Curls are on her brow, not clouds,
Smiles are in her eye,
Simple, brave, ’mong worldly crowds
Looks she to the sky.
Joy dwells with her every day,
Sorrows touch her as they pass,
Fearless goes she on her way
O’er the springing grass,
Daunting evil passengers
With those clear brave eyes of hers.--BALLAD.
Mr George Oswald of Fendie was very proud of his daughter Hope; and
Hope, as we have already seen, was very fond of ponies. Young, large
animals of all kinds, indeed, were favourites with the favourite of the
banker. A great tawny fellow of a dog, with large, disjointed, youthful
limbs, whose uncouth gambols had as much fun and as little grace in them
as could be desired, was Hope’s especial playmate, counsellor, and
friend. She called him Merry--(gentle playfellow of mine, over whom I
could yet weep tears, so named I thee!) it was not a very musical name;
but there was nothing in the least æsthetic about the happy, clumsy,
kindly animal who bore it. This poor fellow fell under Mrs Oswald’s
displeasure sometimes, when it was discovered that Hope’s new gloves had
been in the great innocent mouth, or that the big paw had left its print
upon Hope’s garments too legibly; but the banker amply tolerated Merry.
On the morning of Hope’s intended visit to Mount Fendie, her father led
her proudly away to the vicinity of the stable where his own horses were
kept, and where, at its door, stood the red-headed Oswald Thomson, son
of a retainer of the family, holding by the bridle a handsome pony,
apparelled as became the steed of a lady, and arching its fine brown
neck in conscious pride, under the eye of its future mistress.
“Oh, father, is it for me?” exclaimed the delighted Hope; “is it to be
mine; is it to be all mine?”
And it was; and at that moment in Hope’s little chamber at home, her
mother, with some secret smiles over her husband’s unmeasured
indulgence, and some misgivings as to the youthful limbs which this new
mode of conveyance might expose to danger, was carefully spreading out a
new riding-habit, companion gift to the beautiful pony. Mr Oswald had
intended to bring his daughter quietly home with him, to assume the
appropriate garb before she began to be an equestrian; but that did by
no means suit Hope. So at dire risk to the bright muslin frock donned in
unspotted purity this morning, she sprang upon the new saddle and
arrived at the door radiant with laughter and exultation while her
father still panted in the rear, half running in spite of his years and
dignity.
Hope could not take her dog with her to Mount Fendie--it was her sole
regret as she cantered away happily alone, on the quiet familiar road.
One of Merry’s mighty paws would have extinguished Mrs Fendie’s lap-dog
for ever; the gambols of a young elephant could not have been more
detrimental to the trim gardens at the Mount. She was compelled to leave
her favourite behind.
But never did Hope salute passing acquaintances so joyously; and Hope’s
list of friends was as large as it was miscellaneous, extending from Mrs
Maxwell of Firthside, in her carriage, down to Robbie Carlyle, the
fisherman, with the creel on his shoulders full of flounders which he
had captured this morning, knee-deep in the waters of the Firth. Just
before the gate of Mount Fendie was a toll--a toll which Hope paid
triumphantly in presence of an admiring congregation of John Tasker’s
children. It was the crowning glory of her ride.
“Oh, Hope, when did you get your pony?” cried Victoria Fendie. “What a
pretty one!--but it’s not so pretty as Fred’s either--is it, Adelaide?”
“I don’t know what you call Fred’s,” said Adelaide, “for Fred is too
little to have a pony, but I am sure yours is very pretty, Hope. Were
you not afraid?”
Fred, a little spoiled, pale, ill-conditioned boy of eight stood on a
bench in the garden, plucking the blossoms off an apple-tree. He paused
to pull Adelaide’s hair--it was invitingly near him--and then resumed
his profitable occupation.
“I thought you would be afraid; but yours is a very pretty one, Hope,”
repeated the steady Adelaide, “and Fred is too little yet to have a
pony.”
Hope was so engrossed with the pony, its beauties and good qualities,
that she had almost forgotten the object of her visit. She recollected
herself at last.
“Adelaide, you have not told me, has the young lady come?”
“The young lady!--she means the governess,” said Victoria.
“Oh, yes--we’re all to go in now, to begin school, and you may come with
us, Hope. She came yesterday.”
