Part 5, Chapter XXXVIII.
Pin-Pricks.
“The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one.
But the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.”
The Rectory drawing-room window was open to the sunshine, and Mrs Harcourt was standing by it, waiting for Flossy. But Arthur turned aside from it, and went round to the door in front.
“Who is that, my dear?” said the old lady, as Flossy ran up to her.
“It is Arthur,” she said. “I met him there. He said he ought to come and see you.”
“Ah, poor boy, I’m glad,” said Mrs Harcourt, as she went to let him in, while Flossy exclaimed nervously:
“Oh, Violante, I forgot you. Never mind, it will be just as well.”
“Is it Signor Arthur?” asked Violante, who sometimes accompanied Miss Florence on half-holiday walks, and had needed no teaching to consider Redhurst sacred ground.
“Yes,” said Flossy, as Arthur and Mrs Harcourt came in. He looked very pale, while Mrs Harcourt, half-tearful, half-hospitable, was eagerly welcoming him.
“Ah, my dear Arthur, we have been longing to see you; but I can’t get out much now; and I know—I know you could hardly come. It is very good of you.”
“I am almost all day in Oxley,” he said, “but I hope you are well, and the Rector?”
“Pretty well, my dear, for our time of life. We have had a lonely winter; but we push along together, you see.”
Arthur managed to smile, but his face went to Flossy’s heart, though neither she nor Mrs Harcourt knew exactly how the fifty years which the old husband and wife had “had wi’ ane anither” had once seemed to stretch before the young lovers, who never saw of them a single day.
“You have been getting some tea for us, Mrs Harcourt?” she said.
“Oh, yes, my dear. Now, do you pour it out, and Arthur will have some. But will your young Italian friend drink tea?”
“Oh, yes, signora, I like tea,” and, with a start of relief, Arthur turned at the sound of her voice.
“Mademoiselle Mattei!” he said; “I did not know you;” and, in truth, Violante was much altered at first sight by her dark winter dress and jacket, and little black hat with a red plume.
Arthur shook hands with her, and asked her how she liked England.
“I like it very much.”
“Why, we were very near an explanation. If you had told me where you were going to school I could have enlightened you much better as to what your life would be like there.”
“But I did not know myself,” said Violante, colouring as she thought of what a difference a few explanations might have made. “I did not know anything,” and her sweet voice faltered with its weight of meaning.
“But I was right, wasn’t I, when I gave you good advice? You have found—”
“Miss Florence,” said Violante, with a grateful look.
She felt as if Signor Arthur was quite an old friend. He had seen Rosa and her father, and she began to tell him about them, while Flossy made a few words of explanation to Mrs Harcourt as to their previous meeting.
“I expect to find my cousin James at home,” he said. “You remember him?”
“Yes, Arthur,” said Flossy. “It’s the strangest thing that she should have met you without knowing that Mr Crichton and James were your cousins, and that then she should come here!”
“Mr Hugh never comes to see me,” said Mrs Harcourt.
“Doesn’t he?” said Arthur. “I will tell him that he should. There’s the Rector.”
Mr Harcourt, with more tact than his wife, only gave Arthur a warm handshake. Violante rose and curtsied to him in a pretty reverential fashion that pleased and touched him, and while he complimented her, in a little old-fashioned Italian, Flossy said aside:
“It makes Violante very shy to hear of anyone who saw her act; and, as Mary isn’t very fond of the subject, we say very little about it.”
“Ah, yes, poor child! It’s a mortifying recollection if she made a failure of it. She’s a lovely creature. What on earth does she do with herself?”
“Oh, many things. Surely, Arthur, you don’t think she need be useless because she’s pretty?” and, in the little laugh that followed Flossy’s return to her natural inclination for argument, Arthur took his leave.
It was a great relief to have got this afternoon’s work over, and comfortable to find Jem at home when he got there, cheerful and chatty, and taking no apparent notice of his words or looks, yet with a little undercurrent of sympathy that he felt all the time. James amused everybody, and put them into good-humour, taking the burden of cheerfulness off their shoulders; and yet he avoided every word that could have touched painfully on his cousin or brother—or would have done so, had not some mention of a new opera recalled Violante to Arthur after dinner, when both he and Freddie demanded a description of her performances, as he stood on the hearthrug, looking round at his audience. Hugh was sitting on one side of the fire, holding up a “Quarterly Review;” the ladies looked expectant over their work; and Arthur, leaning back in a low chair in front of him, was looking right up in his face.
“Well,” said Jem, apparently measuring his beard, hair by hair; “I only saw her once. She acted badly and sang well, but it was a failure—”
“How so? She was enough applauded,” abruptly said Hugh; and then could have bitten his tongue out for speaking.
“She is pretty, you know,” said Jem.
“Lovely,” said Arthur. “There’s a sort of pathetic grace about her; but I suppose it didn’t tell at a distance.”
It would be difficult to say whether their admiration, or the careless, critical tone in which it was uttered, enraged Hugh the most.
“Since her public career has ceased,” he said, “it seems a pity to discuss it.”
