She was a rather tall, awkward, and strongly-built girl of about fifteen. This was the first impression the "maid" gave to her "mistresses," the Misses Leaf, when she entered their kitchen, accompanied by her mother, a widow and washer-woman, by name Mrs. Hand. I must confess, when they saw the damsel, the ladies felt a certain twinge of doubt as to whether they had not been rash in offering to take her; whether it would not have been wiser to have gone on in their old way—now, alas! grown into a very old way, so as almost to make them forget they had ever had any other—and done without a servant still.
Many consultations had the three sisters held before such a revolutionary extravagance was determined on. But Miss Leaf was beginning both to look and to feel "not so young as she had been;" Miss Selina ditto; though, being still under forty, she would not have acknowledged it for the world. And Miss Hilary young, bright, and active as she was, could by no possibility do every thing that was to be done in the little establishment: be, for instance, in three places at once—in the school-room, teaching little boys and girls, in the kitchen cooking dinner, and in the rooms up stairs busy at house-maid's work. Besides, much of her time was spent in waiting upon "poor Selina," who frequently was, or fancied her self, too ill to take any part in either the school or house duties.
Though, the thing being inevitable, she said little about it, Miss Leaf's heart was often sore to see Hilary's pretty hands smeared with blacking of grates, and roughened with scouring of floors. To herself this sort of thing had become natural—but Hilary!
All the time of Hilary's childhood, the youngest of the family had of course, been spared all house-work; and afterward her studies had left no time for it. For she was a clever girl, with a genuine love of knowledge Latin, Greek, and even the higher branches of arithmetic and mathematics, were not beyond her range; and this she found much more interesting than washing dishes or sweeping floors. True, she always did whatever domestic duty she was told to do; but her bent was not in the household line. She had only lately learned to "see dust," to make a pudding, to iron a shirt; and, moreover, to reflect, as she woke up to the knowledge of how these things should be done, and how necessary they were, what must have been her eldest sister's lot during all these twenty years! What pains, what weariness, what eternal toil must Johanna have silently endured in order to do all those things which till now had seemed to do themselves!
Therefore, after much cogitation as to the best and most prudent way to amend matters, and perceiving with her clear common sense that, willing as she might be to work in the kitchen, her own time would be much more valuably spent in teaching their growing school. It was Hilary who these Christmas holidays, first started the bold idea, "We must have a servant;" and therefore, it being necessary to begin with a very small servant on very low wages, (£3 per annum was, I fear the maximum), did they take this Elizabeth Hand. So, hanging behind her parent, an anxious-eyed, and rather sad-voiced woman, did Elizabeth enter the kitchen of the Misses Leaf.
The ladies were all there. Johanna arranging the table for their early tea: Selina lying on the sofa trying to cut bread and butter: Hilary on her knees before the fire, making the bit of toast, her eldest sister's one luxury. This was the picture that her three mistresses presented to Elizabeth's eyes: which, though they seemed to notice nothing, must, in reality, have noticed every thing.
I've brought my daughter, ma'am, as you sent word you'd take on trial, said Mrs. Hand, addressing herself to Selina, who, as the tallest, the best dressed, and the most imposing, was usually regarded by strangers as the head of the family.
Oh. Joanna, my dear.
Miss Leaf came forward, rather uncertainly, for she was of a shy nature, and had been so long accustomed to do the servant's work of the household, that she felt quite awkward in the character of mistress. Instinctively she hid her poor hands, that would at once have betrayed her to the sharp eyes of the working-woman, and then, ashamed of her momentary false pride, laid them outside her apron and sat down.
Will you take a chair, Mrs. Hand? My sister told you. I believe all our requirements We only want a good, intelligent girl. We are willing to teach her every thing.
Thank you, kindly; and I be willing and glad for her to learn, ma'am, replied the mother, her sharp and rather free tone subdued in spite of herself by the gentle voice of Miss Leaf. Of course, living in the same country town, she knew all about the three school-mistresses, and how till now they had kept no servant. "It's her first place, and her'll be awk'ard at first, most like. Hold up your head, Lizabeth."
Is her name Elizabeth?
Far too long and too fine, observed Selina from the sofa. "Call her
Betty."
Any thing you please, Miss; but I call her Lizabeth. It wor my young missis' name in my first place, and I never had a second.
We will call her Elizabeth, said Miss Leaf, with the gentle decision she could use on occasion.
There was a little more discussion between the mother and the future mistress as to holidays, Sundays, and so on, during which time the new servant stood silent and impassive in the door-way between the back kitchen and the kitchen, or, as it is called in those regions, the house-place.
As before said, Elizabeth was by no means, a personable girl, and her clothes did not set her off to advantage. Her cotton frock hung in straight lines down to her ankles, displaying her clumsily shod feet and woolen stockings; above it was a pinafore—a regular child's pinafore, of the cheap, strong, blue-speckled print which in those days was generally worn. A little shabby shawl, pinned at the throat, and pinned very carelessly and crookedly, with an old black bonnet, much too small for her large head and her quantities of ill kept hair, completed the costume. It did not impress favorably a lady who, being, or rather having been very handsome herself, was as much alive to appearances as the second Miss Leaf.
She made several rather depreciatory observations, and insisted strongly that the new servant should only be taken "on trial," with no obligation to keep her a day longer than they wished. Her feeling on the matter communicated itself to Johanna, who closed the negotiation with Mrs. Hand, by saying.
Well, let us hope your daughter will suit us. We will give her a fair chance at all events.
Which is all I can ax for, Miss Leaf. Her bean't much to look at, but her's willin' sharp, and her's never told me a lie in her life. Courtesy to thy missis, and say thee'lt do thy best, Lizabeth.
Pulled forward Elizabeth did courtesy, but she never offered to speak. And Miss Leaf, feeling that for all parties the interview had better be shortened, rose from her chair.
Mrs. Hand took the hint and departed, saying only, "Good-by, Lizabeth," with a nod, half-encouraging, half-admonitory, which Elizabeth silently returned. That was all the parting between mother and daughter; they neither kissed nor shook hands, which undemonstrative farewell somewhat surprised Hilary.
Now, Miss Hilary Leaf had all this while gone on toasting. Luckily for her bread the fire was low and black; meantime, from behind her long drooping curls (which Johanna would not let her "turn up," though she was twenty), she was making her observations on the new servant. It might be that, possessing more head than the one and more heart than the other, Hilary was gifted with deeper perception of character than either of her sisters, but certainly her expression, as she watched Elizabeth, was rather amused and kindly that dissatisfied.
Now, girl, take off your bonnet, said Selina, to whom Johanna had silently appealed in her perplexity as to the next proceeding with regard to the new member of the household.
Elizabeth obeyed, and then stood, irresolute, awkward, and wretched to the last degree, at the furthest end of the house-place.
Shall I show you where to hang up your things? said Hilary, speaking for the first time; and at the new voice, so quick, cheerful, and pleasant, Elizabeth visibly started.
Miss Hilary rose from her knees, crossed the kitchen, took from the girl's unresisting hands the old black bonnet and shawl, and hung them up carefully on a nail behind the great eight-day clock. It was a simple action, done quite without intention, and accepted without acknowledgment, except one quick glance of that keen, yet soft grey eye; but years and years after Elizabeth reminded Hilary of it.
And now Elizabeth stood forth in her own proper likeness, unconcealed by bonnet or shawl, or maternal protection. The pinafore scarcely covered her gaunt neck and long arms; that tremendous head of rough, dusky hair was evidently for the first time gathered into a comb. Thence elf locks escaped in all directions, and were forever being pushed behind her ears, or rubbed (not smoothed; there was nothing smooth about her) back from her forehead, which, Hilary noticed, was low, broad, and full. The rest of her face, except the before-mentioned eyes was absolutely and undeniably plain. Her figure, so far as the pinafore exhibited it, was undeveloped and ungainly, the chest being contracted and the shoulders rounded, as if with carrying children or other weights while still a growing girl. In fact, nature and circumstances had apparently united in dealing unkindly with Elizabeth Hand.
Still here she was; and what was to be done with her?
Having sent her with the small burden, which was apparently all her luggage, to the little room—formerly a box-closet—where she was to sleep, the Misses Leaf—or as facetious neighbors called them, the Miss Leaves—took serious counsel together over their tea.
Tea itself suggested the first difficulty. They were always in the habit of taking that meal, and indeed every other, in the kitchen. It saved time, trouble, and fire, besides leaving the parlor always tidy for callers, chiefly pupils' parents, and preventing these latter from discovering that the three orphan daughters of Henry Leaf, Esq., solicitor, and sisters of Henry Leaf, Junior, Esq., also solicitor, but whose sole mission in life seemed to have been to spend every thing, make every body miserably, marry, and die, that these three ladies did always wait upon themselves at meal-time, and did sometimes breakfast without butter, and dine without meat. Now this system would not do any longer.
Besides, there is no need for it, said Hilary, cheerfully. "I am sure we can well afford both to keep and to feed a servant, and to have a fire in the parlor every day. Why not take our meals there, and sit there regularly of evenings?"
We must, added Selina, decidedly. "For my part, I couldn't eat, or sew, or do any thing with that great hulking girl sitting starting opposite, or standing; for how could we ask her to sit with us? Already, what must she have thought of us—people who take tea in the kitchen?"
I do not think that matters, said the eldest sister, gently, after a moment's silence. "Every body in the town knows who and what we are, or might, if they chose to inquire. We cannot conceal our poverty if we tried; and I don't think any body looks down upon us for it. Not even since we began to keep school, which you thought was such a terrible thing, Selina."
And it was. I have never reconciled myself to teaching the baker's two boys and the grocer's little girl. You were wrong, Johanna, you ought to have drawn the line somewhere, and it ought to have excluded trades-people.
Beggars can not be choosers, began Hilary.
Beggars! echoed Selina.
No, my dear, we were never that, said Miss Leaf, interposing against one of the sudden storms that were often breaking out between these two. "You know well we have never begged or borrowed from any body, and hardly ever been indebted to any body, except for the extra lessons that Mr. Lyon would insist upon giving to Ascott at home."
Here Johanna suddenly stopped, and Hilary, with a slight color rising in her face, said—
I think, sisters, we are forgetting that the staircase is quite open, and though I am sure she has an honest look and not that of a listener, still Elizabeth might hear. Shall I call her down stairs, and tell her to light a fire in the parlor?
While she is doing it, and in spite of Selina's forebodings to the contrary, the small maiden did it quickly and well, especially after a hint or two from Hilary—let me take the opportunity of making a little picture of this same Hilary.
Little it should be, for she was a decidedly little woman: small altogether, hands, feet, and figure being in satisfactory proportion. Her movements, like those of most little women, were light and quick rather than elegant; yet every thing she did was done with a neatness and delicacy which gave an involuntary sense of grace and harmony. She was, in brief, one of those people who are best described by the word "harmonious;" people who never set your teeth on edge, or rub you up the wrong way, as very excellent people occasionally do. Yet she was not over-meek or unpleasantly amiable; there was a liveliness and even briskness about her, as if the every day wine of her life had a spice of Champagniness, not frothiness but natural effervescence of spirit, meant to "cheer but not inebriate" a household.
And in her own household this gift was most displayed. No centre of a brilliant, admiring circle could be more charming, more witty, more irresistibly amusing than was Hilary sitting by the kitchen fire, with the cat on her knee, between her two sisters, and the school-boy Ascott Leaf, their nephew—which four individuals, the cat being not the least important of them, constituted the family.
In the family, Hilary shone supreme. All recognized her as the light of the house, and so she had been, ever since she was born, ever since her
"Dying mother mild,
Said, with accents undefiled,
'Child, be mother to this child.'"
It was said to Johanna Leaf—who was not Mrs. Leaf's own child. But the good step-mother, who had once taken the little motherless girl to her bosom, and never since made the slightest difference between her and her own children, knew well whom she was trusting.
From that solemn hour, in the middle of the night, when she lifted the hour-old baby out of its dead mother's bed into her own, it became Johanna's one object in life. Through a sickly infancy, for it was a child born amidst trouble, her sole hands washed, dressed, fed it; night and day it "lay in her bosom, and was unto her as a daughter."
She was then just thirty: not too old to look forward to woman's natural destiny, a husband and children of her own. But years slipped by, and she was Miss Leaf still. What matter! Hilary was her daughter.
Johanna's pride in her knew no bounds. Not that she showed it much; indeed she deemed it a sacred duty not to show it; but to make believe her "child" was just like other children. But she was not. Nobody ever thought she was—even in externals.—Fate gave her all those gifts which are sometimes sent to make up for the lack of worldly prosperity. Her brown eyes were as soft a doves' eyes, yet could dance with fun and mischief if they chose; her hair, brown also, with a dark-red shade in it, crisped itself in two wavy lines over her forehead, and then turn bled down in two glorious masses, which Johanna, ignorant, alas! of art, called very "untidy," and labored in vain to quell under combs, or to arrange in proper, regular curls Her features—well, they too, were good; better than those unartistic people had any idea of—better even than Selina's, who in her youth had been the belle of the town. But whether artistically correct or not, Johanna, though she would on no account have acknowledged it, believed solemnly that there was not such a face in the whole world as little Hillary's.
Possibly a similar idea dawned upon the apparently dull mind of Elizabeth Hand, for she watched her youngest mistress intently, from kitchen to parlor, and from parlor back to kitchen; and once when Miss Hilary stood giving information as to the proper abode of broom, bellows, etc., the little maid gazed at her with such admiring observation that the scuttle she carried was titled, and the coals were strewn all over the kitchen floor. At which catastrophe Miss Leaf looked miserable. Miss Selina spoke crossly, and Ascott, who just then came in to his tea, late as usual, burst into a shut of laughter.
It was as much as Hilary could do to help laughing herself, she being too near her nephew's own age always to maintain a dignified aunt-like attitude, but nevertheless, when, having disposed of her sisters in the parlor, she coaxed Ascott into the school-room, and insisted upon his Latin being done—she helping him, Aunt Hilary scolded him well, and bound him over to keep the peace toward the new servant.
But she is such a queer one. Exactly like a South Sea Islander. When she stood with her grim, stolid countenance, contemplating the coals oh, Aunt Hilary, how killing she was!
And the regular, rollicking, irresistible boy-laugh broke out again.
She will be great fun. Is she really to stay?
I hope so, said Hilary, trying to be grave. "I hope never again to see Aunt Johanna cleaning the stairs, and getting up to light the kitchen fire of winter mornings, as she will do if we have not a servant to do it for her. Don't you see, Ascott?"
Oh, I see, answered the boy, carelessly, "But don't bother me, please. Domestic affairs are for women, not men."
Ascott was eighteen, and just about to pass out of his caterpillar state as a doctor's apprentice-lad into the chrysalis condition of a medical student in London. "But," with sudden reflection, "I hope she won't be in my way. Don't let her meddle with any of my books and things."
No; you need not be afraid. I have put them all into your room. I myself cleared your rubbish out of the box closet.
The box-closet! Now, really, I can't stand—
She is to sleep in the box-closet; where else could she sleep? said Hilary, resolutely, though inly quaking a little; for somehow, the merry, handsome, rather exacting lad bad acquired considerable influence in this household of women. "You must put up with the loss of your 'den.' Ascott; it would be a great shame if you did not, for the sake of Aunt Johanna and the rest of us."
Um! grumbled the boy, who, though he was not a bad fellow at heart, had a boy's dislike to "putting up" with the slightest inconvenience.
"
Well, it won't last long. I shall be off shortly. What a jolly life I'll have in London, Aunt Hilary! I'll see Mr. Lyon there too.
"Yes, said Aunt Hilary, briefly, returning to Dido and Æneas; humble and easy Latinity for a student of eighteen; but Ascott was not a brilliant boy, and, being apprenticed early, his education had been much neglected, till Mr. Lyon came as usher to the Stowbury grammar-school, and happening to meet and take an interest in him, taught him and his Aunt Hilary Latin, Greek, and mathematics together, of evenings.
I shall make no mysteries here. Human nature is human nature all the world over. A tale without love in it would be unnatural, unreal—in fact, a simple lie; for there are no histories and no lives without love in them: if there could be, Heaven pity and pardon them, for they would be mere abortions of humanity.
Thank Heaven, we, most of us, do not philosophize: we only live. We like one another, we hardly know why; we love one another, we still less know why. If on the day she first saw—in church it was—Mr. Lyon's grave, heavy-browed, somewhat severe face—for he was a Scotsman, and his sharp, strong Scotch features did look "hard" beside the soft, rosy, well conditioned youth of Stowbury—if on that Sunday any one had told Hilary Leaf that the face of this stranger was to be the one face of her life, stamped upon brain and heart, and soul with a vividness that no other impressions were strong enough to efface, and retained there with a tenacity that no vicissitudes of time, or place, or fortunes had power to alter, Hilary would—yes, I think she would—have quietly kept looking on. She would have accepted her lot, such as it was, with its shine and shade, its joy and its anguish; it came to her without her seeking, as most of the solemn things in life do; and whatever it brought with it, it could have come from no other source than that from which all high, and holy, and pure loves ever must come—the will and permission of GOD.
Mr. Lyon himself requires no long description. In his first visit he had told Miss Leaf all about himself that there was to be known; that he was, as they were, a poor teacher, who had altogether "made himself," as so many Scotch students do. His father, whom he scarcely remembered, had been a small Ayrshire farmer; his mother was dead, and he had never had either brother or sister.
Seeing how clever Miss Hilary was, and how much as a schoolmistress she would need all the education she could get, he had offered to teach her along with her nephew; and she and Johanna were only too thankful for the advantage. But during the teaching he had also taught her another thing, which neither had contemplated at the time—to respect him with her whole soul, and to love him with her whole heart.
Over this simple fact let no more be now said. Hilary said nothing. She recognized it herself as soon as he was gone; a plain, sad, solemn truth, which there was no deceiving herself did not exist, even had she wished its non-existence. Perhaps Johanna also found it out, in her darling's extreme paleness and unusual quietness for a while; but she too said nothing. Mr. Lyon wrote regularly to Ascott, and once or twice to her, Miss Leaf; but though every one knew that Hilary was his particular friend in the whole family, he did not write to Hilary. He had departed rather suddenly, on account of some plan which he said, affected his future very considerably; but which, though he was in the habit of telling them his affairs, he did not further explain. Still Johanna knew he was a good man, and though no man could be quite good enough for her darling, she liked him, she trusted him.
What Hilary felt none knew. But she was very girlish in some things; and her life was all before her, full of infinite hope. By-and-by her color returned, and her merry voice and laugh were heard about the house just as usual.
This being the position of affairs, it was not surprising that after Ascott's last speech Hilary's mind wandered from Dido and Æneas to vague listening, as the lad began talking of his grand future—the future of a medical student, all expenses being paid by his godfather, Mr. Ascott, the merchant, of Russell Square, once a shop boy of Stowbury.
Nor was it unnatural that all Ascott's anticipations of London resolved themselves, in his aunt's eyes, into the one fact that he would "see Mr. Lyon."
But in telling thus much about her mistresses, I have for the time being lost sight of Elizabeth Hand.
Left to herself, the girl stood for a minute or two looking around her in a confused manner, then, rousing her faculties, began mechanically to obey the order with which her mistress had quitted the kitchen, and to wash up the tea-things. She did it in a fashion that, if seen, would have made Miss Leaf thankful that the ware was only the common set, and not the cherished china belonging to former days: still she did it, noisily it is true, but actively, as if her heart were in her work. Then she took a candle and peered about her new domains.
These were small enough; at least they would have seemed so to other eyes than Elizabeth's; for, until the school-room and box-closet above had been kindly added by the landlord, who would have done any thing to show his respect for the Misses Leaf, it had been merely a six-roomed cottage—parlor kitchen, back kitchen, and three upper chambers. It was a very cozy house notwithstanding, and it seemed to Elizabeth's eyes a perfect palace.
For several minutes more she stood and contemplated her kitchen, with the fire shining on the round oaken stand in the centre, and the large wooden-bottomed chairs, and the loud-ticking clock, with its tall case, the inside of which, with its pendulum and weights, had been a perpetual mystery and delight, first to Hilary's and then to Ascott's childhood. Then there was the sofa, large and ugly, but, oh! so comfortable, with its faded, flowered chintz, washed and worn for certainly twenty years. And, overall, Elizabeth's keen observation was attracted by a queer machine apparently made of thin rope and bits of wood, which hung up to the hooks on the ceiling—an old-fashioned baby's swing. Finally, her eye dwelt with content on the blue and red diamond tiled floor, so easily swept and mopped, and (only Elizabeth did not think of that, for her hard childhood had been all work and no play) so beautiful to whip tops upon! Hilary and Ascott, condoling together over the new servant, congratulated themselves that their delight in this occupation had somewhat failed, though it was really not so many years ago since one of the former's pupils, coming suddenly out of the school-room, had caught her in the act of whipping a meditative top round this same kitchen floor.
