‘He don’t seem to see that, Miss Anne,’ said Keziah with a demure half curtsey: a certain comic sense of the absurdity of marrying the aunt when the niece was by, crept into the profound seriousness of her looks. That anybody should suppose old Saymore would marry Worth gave the girl a melancholy amusement in spite of herself.
‘She would be far more suitable,’ cried Anne in her impetuous way. ‘I think I’ll speak to them both and set it before them. It would be a thousand times more suitable. But old Saymore is too old even for Worth: what would he be for you?’
Keziah looked at her young mistress with eyes full of very mingled feelings. The possibility of being delivered by the simple expedient of a sudden match got up by the tormentors themselves gave her a half-frightened visionary hope, but it was mixed with a half-offended sentiment of proprietorship which she could scarcely acknowledge: old Saymore belonged to her. She would have liked to get free from the disagreeable necessity of marrying him, but she did not quite like the idea of seeing him married off to somebody else under her very eyes.
‘It’s more than just that, Miss Anne,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘All of us in the house are thinking of what is likely to happen, and Mr. Saymore, he says he will never take another place after having been so long here. And he has a good bit of money laid by, Miss Anne,’ said Keziah, not without pride. ‘And Mr. Goodman, of the “Black Bull” at Hunston, he’s dead. That’s where we’re thinking of settling. I know how to keep the books and make up the bills, and mother she would be in the kitchen, and such a fine opening for the boys. I don’t know what I shouldn’t deserve if I were to set up myself against all that. And it isn’t myself neither,’ said Keziah. ‘I should be ashamed to make a fuss for me. I have always told you that, Miss Anne. I hope I’m not one as would go against my duty. It’s Jim I’ve always thought upon. Men folks are more wilful than women. They are more used to get their own way. If he was to go to the bad, Miss Anne, and me the cause of it——’
Here Keziah broke down, and wept without any further attempt to restrain her tears.
‘I don’t understand you,’ cried Anne impetuously. ‘You pretend to be sorry for him, and this is how you treat him. But leave Jim to take care of himself, Keziah. Let us think of you. This is what I call going to the bad. Poor Jim might take to drinking, perhaps, and ruin himself—but I don’t think that is so much going to the bad as to love one man and marry another. That is the worst of sin,’ said the girl, with cheeks and eyes both flaming. ‘It is treachery, it is falsehood, it is dishonour, to you and to everyone concerned.’
Poor little Keziah quailed before this outburst. She shrank back with a look of pain as if she feared her mistress’s wrath would take some tangible form. She cried bitterly, sobbing aloud, ‘You’ve got no call to be angry, Miss Anne. You didn’t ought to be angry, Miss Anne. I’m a-going to do my duty; it’s nothing but my duty as I’m going to do!’
Anne felt, when the interview was over, that she had in all probability done more harm than good. She had frightened Keziah, and made her cling all the more to the comfort which sprang from a settled resolution, and she had even stimulated that resolve by the prick of opposition which moves the meekest of natures. She had made Keziah feel herself wronged, her sacrifice unappreciated, her duty misconceived, and the girl had fallen back with all the more confidence on the approval of her (as Anne thought) worldly-minded aunt, and the consolation of the old bridegroom, who, though he was old, was a great man in the servants’ hall—great as the butler and head of the establishment downstairs, and still more great as the prospective landlord of the ‘Black Bull’ at Hunston. To be the future mistress of such a place was a glory enough to turn a girl’s head. Keziah went away crying, and feeling that she had not deserved the cruel ‘scolding’ administered by Miss Anne. She going to the bad! when she was doing her duty in the highest and most superlative way, and had hanging over her head, almost touching it, the crown of that landlady’s cap, with the most becoming ribbons, which ranks like the strawberry leaves of another elevation in the housekeeper’s room and the servants’ hall.
It was the morning after this that Cosmo arrived. Anne was going downstairs to a morning’s work with Mr. Loseby, thoughtful and serious as she always was now; but by this time all the strangeness of her position was over; she had got used to it and even reconciled to it. She had work to do, and a position in the world which was all that one wanted for happiness. Indeed, she was better off, she said to herself, than if she had been in her natural position. In that case, in all probability, she would have had someone else to do for her what she was now to do for Rose, and her occupation would have been gone. She felt that she had passed into the second chapter of life—as if she had married, she said to herself with a passing blush—though so different. She had real work to do in the world, not make-believe, but actual—not a thing she could throw aside if she pleased, or was doing only for amusement. Perhaps it requires a whole life of leisure, and ideas shaped by that exemption from care which so often strikes the generous mind as ignoble, which made her appreciate so highly this fine burden of real unmistakable work, not done to occupy her time merely, but because it had to be done. She prepared herself for it, not only without pain but with actual pleasure. But on her way down to the library, where Mr. Loseby was waiting her, Anne chanced to cast her eyes out from the end of the corridor across the park. It was the same window to which she had rushed to listen to the cry the night her father died. It had been night then, with a white haze of misty moonlight and great shadows of blackness. But now it was morning, and the red sunshine lighted up the hoar frost on the grass, already pursuing it into corners, melting away the congealed dew upon the herbs and trees. She stood for a moment’s meditation, still gazing out without any object, scarcely knowing why. To a thoughtful and musing mind there is a great attraction at a window, which is a kind of opening in the house and in one’s being, full of long wistful vistas of inspection into the unseen. But Anne had not been there many minutes before a cry broke from her lips, and her whole aspect changed. Charley Ashley was coming along the road which crossed the park—but not alone. A thrill ran through her from her head to her feet. In a moment her mind went over the whole of the past fortnight’s story. Her chill and dumbness of disappointment, which she would not express even to herself, when he did not come; her acquiescence of reason (but still with a chill of the heart) in his explanations; the subdued sense of restraint, and enforced obedience to other rules, not first or only to those of the heart, and the effort with which she had bowed herself: her solitude, her longing for support, her uneasiness every way under the yoke which he had thought it necessary to impose upon himself and her, all this seemed to pass before her view in a moment. She had acquiesced; she had even reasoned herself into satisfaction; but oh! the glorious gleam of approval with which Anne saw all that she had consented to beforehand in the light of the fact that now he was here; now he was coming, all reason for his staying away being over—not hurriedly, as if wishing to chase the recollection of her father from her mind, or to grudge him that last pre-eminence in the thoughts of those belonging to him, which is the privilege of every man who dies. Cosmo had fulfilled every reverent duty towards him who was his enemy. He had done what it was most difficult to do. He had kept away till all the rites were accomplished; and now he was coming! All was over, not one other observance of affection possible; the very widow coming out again, thinking (a little) of the set of her cap and planning to go abroad in spring. And now there was no longer any reason why the lover should stay away. If there is one feeling in the world which is divine, it is the sense of full approval of those whom one loves most. To be able with one’s whole heart to consent and know that all they have done is well, to approve them not with blindness (though that is the silliest fable) of love, or its short-sightedness, but, on the contrary, with all its enlightenment in the eyes that cannot be content with less than excellence: to look on and see everything and approve—this, and not any personal transport or enjoyment, is heaven. Anne, standing by the window seeing the two figures come in sight, in a moment felt the gates of Paradise open before her, and was swept within them by a silent flood of joy. She approved, making no exception, reserving nothing. As she walked downstairs, her feet did not seem to touch the ground. What a poor, small, ignoble little being she had been not to read him all the time! but now that the illumination had come, and she saw his conduct from first to last, Anne saw, or thought she saw, that everything was right, everything noble. She approved, and was happy. She forgot Mr. Loseby and the morning’s business, and walked towards the hall with a serene splendour about her, a glory as of the moon and the stars, all beautiful in reflected light.
