SOMETHING TO BEAR.
THE day broke in sunny beauty. At "the breezy call of incense-breathing
morn," the merry birds filled the air with their twittering, and the
bleat of the lamb was heard from the meadow. Man roused himself to
his various labours. The sound of the woodcutter's axe came from the
forest, the clink of iron from the village forge, and the slow creak of
the waggon from the lane. Under the eaves the swallows were chattering,
and the "cock's shrill clarion" rose from the yard. Pleasant was the
blending of rural sounds which roused Philomel to consciousness that
another day had begun.
But the vicar's daughter awoke with a sense of oppression at her heart
which excluded all pleasure, a feeling that some strange thing had
occurred, that something painful was before her, though when she first
opened her blue eyes to the light, full consciousness had not returned,
and she knew not what caused the oppressive sensation. Then she felt
a chilliness at her head, and intuitively Philomel put up her hand to
that which some hours before had been so warmly, as well as so richly,
clothed; the first touch recalled to her in a moment all that had
happened upon the preceding evening.
How different often are our sensations in the morning from those
experienced in the night—in what an altered light events and objects
appear! If Philomel had been earnest, resolute, devoted, when the quiet
stars were shining over her—if the curtain of night had seemed to shut
out the world—all her courage and spirit of self-sacrifice now appeared
to have faded away with the stars. She sprang from her pillow with a
feeling akin to desperation, and for the first half-hour, while her
fingers intuitively went on with her toilette preparations, her mind
was wildly revolving schemes of escape from the consequences of what
appeared to her now a senseless, almost suicidal, act.
Where should she hide herself—what could she do? Should she feign
sickness, keep her apartment, shroud herself in darkness from the gaze
of inquisitive eyes, the reach of impertinent gossip? Philomel was half
wild with vexation when she looked at herself in her mirror; there was
a choking sensation in her throat; but she was too much excited to
cry, she was rather disposed in a fit of passionate distress to fling
herself down on the floor. This was all very childish indeed, but poor
Philomel was no heroine. She had done what could not be undone, and
was not able at first to remember that "things without remedy should
be without regard," and that the loss of her golden fleece was not the
heaviest of misfortunes.
The first thing to soften the distress of the shorn lamb was the
distant sound of children's voices singing a hymn which Philomel had
herself taught them in the little schoolhouse on the moor. She threw
open her lattice to let in the music, and with it came in the sweet
morning air, laden with perfume from the garden. Tears came into
Philomel's eyes as she listened, and then she turned them towards the
parcel which she had directed to Caleb Coffin on the preceding night,
and something of thankful pleasure mingled now with her pain.
"It has not been for naught; there is comfort at least in that thought.
If I am a loser, others are gainers. Those dear little voices—how
sweet they sound! I think that they were sent to cheer me, and give me
courage to go on; for go on I must! I am like one climbing a cliff,
who has reached a point whence he cannot go back. I must not stop on
my way, or the fruit of my effort is lost. I must go on—I must go on!"
Philomel repeated these last words again and again.
If, according to her own simile, she had been as one clambering up the
steep face of a cliff, till there was no way of turning or descending,
a jutting crag seemed to be overshadowing her now. Her nerve was
failing her, her courage was sinking, and yet she must rise above that
obstacle, or all the hard upward struggle already experienced would
avail her nothing.
Philomel's window looked out on a fair lawn girdled with shrubbery,
dotted with parterres. The village lay beyond it, backed by the wood,
and above the trees rose the tower of the church, its gilt weathercock
gleaming blight in the morning beam. Job, the labourer employed at
the vicarage, was standing on the dew-sprinkled lawn, by the lines of
newly-mown grass, whetting his scythe, and merrily whistling. There
were sounds of movement within the dwelling. Philomel heard Sarah the
maid setting down the jug of hot water and the cleaned boots outside
the door of the vicar's apartment. It was time that another step should
be taken on Philomel's difficult path, another point by an effort be
gained. She called the maid to her room, strangely dreading to meet
even the eye of the simple Scottish general-servant.
Sarah obeyed the young lady's call.
Philomel did not look at her as she entered; fancy painted vividly
enough the expression of blank amazement on the face of the maid as she
saw her mistress for the first time divested of all her long flowing
hair.
Philomel pointed to the parcel which lay on the table, and, in as
steady a voice as she could command, bade Sarah ask Job to take it
directly to Burnesbey Abbey. Philomel had to repeat the order in a
more peremptory tone before it was obeyed, for the servant was so much
astonished by what she saw, that she could scarcely take in the sense
of what she heard.
It was a relief to the vicar's daughter when Sarah had quitted the room
with that precious packet, though Philomel was persuaded that the first
words which would escape the maid's lips would be, "Sure my young leddy
has gone clean daft!"
Philomel watched Job from her window as he stopped in his mowing to
receive the message and parcel from Sarah. Few words seemed to pass
between the two. Job wiped his scythe, hung it up in a blossoming
lilac, took up his fustian jacket which had lain on the gravel drive,
put it on, and then set off on his errand, little guessing what were
the contents of the small white parcel which he carried under his arm.
"I have now compromised myself fully," murmured Philomel Lamb to
herself, as Job passed through the green gate, and she heard its clink
as it swung back behind him. "He carries my plighted promise as well
as my hair. Oh, may my uncle faithfully fulfil his part of a bond as
strange as that made by Shylock, I had almost said—as cruel!"
