_DERWENTWATER._
_June 15th, Saturday._
THERE was no time to finish yesterday my account of tea at the
Vicarage, or to tell about the name of "Ernest Derwentwater" coming up.
That interested me.
I had not heard the name before, but I noticed it directly, because of
Millicent's face. One of the children said something about him, and I
saw her in a moment flush up, such a soft little flush, it made her
almost pretty for the moment; and I saw the anxious way in which she
tried to turn to something else.
But that provoking small scarecrow, the second youngest boy, would
persist in saying, "Ernest Derwentwater! Ernest Derwentwater! Yes,
Ernest Derwentwater! Wasn't it Ernest Derwentwater? I'm sure it was
Ernest Derwentwater! Sissie, it was Ernest Derwentwater!" Till I could
have shaken the little wretch, for Millicent looked quite distressed.
It seemed as if the boy were bent on teasing her.
And then the Rector heard, and he turned round with his forehead all
puckered, and asked,—
"Has Derwentwater been here, my dear?"
"No, father."
"You are sure?" Mr. Farrars spoke in a curious grave manner, not as if
he were displeased, but more as if he were puzzled.
"No, father," she said again. And then, after thinking for a
moment,—"But I did hear that he talked of running down for a few days."
"When?"
"I don't know. I don't think anything was settled."
"Oh,—but I meant, when did you hear, it, my dear?"
"I don't know exactly," and there was a little shake in her voice. "Mr.
Collins told me, and I forget exactly which day I saw Mr. Collins last."
"And you did not think of mentioning it to me?"
I knew from her face that she "had" thought of it. She had not
forgotten.
"I think he will stay at the Park. But nothing was settled."
"What were you saying just now about Derwentwater? I did not quite
hear."
"Only Phil's nonsense,—something about a little picture. Nothing of the
least consequence."
"It was Ernest Derwentwater, his very own self. And I 'know' it was,—I
know it quite well. He gave it to Sissie," persisted Phil. "And I know
he did, 'cause I saw him. And he didn't mean nobody to see. I know he
didn't."
"Well, well, well," Mr. Farrars murmured, in a resigned sort of
tone, as if something or other were very melancholy, but could not
possibly be helped. And then he sighed, and Millicent went across in
her quiet way,—she always moves so quietly, without the least noise
or bustle,—and stood looking down upon him. And after a minute, she
stooped and gave him a kiss on his forehead, as if she were trying to
smooth away the wrinkles. That brought a smile, though the worried look
did not go quite away. Mr. Farrars has a nice smile, and Millicent
seems very fond of him.
Nothing more was said just then, and Millicent managed to get rid of
Phil and his notions, by sending him off for a game of play. Later on,
Mr. Farrars went away too, and I was looking through some photographs
with her, when we came across a cabinet likeness of a young man. I do
not know what made me stop to look at it so very particularly, unless
it was that I saw a sort of tiny movement of Millicent's hand, as if
she wanted to slip that photo away, out of sight.
Then I think in a moment I suspected who it was. Perhaps it would have
been kinder to let her do as she liked, but how could I, when I was
brimful of curiosity? So I kept my hand on the card, and didn't seem
to see what she wished: and I examined the face well,—such a handsome
face, with a good expression.
I said, "Who is this?"
And in a moment, there was another little tinge of colour.
"That! Oh, only Mr. Derwentwater."
"I suppose he is a particular friend of yours?"
"A particular friend to all of us,—especially to the boys." I wondered
whether Mr. Derwentwater would have agreed to that "especially." But
she went on,—"We have known him more or less all our lives. His father
was my father's greatest College friend."
"He doesn't live here?"
"No,—in London. He has a very good appointment in a Bank. He has rooms
in London."
"And he often comes here."
"Not very often. Sometimes. Mr. Collins is his uncle. But of course, he
goes oftenest to see his father and mother."
"It is a very nice face."
"He is thought rather good-looking." She spoke carelessly.
"You think him so,—now don't you, Millicent?" I asked, laughing, and
wanting to make her laugh.
But she never seemed to dream of laughing. She only looked at me
straight, with those quiet eyes of hers, and said, "Perhaps I do. I
don't think it matters. One doesn't think about people being handsome,
when one knows them very well."
"Doesn't one? I do. If a face is handsome at all, the more one knows
it, the more handsome it seems to grow."
