unheard by his wife, who had sunk her face in her pillows again.
“Going. Meta is seeing to it.”
“And that woman gets off free!” cried George, “while my poor little
girl--” and, no longer occupied by the hope of retribution, he gave way
to an overpowering burst of grief.
His wife did not rouse herself to comfort him, but still lay motionless,
excepting for a convulsive movement that passed over her frame at each
sound from him, and her father felt her pulse bound at the same time
with corresponding violence, as if each of his deep-drawn sobs were
a mortal thrust. Going to him, Dr. May endeavoured to repress his
agitation, and lead him from the room; but he could not, at first,
prevail on him to listen or understand, still less, to quit Flora. The
attempt to force on him the perception that his uncontrolled sorrow
was injuring her, and that he ought to bear up for her sake, only did
further harm; for, when he rose up and tried to caress her, there was
the same torpid, passive resistance, the same burying her face from the
light, and the only betrayal of consciousness in the agonised throbs of
her pulse.
He became excessively distressed at being thus repelled, and, at last,
yielded to the impatient signals of Dr. May, who drew him into the next
room, and, with brief, strong, though most affectionate and pitying
words, enforced on him that Flora’s brain--nay, her life, was risked,
and that he must leave her alone to his care for the present. Meta
coming back at the same moment, Dr. May put him in her charge, with
renewed orders to impress on him how much depended on tranquillity.
Dr. May went back, with his soft, undisturbing, physician’s footfall,
and stood at the side of the bed, in such intense anxiety as those only
can endure who know how to pray, and to pray in resignation and faith.
All was still in the darkening twilight; but the distant roar of the
world surged without, and a gaslight shone flickering through the
branches of the trees, and fell on the rich dress spread on the couch,
and the ornaments on the toilet-table. There was a sense of oppression,
and of being pursued by the incongruous world, and Dr. May sighed to
silence all around, and see his poor daughter in the calm of her own
country air; but she had chosen for herself, and here she lay, stricken
down in the midst of the prosperity that she had sought.
He could hear every respiration, tightened and almost sobbing, and he
was hesitating whether to run the risk of addressing her; when, as if it
had occurred to her suddenly that she was alone and deserted, she raised
up her head with a startled movement, but, as she saw him, she again hid
her face, as if his presence were still more intolerable than solitude.
“Flora! my own, my dearest--my poor child! you should not turn from me.
Do I not carry with me the like self-reproachful conviction?”
Flora let him turn her face towards him and kiss her forehead. It was
burning, and he brought water and bathed it, now and then speaking a few
fond, low, gentle words, which, though she did not respond, evidently
had some soothing effect; for she admitted his services, still, however,
keeping her eyes closed, and her face turned towards the darkest side of
the room. When he went towards the door, she murmured, “Papa!” as if to
detain him.
“I am not going, darling. I only wanted to speak to George.”
“Don’t let him come!” said Flora.
“Not till you wish it, my dear.”
George’s step was heard; his hand was on the lock, and again Dr. May was
conscious of the sudden rush of blood through all her veins. He
quickly went forward, met him, and shut him out, persuading him, with
difficulty, to remain outside, and giving him the occupation of sending
out for an anodyne--since the best hope, at present, lay in encouraging
the torpor that had benumbed her crushed faculties.
Her father would not even venture to rouse her to be undressed; he gave
her the medicine, and let her lie still, with as little movement as
possible, standing by till her regular breathings showed that she had
sunk into a sleep; when he went into the other room and found that
George had also forgotten his sorrows in slumber on the sofa, while Meta
sat sadly presiding over the tea equipage.
She came up to meet him, her question expressed in her looks.
“Asleep,” he said; “I hope the pulses are quieter. All depends on her
wakening.”
“Poor, poor Flora!” said Meta, wiping away her tears.
“What have you done with the woman?”
“I sent her to Mrs. Larpent’s. I knew she would receive her and keep
her till she could write to her friends. Bellairs took her, but I could
hardly speak to her--”
“She did it ignorantly,” said Dr. May.
“I could never be so merciful and forbearing as you,” said Meta.
“Ah! my dear, you will never have the same cause!”
They could say no more, for George awoke, and the argument of his
exclusion had to be gone through again. He could not enter into it by
any means; and when Dr. May would have made him understand that poor
Flora could not acquit herself of neglect, and that even his affection
was too painful for her in the present state; he broke into a vehement
angry defence of her devotion to her child, treating Dr. May as if the
accusation came from him; and when the doctor and Meta had persuaded him
out of this, he next imagined that his father-in-law feared that he was
going to reproach his wife, and there was no making him comprehend more
than that, if she were not kept quiet, she might have a serious illness.
Even then he insisted on going to look at her, and Dr. May could not
prevent him from pressing his lips to her forehead. She half opened her
eyes, and murmured “good-night,” and by this he was a little comforted;
but he would hear of nothing but sitting up, and Meta would have done
the same, but for an absolute decree of the doctor.
It was a relief to Dr. May that George’s vigil soon became a sound
repose on the sofa in the dressing-room; and he was left to read and
muse uninterruptedly.
It was far past two o’clock before there was any movement; then Flora
drew a long breath, stirred, and, as her father came and drew her hand
into his, before she was well awake, she gave a long, wondering whisper,
“Oh, papa! papa!” then sitting up, and passing her hand over her eyes,
“Is it all true?”
“It is true, my own poor dear,” said Dr. May, supporting her, as she
rested against his arm, and hid her face on his shoulder, while her
breath came short, and she shivered under the renewed perception--“she
is gone to wait for you.”
“Hush! Oh, don’t! papa!” said Flora, her voice shortened by anguish.
“Oh, think why--”
“Nay, Flora, do not, do not speak as if that should exclude peace
or hope!” said Dr. May entreatingly. “Besides, it was no wilful
neglect--you had other duties--”
“You don’t know me, papa,” said Flora, drawing her hands away from him,
and tightly clenching them in one another, as thoughts far too terrible
for words swept over her.
“If I do not, the most Merciful Father does,” said Dr. May. Flora sat
for a minute or two, her hands locked together round her knees, her head
bowed down, her lips compressed. Her father was so far satisfied that
the bodily dangers he had dreaded were averted; but the agony of mind
was far more terrible, especially in one who expressed so little, and in
whom it seemed, as it were, pent up.
“Papa!” said Flora presently, with a resolution of tone as if she would
prevent resistance; “I must see her!”
“You shall, my dear,” said the doctor at once; and she seemed grateful
not to be opposed, speaking more gently, as she said, “May it be
now--while there is no daylight?”
“If you wish it,” said Dr. May.
The dawn, and a yellow waning moon, gave sufficient light for moving
about, and Flora gained her feet; but she was weak and trembling, and
needed the support of her father’s arm, though hardly conscious of
receiving it, as she mounted the same stairs, that she had so often
lightly ascended in the like doubtful morning light; for never, after
any party, had she omitted her visit to the nursery.
The door was locked, and she looked piteously at her father as her weak
push met the resistance, and he was somewhat slow in turning the key
with his left hand. The whitewashed, slightly furnished room reflected
the light, and the moonbeams showed the window-frame in pale and dim
shades on the blinds, the dewy air breathed in coolly from the park,
and there was a calm solemnity in the atmosphere--no light, no watcher
present to tend the babe. Little Leonora needed such no more; she was
with the Keeper, who shall neither slumber nor sleep.
So it thrilled across her grandfather, as he saw the little cradle
drawn into the middle of the room, and, on the coverlet, some pure white
rosebuds and lilies of the valley, gathered in the morning by Mary
and Blanche, little guessing the use that Meta would make of them ere
nightfall.
The mother sank on her knees, her hands clasped over her breast, and
rocking herself to and fro uneasily, with a low, irrepressible moaning.
“Will you not see her face?” whispered Dr. May.
“I may not touch her,” was the answer, in the hollow voice, and with the
wild eye that had before alarmed him; but trusting to the soothing power
of the mute face of the innocent, he drew back the covering.
The sight was such as he anticipated, sadly lovely, smiling and
tranquil--all oppression and suffering fled away for ever.
It stilled the sounds of pain, and the restless motion; the compression
of the hands became less tight, and he began to hope that the look was
passing into her heart. He let her kneel on without interruption, only
once he said, “Of such is the kingdom of Heaven!”
She made no immediate answer, and he had had time to doubt whether he
ought to let her continue in that exhausting attitude any longer, when
she looked up and said, “You will all be with her there.”
“She has flown on to point your aim more steadfastly,” said Dr. May.
Flora shuddered, but spoke calmly--“No, I shall not meet her.”
“My child!” he exclaimed, “do you know what you are saying?”
“I know, I am not in the way,” said Flora, still in the same fearfully
quiet, matter-of-fact tone. “I never have been”--and she bent over her
child, as if taking her leave for eternity.
His tongue almost clave to the roof of his mouth, as he heard the
words--words elicited by one of those hours of true reality that,
like death, rend aside every wilful cloak of self-deceit, and
self-approbation. He had no power to speak at first; when he recovered
it, his reply was not what his heart had, at first, prompted.
“Flora! How has this dear child been saved?” he said. “What has released
her from the guilt she inherited through you, through me, through all?
Is not the Fountain open?”
“She never wasted grace,” said Flora.
“My child! my Flora!” he exclaimed, losing the calmness he had gained
by such an effort; “you must not talk thus--it is wrong! Only your own
morbid feeling can treat this--this--as a charge against you, and if
it were, indeed”--he sank his voice--“that such consequences destroyed
hope, oh, Flora! where should I be?”
“No,” said Flora, “this is not what I meant. It is that I have never
set my heart right. I am not like you nor my sisters. I have seemed to
myself, and to you, to be trying to do right, but it was all hollow, for
the sake of praise and credit. I know it, now it is too late; and He
has let me destroy my child here, lest I should have destroyed her
everlasting life, like my own.”
The most terrible part of this sentence was to Dr. May, that Flora spoke
as if she knew it all as a certainty, and without apparent emotion, with
all the calmness of despair. What she had never guessed before had
come clearly and fully upon her now, and without apparent novelty,
or, perhaps, there had been misgivings in the midst of her complacent
self-satisfaction. She did not even seem to perceive how dreadfully
she was shocking her father, whose sole comfort was in believing her
language the effect of exaggerated self-reproach. His profession had
rendered him not new to the sight of despondency, and, dismayed as he
was, he was able at once to speak to the point.
“If it were indeed so, her removal would be the greatest blessing.”
“Yes,” said her mother, and her assent was in the same tone of resigned
despair, owning it best for her child to be spared a worldly education,
and loving her truly enough to acquiesce.
“I meant the greatest blessing to you,” continued Dr. May, “if it be
sent to open your eyes, and raise your thoughts upwards. Oh, Flora, are
not afflictions tokens of infinite love?”
She could not accept the encouragement, and only formed, with her lips,
the words, “Mercy to her--wrath to me!”
The simplicity and hearty piety which, with all Dr. May’s faults, had
always been part of his character, and had borne him, in faith and
trust, through all his trials, had never belonged to her. Where he had
been sincere, erring only from impulsiveness, she had been double-minded
and calculating; and, now that her delusion had been broken down, she
had nothing to rest upon. Her whole religious life had been mechanical,
deceiving herself more than even others, and all seemed now swept away,
except the sense of hypocrisy, and of having cut herself off, for ever,
from her innocent child. Her father saw that it was vain to argue with
her, and only said, “You will think otherwise by and by, my dear. Now
shall I say a prayer before we go down?”
As she made no reply, he repeated the Lord’s Prayer, but she did not
join; and then he added a broken, hesitating intercession for the
mourners, which caused her to bury her face deeper in her hands, but her
dull wretchedness altered not.
Rising, he said authoritatively, “Come, Flora, you must go to bed. See,
it is morning.”
“You have sat up all night with me!” said Flora, with somewhat of her
anxious, considerate self.
“So has George. He had just dropped asleep on the sofa when you awoke.”
“I thought he was in anger,” said she.
“Not with you, dearest.”
“No, I remember now, not where it was justly due. Papa,” she said,
pausing, as to recall her recollection, “what did I do? I must have done
something very unkind to make him go away and leave me.”
“I insisted on his leaving you, my dear. You seemed oppressed, and his
affectionate ways were doing you harm; so I was hardhearted, and turned
him out, sadly against his will.”
“Poor George!” said Flora, “has he been left to bear it alone all this
time? How much distressed he must have been. I must have vexed him
grievously. You don’t guess how fond he was of her. I must go to him at
once.”
“That is right, my dear.”
“Don’t praise me,” said she, as if she could not bear it. “All that is
left for me is to do what I can for him.”
