Phemie Keller

Basil Stondon had come to fetch Phemie home. Before he knew of her departure for Cumberland, Captain Stondon had invited some of the friends of his bachelor days to stay at Marshlands, and he accordingly wrote to his wife, begging her, if she felt at all well enough, to return to Norfolk.

“And later on in the season,” continued Captain Stondon, “if you, dearest, wish it, we can take a house for a month or so beside Derwentwater or Windermere, which surely would be pleasanter for you than the Hill Farm.”

To this Phemie had agreed, so far as returning home was concerned. She only begged her husband to allow her to remain as long as possible. “If you let me hear from you one day, when your friends are certainly coming, I shall be ready to start the next,” were her words; and when Captain Stondon read them out to Basil with the comment that he thought she ought to return at once, the young man proposed going to Cumberland to fetch her.

“I have never seen the lakes,” said Mr. Basil, “and I should like to take a look at them.”

“Very well,” agreed Captain Stondon, “only do not fall down the side of a mountain as I did.”

“It proved a very lucky fall for you though, I believe, sir,” remarked Basil. To which Captain Stondon answered that it had, little dreaming what was passing in his companion’s mind at the moment.

Thus it came about that Basil Stondon found his way to Cumberland and to the Hill Farm, from which place Mrs. Aggland showed him the path to take to reach Strammer Tarn.

Mrs. Aggland had grown fat and unwieldy in her later life, and offered no temptations for a tête-à-tête.

“One of the children can run with you to show you the way,” she volunteered; but Basil declined her politeness.

“He could find Strammer Tarn, no doubt, thanks to her explicit directions; and if he did not find it he would turn back when he thought he had walked far enough.”

All of which he said with such courtesy and politeness that Mrs. Aggland was quite taken with him, and greeted her husband on his return with a glowing account of the “nice young gentleman” who had come to take Phemie home.

“So pleasant-mannered and genteel,” she said, “and as handsome as a picture, too; but what are we to do with him here, Daniel? He’ll never put up with our house.”

“Then he must go to Grassenfel,” was Mr. Aggland’s reply. And he went out to the top of the hill to watch for their coming.

“I can offer you but poor hospitality, Mr. Stondon,” he said. “If you think you can sleep in so humble a dwelling I shall be only too proud to do my best to make you comfortable; but at the same time I must tell you we are very plain people, and that I am sure Mr. Conbyr would give you a hearty welcome at the vicarage.”

“Thank you,” answered Basil, simply, “I had much rather remain at the Hill Farm. I have heard of it so constantly that it seems like the realization of a dream to sleep beneath its roof.”

For which speech Phemie hated him. According to her ideas he ought to have left her then and there—left her for ever. After her explicit answer, was not all over between them? Could not he take his “No,” and go, and leave her to return to Marshlands under her uncle’s escort?

“You can make a tour of the lakes, and stay away until you have decided on your future plans,” was Phemie’s suggestion; to which Basil listened in silence, without the remotest intention of following her advice.

No programme, indeed, was ever more altered than that sketched out by Phemie for his guidance. Had there been no lakes in England—no Skiddaw to climb, no Stockghyll Force to see, no Langbourne to visit, Basil could not have stayed on more contentedly at the Hill Farm.

What Captain Stondon had done before him Basil did now. He walked over the hills, he sate by the tarns, he drank of the waterfall, and wished that he might keep Phemie’s heart till his own was cold. He visited Mr. Conbyr and talked with him of the outer world; he sate in the same pew in church where Captain Stondon had sate beside the ill-dressed girl who was now as stately-looking as any princess in the land. He leaned over the wall of the graveyard, and looked at the rivulet wandering away and away. He lay on the grass where the mountain stream came tumbling over the rocks and dropped into the basin beneath; he looked at the ivy and the lichens, the foxgloves and the broom, the grass and the ferns, the mossy stones and the trees that waved their branches over him. He stood in the garden at the Hill Farm and gazed down the valley—the sweet valley of Tordale; he went about with Mr. Aggland and won golden opinions from all men—particularly from all women.

He was so frank, so pleasant, so kind, and so handsome, that he won upon the inhabitants of that remote spot, as he had won upon the inhabitants of very different places.