Meantime Elizabeth penetrated farther, investigating the back kitchen, with its various conveniences; especially the pantry, every shelf of which was so neatly arranged and beautifully clean. Apparently this neatness impressed the girl with a sense of novelty and curiosity; and though she could hardly be said to meditate—her mind was not sufficiently awakened for that—still, as she stood at the kitchen fire, a slight thoughtfulness deepened the expression of her face, and made it less dull and heavy than it had at first appeared.
I wonder which on 'em does it all. They must work pretty hard, I reckon; and two o' them's such little uns.
She stood a while longer; for sitting down appeared to be to Elizabeth as new a proceeding as thinking; then she went up stairs, still literally obeying orders, to shut windows and pull down blinds at nightfall. The bedrooms were small, and insufficiently, nay, shabbily furnished; but the floors were spotless—ah! poor Johanna!—and the sheets, though patched and darned to the last extremity, were white and whole. Nothing was dirty, nothing untidy. There was no attempt at picturesque poverty—for whatever novelists may say, poverty can not be picturesque; but all things were decent and in order. The house, poor as it was, gave the impression of belonging to "real ladies;" ladies who thought no manner of work beneath them, and who, whatever they had to do, took the pains to do it as well as possible.
Mrs. Hand's roughly-brought-up daughter had never been in such a house before, and her examination of every new corner of it seemed quite a revelation. Her own little sleeping nook was fully as tidy and comfortable as the rest, which fact was not lost upon Elizabeth. That bright look of mingled softness and intelligence—the only thing which beautified her rugged face—came into the girl's eyes as she "turned down" the truckle-bed, and felt the warm blankets and sheets, new and rather coarse, but neatly sewed.
Her's made 'em hersel', I reckon. La! Which of her mistresses the "her" referred to remained unspecified; but Elizabeth, spurred to action by some new idea, went briskly back into the bedrooms, and looked about to see if there was any thing she could find to do. At last, with a sudden inspiration, she peered into a wash-stand, and found there an empty ewer. Taking it in one hand and the candle in the other, she ran down stairs.
Fatal activity! Hilary's pet cat, startled from sleep on the kitchen hearth, at the same instant ran wildly up stairs; there was a start—a stumble—and then down came the candle, the ewer, Elizabeth, and all.
It was an awful crash. It brought every member of the family to see what was the matter.
What has the girl broken? cried Selina.
Where has she hurt herself? anxiously added Johanna.
Hilary said nothing, but ran for a light, and then picked up first the servant, then the candle, and then the fragments of crockery.
Why, it's my ewer, my favorite ewer, and it's all smashed to bits, and I never can match it again. You careless, clumsy, good-for-nothing creature!
Please, Selma, whispered her eldest sister.
Very well, Johanna. You are the mistress, I suppose; why don't you speak to your servant?
Miss Leaf, in an humbled, alarmed way, first satisfied herself that no bodily injury had been sustained by Elizabeth, and then asked her how this disaster had happened? For a serious disaster she felt it was. Not only was the present loss annoying, but a servant with a talent for crockery breaking would be a far too expensive luxury for them to think of retaining. And she had been listening in the solitude of the parlor to a long lecture from her always dissatisfied younger sister, on the great doubts Selina had about Elizabeth's "suiting."
Come, now, seeing the girl hesitated, "tell me the plain truth. How was it?"
It was the cat, sobbed Elizabeth.
What a barefaced falsehood. exclaimed Selina. "You wicked girl, how could it possibly be the cat? Do you know that you are telling a lie, and that lies are hateful, and that all liars go to—"
Nonsense, hush! interrupted Hilary, rather sharply; for Selina's "tongue," the terror of her childhood, now merely annoyed her. Selina's temper was a long understood household fact—they did not much mind it, knowing that her bark was worse than her bite—but it was provoking that she should exhibit herself so soon before the new servant.
The latter first looked up at the lady with simple surprise; then, as in spite of the other two, Miss Selina worked herself up into a downright passion, and unlimited abuse fell upon the victim's devoted head, Elizabeth's manner changed. After one dogged repetition of, "It was the cat!" not another word could be got out of her. She stood, her eyes fixed on the kitchen floor, her brows knitted, and her under lip pushed out—the very picture of sullenness. Young as she was, Elizabeth evidently had, like her unfortunate mistress, "a temper of her own"—a spiritual deformity that some people are born with, as others with hare-lip or club-foot; only, unlike these, it may be conquered, though the battle is long and sore, sometimes ending only with life.
It had plainly never commenced with poor Elizabeth Hand. Her appearance, as she stood under the flood of sharp words poured out upon her, was absolutely repulsive. Even Miss Hilary turned away, and began to think it would have been easier to teach all day and do house work half the night, than have the infliction of a servant—to say nothing of the disgrace of seeing Selina's "peculiarities" so exposed before a stranger.
She knew of old that to stop the torrent was impracticable. The only chance was to let Selina expend her wrath and retire, and then to take some quiet opportunity of explaining to Elizabeth that sharp language was only "her way," and must be put up with. Humiliating as this was, and fatal to domestic authority that the first thing to be taught a new servant was to "put up" with one of her mistresses, still there was no alternative.—Hilary had already foreboded and made up her mind to such a possibility, but she had hoped it would not occur the very first evening.
It did, however, and its climax was worse even than she anticipated. Whether, irritated by the intense sullenness of the girl. Selina's temper was worse than usual, or whether, as is always the case with people like her, something else had vexed her, and she vented it upon the first cause of annoyance that occurred, certain it is that her tongue went on unchecked till it failed from sheer exhaustion. And then, as she flung herself on the sofa—oh, sad mischance!—she caught sight of her nephew standing at the school-room door, grinning with intense delight, and making faces at her behind her back.
It was too much. The poor lady had no more words left to scold with; but she rushed up to Ascott, and big lad as he was, she soundly boxed his ears.
On this terrible climax let the curtain fall.
Common as were the small fends between Ascott and his Aunt Selina, they seldom reached such a catastrophe as that described in my last chapter. Hilary had to fly to the rescue, and literally drag the furious lad back into the school-room; while Johanna, pale and trembling, persuaded Selina to quit the field and go and lie down. This was not difficult; for the instant she saw what she had done, how she had disgraced herself and insulted her nephew. Selina felt sorry. Her passion ended in a gush of "nervous" tears under the influence of which she was led up stairs and put to bed, almost like a child—the usual termination of these pitiful outbreaks.
For the time nobody thought of Elizabeth. The hapless cause of all stood "spectatress of the fray" beside her kitchen fire. What she thought history saith not. Whether in her own rough home she was used to see brothers and sisters quarrelling, and mothers boxing their childrens' ears, can not be known; whether she was or was not surprised to see the same proceedings among ladies and gentlemen, she never betrayed, but certain it is that the little servant became uncommonly serious; yes, serious rather than sulky, for her "black" looks vanished gradually, as soon as Miss Selina left the kitchen.
On the reappearance of Miss Hilary it had quite gone. But Hilary took no notice of her; she was in search of Johanna, who, shaking and cold with agitation, came slowly down stairs.
Is she gone to bed?
Yes, my dear. It was the best thing for her; she is not at all well to-day.
Hilary's lip curled a little, but she replied not a word. She had not the patience with Selina that Johanna had. She drew her elder sister into the little parlor, placed her in the arm-chair, shut the door, came and sat beside her, and took her hand. Johanna pressed it, shed a quiet tear or two, and wiped them away. Then the two sisters remained silent, with hearts sad and sore.
Every family has its skeleton in the house: this was theirs. Whether they acknowledged it or not, they knew quite well that every discomfort they had, every slight jar which disturbed the current of household peace, somehow or other originated with "poor Selina." They often called her "poor" with a sort of pity—not unneeded. Heaven knows! for if the unhappy are to be pitied, ten times more so are those who make others miserable.
This was Selina's case, and had been all her life. And, sometimes, she herself knew it. Sometimes, after an especially bad outbreak, her compunction and remorse would be almost as terrible as her passion; forcing her sisters to make every excuse for her; she "did not mean it," it was only "ill health," or "nerves," or her "unfortunate way of taking things."
But they knew in their hearts that not all their poverty and the toils it entailed, not all the hardships and humiliation of their changed estate, were half so bitter to bear as this something—no moral crime, and yet in its results as fatal as crime—which they called Selina's "way."
Ascott was the only one who did not attempt to mince matters. When a little boy he had openly declared he hated Aunt Salina; when he grew up he as openly defied her, and it was a most difficult matter to keep even decent peace between them. Hilary's wrath had never gone further than wishing Selina was married, that appearing the easiest way of getting rid of her. Latterly she had ceased this earnest aspiration; it might be, because, learning to think more seriously of marriage, she felt that a woman who is no blessing in her own household, is never likely much to bless a husband's; and that, looking still farther forward, it was, on the whole, a mercy of Providence, which made Selina not the mother of children.
Yet her not marrying had been somewhat a surprise; for she had been attractive in her day, handsome and agreeable in society. But perhaps, for all that, the sharp eye of the opposite sex had discovered the cloven foot; since, though she had received various promising attentions, poor Selina had never had an offer. Nor, fortunately, had she ever been known to care for any body; she was one of those women who would have married as a matter of course, but who never would have been guilty of the weakness of falling in love. There seemed small probability of shipping her off, to carry into a new household the restlessness, the fretfulness, the captious fault-finding with others, the readiness to take offence at what was done and said to herself, which made poor Selina Leaf the unacknowledged grief and torment of her own.
Her two sisters sat silent. What was the use of talking? It would be only going ever and over again the old thing; trying to ease and shift a little the long familiar burden which they knew must be borne. Nearly every household has, near or remote, some such burden, which Heaven only can lift off or help to bear. And sometimes, looking round the world outside, these two congratulated themselves, in a half sort of way, that theirs was as light as it was; that Selina was after all, a well-meaning well-principled woman, and, in spite of her little tempers, really fond of her family, as she truly was, at least as fond as a nature which has its centre in self can manage to be.
Only when Hilary looked, as to-night, into her eldest sister's pale face, where year by year the lines were deepening, and saw how every agitation such as the present shook her more and more—she who ought to have a quiet life and a cheerful home, after so many hard years—then Hilary, fierce in the resistance of her youth, felt as if what she could have borne for herself she could not bear for Johanna, and at the moment, sympathized with Ascott in actually "hating" Aunt Selina.
Where is that boy? He ought to be spoken to, Johanna said, at length, rising wearily.
I have spoken to him; I gave him a good scolding. He is sorry, and promises never to be so rude again.
Oh no; not till the next time, replied Miss Leaf. hopelessly. "But
Hilary." with a sudden consternation, "what are we to do about
Elizabeth?"
The younger sister had thought of that. She had turned over in her mind all the pros and cons, the inevitable "worries" that would result from the presence of an additional member of the family, especially one from whom the family skeleton could not be hid, to whom it was already only too fatally revealed.
But Hilary was a clear headed girl, and she had the rare faculty of seeing things as they really were, undistorted by her own likings or dislikings—in fact, without reference to herself at all. She perceived plainly that Johanna ought not to do the housework, that Selina would not, and that she could not: ergo, they must keep a servant. Better, perhaps, a small servant, over whom they could have the same influence as over a child, than one older and more independent, who would irritate her mistresses at home, and chatter of them abroad. Besides, they had promised Mrs. Hand to give her daughter a fair trial. For a month, then, Elizabeth was bound to stay; afterward, time would show. It was best not to meet troubles half way.
This explained, in Hilary's cheerful voice, seemed greatly to reassure and comfort her sister.
Yes, love, you are right; she must remain her month out, unless she does something very wrong. Do you think that really was a lie she told?
About the cat? I don't quite know what to think. Let us call her, and put the question once more. Do you put it, Johanna. I don't think she could look at you and tell you a story.
Other people, at sight of that sweet, grave face, its bloom faded, and hairs silvered long before their time, yet beautiful, with an almost childlike simplicity and childlike peace—most other people would have been of Hilary's opinion.
Sit down; I'll call her. Dear me, Johanna, we shall have to set up a bell as well as a servant, unless we had managed to combine the two.
But Hilary's harmless little joke failed to make her sister smile; and the entrance of the girl seemed to excite positive apprehension. How was it possible to make excuse to a servant for her mistress's shortcomings? how scold for ill-doing this young girl, to whom, ere she had been a night in the house, so bad an example had been set? Johanna half expected Elizabeth to take a leaf out of Selina's book and begin abusing herself and Hilary.
No: she stood very sheepish, very uncomfortable, but not in the least bold or sulky—on the whole, looking rather penitent and humble.
Her mistress took courage.
Elizabeth I want you to tell me the truth about that unfortunate breakage. Don't be afraid. I had rather you broke every thing in the house than have told me what was not true.
It was true; it was the cat.
How could that be possible? You were coming down stairs with the ewer in your hand.
Her got under my feet, and throwed me down, and so I tumbled, and smashed the thing agin the floor.
The Misses Leaf glanced at each other. This version of the momentous event was probable enough, and the girl's eager, honest manner gave internal confirmatory evidence pretty strong.
I am sure she is telling the truth. said Hilary. "And remember what her mother said about her word being always reliable."
This reference was too much for Elizabeth. She burst out, not into actual crying, but into a smothered choke.
If you donnot believe me, missus, I'd rather go home to mother.
I do believe you, said Miss Leaf, kindly then waited till the pinafore, used as a pocket handkerchief, had dried up grief and restored composure.
I can quite well understand the accident now; and I am sure if you had put it as plainly at first, my sister would have understood it too. She was very much annoyed, and no wonder. She will be equally glad to find she was mistaken.
Here Miss Leaf paused, somewhat puzzled how to express what she felt it her duty to say, so as to be comprehended by the servant, and yet not let down the dignity of the family Hilary came to her aid.
Miss Selina is sometimes hasty; but she means kindly always. You must take care not to vex her, Elizabeth; and you must never answer her back again, however sharply she speaks. It is not your business; you are only a child, and she is your mistress.
Is her? I thought it was this 'un.
The subdued clouding of Elizabeth's face, and her blunt pointing to Miss Leaf as "this 'un." were too much for Hilary's gravity She was obliged to retreat to the press, and begin an imaginary search for a book.
Yes, I am the eldest, and I suppose you may consider me specially as your mistress, said Johanna, simply."
Remember always to come to me in any difficulty; and above all, to tell me every thing outright, as soon as it happens. I can forgive you almost any fault, if you are truthful and honest; but there is one thing I never could forgive, and that is deception. Now go with Miss Hilary, and she will teach you how to make the porridge for supper.
Elizabeth obeyed silently; she had apparently a great gift for silence. And she was certainly both obedient and willing; not stupid, either, though a nervousness of temperament which Hilary was surprised to find in so big and coarse-looking a girl, made her rather awkward at first. However, she succeeded in pouring out and carrying into the parlor, without accident, three platefuls of that excellent condiment which formed the frugal supper of the family; but which they ate, I grieve to say, in an orthodox southern fashion, with sugar or treacle, until Mr. Lyon—greatly horrified thereby—had instituted his national custom of "supping" porridge with milk.
It may be a very unsentimental thing to confess, but Hilary, who even at twenty was rather practical than poetical, never made the porridge without thinking of Robert Lyon, and the day when he first staid to supper, and ate it, or as he said and was very much laughed at, ate "them" with such infinite relish Since then, whenever he came, he always asked for his porridge, saying it carried him back to his childish days. And Hilary, with that curious pleasure that women take in waiting upon any one unto whom the heart is ignorantly beginning to own the allegiance, humble yet proud, of Miranda to Ferdinand:
"To be your fellow
You may deny me; but I'll be your servant
Whether you will or no."
Hilary always contrived to make his supper herself.
Those pleasant days were now over. Mr. Lyon was gone. As she stool alone over the kitchen fire, she thought—as now and then she let herself think for a minute or two in her busy prosaic life—of that August night, standing at the front door, of his last "good-by," and last hand-clasp, tight, warm, and firm; and somehow she, like Johanna, trusted in him.
Not exactly in his love; it seemed almost impossible that he should love her, at least till she grew much more worthy of him than now; but in himself, that he would never be less himself, less thoroughly good and true than now. That, some time, he would be sure to come back again, and take up his old relations with them, brightening their dull life with his cheerfulness; infusing in their feminine household the new element of a clear, strong, energetic, manly will, which sometimes made Johanna say that instead of twenty-five the young man might be forty; and, above all, bringing into their poverty the silent sympathy of one who had fought his own battle with the world—a hard one, too, as his face sometimes showed—though he never said much about it.
Of the results of this pleasant relation—whether she being the only truly marriageable person in the house. Robert Lyon intended to marry her, or was expected to do so, or that society would think it a very odd thing if he did not do so—this unsophisticated Hilary never thought at all. If he had said to her that the present state of things was to go on forever; she to remain always Hilary Leaf, and he Robert Lyon, the faithful friend of the family, she would have smiled in his face and been perfectly satisfied.
True, she had never had any thing to drive away the smile from that innocent face; no vague jealousies aroused; no maddening rumors afloat in the small world that was his and theirs. Mr. Lyon was grave and sedate in all his ways; he never paid the slightest attention to, or expressed the slightest interest in, any woman whatsoever.
And so this hapless girl loved, him—just himself; without the slightest reference to his "connections," for he had none; or his "prospects," which, if he had any, she did not know of. Alas! to practical and prudent people I can offer no excuse for her; except, perhaps what Shakspeare gives in the creation of the poor Miranda.
When the small servant re-entered the kitchen, Hilary, with a half sigh, shook off her dreams, called Ascott out of the school-room, and returned to the work-a-day world and the family supper.
This being ended, seasoned with a few quiet words administered to Ascott, and which on the whole he took pretty well, it was nearly ten o'clock.
Far too late to have kept up such a child as Elizabeth; we must not do it again, said Miss Leaf, taking down the large Bible with which she was accustomed to conclude the day—Ascott's early hours at school and their own house-work making it difficult of mornings. Very brief the reading was, sometimes not more than half a dozen verses, with no comment thereon; she thought the Word of God might safely be left to expound itself Being a very humble-minded woman, she did not feel qualified to lead long devotional "exercises," and she disliked formal written prayers. So she merely read the Bible to the family, and said after it the Lord's Prayer.
But, constitutionally shy as Miss Leaf was to do even this in presence of a stranger cost her some effort; and it was only a sense of duty that made her say "yes" to Hilary's suggestion, "I suppose we ought to call in Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth came.
Sit down, said her mistress: and she sat down, staring uneasily round about her, as if wondering what was going to befall her next. Very silent was the little parlor; so small, that it was almost filled up by its large square piano, its six cane-bottomed chairs, and one easy chair, in which sat Miss Leaf with the great Book in her lap.
Can you read, Elizabeth?
Yes, ma'am.
Hilary, give her a bible.
And so Elizabeth followed, guided by her not too clean finger, the words, read in that soft, low voice, somewhere out of the New Testament; words simple enough for the comprehension of a child or a heathen. The "South Sea Islander," as Ascott persisted in calling her, then, doing as the family did, turned round to kneel down; but in her confusion she knocked over a chair, causing Miss Leaf to wait a minute till reverent silence was restored. Elizabeth knelt, with her eyes fixed on the wall: it was a green paper, patterned with bunches of nuts. How far she listened, or how much she understood, it was impossible to say; but her manner was decent and decorous.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us. Unconsciously Miss Leaf's gentle voice rested on these words, so needed in the daily life of every human being, and especially of every family. Was she the only one who thought of "poor Selina?"
They all rose from their knees, and Hilary out the Bible away. The little servant "hung about," apparently uncertain what was next to be done, or what was expected of her to do. Hilary touched her sister.
Yes, said Miss Leaf. recollecting herself, and assuming the due authority, "it is quite time for all the family to be in bed. Take care of your candle, and mind and be up at six tomorrow morning."
This was addressed to the new maiden, who dropped a courtesy, and said, almost cheerfully, "Yes, ma'am."
Very well, Good night. Elizabeth.
And following Miss Leaf's example, the other two, even Ascott, said civilly and kindly, "Good night, Elizabeth."
