While poor Tom Dill, just entering upon life, went forth in gloom and
disappointment to his first venture, old Peter Barrington, broken by
years and many a sorrow, set out on his journey with a high heart and a
spirit well disposed to see everything in its best light and be pleased
with all around him. Much of this is, doubtless, matter of temperament;
but I suspect, too, that all of us have more in our power in this way
than we practise. Barrington had possibly less merit than his neighbors,
for nature had given him one of those happy dispositions upon which
the passing vexations of life produce scarcely any other effect than
a stimulus to humor, or a tendency to make them the matter of amusing
memory.
He had lived, besides, so long estranged from the world, that life had
for him all the interests of a drama, and he could no more have felt
angry with the obtrusive waiter or the roguish landlord than he would
with their fictitious representatives on the stage. They were, in his
eyes, parts admirably played, and no more; he watched them with a sense
of humorous curiosity, and laughed heartily at successes of which he
was himself the victim. Miss Barrington was no disciple of this school;
rogues to her were simply rogues, and no histrionic sympathies dulled
the vexation they gave her. The world, out of which she had lived so
long, had, to her thinking, far from improved in the mean while. People
were less deferential, less courteous than of old. There was an indecent
haste and bustle about everything, and a selfish disregard of one's
neighbor was the marked feature of all travel. While her brother repaid
himself for many an inconvenience by thinking over some strange caprice,
or some curious inconsistency in human nature,--texts for amusing
afterthought,--she only winced under the infliction, and chafed at every
instance of cheating or impertinence that befell them.
The wonderful things she saw, the splendid galleries rich in art, the
gorgeous palaces, the grand old cathedrals, were all marred to her
by the presence of the loquacious lackey whose glib tongue had to be
retained at the salary of the “vicar of our parish,” and who never
descanted on a saint's tibia without costing the price of a dinner; so
that old Peter at last said to himself, “I believe my sister Dinah would
n't enjoy the garden of Eden if Adam had to go about and show her its
beauties.”
The first moment of real enjoyment of her tour was on that morning when
they left Namur to drive to the Convent of Bramaigne, about three
miles off, on the banks of the Meuse. A lovelier day never shone upon a
lovelier scene. The river, one side guarded by lofty cliffs, was on the
other bounded by a succession of rich meadows, dotted with picturesque
homesteads half hidden in trees. Little patches of cultivation, labored
to the perfection of a garden, varied the scene, and beautiful cattle
lay lazily under the giant trees, solemn voluptuaries of the peaceful
happiness of their lot.
Hitherto Miss Dinah had stoutly denied that anything they had seen could
compare with their own “vale and winding river,” but now she frankly
owned that the stream was wider, the cliffs higher, the trees taller and
better grown, while the variety of tint in the foliage far exceeded
all she had any notion of; but above all these were the evidences of
abundance, the irresistible charm that gives the poetry to peasant
life; and the picturesque cottage, the costume, the well-stored granary,
bespeak the condition with which we associate our ideas of rural
happiness. The giant oxen as they marched proudly to their toil, the
gay-caparisoned pony who jingled his bells as he trotted by, the peasant
girls as they sat at their lace cushions before the door, the rosy
urchins who gambolled in the deep grass, all told of plenty,--that
blessing which to man is as the sunlight to a landscape, making the
fertile spots more beautiful, and giving even to ruggedness an aspect of
stern grandeur.
“Oh, brother Peter, that we could see something like this at home,”
cried she. “See that girl yonder watering the flowers in her little
garden,--how prettily that old vine is trained over the balcony,--mark
the scarlet tassels in the snow-white team,--are not these signs of an
existence not linked to daily drudgery? I wish our people could be like
these.”
“Here we are, Dinah: there is the convent!” cried Barrington, as a tall
massive roof appeared over the tree-tops, and the little carriage now
turned from the high-road into a shady avenue of tall elms. “What a
grand old place it is! some great seigniorial château once on a time.”
As they drew nigh, nothing bespoke the cloister. The massive old
building, broken by many a projection and varied by many a gable, stood,
like the mansion of some rich proprietor, in a vast wooded lawn. The
windows lay open, the terrace was covered with orange and lemon trees
and flowering plants, amid which seats were scattered; and in the rooms
within, the furniture indicated habits of comfort and even of luxury.
