CHAPTER XVIII.

Two Culprits on their Trial.

“That’s my story,” said Miss Lockwood, meeting him full with a steadfast look in her eyes, which bewildered Edgar still more. She had taken a seat, and the two sat looking at each other across Mr. Tottenham’s writing table. Edgar had not even heard the name of Arden for years past, and nothing was further from his thoughts on entering this most commonplace of scenes, the great shop, than to be thrown back into his own past life, by the touch of one of the young ladies in the shawl and mantle department. His curiosity was awakened, but not in any high degree, for it was absurd to suppose that a shopwoman in Tottenham’s could have any power to affect the Ardens one way or another. He felt that this must be a tempest in a teacup, some trifling supposed injustice, something, perhaps, about a cottage on the estate, or the rancour of a dismissed servant; for he had heard vaguely that there had been considerable changes.

“I am afraid I cannot sympathize with you in hating the Ardens,” he said; “if you know so much about me, you must know that I was brought up to regard Mrs. Arden as my sister, which I still do, notwithstanding the change of circumstances; and no one connected with her can be to me an object of hate.”

“Mrs. Arden, indeed!” said Miss Lockwood with contemptuous emphasis, tossing her handsome head.

“Yes. What has Mrs. Arden done to you?” said Edgar, half angry, half amused with what seemed to him the impotent spitefulness; the absurdity of the woman’s scorn struck him with ludicrous effect; and yet a certain uneasiness was in the puzzle. Clare Arden had never possessed that natural instinctive courtesy which makes dependents friends. Probably she had wounded the amour propre of the shopwoman; but then no doubt shopwomen have to make up their minds to such wounds, and Mrs. Arden was much too well bred and much too proud to have gone out of her way to annoy a young lady at Tottenham’s—any offence given or taken must have been a mere inadvertence, whatever it was.

“Done to me? Oh, she haven’t done nothing to me, not meaningly, poor creature,” said Miss Lockwood. “Poor thing! it’s me that has that in my power, not her.”

“I wish you would tell me,” said Edgar seriously, leaning across the table towards her with deepened interest and a certain alarm, “I entreat you to tell me what you mean. You are right in thinking that no subject could be more interesting to me.”

“Ah! but it ain’t, perhaps, the kind of interest I expected,” said Miss Lockwood with coquettish familiarity, pushing back her chair. She belonged to the class of women who delight to make any conversation, however trivial or however important, bear the air of a flirtation. She was quite ready to play with her present companion, to excite and tantalize his curiosity, to laugh at him, and delude him, if fortune favoured her. But a chance altogether unforeseen interrupted this not unpleasant operation, and threw Miss Lockwood and her mystery into, the shade. When the conversation had advanced thus far, a new personage suddenly appeared on the scene. With a little preliminary knock, but without waiting for any invitation, a lady opened the door, the sight of whom drove even Clare Arden out of Edgar’s mind. She was no longer young, and her days of possible beauty were over. At sight of her Edgar rose to his feet, with a sudden cry.

For a moment the new-comer stood still at the door, looking at the unexpected scene. Her face was care-worn, and yet it was kind, revealing one of those mixtures of two beings which are to be seen so often in society—the kind, genial, gentle woman made by nature, with the conventional great lady, formed for her position, and earnestly striving as her highest duty to shape herself into the narrowness and worldliness which it demanded. This curious development of mingled good and evil has not, perhaps, had so much notice as it deserves from the observer. We are all acquainted with characters in which a little germ of goodness strives against natural dispositions which are not amiable; but the other compound is not less true, if perhaps more rare. Lady Augusta Thornleigh, who was Lady Mary Tottenham’s sister, was born one of the kindest souls that ever drew breath. She had it in her even to be “viewy” as Lady Mary was, or to be sentimentally yielding and eager for everybody’s happiness. But all her canons of duty bound her to regard these dispositions as weakness, almost as guilt, and represented worldliness to her as the highest of virtues. She sighed after this as the others sigh after the higher heights of self-denial. Her searchings of heart were all directed (unconsciously) to make the worse appear the better cause; she tried to be worldly, believing that was right, as other people try to be unworldly. But I do wrong to keep Lady Augusta standing at the door of Mr. Tottenham’s room, while I describe her characteristics to the reader. She came in, calmly unexpectant of any sight but that of her brother-in-law; then starting to see two people, man and woman, seated on either side of the table with every appearance of being engaged in interesting conversation, made a step back again, bewildered.

