CHAPTER IX.
ELLEN’S OPINION.
It was not until night, after Avice, wearied with sorrow and excitement, had gone to bed, that Sara, calling Mrs. Nelson to her, said:
‘Well, Ellen, what do you think of my new arrangement? Are you pleased to have Miss Wellfield here?’
‘Yes, indeed, ma’am. I never saw a sweeter young lady, nor one that was more of a real lady. She’s one that it will be a pleasure to serve.’
‘That is well, and I quite agree with you. And—Mr. Wellfield?’
There was a pause before Ellen said: ‘It is much more difficult to judge of a gentleman, on the spot as it were; and for a woman, too. And then he is so much older.’
‘I know. But you must have formed some opinion of him, Ellen. We never see anyone strange without some impression being made on our minds.’
‘He is a noble-looking gentleman,’ said Ellen, slowly. ‘What piercing dark eyes he has; and such a presence, and such a voice—such an air, Miss Sara, if I might say so. One does not often see such gentlemen, and——’
‘Well, Ellen?’ said her mistress, resting her chin upon her hand, and looking fixedly at her, while her heart throbbed. Was he not all that, and more?
‘I was thinking—Miss Sara, you must not think me impertinent. You are like my child, you know.’
‘I know it. Go on.’
‘I was thinking that he has a way and a look with him that must make it hard for any woman to withstand him, supposing he were making love to her.’
‘And is that all?’ Sara asked, almost indignantly; her heart falling, though she was herself at the moment so strongly under the influence of that ‘way’ and that ‘look’—though he had been making love to her, and she had found resistance swept away like a straw down a strong current. ‘Is that all? Ellen, you know you are evading my questions. You know that I want to know whether he looked high-minded and good.’
‘And that is just what I cannot say, my dear. I cannot tell. He looks splendid—I know that. He looks a gentleman, and a very grand gentleman. And I saw nothing to make me think he would not be good. But, since you will know all, Miss Sara, I thought there was a look about his lips, as if he could be cruel on occasion.’
‘Cruel, Ellen? What do you mean?’
‘Nay, don’t look at me in that way, ma’am! You would make me speak, and I’m bound to tell the truth, I don’t mean that he looked as if he would hurt an animal, or wilfully torment anything, but he looked to me as if, supposing he was hard pressed, for instance, he could be cruel, and unscrupulous—as if he would gain his end, choose what he had to do to get to it.’
‘Oh,’ said Sara, with a somewhat nervous laugh, ‘you mean that he has a very strong will. I hope indeed that he has, Ellen, for he will need it, I assure you.’
‘Then I am very glad he is determined,’ answered Ellen, briskly, as if anxious to have the subject disposed of. And Sara did not resume it, but she was that night in no humour for either work or play. She sat in her easy-chair beside the table on which stood her lamp, and thought and pondered until her brain seemed to ache.
Where was he now? How far advanced on his dreary way to England and Manchester? She knew nothing of the north of England. She only knew that Wellfield, where his lost home was, was in the north-east corner of the great manufacturing county, and that (so he had told her) it was a lovely and fertile spot, surrounded on one side by bleak Yorkshire moors, and on others by great grimy manufacturing towns. Of course she had heard of the north of England towns, had met people who came from them, had passed through some of them years ago, on her way to Scotland with her father; but all that region was a great unknown land to her, with, as it seemed, the one exception of Wellfield, which she had found upon an ordnance map, and had pictured in her heart, until it took up a great space in her imagination; and for her ‘the north’ as applied to England, meant Wellfield. A ridiculous mental position no doubt, but one not entirely without precedent.
Well, she thought, he would soon be there. He had told her he intended to go to see the old place once again. Mr. Bolton, the new owner, would not be so churlish as to refuse him that grace. And he had promised to write and tell her about it.
‘Cruel?’ she thought, reflecting upon Ellen’s words. ‘I suppose that means resolute. People sometimes have to be almost cruel. It is often apparent cruelty which is really the greatest kindness. Jerome could be most determined, I am certain. I have noticed a change myself, since—since his trouble. I daresay he could even be what Ellen would imagine cruel; but if so, it would be because he thought it right.’
Meditating upon this thought and variations of it, she sat until far in the night.
It was several days before the two girls heard anything of Jerome, and meantime they were able to become better acquainted with one another. Sara was predisposed to love Avice, first because of her charming appearance, and next because she was Jerome’s sister. As time went on, the qualities, mental and moral, of her new sister made her love her for herself. Avice at first stood in a little awe of Miss Ford, of her grand manner, and of her indifferent way of speaking of things which many persons, and most women especially, thought of the first importance. But very soon Sara’s great heart and large benevolent woman’s nature fascinated the younger girl. The whole character of this new friend was so utterly different from the character which had hitherto overshadowed and stunted hers, that very soon the joy of the new influence pervaded her whole nature. Here every power was encouraged to expand to its utmost—here the cold question, ‘What will persons of judgment say to it?’ was never asked; only the question, ‘Is it right or wrong?’ or, by preference, ‘Is it good and noble, or bad and base?’ Things were looked at as they were, not as the world preferred to see them. Here was liberty in the most alluring guise—that of a beautiful woman who loved all things pure and of good report. Avice very soon began to worship her new guardian.
When at last the first letter from Jerome arrived, there was little in it of actual news. He wrote from the house of Mr. Netley, his father’s solicitor, and said he had only just arrived there.
‘I found one of his clerks waiting for me with an invitation to go to his house, and stay there until this business is settled and the worst known. I therefore drove straight up to his place, which is three or four miles out of town; and I am writing this before dinner, while I wait for his return from business. But I could not wait when once there was a chance of writing to you.
‘This Cottonopolis is a dismal hole—but such a rush along the streets. Such earnest, intent, money-making faces; shrewd, hard and ugly for the most part. As their owners bustle along the streets, I feel as if I were a member of an extinct species, suddenly resuscitated and plunged into the whirl of the working half of the nineteenth century—and I look the thing every inch, I don’t doubt. I will write to-morrow as soon as ever I have had a conversation with Mr. Netley, and know my way a little better.’
He asked her to address everything for the present to Mr. Netley’s offices, at 57, Canongate. And he added that he had rejoiced every hour since his arrival in England, to know that Avice was where she was. ‘Not here—I do not know what would have become of her here. I think of you both, constantly, and the thought is as it were a light unto my feet and a lamp unto my path. With it, Sara, there may be poverty and sorrow to contend with, but there will always be something to live for and something to hope for. And I say again, “God bless you!”’
With the receipt of this letter it was as if one stage of a journey had come to an end. The door of a former life of luxury and careless ease had been closed and barred, and before them all lay a rugged path to be travelled, and moreover the light that shone upon it was so vague and uncertain that it was difficult to follow in its windings.