“Yes. It’s hardly fair,” said Arthur; “but she interested me, poor child, and I was very glad to see her with Flossy. She is sure to be well taken care of, and, perhaps, she’ll forget her troubles.”
“What troubles?” said Hugh, sternly.
“Why, I told you the other day,” said Arthur, regardful of Frederica’s presence. “She looks twice as bright as she did in Italy.”
“Now it seems to me,” said Mrs Crichton, “that you are all making a very unnecessary talk about her. Miss Venning has decidedly stretched a point in having her here. I don’t altogether approve of it. Young ladies shouldn’t have histories, and they should keep her and hers in the background.”
“Aunt Lily, I think that would be mean,” said Frederica.
“Aunt Lily’s never seen her,” said Arthur.
“No, my dear, I don’t feel any curiosity about her,” said Mrs Crichton, didactically.
Jem—no other word will express it—giggled; Hugh sprang to his feet, and, happily for the preservation of his secret, knocked over the lamp beside him, and in the confusion that followed Violante was forgotten, and he contrived to apologise and make his escape.
Such discussions rendered him furious, far more so than any amount of opposition could have done while he had had the one purpose of marrying Violante clear and straight before him. Then he would have borne patiently with his mother’s natural opposition, and would have smiled at anyone else’s. But now that they should all dare to praise her, and judge her, and “take an interest” in her! It made him very angry, and yet he was ashamed of his own connection with it. He would not have had it discovered for the world; and then, when he knew this feeling to be despicable, it was justified by the knowledge of the pain and disturbance any discovery would cause, and increased by his jealousy of Violante’s reported confidences and conversations. Arthur had been eager about nothing else. Hugh had an unbounded belief in Violante’s irresistible charms, and none in the depth and permanency of Arthur’s sorrow, even while that sorrow made his own. He was never in the same mind for five minutes at a time, angry, miserable, jealous, and self-reproachful. He was sacrificing himself, of course, in giving up all his chances of winning her, and yet he could not quite rid himself of the suspicion that he was false and cruel, and that he had been his best self when he defied the world for her sake. If accident had thrown her in his way the whole current of events might have been changed; but he could not and would not seek her, though he thought about her enough to make chance allusions far more his dread than they ever were Arthur’s, who never thought of them till they came; and he bemoaned himself over the Dysart dinner-party, the announcement of which his cousin hardly heeded.
“Hugh has become exceedingly cross,” Freddie said to Jem, with the freedom of speech of the Redhurst household.
“Then, don’t make him more so,” was Jem’s advice, given with equal openness.
The party was merely to consist of Colonel and Mrs Dysart, their two elder daughters, and one of their sons, who was discovered to be at home and invited at the last minute. It was difficult to see why a few extra people should make any difference, but Jem dressed himself with a sense of preparing to walk on egg-shells, and Arthur felt suddenly reluctant, and as if the sense of even this small festivity was depressing.
“My dear Jem,” his mother had said, “I look to you to make it go off well.” But the second Miss Dysart was very pretty, and just in the style Jem admired, and he was speedily absorbed in discussing a new novel with her, and forgot to guide the rest of the party, who talked of the neighbourhood and the society in the manner of people entertaining new comers. The ladies of the Dysart party were very conscious of the recent history of their entertainers; and, perhaps, Miss Dysart was a little disappointed that Arthur’s manner and conversation were so much like other people’s. The gentlemen were less well-informed, or more forgetful; and about half-way through dinner—after the shops of Oxley, and the excellence of Miss Venning’s school for girls, and the doubtful advantages of the grammar-school for boys, had been well discussed—the inevitable subject of a country dinner-party made its appearance, and young Dysart, across the table, began to ask Arthur about the shooting. Hugh paused suddenly in what he was saying, as Arthur answered: “I am afraid you haven’t much at Ashenfold; but ours is pretty good.”
“You shoot, I suppose?” said young Dysart.
“Oh, yes,” said Arthur, but with a catch in his breath.
“We shall take a day together, now and then, I hope, Mr Crichton?” said Colonel Dysart to Hugh.
“No. I have given it up,” said Hugh, with sudden abrupt emphasis. “I shall let my shooting.” He spoke as if he were confessing his faith on the scaffold; and, in the midst of the dead silence that ensued, James was heard wildly asking his little country-bred neighbour if she had ever been to a pigeon-match at Hurlingham; while Arthur, at the sound of his voice, said, with an effort that he could not conceal:
“The Ribstones are the great sportsmen in these parts. Sir William always has plenty of pheasants;” and Mrs Dysart caught up the Hurlingham shuttlecock and conducted the conversation safely on to the Princess of Wales. Arthur joined in, but his eyes looked absent, and once or twice he missed the answers to what he had said; while Jem’s pretty neighbour looked at him with the tears in her eyes. No one could forget what, had passed; and, indeed, in such a household as Redhurst, this matter of the shooting was a practical difficulty, and a subject that could not be tabooed.
The guests had hardly departed when Hugh said suddenly:
“To set this matter at rest for ever—as long as I live I shall never touch a gun again. Rest assured of it.”
No one answered, till Arthur said, moving away:
“Good night, Aunt Lily, I’ll go to bed. I’m tired.”
Then James broke out:
“Really, Hugh, I am surprised at you!”