Dr. May felt cheered. He was sure that hope must again rise out of
unselfish love and duty.
Their return awoke George, who started, half sitting up, wondering why
he was spending the night in so unusual a manner, and why Flora looked
so pale, in the morning light, with her loosened, drooping hair.
She went straight to him, and, kneeling by his side, said, “George,
forgive!” The same moment he had caught her to his bosom; but so
impressed was his tardy mind with the peril of talking to her, that he
held her in his arms without a single word, till Dr. May had unclosed
his lips--a sign would not suffice--he must have a sentence to assure
him; and then it was such joy to have her restored, and his fondness
and solicitude were so tender and eager in their clumsiness, that his
father-in-law was touched to the heart.
Flora was quite herself again, in presence of mind and power of dealing
with him; and Dr. May left them to each other, and went to his own room,
for such rest as sorrow, sympathy, and the wakening city, would permit
him.
When the house was astir in the morning, and the doctor had met Meta in
the breakfast-room, and held with her a sad, affectionate conversation,
George came down with a fair report of his wife, and took her father to
see her.
That night had been like an illness to her, and, though perfectly
composed, she was feeble and crushed, keeping the room darkened, and
reluctant to move or speak. Indeed, she did not seem able to give her
attention to any one’s voice, except her husband’s. When Dr. May, or
Meta, spoke to her, she would miss what they said, beg their pardon, and
ask them to repeat it; and sometimes, even then, become bewildered.
They tried reading to her, but she did not seem to listen, and her
half-closed eye had the expression of listless dejection, that her
father knew betokened that, even as last night, her heart refused to
accept promises of comfort as meant for her.
For George, however, her attention was always ready, and was perpetually
claimed. He was forlorn and at a loss without her, every moment; and,
in the sorrow which he too felt most acutely, could not have a minute’s
peace unless soothed by her presence; he was dependent on her to a
degree which amazed and almost provoked the doctor, who could not
bear to have her continually harassed and disturbed, and yet was much
affected by witnessing so much tenderness, especially in Flora, always
the cold utilitarian member of his family.
In the middle of the day she rose and dressed, because George was
unhappy at having to sit without her, though only in the next room. She
sat in the large arm-chair, turned away from the blinded windows, never
speaking nor moving, save when he came to her, to make her look at
his letters and notes, when she would, with the greatest patience and
sweetness, revise them, suggest word or sentence, rouse herself to
consider each petty detail, and then sink back into her attitude of
listless dejection. To all besides, she appeared totally indifferent;
gently courteous to Meta and to her father, when they addressed her, but
otherwise showing little consciousness whether they were in the room;
and yet, when something was passing about her father’s staying or
returning, she rose from her seat, came up to him before he was aware,
and said, “Papa! papa! you will not leave me!” in such an imploring
tone, that if he had ever thought of quitting her, he could not have
done so.
He longed to see her left to perfect tranquillity, but such could not be
in London. Though theirs was called a quiet house, the rushing stream
of traffic wearied his country ears, the door bell seemed ceaselessly
ringing, and though Meta bore the brunt of the notes and messages, great
numbers necessarily came up to Mr. Rivers, and of these Flora was not
spared one. Dr. May had his share too of messages and business, and
friends and relations, the Rivers’ kindred, always ready to take
offence with their rich connections, and who would not be satisfied with
inquiries, at the door, but must see Meta, and would have George fetched
down to them--old aunts, who wanted the whole story of the child’s
illness, and came imagining there was something to be hushed up; Lady
Leonora extremely polite, but extremely disgusted at the encounter with
them; George ready to be persuaded to take every one up to see his wife,
and the prohibition to be made by Dr. May over and over again--it was
a most tedious, wearing afternoon, and at last, when the visitors had
gone, and George had hurried back to his wife, Dr. May threw himself
into an arm-chair and said, “Oh, Meta, sorrow weighs more heavily in
town than in the country!”
“Yes!” said Meta. “If one only could go out and look at the flowers, and
take poor Flora up a nosegay!”
“I don’t think it would make much difference to her,” sighed the doctor.
“Yes, I think it would,” said Meta; “it did to me. The sights there
speak of the better sights.”
“The power to look must come from within,” said Dr. May, thinking of his
poor daughter.
“Ay,” said Meta, “as Mr. Ernescliffe said, ‘heaven is as near--!’ But
the skirts of heaven are more easily traced in our mountain view than
here, where, if I looked out of window, I should only see that giddy
string of carriages and people pursuing each other!”
“Well, we shall get her home as soon as she is able to move, and I hope
it may soothe her. What a turmoil it is! There has not been one moment
without noise in the twenty-two hours I have been here!”
“What would you say if you were in the city?”
“Ah! there’s no talking of it; but if I had been a fashionable London
physician, as my father-in-law wanted to make me, I should have been
dead long ago!”
“No, I think you would have liked it very much.”
“Why?”
“Love’s a flower that will not die,” repeated Meta, half smiling. “You
would have found so much good to do--”
“And so much misery to rend one’s heart,” said Dr. May. “But, after all,
I suppose there is only a certain capacity of feeling.”
“It is within, not without, as you said,” returned Meta.
“Ha, there’s another!” cried Dr. May, almost petulant at the sound
of the bell again, breaking into the conversation that was a great
refreshment.
“It was Sir Henry Walkinghame’s ring,” said Meta. “It is always his time
of day.”
The doctor did not like it the better.
Sir Henry sent up a message to ask whether he could see Mr. or Miss
Rivers.
“I suppose we must,” said Meta, looking at the doctor. “Lady Walkinghame
must be anxious about Flora.”
She blushed greatly, fancying that Dr. May was putting his own
construction on the heightened colour which she could not control.
Sir Henry came in, just what he ought to be, kindly anxious, but not
overwhelming, and with a ready, pleased recognition of the doctor, as an
old acquaintance of his boyhood. He did not stay many minutes; but there
was a perceptible difference between his real sympathy and friendly
regard only afraid of obtruding, and the oppressive curiosity of their
former visitors. Dr. May felt it due, both from kindness and candour, to
say something in his praise when he was gone.
“That is a sensible superior man,” he said. “He will be an acquisition
when he takes up his abode at Drydale.”
“Yes,” said Meta; a very simple yes, from which nothing could be
gathered.
The funeral was fixed for Monday, the next day but one, at the church
where Mr. Rivers had been buried. No one was invited to be present;
Ethel wrote that, much as she wished it, she could not leave Margaret,
and, as the whole party were to return home on the following day, they
should soon see Flora.
Flora had laid aside all privileges of illness after the first day; she
came downstairs to breakfast and dinner, and though looking wretchedly
ill, and speaking very low and feebly, she was as much as ever the
mistress of her house. Her father could never draw her into conversation
again on the subject nearest his heart, and could only draw the sad
conclusion that her state of mind was unchanged, from the dreary
indifference with which she allowed every word of cheer to pass by
unheeded, as if she could not bear to look beyond the grave. He had some
hope in the funeral, which she was bent on attending, and more in the
influence of Margaret, and the counsel of Richard, or of Mr. Wllmot.
The burial, however, failed to bring any peaceful comfort to the
mourning mother. Meta’s tears flowed freely, as much for her father
as for her little niece; and George’s sobs were deep and choking; but
Flora, externally, only seemed absorbed in helping him to go through
with it; she, herself, never lost her fixed, composed, hopeless look.
After her return, she went up to the nursery, and deliberately set
apart and locked up every possession of her child’s, then, coming down,
startled Meta by laying her hand on her shoulder and saying, “Meta,
dear, Preston is in the housekeeper’s room. Will you go and speak to her
for a moment, to reassure her before I come?”
“Oh, Flora!”
“I sent for her,” said Flora, in answer. “I thought it would be a good
opportunity while George is out. Will you be kind enough to prepare her,
my dear?”
Meta wondered how Flora had known whither to send, but she could not but
obey. Poor Preston was an ordinary sort of woman, kind-hearted, and not
without a conscience; but her error had arisen from the want of any high
religious principle to teach her obedience, or sincerity. Her grief was
extreme, and she had been so completely overcome by the forbearance and
consideration shown to her, that she was even more broken-hearted by the
thought of them, than by the terrible calamity she had occasioned.
Kind-hearted Mrs. Larpent had tried to console her, as well as to turn
the misfortune to the best account, and Dr. May had once seen her, and
striven gently to point out the true evil of the course she had pursued.
She was now going to her home, and they augured better of her, that
she had been as yet too utterly downcast to say one word of that first
thought with a servant, her character.
Meta found her sobbing uncontrollably at the associations of her
master’s house, and dreadfully frightened at hearing that she was to see
Mrs. Rivers; she began to entreat to the contrary with the vehemence of
a person unused to any self-government; but, in the midst, the low
calm tones were heard, and her mistress stood before her--her perfect
stillness of demeanour far more effective in repressing agitation, than
had been Meta’s coaxing attempts to soothe.
“You need not be afraid to see me, Preston,” said Flora kindly. “I am
very sorry for you--you knew no better, and I should not have left so
much to you.”
“Oh, ma’am--so kind--the dear, dear little darling--I shall never
forgive myself.”
“I know you did love her,” continued Flora. “I am sure you intended no
harm, and it was my leaving her that made her fretful.”
Preston tried to thank.
“Only remember henceforth”--and the clear tone grew fainter than ever
with internal anguish, though still steady--“remember strict obedience
and truth henceforth; the want of them will have worse results by and by
than even this. Now, Preston, I shall always wish you well. I ought not,
I believe, to recommend you to the like place, without saying why you
left me, but for any other I will give you a fair character. I will see
what I can do for you, and if you are ever in any distress, I hope you
will let me know. Have your wages been paid?”
There was a sound in the affirmative, but poor Preston could not speak.
“Good-bye, then,” and Flora took her hand and shook it. “Mind you let me
hear if you want help. Keep this.”
Meta was a little disappointed to see sovereigns instead of a book.
Flora turned to go, and put her hand out to lean on her sister as for
support; she stood still to gather strength before ascending the stairs,
and a groan of intense misery was wrung from her.
“Dearest Flora, it has been too much!”
“No,” said Flora gently.
“Poor thing, I am glad for her sake. But might she not have a book--a
Bible?”
“You may give her one, if you like. I could not.”
Flora reached her own room, went in, and bolted the door.
CHAPTER XXI.
Oh, where dwell ye, my ain sweet bairns?
I’m woe and weary grown!
Oh, Lady, we live where woe never is,
In a land to flesh unknown.--ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
It had been with a gentle sorrow that Etheldred had expected to go and
lay in her resting-place, the little niece, who had been kept from the
evil of the world, in a manner of which she had little dreamt. Poor
Flora! she must be ennobled, she thought, by having a child where hers
is, when she is able to feel anything but the first grief; and Ethel’s
heart yearned to be trying, at least, to comfort her, and to be with her
father, who had loved his grandchild so fondly.
It was not to be. Margaret had borne so many shocks with such calmness,
that Ethel had no especial fears for her; but there are some persons who
have less fortitude for others than for themselves, and she was one of
these. Ethel had been her own companion-sister, and the baby had been
the sunbeam of her life, during the sad winter and spring.
In the middle of the night, Ethel knocked at Richard’s door. Margaret
had been seized with faintness, from which they could not bring her
back; and, even when Richard had summoned Dr. Spencer, it was long ere
his remedies took effect; but, at last, she revived enough to thank
them, and say she was glad that papa was not there.
Dr. Spencer sent them all to bed, and the rest of the night was quiet;
but Margaret could not deny, in the morning, that she felt terribly
shattered, and she was depressed in spirits to a degree such as they
had never seen in her before. Her whole heart was with Flora; she was
unhappy at being at a distance from her, almost fretfully impatient for
letters, and insisting vehemently on Ethel’s going to London.
Ethel had never felt so helpless and desolate, as with Margaret thus
changed and broken, and her father absent.
“My dear,” said Dr. Spencer, “nothing can be better for both parties
than that he should be away. If he were here, he ought to leave all
attendance to me, and she would suffer from the sight of his distress.”
“I cannot think what he will do or feel!” sighed Ethel.
“Leave it to me. I will write to him, and we shall see her better before
post time.”
“You will tell him exactly how it was, or I shall,” said Ethel abruptly,
not to say fiercely.
“Ho! you don’t trust me?” said Dr. Spencer, smiling, so that she was
ashamed of her speech. “You shall speak for yourself, and I for myself;
and I shall say that nothing would so much hurt her as to have others
sacrificed to her.”
“That is true,” said Ethel; “but she misses papa.”
“Of course she does; but, depend on it, she would not have him leave
your sister, and she is under less restraint without him.”
