Deerbrook Part 12

Mine has its anxieties, and _desagremens_, as others have: but I am convinced I could not have chosen better. You saw, when you were with me, something of the anxiety of responsibility; what it is, for instance, to await the one or the other event of a desperate case: and I could tell you a good deal that you do not and cannot know of the perils, and troubles attendant upon being the depository of so much domestic and personal confidence as my function imposes upon me the necessity of receiving. I sometimes long to be able to see nothing but what is apparent to all in society; to perceive what is ostensible, and to dream of nothing more,--not exactly like children, but like the members of large and happy families, who carry about with them the purity and peace of their homes, and therefore take cognisance of the pure and peaceful only whom they meet abroad; but it is childish, or indolent, or cowardly, to desire this. While there is private vice and wretchedness, and domestic misunderstanding, one would desire to know it, if one can do anything to cure or alleviate it. Dr Levitt and I have the same feeling about this; and I sometimes hope that we mutually prepare for and aid each other's work.

There is a bright side to our business, as I need not tell you. The mere exercise of our respective professions, the scientific as well as the moral interest of them, is as much to us as the theory of your business to you; and that is saying a great deal. You will not quarrel with the idea of the scientific interest of Dr Levitt's profession in his hands; for you know how learned he is in the complex science of Humanity. You remember the eternal wonder of the Greys at his liberality towards dissenters. Of that liberality he is unconscious: as it is the natural, the inevitable result of his knowledge of men,--of his having been 'hunting the waterfalls' from his youth up,--following up thought and prejudice to their fountains.

When I see him bland and gay amongst us, I feel pretty confident that his greatest pleasure is the same as mine,--that of reposing in the society of the innocent, the single-hearted, the unburdened, after having seen what the dark corners of social life are. It is like coming out of a foetid cave into the evening sunshine. Of late, we have felt this in an extraordinary degree. But I must tell you in an orderly way what has happened to us. I have put off entering upon the grand subject, partly from the pleasure of keeping one's best news for the last, and partly from shyness in beginning to describe what it is impossible that you should enter into. I am well aware of your powers of imagination and sympathy: but you have not lived five years within five miles of a country village; and you can no more understand our present condition than we can appreciate your sherbet and your mountain summer-house.

"There are two ladies here from Birmingham, so far beyond any ladies that we have to boast of, that some of us begin to suspect that Deerbrook is not the Athens and Arcadia united that we have been accustomed to believe it. You can have no idea how our vanity is mortified, and our pride abased, by finding what the world can produce out of the bounds of Deerbrook. We bear our humiliation wonderfully, however. Our Verdon woods echo with laughter; and singing is heard beside the brook. The voices of children, grown and ungrown, go up from all the meadows around; and wit and wisdom are wafted over the surface of our river at eventide. The truth is, these girls have brought in a new life among us, and there is not one of us, except the children, that is not some years younger for their presence. Mr Grey deserts his business for them, like a school-boy; and Mr Rowland watches his opportunity to play truant in turn. Mrs Enderby gives dances, and looks quite disposed to lead off in person. Mrs Plumstead has grown quite giddy about sorting the letters, and her voice has not been heard further than three doors off since the arrival of the strangers. Dr Levitt is preaching his old sermons.

Mrs Grey is well-nigh intoxicated with being the hostess of these ladies, and has even reached the point of allowing her drawing-room to be used every afternoon. Enderby is a fixture while they are so.

Neither mother, sister, friend, nor frolic, ever detained him here before for a month together. He was going away in a fortnight when these ladies came: they have been here six weeks, and Enderby has dropped all mention of the external world. If you ask, as you are at this moment doing in your own heart, how I stand under this influence, I really cannot tell you. I avoid inquiring too closely. I enjoy every pa.s.sing day too much to question it, and I let it go; and so must you.

"'But who are they?' you want to know. They are distant cousins of Mr Grey's,--orphans, and in mourning for their father. They are just above twenty, and their name is Ibbotson. 'Are they handsome?' is your next question. The eldest, Hester, is beautiful as the evening star. Margaret is very different. It does not matter what she is as to beauty, for the question seems never to have entered her own mind.

I doubt whether it has often occurred to her whether she can be this, or that, or the other. She _is_, and there is an end of the matter.

