she was not born."=
Already, they both like her and are proud of her--which is not
surprising. I thought I had never seen a more beautiful creature than
my sister Lisa, when, on her way to Treherne Court, she came home for a
day.
Home? I forget, it is not her home now. How strange this must have been
to her--if she thought about it. Possibly she did not; being never given
to sentiment. And, though with us she was not the least altered, it was
amusing to see how, to everybody else, she appeared quite the married
lady; even with Mrs. Granton, who, happening to call that day, was
delighted to see her, and seems not to cherish the smallest resentment
in the matter of "my Colin." Very generous--for it is not the good old
lady's first disappointment--she has been going a-wooing for her son
ever since he was one-and-twenty, and has not found a daughter-in-law
yet.
Colin, too, conducted himself with the utmost _sangfroid'_ and when
Augustus, who is beaming with benevolence to the whole human race,
invited him to escort his mother, Penelope and me, on our first visit to
Treherne Court, he accepted the invitation as if it were the pleasantest
in the world. Truly, if women's hearts are as impressionable as wax,
men's are as tough as gutta-percha. Talk of breaking them--faugh!
I hope it indicates no barbarity, on my part, if I confess that it would
have raised my opinion of him, and his sex in general, to have seen
Colin for a month or so, at least, wholesomely miserable.
Lisabel behaved uncommonly well with regard to him, and, indeed, in
every way. She was as bright as a May morning, and full of the good
qualities of her Augustus--whom she really likes very much after her
fashion. She will doubtless be among the many wives who become extremely
attached to their husbands, after marriage. To my benighted mind, it
has always seemed advisable to have a slight preference before that
ceremony.
She told me, with a shudder that was altogether natural and undisguised,
how glad she was that they had been married at once, and that Augustus
had sold out--for there is a chance of the regiment's being soon
ordered on foreign service. I had not heard of this before. It was some
surprise.
Lisabel was very affectionate to me the whole day, and, in going away,
said she hoped I did not miss her much, and that I should get a good
husband of my own soon; I did not know what a comfort it was.
"Somebody to belong to you--to care for you--to pet you--your own
personal property in short--who can't get rid of you, even when you're
old and ugly. Yes, I'm glad I married poor dear Augustus. And, child, I
hope to see you married also.. A good little thing like you would make a
capital wife to somebody. Why, simpleton, I declare she's crying!"
It must have been the over-excitement of this day; but I felt as if, had
I not cried, my temples and throat would have burst with a choking pain,
that lasted long after Lisabel was gone.
They did not altogether stay more than four hours. Augustus talked of
riding over to the camp, to see his friend, Doctor Urquhart, whom he
has heard nothing of since the wedding-day; but Lisabel persuaded
him against it. Men's friendship with one another is worth little,
apparently.
Penelope here said she could answer for Doctor Urquhart's being in the
land of the living, as she had met him a week before at Cartwright's
cottage, the day the poor old man was killed. Why did she not tell me of
this? But then she has taken such a prejudice against him, and exults so
over what she calls his "rude behaviour to the family."
It always seemed to me very foolish to be for ever defending those whose
character is itself a sufficient defence. If a false word is spoken of
a friend, one must of course deny it, disprove it. But to be incessantly
battling with personal prejudice or animosity, I would scorn it! Ay,
as utterly as I would scorn defending myself under similar attacks. I
think, in every lesser affection that is worth the name--the same truth
holds good--which I remember being struck with in a play, the only play
I ever saw acted. The heroine is told by her sister--=
`````"Katherine,
````You love this man--defend him."=
She answers:--=.
`````"You have said,
```I love him. That's my defence. I'll not
```Assert, in words, the truth on which I've cast
```The stake of life. I love him, and am silent."=
At least, I think the passage ran thus--for I cut it out of a newspaper
afterwards, and long, remembered it. What an age it seems since--that
one play, to which Francis took us. And what a strange, dim dream, has
become the impression it left; something like that I always have in
reading of Thekla and Max; of love so true and strong--so perfect in
its holy strength, that neither parting, grief, nor death, have any
power over it. Love, which makes you feel that once to have possessed
it, must be bliss unutterable, unalienable--better than any happiness or
prosperity that this world could give--better than anything in the world
or out of it, except the love of God.
I sometimes think of this Katherine in this play, when she refuses to
let her lover barter conscience for life, but when the test comes, says
to him, herself, "No, _die!_" Also, of that scene in Wallenstein, when
Thekla bids her lover be faithful to his honour and his country, not
to her--when, just for one minute, he holds her tight, tight in his
arms--Max, I mean. Death, afterwards, could not have been so very hard.
I am beginning to give up--strange, perhaps, that it should have lasted
so long--my belief in the possible happiness of life. Apparently, people
were never meant to be happy. Small flashes of pleasantness come and go;
or, it may be that in some few lives, are ecstatic moments, such as this
I have been thinking of, and then it is all over. But many people go
plodding along to old age, in a dull, straight road, with little sorrow
and no joy. Is my life to be such as this? Probably. Then the question
arises, what am I to do with it?
It sometimes crosses my mind what Doctor Urquhart said, about his life
being "owed." All our lives are, in one sense: to ourselves, to our
fellow-creatures, or to God; or, is there some point of union which
includes all three? If I only could find it out!