“I never saw her like this!”
“The drop has made it overflow. She has repressed more than was good
for her, and now that her guard is broken down, she gives way under the
whole weight.”
“Poor Margaret! I am pertinacious; but, if she is not better by post
time, papa will not bear to be away.”
“I’ll tell you what I think of her by that time. Send up your brother
Richard, if you wish to do her good. Richard would be a much better
person to write than yourself. I perceive that he is the reasonable
member of the family.”
“Did not you know that before?”
“All I knew of him, till last night, was, that no one could, by any
possibility, call him Dick.”
Dr. Spencer was glad to have dismissed Ethel smiling; and she was the
better able to bear with poor Margaret’s condition of petulance. She had
never before experienced the effects of bodily ailments on the temper,
and she was slow to understand the change in one usually so patient and
submissive. She was, by turns, displeased with her sister and with her
own abruptness; but, though she knew it not, her bluntness had a bracing
effect. She thought she had been cross in declaring it was nonsense to
harp on her going to London; but it made Margaret feel that she had been
unreasonable, and keep silence.
Richard managed her much better, being gentle and firm, and less ready
to speak than Ethel, and he succeeded in composing her into a sleep,
which restored her balance, and so relieved Ethel, that she not only
allowed Dr. Spencer to say what he pleased, but herself made light of
the whole attack, little knowing how perilous was any shock to that
delicate frame.
Margaret’s whole purpose was to wind herself up for the first interview
with Flora; and though she had returned to her usual state, she would
not go downstairs on the evening the party were expected, believing
it would be more grateful to her sister’s feelings to meet her without
witnesses.
The travellers arrived, and Dr. May hurried up to her. She barely
replied to his caresses and inquiries in her eagerness to hear of Flora,
and to convince him that he must not forbid the meeting. Nor had he any
mind so to do. “Surely,” said he, when he had seen the spiritualised
look of her glistening blue eyes, the flush on her transparent cheeks,
and her hands clasped over her breast--“surely poor Flora must feel as
though an angel were waiting to comfort her.”
Flora came, but there was sore disappointment. Fond and tender she
was as ever, but, neither by word or gesture, would she admit the most
remote allusion to her grief. She withdrew her hand when Margaret’s
pressure became expressive; she avoided her eye, and spoke incessantly
of different subjects. All the time, her voice was low and hollow, her
face had a settled expression of wretchedness, and her glances wandered
drearily and restlessly anywhere but to Margaret’s face; but her
steadiness of manner was beyond her sister’s power to break, and her
visit was shortened on account of her husband. Poor George had quite
given way at the sight of Gertrude, whom his little girl had been
thought to resemble; and, though Dr. May had soothed him almost like
a child, no one put any trust in his self-control, and all sat round,
fearing each word or look, till Flora came downstairs, and they
departed.
Richard and Ethel each offered to go with them; they could not bear to
think of their spending that first evening in their childless home; but
Flora gently, but decidedly, refused; and Dr. May said that, much as he
wished to be with them, he believed that Flora preferred having no one
but Meta. “I hope I have done Margaret no harm,” were Flora’s last words
to him, and they seemed to explain her guarded manner; but he found
Margaret weeping as she had never wept for herself, and palpitation and
faintness were the consequence.
Ethel looked on at Flora as a sad and perplexing mystery during the
weeks that ensued. There were few opportunities of being alone together,
and Flora shrank from such as they were--nay, she checked all expression
of solicitude, and made her very kisses rapid and formal.
The sorrow that had fallen on the Grange seemed to have changed none of
the usual habits there--visiting, riding, driving, dinners, and music,
went on with little check. Flora was sure to be found the animated,
attentive lady of the house, or else sharing her husband’s pursuits,
helping him with his business, or assisting him in seeking pleasure,
spending whole afternoons at the coachmaker’s over a carriage that they
were building, and, it was reported, playing ecarte in the evening.
Had grief come to be forgotten and cast aside without effecting any
mission? Yet Ethel could not believe that the presence of the awful
messenger was unfelt, when she heard poor George’s heavy sigh, or when
she looked at Flora’s countenance, and heard the peculiar low, subdued
tone of her voice, which, when her words were most cheerful, always
seemed to Ethel the resigned accent of despair.
Ethel could not talk her over with Margaret, for all seemed to make it
a point that Margaret should believe the best. Dr. May turned from the
subject with a sort of shuddering grief, and said, “Don’t talk of her,
poor child--only pray for her!”
Ethel, though shocked by the unwonted manner of his answer, was somewhat
consoled by perceiving that a double measure of tenderness had sprung
up between her father and his poor daughter. If Flora had seemed, in her
girlhood, to rate him almost cheaply, this was at an end now; she met
him as if his embrace were peace, the gloom was lightened, the attention
less strained, when he was beside her, and she could not part with him
without pressing for a speedy meeting. Yet she treated him with the same
reserve; since that one ghastly revelation of the secrets of her heart,
the veil had been closely drawn, and he could not guess whether it had
been but a horrible thought, or were still an abiding impression. Ethel
could gather no more than that her father was very unhappy about Flora,
and that Richard understood why; for Richard had told her that he had
written to Flora, to try to persuade her to cease from this reserve, but
that he had no reply.
Norman was not at home; he had undertaken the tutorship of two
schoolboys for the holidays; and his father owned, with a sigh, that he
was doing wisely.
As to Meta, she was Ethel’s chief consolation, by the redoubled
assurances, directed to Ethel’s unexpressed dread, lest Flora should be
rejecting the chastening Hand. Meta had the most absolute certainty that
Flora’s apparent cheerfulness was all for George’s sake, and that it was
a most painful exertion. “If Ethel could only see how she let herself
sink together, as it were, and her whole countenance relax, as soon as
he was out of sight,” Meta said, “she could not doubt what misery these
efforts were to her.”
“Why does she go on with them?” said Ethel.
“George,” said Meta. “What would become of him without her? If he misses
her for ten minutes he roams about lost, and he cannot enjoy anything
without her. I cannot think how he can help seeing what hard work it is,
and how he can be contented with those dreadful sham smiles; but as long
as she can give him pleasure, poor Flora will toil for him.”
“It is very selfish,” Ethel caught herself saying.
“No, no, it is not,” cried Meta. “It is not that he will not see, but
that he cannot see. Good honest fellow, he really thinks it does her
good and pleases her. I was so sorry one evening when I tried to take
her place at that perpetual ecarte, and told him it teased her; he went
so wistfully to her, and asked whether it did, and she exerted herself
into such painful enjoyment to persuade him to the contrary; and
afterwards she said to me, ‘Let me alone, dearest--it is the only thing
left me.’”
“There is something in being husband and wife that one cannot
understand,” slowly said Ethel, so much in her quaint way that Meta
laughed.
Had it not been for Norman’s absence, Ethel would, in the warm sympathy
and accustomed manner of Meta Rivers, have forgotten all about the hopes
and fears that, in brighter days, had centred on that small personage;
until one day, as she came home from Cocksmoor, she found “Sir Henry
Walkinghame’s” card on the drawing-room table. “I should like to bite
you! Coming here, are you?” was her amiable reflection.
Meta, in her riding-habit, peeped out of Margaret’s room. “Oh, Ethel,
there you are! It is such a boon that you did not come home sooner, or
we should have had to ride home with him! I heard him asking for the
Miss Mays! And now I am in hopes that he will go home without falling in
with Flora and George.”
“I did not know he was in these parts.”
“He came to Drydale last week, but the place is forlorn, and George gave
him a general invitation to the Grange.”
“Do you like him?” said Ethel, while Margaret looked on, amazed at her
audacity.
“I liked him very much in London,” said Meta; “he is pleasant enough to
talk to, but somehow, he is not congruous here--if you understand me.
And I think his coming oppresses Flora--she turned quite pale when he
was announced, and her voice was lower than ever when she spoke to him.”
“Does he come often?” said Ethel.
“I don’t think he has anything else to do,” returned Meta, “for our
house cannot be as pleasant as it was; but he is very kind to George,
and for that we must be grateful. One thing I am afraid of, that he will
persuade us off to the yachting after all.”
“Oh!” was the general exclamation.
“Yes,” said Meta. “George seemed to like the plan, and I very much fear
that he is taking a dislike to the dear old Grange. I heard him say,
‘Anything to get away.’”
“Poor George, I know he is restless,” said Margaret.
“At least,” said Ethel, “you can’t go till after your birthday, Miss
Heiress.”
“No, Uncle Cosham is coming,” said Meta. “Margaret, you must have your
stone laid before we go!”
“Dr. Spencer promises it before Hector’s holidays are over,” said
Margaret, blushing, as she always did, with pleasure, when they talked
of the church.
Hector Ernescliffe had revived Margaret wonderfully. She was seldom
downstairs before the evening, and Ethel thought his habit of making her
apartment his sitting-room must be as inconvenient to her as it was
to herself; but Hector could not be de trop for Margaret. She exerted
herself to fulfil for him all the little sisterly offices that, with her
brothers, had been transferred to Ethel and Mary; she threw herself into
all his schemes, tried to make him endure Captain Gordon, and she
even read his favourite book of Wild Sports, though her feelings were
constantly lacerated by the miseries of the slaughtered animals.
Her couch was to him as a home, and he had awakened her bright soft
liveliness which had been only dimmed for a time.
The church was her other great interest, and Dr. Spencer humoured her
by showing her all his drawings, consulting her on every ornament,
and making many a perspective elevation, merely that she might see the
effect.
Richard and Tom made it their recreation to construct a model of the
church as a present for her, and Tom developed a genius for carving,
which proved a beneficial interest to keep him from surliness. He had
voluntarily propounded his intended profession to his father, who had
been so much pleased by his choice, that he could not but be gratified;
though now and then ambitious fancies, and discontent with Stoneborough,
combined to bring on his ordinary moody fits, the more, because his
habitual reserve prevented any one from knowing what was working in his
mind.
Finally the Rivers’ party announced their intention of going to the Isle
of Wight as soon as Meta had come of age; and the council of Cocksmoor,
meeting at tea at Dr. May’s house, decided that the foundation stone
of the church should be laid on the day after her birthday, when there
would be a gathering of the whole family, as Margaret wished. Dr.
Spencer had worked incredibly hard to bring it forward, and Margaret’s
sweet smiles, and liquid eyes, expressed how personally thankful she
felt.
“What a blessing this church has been to that poor girl,” said Dr.
Spencer, as he left the house with Mr. Wilmot. “How it beguiles her out
of her grief! I am glad she has the pleasure of the foundation; I doubt
if she will see the consecration.”
“Indeed!” said Mr. Wilmot, shocked. “Was that attack so serious?”
“That recumbent position and want of exercise were certain to produce
organic disease, and suspense and sorrow have hastened it. The death of
Mrs. Rivers’s poor child was the blow that called it into activity, and,
if it last more than a year, I shall be surprised.”
“For such as she is, one cannot presume to wish, but her father--is he
aware of this?”
“He knows there is extensive damage; I think he does not open his eyes
to the result, but he will bear it. Never was there a man to whom it
came so naturally to live like the fowls of the air, or the lilies of
the field, as it does to dear Dick May,” said Dr. Spencer, his voice
faltering.
“There is a strength of faith and love in him that carries him
through all,” said Mr. Wilmot. “His childlike nature seems to have the
trustfulness that is, in itself, consolation. You said how Cocksmoor had
been blessed to Margaret--I think it is the same with them all--not only
Ethel and Richard, who have been immediately concerned; but that one
object has been a centre and aim to elevate the whole family, and give
force and unity to their efforts. Even the good doctor, much as I
always looked up to him--much good as he did me in my young days--I must
confess that he was sometimes very provoking.”
“If you had tried to be his keeper at Cambridge, you might say so!”
rejoined Dr. Spencer.
“He is so much less impetuous--more consistent--less desultory; I dare
say you understand me,” said Mr. Wilmot. “His good qualities do not
entangle one another as they used to do.”
“Exactly so. He was far more than I looked for when I came home, though
I might have guessed that such a disposition, backed by such principles
and such--could not but shake off all the dross.”
“One thing was,” said Mr. Wilmot, smiling, “that a man must take himself
in hand at some time in his life, and Dr. May only began to think
himself responsible for himself when he lost his wife, who was wise for
both. She was an admirable person, but not easy to know well. I think
you knew her at--”
“I say,” interrupted Dr. Spencer, “it strikes me that we could not do
better than get up our S. P. G. demonstration on the day of the stone--”
Hitherto the Stoneborough subscribers to the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel had been few and far between; but, under the new dynasty,
there was a talk of forming an association, and having a meeting to
bring the subject forward. Dr. Spencer’s proposal, however, took the
vicar by surprise.