With all this, no living thing was to be seen; and when Barrington got
down and entered the hall, he neither found a servant nor any means to
summon one.
“You'll have to move that little slide you see in the door there,” said
the driver of the carriage, “and some one will come to you.”
He did so; and after waiting a few moments, a somewhat ruddy, cheerful
face, surmounted by a sort of widow's cap, appeared, and asked his
business.
“They are at dinner, but if you will enter the drawing-room she will
come to you presently.”
They waited for some time; to them it seemed very long, for they never
spoke, but sat there in still thoughtfulness, their hearts very full,
for there was much in that expectancy, and all the visions of many
a wakeful night or dreary day might now receive their shock or their
support. Their patience was to be further tested; for, when the door
opened, there entered a grim-looking little woman in a nun's costume,
who, without previous salutation, announced herself as Sister Lydia.
Whether the opportunity for expansiveness was rare, or that her especial
gift was fluency, never did a little old woman hold forth more volubly.
As though anticipating all the worldly objections to a conventual
existence, or rather seeming to suppose that every possible thing had
been actually said on that ground, she assumed the defence the very
moment she sat down. Nothing short of long practice with this argument
could have stored her mind with all her instances, her quotations, and
her references. Nor could anything short of a firm conviction have made
her so courageously indifferent to the feelings she was outraging,
for she never scrupled to arraign the two strangers before her for
ignorance, apathy, worldliness, sordid and poor ambitions, and, last of
all, a levity unbecoming their time of life.
[Illustration: 304]
“I 'm not quite sure that I understand her aright,” whispered Peter,
whose familiarity with French was not what it had once been; “but if I
do, Dinah, she 's giving us a rare lesson.”
“She's the most insolent old woman I ever met in my life,” said his
sister, whose violent use of her fan seemed either likely to provoke or
to prevent a fit of apoplexy.
“It is usual,” resumed Sister Lydia, “to give persons who are about to
exercise the awful responsibility now devolving upon you the opportunity
of well weighing and reflecting over the arguments I have somewhat
faintly shadowed forth.”
“Oh, not faintly!” groaned Barrington.
But she minded nothing the interruption, and went on,--
“And for this purpose a little tract has been composed, entitled 'A
Word to the Worldling.' This, with your permission, I will place in your
hands. You will there find at more length than I could bestow--But I
fear I impose upon this lady's patience?”
“It has left me long since, madam,” said Miss Dinah, as she actually
gasped for breath.
In the grim half-smile of the old nun might be seen the triumphant
consciousness that placed her above the “mundane;” but she did not
resent the speech, simply saying that, as it was the hour of recreation,
perhaps she would like to see her young ward in the garden with her
companions.
“By all means. We thank you heartily for the offer,” cried Barrington,
rising hastily.
[Illustration: 304]
With another smile, still more meaningly a reproof, Sister Lydia
reminded him that the profane foot of a man had never transgressed the
sacred precincts of the convent garden, and that he must remain where he
was.
“For Heaven's sake! Dinah, don't keep me a prisoner here a moment
longer than you can help it,” cried he, “or I'll not answer for my good
behavior.”
As Barrington paced up and down the room with impatient steps, he could
not escape the self-accusation that all his present anxiety was scarcely
compatible with the long, long years of neglect and oblivion he had
suffered to glide over.
The years in which he had never heard of Josephine--never asked for
her--was a charge there was no rebutting. Of course he could fall back
upon all that special pleading ingenuity and self-love will supply about
his own misfortunes, the crushing embarrassments that befell him, and
such like. But it was no use, it was desertion, call it how he would;
and poor as he was he had never been without a roof to shelter her, and
if it had not been for false pride he would have offered her that refuge
long ago. He was actually startled as he thought over all this. Your
generous people, who forgive injuries with little effort, who bear no
malice nor cherish any resentment, would be angels--downright angels--if
we did not find that they are just as indulgent, just as merciful to
themselves as to the world at large. They become perfect adepts in
apologies, and with one cast of the net draw in a whole shoal of
attenuating circumstances. To be sure, there will now and then break
in upon them a startling suspicion that all is not right, and that
conscience has been “cooking” the account; and when such a moment does
come, it is a very painful one.
