MATERNAL ANTICIPATIONS.
As there must be no communication with Mrs. Arruther about the most
important article of Ryan’s news, nurse would have had no objection to
talk it over a little on her way through the village; but she found no
opportunity to do so. There were no walkers to be seen enjoying the cool
of the evening by the side of the placid Arne, as it flowed on towards
the fall where it turned the wheel of Mr. Waugh’s paper-mill. There were
no husbands and wives sitting outside their doors, after having put
their children to sleep. There were no lingerers in the churchyard,
talking over the sermon of the morning. A low, confused murmur of
suppressed voices issued from the narrow opening of the ale-house door,
as it stood ajar, and let a gleam of light from within fall across the
road. Almost every interior was visible from being more or less lighted
up; but no one offered encouragement for a word of conversation in
passing. Mrs. Dowley was slapping her boy Tom because he would not go to
sleep as she bade him; and Mrs. Green, whose children were more obedient
in this one respect, was dozing with her head upon the table, by way of
whiling away the time till her husband should come home from the Rose.
Kate Jeffery was reading to her grandfather as he sat in his great
chair; and it would not do to interrupt her, lest it should be the bible
that she was reading. A knot of lads were gathered about the churchyard
gate; but their voices sounded so rude, that nurse, who was a somewhat
timid woman, made a circuit to avoid passing through them. The porter at
Mrs. Arruther’s let her in with a studious haste which seemed to
intimate that he thought her late; and she did not stay to be told so.
In the housekeeper’s room she only tarried to see that her close cap
looked neat, and to pin on the shawl she always wore when she sat up at
night. Mrs. Arruther had asked for her six times in the last ten
minutes; so there was not a moment to be lost.
“You were to come at nine o’clock, and it is ten minutes past, nurse,”
said the sick lady. “This is always the way people treat me,—as if there
was not a clock in Arneside.”
There were several clocks in Arneside, by one of which it was two
minutes past nine, by another it wanted a quarter to nine; a third was
at half-past eight, and a fourth was striking three as nurse passed its
door. But Mrs. Ede never contradicted her patients. She told of Ryan’s
arrival, and was admonished that no guest of hers could possibly be of
half so much importance as Mrs. Arruther.
“I know how it is, nurse. It is those children of yours that can do
nothing for themselves, any more than any other children that are
educated as the fashion is now. They will want you to wash their faces
for them, and put them to bed, as long as they live, if you go on
sending them to that Sunday school.”
Nurse was very sorry to hear this. She did not know, in such a case,
what they were to do to get their faces washed when she should be gone
to her grave, where she hoped to be long before her three children. But
indeed she must say for her little folks that they could all put
themselves to bed, and had done it, even the youngest, these two years
past.
“Ay, ay; that was before you sent them to the school. Keep them there a
little longer, and they will be fit for nothing at all. You never will
believe any warning I give you about it; but I tell you again, the three
last housemaids I had this year, one after the other, were the worst
that ever entered my doors; and they could all read and write. What do
you think of that? O, my head! My head!”
Nurse thought it was time that the draught should be taken, and proposed
to smooth the pillow, and shade the light. This done, she wound up the
lady’s watch, and sat down behind the curtain, in hopes that the patient
would sleep. Of this, however, there seemed but little chance. Mrs.
Arruther tossed about, and groaned out her wonder why she could not go
to sleep like other people, till nurse was obliged to take notice, and
ask whether there was anything that she could do for her.
“Do! yes, to be sure. Bring out the light from wherever you have hidden
it. It is hard enough not to be able to go out and see things, as I have
done all my life till now; and here you won’t let me see what is in my
own room. Where are you going to put the light? Not under that picture.
You know I can’t bear that picture. And, mind, to-morrow morning——Bless
me! what do you lift up your hand in that manner for?”
Nurse could only beg pardon. She had made an involuntary gesture of
astonishment on hearing that the lady could not bear that beautiful
picture of her own only son,—that picture which represented him in his
chubby boyhood, standing at his mother’s knee, with hoop in hand. She
was told not to be troublesome with her wonder, but to see that the
picture was carried up into the lumber garret to-morrow, and something
put in its place to hide its marks on the wall; anything that would not
stare down upon people as they lay in bed, as that child’s eyes did. By
rousing the wearied maid, just as she was falling asleep, nurse obtained
a muslin apron, which, when she stood on the table, she could hang over
the picture: and two or three pins, judiciously applied below, obviated
all danger of the veil rising with any breath of air, so as to disclose
the features of the boy.
