Phemie Keller

Spring came to the sweet valley of Tordale—came with its flowers and sunshine—its showers—its springing grass—its budding trees—its balmy winds—its wealth of promise—across the hills and up the ravine.

By the dark green of the yarrow under foot—by the anemones and hyacinths blooming beneath the trees—by the soft cushions of lady’s-fingers—by the scent of the clover in the meadows—by the ragged-robin trailing through the hedges—by the saxifrage growing beside the waterfall—by the ferns daintily unfolding their leaves—by the delicate colour of the moss covering the boulders—you could tell as you passed by that Spring had come, and was decking herself in robes of coolest verdure, to greet the richer beauty of the summer.

When the young lambs were dotted about on the mountain sides—when marsh-marigolds and gowans were to be gathered in handfuls—when the streams and rills were dancing over the stones and making sweet melody as they sped along, thankful the winter snows were melted, the winter frosts thawed—Phemie Keller was married.

Ere ever the wild roses put forth buds—ere ever the honeysuckle climbing among thorn and briar and bramble began to scent the air with its delicious fragrance—in the spring-time of her young life—in the first bloom and blush of her rare loveliness—Phemie became a wife.

In the midst of the congregation, Captain Stondon met her a stranger—from the midst of the congregation he took her for himself.

Had he ever wanted to be rid of his bargain—to back out of the engagement entered into, where the Cumberland hills frowned down on Tordale Church—he would have found it no easy matter to do so, for the whole parish might have been summoned as witnesses on Phemie’s behalf.

The shepherds left their sheep to the tender mercies of the coolies—the farmers put on their best suits and plodded up the valley to Tordale Church—the eggs were not collected—the milk was not churned—the children did not go to school on that fine spring morning when Phemie Keller was married.

Had privacy been desired, privacy would have been in Tordale simply impossible; and as no secret was made of the day or the hour, as everybody had known for weeks previously when the ceremony was to take place, the church was literally crammed.

Many a one who had never gone to hear Mr. Conbyr preach went to hear him read the words that made the bride and bridegroom one—went to see the grand gentleman, who was popularly supposed to have so much money that he did not know what to do with it, taking to wife Daniel Aggland’s niece—bonnie Phemie, who, for all her great fortune, for all her fine clothes, looked pale and frightened, or, as one of the spectators remarked, “fiate.”

“There is a most serious deal of difference,” he added, shaking his head solemnly; “she’s but a bairn, with her glintin’ hair, and her soft blue eyes, and her jimp waist that I could ’most span with my one hand. She’s but a bairn, while he”—and the man took a long look at Captain Stondon, who was standing bare-headed, with the sunshine streaming full upon him—“Go’nows how old he is.”

I should like to be able to sketch that interior for you, my reader. I should like to show you the men and the women and the children who filled the church, and looked with grave, interested faces at the group standing before the altar. I should like to paint for you the way the sunbeams fell on Phemie’s hair, turning each thread to gold—how they showed her pale pure face to every soul in the church—how in her white dress she looked more lovely than ever.

The Agglands were there, all of them—all Phemie’s relations, excepting the Kellers—all her friends—all her acquaintances—all who knew anything about her—were gathered together on that bright spring morning; but Captain Stondon had no one belonging to him present on the occasion. Even his best man was no fine gentleman from London, but merely a stray curate from Grassenfel, who could not have seemed more uncomfortable had he been going to be married himself.

Already Captain Stondon had found that the position of his wife’s family in the social scale placed him in an awkward dilemma. There are always certain embarrassments entailed by differences of rank which are felt by Love the moment he walks out of doors with the lady of his choice.

The world cares for Mammon, though Cupid may not. Society is apt to make merry over the ways and manners of those who are not the crême de la crême, while the happy pair are absorbed in one another. The wedding at Tordale would have shocked the sensitive nerves of Captain Stondon’s intimates; and, accordingly, prudently and sensibly he refrained from making himself a laughing-stock among his friends.

When we are at Rome we do as Rome does. When we are in the world we conform to its usages; and though Captain Stondon was marrying out of the world, he still meant to return to the world and take his bride thither with him.

The absence of all hypercritical guests was best for both Phemie and her uncle. They had admitted as much to one another; and yet the fact of none of the bridegroom’s friends being present hurt them, and showed them clearly, as if the future had been spread out before their eyes, that from all old associations—from all old friends—from all old habits—Phemie Keller was passing swiftly away.

As the shadow fades from the hill-side, leaving no trace of where it has rested, so auburn hair and blue eyes was passing away from the old familiar life—from the rugged mountain scenery—from the drip of the waterfall—from the calm peacefulness—from the sweet monotony of that remote valley for ever.

She might come back again, but never the Phemie she had been; never again might she look out on life as she had done from the windows of her dream castle; she might never more gaze upon the mountains with the same eyes; she might never speak with the same thoughts and wishes swelling in her heart.

She was going out to be another Phemie; in a different rank; with different aims, and hopes, and objects; with a difficult part to play; with a difficult path to follow: no wonder that as the farmers’ wives saw the tears filling her eyes, and rolling down her cheeks, they said, with an intuitive, unreasoning pity, “God help her; and she so young!”