Such pure _existence_, without question, without introspection, without hesitation or consciousness, I never saw in any one above eight years old. Yet she is wise; it becomes not me to estimate how wise. You will ask how I know this already. I knew it the first day I saw them; I knew it by her infinite simplicity, from which all selfishness is discharged, and into which no folly can enter. The airs of heaven must have been about her from her infancy, to nourish such health of the soul. What her struggle is to be in life I cannot conceive, for not a morbid tendency is to be discerned. I suppose she may be destined to make mistakes,--to find her faith deceived, her affections rebuked, her full repose delayed. If, like the rest of us, she be destined to struggle, it must be to conflict of this kind; for it is inconceivable that any should arise from herself. Yet is she as truly human as the weakest of us,--engrossed by affection, and susceptible of pa.s.sion. Her affection for her sister is a sort of pa.s.sion. It has some of the features of the serene guardianship of one from on high; but it is yet more like the pa.s.sionate servitude--of the benefited to a benefactor, for instance--which is perhaps the most graceful att.i.tude in which our humanity appears. Where are the words that can tell what it is to witness, day by day, the course of such a life as this?--to see, living and moving before one's eyes, the very spirit that one had caught glimpses of, wandering in the brightest vistas of one's imagination, in the holiest hours of thought! Yet is there nothing fearful, as in the presence of a spirit; there is scarcely even a sense of awe, so childlike is her deportment. I go, grave and longing to listen; I come away, and I find I have been talking more than any one; revealing, discussing, as if I were the teacher and not the learner,--you will say the worshipper. Say it if you will. Our whole little world worships the one or the other.

Hester is also well worthy of worship. If there were nothing but her beauty, she would have a wider world than ours of Deerbrook at her feet. But she has much more. She is what you would call a true woman. She has a generous soul, strong affections, and a susceptibility which interferes with her serenity. She is not exempt from the trouble and snare into which the lot of women seems to drive them,--too close a contemplation of self, too nice a sensitiveness, which yet does not interfere with devotedness to others. She will be a devoted wife: but Margaret does not wait to be a wife to be devoted.

Her life has been devotedness, and will be to the end. If she were left the last of her race, she would spend her life in worshipping the unseen that lay about her, and would be as unaware of herself as now.

"What a comfort it is to speak freely of them! This is the first relief of the kind I have had. Every one is praising them; every one is following them: but to whom but you can I speak of them? Even to you, I filled my first sheet with mere surface matter. I now wonder how I could. As for the 'general opinion' of Deerbrook on the engrossing subject of the summer, you will antic.i.p.ate it in your own mind,--concluding that Hester is most worshipped, on account of her beauty, and that Margaret's influence must be too subtle and refined to operate on more than a few. This is partly, but not wholly the case. It has been taken for granted from the beginning, by the many, that Hester is to be exclusively the adored; and Enderby has, I fancy, as many broad hints as myself of this general conclusion. But I question whether Enderby a.s.sents, any more than myself. Margaret's influence may be received as unconsciously as it is exerted, but it is not, therefore, the less real, while it is the more potent. I see old Jem Bird raise himself up from the churchyard bench by his staff, and stand uncovered as Hester pa.s.ses by; I see the children in the road touch one another, and look up at her; I see the admiration which diffuses itself like sunshine around her steps: all this homage to Hester is visible enough. But I also see Sydney Grey growing manly, and his sisters amiable, under Margaret's eye. I fancy I perceive Enderby--But that is his own affair. I am sure I daily witness one healing and renovating process which Margaret is unconsciously effecting. There is no one of us so worthy of her, so capable of appreciating her, as Maria Young: they are friends, and Maria Young is becoming a new creature. Health and spirit are returning to that poor girl's countenance: there is absolutely a new tone in her voice, and a joyous strain in her conversation, which I, for one, never recognised before. It is a sight on which angels might look down, to see Margaret, with her earnest face, listening humbly, and lovingly serving the infirm and much-tried friend whom she herself is daily lifting up into life and gladness. I have done with listening to abuse of life and the world. I will never sit still under it again.

If there are two such as these sisters, springing out of the bosom of a busy town, and quietly pa.s.sing along their path of life, casting sanct.i.ty around them as they go,--if there are two such, why not more?

If G.o.d casts such seeds of goodness into our nook, how do we know but that he is sowing the whole earth with it? I will believe it henceforth.