“Never could there be a better time,” he argued. “You have naturally
a gathering of clergy--people ought to be liberal on such an occasion,
and, as Cocksmoor is provided for, why not give the benefit to the
missions, in their crying need!”
“True, but there is no time to send for any one to make a speech.”
“Husband your resources. What could you have better than young Harry and
his islanders?”
“Harry would never make a speech.”
“Let him cram Norman. Young Lake tells me Norman made a great sensation
at the Union at Oxford, and if his heart is in the work, he must not
shrink from the face of his townsmen.”
“No doubt he had rather they were savages,” said the vicar. “And
yourself--you will tell them of the Indian missions.”
“With all my heart,” said Dr. Spencer. “When my Brahminhee godson--the
deacon I told you of, comes to pay me his promised visit, what doings we
shall have! Seriously, I have just had letters from him and from others,
that speak of such need, that I could feel every moment wasted that is
not spent on their behalf.”
Mr. Wilmot was drawn into Dr. Spencer’s house, and heard the letters,
till his heart burned within him.
The meeting was at once decided upon, though Ethel could not see why
people could not give without speechifying, and her two younger brothers
declared it was humbug--Tom saying, he wished all blackamoors were out
of creation, and Harry, that he could not stand palaver about his friend
David. Dr. May threatened him with being displayed on the platform as a
living instance of the effects of missions, at which he took alarm, and
so seriously declared that he should join the Bucephalus at once, that
they pacified him by promising that he should do as he pleased.
The archdeacon promised a sermon, and the active Dr Spencer worked the
nine muses and all the rest of the town and neighbourhood into a state
of great enthusiasm and expectation. He went to the Grange, as he said,
to collect his artillery; primed Flora that she might prime the M. P.;
made the willing Meta promise to entrap the uncle, who was noted for
philanthropical speeches; and himself captured Sir Henry Walkinghame,
who looked somewhat rueful at what he found incumbent on him as a
country gentleman, though there might be some compensation in the
eagerness of Miss Rivers.
Norman had hardly set foot in Stoneborough before he was told what was
in store for him, and, to the general surprise, submitted as if it were
a very simple matter. As Dr. Spencer told him, it was only a foretaste
of the penalty which every missionary has to pay for coming to England.
Norman was altogether looking much better than when he had been last at
home, and his spirits were more even. He had turned his whole soul to
the career he had chosen, cast his disappointment behind him, or, more
truly, made it his offering, and gathered strength and calmness, with
which to set out on tasks of working for others, with thoughts too much
absorbed on them, to give way to the propensity of making himself the
primary object of study and contemplation. The praise of God, and love
of man, were the best cures for tendencies like his, and he had found it
out. His calm, though grave cheerfulness, came as a refreshment to those
who had been uneasy about him, and mournfully watching poor Flora.
“Yes,” said Dr. Spencer, “you have taken the best course for your own
happiness.”
Norman coloured, as if he understood more than met the ear. Mary and
Blanche were very busy preparing presents for Meta Rivers, and every one
was anxious to soften to her the thought of this first birthday without
her father. Each of the family contributed some pretty little trifle,
choice in workmanship or kind in device, and each was sealed and marked
with the initials of the giver, and packed up by Mary, to be committed
to Flora’s charge. Blanche had, however, much trouble in extracting a
gift from Norman, and he only yielded at last, on finding that all his
brothers had sent something, so that his omission would be marked. Then
he dived into the recesses of his desk, and himself sealed up a little
parcel, of which he would not allow his sisters to inspect the contents.
Ethel had a shrewd guess. She remembered his having, in the flush of
joy at Margaret’s engagement, rather prematurely caused a seal to be
cut with a daisy, and “Pearl of the meadow” as the motto; and his having
said that he should keep it as a wedding present. She could understand
that he was willing to part with it without remark.
Flora met Meta in her sitting-room, on the morning of the day, which
rose somewhat sadly upon the young girl, as she thought of past
affection and new responsibilities. If the fondness of a sister could
have compensated for what she had lost, Meta received it in no scanty
measure from Flora, who begged to call George, because he would be
pleased to see the display of gifts.
His own was the only costly one--almost all the rest were homemade
treasures of the greater price, because the skill and fondness of
the maker were evident in their construction; and Meta took home the
kindness as it was meant, and felt the affection that would not let her
feel herself lonely. She only wished to go and thank them all at once.
“Do then,” said Flora. “If Lord Cosham will spare you, and your business
should be over in time, you could drive in, and try to bring papa home
with you.”
“Oh, thank you, Flora. That is a kind treat, in case the morning should
be very awful!”
Margaret Agatha Rivers signed her documents, listened to explanations,
and was complimented by her uncle on not thinking it necessary to be
senseless on money matters, like her cousin, Agatha Langdale.
Still she looked a little oppressed, as she locked up the tokens of her
wealth, and the sunshine of her face did not beam out again till she
arrived at Stoneborough, and was dispensing her pretty thanks to the few
she found at home.
“Ethel out and Norman? His seal is only too pretty--”
“They are all helping Dr. Spencer at Cocksmoor.”
“What a pity! But it is so very kind of him to treat me as a daisy. In
some ways I like his present for that the best of all,” said Meta.
“I will tell him so,” said Mary.
“Yes, no,” said Meta. “I am not pretending to be anything half so nice.”
Mary and Blanche fell upon her for calling herself anything but the
nicest flower in the world; and she contended that she was nothing
better than a parrot-tulip, stuck up in a parterre; and just as the
discussion was becoming a game at romps, Dr. May came in, and the
children shouted to him to say whether his humming-bird were a daisy or
a tulip.
“That is as she comports herself,” he said playfully.
“Which means that you don’t think her quite done for,” said Meta.
“Not quite,” said the doctor, with a droll intonation; “but I have not
seen what this morning may have done to her.”
“Come and see, then,” said Meta. “Flora told me to bring you home--and
it is my birthday, you know. Never mind waiting to tell Ethel. Margaret
will let her know that I’ll keep you out of mischief.”
As usual, Dr. May could not withstand her, and she carried him off in
triumph in her pony carriage.
“Then you don’t give me up yet?” was the first thing she said, as they
were off the stones.
“What have you been doing to make me?” said he.
“Doing or not doing--one or the other,” she said. “But indeed I wanted
to have you to myself. I am in a great puzzle!”
“Sir Henry! I hope she won’t consult me!” thought Dr. May, as he
answered, “Well, my dear.”
“I fear it is a lasting puzzle,” she said. “What shall I do with all
this money?”
“Keep it in the bank, or buy railway shares!” said Dr. May, looking
arch.
“Thank you. That’s a question for my cousins in the city. I want you to
answer me as no one else can do. I want to know what is my duty now that
I have my means in my own hands?”
“There is need enough around--”
“I do not mean only giving a little here and there, but I want you to
hear a few of my thoughts. Flora and George are kindness itself--but,
you see, I have no duties. They are obliged to live a gay sort of
life--it is their position; but I cannot make out whether it is mine. I
don’t see that I am like those girls who have to go out as a matter of
obedience.”
Dr. May considered, but could only say, “You are very young.”
“Too young to be independent,” sighed Meta. “I must grow old enough to
be trusted alone, and in the meantime--”
“Probably an answer will be found,” said the doctor. “You and your means
will find their--their vocation.”
“Marriage,” said Meta, calmly speaking the word that he had avoided. “I
think not.”
“Why--” he began.
“I do not think good men like heiresses.”
He became strongly interested in a corn-field, and she resumed,
“Perhaps I should only do harm. It may be my duty to wait. All I wish to
know is, whether it is?”
“I see you are not like girls who know their duty, and are restless,
because it is not the duty they like.”
“Oh! I like everything. It is my liking it so much that makes me
afraid.”
“Even going to Ryde?”
“Don’t I like the sailing? and seeing Harry too? I don’t feel as if that
were waste, because I can sometimes spare poor Flora a little. We could
not let her go alone.”
“You need never fear to be without a mission of comfort,” said Dr. May.
“Your ‘spirit full of glee’ was given you for something. Your presence
is far more to my poor Flora than you or she guess.”
“I never meant to leave her now,” said Meta earnestly. “I only wished to
be clear whether I ought to seek for my work.”
“It will seek you, when the time comes.”
“And meantime I must do what comes to hand, and take it as humiliation
that it is not in the more obviously blessed tasks! A call might come,
as Cocksmoor did to Ethel. But oh! my money! Ought it to be laid up for
myself?”
“For your call, when it comes,” said Dr. May, smiling; then gravely,
“There are but too many calls for the interest. The principal is your
trust, till the time comes.”
Meta smiled, and was pleased to think that her first-fruits would be
offered to-morrow.
CHAPTER XXII.
“Oh, dear!” sighed Etheldred, as she fastened her white muslin, “I’m
afraid it is my nature to hate my neighbour.”
“My dear Ethel, what is coming next?” said Margaret.
“I like my neighbour at home, and whom I have to work for, very much,”
said Ethel, “but oh! my neighbour that I have to be civil to!”
“Poor old King! I am afraid your day will be spoiled with all your toils
as lady of the house. I wish I could help you.”
“Let me have my grumble out, and you will!” said Ethel.
“Indeed I am sorry you have this bustle, and so many to entertain, when
I know you would rather have the peaceful feelings belonging to the day
undisturbed. I should like to shelter you up here.”
“It is very ungrateful of me,” said Ethel, “when Dr. Spencer works so
hard for us, not to be willing to grant anything to him.”
“And--but then I have none of the trouble of it--I can’t help liking the
notion of sending out the Church to the island whence the Church came
home to us.”
“Yes--” said Ethel, “if we could do it without holding forth!”
“Come, Ethel, it is much better than the bazaar--it is no field for
vanity.”
“Certainly not,” said Ethel. “What a mess every one will make! Oh, if I
could but stay away, like Harry! There will be Dr. Hoxton being sonorous
and prosy, and Mr. Lake will stammer, and that will be nothing to the
misery of our own people’s work. George will flounder, and look at
Flora, and she will sit with her eyes on the ground, and Dr. Spencer
will come out of his proper self, and be complimentary to people who
deserve it no more!--And Norman! I wish I could run away!”
“Richard says we do not guess how well Norman speaks.”
“Richard thinks Norman can do anything he can’t do himself! It is all
chance--he may do very well, if he gets into his ‘funny state’, but he
always suffers for that, and he will certainly put one into an agony at
the outset. I wish Dr. Spencer would have let him alone! And then there
will be that Sir Henry, whom I can’t abide! Oh, I wish I were more
charitable, like Miss Bracy and Mary, who will think all so beautiful!”
“So will you, when you come home,” said Margaret.
“If I could only be talking to Cherry, and Dame Hall! I think the school
children enter into it very nicely, Margaret. Did I tell you how nicely
Ellen Reid answered about the hymn, ‘From Greenland’s icy mountains’?
She did not seem to have made it a mere geographical lesson, like Fanny
Grigg--”
Ethel’s misanthropy was happily conducted off via the Cocksmoor
children, and any lingering remains were dissipated by her amusement at
Dr. Spencer’s ecstasy on seeing Dr. May assume his red robe of office,
to go to the minster in state, with the Town Council. He walked round
and round his friend, called him Nicholas Randall redivivus, quoted
Dogberry, and affronted Gertrude, who had a dim idea that he was making
game of papa.
Ethel was one of those to whom representation was such a penance, that
a festival, necessitating hospitality to guests of her own rank, was
burden enough seriously to disturb the repose of thankfulness for the
attainment of her object, and to render difficult the recueillement
which she needed for the praise and prayer that she felt due from her,
and which seemed to oppress her heart, by a sense of inadequacy of her
partial expression. It was well for her that the day began with the calm
service in the minster, where it was her own fault if cares haunted her,
and she could confess the sin of her irritated sensations, and wishes to
have all her own way, and then, as ever, be led aright into thanksgiving
for the unlooked-for crowning of her labours.
The archdeacon’s sermon amplified what Margaret had that morning
expressed, so as to carry on her sense of appropriateness in the
offerings of the day being bestowed on distant lands.
But the ordeal was yet to come, and though blaming herself, she was
anything but comfortable, as the world repaired to the Town Hall, the
room where the same faces so often met for such diverse purposes--now an
orrery displayed by a conceited lecturer, now a ball, now a magistrates’
meeting, a concert or a poultry show, where rival Hamburg and Dorking
uplifted their voices in the places of Mario and Grisi, all beneath the
benignant portrait of Nicholas Randall, ruffed, robed, square-toed, his
endowment of the scholarship in his hand, and a chequered pavement at
his feet.