The Christmas holidays ended, and Ascott left for London. It was the greatest household change the Misses Leaf had known for years, and they missed him sorely. Ascott was not exactly a lovable boy, and yet, after the fashion of womankind, his aunts were both fond and proud of him; fond, in their childless old maidenhood, of any sort of nephew, and proud, unconsciously, that the said nephew was a big fellow, who could look over all their heads, besides being handsome and pleasant mannered, and though not clever enough to set the Thames on fire, still sufficiently bright to make them hope that in his future the family star might again rise.
There was something pathetic in these three women's idealization of him—even Selina's who though quarrelling with him to his face always praised him behind his back,—that great, good-looking, lazy lad; who, every body else saw clearly enough, thought more of his own noble self than of all his aunts put together.
The only person he stood in awe of was Mr. Lyon—for whom he always protested unbounded respect and admiration. How far Robert Lyon liked Ascott even Hilary could never quite find out; but he was always very kind to him.
There was one person in the house who, strange to say, did not succumb to the all-dominating youth. From the very first there was a smouldering feud between him and Elizabeth. Whether she overheard, and slowly began to comprehend his mocking gibes about the "South Sea Islander," or whether her sullen and dogged spirit resisted the first attempts the lad made to "put upon her"—as he did upon his aunts, in small daily tyrannies—was never found out; but certainly Ascott, the general favorite, found little favor with the new servant. She never answered when he "hollo'd" for her; she resisted blacking his boots more than once a day; and she obstinately cleared the kitchen fire-place of his "messes," as she ignominiously termed various pots and pans belonging to what he called his "medical studies."
Although the war was passive rather than aggressive, and sometimes a source of private amusement to the aunts, still, on the whole, it was a relief when the exciting cause of it departed; his new and most gentlemanly port manteau being carried down stairs by Elizabeth herself, of her own accord, with an air of cheerful alacrity, foreign to her mien for some weeks past, and which, even in the midst of the dolorous parting, amused Hilary extremely.
I think that girl is a character, she said afterward to Johanna.
Any how she has curiously strong likes and dislikes.
You may say that, my dear; for she brightens up whenever she looks at you.
Does she? Oh, that must be because I have most to do with her. It is wonderful how friendly one gets over sauce pans and brooms; and what reverence one inspires in the domestic mind when one really knows how to make a bed or a pudding.
How I wish you had to do neither! sighed Johanna, looking fondly at the bright face and light little figure that was flitting about putting the school-room to rights before the pupils came in.
Nonsense—I don't wish any such thing. Doing it makes me not a whit less charming and lovely. She often applied these adjectives to herself, with the most perfect conviction that she was uttering a fiction patent to every body. I must be very juvenile also, for I'm certain the fellow-passenger at the station to-day took me for Ascott's sweetheart. When we were saying good by an old gentleman who sat next him was particularly sympathetic, and you should have seen how indignantly Ascott replied, "It's only my aunt!"
Miss Leaf laughed, and the shadow vanished from her face, as Hilary had meant it should. She only said, caressing her, "Well, my pet, never mind. I hope you will have a real sweetheart some day."
I'm in no hurry, thank you, Johanna.
But now was heard the knock after knock of the little boys and girls, and there began that monotonous daily round of school labor, rising from the simplicities of c, a, t, cat, and d, o, g, dog—to the sublime heights of Pinnock and Lennie, Telemaque and Latin Delectus. No loftier; Stowbury being well supplied with first class schools, and having a vague impression that the Misses Leaf, born ladies and not brought up as governesses, were not competent educators except of very small children.
Which was true enough until lately. So Miss Leaf kept contentedly to the c, a, t, cat, and d, o, g, dog, of the little butchers and bakers, as Miss Selina, who taught only sewing, and came into the school-room but little during the day, scornfully termed them. The higher branches such as they were, she left gradually to Hilary, who, of late, possibly out of sympathy with a friend of hers, had begun to show an actual gift for teaching school.
It is a gift—all will allow; and chiefly those who have it not, among which was poor Johanna Leaf. The admiring envy with which she watched Hilary, moving briskly about from class to class, with a word of praise to one and rebuke to another, keeping every one's attention alive, spurring on the dull, controlling the unruly, and exercising over every member in this little world that influence, at once the strongest and most intangible and inexplicable—personal influence—was only equaled by the way in which, at pauses in the day's work, when it grew dull and monotonous or when the stupidity of the children ruffled her own quick temper beyond endurance, Hilary watched Johanna.
The time I am telling of now is long ago.
The Stowbury children, who were then little boys and girls, are now fathers and mothers—doubtless a large proportion being decent tradesfolk in Stowbury still; though, in this locomotive quarter, many must have drifted elsewhere—where, Heaven knows. But not a few of them may still call to mind Miss Leaf, who first taught them their letters—sitting in her corner between the fire and the window, while the blind was drawn down to keep out, first the light from her own fading eyes, and, secondly, the distracting view of green fields and trees from the youthful eyes by her side. They may remember still her dark plain dress and her white apron, on which the primers, torn and dirty, looked half ashamed to lie; and above all, her sweet face and sweeter voice, never heard in any thing sharper than that grieved tone which signified their being "naughty children." They may recall her unwearied patience with the very dullest and most wayward of them; her unfailing sympathy with every infantile pleasure and pain. And I think they will acknowledge that whether she taught them much or little—in this advancing age it might be thought little—Miss Leaf taught them one thing—to love her. Which, as Ben Johnson said of the Countess of Pembroke, was in itself a "liberal education."
Hilary, too. Often when Hilary's younger and more restless spirit chafed against the monotony of her life; when, instead of wasting her days in teaching small children, she would have liked to be learning, learning—every day growing wiser and cleverer, and stretching out into that busy, bright, active world of which Robert Lyon had told her—then the sight of Johanna's meek face bent over those dirty spelling books would at once rebuke and comfort her. She felt, after all, that she would not mind working on forever, so long as Johanna still sat there.
Nevertheless, that winter seemed to her very long—especially after Ascott was gone. For Johanna, partly for money, and partly for kindness, had added to her day's work four evenings a week when a half educated mother of one of her little pupils came to be taught to write a decent hand, and to keep the accounts of her shop. Upon which Selina, highly indignant, had taken to spending her evenings in the school room, interrupting Hilary's solitary studies there by many a lamentation over the peaceful days when they all sat in the kitchen together and kept no servant. For Selina was one of those who never saw the bright side of any thing till it had gone by.
I'm sure I don't know how we are to manage with Elizabeth. That greedy—
And growing, suggested Hilary.
I say that greedy girl eats as much as any two of us. And as for her clothes—her mother does not keep her even decent.
She would find it difficult upon three pounds a year.
Hilary, how dare you contradict me! I am only stating a plain fact.
And I another. But, indeed, I don't want to talk Selina.
You never do except when you are wished to be silent; and then your tongue goes like any race horse.
"
Does it? Well, like Gilpin's, 'It carries weight: it rides a race, 'Tis for a thousand pound?' —and I only wish it were. Heigh ho! if I could but earn a thousand pounds!
"
Selina was too vexed to reply and for five quiet minutes Hilary bent over her Homer which Mr. Lyon had taken such pleasure in teaching her, because he said, she learned it faster than any of his grammar school boys. She had forgotten all domestic grievances in a vision of Thetis and the water nymphs; and was repeating to herself, first in the sonorous Greek and then in Pope's small but sweet English, that catalogue of oceanic beauties ending with
"Black Janira and Janassa fair,
And Amatheia with her amber hair."
Black, did you say? I'm sure she was as black as a chimney sweep all to-day. And her pinafore
Her what? Oh, Elizabeth, you mean—
Her pinafore had three rents in it, which she never thinks of mending though I gave her needles and thread myself a week ago. But she does not know how to use them any more than a baby.
Possibly, nobody ever taught her.
Yes; she went for a year to the National School, she says, and learned both marking and sewing.
Perhaps she has never practiced them since. She could hardly have had time, with all the little Hands to look after, as her mother says she did. All the better for us. It makes her wonderfully patient with our troublesome brats. It was only to day, when that horrid little Jacky Smith hurt himself so, that I saw Elizabeth take him into the kitchen, wash his face and hands, and cuddle him up and comfort him, quite motherly. Her forte is certainly children.
You always find something to say for her.
I should be ashamed if I could not find something to say for any body who is always abused.
Another pause—and then Selina returned to the charge.
Have you ever observed, my dear, the extraordinary way she has of fastening, or rather, not fastening her gown behind? She just hooks it together at the top and at the waist, while between there is a—
Hiatus valde deflendus. Oh dear me! what shall I do? Selina, how can I help it if a girl of fifteen years old is not a paragon of perfection? as of course we all are, if we only could find it out.
And Hilary, in despair, rose to carry her candle and books into the chilly but quiet bedroom, biting her lips the while lest she should be tempted to say something which Selina called "impertinent," which perhaps it was, from a younger sister to an elder. I do not set Hilary up as a perfect character. Through sorrow only do people go on to perfection; and sorrow, in its true meaning, the cherished girl had never known.
But that night, talking to Johanna before they went to sleep—they had always slept together since the time when the elder sister used to walk the room of nights with that pulling, motherless infant in her arms—Hilary anxiously started the question of the little servant.
I am afraid I vexed Selina greatly about her to-night, and yet what can one do? Selina is so very unjust—always expecting impossibilities. She would like to have Elizabeth at once a first rate cook, a finished house-maid, and an attentive lady's maid, and all without being taught! She gives her things to do, neither waiting to see if they are comprehended by her, nor showing her how to do them. Of course the girl stands gaping and staring and does not do them, or does them so badly, that she gets a thorough scolding.
Is she very stupid, do you think? asked Johanna, in unconscious appeal to her pet's stronger judgment.
No, I don't. Far from stupid; only very ignorant, and—you would hardly believe it—very nervous. Selina frightens her. She gets on extremely well with me.
Any one would, my dear. That is, added the conscientious elder sister, still afraid of making the "child" vain, "any one whom you took pain with. But do you think you can ever make any thing out of Elizabeth? Her month ends to-morrow. Shall we let her go?"
"
And perhaps get in her place a story-teller—a tale-bearer—even a thief. No, no; let us 'Rather bear the ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of;' and a thief would be worse than even a South Sea Islander.
"
Oh yes, my dear, said Johanna, with a shiver.
By-the-by, the first step in the civilization of the Polynesians was giving them clothes. And I have heard say that crime and rags often go together; that a man unconsciously feels that he owes something to himself and society in the way of virtue when he has a clean face and clean shirt, and a decent coat on. Suppose we try the experiment of dressing Elizabeth. How many old gowns have we?
The number was few. Nothing in the Leaf family was ever cast off till its very last extremity of decay; the talent that
Gars auld claes look amaist as gude's the new
being specially possessed by Hilary. She counted over her own wardrobe and Johanna's but found nothing that could be spared.
Yes, my love, there is one thing. You certainly shall never put on that old brown merino again; though you have laid it so carefully by, as if you meant it to come out as fresh as ever next winter. No, Hilary, you must have a new gown, and you must give Elizabeth your brown merino.
Hilary laughed, and replied not.
Now it might be a pathetic indication of a girl who had very few clothes, but Hilary had a superstitious weakness concerning hers.—Every dress had its own peculiar chronicle of the scenes where it had been, the enjoyments she had shared in it. Particular dresses were special memorials of her loves, her pleasures, her little passing pains; as long as a bit remained of the poor old fabric the sight of it recalled them all.
This brown merino—in which she had sat two whole winters over her Greek and Latin by Robert Lyon's side, which he had once stopped to touch and notice, saying what a pretty color it was, and how he liked soft-feeling dresses for women—to cut up this old brown merino seemed to hurt her so she could almost have cried.
Yet what would Johanna think if the refused? And there was Elizabeth absolutely in want of clothes. "I must be growing very wicked," thought poor Hilary.
She lay a good while silent in the dark, while Johanna planned and replanned—calculating how, even with the addition of an old cape of her own, which was out of the same piece, this hapless gown could be made to fit the gaunt frame of Elizabeth Hand.—Her poor kindly brain was in the last extremity of muddle, when Hilary, with a desperate effort, dashed in to the rescue, and soon made all clear, contriving body, skirt, sleeves and all.
"
You have the best head in the world, my love. I don't know whatever I should do without you.
"Luckily you are never likely to be tried. So give me a kiss; and good night, Johanna.
I misdoubt many will say I am writing about small, ridiculously small, things. Yet is not the whole of life made up of infinitesimally small things? And in its strange and solemn mosaic, the full pattern of which we never see clearly till looking back on it from far away, dare we say of any thing which the hand of Eternal Wisdom has put together, that it is too common or too small?
While her anxious mistresses were thus talking her over the servant lay on her humble bed and slept. They knew she did, for they heard her heavy breathing through the thin partition wall. Whether, as Hilary suggested, she was too ignorant to notice the days of the week, or month, or, as Selina thought, too stupid to care for any thing beyond eating, drinking, and sleeping. Elizabeth manifested no anxiety about herself or her destiny.
She went about her work just as usual; a little quicker and readier, now she was becoming familiarized to it; but she said nothing. She was undoubtedly a girl of silent and undemonstrative nature.
Sometimes still waters run deep, said Miss Hilary.
Nevertheless. there are such things as canals, replied Johanna.
When do you mean to have your little talk with her?
Hilary did not know. She was sitting, rather more tired than usual, by the school-room fire, the little people having just departed for their Saturday half-holiday. Before clearing off the debris which they always left behind, she stood a minute at the window, refreshing her eyes with the green field opposite, and the far-away wood, crowned by a dim white monument, visible in fair weather, on which those bright brown eyes had a trick of lingering, even in the middle of school hours. For the wood and the hill beyond belonged to a nobleman's "show" estate, five miles off—the only bit of real landscape beauty that Hilary had ever beheld. There, during the last holidays but one, she, her sisters, her nephew, and, by his own special request, Mr. Lyon, had spent a whole long, merry, midsummer day. She wondered whether such a day would ever come again!
But spring was coming again, any how; the field looked smiling and green, specked here and there with white dots which, she opined. might possibly be daisies. She half wished she was not too old and dignified to dart across the road, leap the sunk fence, and run to see.
I think, Johanna—Hark, what can that be?
For at this instant somebody came tearing down the stairs, opened the front door, and did—exactly what Hilary had just been wishing to do.
It's Elizabeth, without her bonnet or shawl, with something white flying behind her. How she is dashing across the field! What can she be after? Just look.
But loud screams from Selina's room, the front, one, where she had been lying in bed all morning, quite obliterated the little servant from their minds. The two sisters ran hastily up stairs.
Selina was sitting up, in undisguised terror and agitation.
Stop her! Hold her! I'm sure she has gone mad. Lock the door, or she'll come back and murder us all.
Who? Elizabeth! Was she here? What has been the matter?
But it was some time before they could make out any thing. At last they gathered that Elizabeth had been waiting upon Miss Selina, putting vinegar cloths on her head, and doing various things about the room. "She is very handy when one is ill." even Selina allowed.
And I assure you I was talking most kindly to her; about the duties of her position, and how she ought to dress better, and be more civil behaved, or else she never could except to keep any place. And she stood in her usual sulky way of listening, never answering a word—with her back to me, staring right out of window. And I had just said, Elizabeth, my girl'—indeed, Hilary, I was talking to her in my very kindest way—
I've no doubt of it—but do get on.
When she suddenly turned round, snatched a clean towel from a chair back, and another from my head—actually from my very head, Johanna—and out she ran. I called after her, but she took no more notice than if I had been a stone. And she left the door wide open—blowing upon me. Oh, dear; she has given me my death of cold. And Selina broke out into piteous complainings.
Her elder sister soothed her as well as she could, while Hilary ran down to the front door and looked, and enquired every where for Elizabeth. She was not to be seen on field or road; and along that quiet terrace not a soul had even perceived her quit the house.
It's a very odd thing. said Hilary, returning. "What can have come over the girl? You are sure, Selina, that you said nothing which—"
Now I know what you are going to say, You are going to blame me. Whatever happens in this house you always blame me. And perhaps you're right. Perhaps I am a nuisance—a burden—would be far better dead and buried. I wish I were!
When Selina took this tack, of course her sisters were silenced. They quited her a little, and then went down and searched the house all over.
All was in order; at least in as much order as was to be expected the hour before dinner. The bowl of half-peeled potatoes stood on the back kitchen "sink;" the roast was down before the fire; the knives were ready for cleaning. Evidently Elizabeth flight had not been premeditated.
It's all nonsense about her going mad. She has as sound a head as I have, said Hilary to Johanna, who began to look seriously uneasy. "She might have run away in a fit of passion, certainly; and yet that is improbable; her temper is more sullen than furious. And having no lack of common sense she must know that doing a thing like this is enough to make her lose her place at once."
Yes, said Johanna, mournfully, "I'm afraid after this she must go."
Wait and see what she has to say for herself. pleaded Hilary. "She will surely be back in two or three minutes."
But she was not, nor even in two or three hours.
Her mistresses' annoyance became displeasure, and that again subsided into serious apprehension. Even Selina ceased talking over and over the incident which gave the sole information to be arrived at; rose, dressed, and came down to the kitchen. There, after long and anxious consultation, Hilary, observing that "Somebody had better do something," began to prepare the dinner as in pre-Elizabethan days; but the three ladies' appetites were small.
About three in the afternoon, Hilary, giving utterance to the hidden alarm of all, said—
"
I think, sisters, I had better go down as quickly as I can to Mrs. Hand's.
"This agreed, she stood consulting with Johanna as to what could possibly be said to the mother in case that unfortunate child had not gone home, when the kitchen door opened, and the culprit appeared.
Not, however, with the least look of a culprit. Hot she was, and breathless; and with her hair down about her ears, and her apron rolled up round her waist, presented a most forlorn and untidy aspect; but her eyes were bright, and her countenance glowing.
She took a towel from under her arm.—"There's one on 'em—and you'll get back—the other—when it's washed."
Having blurted out this, she leaned against the wall, trying to recover her breath.
Elizabeth! Where have you been? How dared you go? Your behavior is disgraceful—most disgraceful, I say. Johanna, why don't you speak to your servant? (When, for remissness in reproving others, the elder sister herself fell under reproof, it was always emphatically "your sister—"your nephew"—"your servant.")
But, for once, Miss Selina's sharp voice failed to bring the customary sullen look to Elizabeth's face, and when Miss Leaf, in her milder tones, asked where she had been, she answered unhesitatingly—
I've been down the town.
Down the town! the three ladies cried, in one chorus of astonishment.
I've been as quick as I could, missis. I runned all the way there and back; but it was a good step, and he was some'at heavy, though he is but a little'un,
He! who on earth is he?
Deary me! I never thought of axing; but his mother lives in Hall street. Somebody saw me carrying him to the doctor, and went and told her. Oh! he was welly killed, Miss Leaf—the doctor said so; but he'll do now, and you'll get your towel clean washed tomorrow.
While Elizabeth spoke so incoherently, and with such unwonted energy and excitement, Johanna looked as if she thought her sister's fears were true, and the girl had really gone mad; but Hilary's quicker perceptions jumped at a different conclusion.
Quiet yourself, Elizabeth, said she, taking a firm hold of her shoulder, and making her sit down, when the rolled-up apron dropped, and showed itself all covered with blood spots. Selina screamed outright.
Then Elizabeth seemed to become half conscious that she had done something blamable, or was at least a suspected character. Her warmth of manner faded; the sullen cloud of dogged resistance to authority was rising in her poor dirty face, when Hilary, beginning with, "Now, we are not going to scold you; but we must hear the reason of this," contrived by adroit questions, and not a few of them, to elicit the whole story.
It appeared that, while standing at Miss Selina's window, Elizabeth had watched three little boys, apparently engaged in a very favorite amusement of little boys in that field, going quickly behind a horse, and pulling out the longest and handsomest hairs in his tail to make fishing lines of. She saw the animal give a kick, and two of the boys ran away; the other did not stir. For a minute or so she noticed a black lump lying in the grass; then, with the quick instinct for which nobody had ever given her credit, she guessed what had happened, and did immediately the wisest and only thing possible under the circumstances, namely, to snatch up a towel, run across the field, bind up the child's head as well as she could, and carry it, bleeding and insensible, to the nearest doctor, who lived nearly a mile off.
She did not tell—and they only found it out afterward—how she had held the boy while under the doctor's hands, the skull being so badly fractured that the frightened mother fainted at the sight; how she had finally carried him home, and left him comfortably settled in bed, his senses returned, and his life saved.
Ay, my arms do ache above a bit, she said, in answer to Miss Leaf's questions. "He wasn't quite a baby—nigh upon twelve, I reckon; but then he was very small of his age. And he looked just as if he was dead—and he bled so."
