COMING DOWN.
We will now change our scene, and pass over the events of more than a
fortnight—a most weary fortnight to Clemence, who pined in vain for
another letter from Mr. Effingham, and who dreaded that, by obeying what
she considered to be the call of justice and conscience, she had drawn
upon herself the displeasure of him whom she most desired to please.
The creditors, grateful for the noble disinterestedness which had
preserved to them something from the wreck of their fortunes, were
disposed to treat the bankrupt’s wife with consideration and indulgence.
She might remain in her present dwelling as long as it should suit her
convenience to do so. But to Clemence, Belgrave Square was now a more
intolerable abode than the wastes of Spitzbergen might have proved; to
escape from it was to quit a prison, and she hastened her departure
accordingly.
Lady Selina was also on the look-out for another abode, and spent the
greater part of her time in house-hunting with Arabella; Louisa was
seldom of the party, as she shrank from exertion, and considered herself
yet too delicate to be exposed to the wintry air. During the fortnight
before Clemence left London, Louisa was often her companion, and many a
gentle word of counsel from the step-mother, whose misfortunes had
rendered her dearer, sank into the poor girl’s heart. Lady Selina, whose
pride was now undergoing perpetual mortifications—whose present
occupation made her more bitterly feel the change in her fortunes, and
more bitterly hate “the scrupulous idiot whose folly had plunged her
whole family into distress,” was so irritable and peevish, that Louisa
sometimes asked herself whether, even in a worldly point of view, her
choice had been a wise one. She parted from Clemence with many tears,
and with many promises of remembrance;—like Orpah, she could weep for
her Naomi,—but, like Orpah, she turned back to her idols.
It is a bright wintry evening. The orb of the sun is just resting on a
distant hill, and his reflected beams are lighting up the windows of a
small cottage with a ruddy gleam; the abode itself, however, has a
lonely and rather desolate air. It stands on an embankment which
overlooks a railway whose straight dark lines form no picturesque object
to the view, disappearing in the blackness of a tunnel which pierces a
hill to the left. That hill, with its bare outline, entirely shuts out
from sight the town of M——, distant about a mile from the spot. There is
no appearance of any human habitation near, except this solitary little
brick cottage, perched like a sentinel on the embankment, but turning
its back to the railway, its front to the road, like one who prefers old
friends to new, having probably been erected before the line was
projected. The lone abode has a small, uncultivated garden in front,
surrounded by a straggling fence, through whose sundry gaps an active
child could easily force his way—from which a foot-path, seldom trodden,
and green with moss, runs into the narrow road which leads to the town
of M——.
There is, certainly, little to attract in the outward appearance of the
dwelling, and within we shall find it furnished in the most plain and
homely style. No carpet adorns the floor, no curtain breaks the straight
line of the windows; but the floor itself is spotlessly clean, the
bright windows exclude none of the sunbeams, and a cheerful fire
diffuses kindly warmth through the little white-washed parlour. The deal
table is spread with a snowy cloth, and heaped with little
dainties—nuts, oranges, and apples—brought by Mr. Gray in a hamper
carefully packed by his wife. A rosy-cheeked girl, about fifteen years
old, is for the third time this day busily dusting the rush seats of the
chairs, and altering their positions, so as to show them off to the best
advantage. She stops in her employment every few minutes to run into the
miniature kitchen and watch whether the chicken, likewise provided by
Mrs. Gray, duly revolves before the fire. There are eggs, bacon, and
cheese on the dresser, all produced from the Stoneby hamper, and the
young servant looks with admiration on her own preparations for the
feast.
A proud, rich, and happy girl Martha Jones feels herself this day to be!
Is it not wondrous promotion to be sole servant to such a lady as Mrs.
Effingham,—to take the place of so many footmen dressed more dashingly
than militia officers,—a housekeeper who, as she has heard, looks much
grander than Mrs. Gray—and a bevy of fine London maids! And a whole
sovereign every quarter! is not that wealth to one who has never touched
a gold piece in her life? Can any service be more delightful than that
of sweet, gentle “Miss Clemence,” who has always a kind word for every
one, and never willingly gives trouble or pain! Martha envies the lot of
no queen as she cheerfully goes about her work, the joyousness of her
blithe young heart often breaking forth into song.
