Far above rubies (Vol. 1 of 3)

Taken as a whole, the incongruous ingredients brought together at Berrie Down Hollow did not form a peculiarly agreeable social dish. In one respect it might have been called a kind of haggis, but the result proved that what may be made palatable in cookery, cannot always be tried domestically.

The oatmeal and the vegetables, the mincemeat and the savoury stuffing, refused to amalgamate at the daily dinner-table, and, as is usual in such cases, each guest thought the absence of his neighbours the only thing needed to ensure perfect comfort and happiness at the board.

It is a way people have—this of thinking all God’s creatures bores excepting themselves—of imagining, certain pleasant places on earth were made for their especial delectation, and that every other man, woman, or child, who sets foot within the enclosure, should be ousted out, and prosecuted for trespass.

There are common lands on which the majority of mankind may browse if they will, but they must leave the sunny green slopes, the sweet clover-fields, the well-fenced paddock, for the gratification and comfort of the elect; and perhaps the most curious social problem of the day is to notice how, amongst saints and sinners alike, one common idea prevails,—the former believing they have a right to heaven, the latter that they have a right to earth.

Each saint thinks that other saints have no right or title to be pushing themselves forward into the heavenly kingdom; each sinner thinks his fellow-sinner should remain at home, and not strive to gain an entrance where he is most decidedly de trop.

Any one who has noticed the disgust of this world’s elect at the sight of any one whom they do not chance to like, seated opposite to them at dinner, will have no difficulty in understanding how hard it would be to get into heaven, if man had any power in the matter of rejection or selection. Easier a thousand times for a camel to pass through the needle’s eye, than for him who was judged by his fellow to obtain ingress there.

It is not profane to argue from analogy, even on sacred subjects, and when we see how man would deal with man in life, it is not difficult to guess how man would deal, if he could, with man after death.

“Me—me—place for me! make room for me! you surely care for me! you will certainly be glad to see me!” is the cry here; and is it too much to assume that in the secret souls of men it is the cry for hereafter?

I am certain it was so at all events with Heather’s guests: if they could have kept each other, not merely out of Berrie Down, but out of heaven, they would have done it.

To say that Miss Hope hated the entire of the Cuthbert connection would be to use too mild a word. To say that Mr. and Mrs. Black, Mrs. Ormson, and Miss Ormson, stank in her nostrils, and that the younger Dudleys stank likewise, though with a lesser offensiveness, would fail to convey an idea of the state of the lady’s real feelings on the subject of her brother-in-law’s second marriage; whilst by Mrs. Black, Mrs. Ormson, Bessie, and the younger Dudleys, Miss Hope’s dislike was returned with ample interest—honestly paid in kind.

But not here did the dislikes end. With all her heart Mrs. Black wished her sister, Mrs. Ormson, at the antipodes; while with all Mrs. Ormson’s heart she wished, not merely Mrs. Black, but also her own husband, Mr. Ormson, at New Zealand. If the gods had known much about human nature—which, judging from results, we may conclude they do not—they would have mated Mr. Black with Mrs. Ormson, Mr. Ormson with Mrs. Black.

“There would have been the wife for me,” Mr. Black stated one day, in strict confidence, to Heather, “but she was secured, ma’am—snapped up.”

How badly off Heather thought mankind must have been for wives, when two of the sex considered Mrs. Ormson a desirable helpmeet, she did not deem it needful to state. One virtue of Arthur Dudley’s wife was, that she knew when to hold her tongue,—an incalculable advantage in a woman, when such silence does not arise from indifference or stupidity: Heather was neither indifferent nor stupid, but she possessed that one great gift of discretion, without which, as Solomon says (and we may safely consider him an authority), “beauty is to a woman but as a jewel in a swine’s snout.”

And Heaven knows there was need both for discretion and patience, in those days, at Berrie Down!

There are some people with whom everybody can agree, and Heather, unhappily for herself, chanced to be of that exceptional number.