“Would you have me let anyone—would you have me let Arthur think that I could ever shoot again?”
“Who cares whether you do or not?” said Jem, angrily. “Neither you nor Arthur can live without hearing the subject mentioned, and the only way is to pass it off quietly. He would have got over it in a minute if you had been silent, and next time it would have been a matter of course to him. Now you have raised up a scarecrow for ever.”
“Yes,” said Mrs Crichton. “It would be all very well to let the shooting for a time—”
“Of course, mother, I meant with your permission,” said Hugh, who was very punctilious as to invading his mother’s rights.
“Nonsense, my dear. As if I should interfere with you about it! But now you have made our friends uncomfortable, and Arthur will feel the impossibility of it, instead of slipping back to it naturally by degrees. And you have made a most painful scene.” Here Mrs Crichton herself ended in tears—half-nervous and half-sorrowful.
“It only shows,” said Hugh, passionately, “that life here is impossible for Arthur and me. It is a problem that cannot be worked out. What is there left that has not that awful mark on it: the fields, the river—and would you have it supposed that I do not feel it?”
“I thought,” said James, drily, “that it was Arthur’s feelings, not yours, that were in question.”
Hugh paused, manifestly checked by this observation, and James went on: “We all feel enough sorrow, but this is not a question, of feelings but of nerves, as it seems to me. Arthur’s are naturally strong, and these things may not affect him as they do you.”
“As to that,” said Hugh, “one thing is as bad as another. I have shirked no associations. They don’t affect me.”
“Then, if not,” said his mother, “why did you speak as you did to-night?”
“Because I was thinking of him,” said Hugh. “Must I not feel them through him? What would he think of me if I seemed not to care? Am I not bound to spare him?”
“You set to work about it in a very odd manner,” said James.
“My dear,” said Mrs Crichton, “it is what I always told you. You will insist on looking on this matter from a morbid point of view. Just drop that, and time will heal all things—even such grief as ours and poor Arthur’s. And I don’t think he will feel these things after the first. He never had any nerves, as a boy, you know.”
“You cannot drop facts,” said Hugh, wearily, “but I have been wrong, as it seems, somehow. There’s no use in arguing about it.”
“Yes, my dear, you were quite wrong,” said Mrs Crichton, cheerfully, as he left the room; “so there’s an end of it.”
Arthur, meanwhile, was reflecting on the practical aspect of the case. Although Redhurst was not a household where sport was made the business of life, it was one into the ordinary habits of which it entered considerably; and, perhaps, from his connection with the town, Hugh was a little tenacious of this privilege of the county. He liked sporting matters to be well managed, and Arthur was a very good shot and genuinely fond of the pursuit. He really could not conceive how the civilities of life could go on, or the ordinary intercourse with their neighbours be maintained, as the year went round, without it. Certainly, they must see and hear of it, if they declined to join in it themselves. Arthur had formed no resolutions about it; and, but for his experience in the Ashenfold woods, would have been ready to take it up by degrees, with a heavy heart enough and with little interest, but as part of the life he had got to struggle back to. And, surely, that would never happen to him again. Arthur was much more ready to resist these involuntary sensations than the listlessness and dejection that seemed to have become natural to him. Hugh’s speech had, of course, been intensely painful; but without it he would have gone gallantly through the discussion and felt the better for his victory. But he knew that Hugh had spoken for his sake. He would try not to be such a worry to them all. He had a bad night, however, and was, perhaps, not in the best tune the next morning for trying experiments on himself, but he would not falter; so, coming down early, he went into the little back-room, where they smoked, and kept and cleaned their guns, and began to look for his own. He found it in its usual cupboard and took it out; but the sight, the touch, the very thought of the sound of it, were more than he could bear. He just managed to put it back, and rushed out into the garden. No, he could never touch it again! But there was no use in telling anyone that he had such strange sensations; and James and his aunt, only seeing the outside, agreed that he was as well and cheerful as could be expected.
“My parting advice,” said James, “is that everyone should let everybody else alone.”
The shooting was let for a year to Colonel Dysart without more discussion, and only Hugh discovered that Arthur shrank from every trace of it. But, though some of Jem’s words rankled, he was far too much afraid of seeming to forget his own share in the matter to offer the support and sympathy which might have been better than the let-alone system.
Part 5, Chapter XXXIX.
Divided!
“Again I called, and he could not come.”
During the weeks that were so comfortless and disturbed at Redhurst, Violante’s school-life went on, on the whole, peacefully; but, still, with various ups and downs of feeling—fits of longing for Rosa, of loneliness and discouragement; times when she could not learn her lessons nor interest herself in the little trifles that interested her companions. Yet she never thought of giving in and going away from Oxley Manor. When she was unhappy she dreaded lest Rosa should discover it. All the interest of life lay close at hand—here anything might happen, elsewhere the scene was closed. Not that Violante gave herself this reason for her perseverance. No; she could not bear to foil a second time; and Miss Florence was so kind to her, she was learning to bear the little rubs of life. So she mused one soft, line morning, as she stood leaning out of the window of the little upstairs class-room, where she superintended the girls’ practising. As she waited for her pupils she thought to herself that she was growing brave and sensible—more like Rosa—who let nothing interfere with her work.