"One of the most beautiful faces I ever saw is your aunt Marian's
face." Of course, I saw that she wanted to get me off to some other
subject, and of course, I tried to prevent it. But Millicent is not
easy to manage. She has such a quiet sort of determination. Do what I
might, I could not bring her back to Mr. Derwentwater.
But she could not prevent me from thinking, from wondering what it
all means, and whether it means anything. Is Millicent in love with
Mr. Derwentwater?—And is he in love with Millicent? And are there any
difficulties in the way? I should like Millicent to marry, and to have
a happy home of her own. At least, I should like it by-and-by, when we
have seen a good deal of one another, and have become thorough friends.
I do not want her just now to have her head so full of him that she
cannot give a single thought to me. But by-and-by.
Only I do not quite see how they are to get on without her at the
Rectory. That may be the difficulty.
Mr. Farrars is so very kind and good, and uncle calls him "a most able
preacher," and they say he is perfectly worshipped by the poor. But
he does seem a little helpless about household arrangements and the
management of all those boys.
Still, if that is all, why should there not be an engagement, and Mr.
Derwentwater might wait. Amy is eight years old now, and she will be
growing older in time. It would only be a few years,—seven or eight
years, perhaps. In eight years, Amy will be sixteen. If I were in love
with a girl like Millicent, I would wait for her gladly any number of
years. It would not matter how many, if only I might get her in the
end. But, I suppose men are more impatient than women.
And perhaps he does not really care for her. Of course, I do not know
yet about that. How interesting it will be, when he comes down, to see
whether anything of that kind is really going on! Like a scrap of real
life in a story,—or like a bit of story in real life,—I do not know
which to call it. I have never come across anything of the sort before.
And though I think I am too sensible a girl to have my head full of
nonsensical ideas as to love affairs, still one cannot help being
interested if one's own friend is perhaps going to have a love affair.
Of course I must say nothing to anybody. I must only use my eyes, and
that at all events I am free to do. Millicent is very reserved, I
fancy, but she does not know me well yet. When she does, perhaps she
will speak out, and tell me how things really are.
She did not look very happy when his name was mentioned. A kind of
worried expression came, and that puzzles me.
Is there something about him not quite nice,—not quite as it should
be? Does Mr. Farrars not quite like him? He has such a frank open face
in the photograph,—not the sort of face which, I should think, could
possibly mean anything really wrong. Perhaps she was only a little shy,
and did not want me to suspect anything, only it did not look like
shyness. Well, she will soon know me better, and will not mind what I
see or know about her.
I have been wondering whether I might not offer to help her with some
of the mending of the boys' things. She has such a lot of it to do; and
then perhaps she might get to bed a little before twelve o'clock.
I don't mean, just to help her only once, but to promise it
regularly—once or twice a week while I am here, so that she would be
able to depend on me. She could not possibly mind, and I should feel
myself then of real use.
What an amount I have written to-day!
_June 17th, Monday._
Perhaps it was rather stupid of me to speak so soon, but I have spoken
and been refused.
I had to go to the Rectory after breakfast with a message from aunt
Marian, and the temptation was too strong. Millicent was darning a sock
at the moment when I went in. And when I had given my message, I said,—
"Oh, I have been thinking I should 'so' like to help you with your
mending, Millicent. Will you not let me? I want to come in regularly
while I am at Wayatford—twice a week, perhaps, and sit and work with
you. Do let me."
Yesterday, I asked her to call me "Rhoda," and she said I might call
her "Millicent." Though from her manner, I fancied she thought it
rather soon.
She looked up in a sort of surprised way at me, and said,—
"Help me! O no, thank you."
"But I mean it. I really do mean it. I should like nothing better. I do
want to be useful to somebody."
"Thanks, you are very kind," she said coldly, and not as if she were
in the very least grateful. "But please do not speak of such a thing
again."
"But why? Don't you know me well enough yet? Do let me, Millicent."
She got up, with a little flush on her face, and put away in a drawer
the sock she had been darning, and only said,—
"Would you like to come into the garden with me?"
"You know I have not come here to hinder you. If I must not be a help,
I will go away at once."
"I could not think of it," was the only answer she made. And then she
turned the subject altogether in her determined way, and not another
word could I get in about my wish.
I was so disappointed and hurt, that when I got back, I told aunt
Marian all about what had passed.
She listened with a queer little laugh in her eyes.
"So you are very fond of needlework!"
"Not fond of needlework in itself; no, not at all. But if it is to help
somebody that I am fond of—"
"And you care enough already for Millicent!"