If Mrs. Ormson did not like her—and she did not, for the simple and explicit reason, as she informed all whom it might concern, that Mrs. Dudley “was not one of her sort”—still she was quite unable to resist taking her into her confidence, and telling her all Mr. Ormson’s shortcomings, all Bessie’s delinquencies, all her maternal anxieties, all Mrs. Black’s follies, all the young Marsden’s sins, all the indignities which Miss Hope had heaped upon the devoted head of the late Squire Dudley’s second wife.

“Just as she would treat you, if you had not a spirit of your own,” finished Mrs. Ormson, which speech was the more amusing, as Heather, unhappily, had not a spirit of her own, but let the whole party trample over her at their own sweet wills.

Then Mrs. Black would, in her weak, limp way, intrude on Heather’s only really quiet hour, by knocking at her dressing-room door, and asking if she might come in for a comfortable chat, “for really everything seems so peaceful when I am here with you alone, that I could stay upstairs for ever;” an arrangement, the very mention of which filled Heather’s heart with a terrible despair.

After a time Bessie would, much to Mrs. Black’s chagrin, appear on the stage, and offer to dress Mrs. Dudley’s hair,—an offer Heather always gladly accepted, since Bessie’s chatter seemed infinitely preferable to Mrs. Black’s inane repinings.

“Lord bless me, aunt,” Miss Ormson was wont to say, with a vehemence of expression which afforded a strong contrast to the sentimental discourses concerning her own life and lives in general that had delighted Alick Dudley, “what do you want that you have not got? If I had your money,” with a strong emphasis on the personal pronouns, “and no children” (this fact was very fennel in the cup of Mrs. Black’s existence), “I would enjoy myself, see if I would not.”

“Ah, Bessie!” Mrs. Black was wont to reply, “money is all very well while it lasts, and it does not last long, you know, but sympathy is better.”

“Oh, bother sympathy!” Bessie replied—if she had been a man she would have said something a great deal stronger—“what good is it, and what do you want people to sympathize about?”

“When you are married, child, perhaps you will know,” answered Mrs. Black, vaguely; whereupon Bessie asserted:

“If any husband bullied me, aunt, as uncle bullies you, I would soon let him know the difference. He would not care to try the experiment with me twice.”

“It is easy for you to talk,” said Mrs. Black, feebly.

“Not in the least easier than it would be for me to act,” answered Bessie, strong in her youth and health, giving various pulls to Heather’s hair during the course of the conversation, which might be considered as special marks of admiration, put in to attract Mrs. Dudley’s notice. “I’d like to see my mother submit to the one-half you bear. Believe me, aunt, Griseldas are not thought much of by modern husbands. If any Griselda of the present day went home ‘smockless,’ that is,—if such a thing would be tolerated by our ‘intelligent’ police,—she might stay smockless all the days of her life afterwards, whilst her liege lord committed bigamy, or flaunted about with some other woman clothed in velvets and satins.”

“I do not know what you are talking about, Bessie,” Mrs. Black would make answer.

“About a certain Griselda, who was, as Lally says, ‘a fool,’ and lived in verse—how many centuries ago, Heather?”

“How should I tell?” asked Mrs. Dudley.

“Say eight or ten, that is near enough,” went on Bessie. “She was a woman, and her husband a man. Like many women, she was, as I have said, a fool, and he, like many men, was a brute. There you have the whole story, aunt; it reads a trifle like your own.”

“But, my dear Bessie, your uncle is not a brute,” ventured Mrs. Black.

“I am delighted to hear it,” Bessie answered.

“He is a little rough, to be sure,” Mrs. Black went on, “and has no appreciation, no sympathy, as I said before; but, while he has money, if he could clothe me in cloth of gold, he would do it.”

“You may be very glad he cannot,” answered Bessie, “for cloth of gold would be not merely very expensive, but also very unbecoming.”

“How you talk, child!”