There was nobody in the hall, and the kind Curate when he came in did nothing but pass through it. ‘I suppose I shall find them in the drawing-room?’ he said, waving his hand and walking past. Anne accepted the passing greeting gladly. What did she want with Charley? He went through the hall while the other came to her side.
‘You wanted me, Anne?’
‘Wanted you—oh, how I have wanted you!—there has been so much to do; but I approve, Cosmo—I approve everything you have done. I feel it right that I should have stood alone till now. You help me more in doing my duty, than if you had done all for me. You were right all along, all through——’
‘Thank you, my dearest,’ he said. ‘But, Anne, I see in what you say that there have been moments in which you have not approved. This was what I feared—and it would have been so much easier to do what was pleasant.’
‘No—I do not think there were moments—at least not anything more. Cosmo, what do you think of me now, a woman without a penny? I wonder if you approve of me as I approve of you.’
‘I think I do more, dear: I admire, though I don’t think I could have been so brave myself. If you had not been just the girl you are, I fear I should have said, Throw me over and let us wait.’
‘You did say it,’ she said in a lower tone; ‘that is the only thing of all that I do not like in you.’
‘To think you should have undergone such a loss for me!—and I am not worth it—it humbles me, Anne. I could not believe it was possible. Up to the last minute I felt it could not be.’
‘I knew it would be,’ she said softly: was not there something else that Cosmo had to say? She waited for half a minute with a certain wistfulness in her eyes. The glory of her approval faded a little—a very little. To be perfect he had to say something more. ‘If thou wouldst be perfect!’ Was not even the Saviour himself disappointed (though he knew what was in man) when the young ruler whom he loved at first sight did not rise to that height which was opened to him? Anne could not say the same words, but she felt them in her heart. Oh, Cosmo, if thou wouldst be perfect! but he did not see it, or he did not do it at least.
‘I cannot understand it yet,’ he went on. ‘Such injustice, such cruelty—do I pain you, my darling? I cannot help it. If it had been only the postponement of all our hopes, that would have been bad enough: but to take your rights from you arbitrarily, absolutely, without giving you any choice——’
‘I would so much rather you did not speak of it, Cosmo. It cannot be mended. I have got to accept it and do the best I can,’ she said.
‘You take it like an angel, Anne. I knew you would do that: but I am not an angel: and to have all our happiness thrust into the distance, indefinitely, making the heart sick—you must not expect me to take it so easily. If I had been rich indeed—how one longs to be rich sometimes!’ he said, almost hurting her with the close clasp of his arm. Every word he said was true; he loved her even with passion, as he understood passion. And if he had been rich, Cosmo would have satisfied that judgment of hers, which once more, in spite of her, was up in the tribunal, watchful, anxious, not able to blind its eyes.
‘I do not long to be rich,’ she said; ‘little will content me.’
‘My dearest!’ he said with tender enthusiasm, with so much love in his looks and tone, so much admiration, almost adoration, that Anne’s heart was put to silence in spite of herself. How is a woman, a girl, to remain uninfluenced by all these signs of attachment? She could not repulse them; she could not say, All this is nothing. If thou would’st be perfect! Her consciousness of something wanting was not put away, but it was subdued, put down, forced into the shade. How could she insist upon what was, indeed, the final test of his attachment? how could she even indicate it? Anne had, in her mind, no project of marriage which would involve the laying aside of all the active practical duties which her father had left as his only legacy to her; but that her lover should take it for granted that her loss postponed all their hopes, was not a thing which, in itself, was pleasant to think of. She could not banish this consciousness from her mind. But in those early moments when Cosmo was so tender, when his love was so evident, how could she hold back and doubt him? It was easier by far to put a stop upon herself, and to silence her indefinite, indefinable dissatisfaction. For in every respect but this Cosmo was perfect. When he presented himself before Mrs. Mountford his demeanour was everything that could be desired. He threw himself into all their arrangements, and asked about their plans with the gentle insistence of one who had a right to know. He promised, nay offered, at once to begin the search for a house, which was the first thing to be done. ‘It will be the pleasantest of duties,’ he said. ‘What a difference to my life! It will be like living by the gates of heaven, to live in the same place with you, to know I may come and see you: or even come and look at the house you are in.’ ‘Certainly,’ Mrs. Mountford said afterwards, ‘Mr. Douglas was very nice. I wonder why dear papa was so prejudiced against him, for, indeed, nothing could be nicer than the way he talked; and he will be a great help to us in finding a house.’ He stayed the whole day, and his presence made everything go smoothly. The dinner-table was absolutely cheerful with the aid of his talk, his town news, his latest information about everything. He pleased everybody, even down to old Saymore, who had not admired him before. Cosmo had to leave next day, having, as he told them, while the courts were sitting, no possibility of a holiday; but he went charged with many commissions, and taking the position almost of a member of the family—a son of the house. Anne walked with him to the village to see him go; and the walk through the park, though everything was postponed, was like a walk through Paradise to both. ‘To think that I am going to prepare for your arrival is something more than words can say,’ he told her as they parted. ‘I cannot understand how I can be so happy.’ All this lulled her heart to rest, and filled her mind with sweetness, and did everything that could be done to hoodwink that judgment which Anne herself would so fain have blindfolded and drowned. This she did not quite succeed in doing—but at all events she silenced it, and kept it quiescent. She began to prepare for the removal with great alacrity and pleasure; indeed, the thought of it cheered them all—all at least except Heathcote Mountford, whose views had been so different, and whose indignation and annoyance, though suppressed, were visible enough. He was the only one who had not liked Cosmo. But then he did not like the family plans, nor their destination, nor anything, Rose said with a little pique. Anne, for her part, avoided Heathcote, and declared to herself that she could not bear him. What right had he to set up a tribunal at which Cosmo was judged? That she should do it was bad enough, but a stranger! She knew exactly what Heathcote thought. Was it because she thought so, too, that she divined him, and knew what was in his heart?
CHAPTER XXV.
PACKING UP.