Who knows not an S. P. G. meeting?--the gaiety of the serious, and the
first public spectacle to the young, who, like Blanche and Aubrey, gaze
with admiration at the rows of bonnets, and with awe at the black coats
on the platform, while the relations of the said black coats suffer,
like Ethel, from nervous dread of the public speaking of their best
friends.
Her expectations were realised by the archdeacon’s speech, which went
round in a circle, as if he could not find his way out of it. Lord
Cosham was fluent, but a great many words went to very small substance;
and no wonder, thought Ethel, when all they had to propose and second
was the obvious fact that missions were very good things.
Dr. Hoxton pompously, Sir Henry Walkinghame creditably, assisted the
ladies and gentlemen to resolve that the S. P. G. wanted help; Mr. Lake
made a stammering, and Mr. Rivers, with his good-natured face, hearty
manner, and good voice, came in well after him with a straightforward,
speech, so brief, that Ethel gave Flora credit for the best she had yet
heard.
Mr. Wilmot said something which the sharpest ears in the front row
might, perhaps, have heard, and which resulted in Dr. Spencer standing
up. Ethel hardly would have known who was speaking had her eyes been
shut. His voice was so different, when raised and pitched, so as to show
its power and sweetness; the fine polish of his manner was redoubled,
and every sentence had the most graceful turn. It was like listening to
a well-written book, so smooth and so fluent, and yet so earnest--his
pictures of Indian life so beautiful, and his strong affection for the
converts he described now and then making his eyes fill, and his voice
falter, as if losing the thread of his studied composition--a true and
dignified work of art, that made Dr. May whisper to Flora, “You see
what he can do. They would have given anything to have had him for a
lecturer.”
With half a sigh, Ethel saw Norman rise, and step forward. He began,
with eyes fixed on the ground, and in a low modest tone, to speak of
the islands that Harry had visited; but gradually the poetic nature,
inherent in him, gained the mastery; and though his language was
strikingly simple, in contrast with Dr. Spencer’s ornate periods, and
free from all trace of “the lamp,” it rose in beauty and fervour at
every sentence. The feelings that had decided his lot gave energy to his
discourse, and repressed as they had been by reserve and diffidence, now
flowed forth, and gave earnestness to natural gifts of eloquence of the
highest order. After his quiet, unobtrusive beginning, there was the
more wonder to find how he seemed to raise up the audience with him,
in breathless attention, as to a strain of sweet music, carrying them
without thought of the scene, or of the speaker, to the lovely isles,
and the inhabitants of noble promise, but withering for lack of
knowledge; and finally closing his speech, when they were wrought up to
the highest pitch, by an appeal that touched them all home; “for well
did he know,” said he, “that the universal brotherhood was drawn
closest in circles nearer home, that beneath the shadow of their own old
minster, gladness and mourning floated alike for all; and that all those
who had shared in the welcome to one, given back as it were from
the grave, would own the same debt of gratitude to the hospitable
islanders.”
He ceased. His father wiped his spectacles, and almost audibly murmured,
“Bless him!” Ethel, who had sat like one enchanted, forgetting who
spoke, forgetting all save the islanders, half turned, and met Richard’s
smiling eyes, and his whisper, “I told you so.”
The impress of a man of true genius and power had been made throughout
the whole assembly; the archdeacon put Norman out of countenance by
the thanks of the meeting for his admirable speech, and all the world,
except the Oxford men, were in a state of as much surprise as pleasure.
“Splendid speaker, Norman May, if he would oftener put himself out,”
Harvey Anderson commented. “Pity he has so many of the good doctor’s
prejudices!”
“Well, to be sure!” quoth Mrs. Ledwich. “I knew Mr. Norman was very
clever, but I declare I never thought of such as this! I will try my
poor utmost for those interesting natives.”
“That youth has first-rate talents,” said Lord Cosham. “Do you know what
he is designed for? I should like to bring him forward.”
“Ah!” said Dr. Hoxton. “The year I sent off May and Anderson was the
proudest year of my life!”
“Upon my word!” declared Mrs. Elwood. “That Dr. Spencer is as good as a
book, but Mr. Norman--I say, father, we will go without the new clock,
but we’ll send somewhat to they men that built up the church, and has no
minister.”
“A good move that,” said Dr. Spencer. “Worth at least twenty pounds.
That boy has the temperament of an orator, if the morbid were but a
grain less.”
“Oh, Margaret,” exclaimed Blanche. “Dr. Spencer made the finest speech
you ever heard, only it was rather tiresome; and Norman made everybody
cry--and Mary worse than all!”
“There is no speaking of it. One should live such things, not talk over
them,” said Meta Rivers.
Margaret received the reports of the select few, who visited her
upstairs, where she was kept quiet, and only heard the hum of the swarm,
whom Dr. May, in vehement hospitality, had brought home to luncheon, to
Ethel’s great dread, lest there should not be enough for them to eat.
Margaret pitied her sisters, but heard that all was going well; that
Flora was taking care of the elders, and Harry and Mary were making the
younger fry very merry at the table on the lawn. Dr. May had to start
early to see a sick gardener at Drydale before coming on to Cocksmoor,
and came up to give his daughter a few minutes.
“We get on famously,” he said. “Ethel does well when she is in for it,
like Norman. I had no notion what was in the lad. They are perfectly
amazed with his speech. It seems hard to give such as he is up to
those outlandish places; but there, his speech should have taught me
better--one’s best--and, now and then, he seems my best.”
“One comfort is,” said Margaret, smiling, “you would miss Ethel more.”
“Gallant old King! I am glad she has had her wish. Good-bye, my
Margaret, we will think of you. I wish--”
“I am very happy,” was Margaret’s gentle reassurance. “The dear little
Daisy looks just as her godfather imagined her;” and happy was her face
when her father quitted her.
Margaret’s next visitor was Meta, who came to reclaim her bonnet, and,
with a merry smile, to leave word that she was walking on to Cocksmoor.
Margaret remonstrated on the heat.
“Let me alone,” said she, making her pretty wilful gesture. “Ethel and
Mary ought to have a lift, and I have had no walking to-day.”
“My dear, you don’t know how far it is. You can’t go alone.”
“I am lying in wait for Miss Bracy, or something innocent,” said Meta.
“In good time--here comes Tom.”
Tom entered, declaring that he had come to escape from the clack
downstairs.
“I’ll promise not to clack if you will be so kind as to take care of me
to Cocksmoor,” said Meta.
“Do you intend to walk?”
“If you will let me be your companion.”
“I shall be most happy,” said Tom, colouring with gratification, such
as he might not have felt, had he known that he was chosen for his
innocence.
He took a passing glimpse at his neck-tie, screwed up the nap of his
glossy hat to the perfection of its central point, armed himself with
a knowing little stick, and hurried his fair companion out by the back
door, as much afraid of losing the glory of being her sole protector as
she was of falling in with an escort of as much consequence, in other
eyes, as was Mr. Thomas in his own.
She knew him less than any of the rest, and her first amusement was
keeping silence to punish him for complaining of clack; but he explained
that he did not mean quiet, sensible conversation--he only referred to
those foolish women’s raptures over the gabble they had been hearing at
the Town Hall.
She exclaimed, whereupon he began to criticise the speakers with a good
deal of acuteness, exposing the weak points, but magnanimously owning
that it was tolerable for the style of thing, and might go down at
Stoneborough.
“I wonder you did not stay away as Harry did.”
“I thought it would be marked,” observed the thread-paper Tom, as if he
had been at least county member.
“You did quite right,” said Meta, really thinking so.
“I wished to hear Dr. Spencer, too,” said Tom. “There is a man who does
know how to speak! He has seen something of the world, and knows what he
is talking of.”
“But he did not come near Norman.”
“I hated listening to Norman,” said Tom. “Why should he go and set his
heart on those black savages?”
“They are not savages in New Zealand.”
“They are all niggers together,” said Tom vehemently. “I cannot think
why Norman should care for them more than for his own brothers and
sisters. All I know is, that if I were my father, I would never give my
consent.”
“It is lucky you are not,” said Meta, smiling defiance, though a tear
shone in her eye. “Dr. May makes the sacrifice with a free heart and
willing mind.”
“Everybody goes and sacrifices somebody else,” grumbled Tom.
“Who are the victims now?”
“All of us. What are we to do without Norman? He is worth all of us
put together; and I--” Meta was drawn to the boy as she had never been
before, as he broke off short, his face full of emotion, that made him
remind her of his father.
“You might go out and follow in his steps,” said she, as the most
consoling hope she could suggest.
“Not I. Don’t you know what is to happen to me? Ah! Flora has not told
you. I thought she would not think it grand enough. She talked about
diplomacy--”
“But what?” asked Meta anxiously.
“Only that I am to stick to the old shop,” said Tom. “Don’t tell any
one; I would not have the fellows know it.”
“Do you mean your father’s profession?”
“Ay!”
“Oh, Tom! you don’t talk of that as if you despised it?”
“If it is good enough for him, it is good enough for me, I suppose,”
said Tom. “I hate everything when I think of my brothers going over the
world, while I, do what I will, must be tied down to this slow place all
the rest of my days.”
“If you were away, you would be longing after it.”
“Yes; but I can’t get away.”
“Surely, if the notion is so unpleasant to you, Dr. May would never
insist?”
“It is my free choice, and that’s the worst of it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you see? Norman told me it would be a great relief to him if I
would turn my mind that way--and I can’t go against Norman. I found he
thought he must if I did not; and, you know, he is fit for all sorts of
things that--Besides, he has a squeamishness about him, that makes him
turn white, if one does but cut one’s finger, and how he would ever go
through the hospitals--”
Meta suspected that Tom was inclined to launch into horrors. “So you
wanted to spare him,” she said.
“Ay! and papa was so pleased by my offering that I can’t say a word of
the bore it is. If I were to back out, it would come upon Aubrey, and
he is weakly, and so young, that he could not help my father for many
years.”
Meta was much struck at the motives that actuated the self-sacrifice,
veiled by the sullen manner which she almost began to respect. “What is
done for such reasons must make you happy,” she said; “though there may
be much that is disagreeable.”
“Not the study,” said Tom. “The science is famous work. I like what I
see of it in my father’s books, and there’s a splendid skeleton at the
hospital that I long to be at. If it were not for Stoneborough, it
would be all very well; but, if I should get on ever so well at the
examinations, it all ends there! I must come back, and go racing about
this miserable circuit, just like your gold pheasant rampaging in his
cage, seeing the same stupid people all my days.”
“I think,” said Meta, in a low, heartfelt voice, “it is a noble,
beautiful thing to curb down your ambition for such causes. Tom, I like
you for it.”
The glance of those beautiful eyes was worth having. Tom coloured a
little, but assumed his usual gruffness. “I can’t bear sick people,” he
said.
“It has always seemed to me,” said Meta, “that few lives could come up
to Dr. May’s. Think of going about, always watched for with hope, often
bringing gladness and relief; if nothing else, comfort and kindness, his
whole business doing good.”
“One is paid for it,” said Tom.
“Nothing could ever repay Dr. May,” said Meta. “Can any one feel the fee
anything but a mere form? Besides, think of the numbers and numbers that
he takes nothing from; and oh! to how many he has brought the most real
good, when they would have shut their doors against it in any other
form! Oh, Tom, I think none of you guess how every one feels about your
father. I recollect one poor woman saying, after he had attended her
brother, ‘He could not save his body, but, surely, ma’am, I think he was
the saving of his soul.’”
“It is of no use to talk of my being like my father,” said Tom.
Meta thought perhaps not, but she was full of admiration of his
generosity, and said, “You will make it the same work of love, and
charity is the true glory.”
Any inroad on Tom’s reserved and depressed nature was a benefit; and he
was of an age to be susceptible of the sympathy of one so pretty and
so engaging. He had never been so much gratified or encouraged, and,
wishing to prolong the tete-a-tete, he chose to take the short
cut through the fir-plantations, unfrequented on account of the
perpendicular, spiked railings that divided it from the lane.
Meta was humming-bird enough to be undismayed. She put hand and foot
wherever he desired, flattered him by letting him handily help her up,
and bounded light as a feather down on the other side, congratulating
herself on the change from the dusty lane to the whispering pine
woods, between which wound the dark path, bestrewn with brown slippery
needle-leaves, and edged with the delicate feathering ling and tufts of
soft grass.
Tom had miscalculated the chances of interruption. Meta was lingering
to track the royal highway of some giant ants to their fir-leaf hillock,
when they were hailed from behind, and her squire felt ferocious at the
sight of Norman and Harry closing the perspective of fir-trunks.
