GODFREY AND LETTY.
Godfrey, being an Englishman, and with land of his own, could not fail
to be fond of horses. For his own use he kept two--an indulgence
disproportioned to his establishment; for, although precise in his
tastes as to equine toilet, he did not feel justified in the keeping of
a groom for their use only. Hence it came that, now and then, strap and
steel, as well as hide and hoof, would get partially neglected; and his
habits in the use of his horses being fitful--sometimes, it would be
midnight even, when he scoured from his home, seeking the comfort of
desert as well as solitary places--it is not surprising if at times,
going to the stable to saddle one, he should find its gear not in the
spick-and-span condition alone to his mind. It might then well happen
there was no one near to help him, and there be nothing for it but to
put his own hands to the work: he was too just to rouse one who might
be nowise to blame, or send a maid to fetch him from field or barn,
where he might be more importantly engaged.
One night, meaning to start for a long ride early in the morning, he
had gone to the stable to see how things were; and, soon after, it
happened that Letty, attending to some duty before going to bed, caught
sight of him cleaning his stirrups: from that moment she took upon
herself the silent and unsuspected supervision of the harness-room,
where, when she found any part of the riding-equipments neglected, she
would draw a pair of housemaid's gloves on her pretty hands, and polish
away like a horse-boy.
Godfrey had begun to remark how long it was since he had found anything
unfit, and to wonder at the improvement somewhere in the establishment,
when, going hastily one morning, some months before the date of my
narrative, into the harness-room to get a saddle, he came upon Letty,
who had imagined him afield with the men: she was energetic upon a
stirrup with a chain-polisher. He started back in amazement, but she
only looked up and smiled.
"I shall have done in a moment, Cousin Godfrey," she said, and polished
away harder than before.
"But, Letty! I can't allow you to do things like that. What on earth
put it in your head? Work like that is only for horny hands."
"Your hands ain't horny, Cousin Godfrey. They may be a little harder
than mine--they wouldn't be much good if they weren't--but they're no
fitter by nature to clean stirrups. Is it for me to sit with mine in my
lap, and yours at this? I know better."
"Why shouldn't I clean my own harness, Letty, if I like?" said Godfrey,
who could not help feeling pleased as well as annoyed; in this one
moment Letty had come miles nearer him.
"Oh, surely! if you like, Cousin Godfrey," she answered; "but do you
like?"
"Better than to see you doing it."
"But not better than I like to do it; that I am sure of. It is hands
that write poetry that are not fit for work like this."
"How do you know I write poetry?" asked Godfrey, displeased, for she
touched here a sensitive spot.
"Oh, don't be angry with me!" she said, letting the stirrup fall on the
floor, and clasping her great wash-leather gloves together; "I couldn't
help seeing it was poetry, for it lay on the table when I went to do
your room."
"Do my room, Letty! Does my mother--?"
"She doesn't want to make a fine lady of me, and I shouldn't like it if
she did. I have no head, but I have pretty good hands. Of course,
Cousin Godfrey, I didn't read a word of the poetry. I daredn't do that,
however much I might have wished."
A childlike simplicity looked out of the clear eyes and sounded in the
swift words of the maiden; and, had Godfrey's heart been as hard as the
stirrup she had dropped, it could not but be touched by her devotion.
He was at the same time not a little puzzled how to carry himself.
Letty had picked up the stirrup, and was again hard at work with it; to
take it from her, and turn her out of the saddle-room, would scarcely
be a proper way of thanking her, scarcely an adequate mode of revealing
his estimate of the condescension of her ladyhood. For, although Letty
did make beds and chose to clean harness, Godfrey was gentleman enough
not to think her less of a lady--for the moment at least--because of
such doings: I will not say he had got so far on in the great doctrine
concerning the washing of hands as to be able to think her _more_ of a
lady for thus cleaning his stirrups. But he did see that to set the
fire-engine of indignant respect for womankind playing on the
individual woman was not the part of the man to whose service she was
humbling herself. He laid his hand on her bent head, and said:
"I ought to be a knight of the old times, Letty, to have a lady serve
me so."