“I beg your pardon, I thought Mr. Tottenham was here,” she said, dropping her veil, which she had raised on entering. Miss Lockwood sprang up from her chair which she pushed back with an appearance of flurry and excitement, which was either real or very well counterfeited; while Edgar, deeply vexed, he could scarcely have told why, to be found thus, rose too, and approached his old friend. He would have liked to put himself at her feet, to kiss her hand, to throw himself upon her old kindness, if not like a son with a mother, at least like a loyal servant of one of those queens of nature whom generous men love to serve like sons. But he dared not do this—he dared not exceed the bounds of conventional acquaintance. He went forward eagerly but timidly, holding out his hands. I cannot find words to say how bewildered Lady Augusta was by the sight of Edgar, or with what consternation she recognised him. Whatever the motive had been which had drawn to him the attention of the Tottenhams, Lady Augusta Thornleigh was altogether ignorant of it. She had no expectation of seeing him, no idea that he could cross her path again. The profound surprise, the rush of kindly feeling which the first sight of him called forth, the thrill of terror and sense of danger which accompanied it, made her tremble with sudden agitation. Good heavens! what was she to do? She could not decline to recognise him; her heart indeed yearned to him, the subject of so much misfortune; but all the new complications that his presence would produce, rose up before her as he approached and made her heart sick. Oh, if he would only take the hint given in her hesitating look, and the veil which she had dropped over her face! But Edgar was fond of his old friend. She was the sister of his hostess, and he had felt ever since he went to Tottenham’s that one day or other he must meet her. He tried even at that moment to forget that she was anything beyond an old friend and Lady Mary’s sister; he tried to put the thought out of his mind that she was the mother of Gussy, his only love; he tried to forget the former relations between them. He had not seen her since the day when, leaving his former home, a nameless being, without either future or past to console him, he had been touched to the heart by her hurried farewell. He was then in all the excitement of a great sacrifice; he was a hero, admired and pitied everywhere; he had been almost her son, and she had called him Edgar, and wept over him. What a difference! he was a stranger now, in a totally different sphere, fallen out of knowledge, out of sympathy, no longer a hero or representing any exciting break in the ordinary level of life; but a common man probably desirous of asking some favour, and one for whom all his former friends must have the troublesome sensation of feeling something ought to be done for—I do not know if this occurred to Edgar’s mind, who was little apt to make such claims, but it did occur to Lady Augusta.

“Is it you?—Mr. ——?” she said faltering. She was not even sure of his new name.

“Earnshaw,” he said; “Edgar Earnshaw; you recollect me even after all these years?”

“Oh, surely. Of course I cannot but recollect you,” she said; “but I am taken by surprise. I did not know you were in England. I never could have expected to find you here.”

“No,” said Edgar, chilled by her tone, and letting the hand drop which she had given him, he felt, with hesitation. “It seems to myself the last place in the world where I could be; but Mr. Tottenham is so kind as to wish—”

What was Mr. Tottenham so kind as to wish? I cannot describe Lady Augusta’s perplexity. Did it mean that Edgar had been so far reduced as to require employment in the shop? Had he come to that—he who was all but engaged to Gussy once? The idea gave her an indescribable shock; but then, how foolish of Mr. Tottenham, knowing all he did of Gussy and her obstinacy, and how she had all but broken her parents’ hearts by refusing the best of offers, and threatened to go into a sisterhood, and came constantly to this very place to visit and influence the “young ladies” of the establishment! Lady Augusta grew red and grew pale in the agitation of her feelings; but what could she say? She could not ask him point-blank if this were so; she could not, after all these years, throw herself once more upon his chivalry, as she had done before, and implore him to keep out of her daughter’s way. The only way of outlet she found for her excitement and confusion was to look severely at Miss Lockwood, who stood with her hands folded, and an ingratiating smile on her face, stooping slightly forward, as who should say, What can I have the pleasure of showing your ladyship?