“And do you like her?” said Hope, out of breath.
“I don’t know; we’re all to begin school to-day, and you’re to come with
us. But you’re always so quick, Hope Oswald!--how can people know in a
day?”
“I know,” said Victoria loudly, “I don’t like her at all. She is so
pale, and she speaks so low, and--I don’t like her.”
“Young ladies,” said a clear voice behind them, “your mother desires
that you will come in.”
Hope turned quickly round. A tall, pale girl stood behind, evidently
endeavouring to assume a firmness and authority which she did not
possess. Her deep mourning dress, and shadowy stooping figure, and
singular paleness touched the girlish romance which lay dormant in the
blythe spirit of Hope. Adelaide Fendie looked at the new governess
hazily out of her dull blue eyes, and did not speak. The dyspeptic
little tyrant Fred said “I won’t,” and the shrewish Victoria laughed.
Hope had learned the stranger’s name, and knew her own power over
Adelaide when she chose to exert it.
“If you please, Miss Maxwell,” said the prompt young lady, “I’m Hope
Oswald; and Adelaide was just coming in; and we’ll all go together.”
Whereupon Hope seized the arm of Adelaide, and brought her, docile and
obedient, into the rear of the new governess.
A very little matter was enough to overset the composure of the orphan
who held that unenviable place. Her eyes filled and her lip quivered;
she had fancied it impossible that children could be anything but
loveable, and in the early power and bitterness of her grief to have
these petty indignities put upon her, overwhelmed her inexperienced
spirit. So she went in with the elder girls, painfully repressing bitter
tears, and with the gasp of young woe convulsively swelling in her
breast, “to flee away, and be at rest.”
Mrs Fendie sat in her morning room, before a table covered with
embroideries and patterns for the same. She was a tall, thin, chill
woman of the _genus_ clever, who had persevered so long in calling
herself an excellent manager, and a person of very intellectual tastes,
that public opinion had at length succumbed under the constant
iteration, and with only the emphatic protest of John Brown, who in his
own circle declared her “an evendown gowk wi’ a tongue like the happer
of a mill,” Mrs Fendie was pronounced a very clever woman. The
natural-born Fendies were all dull. The last head of the house had been
fretted and chafed out of his easy life by the fatal cleverness of his
yoke-fellow; and even she, their mother, had been quite unable to strike
any sort of fire from the leaden natures of his children.
Beside Mrs Fendie, stretched in an easy chair, with a worked footstool
supporting the worked slipper, with which her mother’s industry had
endowed her, reclined the Reverend Mrs Heavieliegh, Mrs Fendie’s eldest
daughter. She was like Adelaide in her soft, large, not uncomely
features, and in the passive good humour of their expression; but Mrs
Heavieliegh’s development of the family character was indolence,
comfortable, lazy, luxurious repose; and in her gay-coloured ample
draperies, and lounging attitude, and slumbrous face, she formed a good
foil to the keen, sharp, steel-like mother, who worked indefatigably by
her side. Mrs Heavieliegh had no admiration of work; she played with the
long ears of the lap-dog on her knee, and was perfectly comfortable.
“How do you do, Hope Oswald?” said Mrs Fendie; “how’s your mamma? Sit
down, children, I have something to say to you. Fred, don’t pull my
frame; Victoria, be quiet. Sit down, Miss Maxwell, I wish particularly
to address myself to you.”
Mrs Fendie arranged her work; she was copying a French lithograph like
Maggie Irving, but she was copying it with the needle and not with the
pencil, and cleared her voice oratorically. Lilias Maxwell with some
apparent timidity took the chair pointed to her, and sat down to listen,
the great tears gathering under her eyelids. Hope placed herself very
near the new governess, in instinctive sympathy. She was not so
“pretty-looking” as Adelaide had predicted. She was singularly pale, and
had very dark hair, and large deep-blue eyes--blue eyes so dark that
Hope, to whom blue eyes always suggested the slumbrous orbs of Adelaide
Fendie, gave Miss Maxwell’s credit for being black. The dark mass of
hair and the mourning dress made the young orphan look still more
ethereal and shadowy. She was not like Hope’s model, Helen Buchanan;
she was not nearly so life-like, and seemed to want altogether the
nervous impulsive strength of Helen. Sudden flushes indeed did sometimes
pass over her colourless cheek for a moment--flushes painfully deep and
vivid; but there was nothing on this face like the constantly varying
colour, which wavered on Helen’s cheek like the coming and going of
breath. Nevertheless, there was a similarity in the age, and perhaps in
the circumstances, which made Hope associate the stranger with her
friend.