Perhaps, according to Colin Granton's lately learned doctrine--I know
whence learned--it is the having something to do. Something to be, your
fine preachers of self-culture would suggest; but self-culture is
often no better than idealised egotism; people sick of themselves want
something to do.
Yesterday, driving with papa along the edges of the camp, where we never
go now, I caught sight of the slope where the hospital is, and could
even distinguish the poor fellows sitting in the sun, or lounging about
in their blue hospital clothes. It made me think of Smyrna and Scutari.
No; while there is so much misery and sin in the world, a man has no
right to lull himself to sleep in a paradise of self-improvement and
self-enjoyment; in which there is but one supreme Adam, one perfect
specimen of humanity, namely himself. He ought 'to go out and
work--fight, if it must be, wherever duty calls him. Nay, even a woman
has hardly any right, in these days, to sit still and dream. The life of
action is nobler than the life of thought.
So I keep reasoning with myself. If I could only find a good and
adequate reason for some things which perplex me sorely, about myself
and--other people, it would be a great comfort.
To-day, among a heap of notes which papa gave me to make candle-lighters
of, I found this note, which I kept, the handwriting being
peculiar,--and I have a few crotchets about handwriting.
"Dear Sir:--
"Press of business, and other unforeseen circumstances, with which I
am fettered, make it impossible for me to accept any invitations
at present. I hope you will believe that I can never forget the
hospitalities of Rockmount, and that I am ever most gratefully
"Your faithful servant,
"Max Urquhart."
Can he, then, mean our acquaintance to cease? Should we be a hindrance
in his busy, useful life--such a frivolous family as ours? It may be so.
Yet I fear papa will be hurt.
This afternoon, though it was Sunday, I could not stay in the house
or garden, but went out, far out upon the moor, and walked till I was
weary. Then I sat me down upon a heather-bush, all in a heap, my arms
clasped round my knees, trying to think out this hard question--what
is to become of me; what am I to do with my life? It lies before
me, apparently as bleak, barren and monotonous as these miles of
moorland--stretching on and on in dull undulations, or dead flats, till
a range of low hills ends all! Yet, sometimes, this wild region has
looked quite different. I remember describing it once--how beautiful it
was, how breezy and open, with the ever-changing tints of the moor, the
ever-shifting and yet always steadfast arch of the sky. Today I found
it all colourless, blank, and cold; its monotony almost frightened me. I
could do nothing but crouch on my heather-bush and cry.
Tears do one good occasionally. When I dried mine, the hot weight on the
top of my head seemed lighter. If there had been anybody to lay a cool
hand there, and say, "Poor child, never mind!" it might have gone away.
But there was no one: Lisa was the only one who ever "petted" me.
I thought, I would go home and write a long letter to Lisa.
Just as I was rising from my heather-bush, my favourite haunt, being
as round as a mushroom, as soft as a velvet cushion, and hidden by two
great furze-bushes, from the road--I heard footsteps approaching. Having
no mind to be discovered in that gipsy plight, I crouched down again.
People's footsteps are so different, it is often easy to recognize them.
This, I think, I should have known anywhere--quick, regular, determined;
rather hasty, as if no time could be lost; as if, according to the
proverb, it would never "let the grass grow under it." Crouching lower,
I listened; I heard him stop and speak to an old woman, who had been
coming up the road towards the village. No words were distinguishable,
but the voice--I could not have mistaken it--it is not like our
English voices.
What a strange feeling it is, listening to people's steps or voices,
when they do not know you are near them. Something like being a ghost,
and able to watch them--perhaps watch over them--without its being
unnatural or wrong.
He stood talking--I should say, Doctor Urquhart stood talking--for
several minutes. The other voice, by its querulousness, I guessed to
be poor Mrs. Cartwright's; but it softened by degrees, and then I heard
distinctly her earnest "thank'ee, Doctor--God bless'ee, sir," as he
walked away, and vanished over the slope of the hill. She looked after
him a minute, and then, turning, toddled on her way.
When I overtook her, which was not for some time, she told me the whole
story of her troubles,--and how good Doctor Urquhart had been. Also,
the whole story about her poor daughter--at least as much as is known
about it. Mrs. Cartwright thinks she is still somewhere in London,
and Doctor Urquhart has promised to find her out, if he can. I don't
understand much about these sort of dreadful things--Penelope never
thought it right to tell us: but I can see that what Doctor Urquhart has
said has given great comfort to the mother of unfortunate Lydia.
"Miss," said the old woman, with the tears running down, "the Doctor's
been an angel of goodness to me, and there's many a one in these parts
as can say the same--though he be only a stranger, here to-day and gone
to-morrow, as one may say. Eh, dear, it'll be an ill day for many a poor
body when he goes."
I am glad I saw him--glad I heard all this. Somehow, hearing of things
like this makes one feel quieter.
It does not much matter after all--it does not, indeed! I never wanted
anybody to think about me, to care for me--half as much as somebody
to look up to--to be satisfied in--to honour and reverence. I can do
that--still!
Like a fool, I have been crying again, till I ought, properly, to tear
this leaf out, and begin again afresh. No, I will not. Nobody will ever
see it, and it does no harm to any human being.
"God bless him," the old woman said. I might say something of the like
sort, too. For he did me a deal of good: he was very kind to me.