Here, just for a second or two, the color left the big girl's lips, and she trembled a little. Miss Leaf went to the kitchen cupboard, and took out their only bottle of wine—administered in rare doses, exclusively as medicine.
Drink this, Elizabeth; and then go and wash your face and eat your dinner. We will talk to you by-and-by.
Elizabeth looked up with a long, wistfull stare of intense surprise, and then added, "Have I done any thing wrong, missis?"
I did not say so. But drink this; and don't talk, child.
She was obeyed. By-and-by Elizabeth disappeared into the back kitchen, emerged thence with a clean face, hands, and apron; and went about her afternoon business as if nothing had happened.
Her mistresses' threatened "talk" with her never came about. What, indeed, could they say? No doubt the little servant had broken the strict letter of domestic law by running off in that highly eccentric and inconvenient way; but, as Hilary tried to explain by a series of most ingenious ratiocinations, she had fulfilled, in the spirit of it, the very highest law—that of charity. She had also shown prompt courage, decision, practical and prudent forethought, and above all, entire self-forgetfulness.
And I should like to know, said Miss Hilary, warming with her subject, "if those are not the very qualities that go to constitute a hero."
But we don't want a hero; we want a maid-of-all-work.
I'll tell you what we want, Selina. We want a woman; that is, a girl with the making of a good woman in her. If we can find that, all the rest will follow. For my part, I would rather take this child, rough as she is, but with her truthfulness, conscientiousness, kindliness of heart, and evident capability of both self-control and self-devotedness, than the most finished servant we could find. My advice is—keep her.
This settled the matter, since it was a curious fact that the "advice" of the youngest Miss Leaf was, whether they knew it or not, almost equivalent to a family ukase.
When Elizabeth had brought in the tea-things, which she did with especial care, apparently wishing to blot out the memory of the morning's escapade by astonishingly good behavior for the rest of the day, Miss Leaf called her, and asked if she knew that her month of trial ended this day?
Yes, ma'am, with the strict normal courtesy, something between that of the old-world family domestic—as her mother might have been to the Miss Elizabeth Something she was named after—and the abrupt "dip" of the modern National school girl; which constituted Elizabeth Hand's sole experience of manners.
If you had not been absent I should have gone to speak with your mother to-day. Indeed Miss Hilary was going when you came in; but it would have been with a very different intention from what we had in the morning. However, that is not likely to happen again.
Eh? said Elizabeth, inquiringly.
Miss Leaf hesitated, and looked uneasily at her two sisters. It was always a trial to her shy nature to find herself the mouth-piece of the family; and this same shyness made it still more difficult to break through the stiff barriers which seemed to rise up between her, a gentlewoman well on in years, and this coarse working girl. She felt, as she often complained, that with the-kindest intentions, she did not quite know how to talk to Elizabeth.
My sister means, said Hilary, "that as we are not likely to have little boys half killed in the field every day, she trusts you will not be running away again as you did this morning. She feels sure that you would not do such a thing, putting us all to so great annoyance and uneasiness, for any less cause than such as happened to-day. You promise that?"
Yes, Miss Hilary.
Then we quite forgive you as regards ourselves. Nay—feeling in spite of Selina's warning nudge, that she had hardly been kind enough—"we rather praise than blame you, Elizabeth. And if you like to stay with us and will do your best to improve, we are willing to keep you as our servant."
Thank you ma'am. Thank you, Miss Hilary. Yes, I'll stop.
She said no more—but sighed a great sigh, as if her mind were relieved—("So," thought Hilary, "she was not so indifferent to us as we imagined")—and bustled back into her kitchen.
Now for the clothing of her, observed Miss Leaf, also looking much relieved that the decision was over. "You know what we agreed upon; and there is certainly no time to be lost. Hilary, my dear, suppose you bring down your brown merino?" Hilary went without a word.
People who inhabit the same house, eat, sit, and sleep together—loving one another and sympathizing with one another, ever so deeply and dearly—nevertheless inevitably have momentary seasons when the intense solitude in which we all live, and must expect ever to live, at the depth of our being, forces itself painfully upon the heart. Johanna must have had many such seasons when Hilary was a child; Hilary had one now.
She unfolded the old frock, and took out of its pocket, a hiding place at once little likely to be searched, and harmless if discovered, a poor little memento of that happy midsummer day.
"Dear Miss Hilary. To-morrow, then, I shall come.
Yours truly, Robert Lyon."
The only scrap of note she had ever received; he always wrote to Johanna; as regularly as ever, or more so, now Ascott was gone; but only to Johanna. She read over the two lines, wondered where she should keep them now that Johanna might not notice them; and then recoiled, as if the secret were a wrong to that dear sister who loved her so well.
But nothing makes me love her less; nothing ever could. She thinks me quite happy, as I am; and yet—oh, if I did not miss him so!
And the aching, aching want which sometimes came over began again. Let us not blame her. God made all our human needs. God made love. Not merely affection but actual love—the necessity to seek and find out some other being, not another but the complement of one's self—the "other half," who brings rest and strength for weakness, sympathy in aspiration, and tenderness for tenderness, as no other person ever can. Perhaps, even in marriage, this love is seldom found, and it is possible in all lives to do without it. Johanna had done so. But then she had been young, and was now growing old; and Hilary was only twenty, with a long life before her. Poor child, let us not blame her!
She was not in the least sentimental, her natural disposition inclining her to be more than cheerful, actually gay. She soon recovered herself, and when, a short time after, she stood, scissors in hand, demonstrating how very easy it was to make something out of nothing, her sisters never suspected how very near tears had lately been to those bright eyes, which were always the sunshine of the house.
You are giving yourself a world of trouble, said Selina. "If I were you, I would just make over the dress to Elizabeth, and let her do what she could with it."
My dear, I always find I give myself twice the trouble by expecting people to do what they can't do. I have to do it myself afterward. Prove how a child who can't even handle a needle and thread is competent to make a gown for herself, and I shall be most happy to secede in her favor.
Nay, put in the eldest sister, afraid of a collision of words, "Selina is right; if you do not teach Elizabeth to make her own gowns how can she learn?"
Johanna, you are the brilliantest of women! and you know you don't like the parlor littered with rags and cuttings. You wish to get rid of me for the evening? Well, I'll go! Hand me the work basket and the bundle, and I'll give my first lesson in dress making to our South Sea Islander.
But Fate stood in the way of Miss Hilary's good intentions.
She found Elizabeth not as was her wont, always busy, over the perpetual toil of those who have not yet learned the mysterious art of arrangement and order, nor, as sometimes, hanging sleepily over the kitchen fire, waiting for bedtime; but actually sitting, sitting down at the table. Her candle was flaring on one side of her; on the other was the school room inkstand, a scrap of waste paper, and a pen But she was not writing; she sat with her head on her hands, in an attitude of disconsolate idleness, so absorbed that she seemed not to hear Hilary's approach.
I did not know you could write, Elizabeth.
No more I can, was the answer, in the most doleful of voices. "It bean't no good. I've forgotten all about it. T' letters wonna join."
Let me look at them. And Hilary tried to contemplate gravely the scrawled and blotted page, which looked very much as if a large spider had walked into the ink bottle, and then walked out again on a tour of investigation. "What did you want to write?" asked she, suddenly.
Elizabeth blushed violently. "It was the woman, Mrs. Cliffe, t' little lad's mother, you know; she wanted somebody to write to her husband as is at work at Birmingham, and I said I would. I'd learned at the National, but I've forgotten it all. I'm just as Miss Selina says—I'm good for nowt."
Come, come, never fret; for there was a sort of choke in the girl's voice. "There's many a good person who never learned to write. But I don't see why you should not learn. Shall I teach you?"
Utter amazement, beaming gratitude, succeeded one another, plain as light, in Elizabeth's eyes, but she only said, "Thank you, Miss Hilary."
Very well. I have brought you an old gown of mine, and was going to show you how to make it up for yourself, but I'll look over your writing instead. Sit down and let me see what you can do.
In a state of nervous trepidation, pitiful to behold, Elizabeth took the pen. Terrible scratches resulted; blots innumerable; and one fatal deluge of ink, which startled from their seats both mistress and maid, and made Hilary thankful that she had taken off her better gown for a common one, as, with sad thriftiness, the Misses Leaf always did of evenings.
When Elizabeth saw the mischief she had done, her contrition and humility were unbounded. "No, Miss Hilary, you can't make nothin' of me. I be too stupid, I'll give it up."
Nonsense! And the bright active little lady looked steadily into the heavy face of this undeveloped girl, half child, half woman, until some of her own spirit seemed to be reflected there. Whether the excitement of the morning had roused her, or her mistresses' kindness had touched Elizabeth's heart, and—as in most women—the heart was the key to the intellect; or whether the gradual daily influence of her changed life during the last month had been taking effect, now for the first time to appear—certain it is that Hilary had never perceived before what an extremely intelligent face it was; what good sense was indicated in the well shaped head and forehead; what tenderness and feeling in the deep-set grey eyes.
Nonsense, repeated she. "Never give up any thing; I never would. We'll try a different plan, and begin from the beginning, as I do with my little scholars. Wait, while I fetch a copy book out of the parlor press."
She highly amused her sisters with a description of what she called her "newly instituted Polynesian Academy;" returned, and set to work to guide the rough, coarse hand through the mysteries of calligraphy.
To say this was an easy task would not be true. Nature's own laws and limits make the using of faculties which have been unused for generations very difficult at first. To suppose that a working man, the son of working men, who applies himself to study, does it with as little trouble as your upper-class children, who have been unconsciously undergoing education ever since the cradle, is a great mistake. All honor, therefore, to those who do attempt, and to ever so small a degree succeed in, the best and wisest culture of all, self-culture.
Of this honor Elizabeth deserved her share.
She is stupid enough, Hilary confessed, after the lesson was over; "but there is a dogged perseverance about the girl which I actually admire. She blots her fingers, her nose, her apron, but she never gives in; and she sticks to the grand principle of one thing at a time. I think she did two whole pages of a's, and really performed them satisfactorily, before she asked to go on to b's. Yes! I believe she will do."
I hope she will do her work, any how, said Selina, breaking into the conversation rather crossly. "I'm sure I don't see the good of wasting time over teaching Elizabeth to write, when there's so much to be done in the house by one and all of us, from Monday morning till Saturday night."
Ay, that's it, answered Hilary, meditatively. "I don't see how I ever shall get time to teach her, and she is so tired of nights when the work is all done; she'll be dropping asleep with the pen in her hand—I have done it myself before now."
Ay, in those days when, trying so hard to "improve her mind," and make herself a little more equal and companionable to another mind she knew, she had, after her daily house cares and her six hours of school teaching, attempted at nine P. M. to begin close study on her own account. And though with her strong will she succeeded tolerably, still, as she told Johanna, she could well understand how slow was the, "march of intellect" (a phrase which had just then come up) among day laborers and the like; and how difficult it was for these Mechanics Institutions, which were now talked so much of, to put any new ideas into the poor tired heads, rendered sluggish and stupid with hard bodily labor, "Suppose I were to hold my Polynesian Academy on a Sunday?" and she looked inquiringly at her sisters, especially Johanna.
Now the Misses Leaf were old fashioned country folk, who lived before the words Sabbatarian and un-Sabbatarian had ever got into the English language. They simply "remembered the Sabbath day to keep it holy;" they arranged so as to make it for all the household a day of rest: and they went regularly to church once—sometimes Selina and Hilary went twice. For the intervening hours, their usual custom was to take an afternoon walk in the fields; begun chiefly for Ascott's sake, to keep the lad out of mischief, and put into his mind better thoughts than he was likely to get from his favorite Sunday recreation of sitting on the wall throwing stones. After he left for London there was Elizabeth to be thought of; and they decided that the best Sabbath duty for the little servant was to go and see her mother. So they gave her every Sunday afternoon free; only requiring that she should be at home punctually after church time, at eight o'clock. But from thence till bedtime was a blank two hours, which, Hilary had noticed, Elizabeth not infrequently spent in dozing over the fire.
And I wonder, said she, giving the end of her long meditation out loud, "whether going to sleep is not as much Sabbath breaking as learning to write? What do you say, Johanna?"
Johanna, simple, God-fearing woman as she was, to whom faith and love came as natural as the breath she drew, had never perplexed herself with the question. She only smiled acquiescence. But Selina was greatly shocked. Teaching to write on a Sunday! Bringing the week day work into the day of rest! Doing one's own pleasure on the holy day! She thought it exceedingly wrong. Such a thing had never been heard of in their house. Whatever else might be said of them, the Leafs were always a respectable family as to keeping Sunday. Nobody could say that even poor Henry—
But here Selina's torrent of words stopped.
When conversation revived, Hilary, who had been at first half annoyed and half amused, resumed her point seriously.
I might say that writing isn't Elizabeth's week-day work, and that teaching her is not exactly doing my own pleasure; but I won't creep out of the argument by a quibble. The question is, What is keeping the Sabbath day 'holy?' I say—and I stick to my opinion—that it is by making it a day of worship, a rest day—a cheerful and happy day—and by doing as much good in it as we can. And therefore I mean to teach Elizabeth on a Sunday.
She'll never understand it. She'll consider it work.
And if she did, work is a more religious thing than idleness. I am sure I often feel that, of the two, I should be less sinful in digging potatoes in my garden, or sitting mending stockings in my parlor, than in keeping Sunday as some people do—going to church genteelly in my best clothes, eating a huge Sunday dinner, and then nodding over a good book, or taking a regular Sunday nap till bedtime.
Hush, child! said Johanna, reprovingly; for Hilary's cheeks were red, and her voice angry. She was taking the hot, youthful part which in its hatred of forms and shams, sometimes leads—and not seldom led poor Hilary—a little too far on the other side. "I think," Miss Leaf added, "that our business is with ourselves, and not with our neighbors. Let us keep the Sabbath according to our conscience. Only, I would take care never to do any thing which jarred against my neighbor's feelings. I would, like Paul, 'eat no meat while the world standeth' rather than 'make my brother to offend.' "
Hilary looked in her sister's sweet, calm face, and the anger died out of her own.
Shall I give up my academy? she said, softly.
No, my love. It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day, and teaching a poor ignorant girl to write is an absolute good. Make her understand that, and you need not be afraid of any harm ensuing.
You never will make her understand, said Selina, sullenly. "She is only a servant."
Nevertheless I'll try.
Hilary could not tell how far she succeeded in simplifying to the young servant's comprehension this great question, involving so many points—such as the following of the spirit and the letter, the law of duty and the compulsion of love, which, as she spoke, seemed opening out so widely and awfully that she herself involuntarily shrank from it, and wondered that poor finite creatures should, ever presume to squabble about it at all.
But one thing the girl did understand—her young mistress's kindness. She stood watching the delicate little hand that had so patiently guided hers, and now wrote copy after copy for her future benefit. At last she said—
You're taking a deal o' trouble wi' a poor wench, and it's very kind in a lady like you.
Miss Hilary was puzzled what answer to make. True enough it was "kind," and she was "a lady;" and between her and Mrs. Hand's rough daughter was an unmistakable difference and distinction. That Elizabeth perceived it was proved by her growing respectfulness of manner—the more respectful, it seemed, the more she herself improved. Yet Hilary could not bear to make her feel more sharply than was unavoidable the great gulf that lies and ever must lie—not so much between mistress and servant, in their abstract relation—(and yet that is right, for the relation and authority are ordained of God)—but between the educated and the ignorant, the coarse and the refined.
Well, she said, after a pause of consideration, "you always have it in your power to repay my 'kindness,' as you call it. The cleverer you become the more useful you will be to me; and the more good you grow the better I shall like you."
Elizabeth smiled—that wonderfully bright, sudden smile which seemed to cover over all her plainness of feature.
Once upon a time, Hilary resumed by-and-by, "when England was very different from what it is now, English ladies used to have what they call 'bower-women,' whom they took as girls, and brought up in their service; teaching them all sorts of things—cooking, sewing, spinning, singing, and, probably, except that the ladies of that time were very ill-educated themselves, to read and write also. They used to spend part of every day among their bower-women; and as people can only enjoy the company of those with whom they have some sympathies in common, we must conclude that—"
Here Hilary stopped, recollecting she must be discoursing miles above the head of her little bower-maiden, and that, perhaps, after all, her theory would be best kept to herself, and only demonstrated practically.
So, Elizabeth, if I spend a little of my time in teaching you, you must grow up my faithful and attached bower-maiden?
I'll grow up any thing, Miss Hilary, if it's to please you, was the answer, given with a smothered intensity that quite startled the young mistress.
I do believe the girl is getting fond of me, said she, half touched, half laughing to Johanna. "If so, we shall get on. It is just as with our school children, you know. We have to seize hold of their hearts first, and their heads afterward. Now, Elizabeth's head may be uncommonly tough, but I do believe she likes me."
Johanna smiled; but she would not for the world have said—never encouraging the smallest vanity in her child—that she did not think this circumstance so very remarkable.
A household exclusively composed of women has its advantages and its disadvantages. It is apt to become somewhat narrow in judgment, morbid in feeling, absorbed in petty interests, and bounding its vision of outside things to the small horizon which it sees from its own fireside. But, on the other hand, by this fireside often abides a settled peace and purity, a long-suffering, generous forbearance, and an enduring affectionateness which the other sex can hardly comprehend or credit. Men will not believe, what is nevertheless the truth, that we can "stand alone" better than they can; that we can do without them far easier, and with less deterioration of character, than they can do without us; that we are better able to provide for ourselves interests, duties, and pleasures; in short, strange as it may appear, that we have more real self-sustaining independence than they.
Of course, that the true life, the highest life, is that of man and woman united, no one will be insane enough to deny; I am speaking of the substitute for it, which poor humanity has so often to fall back upon and make the best of—a better best very frequently than what appears best in the eyes of the world. In truth, many a troubled, care ridden, wealthy family, torn with dissensions, or frozen up in splendid formalities, might have envied that quiet, humble, maiden household of the Misses Leaf, where their only trial was poverty, and their only grief the one which they knew the worst of, and had met patiently for many a year—poor Selina's "way."
I doubt not it was good for Elizabeth Hand that her first place—the home in which she received her first impressions—was this feminine establishment, simple and regular, in which was neither waste nor disorder allowed. Good, too, that while her mistresses' narrow means restricted her in many things enjoyed by servants in richer families, their interests, equally narrow, caused to be concentrated upon herself a double measure of thought and care. She became absolutely "one of the family," sharing in all its concerns. From its small and few carnal luxuries—such as the cake, fruit, or pot of preserve, votive offerings from pupils' parents—up to the newspaper and the borrowed book, nothing was either literally or metaphorically "locked" up from Elizabeth.
This grand question of locking up had been discussed in full conclave the day after her month of preparation ended, the sisters taking opposite sides, as might have been expected. Selina was for the immediate introduction of a locksmith and a key basket.
While she was only on trial, it did not so much signify; besides, if it did, we had only buttons on the press doors; but now she is our regular servant we ought to institute a regular system of authority. How can she respect a family that never locks up any thing?
How can we respect a servant from whom we lock up every thing!
Respect a servant! What do you mean, Hilary?
I mean that if I did not respect a servant I would be very sorry to keep her one day in any house of mine.
Wait till you've a house of your own to keep, Miss, said Selina, crossly. "I never heard such nonsense. Is that the way you mean to behave to Elizabeth? leave every thing open to her—clothes, books, money; trust her with all your secrets; treat her as your most particular friend?"
A girl of fifteen would be rather an inconvenient particular friend! And I have happily few secrets to trust her with. But if I could not trust her with our coffee, tea, sugar, and so on, and bring her up from the very first in the habit of being trusted, I would recommend her being sent away to-morrow.
Very fine talking; and what do you say, Johanna?—if that is not an unnecessary question after Hilary has given her opinion.
I think, replied the elder sister, taking no notice of the long familiar innuendo, "that in this case Hilary is right. How people ought to manage in great houses I can not say; but in our small house it will be easier and better not to alter our simple ways. Trusting the girl—if she is a good girl—will only make her more trustworthy; if she is bad, we shall the sooner find it out and let her go."
But Elizabeth did not go. A year passed; two years; her wages were raised, and with them her domestic position. From a "girl" she was converted into a regular servant; her pinafores gave place to grown-up gowns and aprons; and her rough head, at Miss Selina's incessant instance, was concealed by a cap—caps being considered by that lady as the proper and indispensable badge of servant-hood.
