To thee, dear maid, each kindly wile
Was known, that elder sisters know,
To check the unseasonable smile,
With warning hand and serious brow.
From dream to dream with her to rove,
Like fairy nurse with hermit child;
Teach her to think, to pray, to love,
Make grief less bitter, joy less wild.
LINES ON A MONUMENT AT LICHFIELD.
Sir Matthew Fleet’s visit seemed like a turning-point with the May
family, rousing and giving them revived hopes. Norman began to shake off
his extreme languor and depression, the doctor was relieved from much
of the wearing suffering from his hurt, and his despondency as to
Margaret’s ultimate recovery had been driven away. The experiment of
taking her up succeeded so well, that on Sunday she was fully attired,
“fit to receive company.” As she lay on the sofa there seemed an advance
toward recovery. Much sweet coquetry was expended in trying to look
her best for her father; and her best was very well, for though the
brilliant bloom of health was gone, her cheeks had not lost their pretty
rounded contour, and still had some rosiness, while her large bright
blue eyes smiled and sparkled. A screen shut out the rest of the room,
making a sort of little parlour round the fire, where sundry of the
family were visiting her after coming home from church in the afternoon.
Ethel was in a vehement state of indignation at what had that day
happened at school. “Did you ever hear anything like it! When the point
was, to teach the poor things to be Christians, to turn them back,
because their hair was not regulation length!”
“What’s that! Who did?” said Dr. May, coming in from his own room, where
he had heard a few words.
“Mrs. Ledwich. She sent back three of the Cocksmoor children this
morning. It seems she warned them last Sunday without saying a word to
us.”
“Sent them back from church!” said the doctor.
“Not exactly from church,” said Margaret.
“It is the same in effect,” said Ethel, “to turn them from school; for
if they did try to go alone, the pew-openers would drive them out.”
“It is a wretched state of things!” said Dr. May, who never wanted
much provocation to begin storming about parish affairs. “When I am
churchwarden again, I’ll see what can be done about the seats; but it’s
no sort of use, while Ramsden goes on as he does.”
“Now my poor children are done for!” said Ethel. “They will never come
again. And it’s horrid, papa; there are lots of town children who wear
immense long plaits of hair, and Mrs. Ledwich never interferes with
them. It is entirely to drive the poor Cocksmoor ones away--for nothing
else, and all out of Fanny Anderson’s chatter.”
“Ethel, my dear,” said Margaret pleadingly.
“Didn’t I tell you, Margaret, how, as soon as Flora knew what Mrs.
Ledwich was going to do, she went and told her this was the children’s
only chance, and if we affronted them for a trifle, there would be no
hope of getting them back. She said she was sorry, if we were interested
for them, but rules must not be broken; and when Flora spoke of all who
do wear long hair unmolested, she shuffled and said, for the sake of
the teachers, as well as the other children, rags and dirt could not be
allowed; and then she brought up the old story of Miss Boulder’s pencil,
though she has found it again, and ended by saying Fanny Anderson told
her it was a serious annoyance to the teachers, and she was sure we
should agree with her, that something was due to voluntary assistants
and subscribers.”
“I am afraid there has been a regular set at them,” said Margaret, “and
perhaps they are troublesome, poor things.”
“As if school-keeping were for luxury!” said Dr. May. “It is the worst
thing I have heard of Mrs. Ledwich yet! One’s blood boils to think of
those poor children being cast off because our fine young ladies are
too grand to teach them! The clergyman leaving his work to a set of
conceited women, and they turning their backs on ignorance, when it
comes to their door! Voluntary subscribers, indeed! I’ve a great mind
I’ll be one no longer.”
“Oh, papa, that would not be fair--” began Ethel; but Margaret knew he
would not act on this, squeezed her hand, and silenced her.
“One thing I’ve said, and I’ll hold to it,” continued Dr. May; “if they
outvote Wilmot again in your Ladies’ Committee, I’ll have no more to do
with them, as sure as my name’s Dick May. It is a scandal the way things
are done here!”