"You're just as good, Cousin Godfrey," she rejoined, rubbing away.
He turned from her, and left her at her work.
He had taken no real notice of the girl before--had felt next to no
interest in her. Neither did he feel much now, save as owing her
something beyond mere acknowledgment. But was there anything now he
could do for her--anything in her he could help? He did not know. What
she really was, he could not tell. She was a fresh, bright girl--that
he seemed to have just discovered; and, as she sat polishing the
stirrup, her hair shaken about her shoulders, she looked engaging; but
whether she was one he could do anything for that was worth doing, was
hardly the less a question for those discoveries.
"There must be _something_ in the girl!" he said to himself--then
suddenly reflected that he had never seen a book in her hand, except
her prayer-book; how _was_ he to do anything for a girl like that? For
Godfrey knew no way of doing people good without the intervention of
books. How could he get near one that had no taste for the quintessence
of humanity? How was he to offer her the only help he had, when she
desired no such help? "But," he continued, reflecting further, "she may
have thirsted, may even now be athirst, without knowing that books are
the bottles of the water of life!" Perhaps, if he could make her drink
once, she would drink again. The difficulty was, to find out what sort
of spiritual drink would be most to her taste, and would most entice
her to more. There must be some seeds lying cold and hard in her
uncultured garden; what water would soonest make them grow? Not all the
waters of Damascus will turn mere sand sifted of eternal winds into
fruitful soil; but Letty's soul could not be such. And then literature
has seed to sow as well as water for the seed sown. Letty's foolish
words about the hands that wrote poetry showed a shadow of respect for
poetry--except, indeed, the girl had been but making game of him, which
he was far from ready to believe, and for which, he said to himself,
her face was at the time much too earnest, and her hands much too busy;
he must find out whether she had any instincts, any predilections, in
the matter of poetry!
Thus pondering, he forgot all about his projected ride, and, going up
to the study he had contrived for himself in the rambling roof of the
ancient house, began looking along the backs of his books, in search of
some suggestion of how to approach Letty; his glance fell on a
beautifully bound volume of verse--a selection of English lyrics, made
with tolerable judgment--which he had bought to give, but the very
color of which, every time his eye flitting along the book-shelves
caught it, threw a faint sickness over his heart, preluding the memory
of old pain and loss:
"It may as well serve some one," he said, and, taking it down, carried
it with him to the saddle-room.
Letty was not there, and the perfect order of the place somehow made
him feel she had been gone some time. He went in search of her; she
might be in the dairy.
That was the very picture of an old-fashioned English
dairy--green-shadowy, dark, dank, and cool--floored with great
irregular slabs, mostly of green serpentine, polished into smooth
hollows by the feet of generations of mistresses and dairy-maids. Its
only light came through a small window shaded with shrubs and ivy,
which stood open, and let in the scents of bud and blossom, weaving a
net of sweetness in the gloom, through which, like a silver thread,
shot the twittering song of a bird, which had inherited the gathered
carelessness and bliss of a long ancestry in God's aviary.
Godfrey came softly to the door, which he found standing ajar, and
peeped in. There stood Letty, warm and bright in the middle of the
dusky coolness. She had changed her dress since he saw her, and now, in
a pink-rosebud print, with the sleeves tucked above her elbows, was
skimming the cream in a great red-brown earthen pan. He pushed the door
a little, and, at its screech along the uneven floor, Letty's head
turned quickly on her lithe neck, and she saw Godfrey's brown face and
kind blue eyes where she had never seen them before. In his hand glowed
the book: some of the stronger light from behind him fell on it, and it
caught her eyes.
"Letty," he said, "I have just come upon this book in my library: would
you care to have it?"