And then, looking half-expectantly down the road, she saw a man come by on horseback, riding slowly, and looking straight before him, upright and grave. She knew—she saw—he did neither; and, with a sudden impulse, she leant far out of the window and pulled the little bunch of violets from her dress and threw them to him, then darted back behind the curtain. And, as he started, the violets fell down in the dust; and she saw him laugh and ride on and pass her flowers by. Violante could almost have thrown herself out of the window too, in her agony of shame and disappointment. She could not tell whether Hugh knew that she was at Oxley Manor or not—surely he had not intended to repulse her! If he would but smile at her, speak to her!
“If you please, signorina, it’s a quarter to ten.”
Violante turned round to encounter a small fat-fingered child in a pinafore, and sat counting, “One, two, three, four,” and mechanically checking wrong notes, as she wondered if he would look up next time that he rode by. When Miss Venning observed shortly afterwards that she thought it would be more convenient if the history classes preceded the practising, which need not then begin till eleven, she little knew what springs she touched. By one accident and another Violante did not see Hugh again for a long time; but she did once or twice encounter Arthur when in company with Florence, and, therefore, her walks were haunted by a sense of possibility. She also occasionally heard Mr Crichton spoken of at meal-times as an authority in local matters under discussion, and gathered that his opinion was considered important, and that his judgment was generally supposed to be severe. It so happened that at this time the population of Oxley was convulsed with excitement as to various public improvements then under discussion. There was a talk of a new branch line of rail between Fordham and Oxley, and the direction that this was to take involved local interests of the most incompatible description. Some new gas-works were about to be set up by an enterprising company, and one of the sites proposed was a field a great deal nearer Oxley Manor than Miss Venning thought to be pleasant or profitable for her school. As this field belonged to a certain charity, long ago bequeathed, it was thought that the interests of the poor of Oxley would induce the trustees to dispose of it for a high price to the gas-works.
Miss Venning observed that she was not a person to be put upon without a reason, and that she should represent the matter in the proper quarters.
“If you mean Hugh Crichton,” said Clarissa, “you may represent it, and he will do exactly what he has already decided upon.”
“Well, my dear, I shall take care that he has the proper information on which to decide; so I shall ask him to call, and show him the field from the windows, so that he can judge for himself.”
So the tones that were associated for Violante with music and flowers, tenderness and love, first fell on her ears to the following effect:
“But you are aware, Miss Venning, that the gas-works must be somewhere? That field is very convenient for them, and I really think it is too far off to cause you any annoyance.”
“Now, Hugh, I’ll thank you just to step into the little school-room and look out of window. No, you’ll not disturb the girls. Never mind them.”
Violante rose up with her companions as Miss Venning entered. She stood a little behind the others, and could suppose that Hugh did not see her, as he walked up to the window and looked, or pretended to look out.
“It’s a very healthy situation,” he said, vaguely.
“Healthy! And, pray, what consequence can it be to gas-works if they are healthy or not? They would spoil my view; and, really, between them and the railroad, the place won’t be worth living in much longer.”
“It doesn’t rest with me, you know, Miss Venning. Can you suggest a better situation?”
“I should place them the other side of the town,” said Miss Venning, with decision, “out towards Blackwood.”
“Yes,” said Hugh, still staring out of the window and hearing nothing.
It may seem a somewhat contemptible state of mind to record; but Hugh was overpowered by a sense of embarrassment, of utter uncertainty as to what to do, as to how to greet her. Why should he evade the previous acquaintance acknowledged by James and Arthur? And yet he felt there was but one way in which he could speak to her. As he half turned, and hesitated as he talked confusedly to Miss Venning, the class of girls filed out of the room. Violante passed him. All the short-lived fire of her nature was roused by his hesitation. She gave him no glance of appealing timidity or hopeless love. She flung up her head and looked at him with an indignation such as he had never dreamt of seeing in her soft eyes, and, in answer to his confused bow, she made the slightest of curtseys and walked out of the room.
“You have met Mr Crichton?” said Clarissa, who had been with the class.
“Yes, Miss Clarissa, at my father’s classes, but I have no acquaintance with him. It was Mr Spencer who met us at Caletto. Come, Katie—come, Agnes. Your exercises have too many faults. I shall scold.” And she sat down and took up her pen, and felt for the moment as if she could defy every turn of fortune. Clarissa looked at her, and went back to where Hugh, confused and wretched, was talking at random, having heard Violante’s parting shot. She had turned the tables on him; she was no vision, no holiday dream, as he had sometimes called her; but a living woman, first misjudged and then neglected. He might be right and self-denying, might be giving up his greatest good for the sake of others; but she was wronged, and she had made him feel it.
“I have given it all up!—all—to make some slight atonement for the wrong I have done,” he thought; “and I must seem a sneak and a scoundrel to myself. How little they know! What a lie life is! If I were a boy I’d run away to sea and have done with it. And I must go this eternal round of committees and business—and—gas-works—” with passionate impatience at the momentary matter in hand, as he hurried away, having wildly pledged himself to vote for the locating of the gas-works in the midst of Lord Lidford’s park at Blackwood.