“Papa,” said Richard, who had all the time been standing silent, “Ethel
and I have been thinking, if you approved, whether we could not do
something towards teaching the Cocksmoor children, and breaking them in
for the Sunday-school.”
What a bound Ethel’s heart gave, and how full of congratulation and
sympathy was the pressure of Margaret’s hand!
“What did you think of doing?” said the doctor. Ethel burned to reply,
but her sister’s hand admonished her to remember her compact. Richard
answered, “We thought of trying to get a room, and going perhaps once or
twice a week to give them a little teaching. It would be little enough,
but it might do something towards civilising them, and making them wish
for more.”
“How do you propose to get a room?”
“I have reconnoitred, and I think I know a cottage with a tolerable
kitchen, which I dare say we might hire for an afternoon for sixpence.”
Ethel, unable to bear it any longer, threw herself forward, and sitting
on the ground at her father’s feet, exclaimed, “Oh, papa! papa! do say
we may!”
“What’s all this about?” said the doctor, surprised.
“Oh! you don’t know how I have thought of it day and night these two
months!”
“What! Ethel, have a fancy for two whole months, and the whole house
not hear of it!” said her father, with a rather provoking look of
incredulity.
“Richard was afraid of bothering you, and wouldn’t let me. But do speak,
papa. May we?”
“I don’t see any objection.”
She clasped her hands in ecstasy. “Thank you! thank you, papa! Oh,
Ritchie! Oh, Margaret!” cried she, in a breathless voice of transport.
“You have worked yourself up to a fine pass,” said the doctor, patting
the agitated girl fondly as she leaned against his knee. “Remember, slow
and steady.”
“I’ve got Richard to help me,” said Ethel.
“Sufficient guarantee,” said her father, smiling archly as he looked up
to his son, whose fair face had coloured deep red. “You will keep the
Unready in order, Ritchie.”
“He does,” said Margaret; “he has taken her education into his hands,
and I really believe he has taught her to hold up her frock and stick in
pins.”
“And to know her right hand from her left, eh, Ethel? Well, you deserve
some credit, then. Suppose we ask Mr. Wilmot to tea, and talk it over.”
“Oh, thank you, papa! When shall it be? To-morrow?”
“Yes, if you like. I have to go to the town-council meeting, and am not
going into the country, so I shall be in early.”
“Thank you. Oh, how very nice!”
“And what about cost? Do you expect to rob me?”
“If you would help us,” said Ethel, with an odd shy manner; “we meant
to make what we have go as far as may be, but mine is only fifteen and
sixpence.”
“Well, you must make interest with Margaret for the turn-out of my
pocket to-morrow.”
“Thank you, we are very much obliged,” said the brother and sister
earnestly, “that is more than we expected.”
“Ha! don’t thank too soon. Suppose to-morrow should be a blank day!”
“Oh, it won’t!” said Ethel. “I shall tell Norman to make you go to
paying people.”
“There’s avarice!” said the doctor. “But look you here, Ethel, if you’ll
take my advice, you’ll make your bargain for Tuesday. I have a note
appointing me to call at Abbotstoke Grange on Mr. Rivers, at twelve
o’clock, on Tuesday. What do you think of that, Ethel? An old banker,
rich enough for his daughter to curl her hair in bank-notes. If I were
you, I’d make a bargain for him.”
“If he had nothing the matter with him, and I only got one guinea out of
him!”
“Prudence! Well, it may be wiser.”
Ethel ran up to her room, hardly able to believe that the mighty
proposal was made; and it had been so readily granted, that it seemed
as if Richard’s caution had been vain in making such a delay, that even
Margaret had begun to fear that the street of by-and-by was leading to
the house of never. Now, however, it was plain that he had been wise.
Opportunity was everything; at another moment, their father might have
been harassed and oppressed, and unable to give his mind to concerns,
which now he could think of with interest, and Richard could not have
caught a more favourable conjuncture.