To say that during her transition state, or even now that she had reached the cap era, Elizabeth gave her mistresses no trouble, would be stating a self-evident improbability. What young lass under seventeen, of any rank, does not cause plenty of trouble to her natural guardians? Who can "put an old head on young shoulders?" or expect from girls at the most unformed and unsatisfactory period of life that complete moral and mental discipline, that unfailing self-control, that perfection of temper, and every thing else which, of course, all mistresses always have?
I am obliged to confess that Elizabeth had a few—nay, not a few—most obstinate faults; that no child tries its parents, no pupil its school teachers, more than she tried her three mistresses at intervals. She was often thoughtless and careless, brusque in her manner, slovenly, in her dress; sometimes she was down-right "bad," filled full—as some of her elders and betters are, at all ages—with absolute naughtiness; when she would sulk for hours and days together, and make the whole family uncomfortable, as many a servant can make many a family small as that of the Misses Leaf.
But still they never lost what Hilary termed their "respect" for Elizabeth; they never found her out in a lie, a meanness, or an act of deception or dishonesty. They took her faults as we must take the surface faults of all connected with us—patiently rather than resentfully, seeking to correct rather than to punish. And though there were difficult elements in the household, such as their being three mistresses to be obeyed the youngest mistress a thought too lax and the second one undoubtedly too severe, still no girl could live with these high-principled, much-enduring women without being impressed with two things which the serving class are slowest to understand—the dignity of poverty, and the beauty of that which is the only effectual law to bring out good and restrain evil—the law of loving-kindness.
Two fracas, however, must be chronicled, for after both, the girl's dismissal hung on a thread. The first was when Mrs. Cliffe, mother of Tommy Cliffe, who was nearly killed in the field, being discovered to be an ill sort of woman, and in the habit of borrowing from Elizabeth stray shillings, which were never returned, was forbidden the house, Elizabeth resented it so fiercely that she sulked for a whole week afterward.
The other and still more dangerous crisis in Elizabeth's destiny was when a volume of Scott's novels, having been missing for some days, was found hidden in her bed, and she lying awake reading it was thus ignominiously discovered at eleven P. M. by Miss Selina, in consequence of the gleam of candle light from under her door.
It was true neither of these errors were actual moral crimes. Hilary even roused a volley of sharp words upon herself by declaring they had their source in actual virtues; that a girl who would stint herself of shillings, and hold resolutely to any liking she had, even if unworthy, had a creditable amount of both self-denial and fidelity in her disposition. Also that a tired out maid-of all-work, who was kept awake of nights by her ardent appreciation of the "Heart of Mid-Lothian," must possess a degree of both intellectual and moral capacity which deserved cultivation rather than blame. And though this surreptitious pursuit of literature under difficulties could not of course be allowed, I grieve to say that Miss Hilary took every opportunity of not only giving the young servant books to read, but of talking to her about them. And also that a large proportion of these books were—to Miss Selina's unmitigated horror—absolutely fiction! stories, novels, even poetry—books that Hilary liked herself—books that had built up in her own passionate dream of life; wherein all the women were faithful, tender, heroic, self-devoted; and all the men were—something not unlike Robert Lyon.
Did she do harm? Was it; as Selina and even Johanna said sometimes, "dangerous" thus to put before Elizabeth a standard of ideal perfection, a Quixotic notion of life—life in its full purpose power, and beauty—such as otherwise never could have crossed the mind of this working girl, born of parents who, though respectable and worthy, were in no respect higher than the common working class? I will not argue the point: I am not making Elizabeth a text for a sermon; I am simply writing her story.
One thing was certain, that by degrees the young woman's faults lessened; even that worst of them, the unmistakable bad temper, not aggressive, but obstinately sullen, which made her and Miss Selina sometimes not on speaking terms for a week together. But she simply "sulked;" she never grumbled or was pert; and she did her work just as usual—with a kind of dogged struggle not only against the superior powers but against something within herself much harder to fight with.
She makes me feel more sorry for her than angry with her, Miss Leaf would sometimes say, coming out of the kitchen with that grieved face, which was the chief sign of displeasure her sweet nature ever betrayed. "She will have up-hill work through life, like us all, and more than many of us, poor child!"
But gradually Elizabeth, too, copying involuntarily the rest of the family, learned to put up with Miss Selina; who, on her part, kept a sort of armed neutrality. And once, when a short but sharp illness of Johanna's shook the house from its even tenor, startled every body out of their little tempers, and made them cling together and work together in a sort of fear-stricken union against one common grief, Selina allowed that they might have gone farther and fared worse on the day they engaged Elizabeth.
After this illness of his Aunt. Ascott came home. It was his first visit since he had gone to London: Mr. Ascott, he said, objected to holidays. But now, from some unexplained feeling, Johanna in her convalescence longed after the boy—no longer a boy, however, but nearly twenty, and looking fully his age. How proud his aunts were to march him up the town, and hear every body's congratulations on his good looks and polished manners! It was the old story—old as the hills! I do not pretend to invent any thing new. Women, especially maiden aunts, will repeat the tale till the end of time, so long as they have youths belonging to them on whom to expend their natural tendency to clinging fondness, and ignorant, innocent hero worship. The Misses Leaf—ay, even Selina, whose irritation against the provoking boy was quite mollified by the elegant young man—were no wiser than their neighbors.
But there was one person in the household who still obstinately refused to bow the knee to Ascott. Whether it was, as psychologists might explain, some instinctive polarity in their natures; or whether, having once conceived a prejudice, Elizabeth held on to it like grim death; still there was the same unspoken antagonism between them. The young fellow took little notice of her except to observe "that she hadn't grown any handsomer;' but Elizabeth watched him with a keen severity that overlooked nothing, and resisted, with a passive pertinacity that was quite irresistible, all his encroachments on the family habits, all the little self-pleasing ways which Ascott had been so used to of old, that neither he nor his aunts apparently recognized them as selfish.
I canna bear to see him ("can not," suggested her mistress, who not seeing any reason why Elizabeth should not speak the Queen's English as well as herself, had instituted h's, and stopped a few more glaring provincialisms.) "I cannot bear to see him, Miss Hilary, lolling on the arm-chair, when Missis looks so tired and pale, and sitting up o' nights, burning double fires, and going up stairs at last with his boots on, and waking every body. I dunnot like it, I say."
You forget; Mr. Ascott has his studies. He must work for the next examination.
Why doesn't he get up of a morning then instead of lying in bed, and keeping the break-fast about till ten? Why can't he do his learning by daylight? Daylight's cheaper than mould candles, and a deal better for the eyes.
Hilary was puzzled. A truth was a truth, and to try and make it out otherwise, even for the dignity of the family, was something from which her honest nature revolted. Besides, the sharp-sighted servant would be the first to detect the inconsistency of one law of right for the parlor and another for the kitchen. So she took-refuge in silence and in the apple-pudding she was making.
But she resolved to seize the first opportunity of giving Ascott, by way of novelty, the severest lecture that tongue of aunt could bestow. And this chance occurred the same afternoon, when the other two aunts had gone out to tea, to a house which Ascott voted "slow," and declined going to. She remained to make tea for him, and in the mean time took him for a constitutional up and down the public walks hard by.
Ascott listened at first very good humoredly; once or twice calling her "a dear little prig," in his patronizing way—he was rather fond of patronizing his Aunt Hilary. But when she seriously spoke of his duties, as no longer a boy but a man, who ought now to assume the true, manly right of thinking for and taking care of other people, especially his aunts, Ascott began to flush up angrily.
Now stop that, Aunt Hilary: I'll not have you coming Mr. Lyon over me.
What do you mean?
For of late Ascott had said very little about Mr. Lyon—not half so much as Mr. Lyon, in his steadily persistent letters to Miss Leaf, told her about her nephew Ascott.
I mean that I'll not be preached to like that by a woman. It's bad enough to stand it from a man; but then Lyon's a real sharp fellow, who knows the world, which women don't, Aunt Hilary. Besides, he coaches me in my Latin and Greek; so I let him pitch into me now and then. But I won't let you; so just stop it; will you.
Something new in Ascott's tone—speaking more of the resentful fierceness of the man than the pettishness of the boy—frightened his little aunt, and silenced her. By-and-by she took comfort from the reflection that, as the lad had in his anger betrayed, he had beside him in London a monitor whose preaching would be so much wiser and more effectual than her own that she determined to say no more.
The rare hearing of Mr. Lyon's name—for, time and absence having produced their natural effect, except when his letter came, he was seldom talked about now—set Hilary thinking.
Do you go to see him often? she said, at last.
Who? Mr. Lyon? And Ascott, delighted' to escape into a fresh subject, became quite cheerful and communicative. "Oh, bless you! He wouldn't care for my going to him. He lives in a two-pair back, only one room, 'which serves him for kitchen and parlor and all:' dines at a cook shop for nine-pence a day, and makes his own porridge night and morning. He told me so once, for he isn't a bit ashamed of it. But he must be precious hard up sometimes. However, as he contrives to keep a decent coat on his back, and pay his classes at the University, and carry off the very first honors going there, nobody asks any questions. That's the good of London life, Aunt Hilary," said the young fellow, drawing himself up with great wisdom. "Only look like a gentleman, behave yourself as such, and nobody asks any questions."
Yes, acquiesced vaguely Aunt Hilary. And then her mind wandered yearningly to the solitary student in the two-pair back. He might labor and suffer; he might be ill; he might die, equally solitary, and "nobody would ask any questions." This phase of London life let a new light in upon her mind. The letters to Johanna had been chiefly filled with whatever he thought would interest them. With his characteristic Scotch reserve, he had said very little about himself, except in the last, wherein he mentioned that he had "done pretty well" at the college this term, and meant to "go in for more work" immediately.
What this work entailed—how much more toil, how much more poverty—Hilary knew not. Perhaps even his successes, which Ascott went on to talk of, had less place in her thoughts than the picture of the face she knew, sharpened with illness, wasted with hard work and solitary care.
And I can not help him—I can not help him! was her bitter cry; until, passing from the dream-land of fancy, the womanly nature asserted itself. She thought if it had been, or if it were to be, her blessed lot to be chosen by Robert Lyon, how she would take care of him! what an utter slave she would be to him! How no penury would frighten her, no household care oppress or humble her, if done for him and for his comfort. To her brave heart no battle of life seemed too long or too sore, if only it were fought for him and at his side. And as the early falling leaves were blown in gusts across her path, and the misty autumn night began to close in, nature herself seemed to plead in unison with the craving of her heart, which sighed that youth and summer last not always; and that, "be it ever so humble," as the song says, there is no place so bright and beautiful as the fireside of a loveful home.
While the aunt and nephew were strolling thus, thinking of very different things, their own fire newly lit—Ascott liked a fire—was blazing away in solitary glory, for the benefit of all passers-by. At length one—a gentleman—stopped at the gate, and looked in, then took a turn to the end of the terrace, and stood gazing in once more. The solitude of the room apparently troubled him; twice his hand was on the latch before he opened it and knocked at the front door.
Elizabeth appeared, which seemed to surprise him.
Is Miss Leaf at home?
No, Sir.
Is she well? Are all the family well? and he stepped right into the passage, with the freedom of a familiar foot.
("I should ha' slammed the door in his face," was Elizabeth's comment afterward; "only, you see, Miss Hilary, he looked a real gentleman.")
The stranger and she mutually examined one another.
I think I have heard of you, said he, smiling. "You are Miss Leaf's servant—Elizabeth Hand."
Yes, Sir, still grimly, and with a determined grasp of the door handle.
If your mistresses are likely to be home soon, will you allow me to wait for them? I am an old friend of theirs. My name is Lyon.
Now Elizabeth was far too much one of the family not to have heard of such a person. And his knowing her was a tolerable proof of his identity; besides, unconsciously, the girl was influenced by that look and mien of true gentlemanhood, as courteous to the poor maid-of-all-work as he would have been to any duchess born; and by that bright, sudden smile, which came like sunshine over his face, and like sunshine warmed and opened the heart of every one that met it.
It opened that of Elizabeth. She relaxed her Cerberus keeping of the door, and even went so far as to inform him that Miss Leaf and Miss Selina were out to tea, but Miss Hilary and Mr. Ascott would be at home shortly. He was welcome to wait in the parlor if he liked.
Afterward, seized with mingled curiosity and misgiving, she made various errands to go in and look at him; but she had not courage to address him, and he never spoke to her. He sat by the window, gazing out into the gloaming. Except just turning his head at her entrance; she did not think he had once stirred the whole time.
Elizabeth went back to her kitchen, and stood listening for her young mistress's familiar knock. Mr. Lyon seemed to have listened too, for before she could reach it the door was already opened.
There was a warm greeting—to her great relief: for she knew she had broken the domestic laws in admitting a stranger unawares—and then Elizabeth heard them all three go into the parlor, where they remained talking, without ringing for either tea or candles, a full quarter of an hour.
Miss Hilary at last came out, but much to Elizabeth's surprise, went straight up into her bedroom without entering the kitchen at all.
It was some minutes more before she descended; and then, after giving her orders for tea, and seeing that all was arranged with special neatness, she stood absently by the kitchen fire. Elizabeth noticed how wonderfully bright her eyes were, and what a soft, happy smile she had. She noticed it, because she had never seen Miss Hilary look exactly like that before; and she never did again.
Don't you be troubling yourself with waiting about here, she said; and her mistress seemed to start at being spoken to. "I'll get the tea all right, Miss Hilary. Please go back into the parlor."
Hilary went in.
Elizabeth got tea ready with unwonted diligence and considerable excitement. Any visitor was a rare occurrence in this very quiet family; but a gentleman visitor—a young gentleman too—was a remarkable fact, arousing both interest and curiosity. For in the latter quality this girl of seventeen could scarcely be expected to be deficient; and as to the former, she had so completely identified herself with the family she served, that all their concerns were her concerns also. Her acute comments on their few guests, and on their little scholars, sometimes amused Hilary as much as her criticisms on the books she read. But as neither were ever put forward intrusively or impertinently, she let them pass, and only laughed over them with Johanna in private.
In speaking of these said books, and the questions they led to, it was not likely but that mistress and maid—one aged twenty-two, and the other seventeen—should occasionally light upon a subject rather interesting to women of their ages, though not commonly discussed between mistresses and maids. Nevertheless, when it did come in the way, Miss Hilary never shirked it, but talked it out, frankly and freely, as she would to any other person.
The girl has feelings and notions on the matter, like all other girls, I suppose, reasoned she to herself; "so it is important that her notions should be kept clear, and her feelings right. It may do her some good, and save her from much harm."
And so it befell that Elizabeth Hand, whose blunt ways, unlovely person, and temperament so oddly nervous and reserved, kept her from attracting any "sweetheart" of her own class, had unconsciously imbibed her mistress's theory of love. Love, pure and simple, the very deepest and highest, sweetest and most solemn thing in life: to be believed in devoutly until it came, and when it did come, to be held to, firmly, faithfully, with a single-minded, settled constancy, till death. A creed, quite impossible, many will say, in this ordinary world, and most dangerous to be put into the head of a poor servant. Yet a woman is but a woman, be she maid-servant or queen; and if, from queens to maid-servants, girls were taught thus to think of love, there might be a few more "broken" hearts perhaps, but there would certainly be fewer wicked hearts; far fewer corrupted lives of men, and degraded lives of women; far fewer unholy marriages, and desolated, dreary, homeless homes.
Elizabeth, having cleared away her tea-things, stood listening to the voices in the parlor, and pondering. She had sometimes wondered in her own mind that no knight ever came to carry off her charming princess—her admired and beloved Miss Hilary. Miss Hilary, on her part, seemed totally indifferent to the youths at Stowbury; who indeed were, Elizabeth allowed, quite unworthy her regard. The only suitable lover for her young mistress must be somebody exceedingly grand and noble—a compound of the best heroes of Shakespeare, Scott, Fenimore Cooper, Maria Edgeworth, and Harriet Martineau. When this strange gentleman appeared—in ordinary coat and hat, or rather Glengary bonnet, neither particularly handsome nor particularly tall, yet whose coming had evidently given Miss Hilary so much pleasure, and who, once or twice while waiting at tea, Elizabeth fancied she had seen looking at Miss Hilary as nobody ever looked before—when Mr. Robert Lyon appeared on the horizon, the faithful "bower maiden" was a good deal disappointed.
She had expected something better; at all events, something different. Her first brilliant castle in the air fell, poor lass! but she quickly built it up again, and, with the vivid imagination of her age, she mapped out the whole future, ending by a vision of Miss Hilary, all in white, sweeping down the Terrace in a carriage and pair—to fortune and happiness; leaving herself, though with a sore want at her heart, and a great longing to follow, to devote the remainder of her natural life to Miss Johanna.
"
Her couldna do without somebody to see to her—and Miss Selina do worrit her so. muttered Elizabeth, in the excitement of this
"Almaschar vision, relapsing into her old provincialisms. "So, even if
Miss Hilary axes me to come, I'll stop, I reckon. Ay, I'll stop wi'
Miss Leaf."
This valorous determination taken, the poor maid servant's dream was broken by the opening of the parlor door, and an outcry of Ascott's for his coat and gloves, he having to fetch his aunts home at nine o'clock, Mr. Lyon accompanying him. And as they all stood together at the front door, Elizabeth overheard Mr. Lyon say something about what a beautiful night it was.
It would do you no harm, Miss Hilary; will you walk with us?
If you like.
Hilary went up stairs for her bonnet and shawl; but when, a minute or two after, Elizabeth followed her with a candle, she found her standing in the centre of the room, all in the dark, her face white and her hands trembling.
Thank you, thank you! she said mechanically, as Elizabeth folded and fastened her shawl for her—and descended immediately. Elizabeth watched her take, not Ascott's arm, but Mr. Lyon's, and walk down the terrace in the starlight.
Some'at's wrong. I'd like to know who's been a-vexin' of her, thought fiercely the young servant.
No, nobody had been "a-vexing" her mistress. There was nobody to blame; only there had happened to Hilary one of those things which strike like a sword through a young and happy heart, taking all the life and youth out of it.
Robert Lyon had, half an hour ago, told her—and she had had to hear it as a piece of simple news, to which she had only to say, "Indeed!"—that to day and to-morrow were his two last days at Stowbury—almost his last in England. Within a week he was to sail for India.
There had befallen him what most people would have considered a piece of rare good fortune. At the London University, a fellow student, whom he had been gratuitously "coaching" in Hindostanee, fell ill, and was "thrown upon his hands." as he briefly defined services which must have been great, since they had resulted in this end. The young man's father—a Liverpool and Bombay merchant—made him an offer to go out there, to their house, at a rising salary of 300 rupees a month for three years; after the third year to become a junior partner; remaining at Bombay in that capacity for two years more.
This he told to Hilary and Ascott in almost as few words as I have here put it—for brevity seemed a refuge to him. It was also to one of them. But Ascott asked so many questions that his aunt needed to ask none. She only listened, and tried to take all in, and understand it, that is, in a consecutive, intelligent, business shape, without feeling it. She dared not let herself feel it, not for a second, till they were out, arm-in-arm, under the quiet winter stars. Then she heard his voice asking her, "So you think I was right?"
Right? she echoed mechanically.
I mean in accepting that sudden chance, and changing my whole plan of life. I did not do it—believe me—without a motive.
What motive? she would once unhesitatingly have asked; now she could not.
Robert Lyon continued speaking, distinctly and yet in an undertone, that though Ascott was walking a few yards off, Hilary felt was meant for her alone to hear.
The change is, you perceive, from the life of a student to that of a man of business. I do not deny that I preferred the first. Once upon a time to be a fellow in a college, or a professor, or the like, was my utmost aim and I would have half killed myself to attain it. Now, I think differently.
He paused, but did not seem to require an answer, and it did not come.
I want, not to be rich but to get a decent competence, and to get it as soon as I can. I want not to ruin my health with incessant study. I have already injured it a good deal.
Have you been ill? You never said so.
Oh no, it was hardly worth while. And I knew an active life would soon set me right again. No fear! there's life in the old dog yet. He does not wish to die. But, Mr. Lyon pursued, "I have had a 'sair fecht' the last year or two. I would not go through it again, nor see any one dear to me go through it. It is over, but it has left its scars. Strange! I have been poor all my life, yet I never till now felt an actual terror of poverty."
Hilary shrank within herself; less even at the words than at something in their tone—something hard, nay fierce; something at once despairing and aggressive.
It is strange, she said; "such a terror is not like you. I feel none; I can not even understand it."
No, I knew you could not, he muttered; and was silent.