"You don't mean to keep for my own, Cousin Godfrey?" cried Letty, in
sweet, childish fashion, letting the skimmer dive like a coot to the
bottom of the milk-pool, and hastily wiping her hands in her apron. Her
face had flushed rosy with pleasure, and grew rosier and brighter still
as she took the rich morocco-bound thing from Godfrey's hand into her
own. Daintily she peeped within the boards, and the gilding of the
leaves responded in light to her smile.
"Poetry!" she cried, in a tone of delight. "Is it really for me, Cousin
Godfrey? Do you think I shall be able to understand it?"
"You can soon settle that question for yourself," answered Godfrey,
with a pleased smile--for he augured well from this reception of his
gift--and turned to leave the dairy.
"But, Cousin Godfrey--please!" she called after him, "you don't give me
time to thank you."
"That will do when you are certain you care for it," he returned.
"I care for it very _much_!" she replied.
"How can you say that, when you don't know yet whether you will
understand it or not?" he rejoined, and closed the door.
Letty stood motionless, the book in her hand illuminating the dusk with
gold, and warming its coolness with its crimson boards and silken
linings. One poem after another she read, nor knew how the time passed,
until the voice of her aunt in her ears warned her to finish her
skimming, and carry the jug to the pantry. But already Letty had taken
a little cream off the book also, and already, between the time she
entered and the time she left the dairy, had taken besides a fresh
start in spiritual growth.
The next day Godfrey took an opportunity of asking her whether she had
found in the book anything she liked. To his disappointment she
mentioned one of the few commonplace things the collection contained--a
last-century production, dull and respectable, which, surely, but for
the glamour of some pleasant association, the editor would never have
included. Happily, however, he bethought himself in time not to tell
her the thing was worthless: such a word, instead of chipping the shell
in which the girl's faculty lay dormant, would have smashed the whole
egg into a miserable albuminous mass. And he was well rewarded; for,
the same day, in the evening, he heard her singing gayly over her work,
and listening discovered that she was singing verse after verse of one
of the best ballads in the whole book. She had chosen with the fancy of
pleasing Godfrey; she sang to please herself. After this discovery he
set himself in earnest to the task of developing her intellectual life,
and, daily almost, grew more interested in the endeavor. His main
object was to make her think; and for the high purpose, chiefly but not
exclusively, he employed verse.
The main obstacle to success he soon discovered to be Letty's exceeding
distrust of herself. I would not be mistaken to mean that she had too
little confidence in herself; of that no one can have too little.
Self-distrust will only retard, while self-confidence will betray. The
man ignorant in these things will answer me, "But you must have one or
the other." "You must have neither," I reply. "You must follow the
truth, and, in that pursuit, the less one thinks about himself, the
pursuer, the better. Let him so hunger and thirst after the truth that
the dim vision of it occupies all his being, and leaves no time to
think of his hunger and his thirst. Self-forgetfulness in the reaching
out after that which is essential to us is the healthiest of mental
conditions. One has to look to his way, to his deeds, to his
conduct--not to himself. In such losing of the false, or merely
reflected, we find the true self. There is no harm in being stupid, so
long as a man does not think himself clever; no good in being clever,
if a man thinks himself so, for that is a short way to the worst
stupidity. If you think yourself clever, set yourself to do something;
then you will have a chance of humiliation."
With good faculties, and fine instincts, Letty was always thinking she
must be wrong, just because it was she was in it--a lovely fault, no
doubt, but a fault greatly impeditive to progress, and tormenting to a
teacher. She got on very fairly in spite of it, however; and her
devotion to Godfrey, as she felt herself growing in his sight,
increased almost to a passion. Do not misunderstand me, my reader. If I
say anything grows to a passion, I mean, of course, the passion of that
thing, not of something else. Here I no more mean that her devotion
became what in novels is commonly called love, than, if I said ambition
or avarice had grown to a passion, I should mean those vices had
changed to love. Godfrey Wardour was at least ten years older than
Letty; besides him, she had not a single male relative in this
world--neither had she mother or sister on whom to let out her heart;
while of Mrs. Wardour, who was more severe on her than on any one else,
she was not a little afraid: from these causes it came that Cousin
Godfrey grew and grew in Letty's imagination, until he was to her
everything great and good--her idea of him naturally growing as she
grew herself under his influences. To her he was the heart of wisdom,
the head of knowledge, the arm of strength.