Ethel was in a wild state of felicity all that evening and the next day,
very unlike her brother, who, dismayed at the open step he had taken,
shrank into himself, and in his shyness dreaded the discussion in the
evening, and would almost have been relieved, if Mr. Wilmot had been
unable to accept the invitation. So quiet and grave was he, that Ethel
could not get him to talk over the matter at all with her, and she was
obliged to bestow all her transports and grand projects on Flora or
Margaret, when she could gain their ears, besides conning them over to
herself, as an accompaniment to her lessons, by which means she tried
Miss Winter’s patience almost beyond measure. But she cared not--she
saw a gathering school and rising church, which eclipsed all thought
of present inattentions and gaucheries. She monopolised Margaret in the
twilight, and rhapsodised to her heart’s content, talking faster and
faster, and looking more and more excited. Margaret began to feel
a little overwhelmed, and while answering “yes” at intervals, was
considering whether Ethel had not been flying about in an absent
inconsiderate mood all day, and whether it would seem unkind to damp
her ardour, by giving her a hint that she was relaxing her guard over
herself. Before Margaret had steeled herself, Ethel was talking of a
story she had read, of a place something like Cocksmoor. Margaret was
not ready with her recollection, and Ethel, saying it was in a magazine
in the drawing-room chiffonier, declared she would fetch it.
Margaret knew what it was to expect her visitors to return “in one
moment,” and with a “now-or-never” feeling she began, “Ethel, dear,
wait,” but Ethel was too impetuous to attend. “I’ll be back in a
twinkling,” she called out, and down she flew, in her speed whisking
away, without seeing it, the basket with Margaret’s knitting and all
her notes and papers, which lay scattered on the floor far out of
reach, vexing Margaret at first, and then making her grieve at her own
impatient feeling.
Ethel was soon in the drawing-room, but the right number of the magazine
was not quickly forthcoming, and in searching she became embarked in
another story. Just then, Aubrey, whose stout legs were apt to carry him
into every part of the house where he was neither expected nor wanted,
marched in at the open door, trying by dint of vehement gestures to make
her understand, in his imperfect speech, something that he wanted. Very
particularly troublesome she thought him, more especially as she could
not make him out, otherwise than that he wanted her to do something
with the newspaper and the fire. She made a boat for him with an old
newspaper, a very hasty and frail performance, and told him to sail it
on the carpet, and be Mr. Ernescliffe going away; and she thought him
thus safely disposed of. Returning to her book and her search, with her
face to the cupboard, and her book held up to catch the light, she was
soon lost in her story, and thought of nothing more till suddenly roused
by her father’s voice in the hall, loud and peremptory with alarm,
“Aubrey! put that down!” She looked, and beheld Aubrey brandishing a
great flaming paper--he dropped it at the exclamation--it fell burning
on the carpet. Aubrey’s white pinafore! Ethel was springing up, but in
her cramped, twisted position she could not do so quickly, and even as
he called, her father strode by her, snatched at Aubrey’s merino frock,
which he crushed over the scarcely lighted pinafore, and trampled out
the flaming paper with his foot. It was a moment of dreadful fright, but
the next assured them that no harm was done.
“Ethel!” cried the doctor, “Are you mad? What were you thinking of?”
Aubrey, here recollecting himself enough to be frightened at his
father’s voice and manner, burst into loud cries; the doctor pressed him
closer on his breast, caressed and soothed him. Ethel stood by, pale and
transfixed with horror. Her father was more angry with her than she
had ever seen him, and with reason, as she knew, as she smelled the
singeing, and saw a large burnt hole in Aubrey’s pinafore, while the
front of his frock was scorched and brown. Dr. May’s words were not
needed, “What could make you let him?”
“I didn’t see--” she faltered.
“Didn’t see! Didn’t look, didn’t think, didn’t care! That’s it, Ethel.