"Oh, I like her very much, very much indeed. And she works so hard, I
should like to be able to help her."
"The wish is right enough. But suppose you started helping her, and
then grew tired of it."
"I don't think I should."
"If you are fond enough of Millicent! That is the question, of course.
However, I think you were in rather too much of a hurry. How much does
Millicent know of you?"
"As much as I know of her."
"Perhaps not. I have told you a good deal about Millicent that is
admirable."
And of course she has not told Millicent anything about me that is
admirable. I saw what aunt Marian meant.
She would not seem to know whether I understood, and only said,—
"Perhaps we may bring it about yet; only you must have patience."
"Is Millicent very proud?"
"I imagine not. Why? Because she does not plunge into the first offer
of help from a stranger?"
"Aunt Marian! A stranger!"
"Well, what else? How often have you two met?"
"But for me just to sit and work with her?"
"Quite simple, of course. Still, we must have patience. Perhaps
Millicent was not anxious to expose to your criticism the state of the
family stockings. Perhaps she thought her father would object. Perhaps
she fancied it would be no kindness to you."
"But it would be kindness. I should like nothing better."
"If so, when Millicent knows you better, she may not be unwilling," was
all aunt Marian would say.
_June 20th, Thursday._
Millicent and I had a ramble in the field to-day. She doubted about
sparing the time, but I gave her no peace, and at last she went.
She was even graver and paler than usual, I thought, yet I could find
no particular reason. It almost seemed as if she had none.
I had made up my mind that I really would for once get Millicent to
talk about herself, a thorough long talk. I meant to find out ever so
many things that I have never yet been able to find out. Though I like
Millicent so much, it is wonderful how little I know about her, and I
don't see why, and I don't like it. If we are friends, she ought to
treat me with confidence. I tell her all sorts of things quite openly,
and why should she not do the same to me?
Some people love nothing so dearly as to talk about themselves, and
they are always and for ever twisting round the conversation to the
one thing they care for—either themselves and their aches and pains,
or themselves and their feelings, or themselves and their worries—but
Millicent is altogether the other way. If one can edge her into
speaking for one minute about anything connected with herself, she is
off again in a trice to some other subject.
Of course one likes and admires that in her, and the people who do
love to discuss themselves are awfully wearisome. "I" should not like
to do that sort of thing. I should hate to be always thinking and
talking about myself. But still, the very fact that Millicent is not
one of those people makes me want to know more of herself and her inner
life. It does not seem natural that a girl should be so shut-up, and
have nothing whatever to say about her own troubles. For Millicent has
troubles enough of her own; one can see that in her face. Only it is
difficult to make out exactly what the troubles are.
And to-day all my trying was in vain. I did my best, and I could not
succeed. She got me off somehow upon "my" home troubles; at least, I
am sure she did. Because I had not the very least intention when we
began talking to say a single word about myself, and yet somehow I
found myself doing it. I don't remember her asking any questions, and I
don't think Millicent does ask questions, but she has a way of setting
one off. I have not a notion how she does it. Before I knew what I
was about, I was telling her all about Clarissa and Juliet, though I
had quite made up my mind never to let slip about them to anybody in
Wayatford.
Talking seemed to bring up the old feelings, and I suppose I got a
little excited, and let out what I really felt. For, after all, though
they were kinder just at the last, they were "not" kind before, and it
is their doing really that I am banished from home and from my mother
all these months. But for them, I should be with her now.
Millicent never tried to stop me. She waited and listened, while I went
on as long as I liked. I am afraid I forgot all about making Millicent
tell me "her" troubles, and I only told her "mine." And at the end,
when I came to a stop, she said in her very quietest voice,—
"I would not have things so in the future, if I were you."
"Why, what can I do? How could you help it? How could anybody help it?
If people will be so provoking—"
"Almost everybody has something provoking to put up with. How could one
learn to be patient without?"
"I don't pretend to be so very particularly patient. But I am sure
Juliet is not either."
"Only you have not to do with that."
I thought I had a great deal to do with it, and I said so.
"I mean—you have no responsibility there. You have not to answer for
her, but only for yourself."
"Well, I know one thing," I said—and I am afraid I spoke rather
snappishly, for it seemed to me that Millicent was taking Juliet's
part, and if she were my friend, I thought she ought to take "my"
part,—"I know one thing, and that is that when I am away from those
two, I can be perfectly good and patient. I always have said that I was
sure I could, and now I find I can. It is they who put me out, and make
everything go wrong. It is not 'me.' I have been quite good and patient
ever since I came to Wayatford."
