The Late Miss Hollingford Part 7

Rachel did not speak again for some minutes. Looking at her presently, I was surprised to see her face quivering, and great shining tears following one another swiftly and silently into her lap.

"Do not mind me," she said. "I went to see a poor girl on the estate, who is dying. Her mother was sitting at the head of her bed. She told me the girl had never vexed her in her life."

"And has that made you sad?" asked I, thinking the girl was to be envied.

"Very sad," said Rachel; "sadder than I could tell."

We were silent awhile, and then said Rachel:

"It must have made her grow old before her time, that trouble."

"Do you mean Mrs. Hollingford?" said I.

"Yes," said Rachel. "The grief, and the shame, and the blight."

"There should be no shame, no blight for the innocent," I said.

"The world does not think so," said Rachel, with a stern cloud on her face.

"The world!" I said contemptuously.

She lifted her eyes from the fire to my face. "Yes, I know you are a brave independent little soul," she said. "Will you answer me one thing truly? Did you not feel even a shadow of shrinking or regret when you promised to marry John Hollingford?"

"Not a shadow," I said bitterly. "I accepted him for what I believed him to be, not for what the world might think of him."

"I wish G.o.d had made me like you," she said solemnly; and then got up, with a wild sad look in her face, and left me without another word, forgetting to lift up her wet trailing habit, which she dragged along the ground as she went.

After she had gone I sat there, angry, amazed, and sick at heart. I thought she had well said to John, "I am weak and selfish." I had never told her of my engagement, and she had talked to me of it unblushingly.

Thinking of her own sacrifice, she had forgotten my wrong and pain. I had seen into the working of her thoughts. She could love John and injure me, but she could not be content without the approval of the world. The young farmer was worthy of love, but he was not rich enough, nor grand enough, nor was his soiled name fitted for the spoilt child of wealth. She could steal away my treasure without enriching herself--could destroy the peace of two minds, without creating any contentment for herself out of the wreck. "Poor John!" I thought, "your chances of happiness are no better than my own, even though you have paid a dishonourable price for them." And I hated her after that.

CHAPTER IX.

The winter was pa.s.sing away at this time, and spring days were beginning to shine. I walked out of my bed-room into the bright March world and saw the primroses laughing in the hollows. I thought my heart broke outright when I heard the first lark begin to sing. After that things went still further wrong. John came to take me out for a drive one day, and I would not go. And the Tyrrells were staying at the Hall.

Whether it was that Rachel shunned me of her own wish, or because she saw that I had learned to despise her, I do not know; but we kept apart.

My poor soul was quite adrift. Anguish for the past, disgust at the present, terror of the future, all weighed on it. If I had known of any convent of saintly nuns, such as I had read of in poems and legends, who took the weary in at their door and healed the sick, who would have preached to me, prayed with me, let me sit at their feet and weep at their knees till I had struggled through this dark phase of my life, I would have got up and fled to them in the night, and left no trace behind me.

I hated to stay at the Hall, and yet I stayed. Mr. Hill--kind heart!--said he would bar the gates, and set on the dogs if I attempted to move. He and his wife both fancied at this time to make a pet of me.

I had been ill in their house, and I must get well in their house. They would warrant to make the time pleasant. So the Tyrrells were bidden to come and stay a month. Grace Tyrrell arrived with her high spirits, her frivolity, her odour of the world, took me in her hands, and placed herself at once between me and Rachel. She found me weak, irritable, wobegone. She questioned, petted, coaxed. Partly through curiosity, and partly through good-nature, she tried to win my confidence, and in an evil hour I told her all my trouble. I listened to her censure, scoffs, counsels, and my heart turned to steel against John.

She was older than me by five or six years. I was a good little simple babe, she said, but she, she knew the world. It was only in story books, or by younglings like me that lovers were expected to be true. Miss Leonard was an "old flame," and, if all that was said might be true, would be heiress of Hillsbro'. Yes, yes, she knew; I need not blaze out.

I had made myself a hero, as simple hearts do, but my idol was clay all the same. Wealth and power would do for John Hollingford what his father's misconduct had undone. It was utter silliness my abasing myself, saying that Rachel Leonard was more lovable than I. Her rich expectations were her superior charm. Oh me! how people will talk, just to be thought knowing, just to be thought wise, just to dazzle, and to create an excitement for the hour.

I do think that Grace Tyrrell loved me after her own fashion, and that she thought I had been hardly used; but the sympathy she gave me was a weak sympathy, that loved to spend itself in words, that was curious to sift out the matter of my grief, that laid little wiles to prove the judgment she had given me true. She had watched them (Rachel and John), she said, and John's manner was not the manner of a lover, though he affected it as much as he could. He was trying to bind her with promises, but she would not be bound. Yes, she, Grace, had watched them, and would watch them. Every night she brought me into her room, and detailed her observations of the day, and pitied and petted and caressed her poor darling. I was weak in health, and unutterably lonely and sad, and I clung to her protection and kindness. But instinctively I distrusted her judgment. I disliked her coa.r.s.e views of things, and followed her counsels doubtingly.

I have not described her to you yet, my children. Imagine, then, a showy, frivolous-looking, blonde young woman, fond of pretty feathers, and flowers, and gay colours; pretty enough in her way, good-humoured and talkative.