But her worship was quiet, as the worship of maiden, in whatever kind,
ought to be. She knew nothing of what is called love except as a word,
and from sympathy with the persons in the tales she read. Any remotest
suggestion of its existence in her relation to Godfrey she would have
resented as the most offensive impertinence--an accusation of
impossible irreverence.
By degrees Godfrey came to understand, but then only in a measure, with
what a self-refusing, impressionable nature he was dealing; and, as he
saw, he became more generous toward her, more gentle and delicate in
his ministration. Of necessity he grew more and more interested in her,
especially after he had made the discovery that the moment she laid
hold of a truth--the moment, that is, when it was no longer another's
idea but her own perception--it began to sprout in her in all
directions of practice. By nature she was not intellectually quick;
but, because such was her character, the ratio of her progress was of
necessity an increasing one.
If Godfrey had seen in his new relation to Letty a possibility of the
revival of feelings he had supposed for ever extinguished, such a
possibility would have borne to him purely the aspect of danger; at the
mere idea of again falling in love he would have sickened with dismay;
and whether or not he had any dread of such a catastrophe, certain it
is that he behaved to her more as a pedagogue than a cousinly tutor,
insisting on a precision in all she did that might have gone far to
rouse resentment and recoil in the mind of a less childlike woman. Just
as surely, notwithstanding all that, however, did the sweet girl grow
into his heart: it _could_ not be otherwise. The idea of her was making
a nest for itself in his soul--what kind of a nest for long he did not
know, and for long did not think to inquire. Living thus, like an elder
brother with a much younger sister, he was more than satisfied,
refusing, it may be, to regard the probability of intruding change. But
how far any man and woman may have been made capable of loving without
falling in love, can be answered only after question has yielded to
history. In the mean time, Mrs. Wardour, who would have been indignant
at the notion of any equal bond between her idolized son and her
patronized cousin, neither saw, nor heard, nor suspected anything to
rouse uneasiness.
Things were thus in the old house, when the growing affection of Letty
for Mary Marston took form one day in the request that she would make
Thornwick the goal of her Sunday walk. She repented, it is true, the
moment she had said the words, from dread of her aunt; but they had
been said, and were accepted. Mary went, and the aunt difficulty had
been got over. The friendship of Godfrey also had now run into that of
the girls, and Mary's visits were continued with pleasure to all, and
certainly with no little profit to herself; for, where the higher
nature can not communicate the greater benefit, it will reap it. Her
Sunday visit became to Mary the one foraging expedition of the
week--that which going to church ought to be, and so seldom can be.
The beginning and main-stay of her spiritual life was, as we have seen,
her father, in whom she believed absolutely. From books and sermons she
had got little good; for in neither kind had the best come nigh her.
She did very nearly her best to obey, but without much perceiving the
splendor of the thing required, or much feeling its might upon her own
eternal nature. She was as yet, in relation to the gospel, much as the
Jews were in relation to their law; they had not yet learned the gospel
of their law, and she was yet only serving the law of the gospel. But
she was making progress, in simple and pure virtue of her obedience.
Show me the person ready to step from any, let it be the narrowest,
sect of Christian Pharisees into a freer and holier air, and I shall
look to find in that person the one of that sect who, in the midst of
its darkness and selfish worldliness, mistaken for holiness, has been
living a life more obedient than the rest.