So young; that was the string everybody harped on. It never seemed to have occurred to them before, that she was barely more than a child, till they came to see her pledging her whole future—all the long, long years she had in all human probability before her—away.

Many a one present had not liked Phemie over much in days gone by. They had thought her conceited, fanciful, stuck up; but now that she was being made a lady of—now that the whole country side had been bidden to a marriage feast at the Hill Farm, and that the girl, in her sorrow and trouble at leaving everything behind her, had gone to bid even the veriest virago in Tordale good-bye—her short-comings were forgotten, and nothing but her youth and beauty remembered.

Her fine clothes, that she had been so proud to exhibit, were never thought of; the grand match she was making, and of which some present had been very jealous, faded out of recollection; and for the time being her young face, her girlish figure, filled every heart with a vague pity. Something was wanting in that bridal group, and the spectators felt the want as they looked at the child giving herself to this man so long as he lived or as she lived.

There was not a person present—unless, indeed, it might be Mr. Aggland—who could have defined his or her sensations; but, nevertheless, every one felt the absence of that intangible something which Phemie Keller might never now become acquainted with, sinlessly, through all the years to come.

That was it—for better, for worse—she was resigning all hope, all chance of happy love; love with its bliss and agony; love with its doubts and distractions; love without which no life, be it otherwise ever so symmetrical, can be perfect. Attachment—affection—a calm, even, unruffled existence is better, some tell you, than the hot and the cold, the fever and the collapse, the mad pulse and the shivering agony. It may be so. God knows what is best for us: God knew what was best for Phemie Keller!

And yet as the “keld” comes darkling upon the surface of the Cumberland lakes, without cloud, without wind, without shadow, without reason that we can trace, so in the middle of the sunshine, in the middle of the prosperity, a “keld” seemed to gather on the waters of Phemie’s life; those clear waters that were as yet unruffled by passion, untroubled by regret.

For she was, as they all said, young. She was such a child that her composure was disturbed by Davie, who had thought it incumbent upon him to come and see the ceremony, like his neighbours.

A wise dog, he followed the wedding party from the Hill Farm at a distance, and had slunk into the church in an unassuming, undemonstrative manner, with his tail between his legs, doubtless hoping by this manœuvre to escape observation.

But Mrs. Aggland, ever lynx-eyed, spied him out, and bade Duncan take him home; an order which Duncan disputed in so loud a whisper that the controversy attracted the attention of one of the shepherds, who secured the dog, and placed him between his legs, from which position Davie surveyed the ceremony with sorrowful eyes.

When the company began to disperse, Davie walked out with the first, but waited, like a Christian, in the church porch for Phemie.

He knew as well as anybody there that she was going from him. Many a pleasant mile they had walked together over the hills; many a score times she had called him to follow her to Strammer Tarn; many a morning they had run down the hill-side and across the valley when the sun was looking at them over Helbeck in the glad summer, or in the dreary winter, when Phemie looked back gleefully to see her footprints in the snow. They had climbed together; they had rested among the heather; she had twined wild flowers round his neck, an attention he had not then appreciated; she had loved him and been good to him; and now it was all over, and Davie knew it, and because he knew it, he did not jump upon her, or fawn, or gambol, or bark as she came out.

He only wagged his dilapidated tail from side to side, and licked her hand, and looked up in her face, and said farewell as plainly as a dumb brute can.

At which performance Phemie—Phemie Keller no longer—broke out crying, to the dismay of Captain Stondon, who hurried her through the churchyard and down the steps, inwardly anathematizing Davie in particular, and the lookers on in general.

“It’s all along of you,” remarked Mrs. Aggland, giving Duncan a shake. “If you had taken the dog back, as I told you, she would have been all right. Was ever woman plagued as I am by a set of disobedient, headstrong boys?”

“Well, you wouldn’t have liked to go home yourself,” retorted Duncan; whilst Mr. Aggland, with a troubled look in his face, muttered as he walked along, leading Helen by the hand—

But he was thinking of something else all the while. He was thinking about Phemie; thinking, as he had never thought before, of the future she was going out to meet.

“Keep up, Phemie; be brave,” he found an opportunity of whispering to her, and the girl dried her tears, and smiled her best, and laughed when her husband broke the bridecake over her head, after the fashion of the country, while the young men and the young women contended for the very crumbs eagerly.

Then Captain Stondon was happy again. He forgave Duncan and he forgave the inhabitants of Tordale, and he made himself so agreeable while Phemie was getting ready for her departure, that the bride’s youth and the bride herself were forgotten, and everybody joined in praises of the officer, and wishes for his health, happiness, and prosperity.

The guests were going to keep up the feast till night, or at least so long as their heads remained tolerably steady, but the bride and bridegroom had to start early in the afternoon to catch the train at Carlisle, from which place Phemie had elected to go to Scotland to spend her honeymoon.

After that Captain Stondon proposed travelling, on the Continent, and the girl did not know when she should see her uncle or Cumberland again.

“I hope you will be happy, Phemie,” he said; “I believe you will.”