I thought, then, that I had every reason to be grateful to her, and I blamed myself for not loving her spontaneously, as I had loved, as I still fought against loving Rachel. I think now that I had no reason to be grateful to her. If she had not been always by my side, so faithful, so watchful, so never-failing with her worldly lesson, I think I should have found a way out of the darkness of my trouble. I think I should have softened a little when Rachel met me in the gallery, twined her soft arm round my neck, and asked me why we two should be so estranged.

I think I should have wept when John took my hand between his two and asked me, in G.o.d's name, to tell him why I had grown so altered. But I was blind, deaf, and dumb to their advances. Their reproaches were meaningless, their caresses treacherous, and I would have none of them.

I would stand where they themselves had placed me, but I would draw no nearer to set their consciences at rest. And then there was Captain Tyrrell at the Hall.

Why did Grace Tyrrell want me to marry her brother? I do not know; unless because she liked me, for she was fond of him; unless because my substantial dowry would be of use to the needy man of fashion. I had heard before that he had made two unsuccessful attempts to marry an heiress. I was not an heiress, but the hand that I should give to a husband would be pretty well filled. At all events he was ever by my side, and Grace (I am now sure) helped him to contrive that it should be so. I did not like him, I never had liked him. Before I had come to Hillsbro' he had wearied me with compliments and attentions. When he had visited me at the farm, elegant as he was, I had contrasted him unfavourably with the absent "ploughman," wondering that language had only provided one word, "man," by which to designate two creatures so different. He was the same now that he had been then; but I, who had soared to things higher, had fallen. Anyone was useful to talk to, to walk with, to drive with, so that time might pa.s.s; any noise, any bustle, that would keep me from thinking, was grateful. So I tolerated the attention of Captain Tyrrell, and he and Grace hemmed me in between them. Rachel looked on in silence, sometimes with contempt, sometimes with wondering pity. John kept further and further aloof, and his face got darker, and sadder, and sterner to me. And this it was that bewildered and chafed me more than anything I had suffered yet. Why, since he had turned his back upon me, would he keep constantly looking over his shoulder? And, oh me! how Grace did whisper; and how her whispers fired me with pride, while the confidence I had foolishly given her daily wore away my womanly self-respect.

My children, you will wonder why I did not behave heroically under this trial. You despise a heroine who is subject to the most common faults and failings. The old woman now can look back and mark out a better course of conduct for the girl. But the girl is gone--the past is past, the life is lived. I was full of the humours and delusions of nineteen years, and I saw the glory and delight of my youth wrecked. Existence was merely inextricable confusion in the dark. I never dreamt of a path appearing, of a return of sunshine, of a story like this to be afterwards told.

Rachel's conduct was variable and strange to me at this time. She kept aloof from me, as I have told you, looking on at my poor little frantic efforts to be careless with a grand contempt. She watched me as closely as Grace watched her; but one day, I know not how it happened, some word of jealous misery escaped me, and Rachel grew very white and silent, and there was a long pause of days before either of us addressed the other again; but Rachel's look and manner was altered to me from that moment.

A long, tender, wistful gaze followed me about. She did not venture to dispute Grace Tyrrell's possession of me, but it made her uneasy. She was observant and sad, patient and kind, while my manner to her was often irritable and repellent. One night she stole into my room when I was sinking to sleep, and bent over me in my bed. "My darling, my sister!" she said, "let me kiss you, let me put my arms round you. Oh!

why will you always turn away from me?"

I did not answer, except by moving my face shudderingly aside.

"Margery," she whispered again, "tell me why you have turned against me and John Hollingford."

"You and John!" said I, opening my eyes and looking at her. "Yes, that is it. You and John. Dear me; am I not grateful to you both? How odd!"

"Margery, shall I swear that you have no reason to be jealous of me?"

"Oh, no, Rachel," I said; "don't swear. Go away and be happy, as I am, and sleep soundly."

She moved away a step or two, but came back hesitatingly.

"Margery," said she, "I want to tell you--if you will listen to me--I have a great trouble."

"Have you?" said I. "To think of anyone having a trouble in this world!

I can't believe it."

"But, Margery," she said, putting her hands on my shoulders, and looking down at me, "I have a secret, and I came here to tell it to you, and you must listen, for it concerns you."

"Does it?" said I; "then you had better not trust me with your secret, Rachel. I think I have a wild creature chained up in me somewhere, and it might do you harm. I advise you not to have anything to do with me.

Good-night."

"Ah!" said she bitterly, turning away, "was ever anyone so changed in so short a time. This is Miss Tyrrell's doing. She is a spy upon me, and yet I defy her to know anything about me. She has filled you with her own cruel prejudice."

"Do not say anything against the Tyrrells in my hearing," I said. "They are the dearest friends I have."

"If that be true," answered Rachel thoughtfully, "I have nothing more to say. The thing that I was going to tell you does not concern you, and I have been spared a humiliation for the present. When you know all, you can cry out against me with the rest. Remember," she added distinctly with proud bitterness, "I give you full permission."

She turned away and moved across the room; she stopped before the dying fire, standing above it, and looking down into it. I saw her dark figure between me and the fading glare, her head lowered on her breast, her arms hanging dejectedly by her side. She mused there a few minutes, and then went noiselessly out of the room.

CHAPTER X.