He was stung to the very quick by Violante’s anger, yet he had made up his mind that all should be at an end between them, and he had too much self-respect to try “to make the worse appear the better reason,” and to offer her any explanation, since he withheld the one that was her due. Perhaps, the very renewal of regret that the sight of her face—more womanly and more beautiful than when he had left her—caused him was a sort of support, as it strengthened the sense of self-sacrifice. But he was sufficiently upset and perturbed by what had passed to forget one or two important pieces of business, and was forced to accept Arthur’s help in hastily repairing his neglect, though he had begun the day by resolving that he would not let much work fall on his cousin when the soft spring weather made him look so pale and languid.
With Violante anger was a short-lived passion, and an hour had not passed before she longed to recall her scornful words and look, before she was making a hundred excuses for her lover. The sight of Hugh in his own place affected her as it, doubtless, had, however unconsciously, affected him. She felt miles farther away from him here in his own town than among the flowers of Italy. The pleasant novelty around her was beginning to lose its effect; she began to grow scared and stupid, to be again the little helpless Violante of Civita Bella.
One afternoon—it was a half-holiday—Miss Florence came sweeping into the school-room, penetrating it like a fresh sunny wind, darting into its corners, touching the sports, employments, humours of all its inhabitants, criticising a drawing, suggesting a book, adjusting a little quarrel; fresh currents of air seemed to follow her bright flaxen head as she whisked about till she beheld Violante standing by herself in the window and looking very disconsolate.
“Why, signorina, what’s the matter?”
“I am so sorry, Miss Florence.”
“Sorry, what for?”
“La signora is displeased with me.”
“My sister? Is she? Why, what have you been doing?”
Violante blushed, and with much confusion answered that they had been reading English poetry, and something in it made her cry. “Only a little, Miss Florence,” but the girls laughed and she had burst into tears, and Miss Venning had told her she ought to command her feelings better.
“Well, don’t let them get the better of you now,” said Flossy. “What was this dreadfully touching poem?”
“It was a play called Hamlet, Miss Florence, and he was angry with the girl who loved him.”
“The sentiment was not sufficiently disguised, as our old English teacher used to say,” said Flossy, laughing heartily. “Did you feel as if you might act Ophelia?”
“Signorina, it seemed too true for acting. It is not like an opera. It might be oneself. But I should not have cried at it.”
“No. School-girls don’t like sentiment. But, come, it doesn’t signify. My sisters are out. Come into the drawing-room and have some tea with me; and I want to sing something to you and ask your advice.” Violante followed gladly into the cheerful drawing-room, with its sunny flowery windows, and its look of feminine pleasantness. She sat down in a low easy chair and rested passively. She was tired of her own emotions; she wanted Rosa. Miss Florence was kind, and bright, and strong, but she did not dare to creep into her arms and lay her head on her shoulder—she did not dare even to cry over her troubles. Excellent discipline, doubtless, but, perhaps, the hardest that could have been devised for so dependent a creature.
“Miss Florence,” she said, after a minute; “did Hamlet ever forgive Ophelia?”
“Why, don’t you know? She went mad and drowned herself,” said Flossy, cheerfully.
“I wonder how miserable anyone must be before they go mad!”
“Why,” said Florence, as she sat down and began to knit some bright wools together, quite ready for a lively discussion on the characters of the play. “I suppose no one would who had a well-balanced mind to begin with.”
“I am sure Rosa would not,” said Violante, thoughtfully.
“No, your sister looks like the last person to do anything so silly,” said Flossy, laughing.
“But when there are long years, and friends are cruel, and one has a hard fate, and there is nothing in the world that could happen to set it right—”
The deep, passionate trouble in her voice made Florence look up surprised: she was constantly puzzled by the mixture of ignorance and experience in this girl whose life had been so unlike her own.
“You know, Violante,” she said, “we are Christians, and so we must not despair.” Violante looked perplexed and thoughtful; yet the words had a meaning for her, for these weeks had been in one respect a period of development. She had from the first taken very kindly to the religious practices which were observed at Oxley Manor, and set to work to cure her deficiency in religious knowledge. Whether because she thought it was English, or because she wished to imitate Flossy, or from some blessed instinct leading her to what was for her good, she showed a love for going to church and for all sorts of Church teaching which the Miss Vennings were half-inclined to ascribe to novelty only. Many of the girls were under preparation for Confirmation, and she acquiesced eagerly in the suggestion that she should join their number. They were carefully taught by the Oxley clergy; and Flossy, who was an enthusiastic Sunday-school teacher, had delighted in explaining difficulties and doctrines to the little Italian. How much Violante comprehended intellectually may be doubtful, but she began to see better reasons for trying to do what was distasteful than the fear of being scolded, began to have some notion of abstract duties. This she was carefully taught; but it was surely no human words, but the blessing of God on her innocent humble spirit, that opened her loving heart to a new and Divine love. There dawned upon her the thought of a Friend who was with her when Rosa was away, who loved her when Hugh was cold. It was but a dim conception, but it had capabilities of growth. Hymns and texts were something more than words, and her endeavours to fulfil these new requirements had something of the fervour of enthusiasm. She used to forget the new comfort, let it be swept away in the tumult of exciting feeling; but when the thought came back it was like Rosa’s kiss when she was in trouble and disgrace. Flossy’s hint recalled it now, and she said, with childish directness:
“Because our Saviour loves us. Ah! I love Him very much!”