Lady Augusta gave this “person” a withering glance. She was indignant with her for appearing to be on intimate terms with this man, whom, had Lady Augusta been wise, she would have gladly married off at once to anybody, so that he might be got out of her child’s way. But, being a very natural woman, with a great many tender prejudices and motherly feelings, she was a little haughty and offended that, having known Gussy, he should decline to such a level as Miss Lockwood. Gussy was not for him, and his very existence was a danger for her; but still, that he should be inconstant to Gussy, was to her mother a wrong and offence.

“I fear,” she said, in her stateliest tone, “that I am interrupting you—that you were particularly engaged.”

“Oh no, your Ladyship, nothing but what can wait,” murmured Miss Lockwood, gliding off with a curtsey, and adding a sidelong half nod of leave-taking to Edgar, which made him hot with anger, yet was too absurd in its impertinence to be resented. Lady Augusta drew herself up more and more.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am to have interrupted a—conversation—an interview. I expected to find my brother-in-law here.”

“Indeed, you have interrupted nothing,” said Edgar. “Mr. Tottenham, I don’t know why, left me here with this—lady, while he went to make some inquiries about her; he will return directly. She had offered to explain her case, of which I knew nothing, to me,” he continued, with an embarrassed laugh, feeling himself grow red against his will. What did it matter to Lady Augusta whom he might converse with? But, notwithstanding, her manner was as that of a woman offended, and forming an unfavourable judgment, and Edgar was affected by this unspoken judgment in spite of himself.

Then a pause ensued. Miss Lockwood had glided out of the room with her long train rustling, but no other sound, and Lady Augusta, like other less exalted persons, did not know what to say to carry on this curious conversation. She was not sufficiently in friendship with Edgar to say anything further to him on this subject, either as warning or reproving, and there was an awkward pause. He would have liked to put a hundred questions, but did not know how to begin.

“I hope all are well,” he said at last, with some timidity.

“Oh, quite well. There have been various changes in the family, as no doubt you have heard; and more are in prospect,” Lady Augusta said pointedly: “That is the worst of grown-up sons and daughters. After twenty, their father and mother have very little enjoyment of them. I was not aware you knew my brother-in-law.”

This she said with something of a jerk, having forestalled all possible inquiry on Edgar’s side, as she thought.

“I only met him a few days ago,” said Edgar. “Perhaps I had better tell you at once my position in respect to him. He has offered me the post of tutor to his boy; and having nothing to do for the moment, poor as my qualifications are, I have accepted it. I need not tell you, who know them, how kind to me both he and Lady Mary have been.”

“Tutor to—his boy!” Lady Augusta repeated the words, thunderstruck. This was something more terrible, more alarming than she had conceived possible. “Tutor to Phil?” She did not seem able to do more than repeat the words.

“You may well be surprised,” said Edgar, trying to laugh; “no one could be more so than myself; but as they were so good as to overlook my deficiencies, what could I say?”

“I was not thinking of your deficiencies. Oh! Mr. Earnshaw, oh! Edgar, could not your old friends have helped you to something better than this?”

Poor Lady Augusta! she was unfeignedly grieved and sorry to think of him as a dependent. And at the same time she was struck with terror unbounded to think that he would now be always in her way, in Gussy’s way, never to be got rid of. She was not fond of exercising what influence she possessed lavishly, for she had many sons and nephews; but she began to reflect immediately what she could do to promote Edgar’s interests. A tutor, and in Tottenham’s, for ever; or in Berkeley Square, always at hand, never to be got rid of—

“Dear me!” she cried, “tell me whom I should speak to. We must not let you vegetate in such a post as this.”

I don’t think Edgar had much difficulty in divining what she meant, or which branch of the subject had most effect on her mind. And, perhaps, he was slightly irritated by his insight, though this effect very soon went off.

“Thank you,” he said, “for the moment I am well enough pleased with my position. Everybody is very kind to me; and, after so long abstinence, a little pleasant society is an agreeable change.”

He was sorry after he had said this, for he liked Lady Augusta. Her countenance fell. She gave an alarmed glance at the door, where there was a passing sound as of some one approaching.

“I should not have thought you would have liked it,” she said, with a little sigh. “Do you know where Mr. Tottenham is? I want to speak to him just for a moment. Thanks so much. I will wait here till he comes.”