"Patient about what?"
I did not understand, and I told her so.
"I mean, what have you to bear at Mrs. Ramsay's, that is so
particularly trying?"
"Why, nothing. That is the very thing. They don't worry and plague me
here. It all goes smoothly."
"But where is the particular virtue of keeping straight, when there is
nothing to make you go crooked?" she asked in a dry sort of tone.
It was a new idea to me, and I stared at her.
"Don't you see, Rhoda? How can one be patient, unless something in
one's life might make one impatient? One may be in a good temper,
merely because everything is exactly as one wishes, but that is not
patience. Patience means bearing—enduring—when it is not easy to bear
or endure. If there is nothing to be borne, how can there be any
patience? One may be comfortable, but being comfortable is not being
patient. Don't you understand?"
"I don't know. I have not thought much about it."
"Have you not?" And she seemed surprised. "I had to think it all out
for myself so long ago. One is not put into the world just to enjoy
oneself, and to get along smoothly. Life means so much more than that."
"Everybody doesn't have to live with a Clarissa and a Juliet."
"Not all their lives, perhaps. You have not lived with them always, and
I don't suppose you will have to live with them always. But if they go,
some other trouble will come—perhaps a worse one!"
"Nothing could be worse!" I declared.
She spoke very low, so low that I could hardly hear,—"Don't say that,
while your mother is still left to you!"
I had no answer to make. If my mother were taken, as Connie was
taken—it came over me with a kind of stab. What would anything else
matter by comparison?
"You see," Millicent went on, "people who are truly patient have
always had a good deal to make them so, one way and another. Either
bad health, or want of money, or very hard work, or tiresome people to
live with. It doesn't much matter what, so long as there is something
that rouses one's impatience, because then the opportunity for patience
comes in. Of course one might have all those troubles, and yet never
learn patience. But I don't see how one could possibly learn patience
'without' some such troubles."
"Millicent, you ought to be a female lecturer. I didn't know you could
talk half so well."
"I have to explain things to the children, and so I am in practice,"
she said, not in the least abashed.
"But you don't mean that one 'must' have bothers and worries, all one's
whole life through?"
She waited a minute before speaking.
"I think it depends—It is part of the preparation. Each of us has to
learn certain lessons, and the teaching goes on and on until we do
learn. Some people learn patience very quickly; and others are very
slow, and need long teaching, perhaps all their lives through. One gets
a breathing-space now and then, like what you are having now, but it
does not last, of course. Either you will be at home again and have
little rubs there, or you will stay long enough to find little rubs
here. Everything can't be kept perfectly smooth for very long together."
She spoke so like an old person, as if she had learnt it all from
experience; not like a mere girl, repeating what others might have told
her.
"Well, I only know that things in 'my' home are much harder to bear
than in most people's homes."
And she asked, "What if it is your own fault, Rhoda?"
I was so angry that I did not say a word. It took me by surprise. I
had not gone to Millicent for her to find fault with me. If one has a
friend, one expects one's friend to be sympathising. That was why I had
talked to Millicent. It seems so hard that I should be banished from my
home, just because of Clarissa and Juliet, and I thought she would feel
for me. And instead of that, to tell me it was all my own fault—or, at
least, to ask a question, which meant that it was. For a little while,
I was so vexed that I almost thought I should never like Millicent
again. And I was quite glad she had not agreed to let me work for her.
There was no need for me to see her often.
Millicent did not say a word for a good while, and then she spoke on
some different subject.
She must have seen that I was angry, but I do not fancy she minded very
much. At all events, she did not say a word about being sorry.
She is an odd girl. I don't feel as if I altogether knew her yet.
We did not say any more about my home troubles, but I mean to have it
out with her another day. I mean to know what she really thinks. Even
if she is unjust, I will make her say plainly what she has in her mind.
It will show me what my uncle and aunt have said to her, and what the
girls said to uncle about me.
Of course I know that I was in the wrong at home, and I do not deny
that some part of the fusses and difficulties were in some measure my
own fault. I'm not trying to make myself out to be immaculate. I have
my faults, like other people. But I do think Juliet was much more to
blame; and I "don't" see that it is Millicent's business to set me to
rights, and to settle how much I was to blame.
I suppose a person cannot be too truthful, but certainly I do think
people can be too downright. Millicent is so very downright—not in a
rough rude positive way, because she is always gentle, but she does not
seem to mind what she says.
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