‘Tis very hard one can’t trust you in a room with the child any more
than the baby himself. His frock perfect tinder! He would have been
burned to a cinder, if I had not come in!”
Aubrey roared afresh, and Dr. May, kissing and comforting him, gathered
him up in his left arm, and carried him away, looking back at the door
to say, “There’s no bearing it! I’ll put a stop to all schools and
Greek, if it is to lead to this, and make you good for nothing!”
Ethel was too much terrified to know where she was, or anything,
but that she had let her little brother run into fearful peril, and
grievously angered her father; she was afraid to follow him, and stood
still, annihilated, and in despair, till roused by his return; then,
with a stifled sob, she exclaimed, “Oh, papa!” and could get no further
for a gush of tears.
But the anger of the shock of terror was over, and Dr. May was sorry
for her tears, though still he could not but manifest some displeasure.
“Yes, Ethel,” he said, “it was a frightful thing,” and he could not
but shudder again. “One moment later! It is an escape to be for ever
thankful for--poor little fellow!--but, Ethel, Ethel, do let it be a
warning to you.”
“Oh, I hope--I’ll try--” sobbed Ethel.
“You have said you would try before.”
“I know I have,” said Ethel, choked. “If I could but--”
“Poor child,” said Dr. May sadly; then looking earnestly at her, “Ethel,
my dear, I am afraid of its being with you as--as it has been with me;”
he spoke very low, and drew her close to him. “I grew up, thinking
my inbred heedlessness a sort of grace, so to say, rather manly--the
reverse of finikin. I was spoiled as a boy, and my Maggie carried on the
spoiling, by never letting me feel its effects. By the time I had sense
enough to regret this as a fault, I had grown too old for changing of
ingrain, long-nurtured habits--perhaps I never wished it really. You
have seen,” and his voice was nearly inaudible, “what my carelessness
has come to--let that suffice at least, as a lesson that may spare
you--what your father must feel as long as he lives.”
He pressed his hand tightly on her shoulder, and left her, without
letting her see his face. Shocked and bewildered, she hurried upstairs
to Margaret. She threw herself on her knees, felt her arms round
her, and heard her kind soothing, and then, in broken words, told how
dreadful it had been, and how kind papa had been, and what he had said,
which was now the uppermost thought. “Oh, Margaret, Margaret, how very
terrible it is! And does papa really think so?”
“I believe he does,” whispered Margaret.
“How can he, can he bear it!” said Ethel, clasping her hands. “Oh! it is
enough to kill one--I can’t think why it did not!”
“He bears it,” said Margaret, “because he is so very good, that help and
comfort do come to him. Dear papa! He bears up because it is right, and
for our sakes, and he has a sort of rest in that perfect love they had
for each other. He knows how she would wish him to cheer up and look to
the end, and support and comfort are given to him, I know they are; but
oh, Ethel! it does make one tremble and shrink, to think what he has
been going through this autumn, especially when I hear him moving
about late at night, and now and then comes a heavy groan--whenever any
especial care has been on his mind.”
Ethel was in great distress. “To have grieved him again!” said she, “and
just as he seemed better and brighter! Everything I do turns out wrong,
and always will; I can’t do anything well by any chance.”
“Yes you can, when you mind what you are about.”
“But I never can--I’m like him, every one says so, and he says the
heedlessness is ingrain, and can’t be got rid of.”
“Ethel, I don’t really think he could have told you so.”
“I’m sure he said ingrain.”
“Well, I suppose it is part of his nature, and that you have inherited
it, but--” Margaret paused, and Ethel exclaimed:
“He said his was long-nurtured; yes, Margaret, you guessed right, and he
said he could not change it, and no more can I.”
“Surely, Ethel, you have not had so many years. You are fifteen instead
of forty-six, and it is more a woman’s work than a man’s to be careful.
You need not begin to despair. You were growing much better; Richard
said so, and so did Miss Winter.”
