Hetty Gray Part 21

Two more years pa.s.sed over Hetty's head. She had grown tall and looked old for her age, her large gray eyes were full of serious thought, her brow was grave, and the expression of her mouth touched with sadness.

The haughtiness and mirth of her childhood were alike gone. Earnest desire to attain to a difficult end was the one force that moved her, and this had become visible in her every word and glance. She was painfully aware that the time was approaching when she must go forth to battle with the world for herself, and that on her own qualifications for fighting that battle her position in the world must depend. That she had not sufficient apt.i.tude for learning out of books, or for remembering readily all that she gathered from them, she greatly feared.

Her memory gave her back in pictures whatever had engaged her imagination; but much that was useful and necessary was wont to pa.s.s away out of her grasp. Thorough determination, close application, did not remove this difficulty, and she was warned by those around her that unless she could make better use for study of the three years yet before her than she had made of those that lay behind her, she could never be a teacher of a very high order. Of all that this failure meant, Hetty understood more clearly now than when she had wished to live with Mrs.

Kane and be the village schoolmistress. Loving all that was beautiful and refined in life, she had learned to dread, from another motive than pride, the fate of being thrown upon a lower social level. And yet this was a fate which seemed now to stare her in the face.

Mr. Enderby, who had of late taken a personal interest in her studies, examining her from time to time on various subjects, said to her:

"My little girl, if you do not wake up and work harder I fear you will have to take an inferior position in life to that which I desired for you."

Poor Hetty! Was she not wide awake? So wide awake that when he and all the household were asleep she lay staring her misfortune in the face.

And how could she work harder than she did, weeping in secret over the dry facts that would not leave their mark upon her brain? Thus it was that life looked dreary to her, and her face was grave and pale. Phyllis and Nell, who were three and two years older than herself, had begun to talk of the joys which the magic age of eighteen had in store for them.

They would leave off study and go forth into the enjoyment of their youth in a flattering world. Idleness, pleasure, happiness awaited them.

No one could say they were not sufficiently well educated to take that graceful place in life which Providence had a.s.signed to them; Hetty was rebuked for being less learned than she ought to be, because for her there was no graceful place prepared; only a difficult and narrow path leading away she knew not where.

Of the difference between their position and hers she could not help thinking, but she had been so long accustomed to realize it that she did not dwell upon it much. Miss Davis was the person on whom her eyes were fixed as an image of what she ought to hope to become.

To be exactly like Miss Davis. To look like her, think like her, be as well informed, as independent, as much respected; to teach as well, speak as wisely, be called an admirable woman who had fought her own way against poverty in the world, this was what Hetty had been a.s.sured by Mr. and Mrs. Enderby ought to be the object of her ambition and the end of all her hopes. And Hetty tried honestly to will as they willed for her good. But her face was not less sad on that account.

Things were in this state when one day, a day never to be forgotten by her, Hetty was feeling more than usually unhappy. Only the evening before Mr. Enderby had examined her on several subjects, and had found her wanting. He had spoken to her with a little severity, and at the same time looked at her pityingly, and the girl had felt more miserable than can be told at having disappointed him. To-day she was left to spend a long afternoon by herself, as Miss Davis had taken Phyllis and Nell to visit some friends, and, though her morning's work ought to have been over, she still sat at her lessons, labouring diligently. At last becoming thoroughly tired she closed her book and raised her eyes wearily, when they fell on a jar of wild flowers which yesterday she had arranged and placed upon a bracket against the wall. It was spring, and in the jar was a cl.u.s.ter of pale wood-anemones with some sprays of bramble newly leafed. Hetty's eyes brightened at the sight of these flowers, and noted keenly every exquisite outline and delicate hue of the group. It seemed to her at the moment that she had never seen anything so beautiful before. Mechanically she took up her pencil and began to imitate on a piece of paper the waving line of the bramble wreath, and the graceful curves of the leaves. To her own great surprise something very like the bramble soon began to appear upon the paper. A sharp touch here, a little shadow there, and her drawing looked vigorous and true. After working in great excitement for some time Hetty got up and pinned her drawing to the wall, and stood some way off looking at it. Where had it come from? she asked herself. She had never learned to draw. She had not known that she could draw. Oh, how delightful it would be if she could reproduce the flowers as they grew! Not quite able to believe in the new power she had discovered in herself, she set again to work, altering the arrangement of the flowers in the jar, and taking a larger sheet of paper. It was only ruled exercise paper, but that did not seem to matter when the flowers blossomed all over it. The second drawing was even better than the first; and Hetty stood looking at it with flushed cheeks and throbbing heart, wondering what was this new rapture that had suddenly sprung up in her life.

As her work was done, and the afternoon was all her own, she was able to give herself up to this unexpected delight, and spent many hours composing new groups of flowers, and arranging them in fanciful designs.

When a maid brought up her solitary tea she lifted her flushed face and murmured, "Oh, can it be tea-time?" and then spread out all her drawings against the wall, and stared at them while she ate her bread and b.u.t.ter.

She felt nervous at the thought of letting anybody see them, and locked them up in her desk before Miss Davis and the other girls came home.

In earliest dawn of the next morning, however, she was out of bed and studying the drawings as she stood in her night-dress and with bare feet. Were they really good, she asked herself, or were her eyes bewitched; and would Mr. Enderby laugh at them if he saw them? Anguish seized on her at the thought, and she dressed herself with trembling hands. A new idea, striving in her mind, seemed to set all nature thrilling with a meaning it had never borne for her before. There had been great painters on the earth, as she knew full well, whose existence had been made beautiful and glorious by their genius; and there were artists living in the present day, small and great, who must surely be the happiest beings in the world. Their days were spent, not in drudgery, and lecturing, and primness, but in the study and reproduction of the beauty lying round them. Oh, if G.o.d should have intended her to be one of these!