“I shall attend to it—you may be sure I will attend to it,” said Mr. Tottenham’s voice, making itself audible before he himself appeared. “You were quite right, Robinson, quite right, and you may be sure I will pay every attention. Ah, Lady Augusta, you here. What! and you have found out our friend? I meant that for a little surprise to you. Yes, here he is, and I hope to hold him fast, at least till something very much better turns up—a thing which will happen, I am afraid, quite too soon for us.”

“Let us hope so, for Mr. Earnshaw’s sake,” said Lady Augusta, with a little solemnity. How different her tone was from that of her brother-in-law! Perhaps, on the whole, her personal liking for Edgar was stronger than his was; but there were so many things mingled with it which made this liking impossible. Her very person seemed to stiffen as she spoke, and she made a little pause, as Lord Newmarch had done before pronouncing his name. “Mr.—Earnshaw.” To be sure it must be difficult, having known him by one name to speak to him by another; but somehow this little pause seemed to Edgar another painful reminder that he was not as he had once been.

And then there ensued another embarrassed pause. Edgar could not say anything, for his feelings at the moment were somewhat bitter; and as for good Mr. Tottenham, he was perplexed and perturbed, not perceiving any reason why his sister-in-law should put on so solemn an expression. He had expected nothing less than to please her and all her family, by his kindness to the man whom he persisted in considering their friend. He was profoundly perplexed by this stiffness and air of solemnity. Had there been some quarrel, of which he knew nothing, between them? He was dumb in his bewilderment, and could not think of anything to say.

“Did Miss Lockwood tell you much? or was she frightened?” he said. “It is a troublesome story, and I wish people would not be so horribly officious in reporting everything. Did she open her heart at all to you?”

Mr. Tottenham looked at him with calm matter-of-fact seriousness, and Lady Augusta looked at him with suspicious disapproval. To the woman of the world the question seemed absurd, to the man of ideas it was as simple as daylight; between them they embarrassed the altogether innocent third party, who had a clue to both their thoughts.

“She told me nothing,” said Edgar, “as indeed how should she, never having spoken to me before to-day? She had seen me, she says, three years ago, at the time of the arrangement about Arden, and she chose to talk to me of that, heaven knows why.”

“Was that what you were talking about when I came in?” said Lady Augusta, with a cold ring of unbelief in her tone, a tone which irritated Edgar deeply in spite of himself.

“It was what we were talking of,” he said, concisely; and then Mr. Tottenham felt sure there had been some previously existing quarrel of which he knew nothing, and that his attempt to give pleasure had been so far a failure. This momentarily discouraged him—for to do harm, where you would fain have done good, is confusing to every well-intentioned soul.

“Mary will be glad to hear something of your movements,” he said. “She has been anxious for some time past to know what you were going to do.”

“I came to tell you,” said Lady Augusta. “We are in town for a few weeks, chiefly about business, for my little Mary has made up her mind to leave me; and as it has all been made up in a hurry, there will be a great deal to do.”

“Made up her mind to leave you?”

“Yes, don’t you understand? She is going to marry Lord Granton, the Marquis of Hautville’s son. Yes, you may congratulate me; it is very pleasant, and just such a match as one could have wished; and after Helena’s sad business,” said Lady Augusta, with a sigh, “we wanted something to console us a little.”

“I think Helena’s was a very sensible marriage,” said Mr. Tottenham; “just the man for her; but I am glad your pride is going to have this salve all the same, and I daresay Mary will be delighted, for she is a dreadful little aristocrat, notwithstanding her own foolish marriage, and all she says.”

“If every foolish marriage ended as well as Mary’s—” said Lady Augusta.

“Ah! you mean if every parvenu was rich?” said Mr. Tottenham; “but that, unfortunately, is past hoping for. So you have come to town for the trousseau? I hope your Ladyship means to patronise the shop.”

“My dear Tom—” Lady Augusta began, her face clouding over.

“Before your sister’s time, I too was ashamed of the shop,” he said, “if I am not now, it is Mary’s doing. And so her little godchild is to be a great lady! I am very glad for your sake, Augusta, and I hope the little thing will be happy. Does she know her own mind? I suppose Thornleigh is very much pleased.”