“Good gracious, aunt! what do you think my tongue was given to me for, except to talk?” asked the young lady. And so on, and so on, till Heather, sometimes amused, but far oftener wearied, would entreat Mrs. Black to take Bessie away with her, to which little ruse Bessie lent herself, not unwillingly, throwing back a look at Mrs. Dudley, which said, as plainly as a look could say, “You would let me stay, if it were not to get rid of her.”

“How can you think of allowing those people to pester you as they do?” this was Miss Hope; “you are far too amiable; if I were mistress here, you would see whether they should torment me. I would make use of them instead. Each of the aunts should have one of the girls constantly with her on a visit, and Mr. Black and Mr. Ormson should take the two boys into their respective offices. The boys do not wish to be with their uncles, is that what you say? Well, Heather, I really do wonder at your weakness. What have the boys’ wishes to do in the matter? Is Arthur to keep them for ever? Are they never to go out into the world, and try to earn an honest living? Are you to have your house full of another woman’s children all your life, and be worried to death with them?”

“Please not to talk like that, Miss Hope,” Heather said, piteously; “the children must go some day, I know, but without them Berrie Down will never seem the same Berrie Down to me.”

“Do you mean to say you like having them here?” Miss Hope inquired, with a gradual crescendo.

“You do not know what they have been to me,” Heather answered, the colour coming up into her face, as it always did when she was either excited or distressed. “They have been assistants, comforters, companions, friends! As for Alick”—here the sweet, low voice faltered—“he has been my very right hand; he has thought for me, worked for me. I have had but to wish a thing, and if Alick heard, and it were possible to accomplish, I never wished vainly. He is going: it is right he should. I have striven for him to go; but I shall feel lost without him. Already it is to me as though some one in the house were dying.”

Miss Hope solaced herself with a chocolate cream at this point. As some people take snuff, so Arthur Dudley’s aunt took chocolate. Apparently it stimulated her thoughts, for she said:

“You are an original, if ever there were one.”

“Do you think I do not mean what I say?” asked Heather, uncertain what the observation implied. “Do you think I do not love my husband’s brothers and sisters? Do you imagine any woman ever found such brothers and sisters before—such bright, willing helpers—such unselfish, loving, cheerful boys and girls?”

“I think, my dear, any person who could not be happy with you could not be happy with any one. You certainly are a very sweet creature—don’t blush, or, yes, rather do, it is becoming to you. I saw a face exactly like yours in a studio at Rome last year. Did you ever know an artist of the name of Whiteman? No?—ah! then he could not have fallen in love with you in years gone by, and he making money out of your beauty now. What did that murmur mean?—that you are not beautiful? Stuff! Excuse me, but it is stuff! I suppose you will allow that I know a pretty face when I see it? and I declare you are beautiful—twenty times more so than that Bessie Ormson, whom I should not have in the house an hour, if I were in your shoes.”

“I like Bessie greatly,” Heather remarked.

“Of course you do—you like every one—a flirty, flighty miss, who would take up with your favourite Alick if there were no other man in the way, or with Arthur, or——”

“Why, Arthur and she never speak a civil word to each other,” Mrs. Dudley objected.

“That is the way with all those kind of people—they begin with quarrelling and end by loving. Of course, you know your own business best; but I would not have her here. I am sure I have heard of such things, and Arthur is such a weak simpleton!”

“Miss Hope!”

“Don’t be indignant, my dear. Before ever you knew Arthur I knew him, and what I say is true. He is even so weak that he has not the remotest idea what a treasure of a wife fate sent him. Arthur is amiable enough, and headstrong enough, in some things; but still I would not trust him too far. Look how Mrs. Ormson winds him round her finger! Well, if Bessie were to change her tactics, and humour him, she might——”

“It is not right of you,” interrupted Heather. “Indeed, Miss Hope, it is not right; you should not say such things of my husband and your nephew; and as for that poor innocent girl——”

“Innocent!” interposed Miss Hope, in her turn. “An innocent that could buy and sell you, and me too—ay, and make money out of both of us! I would have none of her. Not but what the girl is an amusing enough companion, and clever too; and if she had loved this man—this Gilbert Harcourt—and settled down, she might have become, in her station, a respectable enough member of society; but she does not care for him—there’s the misery.”