“Hallo! Tom, what a guide you are!” exclaimed Norman. “That fence which
even Ethel and Mary avoid!”
“Mary climbs like a cow, and Ethel like a father-long-legs,” said Tom.
“Now Meta flies like a bird.”
“And Tom helped me so cleverly,” said Meta. “It was an excellent move,
to get into the shade and this delicious pine tree fragrance.”
“Halt!” said Norman--“this is too fast for Meta.”
“I cannot,” said Harry. “I must get there in time to set Dr. Spencer’s
tackle to rights. He is tolerably knowing about knots, but there is a
dodge beyond him. Come on, Tom.”
He drew on the reluctant Etonian, who looked repiningly back at the
increasing distance between him and the other pair, till a turn in the
path cut off his view.
“I am afraid you do not know what you have undertaken,” said Norman.
“I am a capital walker. And I know, or do not know, how often Ethel
takes the same walk.”
“Ethel is no rule.”
“She ought to be,” said Meta. “To be like her has always been my
ambition.”
“Circumstances have formed Ethel.”
“Circumstances! What an ambiguous word! Either Providence pointing to
duty, or the world drawing us from it.”
“Stepping-stones, or stumbling-blocks.”
“And, oh! the difficult question, when to bend them, or to bend to
them!”
“There must be always some guiding,” said Norman.
“I believe there is,” said Meta, “but when trumpet-peals are ringing
around, it is hard to know whether one is really ‘waiting beside the
tent,’ or only dawdling.”
“It is great self-denial in the immovable square not to join the
charge,” said Norman.
“Yes; but they, being shot at, are not deceiving themselves.”
“I suppose self-deception on those points is very common.”
“Especially among young ladies,” said Meta. “I hear so much of what
girls would do, if they might, or could, that I long to see them like
Ethel--do what they can. And then it strikes me that I am doing the
same, living wilfully in indulgence, and putting my trust in my own
misgivings and discontent.”
“I should have thought that discontent had as little to do with you as
with any living creature.”
“You don’t know how I could growl!” said Meta, laughing. “Though
less from having anything to complain of, than from having nothing to
complain of.”
“You mean,” he said, pausing, with a seriousness and hesitation that
startled her--“do you mean that this is not the course of life that you
would choose?”
A sort of bashfulness made her put her answer playfully--
“All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy.
“Toys have a kindly mission, and I may be good for nothing else; but I
would have rather been a coffee-pot than a china shepherdess.”
The gaiety disconcerted him, and he seemed to try to be silent, or to
reply in the same tone, but he could not help returning to the subject.
“Then you find no charm in the refinements to which you have been
brought up?”
“Only too much,” said Meta.
He was silent, and fearing to have added to his fine-lady impression,
she resumed. “I mean that I never could dislike anything, and kindness
gives these things a soul; but, of course, I should be better satisfied,
if I lived harder, and had work to do.”
“Meta!” he exclaimed, “you tempt me very much! Would you?--No, it is too
unreasonable. Would you share--share the work that I have undertaken?”
He turned aside and leaned against a tree, as if not daring to watch the
effect of the agitated words that had broken from him. She had little
imagined whither his last sayings had been tending, and stood still,
breathless with the surprise.
“Forgive me,” he said hastily. “It was very wrong. I never meant to have
vexed you by the betrayal of my vain affection.”
He seemed to be going, and this roused her. “Stay, Norman,” exclaimed
she. “Why should it vex me? I should like it very much indeed.”
He faced suddenly towards her--“Meta, Meta! is it possible? Do you know
what you are saying?”
“I think I do.”
“You must understand me,” said Norman, striving to speak calmly. “You
have been--words will not express what you have been to me for years
past, but I thought you too far beyond my hopes. I knew I ought to be
removed from you--I believed that those who are debarred from earthly
happiness are marked for especial tasks. I never intended you to know
what actuated me, and now the work is undertaken, and--and I cannot turn
back,” he added quickly, as if fearing himself.
“No indeed,” was her steady reply.
“Then I may believe it!” cried Norman. “You do--you will--you
deliberately choose to share it with me?”
“I will try not to be a weight on you,” answered the young girl, with
a sweet mixture of resolution and humility. “It would be the greatest
possible privilege. I really do not think I am a fine lady ingrain, and
you will teach me not to be too unworthy.”
“I? Oh, Meta, you know not what I am! Yet with you, with you to inspire,
to strengthen, to cheer--Meta, Meta, life is so much changed before me,
that I cannot understand it yet--after the long dreary hopelessness--”
“I can’t think why--” Meta had half said, when feminine dignity checked
the words, consciousness and confusion suddenly assailed her, dyed her
cheeks crimson, and stifled her voice.
It was the same with Norman, and bashfulness making a sudden prey of
both--on they went under its dominion, in a condition partaking equally
of discomfort and felicity; dreading the sound of their own voices,
afraid of each other’s faces, feeling they were treating each other very
strangely and ungratefully, yet without an idea what to say next, or the
power of speaking first; and therefore pacing onwards, looking gravely
straight along the path, as if to prevent the rabbits and foxgloves from
guessing that anything had been passing between them.
Dr. May had made his call at Drydale, and was driving up a rough lane,
between furzy banks, leading to Cocksmoor, when he was aware of a tall
gentleman on one side of the road and a little lady on the other,
with the whole space of the cart-track between them, advancing soberly
towards him.
“Hallo! Why, Meta! Norman! what brings you here? Where are you going?”
Norman perceived that he had turned to the left instead of to the right,
and was covered with shame.
“That is all your wits are good for. It is well I met you, or you would
have led poor Meta a pretty dance! You will know better than to trust
yourself to the mercies of a scholar another time. Let me give you a
lift.”
The courteous doctor sprang out to hand Meta in, but something made him
suddenly desire Adams to drive on, and then turning round to the two
young people, he said, “Oh!”
“Yes,” said Norman, taking her hand, and drawing her towards him.
“What, Meta, my pretty one, is it really so? Is he to be happy after
all? Are you to be a Daisy of my own?”
“If you will let me,” murmured Meta, clinging to her kind old friend.
“No flower on earth could come so naturally to us,” said Dr. May. “And,
dear child, at last I may venture to tell you that you have a sanction
that you will value more than mine. Yes, my dear, on the last day of
your dear father’s life, when some foreboding hung upon him, he spoke
to me of your prospects, and singled out this very Norman as such as he
would prefer.”
Meta’s tears prevented all, save the two little words, “thank you;” but
she put out her hand to Norman, as she still rested on the doctor’s arm,
more as if he had been her mother than Norman’s father.
“Did he?” from Norman, was equally inexpressive of the almost
incredulous gratitude and tenderness of his feeling.
It would not bear talking over at that moment, and Dr. May presently
broke the silence in a playful tone. “So, Meta, good men don’t like
heiresses?”
“Quite true,” said Meta, “it was very much against me.”
“Or it may be the other way,” said Norman.
“Eh? Good men don’t like heiresses--here’s a man who likes an
heiress--therefore here’s a man that is not good? Ah, ha! Meta, you can
see that is false logic, though I’ve forgotten mine. And pray, miss,
what are we to say to your uncle?”
“He cannot help it,” said Meta quickly.
“Ha!” said the doctor, laughing, “we remember our twenty-one years, do
we?”
“I did not mean--I hope I said nothing wrong,” said Meta, in blushing
distress. “Only after what you said, I can care for nothing else.”
“If I could only thank him,” said Norman fervently.
“I believe you know how to do that, my boy,” said Dr. May, looking
tenderly at the fairy figure between them, and ending with a sigh,
remembering, perhaps, the sense of protection with which he had felt
another Margaret lean on his arm.
The clatter of horses’ hoofs caused Meta to withdraw her hand, and
Norman to retreat to his own side of the lane, as Sir Henry Walkinghame
and his servant overtook them.
“We will be in good time for the proceedings,” called out the doctor.
“Tell them we are coming.”
“I did not know you were walking,” said Sir Henry to Meta.
“It is pleasant in the plantations,” Dr. May answered for her; “but I
am afraid we are late, and our punctual friends will be in despair. Will
you kindly say we are at hand?”
Sir Henry rode on, finding that he was not to be allowed to walk his
horse with them, and that Miss Rivers had never looked up.
“Poor Sir Henry!” said Dr. May.
“He has no right to be surprised,” said Meta, very low.
“And so you were marching right upon Drydale!” continued Dr. May, not
able to help laughing. “It was a happy dispensation that I met you.”
“Oh, I am so glad of it!” said Meta.
“Though to be sure you were disarming suspicion by so cautiously keeping
the road between you. I should never have guessed what you had been at.”
There was a little pause, then Meta said, rather tremulously, “Please--I
think it should be known at once.”
“Our idle deeds confessed without loss of time, miss?”
Norman came across the path, saying, “Meta is right--it should be
known.”
“I don’t think Uncle Cosham would object, especially hearing it while he
is here,” said Meta--“and if he knew what you told us.”
“He goes to-morrow, does he not?” said Dr. May.
A silence of perplexity ensued. Meta, brave as she was, hardly knew her
uncle enough to volunteer, and Norman was privately devising a beginning
by the way of George, when Dr. May said, “Well, since it is not a case
for putting Ethel in the forefront, I must e’en get it over for you, I
suppose.”
“Oh, thank you,” they cried both at once, feeling that he was the
proper person in every way, and Norman added, “The sooner the better, if
Meta--”
“Oh, yes, yes, the sooner the better,” exclaimed Meta. “And let me tell
Flora--poor dear Flora--she is always so kind.”
A testimony that was welcome to Dr. May, who had once, at least, been
under the impression that Flora courted Sir Henry’s attentions to her
sister-in-law.
Further consultation was hindered by Tom and Blanche bursting upon them
from the common, both echoing Norman’s former reproach of “A pretty
guide!” and while Blanche explained the sufferings of all the assembly
at their tardiness, Tom, without knowing it, elucidated what had been a
mystery to the doctor, namely, how they ever met, by his indignation at
Norman’s having assumed the guidance for which he was so unfit.
“A shocking leader; Meta will never trust him again,” said Dr. May.
Still Blanche thought them not nearly sufficiently sensible of
their enormities, and preached eagerly about their danger of losing
standing-room, when they emerged on the moor, and beheld a crowd,
above whose heads rose the apex of a triangle, formed by three poles,
sustaining a rope and huge stone.
“Here comes Dr. Spencer,” she said. “I hope he will scold you.”
Whatever Dr. Spencer might have suffered, he was far too polite to
scold, and a glance between the two physicians ended in a merry twinkle
of his bright eyes.
“This way,” he said; “we are all ready.”
“But where’s my little Daisy?” said Dr. May.
“You’ll see her in a minute. She is as good as gold.”
He drew them on up the bank--people making way for them--till he had
stationed them among the others of their own party, beside the deep
trench that traced the foundation, around a space that seemed far too
small.
Nearly at the same moment began the soft clear sound of chanting wafted
upon the wind, then dying away--carried off by some eddying breeze, then
clear, and coming nearer and nearer.
I will not suffer mine eyes to sleep,
Nor mine eye-lids to slumber:
Neither the temples of my head to take any rest;
Until I find out a place for the temple of the Lord:
An habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.
Few, who knew the history of Cocksmoor, could help glancing towards the
slight girl, who stood, with bent head, her hand clasped over little
Aubrey’s; while, all that was not prayer and thanksgiving in her mind,
was applying the words to him, whose head rested in the Pacific isle,
while, in the place which he had chosen, was laid the foundation of the
temple that he had given unto the Lord.
There came forth the procession: the minster choristers, Dr. Spencer as
architect, and, in her white dress, little Gertrude, led between Harry
and Hector, Margaret’s special choice for the occasion, and followed by
the Stoneborough clergy.
Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness.
It came in well with the gentle, meek, steadfast face of the young
curate of Cocksmoor, as he moved on in his white robe, and the sunlight
shone upon his fair hair, and calm brow, thankful for the past, and
hoping, more than fearing, for the future.
The prayers were said, and there was a pause, while Dr. Spencer and the
foreman advanced to the machine and adjusted it. The two youths then led
forward the little girl, her innocent face and large blue eyes wearing
a look of childish obedient solemnity, only half understanding what she
did, yet knowing it was something great.
It was very pretty to see her in the midst of the little gathering round
the foundation, the sturdy workman smiling over his hod of mortar, Dr.
Spencer’s silver locks touching her flaxen curls as he held the shining
trowel to her, and Harry’s bright head and hardy face, as he knelt on
one knee to guide the little soft hand, while Hector stood by, still and
upright, his eyes fixed far away, as if his thoughts were roaming to the
real founder.