When the maids came to dust the school-room they found Hetty hard at work upon a new wreath of ivy which she had hastily s.n.a.t.c.hed from the garden wall and hung against the curtain, and they thought she was doing some penance at Miss Davis's bidding. By eight o'clock the drawings were hid away, the flowers and wreaths disposed of in the jars, and Hetty was sitting at the table with a book in her hand. No one need know, she thought, of how she spent those early hours when everybody else was in bed. And so day after day she worked on steadily with her pencil, and there was a strange and unutterable hope in her heart, and a new light of happiness in her eyes.

After some time she became more daring and attempted to bring colour into her designs. Using her school-room box of paints, the paints intended only for the drawing of maps, she placed washes of colour on her leaves and along her stems, making the whole composition more effective and complete. Day by day she improved on her first ideas, till she had stored up a collection of really beautiful sketches.

With this new joy tingling through her young veins from morning till night, and from night till morning again, Hetty began to look so glad and bright that everyone remarked it. Miss Davis looked on approvingly, thinking that her own excellent discipline of the girl was having an effect she had scarcely dared to hope for. Nell was full of curiosity to know why Hetty had become so gay.

"May I not have the liberty to be gay as well as you?" said Hetty laughing.

"Of course; but then you are so suddenly changed. Miss Davis says it is only because you are growing good. But I think there must be something that is making you good."

"I am glad to hear I am growing good. Something is making me very happy, but I cannot tell you what it is."

Nell, always on the look-out for a secret, opened her eyes very wide, but could get no further satisfaction from Hetty, who only laughed at her appeals to be taken into confidence. That evening, however, she told Miss Davis that Hetty had admitted that there was _something_ that was making her so happy.

"I knew she had a secret," said Nell mysteriously.

"Then it is the secret of doing her duty," said Miss Davis. "She has made great improvement in every respect during the last few weeks."

"I know she gets up earlier in the mornings than she used to do," said Nell, "and I don't think she is at her lessons all the time."

"I hope she has not been making any more friends in the village," said Phyllis.

"I am sorry such thoughts have come into your minds, children," said Miss Davis; "I see nothing amiss about Hetty. If she is happier than she used to be, we ought all to feel glad."

Phyllis did not like the implied rebuke, and at once began to hope that she might be able to prove Miss Davis in the wrong. If Hetty could be found to have a secret, as Nell supposed, Phyllis decided that it ought to be found out. Her mother did not approve of children having secrets.

Even if there was no harm in a thing in itself, there was a certain harm in making a mystery of it. So, having arranged her motive satisfactorily in her mind, Phyllis, feeling more virtuous than ever, resolved to observe what Hetty was about. The next morning she got up early and came down to the school-room an hour before her usual time. And there was Hetty working away at her drawing with a wreath of flowers pinned before her on the wall.

Phyllis came behind her and was astonished to see what she had accomplished with her pencil; and Hetty started and coloured up to her hair, as if she had been caught in a fault.

"Well, you are a strange girl," said Phyllis; "I did not know drawing was a sin, that you should make such a mystery over it."

"I hope it is not a sin," said Hetty in a low voice. She felt grieved at having her efforts discovered in this way. She wished now that she had told Miss Davis all about it. Phyllis opened the piano and began to practise without having said one word of praise of Hetty's work; and the poor little artist felt her heart sink like lead. Perhaps the beauty that she saw in her designs existed only in her own foolish eyes.

She worked on silently for about half an hour, and then put away her drawing materials and her flowers, and began to study her lessons for the day.

"Of course you do not expect me to keep your secret from Miss Davis,"

said Phyllis, looking over her shoulder. "I have been always taught to hate secrets, and my conscience will not allow me to encourage you in this."

"Do exactly as you please," said Hetty; "I shall be quite satisfied to let Miss Davis know what I have been doing."

"Then why did you not tell her before?" asked Phyllis.

"I am not bound to explain that to you," said Hetty; but finding her temper was rising she added more gently, "I am willing to give an account of my conduct to any one who may be scandalized by it"; and then, fearing to trust herself further, she went out of the room.

On the stairs she met Miss Davis, and stopped her, saying:

"Phyllis has a complaint to make of me. I shall be back in the school-room presently after she has made it."

"What is it about, my dear?"

"She can tell you better than I can," said Hetty. "Please go down now, Miss Davis, and then we can have it over before breakfast."

"Miss Davis, I find Nell was right in thinking that Hetty was doing something sly," began Phyllis, as the governess entered the school-room.

"I am sorry to hear it. What can it be?"

"Nothing very dreadful in itself perhaps. It is the secrecy that is so ugly, especially as there was no reason for it in the world."

"What has Hetty done?" repeated Miss Davis.

"Why, she has been getting up early in the mornings to draw flowers,"

said Phyllis, unwillingly perceiving that the fault seemed a very small one when plainly described.

"I did not know she could draw," said Miss Davis; "but, if she can, I see no harm in her doing it."

"I think she ought to spend the time at the studies father is so anxious she should improve in," said Phyllis; "and I imagine she knows it too, or she would not have been so secret."

"There is something in that, Phyllis; though I would rather you had not been so quick to perceive it."

Phyllis curled her lip slightly. "Intelligence is given us that we may use it, I suppose," she said coldly; "but I have done my duty, and I have nothing more to say in the matter."