“Egad!” muttered he to himself, “we have been very heartless all this
time, there's no denying it; and if poor George's girl be a disciple
of that grim old woman with the rosary and the wrinkles, it is nobody's
fault but our own.” He looked at his watch; Dinah had been gone more
than half an hour. What a time to keep him in suspense! Of course there
were formalities,--the Sister Lydia described innumerable ones,--jail
delivery was nothing to it, but surely five-and-thirty minutes would
suffice to sign a score of documents. The place was becoming hateful to
him. The grand old park, with its aged oaks, seemed sad as a graveyard,
and the great silent house, where not a footfall sounded, appeared a
tomb. “Poor child! what a dreary spot you have spent your brightest
years in,--what a shadow to throw over the whole of a lifetime!”
He had just arrived at that point wherein his granddaughter arose before
his mind a pale, careworn, sorrow-struck girl, crushed beneath the
dreary monotony of a joyless life, and seeming only to move in a sort
of dreamy melancholy, when the door opened, and Miss Barrington entered
with her arm around a young girl tall as herself, and from whose
commanding figure even the ungainly dress she wore could not take away
the dignity.
“This is Josephine, Peter,” said Miss Dinah; and though Barrington
rushed forward to clasp her in his arms, she merely crossed hers
demurely on her breast and courtesied deeply.
“It is your grandpapa, Josephine,” said Miss Dinah, half tartly.
The young girl opened her large, full, lustrous eyes, and stared
steadfastly at him, and then, with infinite grace, she took his hand and
kissed it.
“My own dear child,” cried the old man, throwing his arms around her,
“it is not homage, it is your love we want.”
“Take care, Peter, take care,” whispered his sister; “she is very timid
and very strange.”
“You speak English, I hope, dear?” said the old man.
“Yes, sir, I like it best,” said she. And there was the very faintest
possible foreign accent in the words.
“Is n't that George's own voice, Dinah? Don't you think you heard
himself there?”
“The voice is certainly like him,” said Miss Dinah, with a marked
emphasis.
“And so are--no, not her eyes, but her brow, Dinah. Yes, darling, you
have his own frank look, and I feel sure you have his own generous
nature.”
“They say I'm like my mother's picture,” said she, unfastening a locket
she wore from its chain and handing it. And both Peter and his sister
gazed eagerly at the miniature. It was of a very dark but handsome woman
in a rich turban, and who, though profusely ornamented with costly gems,
did, in reality, present a resemblance to the cloistered figure before
them.
“Am I like her?” asked the girl, with a shade more of earnestness in her
voice.
“You are, darling; but like your father, too, and every word you utter
brings back his memory; and see, Dinah, if that is n't George's old
trick,--to lay one hand in the palm of the other.”
As if corrected, the young girl dropped her arms to her sides and stood
like a statue.
“Be like him in everything, dearest child,” said the old man, “if you
would have my heart all your own.”
“I must be what I am,” said she, solemnly.
“Just so, Josephine; well said, my good girl. Be natural,” said Miss
Dinah, kissing her, “and our love will never fail you.”
There was the faintest little smile of acknowledgment to this speech;
but faint as it was, it dimpled her cheek, and seemed to have left
a pleasant expression on her face, for old Peter gazed on her with
increased delight as he said, “That was George's own smile; just the
way he used to look, half grave, half merry. Oh, how you bring him back
tome!”
“You see, my dear child, that you are one of us; let us hope you will
share in the happiness this gives us.”
The girl listened attentively to Miss Dinah's words, and after a pause
of apparent thought over them, said, “I will hope so.”
“May we leave this, Dinah? Are we free to get away?” whispered
Barrington to his sister, for an unaccountable oppression seemed to
weigh on him, both from the place and its belongings.
“Yes; Josephine has only one good-bye to say; her trunks are already on
the carriage, and there is nothing more to detain us.”
“Go and say that farewell, dear child,” said he, affectionately; “and be
speedy, for there are longing hearts here to wish for your return.”
With a grave and quiet mien she walked away, and as she gained the
door turned round and made a deep, respectful courtesy,--a movement so
ceremonious that the old man involuntarily replied to it by a bow as
deep and reverential.