“What’s the use of it, if in one moment it is as bad as ever? And
to-day, of all days in the year, just when papa had been so very, very
kind, and given me more than I asked.”
“Do you know, Ethel, I was thinking whether dear mamma would not say
that was the reason. You were so happy, that perhaps you were thrown off
your guard.”
“I should not wonder if that was it,” said Ethel thoughtfully. “You know
it was a sort of probation that Richard put me on. I was to learn to be
steady before he spoke to papa, and now it seemed to be all settled and
right, and perhaps I forgot I was to be careful still.”
“I think it was something of the kind. I was a little afraid before, and
I wish I had tried to caution you, but I did not like to seem unkind.”
“I wish you had,” said Ethel. “Dear little Aubrey! Oh, if papa had not
been there! And I cannot think how, as it was, he could contrive to put
the fire out, with his one hand, and not hurt himself. Margaret it was
terrible. How could I mind so little! Did you see how his frock was
singed?”
“Yes, papa showed it to me. How can we be thankful enough! One thing I
hope, that Aubrey was well frightened, poor little boy.”
“I know! I see now!” cried Ethel; “he must have wanted me to make the
fire blaze up, as Richard did one evening when we came in and found it
low; I remember Aubrey clapping his hands and shouting at the flame;
but my head was in that unhappy story, and I never had sense to put the
things together, and reflect that he would try to do it himself. I only
wanted to get him out of my way, dear little fellow. Oh, dear, how bad
it was of me! All from being uplifted, and my head turned, as it used to
be when we were happier. Oh! I wish Mr. Wilmot was not coming!”
Ethel sat for a long time with her head hidden in Margaret’s pillows,
and her hand clasped by her good elder sister. At last she looked up and
said, “Oh, Margaret, I am so unhappy. I see the whole meaning of it now.
Do you not? When papa gave his consent at last, I was pleased and set
up, and proud of my plans. I never recollected what a silly, foolish
girl I am, and how unfit. I thought Mr. Wilmot would think great things
of it--it was all wrong and self-satisfied. I never prayed at all that
it might turn out well, and so now it won’t.”
“Dearest Ethel, I don’t see that. Perhaps it will do all the better for
your being humbled about it now. If you were wild and high flying, it
would never go right.”
“Its hope is in Richard,” said Ethel.
“So it is,” said Margaret.
“I wish Mr. Wilmot was not coming to-night,” said Ethel again. “It would
serve me right if papa were to say nothing about it.”
Ethel lingered with her sister till Harry and Mary came up with
Margaret’s tea, and summoned her, and she crept downstairs, and entered
the room so quietly, that she was hardly perceived behind her boisterous
brother. She knew her eyes were in no presentable state, and cast them
down, and shrank back as Mr. Wilmot shook her hand and greeted her
kindly.
Mr. Wilmot had been wont to come to tea whenever he had anything to say
to Dr. or Mrs. May, which was about once in ten or twelve days. He was
Mary’s godfather, and their most intimate friend in the town, and he
had often been with them, both as friend and clergyman, through their
trouble--no later than Christmas Day, he had come to bring the feast of
that day to Margaret in her sick-room. Indeed, it had been chiefly
for the sake of the Mays that he had resolved to spend the holidays
at Stoneborough, taking the care of Abbotstoke, while his brother, the
vicar, went to visit their father. This was, however, the first time
he had come in his old familiar way to spend an evening, and there was
something in the resumption of former habits that painfully marked the
change.
Ethel, on coming in, found Flora making tea, her father leaning back
in his great chair in silence, Richard diligently cutting bread,
and Blanche sitting on Mr. Wilmot’s knee, chattering fast and
confidentially. Flora made Harry dispense the cups, and called every one
to their places; Ethel timidly glanced at her father’s face, as he rose
and came into the light. She thought the lines and hollows were more
marked than ever, and that he looked fatigued and mournful, and she
felt cut to the heart; but he began to exert himself, and to make
conversation, not, however, about Cocksmoor, but asking Mr. Wilmot what
his brother thought of his new squire, Mr. Rivers.