“You had better take warning, and look to your children in time, nurse,
before they grow up to plague you as my boy has plagued me.”
She had drawn back the curtain, and now showed herself as much disposed
for conversation as if she had taken a waking instead of a sleeping
draught.
“And you lay it all to education, ma’am? You think the university to
blame for it? Well! ’tis hard to say.”
“What put such a notion into your head? Who ever dreams of objecting to
the university for gentlemen? You would not have my son brought up as
ignorant as a ploughboy; would you? No, no. I have done my duty by him
in that way. He had the best-recommended tutors I could get for him, and
every advantage at the university that was to be had; and the best proof
of what was done for him is the credit he got there, and the prizes, and
the reputation. He is a very fine scholar. Nobody denies that.”
Nurse pondered the practicability of putting the question she would have
liked to have had answered; whether learning had had the same effect
upon Mr. Arruther that the lady had anticipated for Owen and Ambrose.
Nurse would fain know whether Mr. Arruther could wash his own face, and
put himself to bed.
“Let us hope, ma’am, that the young gentleman will live and learn. If he
is not able to do little things now, perhaps——”
“Little things! What sort of little things?”
“Well, ma’am, I thought if your late house-maids could not polish the
fire-irons, or make your bed to your liking, and if you fear that my
boys should not keep themselves clean when I am gone, because of their
learning, perhaps.... But indeed, when I once saw the young gentleman,
his gloves were as white as my apron, and the sunshine came back from
the polish of his boots. I never saw a neater gentleman.”
“He is a puppy,” replied the tender mother. “I suppose it was that dandy
show of his that caught the eyes of the low creature he has married. If
I never get the better of this illness, she shall have none of my
clothes to wear. No shopkeeper’s daughter shall be seen in the laces my
mother left to me. I had rather give some of them to you, nurse, at
once.”
“God forbid, ma’am! What should I do with laces? Such as I!”
“Very true. Now it is strange that a sensible woman like you, who knows
what is proper, in her own case, should be so wrong about her children.
What have they to do with education any more than you have with laces?”
Nurse took refuge under the sanction of the clergyman and of Mr. Waugh;
and protested that she had as little idea of sending Owen and Ambrose to
the university, as of asking that Mildred should wear the lady’s family
Valenciennes and Mechlin.
“Well; I wonder what it is that you would have! I can’t make out what it
is that you would be at!”
“Ma’am, if I had all I wished for——but I may as well be setting on a
cup-full of broth to warm, as I fancy you may take a liking to a little,
by-and-by.”
The lady let nurse do this. When she was tired of wondering whether she
could take any broth when it should be warm, she languidly said,—
“Go on. What would you have for your children? Pray remember what I have
heard you say yourself—that pride comes before a fall.”
“And a much greater one than I said that before me, ma’am. But I would
not have my children made proud, because I should be sorry they should
fall below what they are. If I had my wish, it would be that Owen should
have work at the mill as long as he lives, so as to be pretty sure of
eighteen shillings a week for a continuance; and that he should marry
such a girl as Kate Jeffery, who would take as much care of his house as
I would myself; and that they should never want for shoes and stockings
for their children’s feet. And much the same for Ambrose.”
“Is that all? They might have all this without reading and writing.”
“Perhaps so, ma’am; but Kate reads to her grandfather of a Sunday
evening, as I saw when I passed to-night; and the neighbours think, as
well as I, that it is the boys that get on best with their learning that
go straightest to their work; not swinging on the churchyard gate, nor
swearing, to get a look that they may make game of from grave people
passing by. As for Mildred, I don’t well know what to wish. ’Tis hard
work for poor girls when they settle and have their families early: but
then, I should be loth to leave her to live solitary in our cottage,
spending her days all alone upon the hills. However, that will be as the
Lord pleases. Meantime, I should best like that fifteen years hence,
when the boys will be perhaps settled away, my girl should be keeping
our place clean for me, and giving me her arm to church, and helping me
with her little learning when, as often happens, I am at a loss to
answer, for want of knowing. I have no wish to be idle, I am sure. I
hope to knit her stockings and make her petticoats still, if she will
clean the cupboard out, and entertain the clergyman better than I can
do.”
