THE thing that saves us from insanity during great grief is that
there is usually something to do, and the mind composes itself to the
mechanical task of adjusting the details. Hope dared not look forward
an inch into the future; that way madness lay. Fortunately, it was plain
what must come first,--to keep the whole thing within their own walls,
and therefore to make some explanation to Mrs. Meredith, whose servants
had doubtless been kept up all night awaiting Emilia. Profoundly
perplexed what to say or not to say to her, Hope longed with her whole
soul for an adviser. Harry and Kate were both away, and besides, she
shrank from darkening their young lives as hers had been darkened.
She resolved to seek counsel in the one person who most thoroughly
distrusted Emilia,--Aunt Jane.
This lady was in a particularly happy mood that day. Emilia, who did
all kinds of fine needle-work exquisitely, had just embroidered for Aunt
Jane some pillow-cases. The original suggestion came from Hope, but it
never cost Emilia anything to keep a secret, and she had presented the
gift very sweetly, as if it were a thought of her own. Aunt Jane, who
with all her penetration as to facts was often very guileless as to
motives, was thoroughly touched by the humility and the embroidery.
“All last night,” she said, “I kept waking up, and thinking about
Christian charity and my pillow-cases.”
It was, therefore, a very favorable day for Hope’s consultation, though
it was nearly noon before her aunt was visible, perhaps because it took
so long to make up her bed with the new adornments.
Hope said frankly to Aunt Jane that there were some circumstances about
which she should rather not be questioned, but that Emilia had come
there the previous night from the ball, had been seized with one of
her peculiar attacks, and had stayed all night. Aunt Jane kept her eyes
steadily fixed on Hope’s sad face, and, when the tale was ended, drew
her down and kissed her lips.
“Now tell me, dear,” she said; “what comes first?”
“The first thing is,” said Hope, “to have Emilia’s absence explained to
Mrs. Meredith in some such way that she will think no more of it, and
not talk about it.”
“Certainly,” said Aunt Jane. “There is but one way to do that. I will
call on her myself.”
“You, auntie?” said Hope.
“Yes, I,” said her aunt. “I have owed her a call for five years. It is
the only thing that will excite her so much as to put all else out of
her head.”
“O auntie!” said Hope, greatly relieved, “if you only would! But ought
you really to go out? It is almost raining.”
“I shall go,” said Aunt Jane, decisively, “if it rains little boys!”
“But will not Mrs. Meredith wonder--?” began Hope.
“That is one advantage,” interrupted her aunt, “of being an absurd old
woman. Nobody ever wonders at anything I do, or else it is that they
never stop wondering.”
She sent Ruth erelong to order the horses. Hope collected her various
wrappers, and Ruth, returning, got her mistress into a state of
preparation.
“If I might say one thing more,” Hope whispered.
“Certainly,” said her aunt. “Ruth, go to my chamber, and get me a pin.”
“What kind of a pin, ma’am?” asked that meek handmaiden, from the
doorway.
“What a question!” said her indignant mistress. “Any kind. The common
pin of North America. Now, Hope?” as the door closed.
“I think it better, auntie,” said Hope, “that Philip should not stay
here longer at present. You can truly say that the house is full, and--”
“I have just had a note from him,” said Aunt Jane severely. “He has gone
to lodge at the hotel. What next?”
“Aunt Jane,” said Hope, looking her full in the face, “I have not the
slightest idea what to do next.”
(“The next thing for me,” thought her aunt, “is to have a little plain
speech with that misguided child upstairs.”)
“I can see no way out,” pursued Hope.
“Darling!” said Aunt Jane, with a voice full of womanly sweetness,
“there is always a way out, or else the world would have stopped long
ago. Perhaps it would have been better if it had stopped, but you see it
has not. All we can do is, to live on and try our best.”
She bade Hope leave Emilia to her, and furthermore stipulated that Hope
should go to her pupils as usual, that afternoon, as it was their last
lesson. The young girl shrank from the effort, but the elder lady was
inflexible. She had her own purpose in it. Hope once out of the way,
Aunt Jane could deal with Emilia.
No human being, when met face to face with Aunt Jane, had ever failed
to yield up to her the whole truth she sought. Emilia was on that day no
exception. She was prostrate, languid, humble, denied nothing, was ready
to concede every point but one. Never, while she lived, would she dwell
beneath John Lambert’s roof again. She had left it impulsively, she
admitted, scarce knowing what she did. But she would never return there
to live. She would go once more and see that all was in order for Mr.