Mount was soon turned upside down with all the excitement of packing. It was a relief from the monotony which hangs about a house from which the world is shut out, and where the family life is still circling round one melancholy event. Days look like years in these circumstances; even when the grief is of the deepest those who are left behind must do something to keep the dulled wheels of life in motion, since not even the most truly bereaved can die of grief when they will. But in the case of the Mountfords the affliction was not excessive. Anne, whom her father had wronged, perhaps mourned most of all, not because of more love, but more depth of nature, which could not leave the old so lightly to turn to the new, and which felt more awe and reverence for those mysterious changes which alter the very face of life. Rose cried a great deal during the first few days, and Mrs. Mountford still went on performing little acts of devotion, going to look at her husband’s portrait, and thinking of him as a mournful duty; but there was a certain excitement of new existence in both their hearts. So long as he was there they were bound to Mount, and all the old habits of their life—indeed never thought of breaking them, or supposed it possible they could be broken; but now they were free, and their smiles came back involuntarily as they prepared for this exciting removal, the beginning of a new life. Anne’s mind was kept in a graver key by many causes. The nameless and causeless compunctions, remorses, which move the sensitive spirit in profound and awe-stricken sympathy with the dead, were for her alone in the house. She only tormented herself with thoughts of other possibilities, of things that might have been done and were not done; of words, nay even looks, which, had she but known how near her father was to the unseen world, might have been modified or withheld; and she only followed him, halting, uncertain, to the portals of the unseen existence, as she had followed him to his grave. What was he doing there? a man not heavenly, with qualities that were more suited for the common soil below than the celestial firmament above. It was she only who put these questions, not, perhaps as we have said, that she loved him more, but that she felt more deeply, and everything that happened was of more consequence to her. Besides, she had other causes of gravity. Her position was more serious altogether. Even the new-made widow had a straightforward path before her, lonely yet troubled by no uncertainty—but Anne was walking in darkness, and did not comprehend her lot.
Of all her surroundings the one who was most conscious of this was the Rector, who, getting no satisfaction, as he said, from his son, came out to Mount himself one of those wintry mornings to question Anne in person. ‘What have they settled?’ he had asked confidently, as soon as the Curate returned from the station where he had been seeing his friend off. ‘I don’t think they have settled anything, sir,’ said Charley, turning his back upon his father, not caring to betray more than was needful of his own feelings. ‘They are all going off to London—that is the only thing that seems to be decided.’ ‘God bless my soul!’ cried the Rector—which benediction was the good man’s oath; ‘but that has nothing to do with it. I want to know what is settled about Anne.’ Then poor Charley, out of the excess of his devotion and dissatisfaction, made a stand for his friend. ‘You know, sir, what a struggle a young barrister has to do anything,’ he said; ‘how can they—settle, when all the money is gone?’ ‘God bless my soul!’ the Rector said again; and after many thoughts he set off to Mount expressly to have it out, as he said, with Anne herself. He found her in the library, arranging with old Saymore what books were to be packed to take away, while Heathcote Mountford, looking very black and gloomy, sat at the further window pretending to read, and biting his nails furiously. The mild old Rector wondered for a moment what that sullen figure should have to do in the background, and why Heathcote did not go and leave his cousins free: but there was no time then to think of Heathcote. ‘So you are really going,’ the Rector said, ‘the whole family? It is very early days.’
‘Mamma thinks it will be better to make the change at once. She thinks it will do her good, and Rose——’
The Rector fidgeted about the room, pulling out one here and there of a long line of books, and pretending to inspect it. Then he said abruptly, ‘The fact was I wanted to speak to you, Anne.’
Heathcote Mountford was sitting some way off, and Mr. Ashley’s voice was a gentle one—but he stirred immediately. ‘If I am in the way——’ he said, getting up. Of course he was in the way; but his faculties must have been very sharp, and his attention very closely fixed on what was going on, to hear those words. The good Rector murmured some apology; but Heathcote strolled away carrying his book in his hand. It was not so easy to get rid of old Saymore, who had a thousand questions to ask; but he, too, went at last.
‘No, we are not taking all the books,’ said Anne, ‘we are taking scarcely anything. My cousin Heathcote does not wish to refurnish the house at present, and as we do not know what we may do eventually, mamma prefers to leave everything. It is a mutual convenience. In this way we may come back in summer, when I hope you will be glad to see us,’ she added with a smile.
‘Of course we shall be glad to see you—I don’t know what we shall do, or how we can get on without you. But that is not the immediate question,’ he said, with some energy. ‘I have come to ask you, now that you have seen Douglas, what is settled, Anne?’
This was the first time the question had been put formally into words. It gave her a little shock. The blood all rallied to her heart to give her strength to answer. She looked him in the face very steadily, that he might not think she was afraid. ‘Settled?’ she said, with a little air of surprise. ‘In present circumstances, and in our deep mourning, what could be settled? We have not even discussed the question.’
‘Then I say that is wrong, Anne,’ said the Rector in a querulous voice. ‘He is a young man, and I am an old one, but it is not a question I should leave undiscussed for an hour. It should be settled what you are going to do.’
‘So far it is settled,’ she said. ‘My duty is with mamma and Rose.’
‘What, Anne!’ cried Mr. Ashley. ‘God bless my soul! You are engaged to be married, and your duty is to your mother and sister? I don’t know what you young people mean.’
Anne did not answer just at once. ‘Did not Charley tell you,’ she said, after a pause, ‘that we were all going away?’
‘Yes, he told me—and I say nothing against that. It seems to be the way, now. Instead of bearing their grief at home, people flee from it as if it were a plague. Yes, Charley told me; but he could not tell me anything about the other question.’
‘Because there is nothing to tell. Dear Rector, don’t you know my father did leave me a great legacy, after all——’
‘What was that? What was that? Somethink that was not in the will. I thank God for it, Anne,’ cried Mr. Ashley. ‘It is the best news I have heard for many a day.’
‘Oh, don’t speak as if it were something new! Mr. Ashley, he left me the care of the property, and the charge of Rose. Can I do whatever I please with this on my hands?’
‘Is that all?’ the Rector said, in a tone of disappointment; ‘but this is exactly the work in which Douglas could help you. A man and a barrister, of course he knows all about it, much better than you can do. And do you mean to tell me that nothing has been settled, nothing, Anne?’ cried Mr. Ashley, with that vehemence to which mild men are subject. ‘Don’t talk to me of your mourning; I am not thinking of anything that is to happen to-day or to-morrow; but is it settled? That is what I want to know.’
‘There is nothing settled,’ she said—and they stood there for a minute facing each other, his countenance full of anxiety and distrust, hers very firm and pale, almost blank even with determined no meaning. She smiled. She would not let him think she was even disconcerted by his questions. And the Rector was baffled by this firmness. He turned away sighing, and wringing his hands. ‘God bless my soul!’ he said. For it was no use questioning Anne any further—that, at least, was very clear. But as he went away, he came across Heathcote Mountford who was walking about in the now abandoned hall like a handsome discontented ghost.
‘I am glad to see that you take a great interest in your cousins,’ the Rector said, with a conciliatory smile. He did not feel very friendly, to tell the truth, towards Heathcote Mountford, feeling that his existence was a kind of wrong to Anne and Rose; but yet he was the new lord of the manor, and this is a thing which the spiritual head of a parish is bound to remember, whatever his personal feelings may be. Even in this point of view, however, Heathcote was unsatisfactory—for a poor lord of the manor in the best of circumstances is a trial to a rector, especially one who has been used to a well-to-do squire with liberal ways.
‘My interest is not of much use,’ Heathcote said, ‘for you see, though I have protested, they are going away.’
Just then Mr. Loseby’s phaeton drew up at the door, and he himself got out, enveloped with greatcoats and mufflers from head to foot. He was continually coming and going, with an almost restless interest in everything that happened at Mount.
‘It is the very best thing they can do,’ he said. ‘Change of scene: it is the remedy for all trouble now-a-days. They have never seen anything, poor ladies; they have been buried in the country all their lives. And Anne, of course, will like to be in town. That anyone can see with half an eye.’