So was Hilary. A vague trouble came over her. Could it be that he, Robert Lyon, had been seized with the auri sacra fames, which he had so often inveighed against and despised? that his long battle with poverty had caused in him such an overweening desire for riches that, to obtain them, he would sacrifice every thing else, exile himself to a far country for years, selling his very life and soul for gold?
Such a thought of him was so terrible—that is, would have been were it tenable—that Hilary for an instant felt herself shiver all over. The next she spoke out—in justice to him she forced herself to speak out—all her honest soul.
I do believe that this going abroad to make a fortune, which young men so delight in, is often a most fatal mistake. They give up far more than they gain—country, home, health. I think a man has no right to sell his life any more than his soul for so many thousands a year.
Robert Lyon smiled—"No, and I am not selling mine. With my temperate habits I have as good a chance of health at Bombay as in London—perhaps better. And the years I must be absent I would have been absent almost as much from you—I mean they would have been spent in work as engrossing and as hard. They will soon pass, and then I shall come home rich—rich. Do you think I am growing mercenary?"
No.
Tell me what you do think about me?
I—can not quite understand.
And I cannot make you understand. Perhaps I will, some day when I come back again. Till then, you must trust me, Hilary.
It happens occasionally, in moments of all but tolerable pain, that some small thing, a word, a look, a touch of a hand, lets in such a gleam of peace that nothing ever extinguishes the light of it: it burns on for years and years, sometimes clear, sometimes obscured, but as ineffaceable from life and memory as a star from its place in the heavens. Such, both then, and through the lonely years to come, were those five words, "You must trust me. Hilary."
She did; and in the perfection of that trust her own separate identity, with all its consciousness of pain, seemed annihilated; she did not think of herself at all, only of him, and with him, and for him. So, for the time being, she lost all sense of personal suffering, and their walk that night was as cheerful and happy as if they were to walk together for weeks and months and years, in undivided confidence and content, instead of its being the last—the very last.
Some one has said that all lovers have, soon or late, to learn to be only friends: happiest and safest are those in whom the friendship is the foundation—always firm and ready to fall back upon, long after the fascination of passion dies. It may take a little from the romance of these two if I own that Robert Lyon talked to Hilary not a word about love, and a good deal about pure business, telling her all his affairs and arrangements, and giving her as clear an idea of his future life as it was possible to do within the limits of one brief half hour.
Then casting a glance round, and seeing that Ascott was quite out of ear-shot, he said, with that tender fall of the voice that felt, as some poet hath it,
Like a still embrace,
Now tell me as much as you can about yourself.
At first there seemed nothing to tell; but gradually he drew from Hilary a good deal. Johanna's feeble health, which caused her continuing to teach to be very unadvisable; and the gradual diminishing of the school—from what cause they could not account—which made it very doubtful whether some change would not soon or late be necessary.
What this change should be she and Mr. Lyon discussed a little—as far as in the utterly indefinite position of affairs was possible. Also, from some other questions of his, she spoke to him about another dread which had lurked in her mind, and yet to which she could give no tangible shape, about Ascott. He could not remove it, he did not attempt; but he soothed it a little, advising with her as to the best way of managing the willful lad. His strong, clear sense, just judgment, and, above all, a certain unspoken sense of union, as if all that concerned her and hers he took naturally upon himself as his own, gave Hilary such comfort that, even on this night, with a full consciousness of all that was to follow, she was happy—nay, she had not been so happy for years. Perhaps (let the truth be told), the glorious truth of true love, that its recognition, spoken or silent, constitutes the only perfect joy of life that of two made perhaps she had never been so really happy since she was born.
The last thing he did was to make her give him an assurance that in any and all difficulty she would apply to him.
To me, and to no one else, remember. No one but myself must help you. And I will, so, long as I am alive. Do you believe this?
She looked up at him by the lamp light, and said, "I do."
And you promise?
Yes.
Then they loosed arms, and Hilary knew that they should never walk together again till—when and how?
Returning, of course, he walked with Miss Leaf; and throughout the next day, a terribly wet Sunday, spent by them entirely in the little parlor, they had not a minute of special or private talk together. He did not seem to wish it; indeed, almost avoided it.
Thus slipped away the strange, still day—a Sunday never to be forgotten. At night, after prayers were, over, Mr. Lyon rose suddenly, saying he must leave them now; he was obliged to start from Stowbury at daybreak.
Shall we not see you again? asked Johanna.
No. This will be my last Sunday in England. Good-by!
He turned excessively pale, shook hands silently with them all—Hilary last—and almost before they recognized the fact, he was gone.
With him departed, not all Hilary's peace or faith or courage of heart, for to all who love truly, while the best beloved lives, and lives worthily, no parting is hopeless and no grief overwhelming; but all the brightness of her youth, all the sense of joy that young people have in loving, and in being beloved again, in fond meetings and fonder partings, in endless walks and talks, in sweet kisses and clinging arms. Such happiness was not for her: when she saw it the lot of others, she said to herself sometimes with a natural sharp sting of pain, but oftener with a solemn acquiescence, "It is the will of God; it is the will of God."
Johanna, too, who would have given her life almost to bring some color back to the white face of her darling, of whom she asked no questions, and who never complained nor confessed any thing, many and many a night when Hilary either lay awake by her side, or tossed and moaned in her sleep, till the elder sister took her in her arms like a baby—Johanna, too, said to herself, "This is the will of God."
I have told thus much in detail the brief sad story of Hilary's youth, to show how impossible it was that Elizabeth Hand could live in the house with these two women without being strongly influenced by them, as every person—especially every woman—influences for good or for evil every other person connected with her, or dependent upon her. Elizabeth was a girl of close observation and keen perception. Besides, to most people, whether or not their sympathy be universal, so far as the individual is concerned, any deep affection generally lends eyes, tact, and delicacy.
Thus when on the Monday morning at breakfast Miss Selina observed, "What a fine day Mr. Lyon was having for his journey; what a lucky fellow he was; how he would be sure to make a fortune, and if so, she wondered whether they should ever see or hear any thing of him again"—Elizabeth, from the glimpse she caught of Miss Hilary's face, and from the quiet way in which Miss Leaf merely answered, "Time will show;" and began talking to Selina about some other subject—Elizabeth resolved never in any way to make the smallest allusion to Mr. Robert Lyon. Something had happened, she did not know what; and it was not her business to find out; the family affairs, so far as she was trusted with them, were warmly her own, but into the family secrets she had no right to pry.
Yet, long after Miss Selina had ceased to "wonder" about him, or even to name him—his presence or absence did not touch her personally, and she was always the centre of her own small world of interest—the little maidservant kept in her mind, and pondered over at odd times every possible solution of the mystery of this gentleman's sudden visit; of the long wet Sunday when he sat all day talking with her mistresses in the parlor; of the evening prayer, when Miss Leaf had twice to stop, her voice faltered so; and of the night when, long after all the others had gone to bed, Elizabeth, coming suddenly into the parlor, had found Miss Hilary sitting alone over the embers of the fire, with the saddest, saddest look! so that the girl had softly shut the door again without ever speaking to "Missis."
Elizabeth did more; which, strange as it may appear, a servant who is supposed to know nothing of any thing that has happened can often do better than a member of the family who knows every thing, and this knowledge is sometimes the most irritating consciousness a sufferer has. She followed her young mistress with a steady watchfulness, so quiet and silent that Hilary never found it out; saved her every little household care, gave her every little household treat. Not much to do, and less to be chronicled; but the way in which she did it was all.
During the long dull winter days, to come in and find the parlor fire always bright, the hearth clean swept, and the room tidy; never to enter the kitchen without the servant's face clearing up into a smile; when her restless irritability made her forget things and grow quite vexed in the search after them, to see that somehow her shoes were never misplaced, and her gloves always came to hand in some mysterious manner—these trifles; in her first heavy days of darkness, soothed Hilary more than words could tell.
And the sight of Miss Hilary going about the house and school room as usual, with that poor white face of hers; nay, gradually bringing to the family fireside, as usual, her harmless little joke, and her merry laugh at it and herself—who shall say what lessons may not have been taught by this to the humble servant, dropping deep sown into her heart, to germinate and fructify, as her future life's needs required?
It might have been so—God knows! He alone can know, who, through what (to us) seem the infinite littleness of our mortal existence, is educating us into the infinite greatness of His and our immortality.
Autumn soon lapsed into winter: Christmas came and went, bringing, not Ascott, as they hoped and he had promised, but a very serious evil in the shape of sundry bills of his, which, he confessed in a most piteous letter to his Aunt Hilary, were absolutely unpayable out of his godfather's allowance. They were not large—or would not have seemed so to rich people—and they were for no more blamable luxuries than horse hire, and a dinner or two to friends out in the country; but they looked serious to a household which rarely was more than five pounds beforehand with the world.
He had begged Aunt Hilary to keep his secret, but that was evidently impossible; so on the day the school accounts were being written out and sent in, and their amount anxiously reckoned, she laid before her sisters the lad's letter, full of penitence and promises: "I will be careful—I will indeed—if you will help me out this once, dear Aunt Hilary; and don't think too ill of me. I have done nothing wicked. And you don't know London; you don't know, with a lot of young fellows about one, how very hard it is to say no."
At that unlucky postscript the Misses Leaf sorrowfully exchanged looks. Little the lad thought about it; but these few words were the very sharpest pang Ascott had ever given to his aunts.
What's bred in the bone will come out in the flesh. "Like father like son." "The sins of the parents shall be visited on the children." So runs many a proverb: so confirms the unerring decree of a just God, who would not be a just God did He allow Himself to break His own righteous laws for the government of the universe; did He falsify the requirements of His own holy and pure being, by permitting any other wages for sin than death. And though, through His mercy, sin forsaken escapes sin's penalty, and every human being has it in his own power to modify, if not to conquer, any hereditary moral as well as physical disease, thereby avoiding the doom and alleviating the curse, still the original law remains in force, and ought to remain, an example and a warning. As true as that every individual sin that a man commits breeds multitudes more, is it that every individual sin may transmit his own peculiar type of weakness or wickedness to a whole race, disappearing in one generation, re-appearing in another, exactly the same as physical peculiarities do, requiring the utmost caution of education to counteract the terrible tendencies of nature—the "something in the blood" which is so difficult to eradicate: which may even make the third and fourth generation execrate the memory of him or her who was its origin.
The long life-curse of Henry Leaf the elder, and Henry Leaf the younger, had been—the women of the family well knew—that they were men who "couldn't say No." So keenly were the three sisters alive to this fault—it could hardly be called a crime, and yet in its consequences it was so—so sickening the terror of it which their own wretched experience had implanted in their minds, that during Ascott's childhood and youth his very fractiousness and roughness, his little selfishness, and his persistence in his own will against theirs, had been hailed by his aunts as a good omen that he would grow up "so unlike his poor father."
If the two unhappy Henry Leafs—father and son—could have come out of their graves that night and beheld these three women, daughters and sisters, sitting with Ascott's letter on the table, planning how the household's small expenses could be contracted, its still smaller luxuries relinquished, in order that the boy might honorably pay for pleasures he might so easily have done without! If they could have seen the weight of apprehension which then sank like a stone on these long-tried hearts, never to be afterward removed: lightened sometimes, but always—however Ascott might promise and amend—always there! On such a discovery, surely, these two "poor ghosts" would have fled away moaning, wishing they had died childless, or that during their mortal lives any amount of self restraint and self compulsion had purged from their natures the accursed thing; the sin which had worked itself out in sorrow upon every one belonging to them, years after their own heads were laid in the quiet dust.
We must do it, was the conclusion the Misses Leaf unanimously came to; even Selina; who with all her faults, had a fair share of good feeling and of that close clinging to kindred which is found in fallen households, or households whom the sacred bond of common poverty, has drawn together in a way that large, well-to-do home circles can never quite understand.
We must not let the boy remain in debt; it would be such a disgrace to the family.
It is not the remaining in debt, but the incurring of it, which is the real disgrace to Ascott and the family.
Hush Hilary, said Johanna, pointing to the opening door; but it was too late.
Elizabeth, coming suddenly in—or else the ladies had been so engrossed with their conversation that they had not noticed her—had evidently heard every word of the last sentence. Her conscious face showed it; more especially the bright scarlet which covered both her cheeks when Miss Leaf said "Hush!" She stood, apparently irresolute as to whether she should run away again; and then her native honesty got the upper hand, and she advanced into the room.
If you please, missis, I didn't mean to—but I've heard—
What have you heard; that is, how much?
Just what Miss Hilary said. Don't be afeared. I shan't tell. I never chatter about the family. Mother told me not.
You owe a great deal, Elizabeth, to your good mother. Now go away.
And another time. said Miss Selina, "knock at the door."
This was Elizabeth's first initiation into what many a servant has to share—the secret burden of the family. After that day, though they did not actually confide in her, her mistresses used no effort to conceal that they had cares; that the domestic economies must, this winter, be especially studied; there must be no extra fires, no candles left burning to waste; and once a week or so, a few butterless breakfasts or meatless dinners must be partaken of cheerfully, in both parlor and kitchen. The Misses Leaf never stinted their servant in any thing in which they did not stint themselves.
Strange to say, in spite of Miss Selina's prophecies, the girl's respectful conduct did not abate: on the contrary, it seemed to increase. The nearer she was lifted to her mistress's level, the more her mind grew, so that she could better understand her mistresses cares, and the deeper her consciousness of the only thing which gives one human being any real authority over another—personal character.
Therefore, though the family means were narrowed, and the family luxuries few, Elizabeth cheerfully put up with all; she even felt a sort of pride in wasting nothing and in making the best of every thing, as the others did. Perhaps, it may be said she was an exceptional servant; and yet I would not do her class the wrong to believe so-I would rather believe that there are many such among it; many good, honest, faithful girls, who only need good mistresses unto whom to be honest and faithful, and they would be no less so than Elizabeth Hand.
The months went by—heavy and anxious months; for the school gradually dwindled away, and Ascott's letter—now almost the only connection his aunts had with the outer world, for poverty necessarily diminished even their small Stowbury society—became more and more unsatisfactory; and the want of information in them was not supplied by those other letters which had once kept Johanna's heart easy concerning the boy.
Mr. Lyon had written once before sailing, nay, after sailing, for he had sent it home by the pilot from the English Channel; then there was, of course, silence. October, November, December, January, February, March—how often did Hilary count the months, and wonder how soon a letter would come, whether a letter ever would come again. And sometimes—the sharp present stinging her with its small daily pains, the future looking dark before her and them all—she felt so forlorn, so forsaken, that but for a certain tiny well-spring of hope, which rarely dries up till long after three-and twenty, she could have sat down and sighed, "My good days are done."
Rich people break their hearts much sooner than poor people; that is, they more easily get into that morbid state which is glorified by the term, "a broken heart." Poor people can not afford it. Their constant labor "physics pain." Their few and narrow pleasures seldom pall. Holy poverty! black as its dark side is, it has its bright side too, that is, when it is honest, fearless, free from selfishness. wastefulness, and bickerings; above all, free from the terror of debt.
We'll starve, we'll go into the work house rather than we'll go into debt! cried Hilary once, in a passion of tears, when she was in sore want of a shawl, and Selina urged her to get it, and wait till she could pay for it. "Yes; the work house! It would be less shame to be honorably indebted to the laws of the land than to be meanly indebted, under false pretences, to any individual in it".
And when, in payment for some accidental lessons, she got next month enough money to buy a shawl, and a bonnet, too—nay, by great ingenuity, another bonnet for Johanna—Hilary could have danced and sang—sang, in the gladness and relief of her heart, the glorious euthanasia of poverty.
But these things happened only occasionally; the daily life was hard still; ay, very hard, even though at last came the letter from "foreign parts;" and following it, at regular intervals, other letters. They were full of facts rather than feelings—simple, straightforward; worth little as literary compositions; school-master and learned man as he was, there was nothing literary or poetical about Mr. Lyon; but what he wrote was like what he spoke, the accurate reflection of his own clear, original mind and honest, tender heart.
His letters gave none the less comfort because, nominally, they were addressed to Johanna. This might have been from some crotchet of over-reserve, delicacy, or honor—the same which made him part from her for years with no other word than 'You must trust me, Hilary;' but whatever it was she respected it, and she did trust him. And whether Johanna answered his letters or not, month by month they unfailingly came, keeping her completely informed of all his proceedings, and letting out, as epistles written from over the seas often do, much more of himself and his character than he was probably aware that he betrayed.
And Hilary, whose sole experience of mankind had been the scarcely remembered father, the too well remembered brother, and the anxiously watched nephew, thanked God that there seemed to be one man in the world whom a woman could lean her heart upon, and not feel the support break like a reed beneath her—one man whom she could entirely believe in, and safely and sacredly trust.
Time slipped by. Robert Lyon had been away more than three years. But in the monotonous life of the three sisters at Stowbury, nothing was changed. Except, perhaps, Elizabeth, who had grown quite a woman; might have passed almost for thirty; so solidly old fashioned were her figure and her manners.
Ascott Leaf had finished his walking the hospitals and his examinations, and was now fitted to commence practice for himself. His godfather had still continued his allowance, though once or twice, when he came down to Stowbury, he had asked his aunts to help him in small debts the last time in one a little more serious; when, after some sad and sore consultation, it had been resolved to tell him he must contrive to live within his own allowance. For they were poorer than they used to be; many more schools had arisen in the town, and theirs had dwindled away. It was becoming a source of serious anxiety whether they could possibly make ends meet; and when, the next Christmas, Ascott sent them a five pound note—an actual five pound note, together with a fond, grateful letter that was worth it all—the aunts were deeply thankful, and very happy.
But still the school declined. One night they were speculating upon the causes of this, and Hilary was declaring, in a half jocular, half earnest way, that it must be because a prophet is never a prophet in his own country.
The Stowbury people will never believe how clever I am. Only, it is a useless sort of cleverness, I fear. Greek, Latin, and mathematics are no good to infants under seven, such as Stowbury persists in sending to us.
They think I am only fit to teach little children—and perhaps it is true, said Miss Leaf.
I wish you had not to teach at all. I wish I was a daily governess—I might be, and earn enough to keep the whole family; only, not here.
I wonder, said Johanna, thoughtfully, "if we shall have to make a change."
A change! It almost pained the elder sister to see how the younger brightened up at the word. "Where to—London? Oh, I have so longed to go and live in London! But I thought you would not like it, Johanna."
That was true. Miss Leaf, whom feeble health had made prematurely old, would willingly have ended her days in the familiar town; but Hilary was young and strong. Johanna called to mind the days when she too had felt that rest was only another name for dullness; and when the most difficult thing possible to her was what seemed now so easy—to sit down and endure.
Besides, unlike herself, Hilary had her life all before her. It might be a happy life, safe in a good man's tender keeping; those unfailing letters from India seemed to prophecy that it would. But no one could say. Miss Leaf's own experience had not led her to place much faith in either men or happiness.
Still, whatever Hilary's future might be, it would likely be a very different one from that quiet, colorless life of hers. And as she looked at her younger sister, with the twilight glow on her face—they were taking an evening stroll up and down the terrace—Johanna hoped and prayed it might be so. Her own lot seemed easy enough for herself; but for Hilary—she would like to see Hilary something better than a poor schoolmistress at Stowbury.
No more was said at that time, but Johanna had the deep, still, Mary-like nature, which "kept" things, and "pondered them in her heart." So that when the subject came up again she was able to meet it with that sweet calmness which was her especial characteristic—the unruffled peace of a soul which no worldly storms could disturb overmuch, for it had long since cast anchor in the world unseen.
The chance which revived the question of the Great Metropolitan Hegira, as Hilary called it, was a letter from Mr. Ascott, as follows:
MISS LEAF. MADAM,—I shall be obliged by your informing me if it is your wish, as it seems to be your nephew's, that instead of returning to Stowbury, he should settle in London as a surgeon and general practitioner? His education complete, I consider that I have done my duty by him; but I may assist him occasionally still, unless he turns out—as his father did before him—a young man who prefers being helped to helping himself, in which case I shall have nothing more to do with him. I remain, Madam, your obedient servant, PETER ASCOTT.
The sisters read this letter, passing it round the table, none of them apparently liking to be the first to comment upon it. At length Hilary said: "I think that reference to poor Henry is perfectly brutal."
And yet he was very kind to Henry. And if it had not been for his common sense in sending poor little Ascott and the nurse down to Stowbury the baby might have died. But you don't remember any thing of that time, my dear, said Johanna, sighing.
He has been kind enough, though he has done it in such a patronizing way, observed Selina. "I suppose that's the real reason of his doing it. He thinks it fine to patronize us, and show kindness to our family; he, the stout, bullet-headed grocer's boy, who used to sit and stare at us all church time."
