Joys, amongst other things
Have wings
And watch their opportunities of flight,
Converting in a moment day to night.
C. HERVEY.
The spring lagged wearily on its way to all the characters of this tale.
To Angela it was unspeakably trying and tedious. Her mind was one whose
ever vivid hopes must inevitably know disappointment, and though a vivid
fancy gives elasticity of disposition, the elasticity wears out with
repeated shocks, and a consequent depression succeeds. She came to
London excited and expectant, but as the spring advanced a vexed and
bitter spirit ensued. Those pictured meetings, that romance of life;
where were they or it to be found? London is a large place, and though
strange and unexpected meetings do certainly occur; as certainly
expected meetings fail to take place. Week after week went by, and
Angela watched from her drawing-room and from her carriage window the
countless passengers that took their way through the thoroughfares of
London; but the one single form on which her eyes longed to rest, was
nowhere to be seen. The mornings began in hope and the evenings closed
in disappointment, and thus as time passed on hope grew faint, and
tedium and disappointment became the prevailing mood of her day.
“I don’t know how you feel, Aunt Jane,” she one day observed to her aunt
in a permitted visit to Hampstead, “but life seems to me to become more
and more insufferable every day.” Nearly the same words had been said
before, but the spirit was then different.
“I am sorry you find it so, my love,” replied her placid aunt. “It does
not seem so to me.”
“Life I also think is very curious,” she continued; “you must not think
that I mean anything wrong, but I must own I think the affairs of men’s
lives are arranged in a very mysterious way. I can understand about the
bad being punished, and the thoughtless tried to make them thoughtful;
and even I can understand that the good may be tried to make them
better; but there are some things that seem to me beyond all
understanding. Don’t interrupt me. I want to state a case to you. A
person who wishes very much, who wishes above all things to be good, and
who meets with a person, so good, so steady, that he could make her so,
and he likes her, and would undertake the work, and she likes him, and
would do all in her power to please him; and yet they are not allowed
to be anything to each other; and meanwhile the person who would be good
if she could, having no one to guide her goes on from bad to worse. Now
don’t you think that that is a curious and mysterious state of things?”
“I suppose, my love, you mean yourself.”
“Yes,” said her niece, with a half smile. “You have discovered that,
have you, dear Aunt Jane?”
“My love, it does seem mysterious; but that word mysterious reminds me
of a hymn I once learned. Stay a moment, and I shall remember it.
‘God moves in a mysterious way,’
that’s the first line, but I forget that verse. But stay a moment, now
it is coming.... Here are two verses. I think you will like them.
“‘Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy, and will break
In blessings on your head.
‘His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.’”
Miss Price repeated her poem with unwonted energy, elated to have found
a lost treasure in her memory.
“The bud has a very bitter taste indeed,” was Angela’s remark, after a
few moments of thought. “Do you really think it will come to be a flower
at last? If I were sure of that I should not mind waiting.”
“In _some_ way a flower, no doubt, my love.”
“But I want it only in one way. Oh! Aunt Jane,” she exclaimed, and tears
were in her eyes, “do you think I shall be disappointed all my life?”
“I trust not, my love. I am sure I trust not. You are very young to
think of disappointment. Try to put it out of your head for the present,
dearest. Try to be content and patient for the present, and enjoy your
many blessings.”
“My many blessings!” and Angela closed up her lips and tossed her head.
“Yes, love, surely many.”
“To be as strong as a horse and as rich as a Jew--do you call those such
great blessings. I don’t; that is, at least, not as I have them. I can
make no use of riches, and as to my strength, it only makes me more able
to be bored. I was made to be a good, honest, hard-working dairy maid,
and it is very hard to be a young lady, cooped up in a close carriage,
with grand clothes and nothing to do.”
“It seems hard, my love, but no doubt it is for good. Perhaps, dearest,
it is to teach you to be patient.”
“And that, alas! it does not do. It makes me _im_patient, and cross, and
angry with everybody. I don’t believe even you, Aunt Jane, can guess
what my life is. I have _nobody_ to care for, nobody even to like with
the commonest kind of liking; it is as if papa advertised for false
artificial people, they come to our house so thick and fast. There is
Mrs. Vansittart ... she dines there most weeks. Papa is always holding
her up as a pattern, and _really_ seems to like to talk to her. She is
rouged, and all over jewels, and thinks of nothing but being rich, and
how much she gives for her gowns. What _can_ I care what she gives for
her gowns?... and then there is her son--oh! such a mean-spirited
wretch--thinking he likes me, that is, thinking I think he does, and
supposing that I don’t see every crevice of his shallow heart, and know
it to be full of nothing but pomps and vanities. The only pleasure I
have in life is in teazing him, and making him explain his compliments,
till they look so flat and insipid even he blushes over them. I really
am sometimes positively ashamed when I think of the company we keep.”
“It is a pity, my love, to speak so. Don’t be angry, dearest, but I
think it a bad habit to be scorning so much. They are God’s creatures as
well as you.”
“Yes,” said Angela, gravely, “but that is what troubles me most of all.
How come there to be such people? But....”
She was arrested in her conversation by a quick short knock at the house
door. She paused, and with a startled blush and enquiring eyes looked at
her aunt.
“That is Mr. Vavasour’s knock,” observed Miss Price, in a more hurried
tone than usual, and with a slight glow of disturbance even on her
impassive face.
Angela sprang up, and then stood agitated and uncertain, her colour
rapidly changing from red to white.
“Compose yourself, my love,” said her aunt, “he will say nothing your
father would disapprove. Sit still and receive him like a common
acquaintance. There is nothing to fear.”
“As if that were possible, or as if I had thought of Papa,” was
Angela’s soliloquy, while her heart beat tumultuously with she knew not
what expectation.