The Victoria coins were placed--Gertrude scooped up the mass of mortar,
and spread it about with increasing satisfaction, as it went so smoothly
and easily, prolonging the operation, till Harry drew her back, while,
slowly down creaked the ponderous corner-stone into the bed that she had
prepared for it, and, with a good will, she gave three taps on it with
her trowel.
Harry had taken her hand, when, at the sight of Dr. May, she broke from
him, and, as if taking sudden fright at her own unwonted part, ran, at
full speed, straight up to her father, and clung to him, hiding her face
as he raised her in his arms and kissed her.
Meanwhile the strain arose:
Thou heavenly, new Jerusalem,
Vision of peace, in Prophet’s dream;
With living stones, built up on high,
And rising to the starry sky--
The blessing of peace seemed to linger softly and gently in the fragrant
summer breeze, and there was a pause ere the sounds of voices awoke
again.
“Etheldred--” Mr. Wilmot stood beside her, ere going to unrobe in the
school--“Etheldred, you must once let me say, God bless you for this.”
As she knelt beside her sister’s sofa, on her return home, Margaret
pressed something into her hand. “If you please, dearest, give this
to Dr. Spencer, and ask him to let it be set round the stem of the
chalice,” she whispered.
Ethel recognised Alan Ernescliffe’s pearl hoop, the betrothal ring, and
looked at her sister without a word.
“I wish it,” said Margaret gently. “I shall like best to know it there.”
So Margaret joined in Alan’s offering, and Ethel dared say no more, as
she thought how the “relic of a frail love lost” was becoming the “token
of endless love begun.” There was more true union in this, than in
clinging to the mere tangible emblem--for broken and weak is all
affection that is not knit together above in the One Infinite Love.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Of lowly fields you think no scorn,
Yet gayest gardens would adorn,
And grace wherever set;
Home, seated in your lowly bower,
Or wedded, a transplanted flower,
I bless you, Margaret.--CHARLES LAMB.
George Rivers had an antipathy to ladies’ last words keeping the horses
standing, and his wife and sister dutifully seated themselves in the
carriage at once, without an attempt to linger.
Four of the young gentlemen were to walk across to Abbotstoke and dine
at the Grange; and Tom, who, reasoning from analogy, had sent on his
black tie and agate studs, was so dismally disconcerted on finding that
Norman treated his own going as a matter of course, that Richard,
whose chief use of his right of primogeniture was to set himself aside,
discovered that he was wanted at home, and that Tom would be much better
at the Grange, offering, at the same time, to send Norman’s dressing
things by Dr. Spencer.
“Which,” observed Thomas, “he would never have recollected for himself.”
“Tom would have had to lend him the precious studs.”--“He would not have
had them; who would wear imitation?” “I say, Tom, what did you give
for them?” “Better ask what the Jew gave for them, that bought them at
Windsor Fair; not a bad imitation, either--pity they weren’t Malachite;
but, no doubt, the Jew thought green would be personal.” “As if they had
any business to talk, who didn’t know a respectable stud when they saw
it--Harry, especially, with his hat set on the back of his head, like a
sailor on the stage”--(a leap to set it to rights--a skirmish, knocking
Tom nearly into the ditch). “Fine experience of the stage--all came from
Windsor Fair.” “Ay, Hector might talk, but didn’t he pay a shilling
to see the Irish giant. He wouldn’t confess, but it was a famous take
in--giant had potatoes in his shoes.” “Not he; he was seven feet
ten high.” “Ay, when he stood upon a stool--Hector would swallow
anything--even the lady of a million postage stamps had not stuck in
his throat--he had made Margaret collect for her.” “And, had not
Tom, himself, got a bottle of ointment to get the red out of his
hair?”--(great fury). “His hair wasn’t red--didn’t want to change the
colour--not half so red as Hector’s own.” “What was it then? lively
auburn?” But for fear of Norman’s losing his bearings, Harry would fetch
a carrot, to compare. “Better colour than theirs could ever be.” “Then
what was the ointment for? to produce whiskers? that was the reason Tom
oiled himself like a Loyalty islander--his hair was so shiny, that Harry
recommended a top-knot, like theirs, etc.”
Norman was, like the others, in such towering glee, and took so full a
share of the witticisms, that were the more noisily applauded, the worse
they were, that Harry suggested that “old June had lost his way, and
found his spirits in Drydale--he must have met with a private grog-shop
in the plantations--would not Tom confess”--“not he; it was all in
private. He thought it was laughing-gas, or the reaction of being fried
all the morning, holding forth in that Town Hall. He had longed to make
a speech himself--no end of the good it would have done the old stagers
to come out with something to the purpose. What would old Hoxton have
thought of it?
“They shall dive for alligators, catch the wild goats by the beard;
Whistle to the cockatoos, and mock the hairy-faced baboon;
Worship mighty Mumbo Jumbo in the mountains of the moon.
I myself, in far Timbuctoo, leopard’s blood shall daily quaff;
Ride a tiger hunting, mounted on a thoroughbred giraffe.”
“Not you, Tom!” cried Hector.
“You, the swell, the Eton fellow! You, to seek such horrid places.
You to haunt with squalid negroes, blubber lips, and monkey faces.
Fool, again the dream, the fancy; don’t I know the words are mad,
For you count the gray barbarian lower than the Brocas cad!”
“Nay, it is the consequence of misanthropy at the detection of the
frauds of unsophisticated society,” said Norman.
The edge of life is rusted;
The agate studs and whisker ointment left him very much disgusted.
“Perhaps it was Miss Rivers forsaking him. Was not that rather
spider-hearted, Tom?”
“Come, Harry, it is time to have done. We are getting into civilised
society--here’s Abbotstoke.”
“Poor Norman, he is very far gone! He takes that scarecrow for civilised
society!”
“Much better clothed than the society you have been accustomed to,
July.” “What a prize his wardrobe would be to the Black Prince!” “Don’t
insult your betters!” “Which? The scarecrow, or the Black Prince?”
Norman tried to call his companions to order, for they were close upon
the village, and he began to tax himself with unbecoming levity; the
effect of spirits pitched rather low, which did not easily find their
balance, under unwonted exhilaration, but Harry’s antics were less
easily repressed than excited, and if Tom had not heard the Grange clock
strike half-past six, and had not been afraid of not having time to
array himself, and watch over Harry’s neckcloth, they would hardly have
arrived in reasonable time. Dr. May had gone home, and there was no one
in the drawing-room; but, as Norman was following the boys upstairs,
Flora opened her sitting-room door, and attracted his attention by
silently putting her cold fingers into his hand, and drawing him into
the room.
“Dear Norman, this is pleasant,” she said affectionately; but in a voice
so sunken, that all gladness seemed to be dead within, and the
effect was far more mournful than if she had not attempted to smile
congratulation.
“I will give you till Dr. Spencer comes,” she said. “Then Norman can
dress, and you must be a good child, and come down to me.”
The playfulness ill suited the wan, worn face that seemed to have caught
a gray tint from her rich poplin, her full toilet making the contrast
almost more painful; and, as she closed the door, her brother could only
exclaim, “Poor Flora!”
“She is so kind,” said the voice of the white figure that moved towards
him. “Oh, if we could comfort her!”
“I trust to her own kindness working comfort to her, at last,” said
Norman. “But is she often thus?”
“Whenever she is not bearing up for George’s sake,” said Meta. “She
never says anything when she is alone with me, only she does not
struggle with her looks.”
“It must be very trying for you.”
“Nay, I feel grateful to her for even so far relaxing the restraint. If
I could but do her any good.”
“You cannot help doing her good,” said Norman.
Meta sighed, and shook her head slightly, as she said, “She is so gentle
and considerate. I think this has been no fresh pain to her to-day, but
I cannot tell. The whole day has been a strange intermixture.”
“The two strands of joy and grief have been very closely twisted,” said
Norman. “That rose is shedding its fragrant leaves in its glory, and
there is much that should have chastened the overflowing gladness of
to-day.”
“As I was thinking,” whispered Meta, venturing nearer to him, and
looking into his face with the sweet reliance of union in thought. She
meant him to proceed, but he paused, saying, “You were thinking-”
“I had rather hear it from you.”
“Was it not that we were taught to-day what is enduring, and gives
true permanence and blessedness to such--to what there was between
Ernescliffe and Margaret?”
Her dewy eyes, and face of deep emotion, owned that he had interpreted
her thought.
“Theirs would, indeed, be a disheartening example,” he said, “if it did
not show the strength and peace that distance, sickness, death, cannot
destroy.”
“Yes. To see that church making Margaret happy as she lies smiling on
her couch, is a lesson of lessons.”
“That what is hallowed must be blest,” said Norman; “whatever the sundry
and manifold changes.”
Each was far too humble to deny aloud any inequality with the goodness
of Alan and Margaret, knowing that it would be at once disputed,
trusting to time to prevent the over-estimate, and each believing the
other was the one to bring the blessing.
“But, Meta,” said Norman, “have you heard nothing of--of the elders?”
“Oh, yes,” said Meta, smiling, “have not you?”
“I have seen no one.”
“I have!” said Meta merrily. “Uncle Cosham is delighted. That speech of
yours has captivated him. He calls me a wise little woman to have found
out your first-rate abilities. There’s for you, sir.”
“I don’t understand it! Surely he must be aware of my intentions?”
“He said nothing about them; but, of course, Dr. May must have mentioned
them.”
“I should have thought so, but I cannot suppose--”
“That he would be willing to let me go,” said Meta. “But then you know
he cannot help it,” added she, with a roguish look, at finding herself
making one of her saucy independent speeches.
“I believe you are taking a would-be missionary instead of Norman May!”
he answered, with a sort of teasing sweetness.
“All would-be missionaries did not make dear papa so fond of them,” said
Meta, very low; “and you would not be Norman May without such purposes.”
“The purpose was not inspired at first by the highest motive,” said
Norman; “but it brought me peace, and, after the kind of dedication
that I inwardly made of myself in my time of trouble, it would take some
weighty reason, amounting to a clear duty, or physical impossibility,
to make me think I ought to turn back. I believe”--the tears rose to
his eyes, and he brought out the words with difficulty--“that, if this
greatest of all joys were likely to hinder me from my calling, I ought
to seek strength to regard it as a temptation, and to forgo it.”
“You ought, if it were so,” said Meta, nevertheless holding him tighter.
“I could not bear to keep back a soldier. If this were last year, and
I had any tie or duty here, it would be very hard. But no one needs me,
and if the health I have always had be continued to me, I don’t think I
shall be much in the way. There,”--drawing back a little, and trying to
laugh off her feeling--“only tell me at once if you think me still too
much of a fine lady.”
“I--you--a fine lady! Did anything ever give you the impression that I
did?”
“I shall not get poor Harry into a scrape, shall I? He told me that you
said so, last spring, and I feared you judged me too truly.”
After a few exclamations of utter surprise, it flashed on Norman. “I
know, I know--Harry interpreted my words in his own blunt fashion!”
“Then you did say something like it?”
“No, but--but--In short, Meta, these sailors’ imaginations go to great
lengths. Harry had guessed more than I knew myself, before he had
sailed, and taxed me with it. It was a subject I could not bear then,
and I answered that you were too far beyond my hopes.”
“Six years ago!” said Meta slowly, blushing deeper and deeper. “Some
eyes saw it all that time, and you--and,” she added, laughing, though
rather tearfully, “I should never have known it, if Tom had not taken me
through the plantations!”
“Not if I had not discovered that your preferences did not lie--”
“Among boudoirs and balls?” said Meta. “Harry was right. You thought me
a fine lady after all.”
The gay taunt was cut short by a tap at the door, and Flora looked in.
“Dr. Spencer has brought your things, Norman. I am sorry to disturb
you--but come down, Meta--I ran away very uncivilly to fetch you. I hope
it is not too cruel,” as she drew Meta’s arm into her own, and added, “I
have not been able speak to George.”
Meta suspected that, in the wish to spare her, Flora had abstained from
seeking him.
The evening went off like any other evening--people ate and talked,
thought Mrs. Rivers looking very ill, and Miss Rivers very pretty--Flora
forced herself into being very friendly to Sir Henry, commiserating the
disappointment to which she had led him; and she hoped that he suspected
the state of affairs, though Tom, no longer supplanted by his elder
brother, pursued Meta into the sheltered nook, where Flora had favoured
her seclusion, to apologise for having left her to the guidance of poor
Norman, whose head was with the blackamoors. It was all Harry’s fault.
“Nonsense, Tom,” said Harry; “don’t you think Norman is better company
than you any day?”
“Then why did you not walk him off instead of me?” said Tom, turning
round sharply.