“I cannot imagine what makes you think Bessie does not care for him,” persisted Heather.

“I imagine what my eyes tell me to be the truth, and nothing more,” answered Miss Hope. “She is too anxious to please him, far too careful of what she says, much too ready to do what he asks her, keeps that sweet temper of hers too much under—is, in fact, much too good and saintlike for a happy young woman. Why, my dear, they ought to have tiffs and sulking fits, quarrels and reconciliations—to part eternally one hour, and be kissing like a couple of stupids the next. But why do I talk like this to you, who have gone through it all yourself?”

Heather made no answer, but, turning a little towards the window, removed her face from Miss Hope’s observation. Had she gone through it; had she ever held such a power over Arthur as this indicated; had she herself even ever gone through the heat and the cold, the crater and the snowdrift; had she ever smiled those smiles, and wept those tears, which a woman only smiles and weeps when she is dreaming her love-dreams; was this mystery, which she had been groping about after blindly for years, going to be revealed to her at last; was what Miss Hope said true; was the love-play that she saw acted out every hour before her eyes, true but as regarded one of the performers in it? If it were so, what then had that play been which decided the fate of her own life—a farce, a tragedy—which? Was light, after the blessed darkness of years, only breaking to reveal to her this? Were other human lives but mirrors reflecting back the sad, pitiful face of her own married experience? What had come to her—what was coming to her? Knowledge! and, with an undefined dread of what knowledge might bring with it, Heather, standing by the open window, looking adown the smooth green slope, and so away to the far still country lying off in the distance, silently prayed that she might hear and understand no more—that as knowledge had come so late, it might never come at all.

It was growing upon her that Arthur did not love her—had never loved her. Everybody said he did not guess how good a wife had fallen to his share; and little as, in her modesty, she believed there was to call “good” about her, still Heather thought that if Arthur really cared for her he would overrate rather than underrate her better qualities, and try to be satisfied with her endeavours to please him.

Instead of which, let her do what she would, Arthur found fault; before strangers, too, who took her part, and thus drove the nail home.

“I cannot think what has changed him so much,” the poor wife thought, her eyes filled with tears that prevented her seeing any object distinctly. “He used to be so different;” which was true to this extent, namely, that the writing on Arthur Dudley’s mind had remained almost undistinguishable till it came to be passed through the social fire, which made every character traced on it clear even to eyes that would rather not have read there any word, likely in the future to affect injuriously Heather’s happiness or Heather’s peace.

“And another thing,”—it was Miss Hope again speaking, which brought Heather back from a long vague journey to the realities of life—“I would not have that Mr. Black staying here; of course, as I said before, you know your own business best, but I know how it will all end. That man and Mrs. Ormson, between them, will make Arthur dissatisfied.”

“He has long been so,” remarked Heather.

“Let me finish my sentence, if you please,” proceeded Miss Hope—“will make Arthur dissatisfied and induce him to join in some senseless project, which will ruin him. Ruin him,” repeated the lady. “You know what that means, I suppose; and when that day comes, remember, I am not going to help him. You can tell him what I say.”

“I would much rather not,” Mrs. Dudley observed.

“But I beg that you will, should opportunity offer. Tell him I have sunk all my money in an annuity, and that I shall not have a sixpence to leave or give to anybody.”

“Dear Miss Hope, I trust you do not think that we——”

“I think nothing ill of you,” interrupted the old lady. “And, for that matter, I do not think Arthur mercenary, either. He could have packed all those children off with their mother years ago, had he not been generous as well as foolish; but he is just the man first to get rid of all his own money, and then to think he can get rid of all mine too, so disabuse his mind of that idea, will you, like a dear sweet soul?”

“As I am confident such an idea never entered his mind, there can be no necessity for me to disabuse him of it,” said Heather, a little stiffly.