“Delighted!” cried Lady Augusta, “as we all are; he is a charming fellow, and she is as happy as the day is long.”

“Ah, we are all charming fellows, and everybody makes the best of us at that period of our lives,” said Mr. Tottenham; “all the same I am glad to hear everything is so pleasant. And Gussy? What does Gussy say?”

“Mr. Tottenham!” Lady Augusta cried in an indignant whisper; and then she added, “tell Mary I shall come and tell her all about it. I must not detain you any longer from your business. Good-bye, Mr. Earnshaw.”

“Earnshaw will see you to your carriage,” said Mr. Tottenham, “I am very busy—don’t think me careless; and I know,” he added in a lower tone, “you will like, when you are happy yourself, to say a kind word to an old friend.”

Happy herself! does a woman ever inquire whether she is personally happy or not when she has come to Lady Augusta’s age, and has a large family to care for? She took the arm which Edgar could not but offer with an impatient sigh.

“Mr. Earnshaw does not require to be told that I wish him everything that is good,” she said, and allowed him to lead her out, wondering how she should manage to warn Beatrice, her youngest daughter, who had come with her, and who was looking at something in one of the many departments. The young Thornleighs were all fond of Edgar, and Lady Augusta dared not trust a young firebrand of nineteen to go and spread the news all over the family, without due warning, that he had appeared upon the scene again. Edgar’s short-lived anger had before this floated away, though his heart ached at the withdrawal from him of the friendship which had been sweet to his friendly soul. His heart melted more and more every step he walked by her side.

“Lady Augusta,” he said at last hurriedly, “you were once as kind as an angel to me, when I wanted it much. Don’t be afraid of me; I shall never put myself in your way.”

“Oh, Mr. Earnshaw!” she cried, struck by compunction; “I ought to ask your pardon, Edgar; I ought to know you better; don’t judge me harshly. If you only knew—”

“I don’t ask to know anything,” he said, though his heart beat high, “my sphere henceforth is very different from yours; you need have no fear of me.”

“God bless you, whatever is your sphere! you are good, and I am sure you will be happy!” she cried with tears in her eyes, giving him her hand as he put her into her carriage; but then she added, “will you send some one to call Beatrice, little Beatrice, who came with me? No, don’t go yourself, pray don’t go—I would not give you so much trouble for the world!”

Edgar did not feel sure whether he was most inclined to burst into rude laughter, or to go aside to the nearest corner and dry his glistening eyes.

CHAPTER XIX.

Schemes and Speculations.

Edgar went home in the evening, feeling a degree of agitation which he had scarcely given himself credit for being capable of. He had been on so low a level of feeling all these years, that he believed himself to have grown duller and less capable of emotion, though he could not explain to himself how it should be so. But now the stormwinds had begun to blow, and the tide to rise. The mere sight of Lady Augusta was enough to have brought back a crowd of sensations and recollections, and there had lately been so many other touches upon the past to heighten the effect of this broad gleam of light. Even the curious recognition of him, and the apparently foolish enmity against the Ardens, which the young lady at Tottenham’s had shown, had something to do with the ferment of contending feelings in which he found himself. Hate them! no, why should he hate them? But to be thus called back to the recollection of them, and of all that he had been, had a strangely disturbing influence upon his mind. In his aimless wanderings alone over Europe, and in his sudden plunge into a family life quite new to him in Scotland, he had believed himself utterly set free from all the traditions and associations of the former existence, which was indeed more like a chapter out of a romance than a real episode in life. Taking it at the most, it was nothing but an episode. After years of neglected youth, a brief breathless moment of power, independence, and a kind of greatness, and then a sharp disruption from them all, and plunge into obscurity again. Why should that short interval affect him more than all the long tracts of less highly coloured life, from which it stood out like a bit of brilliant embroidery on a sombre web? Edgar could not tell; he felt that it did so, but he could not answer to himself why. Mr. Tottenham talked all the way back about one thing and another, about Miss Lockwood, and the scandal which had suddenly shocked the establishment, about little Mary Thornleigh and her brilliant marriage, about the evening entertainment to be given in the shop, which was quite as important to him. Fortunately for Edgar, his companion was capable of monologue, and went on quite pleasantly during their drive without need of anything more than a judicious question or monosyllable of assent.