R-r-r-r-r! with a roar a train rushes past, and vanishes into the dark
chasm of the tunnel, before the cottage has ceased to tremble or the
windows to rattle with the vibration! Martha, unaccustomed to the sound,
starts as if she were shot, then bursts into a merry laugh.
“How it makes one jump! I thought as how the house would come down! I’d
as lief not live quite so near a railway! But I’ll get used to it, no
doubt; and they say, as the trains come in so reg’lar, they’ll serve
instead of a clock. Missus must be a-travelling by that train; she’ll
get to the town in no time. She’ll be gladsome to find Mr. Gray at the
station, all ready to welcome her back. They say, poor dear lady, she’s
had a deal of trouble since that merry day of the wedding, when we had
such a feast on the green. First there was the good old captain drowned,
and she was the light of his eyes—I guess there was no love lost atween
them; then her money ran away. How it went at once I can’t make out. Mr.
Effingham seemed to have no end of it when he married! Had we not each
of us a warm winter’s cloak, and Mr. Gray a silver inkstand! and did not
Mr. Effingham’s gentleman tell the clerk as how his master was wondrous
rich, and lived in a palace in Lunnon, whose very stables were bigger
than the parsonage, and that he would spend as much at one dinner as
would build us a new church-tower! It’ll be a mighty change to Miss
Clemence,” soliloquized the girl, her merry, good-humoured face assuming
a graver expression as she looked around her; “certain, things are very
different here from what they was even in the captain’s cottage. She
made everything so pretty around her! But so she will here; we shan’t
know the place when she’s been here a month!” quoth the light-hearted
Martha, as she arranged for the last time in a saucer of white crockery
some six or seven early violets discovered after much search by the
school-children at Stoneby, and sent as tokens of affection to their
former dear young teacher. Surely the perfume of those wild-flowers
would not have been sweeter had they been placed in a vase of Sèvres
china!
The sun had now entirely disappeared, though a red glow remained on the
horizon. Martha became more and more impatient. Even at the hazard of
spoiling the dinner, she could not help running to the little broken
gate at the end of the garden, to see if any one were coming up the
road.
“Surely they’ll take the evening coach; Mr. Gray must return in it to
Stoneby, or he’ll not get back to-night. ’Twill drop ’em just at the
gate. Was not that the sound of wheels? Yes! surely! and there’s the
coach turning the corner!—and—I’ve never cut the bacon ready for frying,
and the chicken will be burned to a coal!”
Back flew the little maid to her post of duty, busy, bustling and happy
as a bee in a clump of heather; and she returned to the gate just in
time to see Mr. Gray bending from the top of the coach to give a last
word and blessing to Clemence, while Vincent assisted, with more
good-will than strength, to haul down a corded box and portmanteau.
Clemence stood for some moments with clasped hands and swimming eyes,
watching the coach as in the darkening twilight it rattled away, bearing
from her the only friend upon earth who had given her ready assistance
and counsel in this her time of adversity and trial. How gladly would
she have accompanied the pastor to the dear village where her happy
childhood had been spent! Vincent was too busy to watch his step-mother.
He felt as self-important in charge of the luggage as if all the wealth
that his father had ever possessed had been intrusted to his sole care.
“Here, you—what’s your name, little girl!” he cried to Martha, “just
help me in with this box. Is not the servant there to uncord it?”
Clemence turned at the sound of his voice, and her kindly greeting to
the smiling, curtsying Martha, first announced to Vincent that the
“little girl” was actually the servant who was to comprise in herself
all the establishment of Willow Cottage.
Vincent was young and merry-hearted, and as he helped to drag the
portmanteau into the cottage, and looked at its white-washed walls and
bare floor, so unlike everything to which he had been accustomed, the
idea of actually dwelling in such a place struck him as irresistibly
comic.