At you—you mean. Wasn't he called your beau? said Hilary mischievously, upon which Selina drew herself up in great indignation.
And then they fell to talking of that anxious question—Ascott's future. A little they reproached themselves that they had left the lad so long in London—so long out of the influence that might have counteracted the evil, sharply hinted in his godfather's letter. But once away—to lure him back to their poor home was impossible.
Suppose we were to go to him, suggested Hilary.
The poor and friendless possess one great advantage—they have nobody to ask advice of; nobody to whom it matters much what they do or where they go. The family mind has but to make itself up, and act accordingly. Thus within an hour or two of the receipt of Mr. Ascott's letter Hilary went into the kitchen, and told Elizabeth that as soon as her work was done Miss Leaf wished to have a little talk with her.
Eh! what's wrong? Has Miss Selina been a-grumbling at me?
Elizabeth was in one of her bad humors, which, though of course they never ought to have, servants do have as well as their superiors. Hilary perceived this by the way she threw the coals on and tossed the chairs about. But to-day her heart was full of far more serious cares than Elizabeth's ill temper. She replied, composedly—
I have not heard that either of my sisters is displeased with you. What they want to talk to you about is for your own good. We are thinking of making a great change. We intend to leave Stowbury and going to live in London.
Going to live in London!
Now, quick as her tact and observation were—her heart taught her these things—Elizabeth's head was a thorough Saxon one, slow to receive impressions. It was a family saying, that nothing was so hard as to put a new idea into Elizabeth except to get it out again.
For this reason Hilary preferred paving the way quietly, before startling her with the sudden intelligence of their contemplated change.
Well, what do you say to the plan? asked she, good-humoredly.
I dunnot like it at all, was the brief gruff answer of Elizabeth
Hand.
Now it was one of Miss Hilary's doctrines that no human being is good for much unless he or she has what is called "a will of one's own." Perhaps this, like many another creed, was with her the result of circumstances. But she held it firmly, and with that exaggerated one-sidedness of feeling which any bitter family or personal experience is sure to leave behind—a strong will was her first attraction to every body. It had been so in the case of Robert Lyon, and not less in Elizabeth's.
But this quality has its inconveniences. When the maid began sweeping up her hearth with a noisy, angry gesture, the mistress did the wisest and most dignified thing a mistress could do under the circumstances and which she knew was the sharpest rebuke she could administer to the sensitive Elizabeth—she immediately quitted the kitchen.
For an hour after the parlor bell did not ring; and though it was washing day, no Miss Hilary appeared to help in folding up the clothes. Elizabeth, subdued and wretched, waited till she could wait no longer; then knocked at the door, and asked humbly if she should bring in supper?
The extreme kindness of the answer, to the effect that she must come in, as they wanted to speak to her, crushed the lingering fragments of ill humor out of the girl.
Miss Hilary has told you our future plans, Elizabeth; now we wish to have a little talk with you about yours.
Eh?
We conclude you will not wish to go with us to London; and it would be hardly advisable you should. You can get higher wages now than any we can afford to give you; indeed, we have more than once thought of telling you so, and offering you your choice of trying for a better place.
You're very kind, was the answer, stolid rather than grateful.
No; I think we are merely honest. We should never think of keeping a girl upon lower wages than she was worth. Hitherto, however, the arrangement has been quite fair you know, Elizabeth, you have given us a deal of trouble in the teaching of you. And Miss Leaf smiled, half sadly, as if this, the first of the coming changes, hurt her more than she liked to express. "Come, my girl," she added, "you needn't look so serious. We are not in the least vexed with you; we shall be very sorry to lose you, and we will give you the best of characters when you leave."
I dunnot—mean—to leave.
Elizabeth threw out the words like pellets, in a choked fashion, and disappeared suddenly from the parlor.
Who would have thought it! exclaimed Selina; "I declare the girl was crying."
No mistake about that; though when, a few minutes after, Miss Hilary entered the kitchen, Elizabeth tried in a hurried, shamefaced way to hide her tears by being very busy over something. Her mistress took no notice, but began, as usual on washing days, to assist in various domestic matters, in the midst of which she said, quietly, "And so, Elizabeth, you would really like to go to London?"
"
No! I shouldn't like it at all; never said I should. But if you go, I shall go too; though Missis is so ready to get shut o' me.
"It was for your own good, you know.
You always said it was for a girl's good to stop in one place; and if you think I'm going to another. I aren't that's all.
Rude as the form of the speech was—almost the first rude speech that Elizabeth had ever made to Miss Hilary, and which, under other circumstances she would have felt bound severely to reprove—the mistress passed it over. That which lay beneath it, the sharpness of wounded love, touched her heart. She felt that, for all the girl's rough manner, it would have been hard to go into her London kitchen and meet a strange London face, instead of that fond homely one of Elizabeth Hand's.
Still, she thought it right to explain to her that London life might have many difficulties, that; for the present at least, her wages could not be raised, and the family might at first be in even more straitened circumstances than they were at Stowbury.
Only at first, though, for I hope to find plenty of pupils, and by-and-by our nephew will get into practice.
Is it on account of him you're going, Miss Hilary?
Chiefly.
Elizabeth gave a grunt which said as plainly as words could say, "I thought so;" and relapsed into what she, no doubt, believed to be virtuous indignation, but which, as it was testified against the wrong parties, was open to the less favorable interpretation of ill humor—a small injustice not uncommon with us all.
I do not pretend to paint this young woman as a perfect character. She had her fierce dislikes as well as her strong fidelities; her faults within and without, which had to be struggled with, as all of us have to struggle to the very end of our days. Oftentimes not till the battle is high over—sometimes not till it is quite over—does God give us the victory.
Without more discussion on either side, it was agreed that Elizabeth should accompany her mistresses. Even Mrs. Hand seemed to be pleased thereat, her only doubt being lest her daughter should meet and be led astray by that bad woman, Mrs. Cliffe, Tommy Cliffe's mother, who was reported to have gone to London. But Miss Hilary explained that this meeting was about as probable as the rencontre of two needles in a hay-rick; and besides, Elizabeth was not the sort of girl to be easily "led astray" by any body.
No, no; her's a good wench, though I says it, replied the mother, who was too hard worked to have much sentiment to spare. "I wish the little 'uns may take pattern by our Elizabeth. You'll send her home, may be, in two or three years' time, to let us have a look at her?"
Miss Hilary promised, and then took her way back through the familiar old town—so soon to be familiar no more—thinking anxiously, in spite of herself, upon those two or three years, and what they might bring.
It happened to be a notable day—that sunshiny 28th of June—when the little, round-cheeked damsel, who is a grandmother now, had the crown of three kingdoms first set upon her youthful head; and Stowbury, like every other town in the land, was a perfect bower of green arches, garlands, banners; white covered tables were spread in the open air down almost every street, where poor men dined, or poor women drank tea; and every body was out and abroad, looking at or sharing in the holiday' making, wild with merriment, and brimming over with passionate loyalty to the Maiden Queen.
That day is now twenty-four years ago; but all those who remember it must own there never has been a day like it, when, all over the country, every man's heart throbbed with chivalrous devotion, every woman's with womanly tenderness, toward this one royal girl, who, God bless her! has lived to retain and deserve it all.
Hilary called for, and protected through the crowd, the little, timid, widow lady who had taken off the Misses Leaf's hands their house and furniture, and whom they had made very happy—as the poor often can make those still poorer than themselves—by refusing to accept any thing for the "good will" of the school. Then she was fetched by Elizabeth, who had been given a whole afternoon's holiday; and mistress and maid went together home, watching the last of the festivities, the chattering groups that still lingered in the twilight streets, and listening to the merry notes of the "Triumph" which came down through the lighted windows of the Town Hall, where the open-air tea drinkers had adjourned to dance country dances, by civic permission, and in perfectly respectable jollity.
I wonder, said Hilary—while, despite some natural regret, her spirit stretched itself out eagerly from the narrowness of the place where she was born into the great wide world; the world where so many grand things were thought and written and done; the world Robert Lyon had so long fought with, and was fighting bravely still—"I wonder, Elizabeth, what sort of place London is, and what our life will be in it?"
Elizabeth said nothing. For the moment her face seemed to catch the reflected glow of her mistress's, and then it settled down into that look of mingled resistance and resolution which was habitual to her. For the life that was to be, which neither knew—oh, if they had known!—she also was prepared.
The day of the Grand Hegira came.
I remember, said Miss Leaf, as they rumbled for the last time through the empty morning streets of poor old Stowbury: "I remember my grandmother telling me that when my grandfather was courting her, and she out of coquetry refused him, he set off on horseback to London, and she was so wretched to think of all the dangers he ran on the journey, and in London itself, that she never rested till she got him back, and then immediately married him."
No such catastrophe is likely to happen to any of us, except, perhaps, to Elizabeth, said Miss Hilary, trying to get up, a little feeble mirth, any thing to pass away the time and lessen the pain of parting, which was almost too much for Johanna. "What do you say? Do you mean to get married in London, Elizabeth?"
But Elizabeth could make no answer, even to kind Miss Hilary. They had not imagined she felt the leaving her native place so much. She had watched intently the last glimpse of Stowbury church tower, and now sat with reddened eyes, staring blankly out of the carriage window,
Silent as a stone.
Once or twice a large slow tear gathered on each of her eyes, but it was shaken off angrily from the high check bones, and never settled into absolute crying. They thought it best to take no notice of her. Only, when reaching the new small station, where the "resonant steam eagles" were, for the first time, beheld by the innocent Stowbury ladies, there arose a discussion as to the manner of traveling. Miss Leaf said, decidedly "Second class; and then we can keep Elizabeth with us." Upon which Elizabeth's mouth melted into something between a quiver and a smile.
Soon it was all over, and the little house-hold was compressed into the humble second class carriage, cheerless and cushionless, whirling through indefinite England in a way that confounded all their geography and topography. Gradually as the day darkened into heavy, chilly July rain, the scarcely kept up spirits of the four passengers began to sink. Johanna grew very white and worn, Selina became, to use Ascott's phrase, "as cross as two sticks," and even Hilary, turning her eyes from the gray sodden looking landscape without, could find no spot of comfort to rest on within the carriage, except that round rosy face of Elizabeth Hand's.
Whether it was from the spirit of contradiction existing in most such natures, which, especially in youth, are more strong than sweet, or from a better feeling, the fact was noticeable, that when every one else's spirits went down Elizabeth's went up. Nothing could bring her out of a "grumpy" fit so satisfactorily as her mistresses falling into one. When Miss Selina now began to fidget hither and thither, each tone of her fretful voice seeming to go through her eldest sister's every nerve, till even Hilary said, impatiently, "Oh, Selina, can't you be quiet?" then Elizabeth rose from the depth of her gloomy discontent up to the surface immediately.
She was only a servant; but Nature bestows that strange vague thing that we term "force of character" independently of position. Hilary often remembered afterward, how much more comfortable the end of the journey was than she had expected—how Johanna lay at ease, with her feet in Elizabeth's lap, wrapped in Elizabeth's best woolen shawl; and how, when Selina's whole attention was turned to an ingenious contrivance with a towel and fork and Elizabeth's basket, for stopping the rain out of the carriage roof—she became far less disagreeable, and even a little proud of her own cleverness. And so there was a temporary lull in Hilary's cares, and she could sit quiet, with her eyes fixed on the rainy landscape, which she did not see, and her thoughts wandering toward that unknown place and unknown life into which they were sweeping, as we all sweep, ignorantly, unresistingly, almost unconsciously, into new destinies. Hilary, for the first time, began to doubt of theirs. Anxious as she had been to go to London, and wise as the proceeding appeared, now that the die was cast and the cable cut, the old simple, peaceful life at Stowbury grew strangely dear.
I wonder if we shall ever go back again, or what is to happen to us before we do go back, she thought, and turned, with a half defined fear, toward her eldest sister, who looked so old and fragile beside that sturdy, healthful servant girl. "Elizabeth!" Elizabeth, rubbing Miss Leaf's feet, started at the unwonted sharpness of Miss Hilary's tone.
"
There; I'll do that for my sister. Go and look out of the window at London.
"For the great smoky cloud which began to rise in the rainy horizon was indeed London. Soon through the thickening nebula of houses they converged to what was then the nucleus of all railway traveling, the Euston Terminus, and were hustled on to the platform, and jostled helplessly to and fro these poor country ladies! Anxiously they scanned the crowd of strange faces for the one only face they knew in the great metropolis—which did not appear.
It is very strange; very wrong of Ascott. Hilary, you surely told him the hour correctly. For once, at least, he might have been in time
So chafed Miss Selina, while Elizabeth, who by some miraculous effort of intuitive genius, had succeeded in collecting the luggage, was now engaged in defending it from all comers, especially porters, and making of it a comfort able seat for Miss Leaf.
"
Nay, have patience, Selina. We will give him just five minutes more, Hilary.
"And Johanna sat down, with her sweet, calm, long suffering face turned upward to that younger one, which was, as youth is apt to be, hot, and worried, and angry. And so they waited till the terminus was almost deserted, and the last cab had driven off, when, suddenly, dashing up the station yard out of another, came Ascott.
He was so sorry, so very sorry, downright grieved, at having kept his aunts waiting. But his watch was wrong—some fellows at dinner detained him—the train was before its time surely. In fact, his aunts never quite made out what the excuse was; but they looked into his bright handsome face, and their wrath melted like clouds before the sun. He was so gentlemanly, so well dressed—much better dressed than even at Stowbury—and he seemed so unfeignedly glad to see them. He handed them all into the cab—even Elizabeth. though whispering meanwhile to his Aunt Hilary, "What on earth did you bring her for?" and their was just going to leap on to the box himself, when he stopped to ask "Where he should tell cabby to drive to?"
Where to? repeated his aunts in undisguised astonishment. They had never thought of any thing but of being taken home at once by their boy.
You see, Ascott said, in a little confusion, "you wouldn't be comfortable with me. A young fellow's lodgings are not like a house of one's own, and, besides—"
Besides, when a young fellow is ashamed of his old aunts, he can easily find reasons.
Hush, Selina! interposed Miss Leaf. "My dear boy, your old aunts would never let you inconvenience yourself for them. Take us to an inn for the night, and to morrow we will find lodgings for ourselves."
Ascott looked greatly relieved.
And you are not vexed with me, Aunt Johanna? said he, with something of his old childish tone of compunction, as he saw—he could not help seeing—the utter weariness which Johanna tried so hard to hide.
No, my dear, not vexed. Only I wish we had known this a little sooner that we might have made arrangements. Now, where shall we go?
Ascott mentioned a dozen hotels, but they found he only knew them by name. At last Miss Leaf remembered one, which her father used to go to, on his frequent journeys to London, and whence, indeed, he had been brought home to die. And though all the recollections about it were sad enough, still it felt less strange than the rest, in this dreariness of London. So she proposed going to the "Old Bell," Holborn.
A capital place! exclaimed Ascott, eagerly. "And I'll take and settle you there: and we'll order supper, and make a jolly night of it. All right. Drive on, cabby."
He jumped on the box, and then looked in mischievously, flourishing his lit cigar and shaking his long hair—his Aunt Selina's two great abominations—right in her indignant face: but withal looking so merry and good tempered that she shortly softened into a smile.
How handsome the boy is growing!
Yes, said Johanna, with a slight sigh; "and did you notice? how exceedingly like his—"
The sentence was left unfinished. Alas! if every young man, who believes his faults and follies injure himself alone, could feel what it must be, years afterward, to have his nearest kindred shrink from saying as the saddest, most ominous thing they could say of his son, that the lad is growing "so like his father!"
It might have been—they assured each other that it was—only the incessant roll, roll of the street sounds below their windows, which kept the Misses Leaf awake half the night of this their first night in London. And when they sat down to breakfast—having waited an hour vainly for their nephew—it might have been only the gloom of the little parlor which cast a slight shadow over them all. Still the shadow was there.
It deepened despite the sunshiny morning into which the last night's rain had brightened till Holborn Bars looked cheerful, and Holborn pavement actually clean, so that, as Elizabeth said, "you might eat your dinner off it;" which was the one only thing she condescended to approve in London. She had sat all evening mute in her corner, for Miss Leaf would not send her away into the terra incognita of a London hotel. Ascott, at first considerably annoyed at the presence of what he called a "skeleton at the feast," had afterward got over it; and run on with a mixture of childish glee and mannish pomposity about his plans and intentions—how he meant to take a house, he thought, in one of the squares, or a street leading out of them: how he would put up the biggest of brass plates, with "Mr. Leaf, surgeon." and soon get an extensive practice, and have all his aunts to live with him. And his aunts had smiled and listened, forgetting all about the silent figure in the corner, who perhaps had gone to sleep, or had also listened.
Elizabeth, come and look out at London.
So she and Miss Hilary whiled away another heavy three quarters of an hour in watching and commenting on the incessantly shifting crowd which swept past Holborn Bars. Miss Selina sometimes looked out too, but more often sat fidgeting and wondering why Ascott did not come; while Miss Leaf, who never fidgeted, became gradually more and more silent. Her eyes were fixed on the door, with an expression which, if Hilary could have remembered so far back, would have been to her something not painfully new, but still more painfully old—a look branded into her face by many an anxious hour's listening for the footstep that never came, or only came to bring distress. It was the ineffaceable token of that long, long struggle between affection and conscience, pity and scarcely repressible contempt, which, for more than one generation, had been the appointed burden of this family—at least the women of it—till sometimes it seemed to hang over them almost like a fate.
About noon Miss Leaf proposed calling for the hotel bill. Its length so alarmed the country ladies that Hilary suggested not staying to dine, but going immediately in search of lodgings.
What, without a gentleman! Impossible! I always understood ladies could go nowhere in London without a gentleman!
We shall come very ill off then, Selina. But any how I mean to try. You know the region where, we have heard, lodgings are cheapest and best—that is, best for us. It can not be far from here. Suppose I start at once?
What, alone? cried Johanna, anxiously.
No, dear, I'll take the map with me, and Elizabeth. She is not afraid.
Elizabeth smiled, and rose, with that air of dogged devotedness with which she would have prepared to follow Miss Hilary to the North Pole, if necessary. So, after a few minutes of arguing with Selina, who did not press her point overmuch, since she herself had not to commit the impropriety of the expedition. After a few minutes more of hopeless lingering about—till even Miss Leaf said they had better wait no longer—mistress and maid took a farewell nearly as pathetic as if they had been really Arctic voyagers, and plunged right into the dusty glare and hurrying crowd of the "sunny side" of Holborn in July.
A strange sensation, and yet there was something exhilarating in it. The intense solitude that there is in a London crowd these country girls—for Miss Hilary herself was no more than a girl—could not as yet realize. They only felt the life of it; stirring, active, incessantly moving life; even though it was of a kind that they knew as little of it as the crowd did of them. Nothing struck Hilary more than the self-absorbed look of passers-by: each so busy on his own affairs, that, in spite of Selina's alarm, for all notice taken of them, they might as well be walking among the cows and horses in Stowbury field.
Poor old Stowbury! They felt how far away they were from it when a ragged, dirty, vicious looking girl offered them a moss rose bud for "one penny, only one penny;" which Elizabeth, lagging behind, bought, and found it only a broken off bud stuck on to a bit of wire.
That's London ways, I suppose, said she, severely, and became so misanthropic that she would hardly vouchsafe a glance to the hand some square they turned into, and merely observed of the tall houses, taller than any Hilary had ever seen, that she "wouldn't fancy running up and down them stairs."
But Hilary was cheerful in spite of all. She was glad to be in this region, which, theoretically, she knew by heart—glad to find herself in the body, where in the spirit she had come so many a time. The mere consciousness of this seemed to refresh her. She thought she would be much happier in London; that in the long years to come that must be borne, it would be good for her to have something to do as well as to hope for; something to fight with as well as to endure. Now more than ever came pulsing in and out of her memory a line once repeated in her hearing, with an observation of how "true" it was. And though originally it was applied by a man to a woman, and she smiled sometimes to think how "unfeminine" some people—Selina for instance—would consider her turning it the other way, still she did so. She believed that, for woman as for man, that is the purest and noblest love which is the most self-existent, most independent of love returned; and which can say, each to the other equally on both sides, that the whole solemn purpose of life is, under God's service,
If not to win, to feel more worthy thee.
Such thoughts made her step firmer and her heart lighter; so that she hardly noticed the distance they must have walked till the close London air began to oppress her, and the smooth glaring London pavements made her Stowbury feet ache sorely.