“I’ll tell you one thing, Earnshaw,” he said, “in such undertakings as mine the great thing is never to be discouraged; never allow yourself to be discouraged; that is my maxim; though I am not always able to carry it out. I hope I never shall give in to say that because things go wrong under my management, or because one meets with disappointments—therefore things must always go wrong, and nothing good ever come of it. Of course, look at it from a serious point of view, concerts and penny readings, and so forth are of no importance. That is what Gussy always tells me. She thinks religion is the only thing; she would like to train my young ladies to find their chief pleasure in the chapel and the daily service, like her Sisters in their convent. I am not against Sisterhoods, Earnshaw; I should not like to see Gussy go into one, it is true—”

“Is there any likelihood of that?” Edgar asked with a great start, which made the light waggon they were driving in, swerve.

“Hallo! steady!” cried Mr. Tottenham, “likelihood of it? I don’t know. She wished it at one time. You see, Earnshaw, we don’t sufficiently understand, seeing how different they are, how much alike women are to ourselves. I suppose there comes a time in a girl’s life, as well as in a man’s, when she wants to be herself, and not merely her father’s daughter. You may say she should marry in that case; but supposing she doesn’t want to marry, or, put the case, can’t marry as she would wish? What can she do? I think myself they overdo the devotional part; but a Sisterhood means occupation, a kind of independence, a position of her own—and at the same time protection from all the folly we talk about strong-minded women.”

“But does it mean all this?” said Edgar surprised, “that is not the ordinary view?”

“My dear fellow, the ordinary view is all nonsense. I say it’s protection against idiotic talk. The last thing anyone thinks of is to bring forward the strong-minded abuse in respect to a Sisterhood. But look here; I know of one, where quite quietly, without any fuss, there’s the Sister Doctor in full practice, looking after as many children as would fill a good-sized village. She’s never laughed at and called Dr. Mary, M.D.; and there’s the Sister Head-Master, with no Governing Body to make her life miserable. They don’t put forward that view of the subject. Possibly, for human nature is very queer, they think only of the sacrifice, &c.; but I don’t wonder, for my part, that it’s a great temptation to a woman. Gussy Thornleigh is twenty-five, too old to be only her mother’s shadow; and if nothing else that she likes comes in her way—”

Mr. Tottenham made a pause. Did he mean anything by that pause? Poor Edgar, who felt himself to be a sport to all the wild imaginations that can torture a man, sat silent, and felt the blood boiling in his veins and his heart leaping in his throat. It was as well that his companion stopped talking, for he could not have heard any voice but that of his own nerves and pulses all throbbing and thrilling. Heaven and earth! might it be possible that this should come about, while he, a man, able and willing to work, to slave, to turn head and hands to any occupation on the earth, should be hanging on helpless, unable to interfere? And yet he had but this moment told Gussy’s mother that she need not fear him! A strong impulse came upon him to spring down from the waggon and walk back to town and tell Lady Augusta to fear everything, that he would never rest nor let her rest till he won her daughter back to a more smiling life. Alas, of all follies what could be so foolish? he, the tutor, the dependent, without power to help either himself or her. The waggon rushed along the dark country road, making a little circle of light round its lamps, while the sound of the horses’ feet, and the roll of the wheels, enveloped them in a circle of sound, separating, as it were, this moving speck of light and motion from all the inanimate world. It would have been as easy to change that dark indifferent sphere suddenly into the wide and soft sympathy of a summer evening, as for Edgar, at this period of his life, to have attempted from this hopeless abstraction, in which he was carried along by others, to have interfered with another existence and turned its course aside. Not now—if ever, not yet—and, ah, when, if ever? It was a long time before he was able to speak at all, and his companion, who thus wittingly or unwittingly, threw such firebrands of thought into his disturbed mind was silent too, either respectful of Edgar’s feelings, or totally unconscious of them, he could not tell which.

“May I ask,” he inquired, after a long pause, clearing his throat, which was parched and dry, “what was meant by ‘Helena’s sad business?’ What has become of that Miss Thornleigh?”