Here the Rector found another means, if not of satisfying his anxious curiosity, at least of sharing it with some one. He put his arm into Mr. Loseby’s and led him away to the big window. The idea of at least opening his heart to another friend of the family did him good. ‘Do you know,’ he said, with a gasp of excitement, ‘I have been questioning Anne, and she tells me there is nothing settled—nothing settled! I could not believe my ears.’
‘My dear fellow,’ said Mr. Loseby, who was not reverential, ‘what could be settled? A young couple with not a penny between them——’
‘We should not have thought of that, Loseby, in my young days.’
‘We were fools in our young days,’ said the lawyer, with a laugh—‘inexperienced idiots. That’s not the case now. They all know everything that can happen, and calculate the eventualities like a parcel of old women. No, no, the day of imprudent matches is over. Of course there is nothing settled. I never expected it for my part——’
‘But—but, Loseby, he could be of such use to her. They could manage better together than apart——’
‘And so he will be of use to her; he’s not at all a bad fellow; he’ll make himself very pleasant to the whole party. He’ll go with them to the opera, and dine with them three times a week, and be one in all their little expeditions; and he’ll keep his chambers and his club all the same, and have no self-denial forced upon him. He is a most sensible fellow,’ said Mr. Loseby, with a laugh.
The Rector had no great sense of humour. He looked sternly at the little round man all shining and smiling. ‘Do you mean to tell me,’ he said, severely, ‘that you approve of that?’ but the lawyer only laughed again, and would make no reply.
And thus the days went on, leaden-footed, yet getting done one after another, nay, getting shorter, swifter, as the preparations for departure went on. Mrs. Mountford did everything that could be expected of her. She left a sum of money in the Rector’s hands for the usual charities at Christmas, and all the requirements of the parish; and she left instructions with the sexton’s wife, who had once been a housemaid at Mount, and therefore ‘took an interest,’ to have a fresh wreath placed on her husband’s grave weekly on the day he died. So nobody was neglected, living or dead. And their hearts rose a little as the time of departure drew near. Cosmo had thrown his whole soul into the work of house-hunting. And he had found them, which was the most wonderful luck, a small house in Park Lane, which was too dear, Mrs. Mountford thought, yet so cheap as to be almost incredible to anyone who knew what Park Lane was. Even Anne felt a little exhilaration at the thought of windows which should look out upon the Park under the red wintry sunshine, and of all the sights and wonders that would be within reach.
All this time Heathcote stayed on. It was very bad taste, some people thought; and very silly, said other some. Yet still he remained. Of course it must be Rose that was the inducement, Anne being known to be engaged; and Fanny Woodhead did not hesitate to say that she really thought the man had no sense whatever of what was fitting, to stay on, and stay on, until the very last moment. But the household themselves did not object. They had got used to Heathcote. Even Anne liked him at those times when he did not look as if he were sitting in judgment upon Cosmo. Sometimes this was his aspect, and then she could not bear him. But generally he was very supportable. ‘You forget I live in London, too,’ he said. ‘I mean to see a great deal of you there. You may as well let me stay and take care of you on the journey.’ And Mrs. Mountford liked the proposal. For purposes of travelling and general caretaking she believed in men, and thought these among their principal uses. She even went so far as to say, ‘We shall be very well off in London with Mr. Douglas and your cousin Heathcote:’ so strangely had everything changed from the time when St. John Mountford disinherited his daughter because Cosmo was a nobody. Anne did not know what to think of this change of sentiment. Sometimes it seemed to make everything easier, sometimes to make all further changes impossible. Her heart beat with the idea of seeing him almost daily, looking for his constant visits, feeling the charm of his companionship round her: and then a mist would seem to gather between them, and she would foresee by instinct how Cosmo might, though very near, become very far. After this she would stop short and upbraid herself with folly. How could constant meeting and family companionship make them less near to each other? nothing could be more absurd: and yet the thought—but it was not a thought, scarcely a feeling, only an instinct—would come over her and give her a spiritual chill, a check in all her plans.
‘Mamma says she thinks we will be very well off in London,’ said Rose, ‘and we can go to concerts, and all those sorts of things. There is nothing in a concert contrary to mourning. Dances, of course, and gay parties are out of the question,’ she added, with a slight sigh of regret; ‘but it is just when we are going to public places that gentlemen are so useful. You will have your Douglas and I shall have Cousin Heathcote. We shall be very well off——’
To this Anne made no reply. She was taking her papers out of the drawers of her writing-table, arranging them in a large old despatch-box, in which they were henceforth to be carried about the world. Rose came and stood over her curiously, looking at every little bundle as it was taken out.
‘I can see Mr. Douglas’s writing,’ she said. ‘Have you got a great many letters from Mr. Douglas, Anne?’ She put out her hand to touch one that had strayed out of its place. ‘Oh, may I look at it? just one little peep. I want so much to know what a real love-letter is like.’
Anne took her letter up hastily and put it away with a blush and tremor. These sacred utterances in Rose’s hands would be profanation indeed. ‘Wait, Rosie,’ she said, ‘wait, dear: you will soon have letters of all kinds—of your very own.’
‘You mean,’ said Rose, ‘that now that I am the rich one people will like me the best? Anne, why didn’t you give up Mr. Douglas when papa told you? I should have, in a moment, if it had been me; but I suppose you never thought it would come to anything. I must say I think you have been very foolish; you ought to have given him up, and then, now, you would have been free to do as you pleased.’
‘I did not make any calculations, Rose. Don’t let us talk about it, dear, any more.’
‘But I want to talk of it. You see now you never can marry Mr. Douglas at all: so even for that it was silly of you. And you affronted papa—you that always were the clever one, the sensible one, and me the little goose. I can’t think how you could have made such a mistake, Anne!’
Anne did not make any answer. The words were childish, but she felt them like a shower of stones thrown at her. ‘Now you never can marry Mr. Douglas at all.’ Was this how it was going to be?
‘Mr. Loseby says,’ Rose continued, ‘that when I am of age I ought to make a fresh settlement. He says it is all wicked, and blames papa instead of you; but I think you are certainly to blame too. You always stand to a thing so, if you have once said it. A fresh settlement means a new will; it means that I am to give you back a large piece of what papa has left to me.’
‘I do not wish you to do so, Rose. If Mr. Loseby had told me first, I should not have let him speak on such a subject. Rose, remember, you are not to do it. I do not wish any fresh settlement made for me.’
‘If Mr. Loseby says it, and mamma says it, of course I must do it, whether you consent or not,’ said Rose. ‘And, besides, how can you ever marry Mr. Douglas unless there is a fresh settlement? Oh,’ cried Rose, ‘there is that sealed letter—that secret that you would not let me open—that is to be kept till I am twenty-one. Perhaps that will change everything. Look here: there are only you and me here, and I would never tell. I do so want to know what it is: it might show one what to do if one knew what was in it. Let me, let me open it, Anne!’
‘Rose! that is sacred. Rose! you must not touch it. I will never forgive you if you so much as break one seal,’ cried Anne.
‘Well, then, do it yourself. What can it matter if you break it to-day or in two years and a half? Papa never could mean that you were to keep it there and look at it, and never open it for two years and a half.’ All this time Rose turned over and over the little packet with its three red seals, playing with it as a cat plays with a mouse. ‘Perhaps it changes everything,’ she said; ‘perhaps there is a new will here without me having to make it. Why should we all be kept in such suspense, not knowing anything, and poor Mr. Douglas made so unhappy?’