Are you tired, Elizabeth? Well, we'll rest soon. There must be lodgings near here. Only I can't quite make out—
As Miss Hilary looked up to the name of the street the maid noticed what a glow came into her mistress's face, pale and tired as it was. Just then a church clock struck the quarter hour.
"
That must be St. Pancras. And this—yes, this is Burton Street, Burton Crescent.
"I'm sure Missis wouldn't like to live there; observed Elizabeth, eyeing uneasily the gloomy rez de-chaussee, familiar to many a generation of struggling respectability, where, in the decadence of the season, every second house bore the announcement "apartments furnished."
No, Miss Hilary replied, absently. Yet she continued to walk up and down the whole length of the street; then passed out into the dreary, deserted looking Crescent, where the trees were already beginning to fade; not, however, into the bright autumn tint of country woods, but into a premature withering, ugly and sad to behold.
I am glad he is not here—glad, glad! thought Hilary, as she realized the unutterable dreariness of those years when Robert Lyon lived and studied in his garret from month's end to month's end—these few dusty trees being the sole memento of the green country life in which he had been brought up, and which she knew he so passionately loved. Now she could understand, that "calenture" which he had sometimes jestingly alluded to, as coming upon him at times, when he felt literally sick for the sight of a green field or a hedge full of birds. She wondered whether the same feeling would ever come upon her in this strange desert of London, the vastness of which grew upon her every hour.
She was glad he was away; yes, heart glad! And yet, if this minute she could only have seen him coming round the Crescent, have met his smile, and the firm, warm clasp of his hand—
For an instant there rose up in her one of those wild, rebellious outcries against fate, when to have to waste years of this brief life of ours, in the sort of semi-existence that living is, apart from the treasure of the heart and delight of the eyes, seems so cruelly, cruelly hard!
Miss Hilary.
She started, and "put herself under lock and key" immediately. "Miss
Hilary; you do look so tired!"
Do I? Then we will go and sit down in this baker's shop, and get rested and fed. We cannot afford to wear ourselves out, you know. We have a great deal to do to-day.
More indeed, than she calculated, for they walked up one street and down another, investigating at least twenty lodgings before any appeared which seemed fit for them. Yet some place must be found where Johanna's poor, tired head could rest that night. At last, completely exhausted, with that oppressive exhaustion which seems to crush mind as well as body after a day's wandering in London. Hilary's courage began to ebb. Oh for an arm to lean on, a voice to listen for, a brave heart to come to her side, saying, "Do not be afraid, there are two of us!" And she yearned, with an absolutely sick yearning such as only a woman who now and then feels the utter helplessness of her womanhood can know, for the only arm she cared to lean on, the only voice dear enough to bring her comfort, the only heart that she felt she could trust.
Poor Hilary! And yet why pity her? To her three alternatives could but happen: were Robert Lyon true to her she would be his entirely and devotedly, to the end of her days; did he forsake her, she would forgive him should he die, she would be faithful to him eternally. Love of this kind may know anguish, but not the sort of anguish that lesser and weaker loves do. If it is certain of nothing else, it can always be certain of itself.
"Its will is strong;
'It suffers; but it can not suffer long."
And even in its utmost pangs is an underlying peace which often approaches to absolute joy.
Hilary roused herself, and bent her mind steadily on lodgings till she discovered one from the parlor of which you could see the trees of Burton Crescent and hear the sound of Saint Pancras's clock.
I think we may do here—at least for a while, said she cheerfully; and then Elizabeth heard her inquiring if an extra bedroom could be had if necessary.
There was only one small attic. "Ascott never could put up with that," said Hilary, half to herself. Then suddenly—"I think I will see Ascott before I decide. Elizabeth, will you go with me, or remain here?"
I'll go with you, if you please, Miss Hilary.
If you please, sounded not unlike, "if I please," and Elizabeth had gloomed over a little. "Is Mr. Ascott to live with us?"
I suppose so.
No more words were interchanged till they reached Gower street, when Miss Hilary observed, with evident surprise, what a handsome street it was.
I must have made some mistake. Still we will find out Mr. Ascott's number, and inquire.
No, there was no mistake. Mr. Ascott Leaf had lodged there for three months, but had given up his rooms that very morning.
Where had he gone to?
The servant—a London lodging house servant all over—didn't know; but she fetched the landlady, who was after the same pattern of the dozen London landladies with whom Hilary had that day made acquaintance, only a little more Cockney, smirking, dirty, and tawdrily fine.
Yes, Mr. Leaf had gone, and he hadn't left no address. Young College gentlemen often found it convenient to leave no address. P'raps he would if he'd known there would be a young lady a calling to see him.
I am Mr. Leaf's aunt, said Hilary, turning as hot as fire.
Oh, in-deed, was the answer, with civil incredulousness.
But the woman was sharp of perception—as often-cheated London landladies learn to be. After looking keenly at mistress and maid, she changed her tone; nay, even launched out into praises of her late lodger: what a pleasant gentleman he was; what good company he kept, and how he had promised to recommend her apartments to his friends.
And as for the little some'at of rent, Miss—tell him it makes no matter, he can pay me when he likes. If he don't call soon p'raps I might make bold to send his trunk and his books over to Mr. Ascott's of—dear me, I forget the number and the square.
Hilary unsuspiciously supplied both.
Yes, that's it—the old gen'leman as Mr. Leaf went to dine with every other Sunday, a very rich old gentleman, who, he says, is to leave him all his money. Maybe a relation of yours, Miss?
No, said Hilary; and adding something about the landlady's hearing from Mr. Leaf very soon, she hurried out of the house, Elizabeth following.
Won't you be tired if you walk so fast, Miss Hilary?
Hilary stopped, choking. Helplessly she looked up and down the forlorn, wide, glaring, dusty street; now sinking into the dull shadow of a London afternoon.
Let us go home! And at the word a sob burst out—just one passionate pent up sob. No more. She could not afford to waste strength in crying.
As you say, Elizabeth, I am getting tired, and that will not do. Let me see; something must be decided. And she stood still, passing her hand over her hot brow and eyes. "I will go back and take the lodgings, leave you there to make all comfortable, and then fetch my sisters from the hotel. But stay first, I have forgotten something."
She returned to the house in Gower Street, and wrote on one of her cards an address—the only permanent address she could think of—that of the city broker who was in the habit of paying them their yearly income of £50.
If any creditors inquire for Mr. Leaf, give them this. His friends may always hear of him at the London University.
Thank you, ma'am, replied the now civil landlady. "Indeed, I wasn't afraid of the young gentleman giving us the slip. For though he was careless in his bills he was every inch the gentleman. And I wouldn't object to take him in again. Or p'raps you yourself, ma'am, might be a-wanting rooms."
No, I thank you. Good morning. And Hilary hurried away.
Not a word did she say to Elizabeth, or Elizabeth to her, till they got into the dull, dingy parlor—henceforth, to be their sole apology for "home:" and then she only talked about domestic arrangements—talked fast and eagerly, and tried to escape the affectionate eyes which she knew were so sharp and keen. Only to escape them—not to blind them; she had long ago found out that Elizabeth was too quick-witted for that, especially in any thing that concerned "the family." She felt convinced the girl had heard every syllable that passed at Ascott's lodgings: that she knew all that was to be known, and guessed what was to be feared as well as Hilary herself.
Elizabeth—she hesitated long, and doubted whether she should say the thing before she did say it—"remember we are all strangers in London, and family matters are best kept within the family. Do not mention either in writing home, or to any body here, about—about—"
She could not name Ascott; she felt so horribly ashamed.
Living in lodgings, not temporarily, but permanently, sitting down to make one's only "home" in Mrs. Jones's parlor or Mrs. Smith's first floor, of which not a stick or a stone that one looks at is one's own, and whence one may be evicted or evade, with a week's notice or a week's rent, any day—this sort of life is natural and even delightful to some people. There are those who, like strawberry plants, are of such an errant disposition, that grow them where you will, they will soon absorb all the pleasantness of their habitat, and begin casting out runners elsewhere; may, if not frequently transplanted, would actually wither and die. Of such are the pioneers of society—the emigrants, the tourists, the travelers round the world; and great is the advantage the world derives from them, active, energetic, and impulsive as they are. Unless, indeed, their talent for incessant locomotion degenerates into rootless restlessness, and they remain forever rolling stones, gathering no moss, and acquiring gradually a smooth, hard surface, which adheres to nothing, and to which nobody dare venture to adhere.
But there are others possessing in a painful degree this said quality of adhesiveness, to whom the smallest change is obnoxious; who like drinking out of a particular cup, and sitting in a particular chair; to whom even a variation in the position of furniture is unpleasant. Of course, this peculiarity has its bad side, and yet it is not in itself mean or ignoble. For is not adhesiveness, faithfulness, constancy—call it what you will—at the root of all citizenship, clanship, and family love? Is it not the same feeling which, granting they remain at all, makes old friendships dearer than any new? Nay, to go to the very sacredest and closest bond, is it not that which makes an old man see to the last in his old wife's faded face the beauty which perhaps nobody ever saw except himself, but which he sees and delights in still, simply because it is familiar and his own.
To people who possess a large share of this rare—shall I say fatal?—characteristic of adhesiveness, living in lodgings is about the saddest life under the sun. Whether some dim foreboding of this fact crossed Elizabeth's mind as she stood at the window watching for her mistresses' first arrival at "home," it is impossible to say. She could feel, though she was not accustomed to analyze her feelings. But she looked dull and sad. Not cross, even Ascott could not have accused her of "savageness."
And yet she had been somewhat tried. First, in going out what she termed "marketing," she had traversed a waste of streets, got lost several times, and returned with light weight in her butter, and sand in her moist sugar; also with the conviction that London tradesmen were the greatest rogues alive. Secondly, a pottle of strawberries, which she had bought with her own money to grace the tea-table with the only fruit Miss Leaf cared for, had turned out a large delusion, big and beautiful at top, and all below small, crushed, and stale. She had thrown it indignantly, pottle and all, into the kitchen fire.
Thirdly, she had a war with the landlady, partly on the subject of their fire—which, with her Stowbury notions on the subject of coals, seemed wretchedly mean and small—and partly on the question of table cloths at tea, which Mrs. Jones had "never heard of," especially when the use of plate and lines was included in the rent. And the dinginess of the article produced at last out of an omnium-gatherum sort of kitchen cupboard, made an ominous impression upon the country girl, accustomed to clean, tidy, country ways—where the kitchen was kept as neat as the parlor, and the bedrooms were not a whit behind the sitting rooms in comfort and orderliness. Here it seemed as if, supposing people could show a few respectable living rooms, they were content to sleep any where, and cook any how, out of anything, in the midst of any quantity of confusion and dirt. Elizabeth set all this down as "London," and hated it accordingly.
She had tried to ease her mind by arranging and rearranging the furniture—regular lodging house furniture—table, six chairs, horse-hair sofa, a what not, and the chiffonnier, with a tea-caddy upon it, of which the respective keys had been solemnly presented to Miss Hilary. But still the parlor looked homeless and bare; and the yellowish paper on the walls, the large patterned, many colored Kidderminster on the floor, gave an involuntary sense of discomfort and dreariness. Besides, No. 15 was on the shady side of the street—cheap lodgings always are; and no one who has not lived in the like lodgings—not a house—can imagine what it is to inhabit perpetually one room where the sunshine just peeps in for an hour a day, and vanishes by eleven A. M.; leaving behind in winter a chill dampness, and in summer a heavy, dusty atmosphere, that weighs like lead on the spirits in spite of one's self. No wonder that, as is statistically known and proved, cholera stalks, fever rages, and the registrar's list is always swelled along the shady side of a London street.
Elizabeth felt this, though she had not the dimmest idea why. She stood watching the sunset light fade out of the topmost windows of the opposite house—ghostly reflection of some sunset over fields and trees far away; and she listened to the long monotonous cry melting away round the crescent, and beginning again at the other end of the street—"Straw-berries—straw-ber-ries!" Also, with an eye to tomorrow's Sunday dinner, she investigated the cart of the tired costermonger, who crawled along beside his equally tired donkey, reiterating at times, in tones hoarse with a day's bawling, his dreary "Cauli-flower! Cauli-flower!—Fine new pease, sixpence peck!"
But, alas! the pease were neither fine nor new; and the cauliflowers were regular Saturday night's cauliflowers. Besides, Elizabeth suddenly doubted whether she had any right, unordered, to buy these things which, from being common garden necessaries, had become luxuries. This thought, with some others that it occasioned, her unwonted state of Idleness and the dullness of every thing about her—what is so dull as a "quiet" London street on a summer evening?—actually made Elizabeth stand, motionless and meditative, for a quarter of an hour. Then she started to hear two cabs drive up to the door; the "family" had at length arrived.
Ascott was there too. Two new portmanteaus and a splendid hat-box east either ignominy or glory upon the poor Stowbury luggage; and—Elizabeth's sharp eye noticed—there was also his trunk which she had seen lying detained for rent in his Gower Street lodgings. But he looked quite easy and comfortable: handed out his Aunt Johanna, commanded the luggage about, and paid the cabmen with such a magnificent air, that they touched their bats to him, and winked at one another as much as to say. "That's a real gentleman!"
In which statement the landlady evidently coincided, and courtesied low when Miss Leaf introducing him as "my nephew," hoped that a room could be found for him. Which at last there was, by his appropriating Miss Leaf's, while she and Hilary took that at the top of the house. But they agreed, Ascott must have a good airy room to study in.
You know, my dear boy, said his Aunt Johanna to him—and at her tender tone he looked a little downcast, as when he was a small fellow and had been forgiven something — "You know you will have to work very hard."
All right, aunt! I'm your man for that! This will be a jolly room; and I can smoke up the chimney capitally!
So they came down stairs quite cheerfully, and Ascott applied himself with the best of appetites to what he called a "hungry" tea. True, the ham, which Elizabeth had to fetch from an eating house some streets off, cost two shillings a pound, and the eggs, which caused her another war below over the relighting of a fire to boil them, were dismissed by the young gentleman as "horrid stale." Still, woman-like, when there is a man in the question, his aunts let him, have his why. It seemed as if they had resolved to try their utmost to make the new home to which he came, or rather was driven, a pleasant home, and to bind him to it with cords of love, the only cords worth any thing, though sometimes—Heaved knows why—even they fail, and are snapped and thrown aside like straws.
Whenever Elizabeth went in and out of the parlor she always heard lively talk going on among the family; Ascott making his jokes, telling about his college life, and planning his life to come as a surgeon in full practice, on the most extensive scale. And when she brought in the chamber candles, she saw him kiss his aunts affectionately, and even help his Aunt Johanna—who looked frightfully pale and tired, but smiling still—to her bed-room door.
You'll not sit up long, my dear? No reading to night? said she, anxiously.
Not a bit of it. And I'll be up with the lark to-morrow morning. I really will auntie. I'm going to turn over a new leaf, you know.
She smiled again at the immemorial joke, kissed and blessed him, and the door shut up on her and Hilary.
Ascott descended to the parlor, threw himself on the sofa with an air of great relief, and an exclamation of satisfaction that "the women" were all gone. He did not perceive Elizabeth, who, hidden behind, was kneeling to arrange something in the chiffonnier, till she rose up and proceeded to fasten the parlor shutters.
Hollo! are you there? Come, I'll do that when I go to bed. You may 'slope' if you like.
Eh, Sir.
Slope, mizzle, cut your stick; don't you understand. Any how, don't stop here, bothering me.
I don't mean to, replied Elizabeth; gravely, rather than gruffly, as if she had made up her mind to things as they were, and was determined to be a belligerent party no longer. Besides, she was older now; too old to have things forgiven to her that might be overlooked in a child; and she had received a long lecture from Miss Hilary on the necessity of showing respect to Mr. Ascott, or Mr. Leaf, as it was now decided he was to be called, in his dignity and responsibility as the only masculine head of the family. As he lay and lounged there, with his eyes lazily shut, Elizabeth stood a minute gazing at him. Then, steadfast in her new good behavior, she inquired "if he wanted any thing more to-night?"
Confound you! no! Yes; stop. And the young man took a furtive investigation of the plain, honest face, and not over-graceful, ultra-provincial figure, which still characterized his aunt's "South Sea Islander."
I say, Elizabeth, I want you to do something for me. He spoke so civilly, almost coaxingly, that Elizabeth turned round surprised. "Would you just go and ask the landlady if she has got such thing as a latch key?"
A what, Sir?
A latch-key—a—oh, she knows. Every London house has it. Tell her I'll take care of it, and lock the front door all right. She needn't be afraid of thieves.
Very well, Sir.
Elizabeth went, but shortly reappeared with the information that Mrs. Jones had gone to bed: in the kitchen, she supposed, as she could not get in. But she laid on the table the large street door key.
Perhaps that's what you wanted, Mr. Leaf. Though I think you needn't be the least afraid of robbers, for there's three bolts, and a chain besides.
All right! cried Ascott, smothering down a laugh. "Thank you!
That's for you," throwing a half-crown across the table.
Elizabeth took it up demurely, and put it down again. Perhaps she did not like him enough to receive presents from him; perhaps she thought, being an honest minded girl, that a young man who could not pay his rent had no business to be giving away half-crowns; or else she herself had not been so much as many servants are, in the habit of taking them. For Miss Hilary had put into Elizabeth some of her own feeling as to this habit of paying an inferior with money for any little civility or kindness which, from an equal, would be accepted simply as kindness, and only requited with thanks. Any how, the coin remained on the table, and the door was just shutting upon Elizabeth, when the young gentleman turned round again.
I say, since my aunts are so horridly timid of robbers and such like, you'd better not tell them any thing about the latch-key.
Elizabeth stood a minute perplexed, and then replied briefly: "Miss Hilary isn't a bit timid; and I always tells Miss Hilary every thing."
Nevertheless, though she was so ignorant as never to have heard of a latch-key, she had the wit to see that all was not right. She even lay awake, in her closet off Miss Leaf's room, whence she could hear the murmur of her two mistresses talking together, long after they retired—lay broad awake for an hour or more, trying to put things together—the sad things that she felt certain must have happened that day, and wondering what Mr. Ascott could possibly want with the key. Also, why he had asked her about it, instead of telling his aunts at once; and why he had treated her in the matter with such astonishing civility.
It may be said a servant had no business to think about these things, to criticize her young master's proceedings, or wonder why her mistresses were sad: that she had only to go about her work like an automaton, and take no interest in any thing. I can only answer to those who like such service, let them have it: and as they sow they will assuredly reap. But long after Elizabeth, young and hearty, was soundly snoring on her hard, cramped bed, Johanna and Hilary Leaf, after a brief mutual pretence of sleep, soon discovered by both, lay consulting together over ways and means. How could the family expenses, beginning with twenty-five shillings per week as rent, possibly be met by the only actual certain family income, their £50 per annum from a mortgage? For the Misses Leaf were or that old-fashioned stamp which believed that to reckon an income by mere probabilities is either insanity or dishonesty.
Common arithmetic soon proved that this £50 a year could not maintain them; in fact they must soon draw on the little sum—already dipped into to-day, for Ascott—which had been produced by the sale of the Stowbury furniture. That sale, they now found had been a mistake; and they half feared whether the whole change from Stowbury to London had not been a mistake—one of those sad errors in judgment which we all commit sometimes, and have to abide by, and make the best of, and learn from if we can. Happy those who "Dinna greet ower spilt milk"—a proverb wise as cheerful, which Hilary, knowing well who it came from, repeated to Johanna to comfort her—teaches a second brave lesson, how to avoid spilling the milk a second time. And then they consulted anxiously about what was to be done to earn money.
Teaching presented itself as the only resource. In those days women's work and women's rights had not been discussed so freely as at present. There was a strong feeling that the principal thing required was our duties—owed to ourselves, our home, our family and friends. There was a deep conviction—now, alas! slowly disappearing—that a woman, single or married, should never throw herself out of the safe circle of domestic life till the last extremity of necessity; that it is wiser to keep or help to keep a home, by learning how to expend its income, cook its dinners, make and mend its clothes, and, by the law that "prevention is better than cure," studying all those preservative means of holding a family together—as women, and women alone, can—than to dash into men's sphere of trades and professions, thereby, in most instances, fighting an unequal battle, and coming out of it maimed, broken, unsexed; turned into beings that are neither men nor women, with the faults and corresponding sufferings of both, and the compensations of neither.
I don't see, said poor Hilary, "what I can do but teach. And oh, if I could only get daily pupils, so that I might come home or nights, and creep into the fireside; and have time to mend the stockings and look after Ascott's linen, that he need not be so awfully extravagant."