“I say, mamma!” he exclaimed with a laugh, “are we really to live in
this nut-shell? How amazed Aunt Selina would be could she see it! It’s
just like a gardener’s cottage!”
“As we can’t turn the cottage into a palace to suit Master Vincent,”
said Clemence, with a desperate attempt at cheerfulness, “suppose that
Master Vincent turn into a gardener to suit the cottage?”
“I think that I must turn into a great many other things besides—cook,
for instance,” he added, as Martha placed the roasted chicken upon the
table; “I think that we must call that a _black cock_!”
Clemence silenced the boy by a glance till the poor girl had quitted the
room, and then Vincent laughingly exclaimed, “Why, I was making game of
the chicken, and not of the cook! but could we not give her a hint not
to roast a poor fowl to a cinder next time?”
Clemence thought, “It will be long enough before we have another fowl to
roast!”
Notwithstanding the inexperience of the cook, Vincent, whose appetite
was sharpened by fatigue and cold, did ample justice to the feast which
Mrs. Gray had provided, and ate half of the chicken himself, to say
nothing of bacon and eggs. He vainly endeavoured to induce his
step-mother to follow his example.
“I say,” observed Vincent, busy with a wing, “that girl is a capital
servant, I dare say, and Mrs. Ventner is not fit to hold a candle to
her; but I wish that she knew how to hold a candle to us! Just see!—she
has forgotten to bring us any, and has left her own tallow dip, to ‘make
darkness visible,’ as papa would say.”
“My dear boy,” replied Clemence quietly, “we must not look for better
light here, till we have the sun himself as our candle.”
“A _dip_ into poverty; but we’ll _make light of it_!” cried Vincent, the
pun reconciling him to the privation. Whether exhilarated by change of
air, or desirous to cheer his companion, the boy seemed disposed to make
a jest of every discomfort. There was in him a buoyancy of spirit, an
energy of will, which had never appeared to such advantage in the
pampered child of the wealthy banker.
“But, I say, we must make ourselves a little more comfortable!” cried
Vincent; “the wind blows through that window like a gale, and Martha has
forgotten to close the shutters!” Up he sprang to remedy her negligence.
“Why, there’s not a bit of a shutter!” he exclaimed in surprise;
“nothing at all to keep the wind out!”
“I think that you will have to make some,” said Clemence.
“Make shutters!” exclaimed Vincent, look doubtful at first whether to be
pleased or disgusted, but deciding at last on the former. “Well, it’s
lucky I brought my tool-box. I never did anything but spoil wood as yet,
but maybe I’ll turn out a capital carpenter, if I mayn’t be a cook. I’ll
saw away at my shutters in the evening when I come back from my
studies.” Then in a softer tone Vincent went on: “Won’t you be very dull
here all alone during the day? what will you do to amuse yourself here?”
“I have provided myself, dear boy, with plenty of occupation. I found,
before we left London, that you required new shirts, so I have brought a
supply of the material with me that I may make them myself.”
“You make my shirts!” exclaimed Vincent with feeling; “well, I shall
like them better than any that ever I wore. I’m growing quite proud, you
see, now that I’ve such a lady for my needlewoman!”
“And I quite grand,” replied Clemence, with a smile, “when I’ve such a
gentleman for my carpenter!”
With such light conversation the weary, heart-stricken wife strove to
beguile the first evening in Willow Cottage. Whatever her own secret
sorrows might be, she was resolved that they should not sadden her
intercourse with Vincent. It was a pleasure to her to see the brave
cheerfulness with which he was preparing to do battle with difficulties.
With his bright eyes and ringing laugh, Vincent was to his step-mother
the impersonification of Hope. And never had Clemence with more fervent
thankfulness pronounced the grace after meals, than in that small, cold,
and comfortless cottage, for which she had exchanged all the luxuries of
her splendid mansion. She had resigned those luxuries for the dearer one
of eating her bread in peace, and with a quiet mind, conscious of
wronging none; and sweeter, oh! how much sweeter, would be the poorest
crust partaken of thus, than all the dainties of a board at which it
were mockery to ask a blessing!
------------------------------------------------------------------------