"You will wonder, as I have wondered many a time within the last six weeks, what is to become of us when we lose these strangers. I can only say, 'G.o.d help us!' But that time is far off. They came for several months, and no one hints at their departure yet. They are the most unlearned creatures about country life that you can conceive, with a surpa.s.sing genius for country pleasures. Only imagine the charm of our excursions! They are never so happy as when in the fields or on the river; and we all feel ourselves only too blest in being able to indulge them. Our mornings are all activity and despatch, that our afternoons may be all mirth, and our evenings repose. I am afraid this will make you sigh with mingled envy and sympathy; but whatever is that can be told, you may rely upon it that I shall tell you, trusting to your feeling both pleasure and pain in virtuous moderation.

"I have done my story; and now I am going to look what o'clock it is-- a thing I have refrained from, in my impulse to tell you all. The house is quite still, and I heard the church clock strike something very long just now; but I would not count. It is so. It was midnight that the clock struck. I shall seal this up directly. I dare not trust my morning--my broad daylight mood with it. Now, as soon as you have got thus far, just take up your pen, and answer me, telling me as copiously of your affairs as I have written of ours. Heaven bless you.

"Yours ever,

"Edward Hope."

It was not only Mr Hope's broad daylight mood which was not to be trusted with this letter. In this hour of midnight a misgiving seized upon him that it was extravagant. He became aware, when he laid down his pen, that he was agitated. The door of his room opened into the garden. He thought he would look out upon the night. It was the night of the full moon. As he stood in the doorway, the festoons of creepers that dangled from his little porch waved in the night breeze; long shadows from the shrubs lay on the gra.s.s; and in the depth of one of these shadows glimmered the green spark of a glow-worm. It was deliciously cool and serene. Mr Hope stood leaning against the door-post, with his arms folded, and was not long in settling the question whether the letter should go.

"Frank will think that I am in love," he considered. "He will not understand the real state of my feeling. He will think that I am in love. I should conclude so in his place. But what matters it what he infers and concludes? I have written exactly what I thought and felt at the moment, and it is not from such revelations that wrong inferences are usually drawn. What I have written is true; and truth carries safely over land and sea--more safely than confidence compounded with caution. Frank deserves the simplest and freshest confidence from me.

I am glad that no hesitation occurred to me while I wrote. It shall go--every word of it."

He returned to his desk, sealed and addressed the letter, and placed it where it was sure to be seen in the morning, and carried to the post-office before he rose.

CHAPTER NINE.

CHILD'S PLAY.

The afternoon arrived when the children were to have their feast in the summer-house. From the hour of dinner the little people were as busy as aldermen's cooks, spreading their table. Sydney thought himself too old for such play. He was hard at work, filling up the pond he had dug in his garden, having tried experiments with it for several weeks, and found that it never held water but in a pouring rain. While he was occupied with his spade, his sisters and the little Rowlands were arranging their dishes, and brewing their cowslip-tea.

"Our mamma is coming," said f.a.n.n.y to Matilda: "is yours?"

"No; she says she can't come--but papa will."

"So will our papa. It was so funny at dinner. Mr Paxton came in, and asked whether papa would ride with him; and papa said it was out of the question; it must be to-morrow; for he had an engagement this afternoon."

"A very particular engagement, he said," observed Mary: "and he smiled at me so, I could not help laughing. f.a.n.n.y, do look at Matilda's dish of strawberries! How pretty!"

"There's somebody coming," observed little Anna, who, being too young to help, and liable to be tempted to put her fingers into the good things, was sent to amuse herself with jumping up and down the steps.

"There now! That is always the way, is not it, Miss Young?" cried f.a.n.n.y. "Who is it, George? Mr Enderby? Oh, do not let him come in yet! Tell him he must not come this half-hour."

Mr Enderby chose to enter, however, and all opposition gave way before him.

"Pray don't send me back," said he, "till you know what I am come for.

Now, who will pick my pockets?"

Little Anna was most on a level with the coat pocket. She almost buried her face in it as she dived, the whole length of her arm, to the very bottom. George attacked its fellow, while the waistcoat pockets were at the mercy of the taller children. A number of white parcels made their appearance, and the little girls screamed with delight.

"Miss Young!" cried f.a.n.n.y, "do come and help us to pick Mr Enderby's pockets. See what I have got--the very largest of all!"