The clergyman was not present to start the inquiry whether such were the
sum total of the purposes for which spiritual beings were brought into a
world teeming with spiritual influences. If he had been there, he might
not, perhaps, have got a curtsey from nurse by telling her that her
views were quite proper, and that she rightly understood what to desire
for her young folks. Perhaps he might have thought little better of Mrs.
Arruther’s aspirations.
“My boy has cruelly disappointed me,” she declared: “and yet I wished
for no more than I had a right to expect from him. I wished that he
should be a good scholar; and so he is. I wished that he should have the
looks and manners of a gentleman.”
“And sure, ma’am, so he has?”
“O yes: and I hoped to see him in parliament, if it was only for once;
and I carried this point, and mean to carry it again, if I can. He is in
parliament with my money, and he shall have enough for the next
election. But there’s an end. Instead of marrying as I wished, he has
taken up with a tradesman’s daughter; and he may make the best of his
bargain. Not an acre of my land, nor a shilling of my money that I can
leave away, shall he have. If I am disappointed in him, I will have my
satisfaction. I will do what I can to show people that they should take
care what they expect from their children. He sha’n’t have all the laugh
on his side. He sha’n’t say for nothing that my behaviour to him is
unpardonable.”
Nurse wondered whether at the university they taught to forgive and
forget. If they did, perhaps the young gentleman would be bent upon
making up matters, if be thought himself put upon; and then there might
be a coming round on the other side.
“I don’t know what they do there about forgiving; but I am sure they
teach the young men to forget. He never wrote to me above once, the last
year he was there; and that was for money. And he never thought more of
his cousin Ellen, though I told him to marry her, and requested him to
send her down a lap-dog like mine. When I asked him what he meant by it,
he said Ellen and all had entirely slipped his memory. I told him my
mind, pretty plainly; so I suppose it will slip his memory that I live
hereabouts, when he comes down to his election. If he tries the gate——”
“O, ma’am! You will not turn him away?”
“No: it might cost him his election; and I don’t wish that. I should
miss my own name from the newspapers then; and it would be hard to lose
my pleasure in the newspapers. I will do nothing to hurt his election.
He shall be let in to see me; and then I will say to him, ‘All that lawn
and those fields, and all this house and the plate would have been yours
very soon, (for I can’t live long,) if you had married your cousin
Ellen, as I bade you: but it is too late for that now; and Ellen’s
husband shall have every ——’—What do you look in that way for, nurse? I
am not going to leave it into another name. Ellen’s husband shall take
my name before he touches a shilling.”
“And if a judgment should come upon us meantime, ma’am. If the heathen
should——Did not you say there is to be a new election? Is not that the
same as the government getting a new parliament?”
“To be sure.”
“And that is done when a danger is thought to be at hand, is not it?”
“Not always; and if it was, no harm can come to my property. The deeds
are all in my lawyer’s hands,—in his strong-box,—safe enough.”
It was plain that Mrs. Arruther knew nothing about the approach of the
Turks; and it would be cruel to tell her, when she might very likely die
before they appeared in Arneside.
“What are you afraid of, nurse? I am sure you are in a panic about
something. It is too soon for your boys to be marrying against your
will, I suppose?”
“Yes, thank God. And they will never be able to marry so far below them
as your young gentleman may do; for the reason that they will never
stand so high as he. But yet I can fancy that if my Owen took to a
giggling jade, with her hair hanging about her ears, and a sharp voice,
it would weigh heavy on my heart.”
“And your money would weigh light in his pocket, hey?”
“I shall have no money to leave, ma’am; and as to——”
“No money to leave! I dare say. You never will have money to leave while
you throw away your services as you do. I did wonder at you last week,
when you managed to find somebody else to sit up with old Mr. Barnes,
that you might nurse Widow Wilks’s child. I saw beforehand what would
come of it. The child died, just the same as if you had been with Mr.