There was something in the soft, earnest naïveté that made the words touching and sweet even to the English Florence, with whom reverence and reality meant reserve, and who, however she had felt, would have thought such an avowal presumptuous.
“Then, you must try to be good, Violante,” she said, rather repressively.
“Yes,” said Violante, “and then He will be pleased with me.”
Florence had taught this truth hundreds of times; but she had never heard it thus echoed and claimed; and it came with a new force, as the Bible words are said to do when read in a strange language.
Part 5, Chapter XL.
Mr Blandford of Fordham.
“Like some long childish dream
Thy life has run.”
Easter was now drawing near, but, owing to the approaching Confirmation and one or two other reasons connected with the girls’ studies, though some of the pupils went home, there was no general break-up of the school; and a week’s holiday was to be given in the beginning of May, when Violante was to go to London and meet her father, who was then expected in England. Moreover, the Miss Vennings, interested in the affection between the two lonely sisters, invited Rosa to spend a few days at Easter, and see for herself what sort of home Violante had found, and to this meeting Violante herself looked forward with a mixture of delight and alarm, as she reflected on the facts hitherto concealed from her sister.
In the meantime Redhurst had filled up all the leisure in Flossy’s busy life; and, perhaps, more than all the leisure in her busy soul. She was always welcome there, with her inveterate freshness and brightness, which even the associations of the place could not destroy; she was almost the only visitor whom Arthur really liked to see; and, consequently, the only one to whose coming Hugh did not object. But she was not encouraged to bring Violante there with her, Mrs Crichton secretly thinking that the young men had talked quite enough about their old acquaintance with her, and Miss Venning being by no means desirous of bringing about a renewal of it. So Hugh only suffered from hearing her progress and her charms described by the unconscious Flossy to Arthur, while he expressed a hope that “she had forgotten the manager.”
Flossy was too busy a person to be entirely absorbed in one subject; but beneath all her daily occupations Redhurst was for ever present in her mind, and—though she was herself scarcely aware of it—Redhurst as it affected Arthur Spencer. She never heard of any incident taking place there without wondering whether it was pleasant or not to him; and, though she did not rival Hugh in the keenness of his self-conscious insight into the passing phases of Arthur’s humour, her sympathy enabled her to draw much kinder, and, on the whole, truer conclusions from them. For Arthur was in an unsatisfactory state, languid and inconsistent, sometimes indolent and careless, and sometimes over-vehement as to his work, in a way really trying to Hugh’s patience; sometimes silent and listless, and sometimes apparently excited by any change, and even ready to seek it in the companionship of the young Dysarts and Ribstones. He was so uncertain as to be sometimes very provoking; but he did not look well; and Hugh, though secretly despising what he thought want of self-control, was outwardly marvellously patient, when his own secret fretting vexations were considered. Flossy did Arthur a great deal of good. She believed in his faith, patience, and courage, and helped to create the qualities that she believed in. She liked to coax him into an argument, to induce him to tease her in the old fashion, and she was the only person to whom he ever mentioned Mysie’s name, or to whom he ever talked about himself. All this was very good for Arthur, who sorely needed a friend; but, even for the simple unsentimental Flossy, it was very dangerous work. How long the peculiar circumstances of the case might have blinded her eyes to her danger may be doubtful, as an incident happened, extremely startling to her in itself, and which caused her to make a still more startling discovery. At twenty-one she had never even been accredited with an admirer, and had thought far less of young men than of young maidens; but, of late, possibilities had begun to dawn on the minds of her sisters. A short time before Colonel Dysart had taken Ashenfold the living of Fordham had been given to a connection of his, a Mr Blandford, who had made some stir in the clerical world of Oxley by his fine sermons and by the superior manner in which he organised his new parish. He was about five-and-thirty and unmarried; and, through a whole dinner-party, was observed to discuss Church matters, practical and theoretical, with Miss Florence Venning, who dearly loved good conversation.
“So exactly the sort of man to suit Flossy!” said Miss Venning, confidentially, to Clarissa. “So superior and with such kindred tastes!”
“It’s much too good to be true,” said Clarissa, with one of her quaint little grimaces. “I shouldn’t wonder if he is in favour of the celibacy of the clergy.”
“Oh, my dear, with that nice vicarage! But I’m sure I don’t wish to lose Flossy. She is young enough yet.”
Flossy was much flattered at finding that Mr Blandford adopted some of her suggestions in his Sunday-school, and even went so far as to pity his parish for having no lady to look after it, and to wish that he could prepare the girls for their Confirmation; but, though she met Mr Blandford tolerably often, she did not regard him in the light of a probable lover, till one morning, as she read her letters at breakfast, Miss Florence’s pink cheeks grew redder and redder, and at the first opportunity she pursued her sisters into the drawing-room, and, with a sort of half-dignified fright, communicated the alarming fact that Mr Blandford had actually made her an offer.