‘Did Mr. Douglas tell you that he was unhappy?’ said Anne, humouring her tormentor, while she kept her eyes upon the letter. ‘Dear Rose, put it back again: here is the place for it. I have a great deal to do and to think of. Don’t worry me, dear, any more.’
Then Rose put it back, but with reluctance. ‘If it were addressed to me I should open it at once,’ she said. ‘It is far more important now than it will be after. Mr. Douglas did not tell me he was unhappy, but he let mamma guess it, which was much the same. Anne, if I were you, I would break the engagement; I would set him free. It must be dreadful to hold anyone like that bound up for life. And when you think—if nothing turns up, if this is to be the end, if you never have money enough to marry, why shouldn’t you do it now, and give yourselves, both of you, another chance?’
Anne rose up from her papers, thrusting them into the despatch-box pell-mell in the confusion of her thoughts. The little calm matter-of-fact voice which sounded so steadily, trilling on like a large cricket—was it speaking the truth? was this, perhaps, what it would have to come to? Her hands trembled as she shut the box hastily; her limbs shook under her. But Rose was no way disturbed. ‘You would be sure to get someone else with more money,’ she said serenely, ‘and so would he.’
CHAPTER XXVI.
GOING AWAY.
But this was not the first time that Anne had been driven out of patience by the suggestions of her little sister. When Rose had gone away, she calmed down by degrees and gradually got back her self-possession. What did Rose know about this matter or any other matter in which serious things like the heart, like love and the larger concerns of life were involved? She knew about superficial things, having often a keen power of observation, Anne knew; but the other matters were too high for her. Her unawakened mind could not comprehend them. How could she have found a way of seeing into Cosmo’s heart which was denied to Anne? It was impossible; the only thing that could have made her believe in Rose’s superior penetration was that, Anne felt, she did not herself understand Cosmo as she had thought she did, and was perplexed about his course of action, and anxious as to the motives which she could not believe to have been anything but fine and noble. Though his coming had brought her back to something of her original faith, yet she had been checked and chilled without admitting it to herself. All that we can conceive of perfection is, perhaps, what we would have done ourselves in certain circumstances, or, at least, what we would have wished to do, what we might have been capable of in the finest combination of motives and faculties; and whatsoever might be the glosses with which she explained his behaviour to herself, Anne knew very well that this was not how Cosmo had behaved. She could not think of his conduct as carrying out any ideal, and here accordingly was the point in which her mind was weak and subject to attack. But after a while she laughed, or tried to laugh, at herself; ‘as if Rose could know!’ she said, and settled down to arrange her papers again, and finally to write to Cosmo, which was her way of working off her fright and returning to herself.
‘Rose has been talking to me and advising me,’ she wrote. ‘She has been telling me what I ought to do. And the chief point of all is about you. She thinks, as we are both poor now, that I ought to release you from our engagement, and so “give us both another chance,” as she says. It is wonderful the worldly wisdom that is in my little sister. She thinks that you and I could both use this “chance” to our own advantage, and find someone else who is well off as a fitter mate for our respective poverties. Is it the spirit of the time of which we all hear so much, that suggests wisdom like this even in the nursery? It makes me open my eyes and feel myself a fool. And she does it all in such innocence, with her dear little chin turned up, and everything about her so smooth and childlike; she suggests these villanies with the air of a good little girl saying her lesson. I cannot be sure that it amused me, for you know I am always a little, as you say, au grand sérieux; but for you who have a sense of humour, I am afraid it would be very amusing. I wonder, if the people she advises for their good, took Rose at her word, whether she would be horrified? I hope and believe she would. And as for you, Cosmo, I trust you will let me know when you want to be freed from your engagement. I am afraid it would take that to convince me. I cannot think of you even, from any level but your own, and, as that is above mine, how could it be comprehensible to Rose? This calculation would want trigonometry (is not that the science?), altogether out of my power. Give me a hint from yourself, dear Cosmo, when that moment arrives. I shall know you have such a motive for it as will make it worthy of you.’
When she had written this she was relieved; though perhaps the letter might never be sent to its address. In this way her desk was full of scraps which she had written to Cosmo for the relief of her mind rather than the instruction of his. Perhaps, if her confidence in him had been as perfect as she thought, she would have sent them all to him. They were all appeals to the ideal Cosmo who was her real lover, confidences in him, references to his understanding and sympathy, which never would have failed had he been what she thought. This had been the charm and delight of her first and earliest abandonment of heart and soul to her love. But as one crisis came after another, or rather since the last crisis came which had supplied such cruel tests, Anne had grown timid of letting all these outpourings reach his eyes; though she continued to write them all the same, and they relieved her own heart. When she had done this now, her mind regained its serenity. What a wonder was little Rose! Where had the child learned all that ‘store of petty maxims,’ all those suggestions of prudence? Anne smiled to herself with the indulgence which we all have for a child. Some people of a rough kind are amused by hearing blasphemies, oaths which have no meaning as said by her, come out of a child’s lips. It was with something of the same kind of feeling that Anne received her little sister’s recommendations. They did not amuse her indeed, but yet impressed her as something ludicrous, less to be blamed than to be smiled at, not calling forth any real exercise of judgment, nor to be considered as things serious enough to be judged at all.
The packing up kept the house in commotion, and it was curious how little feeling there was, how little of the desolation of parting, the sense of breaking up a long-established home. The pleasure of freedom and expectations of a new life were great even with Mrs. Mountford: and Rose’s little decorous sorrow had long ago worked itself out. ‘Some natural tears she dropped, but wiped them soon.’ And it did not give these ladies any great pang to leave Mount. They were not leaving it really, they said to themselves. So long as the furniture was there, which was Mrs. Mountford’s, it was still their house, though the walls of it belonged to Heathcote—and then, if Heathcote ‘came forward,’ as Mrs. Mountford, at least, believed he would do——. Rose did not think anything at all about this. At first, no doubt, it had appeared to her as rather a triumph, to win the affections of the heir of entail, and to have it in her power to assume the position of head of the house, as her mother had done. But, as the sniff of the freshening breeze came to her from the unseen seas on which she was about to launch forth, Rose began to feel more disdain than pleasure for such easy triumphs. Cousin Heathcote was handsome, but he was elderly—thirty-five! and she was only eighteen. No doubt there were finer things in the unknown than any she had yet caught sight of; and what was Mount? a mere simple country house, not half so grand as Meadowlands—that the possible possession of it in the future should so much please a rich girl with a good fortune and everything in her favour. Leaving home did not really count for much in her mind, as she made her little individual preparations. The future seemed her own, the past was not important one way or another. And having given her sister the benefit of her advice with such decision, she felt herself still more able to advise Keziah, who cried as she put up Miss Rose’s things. On the whole, perhaps, there was more fellowship between Keziah and Rose than the little maid felt with the more serious Anne, who was so much older than herself, though the same age.