Barnes; and you missed your chop, and brandy and water, and the handsome
pay you would have had; and Mr. Barnes is a nice, mild old gentleman,
that you might have been glad to nurse. I thought you knew your duty to
your children better than to waste your services in any such way.”
Nurse was very sorry the lady was displeased with what she had done. She
had acted for the best, thinking what an aggravation it would be of the
weary widow’s grief for her child if she fancied, after its death, that
it might have been saved by good nursing. Having acted for the best, she
hoped her children would not remember these things against her when she
was gone.
“You seem to be always thinking how things will be after you are gone.
What will all that signify when you are cold in your grave?”
“It seems natural, ma’am, when one has children to care for. I hardly
think that God gives us children only that we may play with them while
they sprawl about and amuse us, and make use of them while they are
subject to our wills, having no steady one of their own. I think, by the
yearning that mothers have after their sons and daughters when they are
grown up into men and women, that it must be meant for us to keep a hold
over their hearts when they have done acting by our wills. And so, when
I talk of what is to happen when I am gone, it is with the feeling that
I dare not go and appear before God without doing my best to have my
children think of me as one that tried to do her duty by God and them.”
“But if Owen married as you said, how should he, for one, think
pleasantly of you?”
“Indeed I am afraid the thought of his folly would rankle. But my
endeavour would be to make the lightest and best of what could not be
helped. I would tell him that there could be no offence to me in his
judging for himself in a case where nobody has a right to judge for him;
and I should make no difference between him and the rest. My father’s
bible is, as they know, to go to the one that can read in it best when I
am on my death-bed; and the other few things are to be equally divided.
My girl is to have my spinning-wheel; and the deal table will be Owen’s;
and the chair and three stools——”
“Those things are to your children, I suppose, much the same as my lawn
and this house to my son?”
“I dare say they would be, ma’am; and, in some sense, all property that
is left by the dying to the living seems to be much alike, whether it be
great, or whether it be little. To my mind, it is not so much the use of
a legacy to give pleasures to those that can enjoy little pleasure when
a parent or other near friend is taken away, as to leave the comfort of
feeling that the departed wished to be just and kind. It is all very
well, you see, that my girl should have the use of my spinning-wheel;
but if it was made of King Solomon’s cedar wood, Mildred’s chief
pleasure would be to think, while she spun, that I remembered her kindly
when I lay dying; and for this, a spinning-wheel does as well as a room
full of pictures, or a mint of money. And when I see a family
quarrelling and going to law about their father’s legacies, I cannot but
think how much better it would be for them if each of the daughters had
but a spinning-wheel, and each of the sons neither more nor less than a
deal table, or the chair their father sat in.—But,” lowering her voice,
“here am I chattering on without thinking, while you are just asleep,
which I am glad to see.”
Whether from a disposition to sleep, or from some other cause, Mrs.
Arruther’s eyes were closed; and she did not move while nurse once more
softly drew the curtain. When, in the silence, nurse began to consider
what, in the fullness of her heart, she had been saying, she was
thunderstruck at her own want of good manners in uttering what must have
seemed intended for a reproof to the lady about her conduct to her son.
Her heart beat in her throat as one sentence after another of her
discourse came back upon her memory. What was she that she should be
lecturing Mrs. Arruther?—But perhaps the lady had been too drowsy to
listen. It was to be hoped so, rather than that she should suppose that
nurse was paying her off for her opposition to the children’s going to
the school.
When sufficiently composed for the nightly duty which she never omitted,
nurse added to her usual prayers the petition that this suffering lady
might be spared till she could see clearly what it was just that she
should do towards the son who had displeased her. Before she had
finished, there was another movement, and a mutter of “O dear!” from
within the curtain.
“I hoped you had been asleep, ma’am. Can’t you find rest?”
“No, nurse; but you cannot help that. I will see my lawyer to-morrow. It
is too late to be thinking about wills to-night. But I don’t believe I
shall sleep a wink to-night. Do you take that broth, nurse. I cannot
bear the thought of it. It prevents my getting to sleep. I believe I
shall never close my eyes all night.”
Nurse really thought she would, if she would only take the other
draught, and settle her mind to trouble herself about nothing till
to-morrow.