“Well, when it does enter it, do not depend on me for help. What, cross?” added Miss Hope. “Frowning is not at all becoming to you, Heather; and I did not think your eyes could have held so dark a look as I see in them now.”

“Because everything seems to be going wrong,” Mrs. Dudley said passionately; “because one comes to me with advice, and another with a caution, till I am sick and tired of both; because no person seems to like any other person; because, for peace sake, I have even to keep my children constantly out of sight; because there are dreadful things said, and dreadful things thought; because I am miserable, and everybody tries, I do believe, to make me more miserable still.”

“Sit down,” said Miss Hope; and when Heather seemed inclined to rebel, the old lady pushed her with gentle force into the nearest chair. “Mrs. Dudley, I am going to talk to you;” she proceeded, but then she paused, and involuntarily, as it seemed, put another chocolate into her mouth.

“Take one?” she said, handing the box to Heather.

“Not any, thank you;” the brown eyes looked very defiant at the moment, and Heather’s tone was defiant also.

“You do not like chocolate?”

“I detest it,” was the explicit answer.

“It is an acquired taste, and you have acquired very few tastes as yet, I fancy,” said Miss Hope; “you have much to learn.”

“I am not bound to learn, I suppose,” was Mrs. Dudley’s reply.

“There is a school, my dear, in which it does not much matter whether the pupils be apt or not—willing or unwilling, they cannot help but learn. I should rather like to keep you out of that school; it is a very absurd thing for an old woman who has no heart and no sympathy to say; but it is true, for all that. I am very fond of you, Heather Dudley.”

“You are very kind, Miss Hope.”

“You are not in a mood to think so at this moment,” said Arthur’s aunt; “but wait a little. I have known your husband longer than you have; I am slightly better acquainted with the world, and the men and women in it, than you are; and I want to tell you, that if Arthur and Mr. Black are much together, my nephew will make ducks and drakes of Berrie Down, and you and he and the children won’t have sixpence a year.”

It was not a pleasant picture to contemplate. Let a woman be as little sordid as she please, still the interest on sixpence paid quarterly must seem an insufficient income; and Heather sat silent for a minute considering Miss Hope’s words. She was a wise wife, though a loyal; and though her companion had hurt and irritated her, still she would not let the bark containing Arthur Dudley’s fortune go down, if timely knowledge could prevent its doing so.

“What is the danger?” she asked at length; “what is the precise danger you think an intimacy with Mr. Black involves?”

“His drawing Arthur into some of his schemes,” was the reply. “You know, of course, Mr. Black is a man who has always lived by his wits.”

“No, I do not,” answered Heather. “I should have thought they would have yielded him an insufficient income.”

“On the contrary, they have yielded him a very good income,” said Miss Hope; “and for this reason, that he cannot be put down. His impudence and, I may add, his energy, are inexhaustible. He is like a cork—he will float where much more valuable people founder. Now, if Arthur go with him, Arthur will founder.”

“How do you mean, go with him?” asked Heather.

“Join him, embark in any of his numerous speculations. Wait a moment; I have got a letter concerning our friend in my pocket. Let me turn the key in your door first, to keep out some of those irrepressible people whom I hear coming in search of you. I am not going to show you that letter, but I will read you a few paragraphs out of it. There, I told you—knock away—who’s there?—what do you want?”

“May I come in?” asked Mrs. Ormson, vainly trying to open the door. “Is Heather to be seen?”

“No,” almost screamed Miss Hope; “she is lying down with a very bad headache, and must not be disturbed.”

“May I not speak to her for a moment?”

“Certainly not; I will come downstairs presently and hear all you have got to say.”

“That you won’t,” thought Mrs. Ormson.

“Now, do go away, please Mrs. Ormson, and tell your daughter not to come worrying. There, that’s a good riddance; how frightened you look, child!”

“She will be so angry—so offended.”

“Let her be offended. Is the house not your own? Have you no right to ten minutes’ quiet in the day? Are you to be at the beck and call of a parcel of people who would like you to slave for their amusement? I’m out of patience with it. And, besides, your head is aching. Don’t contradict me; I know better.”