“I think I shall, uncle,” she answered; but the tears were in her eyes as she spoke.

“I have something to say to you before you go,” he began; “something that came into my mind as I followed you home from church.”

“What is it?” she asked. “What is it?” she repeated, seeing that he paused and hesitated.

“If I was sending Duncan out into the world,” he said, “I should warn him that it is a sinful world; that though it may not be hard to keep straight in a lonely place like this, it is not so easy to be good with temptations surrounding us on every side——”

“Yes, uncle,” agreed Phemie.

“Burns says,” proceeded Mr. Aggland, “that—

Now you are going to be a lady, Phemie, and a lady out in the world, and I do not want you to lose your head in consequence; I do not want you to live an objectless, useless, idle life. Chaucer tells us truly that—

and an idle woman’s position is quite as bad, Phemie, quite.”

“But I shall not be idle,” she pleaded.

“You will not have to work,” he answered, “and that with many is synonymous with idleness. You are going to you know not what, my child,” he went on; “you are going into a strange world, where there are strange fashions, strange creeds, strange ideas of morality. Phemie, you will keep yourself straight; you won’t forget what I have tried to teach you; you won’t forget what your grandfather taught you; you won’t forget this world is not all, and that its fashions and its pleasures pass swiftly away?”

“I will try to be good, uncle.”

“You will have servants under you,” he continued. “Don’t be hard with them, Phemie; don’t be thoughtless. Remember they have souls to be saved as well as you. You have beauty. It is an article much prized where you are going. Don’t be too vain of it. Remember God gave it to you—a gift not to be abused. Never forget that, unless allied to something better, it is but—

You will be rich; when you are so, ‘be not exalted,’ as Cleobulus pithily puts it. Solomon says, ‘riches are not for ever;’ remember that; and also that for the use you make of them while you have them you will be held accountable. I would have you emulate those—

But you are going into a world so new and strange that all old counsels, all old teachings, seem inapplicable to it.”

And Mr. Aggland dropped his hand despairingly on Phemie’s shoulder as he concluded.

“I will try to remember,” she said.

“I would have you—

continued her uncle. “I would have you keep every Christian grace, every womanly virtue. I do not wish to see you a fashionable lady. Do not at first be too confident, but proceed—

And yet I would not have you over-fearful, or cowardly, because I know ‘that what begins in fear usually ends in folly.’ I want you to keep a balance, Phemie, between bigotry and irreligion—between virtue and prudery—between hard work and idleness—between confidence and presumption.”

“I wish I had not to go away at all, uncle,” was her comment on this string of advice.

“If you had not to go away I should not have to warn you,” he answered. “And now good-bye, and don’t forget me, Phemie; don’t quite forget me, if you can help it.”

He was parting from the girl he had loved like his own daughter; parting from her who was going forth on an untried, uncertain road; and if the tears did come into his eyes, if his voice did tremble for a moment, I hope those who read these pages will not think him the less a man for all that.

As for Phemie, seeing him in such trouble, she kept her own trouble back bravely. She would not cry; she would not unfit herself for saying what she knew was the truth, that she could never forget him, nor forget the Hill Farm; and she took his hand and kissed it ere he could prevent her, while she whispered—

And then she broke down—then she threw herself into his arms and lay sobbing there till Helen came to remind her time was getting on, and that railway trains wait for no one.

“You must go now, Phemie,” said her uncle; “do not think me unkind for hurrying you away—

There now. Let’s not unnerve each other,” and he put her gently back from him. “And now for my last words. Remember that you are but an—

Be a good wife to the man who has chosen you, and whom you have chosen. ‘Do him good, and not evil, all the days of your life.’ Now, Phemie, now—now,” and he unclasped the arms she had thrown round him once again, and bade her say what other farewells she had to say, as it was high time they were off to Carlisle.

“I shall come back again,” Phemie said to each and all. “I shall come back again, Duncan. I will indeed, Helen. Be sure I won’t stay long away, Peggy.”

But Peggy M‘Nab refused to be comforted. She went into her kitchen after the happy pair drove away, and covered her head with her apron, and sobbed aloud.

“Don’t cry, Peggy!—don’t, don’t!” exclaimed Helen, with the tears streaming down her own cheeks; “don’t cry; she will come back to us; you heard her say yourself that she would.”

“Alake, Miss Helen,” answered Peggy, from behind her curtain of blue check, “the child that I carried in my airms—that I nursed in my lap—I have not seen this many a year, unless, maybe, by an odd time in a dream; and your cousin Phemie, who has just gane awa’, neither you nor me will ever set eyes on again till our deein’ day.”

At which assurance Helen lifted up her voice and wept aloud, for she did not understand the exact meaning of the hard truth contained in Peggy’s pathetic words. And if she had, would she have wept the less? Would she have ceased lamenting? Would it have been any consolation to her to know that another Phemie might come back, but that the Phemie who had danced over the heather, and sat by Strammer Tarn, and assisted in all household duties; who had been gay and sad, happy and sorrowful, could return to the Hill Farm—to the peace and quiet of the valley below—to the rugged mountains—to the murmuring waterfall—never more—ah, never!