“Out of consideration for Meta. She will tell you that she was very much
obliged to me--”
Harry checked himself, for Meta was colouring so painfully that his own
sunburned face caught the glow. He pushed Tom’s slight figure aside with
a commanding move of his broad hand, and said, “I beg your pardon, upon
my word, though I don’t know what for.”
“Nor I,” said Meta, rallying herself, and smiling. “You have no pardon
to beg. You will know it all to-morrow.”
“Then I know it now,” said Harry, sheltering his face by leaning over
the back of a chair, and taming the hearty gaiety of his voice. “Well
done, Meta; there’s nothing like old June in all the world! You may take
my word for it, and I knew you would have the sense to find it out.”
They were well out of sight, and Meta only answered by a good tight
squeeze of his kind hand between both her own. Tom, suddenly recovering
from his displeasure at being thrust aside, whisked round, dropped on a
footstool before Meta, looked up in her face, and said, “Hallo!” in
such utter amazement that there was nothing for it but to laugh more
uncontrollably than was convenient. “Come along, Tom,” said Harry,
pulling him up by force, “she does not want any of your nonsense. We
will not plague her now.”
“Thank you, Harry,” said Meta. “I cannot talk rationally just yet. Don’t
think me unkind, Tom.”
Tom sat in a sort of trance all the rest of the evening.
Lord Cosham talked to Norman, who felt as if he were being patronised
on false pretences, drew into his shell, and displayed none of his
“first-rate abilities.”
Dr. Spencer discussed his architecture with the archdeacon; but his
black eyes roamed heedfully after the young gentleman and lady, in the
opposite corners of the room; and, as he drove home afterwards with
the youths, he hummed scraps of Scottish songs, and indulged in silent
smiles.
Those at home had been far more demonstrative. Dr. May had arrived,
declaring himself the proudest doctor in her Majesty’s dominions, and
Ethel needed nothing but his face to explain why, and tell her that dear
old June’s troubles were over, and their pretty little Meta was their
own--a joy little looked for to attend their foundation-stone.
The dreaded conference with Lord Cosham had proved highly gratifying.
There might be something in the fact that he could not help it,
which assisted in his ready acquiescence, but he was also a sensible
right-minded man, who thought that the largeness of Meta’s fortune was
no reason that it should be doubled; considered that, in the matter of
connection, the May family had the advantage, and saw in Norman; a young
man whom any one might have pleasure in bringing forward. Oxford had
established confidence both in his character and talents, and his speech
had been such as to impress an experienced man, like Lord Cosham, with
an opinion of his powers, that prepared a welcome for him, such as no
one could have dared to expect. His lordship thought his niece not only
likely to be happier, but to occupy a more distinguished position with
such a man as Norman May, than with most persons of ready-made rank and
fortune.
The blushing and delighted Dr. May had thought himself bound to speak of
his son’s designs, but he allowed that the project had been formed under
great distress of mind, and when he saw it treated by so good a man,
as a mere form of disappointed love, he felt himself reprieved from the
hardest sacrifice that he had ever been called on to make, loved little
Meta the better for restoring his son, and once more gave a free course
to the aspirations that Norman’s brilliant boyhood had inspired. Richard
took the same view, and the evening passed away in an argument--as if
any one had been disputing with them--the father reasoning loud, the son
enforcing it low, that it had become Norman’s duty to stay at home to
take care of Meta, whose father would have been horrified at his taking
her to the Antipodes. They saw mighty tasks for her fortune to effect
in England, they enhanced each other’s anticipations of Norman’s career,
overthrew abuses before him, heaped distinctions upon him, and had made
him Prime Minister and settled his policy, before ten o’clock brought
their schemes to a close.
Mary gazed and believed; Margaret lay still and gently assented; Ethel
was silent at first, and only when the fabric became extremely airy and
magnificent, put in her word with a vehement dash at the present abuses,
which grieved her spirit above all, and, whether vulnerable or not,
Norman was to dispose of, like so many giants before Mr. Great-heart.
She went upstairs, unable to analyse her sentiments. To be spared
the separation would be infinite relief--all this prosperity made her
exult--the fair girl at the Grange was the delight of her heart, and yet
there was a sense of falling off; she disliked herself for being either
glad or sorry, and could have quarrelled with the lovers for perplexing
her feelings so uncomfortably.
Though she sat up till the party returned, she was inclined to be
supposed in bed, so as to put off the moment of meeting; but Margaret,
who she hoped was asleep, said from her pillow, “Ask dear Norman to let
me give him one kiss.”
She ran down headlong, clutched Norman as he was taking off his
greatcoat, told him that Margaret wanted him, and dragged him up without
letting him go, till she reached the first landing, where she stood
still, saying breathlessly, “New Zealand.”
“If I wished to fail, she would keep me to it.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Ethel, claiming heartily his caress. “I was
wrong to doubt either of you. Now, I know how to feel! But Margaret must
not wait.”
The happy youth, in the flush of love and joy, bent gently, almost
tearfully, down in silence to the white form, half seen in the twilight,
whose hopes had fleeted away from earth, and who was calmly, softly
gliding after them. Hardly a word was uttered, but of all the many
heartfelt thoughts that had passed while the face was pressed into
Margaret’s pillow, and her sympathising arms round the neck, surely none
was ever deeper, than was his prayer and vow that his affection should
be like hers, unearthly, and therefore enduring.
The embrace was all; Margaret must not be agitated, and, indeed, the
events of the day had been too much for her, and the ensuing morning
brought the fluttering of heart and prostration of strength, no longer
a novelty and occasion of immediate terror, but the token of the waning
power of life.
Till she was better, her father had no thoughts for aught else, but,
as with many another invalid, the relief from present distress was as
cheering as if it had been recovery, and ere night, her placid look
of repose had returned, and she was devising pretty greetings for her
newest Daisy.
Perhaps the sobering effect of these hours of anxiety was in Norman’s
favour, on entering into conversation with his father. Those visions,
which had had their swing the night before, belonged to the earlier,
more untamed period of Dr. May’s life, and had melted away in the dim
room, made sacred by lingering mementos of his wife, and in the sound of
that panting breath and throbbing heart. His vehemence had been, after
all, chiefly against his own misgivings, and when he heard of his son’s
resolution, and Meta’s more than acquiescence, he was greatly touched,
and recurred to his kind, sorrowful promise, that he would never be
a stumbling-block in the path of his children. Still he owned himself
greatly allured by the career proposed by Lord Cosham, and thought
Norman should consider the opportunities of doing good in, perhaps, a
still more important and extensive field than that which he had chosen.
“Time was that I should have grasped at such a prospect,” said Norman;
“but I am not the man for it. I have too much ambition, and too little
humility. You know, father, how often you have had to come to my rescue,
when I was running after success as my prime object.”
“Vanity fair is a dangerous place, but you who have sound principles and
pure motives--”
“How long would my motives be pure?” said Norman. “Rivalry and
party-spirit make me distrust my motives, and then my principles feel
the shock. Other men are marked by station for such trials, and may be
carried through them, but I am not.”
“Yet some of these men are far from your equals.”
“Not perhaps in speechifying,” said Norman, smiling; “but in steadiness
of aim, in patience, in callousness, in seeing one side of the question
at once.”
“You judge rightly for your own peace; you will be the happier; I always
doubted whether you had nerve to make your wits available.”
“It may be cowardice,” said Norman, “but I think not. I could burn for
the combat; and if I had no scruples, I could enjoy bearing down such
as--”
Of course Dr. May burst in with a political name, and--“I wish you were
at him!”
“Whether I could is another matter,” said Norman, laughing; “but the
fact is, that I stand pledged; and if I embraced what to me would be
a worldly career, I should be running into temptation, and could not
expect to be shielded from it.”
“Your old rule,” said Dr. May. “Seek to be less rather than more. But
there is another choice. Why not a parsonage at home?”
“Pleasant parishes are not in the same need,” said Norman.
“I wonder what poor old Rivers would say to you, if he knew what you
want to do with his daughter! Brought up as she has been--to expose her
to the roughness of a colonial life, such as I should hesitate about for
your sisters.”
“It is her own ardent desire.”
“True, but are girlish enthusiasms to be trusted? Take care, Norman,
take care of her--she is a bit of the choicest porcelain of human kind,
and not to be rudely dealt with.”
“No, indeed, but she has the brave enterprising temper, to which I fully
believe that actual work, in a good cause, is far preferable to what she
calls idleness. I do not believe that we are likely to meet with more
hardship than she would gladly encounter, and would almost--nay, quite
enjoy.”
“You do not know what your aunt has had to go through.”
“A few years make a great difference in a colony. Still, it may be right
for me to go out alone and judge for her; but we shall know more if my
aunt comes home.”
“Yes, I could trust a good deal to her. She has much of your mother’s
sense. Well, you must settle it as you can with Meta’s people! I do not
think they love the pretty creature better than I have done from the
first minute we saw her--don’t you remember it, Norman?”
“Remember it? Do I not? From the frosted cedar downwards! It was the
first gem of spring in that dreary winter. What a Fairyland the Grange
was to me!”
“You may nearly say the same of me,” confessed Dr. May, smiling; “the
sight of that happy little sunny spirit, full of sympathy and sweetness,
always sent me brighter on my way. Wherever you may be, Norman, I am
glad you have her, being one apt to need a pocket sunbeam.”
“I hope my tendencies are in no danger of depressing her!” said Norman,
startled. “If so--”
“No such thing--she will make a different man of you. You have been
depressed by--that early shock, and the gap at our own fireside--all
that we have shared together, Norman. To see you begin on a new score,
with a bright home of your own, is the best in this world that I could
wish for you, though I shall live over my own twenty-two years in
thinking of you, and that sweet little fairy. But now go, Norman--she
will be watching for you and news of Margaret. Give her all sorts of
love from me.”
Norman fared better with the uncle than he had expected. Lord Cosham, as
a philanthropist, could not, with any consistency, set his face against
missions, even when the cost came so near home; and he knew that
opposition made the like intentions assume a heroic aspect that
maintained them in greater force. He therefore went over the subject
in a calm dispassionate manner, which exacted full and grateful
consideration from the young man.
The final compromise was, that nothing should be settled for a year,
during which Norman would complete his course of study, and the matter
might be more fully weighed. Mrs. Arnott would probably return, and
bring experience and judgment, which would, or ought to, decide the
question--though Meta had a secret fear that it might render it more
complicated than ever. However, the engagement and the mission views had
both been treated so much more favourably than could have been hoped,
that they felt themselves bound to be patient and forbearing. As Meta
said, “If they showed themselves wilful children, they certainly did not
deserve to be trusted anywhere.”
Lord Cosham made his niece listen to a kind exhortation not to press her
influence towards a decision that might be repented, when too late to be
repaired, without a degrading sense of failure--putting her in mind of
the privations that would lose romance by their pettiness, and which
money could not remedy; and very sensibly representing that the effect
of these on temper and health was to be duly considered as a serious
impediment to usefulness.
“It would be worse for him alone,” said Meta.
“That is not certain,” said her uncle. “A broken-down wife is a terrible
drag.”
“I know it is so,” said Meta firmly, “but risks must be run, and he is
willing to take the chance. I do not think it can be presumption, for,
you know, I am strong; and Dr. May would say if he could not warrant me.
I fancy household work would be more satisfactory and less tiring than
doing a season thoroughly, and I mean to go through a course of Finchley
manuals in preparation.”
“I hope you know what you are doing,” sighed her uncle. “You see it all
couleur de rose.”
“I think not. It is because it is not couleur de rose that I am so much
bent upon it. I have had plenty of that all my life. I expect much that
will be very disagreeable and not at all heroic; but if I can only make
Norman think it fun, that will be one purpose answered. I do believe he
will do his work better for having me, and, at least, I shall pay his
passage.”
Her uncle shook his head, but did not try to say any more. George
had begun by loud exclamations against the project, in which he was
vehemently abetted by Tom, who primed him with all sorts of outrageous
abuse of the niggers and cannibals, who would make Norman’s coats out of
all shape, and devour little Meta at a mouthful--predictions which Meta
accepted most merrily, talking of herself so resignedly, as bound upon
a spit, and calling out to be roasted slower and faster, that she safely
conducted off their opposition by way of a standing joke. As to Norman’s
coats, she threatened to make them herself, and silenced Tom for ever
by supposing, in malicious simplicity, that he must be able to teach her
the most unexceptional cut.
Flora kept her opinions to herself. Only once, when urged to
remonstrate, she said, “I could not--I would not.”
She was gently and touchingly considerate towards the lovers, silently
but unobtrusively obviating all that could jar on their feelings, and
employing her exquisite tact in the kindest manner.