“My dear Flossy! Well, it is no surprise to me,” said Miss Venning.
“I’m sure it’s a surprise to me,” said Flossy, rather ruefully.
“Why, you don’t mean to say you never thought of it?” said Clarissa.
“I did,” said Flossy, “of course, when everyone was wondering if he would marry; but, as he never paid me any attentions, I decided that—that he would not.”
“Never paid you attention?”
“Why, you don’t call talking about Sunday-schools and districts attention, do you?” said Flossy.
“That depends. Did you expect him to talk about hearts and darts and forget-me-nots?” laughed Clarissa.
“I thought anyone would do something,” cried Flossy, crimson and nervous, as she twisted the letter in her hand.
“My dear, don’t be so childish,” said Miss Venning. “You are startled; but, depend upon it, Mr Blandford’s feelings are just as sincere as if he had talked more about them. And I’m sure a more excellent person—”
Miss Venning paused, rather overcome by her feelings; and Flossy said, gravely:
“I am afraid I have been childish. It is because I think so much of the things that interest me. But, indeed, I didn’t mean to—to flirt and lead him on.”
“Whatever you meant, my dear,” said Miss Venning, “you see the result.”
“What in the world shall I do, Mary? What shall I say?”
“Why, my darling, if you can care about him—”
“Oh, dear, no!” interrupted Flossy. “Of course, I can’t say yes. I never dreamt of such a thing!”
“Flossy, don’t be such a goose!” suddenly cried Clarissa. “Do bring your mind down to the realities of life, and think of something besides school-girls.”
“If one mayn’t talk to an old clergyman about his parish,” cried Flossy, who was chiefly concerned in exculpating herself from the dreadfully unfamiliar notion of having trifled with the lover’s feelings.
“Old! Flossy, you are too silly,” said Clarissa, angrily. But Miss Venning interposed:
“Now give yourself time to recover. Mr Blandford should have tried to prepare your mind for it. Go up to your room and think it over, and try to understand yourself.” Miss Venning spoke somewhat as if Flossy had been a naughty child; but the girl was glad of the respite, and hurried away to her own room. There she soon began to recover herself. A lover in the flesh is a startling novelty to many maidens of this latter nineteenth century, and Flossy’s heart had not prepared her so to regard Mr Blandford. Her sisters were unmarried, and she had thought it very likely that she should not marry herself. But she had no doubt as to her own feelings, and too much sense to reproach herself after the first flutter was over. It was a simple, honest, womanly answer that she was beginning to write, when a knock interrupted her, and Clarissa came in.
“Flossy,” she said, in an agitated voice, “Don’t—don’t be a silly child! You don’t know what you are throwing away.”
“Indeed, Clary!” said Flossy, “I am quite sure that I do not love Mr Blandford. I am very sorry. I misunderstood him, but I am quite clear in my own mind; and if I talked nonsense at first it was just the fluster of the thing.”
“Oh, Flossy, you don’t know,” said Clarissa, with tears in her eyes. “Don’t be in a hurry! You think your life will always be like it is now; but you’ll get tired of it—you will, indeed. You’ll want something more. You’ll grow into a woman—and—and you will have missed your chance, and you’ll be sorry.”
“Do you wish me to accept him for the sake of being married?” said Flossy, in superb disdain.
“Oh, I cannot tell,” said Clarissa. “But, Flossy, I want you to think what you are making up your mind to. Girls now-a-days don’t have many chances, and, though you’re handsome, you are not so very taking. Don’t you see that it means, perhaps, never to be married—never to have— Flossy, think, think!”
“Why, Clarissa, anyone would think you had said no yourself and repented.”
“I? I never said no—nor yes either.”
“You can’t suppose I am going to marry a man I don’t love?”
“No; but there are different ways of putting things, and if there is no one else—”
“Is it likely?” interrupted Flossy. “Clarissa, how can I go and marry a man when I don’t care as much for him as for hundreds of things—as I care for you and Mary, and the girls—”
“Or Arthur Spencer?” whispered Clarissa, with a sudden mischievous twinkle.
Flossy stood still; a great throb passed through her, and she quivered to her fingertips.
“Oh, Flossy, Flossy, forgive me,” cried Clarissa, clinging to her. “Indeed, I didn’t know—I didn’t mean to—”
“No!” said Flossy, putting her little, slight sister back, and standing up, tall and straight; her blue eyes lightening as they had never lightened before. “No! I don’t care half so much for him as I do for Arthur Spencer—as I did for my dear Mysie. I care exceedingly for Arthur, and Mr Blandford is only an acquaintance. You said no harm, Clarissa.” She stood grandly to her colours; but the sharp-eyed Clarissa saw it all. She ceased her arguments—they had their answer.
“You’ve got your life-story, anyhow,” she said, “and you will do as you please. I haven’t got any experience to give you the benefit of.”