“An amazingly fine young fellow,” remarked Mr. Aggland to his niece, when he saw that Basil really did not care about his inner man, that luxuries were indifferent to him, and that he made himself as much at home in the parlour of the Hill Farm as he might in Captain Stondon’s drawing-room. “An amazingly fine young fellow. I wonder, Phemie, that you have never taken to him kindly.”

To which speech Phemie answered—

“One never does like the next heir cordially, does one, uncle?”

“Shame, shame!” exclaimed Mr. Aggland; “I never thought, Phemie, to hear you make a speech like that. When you have enjoyed fully yourself, you ought not to grudge another the chance of enjoying fully in his turn likewise.”

“Still one never does like an heir, unless he be of one’s own blood,” persisted Phemie, who never missed an opportunity of throwing dust in her uncle’s eyes.

“Can she be grieving because she has no children?” wondered Mr. Aggland. “Does she dislike this young man because he occupies the place that might have been more happily filled by one of her own sons? I should like greatly to know now,” thought her uncle, “if it be envy and hatred and all uncharitableness that is the matter with poor Phemie after all. ‘As rust corrupts iron, so envy corrupts man,’ says Antisthenes. Solomon declares it is the ‘rottenness of the bones,’ and Cowley calls envy ‘of all hell’s throngs the direfulest.’ According to Socrates it is a poison which drieth up the marrow of the bones and consumeth the flesh. Daughter of pride, he calls envy. Now Phemie was always proud,—a little, I mean,” modified Mr. Aggland, “and she has never been the same—at least judging by her letters—since this young man came to the house. I remember her expressing strong dislike to him before we went to Cromer. It may be that she is jealous.” And for years afterwards Mr. Aggland believed that Phemie cordially hated Basil Stondon—that she hated him because he stood where her children might have stood, and that she was pining and fretting because she had no living sons—no prospect of having sons who might oust the intruder out. Of which idea Phemie herself, I am sorry to say, took no pains to disabuse his mind, but rather encouraged his notion, and led him to believe she was very sorry Basil must inherit after her husband, when the real truth was, that if Phemie had been able to shower gold and property on him, she would have done it.

“You should not dislike him, Phemie,” Mr. Aggland said one day; “it is not right. Though you are my own niece, and he a stranger, I cannot say that I think you treat him properly at all.”

“Now pray, pray, uncle,” entreated Phemie, “leave that Basil Stondon question alone; you cannot tell in the least what you might do if you were in my place.”

“I know what I should do if I were in his,” retorted Mr. Aggland; “I should not endure your manner, Phemie. I declare I hear you speaking to him sometimes as I should not speak to the poorest labourer I employ.”

“Well, you can address your labourers in whatever form of language you think best, uncle,” she said, a little flippantly; “but I mean to talk to Basil as I choose.”

“Phemie!” was Mr. Aggland’s only remonstrance.

“I am not a child any longer,” she burst out, passionately; “I will say what I like, as I like it. If people think I am wrong, they may think it; but they shall not tell me. I know what my own sorrows are; but I will not let anybody intermeddle with them. I know my own business, but I will not have anybody interfere with it; not even you, uncle,” she added, “not even you.”

“I cannot imagine what has come to you, Phemie,” he said. “I think you must be mad; one day you are as docile as a lamb, and the next you are rabid.”

“There is a pleasure sure in being mad,” she answered; but when he turned away, pained and wearied, she followed him into the garden, and hanging on his arm, said coaxingly,—

“Forgive me, uncle; the things I would not say, I speak; the things I would speak, never, somehow, pass my lips. Does not some wise man say that clocks will go as they are set; but that we will not? That is the way with me, I want winding up. I want new works. I want sending to the jeweller and seeing to. It is not my fault, uncle; it is my misfortune.”

“Phemie, dear, you are ill; you ought to have first-rate advice; you must go abroad.”

“I never want to see ‘abroad’ again,” she answered; “I should like to stay in the hills with you always. I should like to go to Scotland and see the coast I loved when I was a better girl than I have ever been since.”

And Phemie dropped her uncle’s arm as she spoke, and sate down on the grass, saying she was tired.

I should think she was tired! The conversation that ought, in her opinion, to have ended the subject of love between her and Basil, proved only to have been the commencement of her troubles. He would not leave her alone; he could not let her be; she had fled from Marshlands to be rid of him; she must return to Marshlands to see if she could escape from him there.