When every pocket had been thoroughly picked without Miss Young's a.s.sistance, the table did indeed show a goodly pile of white cornucopia,--that most agitating form of paper to children's eyes. When opened, there was found such a store of sweet things as the little girls had seldom before seen out of the confectioner's shop. Difficulties are apt to come with good fortune; and the anxious question was now asked, how all these dainties were to be dished up. Miss Young was, as usual, the friend in need. She had before lent two small china plates of her own; and she now supplied the further want. She knew how to make pretty square boxes out of writing-paper; and her nimble scissors and neat fingers now provided a sufficiency of these in a trice. Uncle Philip was called upon, as each was finished, to admire her skill; and admire he did, to the children's entire content.

"Is this _our_ feast, Mr Enderby?" inquired Mary, finally, when Anna had been sent to summon the company. "May we say it is ours?"

"To be sure," cried f.a.n.n.y. "Whose else should it be?"

"It is all your own, I a.s.sure you," said Mr Enderby. "Now, you two should stand at the head of the table, and Matilda at the foot."

"I think I had better take this place," said Sydney, who had made his appearance, and who thought much better of the affair now that he saw Mr Enderby so much interested in it. "There should always be a gentleman at the bottom of the table."

"No, no, Sydney," protested Mr Enderby; "not when he has had no cost nor trouble about the feast. March off. You are only one of the company. Stand there, Matilda, and remember you must look very polite.

I shall hide behind the acacia there, and come in with the ladies."

A sudden and pelting shower was now falling, however; and instead of hiding behind a tree, Mr Enderby had to run between the house and the schoolroom, holding umbrellas over the ladies' heads, setting clogs for them, and a.s.suring Mrs Grey at each return that the feast could not be deferred, and that n.o.body should catch cold. Mr Grey was on the spot; to give his arm to Mrs Enderby, who had luckily chanced to look in,--a thing which "she really never did after dinner." Mr Hope had been seen riding by, and Mrs Grey had sent after him to beg he would come in.

Mr Rowland made a point of being present: and thus the summer-house was quite full,--really crowded.

"I am glad Mrs Rowland keeps away," whispered Mrs Grey to Sophia.

"She would say it is insufferably hot."

"Yes; that she would. Do not you think we might have that window open?

The rain does not come in on that side. Did you ever see such a feast as the children have got? I am sure poor Elizabeth and I never managed such a one. It is really a pity Mrs Rowland should not see it. Mr Rowland should have made her come. It looks so odd, her being the only one to stay away!"

The room resounded with exclamations, and admiration, and grave jokes upon the children. Notwithstanding all Uncle Philip could do, the ingenuous little girls answered to every compliment--that Mr Enderby brought his, and that that and the other came out of Uncle Philip's pocket. They stood in their places, blushing and laughing, and served out their dainties with hands trembling with delight.

Maria's pleasure was, as usual, in observing all that went on.

She could do this while replying, quite to the purpose, to Mrs Enderby's praise of her management of the dear children, and to George's pressing offers of cake; and to Mr Rowland's suspicions that the children would never have accomplished this achievement without her, as indeed he might say of all their achievements; and to Anna's entreaty that she would eat a pink comfit, and then a yellow one, and then a green one; and to Mrs Grey's wonder where she could have put away all her books and things, to make so much room for the children. She could see Mr Hope's look of delight when Margaret declined a cup of chocolate, and said she preferred tasting some of the cowslip-tea. She saw how he helped Mary to pour out the tea, and how quietly he took the opportunity of getting rid of it through the window behind Margaret, when she could not pretend to say that she liked it. She observed Mr Rowland's somewhat stiff politeness to Hester, and Mr Enderby's equal part.i.tion of his attentions between the two sisters. She could see Mrs Grey watching every strawberry and sugar-plum that went down the throats of the little Rowlands, and her care, seconded by Sophia's, that her own children should have an exactly equal portion of the good things. She believed, but was not quite sure, that she saw Hester's colour and manner change as Mr Hope came and went, in the course of his service about the table; and that once, upon receiving some slight attention from him, she threw a hasty glance towards her sister, and turned quite away upon meeting her eye.

The rain had not prevented the servants from trying to amuse themselves with witnessing the amus.e.m.e.nt of the family. They were cl.u.s.tered together under umbrellas at the window nearest the stables, where they thought they should be least observed. Some commotion took place among them, at the same moment that an extraordinary sound became audible, from a distance, above the clatter of plates, and the mingling of voices, in the summer-house.

"What in the world is that noise?" asked Margaret.

"Only somebody killing a pig," replied Sydney, decidedly.

"Do not believe him," said Mr Enderby. "The Deerbrook people have better manners than to kill their pigs in the hearing of ladies on summer afternoons."

"But what is it? It seems coming nearer."