Philomel, though heavy-hearted, was no longer excited. The Rubicon had
been crossed, there was no more painful struggling with indecision and
doubt. The vicar's daughter quietly read her chapter, and knelt at her
morning devotions; she had never engaged in them with a more simple,
confiding faith. There is to a loving heart a sweetness in sacrifice;
notwithstanding all her fears and regrets, when Philomel rose from her
knees she felt no longer unhappy.
"Oh, that I could but tell my father why I have done this," murmured
Philomel half aloud, as she heard the vicar descending the stairs.
"For the first time in my life, I fear to face him. Papa will be so
much surprised, so much annoyed; my conduct will seem so inexplicable
to him. His vexation will be the worst—or almost the worst—part of my
trial."
Philomel went to her drawer, took out her small store of ribbons,
carried them to her toilette-table, and forced herself to look calmly
into the mirror. She must wear no false hair—even had any been at hand,
that was a part of her bond—but she might soften the effect of the
disfigurement which the loss of her ringlets occasioned.
Philomel used the scissors here and there where the golden fleece had
been hastily and unevenly clipped; and she bound a blue ribbon round
her temples, letting the ends fall behind on her shoulders. The maiden
felt little satisfied with the effect of her simple coiffure, and yet
not all the charm of her face had been lost with her curls. The contour
of the head was classical, the hair on it smooth and shining as gold,
the countenance beneath looked more youthful than ever, with its rosy
blush, and expression of mingled shyness and sweetness.
Thrice Philomel went to the top of the staircase, thrice she returned
to her own apartment, before she could summon up courage sufficient to
meet her father at the breakfast-table before family prayers. Delay,
however, could not make the inevitable trial more easy to be borne,
and when Philomel did enter the parlour at last, it was with a rapid,
hurried step. The vicar had his back to the door when it was opened
by his daughter, he was looking out the chapter for the day. But when
he turned round and suddenly confronted Philomel, his surprise at her
altered appearance was expressed in an ejaculation which was rarely
known to escape from his lips.
"Bless me," cried the vicar three times, and each time with stronger
emphasis, "what has the child done with her hair!"
Philomel went up to her father for her usual morning salute, but
instead of giving it, the vicar held her back by her shoulders, that he
might gaze with a long, puzzled, scrutinizing look at the head shorn
of its locks. Embarrassed and distressed by his gaze, poor Philomel
dared not raise her eyes, and felt her whole countenance suffused with
a burning glow.
"What mad freak is this?" said the vicar at last in a tone of
displeasure. "You are the last person whom I should have expected to
play the fool in a silly attempt to follow the fashion."
"It is not the fashion at all," replied Philomel, scarcely knowing
whether to cry or to laugh.
"Fashion or not—it is frightful; you look like a charity-child,"
bluntly observed the vicar. "I hate the masses of false hair with which
girls now-a-days disfigure their heads, and I thought that the pendulum
of fashion might be swinging back to no hair at all, but the latter
fancy would be the most absurd of the two."
"I hope, papa, that you don't mind much," said Philomel, timidly
approaching and giving the kiss which her parent, for once, did not
return.
"Well, I suppose that a girl has a right to do what she pleases with
her own hair; dress it like a Chinese or an Ojibeway Indian, if it
takes her fancy to do so," said the vicar, still looking a good deal
disturbed; "but I am sorry that a daughter of mine should make herself
the talk of the village. Of course you do not intend to show your
cropped poll at the archery-meeting to-day."
"Indeed, papa, I believe—I think—I know that I mustn't break my
engagement."
The vicar merely shrugged his shoulders, and to Philomel's relief at
that moment, Sarah came in for family prayers.
At breakfast, the vicar was unusually silent. When Sarah brought in
the steaming kettle, she observed to herself that master looked put
out, and no wonder, he had taken such pleasure in Miss Philomel's hair.
Mr. Lamb was, however, a good-tempered man, and had a kindly heart.
He saw that his daughter was pained, and he would not distress her by
questions. Only, during breakfast-time, Philomel several times found
her father looking at her short hair with a perplexed and troubled
expression.
"I shall not dine at home to-day," said Mr. Lamb, as he concluded his
meal; "I shall go to see Bullen's sick child, and then on to G—. I
shall look in there on the rector, and probably take early dinner with
him."
"Then will you not accompany me to the archery-meeting, papa?" asked
Philomel, who dreaded facing the company without the support of her
father's presence.
"Not accompany you, but join you there. I shall be in time, no doubt,
to see you receive the silver arrow, if you win the prize," said the
vicar smiling. "But, in truth," he added, more gravely, "I am scarcely
in a mood for all these gay doings to-day. This niggardly conduct of
Coffin's weighs on my spirits; my own village will look as strange to
me without my school, as—as you do, child, without your ringlets."
"Oh, papa, I don't despair of our keeping on the school!" exclaimed
Philomel, with a brighter glance than had beamed on her face since she
had met her father that morning.
The vicar sighed, and shook his head. "Caleb Coffin," he observed, "is
not a man to be changed by a word or led by a hair."
"We shall see," said Philomel, smiling.
And as she went up the stairs to her room, her heart felt much lighter
than it had done when she had descended them before breakfast.