‘I would not have married Saymore if I had been you,’ said Rose. ‘You will never know anything more than Hunston all your life now, Keziah. You should have come with me into the world. At Mount, or in a little country place, how could you ever see anybody? You have had no choice at all—Jim, whom you never could have married, and now old Saymore. I suppose your aunt thinks it is a great thing for you—but I don’t think it a great thing. If you had come with us, you might have done so much better. I wish you had consulted me——’
‘So do I, Miss Rose,’ said Keziah, dropping tears into the box, which, fortunately, contained only boots and shoes, and articles which would not mark. ‘Oh! I wish I had talked to you at the very first! but I was distracted like, Miss Rose, about poor Jim, and I couldn’t think of anything else.’
‘That was nonsense,’ said Rose; ‘that was always quite out of the question; how could you have married a poor labourer after having been used to live with us, and have every comfort? It would have killed you, Keziah; you were never very strong, you know; and only think! you that have had fires in your room, and nice luncheons three or four times a day, how could you ever live upon a bit of bacon and weak tea, like the women in the cottages? You never could have married him.’
‘That is what aunt used to tell me,’ said Keziah faintly; ‘she said I should have been the first to repent; but then Miss Anne——’
‘Oh, never mind Miss Anne—she is so romantic. She never thinks about bread and butter,’ said Rose. ‘Jim is out of the question, and there is no use thinking of him; but old Saymore is just as bad,’ said the little oracle; ‘I am not sure that he isn’t the worst of the two.’
‘Do you think so, Miss Rose?’ said Keziah wistfully. It was an ease to her mind to have her allegiance to Jim spoken of so lightly. Anne had treated it as a solemn matter, as if it were criminal to ‘break it off;’ whereas Keziah’s feeling was that she had a full right to choose for herself in the matter. But old Saymore was a different question. If she could have had the ‘Black Bull’ without him, no doubt it would have been much better. And now here was a rainbow glimmer of possible glories better even than the ‘Black Bull’ passing over her path! She looked up with tears in her eyes. Something pricked her for her disloyalty to Miss Anne, but Miss Rose was ‘more comforting like.’ Perhaps this wiser counsellor would even yet see some solution to the question, so that poor old Saymore might be left out of it.
‘I think,’ said Rose with decision, ‘that suppose I had been engaged to anyone, when I left Mount, I should have given it up. I should have said, “I am going into the world. I don’t know what may be best now; things will be so very different. Of course, I don’t want to be disagreeable, but I must do the best for myself.” And anybody of sense would have seen it and consented to it,’ said Rose. ‘Of course you must always do the best you can for yourself.’
‘Yes, Miss Rose,’ said Keziah. This chimed with her own profoundest instincts. ‘But then there’s mother and the boys. Mother was to be in the kitchen, and Johnny in the stable, and little Tom bred up for a waiter. It was setting them all up in the world, aunt said.’
‘All that may be very well,’ said Rose. ‘Of course it is always right to be kind to your mother and the rest. But remember that your first duty is always to yourself. And if you like to come with me, I am to have a maid all to myself, Keziah; and you would soon find someone better than old Saymore, if you wanted to marry. You may be very sure of that.’
With this Rose marched away, very certain that she had given the best of advice to the little maid. But Keziah remained doubtful, weeping freely into the trunk which held the boots and shoes. After all there remained ‘mother and the boys’ to think of, who would not be bettered by any such means of doing the best for herself as Rose had pointed out. Keziah thought, perhaps it would be better after all to submit the question once more to Miss Anne, before her final decision was given forth.
The other servants were affected by the breaking up more in Keziah’s way than with any dismal realisation in their own persons of a conclusion to this chapter of life. They had all ‘characters’ that would procure them new places wherever they went; for Mrs. Mountford had not tolerated any black sheep. And as for old Saymore, he was greatly elated by his approaching landlordship, and the marriage which he hoped was settled. He was not aware of Rose’s interference, nor of the superior hopes which she had dangled before his bride. ‘I don’t need to say as I’m sorry to leave, sir,’ Saymore said to Mr. Loseby, who settled his last bills; ‘and sorry, very sorry, for the occasion. Master was a gentleman as seemed to have many years’ life in him, and to be cut off like that is a lesson to us all. But the living has to think of themselves, sir, when all’s done as can be done to show respect for the dead. And I don’t know as I could have had a finer opening. I will miss a deal as I’ve had here, Mr. Loseby. The young ladies I’ll ever take the deepest interest in. I’ve seen ’em grow up, and it’ll always be a ‘appiness to see them, and you too, sir, as has always been most civil, at my ‘otel. But though there’s a deal to regret, there’s something on the other side to be thankful for, and we’re told as everything works together for the best.’
This was the idea very strung in the mind of the house. As the landlord of the ‘Black Bull’ holds a higher position in the world than even the most trusted of butlers, so the position of Mrs. Cook, as henceforward housekeeper and virtual mistress of Mount, was more dignified than when she was only at the head of the kitchen: and Worth, if she did not gain in dignity, had at least the same compensation as her mistress, and looked forward to seeing the world, and having a great deal of variety in her life. They all said piously that everything worked together for the best. So that poor Mr. Mountford was the cause of a great deal of gratification to his fellow-creatures without knowing or meaning it, when his horse put his foot into that rabbit-hole. The harm he did his favourite child scarcely counted as against the advantage he did to many of his dependents. Such are the compensations in death as in life.
But it was December before they got away. After all it turned out that ‘mother and the boys’ had more weight with Keziah than Rose’s offer, and the promise of superior advantage in the future; and she was left in the cottage she came from, preparing her wedding things, and learning by daily experiment how impossible it would have been to content herself with a similar cottage, weak tea, bad butter, and fat bacon, instead of the liberal régime of the servants’ hall, which Rose had freely and graphically described as meaning ‘three or four nice luncheons a day.’ The Mountfords finally departed with very little sentiment; everything was provided for, even the weekly wreath on the grave, and there was nothing for anyone to reproach herself with. Anne, as usual, was the one who felt the separation most. She was going to Cosmo’s constant society, and to the enjoyment of many things she had pined for all her life. Yet the visionary wrench, the total rending asunder of life and all that was implied in it, affected her more than she could say, more than, in the calm of the others, there seemed any reason for. She went out the day before for a long farewell walk, while Rose was still superintending her packing. Anne made a long round through the people in the village, glad that the women should cry, and that there should be some sign here at least of more natural sentiment—and into the Rectory, where she penetrated to the Rector’s study, and was standing by him with her hand upon his arm before he was aware. ‘I have come to say good-bye,’ she said—looking at him with a smile, yet tears in her eyes.
The Rector rose to his feet hastily and took her into his arms. ‘God bless you, my dear child! but you might have been sure I would have come to see the last of you, to bid you farewell at the carriage door——’
‘Yes,’ said Anne, clinging to her old friend, ‘but that is not like good-bye here, is it? where I have always been allowed to come to you, all my life.’
‘And always shall!’ cried the Rector, ‘whenever you want me, howsoever I can be of any use to you!’
The Curate came in while they were still clinging to each other, talking, as people will do when their hearts are full, of one who was no longer there to be bidden good-bye to—the Rector’s wife, for whom he went mourning always, and who had been fond of Anne. Thus she said her farewell both to the living and the dead. Charley walked solemnly by her side up to the park gates. He did not say much; his heart was as heavy as lead in his breast. ‘I don’t know how the world is to go on without you,’ he said; ‘but I suppose it will, all the same.’