She felt like a hunted creature; she felt every day that her strength was decreasing—that his power over her was increasing. His words sounded sweet in her ears; she grew weary of struggling; she learned to listen to his poor sophistry and believe it.

He was taking nothing from Captain Stondon that had ever belonged to him; he only wanted Phemie’s love—only a kind look, a pleasant word. There was no sin in speaking civilly to him, surely; there could be nothing wrong in talking quietly and gently as she used to do. If he had said anything to offend her he was sorry; if she had not run away from Marshlands and left him desolate he would never have told her how he loved her—never. He would have borne any pain rather than wound her—she ought not to be so unkind when his very heart was breaking for her sake.

And at that, somehow, the words of that old, old song she had sung when she was still free, came into Phemie’s mind.

Oh! if she could only go back—only be a girl again—what happiness might not be hers!

Alas! the happiness might be, but the misery was.

Who can travel a dangerous road and keep clear of the pitfalls? Who can begin descending and not slip? Who can touch pitch and not be defiled? Who can handle sin without becoming less virtuous? Who can drink of the wine cup and keep his head perfectly clear?

Phemie could not at any rate. She was quaffing in a draught that was stealing through her veins like poison. She had her times of repentance—her seasons of despairing remorse—her hours when the sound of Basil’s voice was hateful to her—when she detested her own weakness in listening to him; but after all, what did this signify—what good did this effect?

When purity is sullied, who may make it otherwise than soiled?

and the man whose hands are guilty may not wash them in innocency.

I have no excuse to offer for Phemie, save that the heat and burden of the day was too much for her; that she had not strength enough to extricate herself from the net; that she had no one to help her; that she was not called upon to resist absolute sin, such as the world frowns on. He did not ask her to leave her husband; he never again spoke of a future in which she might be his wife. He only prayed for love that it was no wrong for her to give him, because she had never given it to any one else.

“It belongs to me, Phemie,” he said; “though you are another man’s wife; though you may never be my wife, yet I own the love of your heart; and whether you try to keep that love from me or not, you cannot prevent my having it.”

He was right: Phemie could not prevent his having all the love of which her nature was capable. She could not help the tears with which she watered her pillow; she could not help her thoughts, her regrets, her misery.

“I will go back to Marshlands,” she said, “and get rid of you; it will be impossible for you to say these things to me under the same roof with him.” And Phemie turned from the mountains and the valley, and, weary and wretched, travelled home.

How shall I tell of the time that followed?—of the torture that woman passed through—of the frantic projects she formed—of the resolutions she took—of the plans she devised?

She would go away, where neither Basil nor Captain Stondon could find her. She would tell her husband—and she would have told him, too, but that she dared not even think of the anguish her fault would cause him. She would try to get rid of Basil; but Captain Stondon did not want Basil to leave Marshlands. She would never be alone with him. How was it possible for her always to have some one at her elbow?

And besides, it was so hard—so hard! He loved her so much; better than Captain Stondon had ever done! Better? Down on your knees, Phemie, and pray God to deliver you from such love that would drag you down to hell. Better? There is a love which can love a woman better than itself; but of such a love Basil Stondon knew nothing.

It was not in his nature to be thoughtful for others, unselfish towards himself. He did not care about its being the road to perdition along which he was leading Phemie, because he chanced to fancy travelling it himself.

He had no mercy, because he was weak; he had no pity, because he was foolish; he had no forbearance, because he had no principle: so he tortured the woman he professed to love; he put her on a mental rack, and tormented her every hour in the day.

“I cannot leave you, for I love you,” he said once.

“You will not leave me, because you love yourself,” she answered. And yet still his love, whatever it might be, was sweet to her. She was making a journey from which few ever return in safety; she was trying an experiment from which no heart ever came forth pure.

She was endeavouring to love two men; she was striving to serve two masters: and still she was slipping—slipping towards the precipice over which no one who fell ever came back.

She loved her husband no less than ever; nay, rather, she loved him more. She was so repentant, so wretched, so angry with herself, so sorry for him, that there came into her manner a tenderness—a thoughtfulness which it had always lacked before; and many and many a time Captain Stondon would follow her with his eyes, and wonder, with the wonder of old increased and magnified, if any man was ever so fortunate as he—so blessed in home and wife and friends.

“If my darling’s health were only better,” he said one day to Miss Derno, “I should not have a care or anxiety in life; but she looks so ill, and her spirits are so wretched, that I cannot help feeling anxious about her.”