Lambert, both in the house and on board the yacht, where they were to
have taken up their abode for a time. There were new servants in the
house, a new captain on the yacht; she would trust Mr. Lambert’s comfort
to none of them; she would do her full duty. Duty! the more utterly she
felt herself to be gliding away from him forever, the more pains she was
ready to lavish in doing these nothings well. About every insignificant
article he owned she seemed to feel the most scrupulous and wife-like
responsibility; while she yet knew that all she had was to him nothing,
compared with the possession of herself; and it was the thought of this
last ownership that drove her to despair.
Sweet and plaintive as the child’s face was, it had a glimmer of
wildness and a hunted look, that baffled Aunt Jane a little, and
compelled her to temporize. She consented that Emilia should go to
her own house, on condition that she would not see Philip,--which was
readily and even eagerly promised,--and that Hope should spend the night
with Emilia, which proposal was ardently accepted.
It occurred to Aunt Jane that nothing better could happen than for John
Lambert, on returning, to find his wife at home; and to secure this
result, if possible, she telegraphed to him to come at once.
Meantime Hope gave her inevitable music-lesson, so absorbed in her own
thoughts that it was all as mechanical as the metronome. As she came
out upon the Avenue for the walk home, she saw a group of people from
a gardener’s house, who had collected beside a muddy crossing, where a
team of cart-horses had refused to stir. Presently they sprang forward
with a great jerk, and a little Irish child was thrown beneath the
wheel. Hope sprang forward to grasp the child, and the wheel struck
her also; but she escaped with a dress torn and smeared, while the
cart passed over the little girl’s arm, breaking it in two places. She
screamed and then grew faint, as Hope lifted her. The mother received
the burden with a wail of anguish; the other Irishwomen pressed around
her with the dense and suffocating sympathy of their nation. Hope bade
one and another run for a physician, but nobody stirred. There was no
surgical aid within a mile or more. Hope looked round in despair, then
glanced at her own disordered garments.
“As sure as you live!” shouted a well-known voice from a carriage which
had stopped behind them. “If that isn’t Hope what’s-her-name, wish I may
never! Here’s a lark! Let me come there!” And the speaker pushed through
the crowd.
“Miss Ingleside,” said Hope, decisively, “this child’s arm is broken.
There is nobody to go for a physician. Except for the condition I am
in, I would ask you to take me there at once in your carriage; but as it
is--”
“As it is, I must ask you, hey?” said Blanche, finishing the sentence.
“Of course. No mistake. Sans dire. Jones, junior, this lady will join
us. Don’t look so scared, man. Are you anxious about your cushions or
your reputation?”
The youth simpered and disclaimed.
“Jump in, then, Miss Maxwell. Never mind the expense. It’s only the
family carriage;--surname and arms of Jones. Lucky there are no parents
to the fore. Put my shawl over you, so.”
“O Blanche!” said Hope, “what injustice--”
“I’ve done myself?” said the volatile damsel. “Not a doubt of it. That’s
my style, you know. But I have some sense; I know who’s who. Now, Jones,
junior, make your man handle the ribbons. I’ve always had a grudge
against that ordinance about fast driving, and now’s our chance.”
And the sacred “ordinance,” with all other proprieties, was left in
ruins that day. They tore along the Avenue with unexplained and most
inexplicable speed, Hope being concealed by riding backward, and by a
large shawl, and Blanche and her admirer receiving the full indignation
of every chaste and venerable eye. Those who had tolerated all this
girl’s previous improprieties were obliged to admit that the line must
be drawn somewhere. She at once lost several good invitations and a
matrimonial offer, since Jones, junior, was swept away by his parents to
be wedded without delay to a consumptive heiress who had long pined
for his whiskers; and Count Posen, in his Souvenirs, was severer on
Blanche’s one good deed than on the worst of her follies.
A few years after, when Blanche, then the fearless wife of a
regular-army officer, was helping Hope in the hospitals at Norfolk, she
would stop to shout with delight over the reminiscence of that stately
Jones equipage in mad career, amid the barking of dogs and the groaning
of dowagers. “After all, Hope,” she would say, “the fastest thing I ever
did was under your orders.”