It is sometimes thought impossible that a woman should give her heart away, wholly without solicitation, utterly without hope of return; and, perhaps, the fire of passion cannot be quite spontaneous. But, whatever Flossy’s young, fresh nature understood by love, the absorbing interest, the unselfish devotion, the romantic idealism had gone out to Arthur Spencer, as she thought, for ever. To use an expression prevalent among the gentle, self-restrained heroines of an earlier day, “she had allowed her affections to become engaged,” and she faced the fact with all her natural sense and honesty. He was the one man in the world for her, and she would have—
Poor Flossy burst into tears of shame and fright as she thought that there was nothing she would not have done for his sake. But as she was not “disappointed,” as she had never for a moment connected any personal hopes or fears with him, she could bear to think that this feeling must be carried about with her, hopeless of result; without being utterly wretched, or fancying that she could never care for life again. And as she was proud and brave, and was his true friend before all things, she could resolve to make no perceptible change in her behaviour, but to be as kind to him as ever, while no single soul should guess how kindly she felt. The idea had its attraction. Flossy’s young eyes were half-blinded by the sunrise still; her loves and her sorrows had still some of the fascination of romance, were still fresh from the stately dreamland of hero-worship and self-sacrifice. And so, fearless, she turned her back on cloudland, and came out “into the light of common day,” which would soon show the stones in her path plainly enough. But as she was sensible and practical too, and not inexperienced—if experience can ever be other than personal—she was aware also that it was an unlucky thing that had come to her, and one to solemnise, if not sadden, her life; and she was seized with a fit of self-distrust. “I feel as if my case was just the one exception to all rules; but I never heard any girl talk nonsense who didn’t think that,” she said, bitterly, to herself. “Well, any way, someone has liked me,” and with that she burst into a great flood of tears; and, though she was far too single-minded to waver in her determination, the result of her discovery that she had given her heart to another was that poor Mr Blandford received a much softer and more tenderly-expressed refusal than he would have got before, and that she thought of him with a much greater amount of gratitude. However, between tears and excitement, she had worried herself into a bad headache, and was quite unable to go down to her teaching—a circumstance nearly as unusual as the event which had caused it, and which cost her another half-hour’s argument before she could convince Miss Venning that she did not regret her decision, and could induce her anxious sister to leave her in peace. She had been lying on her bed, half-asleep, for some time, when there was a little tap, and Violante came in with a cup of coffee in her hand.
“Miss Clarissa said I might bring you this. Are you better, signorina mia?”
“Oh, yes,” said Flossy, sitting up. “My headache is gone, I think. Thank you, Violante; this is very good. Oh, dear! Whatever became of the Italian?”
“I did it, Miss Florence, all myself; and Miss Clarissa sat in the room,” said Violante, in accents of pride.
“Why, Violante, how clever you are getting!”
“All, Miss Florence, I would do anything to help you a little bit!” said Violante, kissing her hand. “The house is sad when you are ill.”
Flossy was in a soft mood, and thought that she might yield to the girl’s caressing sweetness, without the possibility of a suspicion that she was fretting for Mr Fordham or for anyone else. She little thought that Violante—who, it is to be feared, considered being in love as the normal condition of young maidens, and who had heard Florence talk a great deal about Arthur—was only deterred from guessing the true state of the case by her conviction that such a being as Miss Florence could only find her equal in “Signor Hugo.” To be sure, when, in a fit of holiday-gossip, some glib-tongued girl had made this suggestion, Edith Robertson had silenced her with a sharp “Oh, dear, no; not likely at all! Mr Crichton will marry into a county family,” which remark had seemed to show innumerable vistas between herself and Hugh; still, could Flossy know him and be insensible? Flossy little guessed these thoughts, as Violante caressed her and helped her to twist up her long bright hair—the flossy flaxen—which the little Italian girl thought the most beautiful colour in the world; and Florence was comforted, she hardly knew how, and went once more about her business, perhaps a little graver, a little less ready for unnecessary interests; but giving Miss Venning no reason to suppose that she regretted Mr Blandford. When she looked back on her interview with Clarissa it struck her that sister’s manner had been singular; and one day she said to Miss Venning: “Mary, did Clarissa ever have any lovers?”
“Never, my dear, that I know of. I wish she had. She doesn’t like girls, and would be happier married.”
“Nor ever cared for anyone?”
“Not that I know of,” answered Miss Venning, placidly, as she folded the letter that she had been writing to an anxious mother to relate her daughter’s progress and well-being. Flossy reflected; but her own memory did not come to her aid; for, indeed, there was nothing to remember, and Clarissa subsided into her usual lazy, satirical, yet not uncheerful, demeanour; sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued; always the provider of the family jokes and the arranger of the little family comforts, the easy-chairs and cups of tea and unexpected fires, of which she always showed such a strong appreciation. Yet it occurred to Flossy for the first time to wonder what was Clarissa’s main-spring. Certainly not her work, which she hated: nor any art or occupation, for she had none of any great consequence; and not her sisters, for she did not often excite herself about their concerns. It seemed an objectless life; could Clarissa have mended it? Flossy, young and enthusiastic, was much inclined to answer that she could; and yet it was very difficult to imagine Clarissa taking up any of the lines that seemed so alien to her. She could no more acquire Flossy’s strong impulses and inborn tastes than she could alter the outlines of her lot; no more give herself a love than a lover.