‘After a while it will not make much difference,’ said Anne.
‘I suppose nothing makes much difference after a while,’ the Curate said; and at the park gates he said good-bye. ‘I shall be at the train to-morrow—but you don’t want me to go to all the other places with you,’ he said with a sigh; ‘and it is of no use telling you, Anne, as my father did, that, night or day, I am at your service whenever you may want me—you know that.’
‘Yes, I know it,’ she said, giving him her hand; but he was glad that he left her free to visit some other sacred places alone.
Then, as he went back drearily to the parish in which lay all his duty, his work in the world, but which would be so melancholy with Mount shut up and silent, she went lightly over the frosty grass, which crackled under her feet, to the beeches, to visit them once more and think of her tryst under them. How different they were now! She remembered the soft air of summer, the full greenness of the foliage, the sounds of voices all charmed and sweet with the genial heat of August. How different now! Everything at her feet lay frost-bound; the naked branches overhead were white with rime. Nothing was stirring in the wintry world about save the blue smoke from the house curling lazily far off through the anatomy of the leafless trees. This was where she had sat with Cosmo talking, as if talk would never have an end. As she stood reflecting over this with a certain sadness, not sure, though she should see Cosmo to-morrow, that she ever would talk again as she had talked then pouring forth the whole of her heart—Anne was aware of a step not far off crackling upon a fallen branch. She turned round hastily and saw Heathcote coming towards her. It was not a pleasant surprise.
‘You are saying good-bye,’ he said, ‘and I am an intruder. Pardon me; I strayed this way by accident——’
‘Never mind,’ said Anne; ‘yes, I am saying good-bye.’
‘Which is the last word you should say, with my will.’
‘Thanks, Cousin Heathcote, you are very good. I know how kind you have been. If I seem to be ungrateful,’ said Anne, ‘it is not that I don’t feel it, but only that my heart is full.’
‘I know that,’ he said, ‘very well. I was not asking any gratitude. The only thing that I feel I have a right to do is to grumble, because everything was settled, everything! before I had a chance.’
‘That is your joke,’ said Anne, with a smile; and then, after a time, she added, ‘Will you take me to the spot as far as you remember it, the very spot——’
‘I know,’ he said; and they went away solemnly side by side, away from that spot consecrated to love and all its hopeful memories, crossing together the crisp ice-bound grass. The old house rose up in front of them against the background of earth and sky, amid the clustering darkness of the leafless branches. It was all silent, nothing visible of the life within, except the blue smoke rising faintly through the air, which was so still. They said little as they went along by the great terrace and the lime avenue, avoiding the flower-garden, now so bare and brown. The winter’s chill had paralysed everything. ‘The old house will be still a little more sad to-morrow,’ Heathcote said.
‘I don’t think it ought to be. You have not the affection for it which you might have had, had you known it better: but some time or other it will blossom for you and begin another life.’
He shook his head. ‘May I bring Edward to see you in Park Lane? Edward is my other life,’ he said, ‘and you will see how little strength there is in that.’
‘But, Cousin Heathcote, you must not speak so. Why should you? You are young; life is all before a man at your age.’
‘Who told you that?’ he said with a smile. ‘That is one of your feminine delusions. An old fellow of thirty-five, when he is an old fellow, is as old as Methuselah, Anne. He has seen everything and exhausted everything. This is the true age at which all is vanity. If he catches at a new interest and begins to hope for a renewal of his heart, something is sure to come in and stop him. He is frustrated and all his opportunities baulked as in my own case—or something else happens. I know you think a great deal more of our privileges than they deserve.’
‘We are taught to do so,’ said Anne. ‘We are taught that all our best time is when we are young, but that it is different with a man. A man, so to speak, never grows old.’
‘One knows what that means. He is supposed to be able to marry at any age. And so he is—somebody. But, if you will reflect, few men want to marry in the abstract. They want to marry one individual person, who, so far as my experience goes, is very often, most generally I should say, not for them. Do you think it is a consolation for the man who wants to marry Ethelinda, that probably Walburgha might have him if he asked her? I don’t see it. You see how severely historical I am in my names.’
‘They are both Mountford names,’ said Anne, ‘but very severe—archæological, rather than historical.’ And then they came out on the other side and were silent, coming to the broad stretch of the park on which Mr. Mountford’s accident took place. They walked along very silently with a sort of mournful fellowship between them. So far as this went there was nobody in the world with whom Anne could feel so much in common. His mind was full of melancholy recollections as he walked along the crisp and crackling grass. He seemed to see the quiet evening shadows, the lights in the windows, and to hear the tranquil voice of the father of the family pointing out the welcome which the old house seemed to give: and then the stumble, the fall, the cry; and the long long watch in the dark, so near help—the struggles of the horse—the stillness of the huddled heap which could scarcely be identified from the horse, in the fatal gloom. When they came to the spot they stood still, as over a grave. There were still some marks of the horse’s frantic hoofs in the heavy grass.
‘Was it long?’ he said. ‘The time seemed years to me—but I suppose it was not an hour.’
‘They thought only about half-an-hour,’ said Anne, in a low reverential voice.
‘A few minutes were enough,’ Heathcote said, and again there was a silence. He took her hand, scarcely knowing what he did.
‘We are almost strangers,’ he said; ‘but this one recollection will bind us together, will it not, for all our lives?’
Anne gave a soft pressure to his hand, partly in reply, partly in gratitude. Her eyes were full of tears, her voice choked. ‘I hope he had no time to think,’ she said.
‘A moment, but no more. I feel sure that after that first cry, and one groan, there was no more.’
She put down her veil and wept silently as they went back to the house. Mrs. Mountford all the time was sitting with Rose in her bedroom watching Worth as she packed all the favourite knicknacks, which make a lady’s chamber pretty and homelike. She liked to carry these trifles about, and she was interested and anxious about their careful packing. Thus it was only the daughter whom he had wronged who thought of the dead father on the last day which the family spent at Mount.
CHAPTER XXVII.
A NEW BEGINNING.