“You will understand, Miss Maxwell,” said Mrs Fendie, “that I consider
it a very important charge which I, as a mother, give into your hands,
when I delegate to you the care of these children. Such wonderful
interests at stake! such extraordinary effects your humble teachings may
help to produce! When I look at that boy,” and Mrs Fendie cast a
sentimental glance at the dyspeptic Fred, “it quite overwhelms me. Oh,
Fred! you wicked child, what have you been doing!”
Mrs Fendie had chosen an unfavourable moment for her sentimental glance,
the young gentleman being busily employed opening the eyes of a
scriptural personage in one of the aforesaid patterns for embroidery, by
thrusting a pencil through them. On being thus pathetically appealed to
Master Fred threw down the paper, and exclaimed,--“It’s not me, it’s
Vic.”
Mrs Fendie restrained Victoria’s self-defence, by a majestic wave of her
hand, and resumed,--“In the first place, concerning Miss Fendie--hold up
your head, Adelaide.” Adelaide fixed her eyes upon the wall, awkwardly
conscious of being looked at, and blushed, a dull, gradual blush,--“you
will need rather to direct the young lady’s studies than to enter on the
drudgery of teaching--and I am sure to a well-regulated mind nothing
could be more delightful. I shall expect you to read with Miss Fendie,
to direct her to those subjects which most call for a lady’s attention;
to attend to her deportment and carriage, to superintend her work, to
see that her wardrobe is kept in proper order, and that she does not get
slovenly in her dress; besides--”
“Oh, mamma!” exclaimed Victoria, “yonder’s old Mr Graeme of Mossgray
riding along the avenue;--what will he want, I wonder? oh goodness,
mamma, isn’t it strange? let me go to see.”
“Old Mr Graeme of Mossgray!” exclaimed Mrs Fendie, rising;
“be quiet, Victoria, how dare you interrupt me? A very strange
visitor certainly:--you have not seen him since your marriage,
Charlotte:--perhaps he has heard you are here, and intends to be like
other people for once in his life.”
Mrs Heavieliegh lifted her eyelids with some apparent difficulty and
looked a little ashamed; to tell the truth, she had been dozing during
her mother’s _preche_, and did not at all know what this commotion was
about. Mrs Fendie’s address was broken short, but Hope perceived Lilias
Maxwell still trembling in her chair.
There was a deep bow-window in the end of the room; the new governess,
unnoticed in the little bustle of interest with which the Fendie family
awaited their unusual visitor, stole by degrees into its recess. Hope
Oswald followed her; it was scarcely quite delicate perhaps; but Hope
was anxious to express something of her sympathy.
Lilias leaned upon the window--she shook so much that she needed it--and
the sympathetic girl beside her saw how thin and transparent the long
white fingers were, which tremblingly supported her brow. “If you
please, Miss Maxwell,” said Hope compassionately, “I am afraid you are
not well; and I wish my mother were only here, for she would know--and,
Miss Maxwell, if you please, do not look so sad.”
The stranger could not bear this; she turned her head away, and shrank
further into the shadow of the curtains, and pressed her thin fingers
upon her eyes, but the tears would be restrained no longer, and Hope
hastily placed herself in front of the window, that no eyes but her own
might perceive the agony of silent weeping, which the unfriended,
solitary girl could not control. She had borne as she best could the
foolish levity and inconsiderate rudeness of the children, and half
bewildered with the long stretch of endurance, had silently suffered the
chill unpitying lectures of Mrs Fendie, but the first touch of kindness
made the full cup overflow. All the simple philosophies with which
Lilias had tried to subdue the natural strength of her feelings, could
not make her grief less green and recent; and Hope stood reverently by,
in silence, while the tears poured down like rain, and the shadowy
figure before her shook with suppressed sobs. The child Hope had become
the benefactor of the orphan, for there was healing in those tears.