“He likes him very much,” said Mr. Wilmot. “He is a very pleasing
person, particularly kind-hearted and gentle, and likely to do a great
deal for the parish. They have been giving away beef and blankets at a
great rate this Christmas.”
“What family is there?” asked Flora.
“One daughter, about Ethel’s age, is there with her governess. He
has been twice married, and the first wife left a son, who is in the
Dragoons, I believe. This girl’s mother was Lord Cosham’s daughter.”
So the talk lingered on, without much interest or life. It was rather
keeping from saying nothing than conversation, and no one was without
the sensation that she was missing, round whom all had been free and
joyous--not that she had been wont to speak much herself, but nothing
would go on smoothly or easily without her. So long did this last, that
Ethel began to think her father meant to punish her by not beginning the
subject that night, and though she owned that she deserved it, she could
not help being very much disappointed.
At length, however, her father began: “We wanted you to talk over a
scheme that these young ones have been concocting. You see, I am obliged
to keep Richard at home this next term--it won’t do to have no one in
the house to carry poor Margaret. We can’t do without him anyway, so
he and Ethel have a scheme of seeing what can be done for that wretched
place, Cocksmoor.”
“Indeed!” said Mr. Wilmot, brightening and looking interested. “It is
sadly destitute. It would be a great thing if anything could be done
for it. You have brought some children to school already, I think. I saw
some rough-looking boys, who said they came from Cocksmoor.”
This embarked the doctor in the history of the ladies being too fine to
teach the poor Cocksmoor girls, which he told with kindling vehemence
and indignation, growing more animated every moment, as he stormed over
the wonted subject of the bad system of management--ladies’ committee,
negligent incumbent, insufficient clergy, misappropriated tithes--while
Mr. Wilmot, who had mourned over it, within himself, a hundred times
already, and was doing a curate’s work on sufferance, with no pay, and
little but mistrust from Mr. Ramsden, and absurd false reports among the
more foolish part of the town, sat listening patiently, glad to hear
the doctor in his old strain, though it was a hopeless matter for
discussion, and Ethel dreaded that the lamentation would go on till
bedtime, and Cocksmoor be quite forgotten.
After a time they came safely back to the project, and Richard was
called on to explain. Ethel left it all to him, and he with rising
colour, and quiet, unhesitating, though diffident manner, detailed
designs that showed themselves to have been well matured. Mr. Wilmot
heard, cordially approved, and, as all agreed that no time was to be
lost, while the holidays lasted, he undertook to speak to Mr. Ramsden on
the subject the next morning, and if his consent to their schemes could
be gained, to come in the afternoon to walk with Richard and Ethel to
Cocksmoor, and set their affairs in order. All the time Ethel said not
a word, except when referred to by her brother; but when Mr. Wilmot took
leave, he shook her hand warmly, as if he was much pleased with her.
“Ah!” she thought, “if he knew how ill I have behaved! It is all show
and hollowness with me.”
She did not know that Mr. Wilmot thought her silence one of the best
signs for the plan, nor how much more doubtful he would have thought her
perseverance, if he had seen her wild and vehement. As it was, he was
very much pleased, and when the doctor came out with him into the hall,
he could not help expressing his satisfaction in Richard’s well-judged
and sensibly-described project.
“Ay, ay!” said the doctor, “there’s much more in the boy than I used
to think. He’s a capital fellow, and more like his mother than any of
them.”
“He is,” said Mr. Wilmot; “there was a just, well-weighed sense and
soberness in his plans that put me in mind of her every moment.”
Dr. May gave his hand a squeeze, full of feeling, and went up to tell
Margaret. She, on the first opportunity, told Richard, and made him
happier than he had been for months, not so much in Mr. Wilmot’s words,
as in his father’s assent to, and pleasure in them.