For people who are well off, not to say rich, and who have no prevailing anxieties to embitter their life, and who take an interest in what is going on around them, London is a pleasant place enough, even in December. And still more is Park Lane a pleasant place. To see the red wintry sunshine lighting up the misty expanse of the Park, the brisk pedestrians going to and fro under the bare trees, the carriages following each other along the broad road, the coveys of pretty children and neat nursemaids, and all the flood of prosperous life that flows along, leisurely in the morning, crowding in the afternoons, is very pleasant to the uninitiated. All the notable people that are to be found in London at that period, appearing now and then, and a great many people who get lost to sight in the throngs of the season, but are more worth seeing than even those throngs, were pointed out to the ladies by the two cicerones who took in hand to enlighten their ignorance. The house they had was one of those small houses with large, ample, bow windows to the drawing-rooms, which give a sort of rustic, irregular simplicity to this street of the rich. Those people who are happy and well off and live in Park Lane must be happier and more well off than people anywhere else. They must be amused besides, which is no small addition to happiness. Even Anne felt that to sit at that window all day long would be a pleasant way of occupying a day. The misty distance, penetrated by the red rays of sunshine, was a kind of poem, relieved by the active novelty of the animated foreground, the busy passengers, the flood and high tide of life. How different from the prospect over the park at Mount, where Charley Ashley on the road, coming up from the Rectory, was something to look at, and an occasional friend with him the height of excitement. The red rays made the mist brighter and brighter; the crowd increased; the carriages went faster; and then the sun waned and got low and went out in a bank of cloud, and the lamps were all lighted in the misty twilight, but still the crowd went on. The ladies sat at the window and were amused, as by a scene in a play; and then to think that ‘all the pictures,’ by which Anne meant the National Gallery, were within reach—and many another wonder, of which they had been able to snatch a hasty glance once a year, or not so often as once a year, but which was now daily at their hand: and even, last, but yet important, the shops behind all, in which everything that was interesting was to be found. Rose and her mother used to like, when they had nothing better and more important to buy, to go to the Japanese shop, and turn over the quaint articles there. Everything was new to them, as if they had come from the South Seas. But the newest of all was this power of doing something whenever they pleased, finding something to look at, something to hear, something to buy. The power of shopping is in itself an endless delight to country ladies. Nothing to do but to walk into a beautiful big place, with obsequious people ready to bring you whatever you might want, graceful young women putting on every variety of mantle to please you, bland men unfolding the prettiest stuffs, the most charming dresses. The amusement thus afforded was unending. Even Anne liked it, though she was so highflown. Very different from the misty walk through their own park to ask after some sick child, or buy postage stamps at the village post-office. This was about all that could be done at Mount. But London was endless in its variety. And then there was sightseeing such as never could be managed when people came up to town only for a month in the season. Mr. Mountford indeed had been impatient at the mere idea that his family wanted to see St. Paul’s and the Tower, like rustics come to town for a holiday. Now they were free to do all this with nobody to interfere.
And it was Cosmo who was their guide, philosopher, and friend in this new career. He had chosen their house for them, with which they were all so entirely pleased, and it was astonishing how often he found leisure to go with them here and there, explaining to them that his work was capable of being done chiefly in the morning, and that those afternoon hours were not good for much. ‘Besides, you know the time of a briefless barrister is never of much importance,’ he said, with a laugh. Rose was very curious on this point. She questioned him a great deal more closely than Anne would have done. ‘Are you really a briefless barrister, Mr. Douglas? What is a briefless barrister? Does that mean that you have no work at all to do?’ she said.
‘Not very much. Sometimes I am junior with some great man who gets all the fees and all the reputation. Sometimes an honest, trustful individual, with a wrong to be redressed, comes to ask my advice. This happens now and then, just to keep me from giving in altogether. It is enough to swear by, that is about all,’ he said.
‘Then it is not enough to live on,’ said Rose, pushing her inquiries to the verge of rudeness. But Cosmo was not offended. He was indulgent to her curiosity of every kind.
‘No, not near enough to live on. I get other little things to do, you know—sometimes I write a little for the newspapers—sometimes I have a report to write or an inquiry to conduct. And sometimes a kind lady, a friend to the poor, will ask me out to dinner,’ he said, with a laugh. They were sitting at dinner while this conversation was going on.
‘But then, how could you——?’ Rose began, then stopped short, and looked at her sister. ‘I will ask you that afterwards,’ she said.
‘Now or afterwards, your interest does me honour, and I shall do my best to satisfy you,’ said Cosmo, with a bow of mock submission. He was more light-hearted, Anne thought, than she had ever seen him before; and she was a little surprised by the amount of leisure he seemed to have. She had formed no idea of the easy life of the class of so-called poor men to which Cosmo belonged. According to her ideas they were all toiling, lying in wait for Fortune, working early and late, and letting no opportunity slip. She could have understood the patience, the weariness, the obstinate struggle of such lives; but she could not understand how, being poor, they could get on so comfortably, and with so little strain, with leisure for everything that came in the way, and so many little luxuries. Anne was surprised by the fact that Cosmo could bestow his afternoons upon their little expeditions, and go to the club when he left them, and be present at all the theatres when anything of importance was going on, and altogether show so little trace of the pressure which she supposed his work could not fail to make upon him. He seemed indeed to have fewer claims upon his time than she herself had. Sometimes she was unable to go out with the others, having letters from Mr. Loseby to answer, or affairs of the estate to look after; but Cosmo’s engagements were less pressing. How was it? she asked herself. Surely it was not in this way that men got to be Judges, Lord Chancellors—all those great posts which had been in Anne’s mind since first she knew that her lover belonged to the profession of the law. That he must be aspiring to these heights seemed to her inevitable—and especially now, when she had lost all her money, and there was no possible means of union for them, save in his success. But could success be won so easily? Was it by such simple means that men got to the top of the tree, or even reached as far as offices which were not the highest?
These questions began to meet and bewilder her very soon after their arrival, after the first pleasure of falling into easy constant intercourse with the man who loved her and whom she loved.
At first it had been but too pleasant to see him continually, to get acquainted with the new world in which they were living, through his means, and to admire his knowledge of everything—all the people and all their histories. But by-and-by Anne’s mind began to get bewildered. She was only a woman and did not understand—nay, only a girl, and had no experience. Perhaps, it was possible men got through their work by such a tremendous effort of power that the strain could only be kept up for a short period of time; perhaps Cosmo was one of those wonderful people who accomplish much without ever seeming to be employed at all; perhaps—and this she felt was the most likely guess—it was her ignorance that did not understand anything about the working of an accomplished mind, but expected everything to go on in the jog-trot round of labour which was all she understood. Happy are the women who are content to think that all is well which they are told is well—and who can believe in their own ignorance and be confident in the better knowledge of the higher beings with whom they are connected. Anne could not do this—she abode as in a city of refuge in her own ignorance, and trusted in that to the fullest extent of her powers—but still her mind was confused and bewildered. She could not make it out. At the same time, however, she was quite incapable of Rose’s easy questioning. She could not take Cosmo to task for his leisure, and ask him how he was employing it. When she heard her little sister’s interrogations she was half alarmed, half horrified. Fools rush in—she did not say this to herself, but something like it was in her thoughts.
After this particular dinner, however, Rose kept to her design very steadily. She beckoned Cosmo to come to her when he came upstairs. Rose’s rise into importance since her father’s death had been one of the most curious incidents in the family history. It was not that she encroached upon the sphere of Anne, who was supreme in the house as she had always been—almost more supreme now, as having the serious business in her hands; nor was she disobedient to her mother, who, on her side, was conscientiously anxious not to spoil the little heiress, or allow her head to be turned by her elevation. But Rose had risen somehow, no one could tell how. She was on the top of the wave—the successfulness of success was in her veins, exhilarating her, calling forth all her powers. Anne, though she had taken her own deposition with so much magnanimity, had yet been somewhat changed and subdued by it. The gentle imperiousness of her character, sympathetic yet naturally dominant, had been already checked by these reverses. She had been stopped short in her life, and made to pause and ask of the world and the unseen those questions which, when once introduced into existence, make it impossible to go on with the same confidence and straightforward rapidity again. But little Rose was full of confidence and curiosity and faith in herself. She did not hesitate either in advising or questioning the people around her. She had told Anne what she ought to do—and now she meant to tell Cosmo. She had no doubt whatever as to her competence for it, and she liked the rôle.