“I had no intention of contradicting you,” Heather answered. “Now about the letter, Miss Hope—that is, if you think it quite right for me to hear it.”

In reply to which last clause, Arthur’s aunt told Heather not to be absurd, but to listen attentively.

“Respecting Mr. Black, I should recommend great caution. He is a person who has had almost every known iron in the fire, and burnt other men’s fingers with all of them. He has made a composition with his creditors three times a—(composition means, that if you owe a person a hundred pounds, you pay him ten shillings, and the debt is done with.” This, Miss Hope.) “Passed through the Insolvent Court thrice, and been bankrupt twice—(bankruptcies, and insolvencies, and compositions all pretty nearly come to the same thing.” Miss Hope in explanation again.) “He has embarked in almost every trade which can be commenced without either knowledge or capital. He is suspected of having been connected with several of the shilling swindles—(that is, send twelve stamps, and by return——”) Enlightened Miss Hope!

“I know about that,” said Heather, proud at last of being acquainted with some of the world’s wickedness; “for I sent the twelve stamps, and got back a reply advising me to sell baked potatoes.”

“Very probably Mr. Black wrote it,” suggested Miss Hope; “but to go on. Several of the shilling swindles, and particularly with one, which was carried on very successfully in the City, and which realised a very large sum to the persons engaged in it. I know about that,” confided Miss Hope, repeating Heather’s words. “The shares were five shillings each, and I took fifty, lost my twelve pounds ten, and think I bought my wisdom cheap. Mr. Black is at present engaged in promoting and carrying through four or five different companies. For one of these, a very large undertaking, he is looking up directors, and has, I am told, got some good names—amongst others, that of Mr. Allan Stewart. What makes you look so astonished, child?”

“Allan Stewart was the name of my godfather,” explained Heather. “He had property near Layford.”

“This Mr. Stewart is old, rich, and cross,” said Miss Hope.

“And our Mr. Stewart was rich and cross likewise,” Heather answered; whereupon Miss Hope laid down her letter, and wondered if the two could by any possibility be one and the same.

“Did you ever happen to hear him speak of a nephew called Douglas Aymescourt?” inquired Miss Hope.

“I never heard him speak about any one,” was Heather’s reply; “for, before I could speak myself, he and my father had some little difference in opinion, which finally swelled into such a quarrel that all visiting ceased. But who is Mr. Aymescourt? I have heard of him, though not from Mr. Stewart.”

“What have you heard about him?” Miss Hope asked.

“Nothing, excepting that you knew him.”

“And who told you I knew him?”

“Arthur; at least, he and Mrs. Ormson were talking here one evening, and there was something said about your knowing him and his wife. Who are they?”

“Well, Mr. Aymescourt is Mr. Stewart’s nephew, and Mrs. Aymescourt is Mrs. Aymescourt,” answered Miss Hope, shortly.

“But who was she?” persisted Heather.

“She was a Miss Laxton in the days when I knew anything about her,” said Miss Hope; “a handsome girl, with a detestable temper and a fine fortune. They say she and her husband live like cat and dog; but all this has nothing to do with my friend’s letter. Listen to it, please;” and Miss Hope proceeded: “There can be no doubt but that, were this company once formed, Mr. Black, and probably many others, would make a good thing of it; but the difficulty in carrying it through appears to be want of capital for advertising and various other expenses. Mr. Stewart, as you are aware, is not a person likely to give away his name uselessly. I have no doubt he is to be liberally paid for allowing it to appear on the Direction.”

“Paid for his name? What is the translation of that?” inquired Heather.

“The translation of that is, Mr. Stewart will be either paid in shares or money for allowing his name to appear on the Direction,” said Miss Hope, who, for a woman that had bought her experience for twelve pounds ten, seemed wonderfully at home in the intricacies of City matters; “and if the gentleman in whom you are interested,” proceeded Arthur’s aunt, once again reading from the letter, “be, as you seem to imply, not merely a person inexperienced in business, but also speculative, there can be no doubt Mr. Black’s purpose is to obtain money from him in order to float his company.”