The house door closed abruptly, and expecting Everard’s immediate
entrance, Angela hurried to the window to still her agitation and arm
herself with dignity. She reached it just in time to see a gentleman
rapidly walk away, the very form for which her eyes had sought so long
in vain.
She stood looking out without an exclamation, silent and sick at heart,
tears of pride, resentment, and mortification stealing down her cheeks.
The drawing-room door opened, and the little maid brought to her
expecting mistress, a card on a tray. “The Gentleman hoped you were
quite well, ma’am, and he would not come up to-day.”
“I hope you said I was in tolerable health,” she replied tranquilly,
though both relieved and disappointed at this termination to her
anxiety.
“No, ma’am, I only said ‘Yes, Sir.’ He asked first if you was at home,
and I said you was and Miss was here.”
“Very well, Kitty. That was right. That will do,” and the little maid
disappeared.
“I feel a little sorry, my love,” observed Miss Price, after waiting
some minutes, in the hope that Angela would speak, “but after all, it is
best as it is, and I am sure he has tried to do what is right,” and she
resumed the work she had laid aside, and began to pick out a false
stitch with care and attention.
Her niece made no answer to this observation; and when she resumed her
seat near her, it was with a countenance entirely different to any Miss
Price had ever seen before. Her air was haughty, her head drawn up, and
a kind of proud composure seemed to have driven all the glow of youth
from her face.
“What is the matter, my love?” asked Miss Price, almost as much
astonished at this change in her appearance, as she had been on the
memorable day of her disguise. “You are not offended?”
“Offended!” she said, coldly, “Oh, no, there is no cause for offence.
Let us speak of something else. Let me look at your work, Aunt Jane.”
And no efforts of her timid aunt could induce her to renew the subject
of Everard’s call.
She did not think she had deserved such treatment at his hands, and a
feeling of bitter resentment, interspersed in a degree, and at moments,
with admiration of what she called his austere views of duty, took
possession of her mind, and for the time at least swept softer feelings
away.
Strangely different meanwhile to the austerity she imagined were
Everard’s feelings. The visit to Miss Price had been the impulse of a
moment. At the close of a weary afternoon he had felt a longing to hear
of Angela that could not be resisted, and he had started on his visit
of enquiry without taking time for thought. A like yielding to impulse
had been the retreat. Uncertainty regarding Angela’s reception, distrust
of himself, a cloudiness in his vision regarding what his parting words
had been, how strong, how binding; doubts in short as to what he might,
should, would, could, or ought to do, had made him instinctively draw
back; and yet he had scarcely closed the door of hope before he
regretted with passionate regret the step he had taken, and felt that he
had thrown away the one opportunity of soothing and re-assuring his
mind, which had been offered him.
This disordered state of feeling was not like the old Everard. His
mother had said that love with him would be a serious thing, and it was
so. His mind had his father’s tenacious and concentrated grasp of
things, but his character was by no means equal to his father’s in
inflexibility. And yet it was not so much his attachment, as its
unsatisfactory termination which had disordered him. However sweet it
be at the moment to yield to the promptings of temper, be it to express
anger, revenge, the bitterness of a wounded spirit, or the mortification
that sinks the soul; the sweetness is confined to the moment of
expression; a sting is left behind which poisons many an hour which
would otherwise have been peaceful. This sting it was which was
destroying Everard’s peace. He knew he had cut himself off from hearing
Angela’s sentiments; he thought he had lowered himself in her eyes; he
knew he had spoken in passion a renunciation of all claims, and how far
those passionate words bound him he was unable to decide. Restless
uncertainty tormented him day and night.
And there was another torment. He had gone back with redoubled vigour to
his work, but the one single aim which had made his brain calm, and his
spirit strong, was gone. His father’s image was choked and smothered
under a host of bewildering dreams, which set his head on fire. The
sting of Mr. Gresham’s words was smarting yet, and often and often, when
he suffered his eyes to be following his dull page, his fancy was
vaguely pursuing distant ambitious visions, as idle as the vain fancies
of a child. He would awake with a start of scorn and repentance, but the
idle dreams recurred again.
The trials of Angela and Everard were not trivial; nothing can be
trivial which affects either the daily happiness or the future
well-being of any human creature; but as compared with the deadly
anxiety and sorrow that reigned at Audley Court they were trivial; for
that anxiety involved not a temporal only, but an eternal destiny, and
that sorrow was for one, round whom the intense affections of many years
were twined. The Bible speaks of the mourning for a first-born son, as
of one incomparable in its bitterness; such a sorrow and mourning was in
Robert’s home, consuming the life within.
Towards the end of January he had written a few lines, expressing his
regret for having failed to perform his promise at Christmas. The letter
was without date, but the post mark was Paris. There was no want of
affection in the letter, nor of regret for having failed, yet there was
constraint in its tone, and the words were hurried and few. Of the
future no mention was made; there was no expression of hope, no promise,
no looking forward to a return; neither was there mention of the
present, of where he was, or what were his occupations or his pleasures.
It was a letter so vague as to cause anxiety, so strange as to cause
fear. The terrors that for a month had been growing up, received a seal
and sanction, and deepened in intensity. There was no more hearkening
for the sound of wheels, or watching for the sight of his face; a cold,
dark, vague dread sat upon each heart, a dread cold and silent as death.
For none spoke their fears. Life went on more silently perhaps, but the
same as usual. There was less patience on Mr. Vavasour’s brow, but no
words of impatience on his tongue; less cheerfulness in Mrs. Vavasour’s
tone, but no acknowledgment that she had need to be sad; and Hope, more
full of pity, more full of love, more full of ceaseless prayers, went
about her daily tasks and said nothing.