“I am afraid she is not strong,” answered the lady, who was a great favourite with her host. “Let us talk about her,” she suddenly added: “come down to the lake, and I will tell you my opinion of your wife. She wants rest; she is wearing herself out: all these people may be very pleasant, but she ought not to be among them. You should take her abroad, or winter in the south of England, and send Basil away. He is strong himself, and he thinks fresh air and exercise is all she requires; and so she goes out walking and riding and driving, when she had a great deal better be lying quietly on the sofa. Get Basil an appointment. In Mrs. Stondon’s state of health she ought to have no strangers near her: and besides, Basil will not take kindly to work after all this idleness. He was lazy enough when he came here; what he will be after this long holiday I am afraid to think.”

“But Basil is the next heir, Miss Derno,” answered Captain Stondon; “I do not see why he should work. I will speak to him about dragging Phemie out. She need not stand on ceremony with him as though he were a stranger. It is only his anxiety for her to get well that makes him urge her to be constantly in the open air.”

Miss Derno beat her foot impatiently against the ground.

“Do you think idleness good for any one?” she asked. “Do you think it well for a man to have all the advantages of a large property, without having any of its anxieties and responsibilities? This is a Castle of Indolence for him; and if I were his mother I should like to see him usefully employed.”

“Was it not about my wife we were talking, Miss Derno?” inquired Captain Stondon.

“Yes; but I have long wanted to speak to you about Basil. He is an old pet of mine, you know. I know his faults and his virtues better, perhaps, than anybody else on earth, and I am confident this idle existence is not good for him: it would be trying to any man; and it is doubly trying to a man like Basil.”

There was truth in what she said, and Captain Stondon admitted it.

“The same idea occurred to me the other day,” he said; “and I have been considering whether I could not give him the management of some portion of the property.”

“Will you be angry if I put a question to you?” inquired Miss Derno. She was leaning on his arm, and she stooped forward and looked up in his face as she spoke.

She could see that its expression changed a little; but he answered kindly and courteously as ever,

“It must be a very singular question, or series of questions, Miss Derno, that could make me angry with you.”

“You are bringing up Basil as your heir,” she said; “suppose you had a son; how would it fare with this idle young man then?”

For a moment Captain Stondon remained silent. The idea was one which he did not think she ought to have suggested. He did not consider it at all in Miss Derno’s department to talk about such possibilities to him. He felt it was inconsiderate of her to open up the old sore. He believed that it was nothing to her whether he had sons or whether he had not; but still he replied, quietly and calmly,

“If such an extremely improbable event were to happen, I should provide handsomely for Basil—be sure of that.”

“But still you would not give him Marshlands.”

“I could not if I would,” was the reply; “I would not if I could.”

“And yet you will not make him independent of Marshlands altogether?”

“Should such a necessity as you have named arise, I should do my best to push him on in the world.”

“Expecting him, doubtless, to be satisfied with a dry morsel, after he had been regaling himself on the stalled ox?”

Miss Derno could put things as unpleasantly as possible when she had a mind; and she succeeded in making Captain Stondon uncomfortable for the moment.

“The fact is,” he answered, “I am very fond of Basil. Having no son, I like to forget that he is not my son. I should miss him sadly if he were to leave me; and I do not think it is well to deprive oneself of pleasure in the present, because of the chance of what may happen in the future. However, Miss Derno, I will think over what you have said. I will give the matter my maturest consideration.”

She was grateful to him for what he said. She felt, all things taken into account, that he had borne her interference as few men would; and so, with all her heart in her face, with all the earnestness of her nature thrown into her manner, she spoke her thanks.

“If I have seemed impertinent,” she said, “pardon me; if I have seemed intrusive, think that I am not really so.” And Captain Stondon assured her he could never think of her otherwise than as she would wish him to do; and the pair walked on beside the lake where the lilies floated, and then back beneath the lime-trees to the house.

“Miss Derno seems to be almost as fond of your husband as she is of Mr. Basil Stondon,” remarked Miss Georgina Hurlford, who was standing beside Phemie in the garden.

“Yes, I think she likes them both greatly,” answered Phemie; and the conversation dropped. But Miss Hurlford noticed that the blood came rushing into Mrs. Stondon’s face one moment, and that the next she was pale as death.