Here Miss Hope folded up her manuscript, and looked at Heather.

“But we have no money,” said the latter, answering Miss Hope’s look.

“No, but you have Berrie Down.”

“And you think Arthur would be so mad——?” began Heather.

“I am sure he will be so mad, if some one do not put a stop to these private walks and talks—these wanderings over the fields—these confidential whisperings.”

“Shall you read him that letter, Miss Hope?” ventured the poor wife, timidly.

“Do you think I am mad, too, Heather Dudley?” asked Miss Hope; “do you think I want every word in it to be repeated to Mr. Black? No; you must meet influence with influence; you must checkmate stratagem by stratagem. For Arthur’s sake and for the sake of your children, you must avert this great evil which is coming upon you. This man must go, and Mrs. Ormson also, and Arthur must not follow them to London. Berrie Down is not gone yet; but Berrie Down will go, if you do not exert yourself to save it.”

For a moment Heather bent her head on her hands before she replied; then, “Berrie Down is not mine, to keep or to lose?” she said.

“No; but you can prevent Arthur losing it.”

“How?” Heather lifted her eyes, and looked straight into Miss Hope’s face as she asked this question.

“How?” repeated her companion; “why, you must talk to Arthur, find out what he is thinking of joining; and, if it be as we imagine, prevent his doing anything so utterly suicidal.”

“And you think I could prevent him?”

“If you have any influence at all over him, and I suppose no other human being has so much, and like to exert it, I should think you might.”

“Miss Hope, I have no influence.”

Many a time afterwards, Heather marvelled how she came to utter that sentence,—utter it as calmly as though no bitterness lurked in the words. She marvelled how everything grew clear to her in a moment, as it seemed; how, for the time, she appeared to be another person looking calmly and dispassionately at her own position, and forming a conclusion concerning that position. The years came and stood before her then—the years during which she had loved and laboured in vain, in which she had spent her strength for nought, in which she had been happy and unsuspecting, in which she had never been other than vaguely conscious of a want in which, though her life had always lacked the principal ingredient all lives require before they can be pronounced happy, she had yet believed herself so—believed that hers was a lot to be desired.

The years came and stood before her, and each had the same story to tell,—that during its course she had grown no more necessary to her husband, no nearer to his confidence, no dearer to his heart, no more appreciated by him.

At last, the question which had long been tormenting her was put in a tangible form, the enigma that had puzzled her was solved in a single sentence spoken by her own lips,—

“I have no influence.”

Miss Hope did not immediately answer. She sat looking in the sad, lovely face before her, till at last she arrived at a perfect conviction of the truth conveyed in Heather’s words. In all her life before she had never met a woman who possessed no power either to lead or drive, to coax, to flatter, to delude or to bully a husband; and, although she saw Arthur did not appreciate Heather, she had not dreamed of his wife having not the slightest influence over him.

“So that is the way of it,” she said, after a long pause.

“That is the way of it,” Heather answered, rising as she spoke.

Next moment she dropped back into her chair. “It is nothing. I am not going to faint,” she said, detaining Miss Hope, who was darting off for water. “Only this talk has tried me. Don’t you understand?”

Miss Hope was not much given to such demonstrations, but she knelt down on the floor beside Heather, and twined her arms round her nephew’s wife.

“Lay your head on my shoulder, dear,” she whispered; and Heather drooped it wearily as she was desired.

She did not cry. She did not make any lamentation; but she sat with her head drooped, thinking out her trouble, vaguely wondering through it all, whether—when Mrs. Ormson said, as she was often kind enough to do, “Arthur ought to have married a rich wife,” and when Miss Hope, kneeling on the ground, murmured “You are too good for Arthur; he ought to have married a virago,”—they had mutually in their minds’ eyes Mrs. Aymescourt, née Laxton.