And now was sent Godfrey to her aid, a teacher himself far behind his
pupil, inasmuch as he was more occupied with what he was, than what he
had to become: the weakest may be sent to give the strongest saving
help; even the foolish may mediate between the wise and the wiser; and
Godfrey presented Mary to men greater than himself, whom in a short
time she would understand even better than he. Book after book he lent
her--now and then gave her one of the best--introducing her, with no
special intention, to much in the way of religion that was good in the
way of literature as well. Only where he delighted mainly in the
literature, she delighted more in the religion. Some of my readers will
be able to imagine what it must have been to a capable, clear-thinking,
warm-hearted, loving soul like Mary, hitherto in absolute ignorance of
any better religious poetry than the chapel hymn-book afforded her, to
make acquaintance with George Herbert, with Henry Vaughan, with Giles
Fletcher, with Richard Crashaw, with old Mason, not to mention Milton,
and afterward our own Father Newman and Father Faber.
But it was by no means chiefly upon such that Godfrey led the talk on
the Sunday afternoons. A lover of all truly imaginative literature, his
knowledge of it was large, nor confined to that of his own country,
although that alone was at present available for either of his pupils.
His seclusion from what is called the world had brought him into larger
and closer contact with what is really the world. The breakers upon
reef and shore may be the ocean to some, but he who would know the
ocean indeed must leave them afar, sinking into silence, and sail into
wider and lonelier spaces. Through Godfrey, Mary came to know of a land
never promised, yet open--a land of whose nature even she had never
dreamed--a land of the spirit, flowing with milk and honey--a land of
which the fashionable world knows little more than the dwellers in the
back slums, although it imagines it lying, with the kingdoms of the
earth, at its feet.
As regards her feeling toward her new friend, this opener of unseen
doors, the greatness of her obligation to him wrought against
presumption and any possible folly. Besides, Mary was one who possessed
power over her own spirit--rare gift, given to none but those who do
something toward the taking of it. She was able in no small measure to
order her own thoughts. Without any theory of self-rule, she yet ruled
her Self. She was not one to slip about in the saddle, or let go the
reins for a kick and a plunge or two. There was the thing that should
be, and the thing that should not be; the thing that was reasonable,
and the thing that was absurd. Add to all this, that she believed she
saw in Mr. Wardour's behavior to his cousin, in the careful gentleness
evident through all the severity of the schoolmaster, the presence of a
deeper feeling, that might one day blossom to the bliss of her
friend--and we need not wonder if Mary's heart remained calm in the
very floods of its gratitude; while the truth she gathered by aid of
the intercourse, enlarging her strength, enlarged likewise the
composure that comes of strength. She did not even trouble herself much
to show Godfrey her gratitude. We may spoil gratitude as we offer it,
by insisting on its recognition. To receive honestly is the best thanks
for a good thing.
Nor was Godfrey without payment for what he did: the revival of ancient
benefits, a new spring-time of old flowers, and the fresh quickening of
one's own soul, are the spiritual wages of every spiritual service. In
giving, a man receives more than he gives, and the _more_ is in
proportion to the worth of the thing given.
Mary did not encourage Letty to call at the shop, because the rudeness
of the Turnbulls was certain to break out on her departure, as it did
one day that Godfrey, dismounting at the door, and entering the shop in
quest of something for his mother, naturally shook hands with Mary over
the counter. No remark was made so long as her father was in the shop,
for, with all their professed contempt of him and his ways, the
Turnbulls stood curiously in awe of him: no one could tell what he
might or might not do, seeing they did not in the least understand him;
and there were reasons for avoiding offense.
But the moment he retired, which he always did earlier than the rest,
the small-arms of the enemy began to go off, causing Mary a burning
cheek and indignant heart. Yet the great desire of Mr. Turnbull was a
match between George and Mary, for that would, whatever might happen,
secure the Marston money to the business. Their evil report Mary did
not carry to her father. She scorned to trouble his lofty nature with
her small annoyances; neither could they long keep down the wellspring
of her own peace, which, deeper than anger could reach, soon began to
rise again fresh in her spirit, fed from that water of life which
underlies all care. In a few moments it had cooled her cheek, stilled
her heart, and washed the wounds of offense.