“What has become of her is, that she’s married,” said Mr. Tottenham. “A very natural thing, though Helena, I believe, was a little ashamed of herself for giving into it. She married a man who has nothing but his brains to recommend him—no family to speak of, and no money, which, between ourselves, is a good deal worse. He is a professor, and a critic, and that sort of thing—too clever for me, but he suits her better than anyone I know. Helena is a totally different sort of person, sure to have her own way, whatever she takes into her head. Now Gussy, on the contrary——”

“Mr. Tottenham,” said Edgar, hoarsely, “for God’s sake, don’t say any more.”

“Ah!” said the other; and then he added, “I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon,” and flourished his whip in the air by way of a diversion. This manœuvre was so successful that the party had quite enough to think of to keep their seats, and their heads cool in case of an accident, as the spirited beasts plunged and dashed along the remaining bit of way. “That was as near a spill as I remember,” Mr. Tottenham said, as he threw the reins to the groom, when, after a tearing gallop up the avenue, the bays drew up at the door. He was flushed with the excitement and the struggle; and whether he had put Edgar to the torture in ignorance, or with any occult meaning, the sufferer could not discover. The momentary gleam of danger at the end had however done even Edgar good.

Lady Mary met them at dinner, smiling and pretty, ready to lend an ear to anything interesting that might be said, but full of her own projects as when they left her. She had carried out her plans with the business-like despatch which women so often excel in, and Edgar, whose mind had been so remorselessly stirred and agitated all day, found himself quite established as an active coadjutor in her great scheme at night.

“I have sent a little circular to the printers,” said Lady Mary, “saying when the German lectures would be resumed. You said Tuesday, I think, Mr. Earnshaw? That is the day that suits us best. Several people have been here this afternoon, and a great deal of interest has been excited about it; several, indeed, have sent me their names already. Oh, I told them you were working half against your will, without thinking very much of the greatness of the object; indeed, with just a little contempt—forgive me, Mr. Earnshaw—for this foolish fancy of women trying to improve their minds.”

“No, only for the infinitely odd fancy of thinking I can help in the process,” said Edgar, dragging himself, as it were, within this new circle of fantastic light. His own miseries and excitements, heaven help him, were fantastic enough; but how real they looked by the side of this theoretical distress! or so at least the young man thought. I cannot tell with what half-laughing surprise, when his mind was at ease—but half-irritated dismay when he was troubled—he looked at this lady, infinitely more experienced in men and society and serious life than himself, who proposed to improve her mind by means of his German lessons. Was she laughing at him and the world? or was it a mere fashion of the time which she had taken up? or, most wonderful of all, was she sincere and believing in all this? He really thought she was, and so did she, not perceiving the curious misapprehension of things and words involved. It is common to say that a sense of humour saves us from exposing ourselves in many ways, yet it is amazing how little even our sense of humour helps us to see our own graver absurdities, though it may throw the most unclouded illumination upon those of other people.

“That is a polite way of concealing your sentiments,” said Lady Mary; “but never mind, I am not angry. I am so sure of the rightness of the work, and of its eventual success, that I don’t mind being laughed at. To enlarge the sphere of ideas ever so little is an advantage worth fighting for.”

“Very well,” said Edgar, “I am proud to be thought capable of enlarging somebody’s sphere. What do lectures on German mean? Before I begin you must tell me what I have to do.”

“You must teach them the language, Mr. Earnshaw.”

“Yes, but where shall we begin? with the alphabet? Must I have a gigantic black board to write the letters on?”

“Oh, not so rudimentary as that; most of the ladies, in fact, know a little German,” said Lady Mary. “I do myself, just enough to talk.”

“Enough to talk! I don’t know any more of English, my native tongue,” said Edgar, “than just enough to talk.”

“Don’t laugh at me, Mr. Earnshaw. I know nothing of the grammar, for instance. We are never taught grammar. We get a kind of knowledge of a language, just to use it, like a tool; but what is the principle of the tool, or how it is put together, or in what way it is related to other tools of the same description, I know no more than Adam did.”

“She knows a great deal more than I do,” said Mr. Tottenham, admiringly. “I never could use that sort of tool, as you call it, in my life. A wonderfully convenient thing though when you can do it. I never was much of a hand at languages; you should learn all that when you are quite young, in the nursery, when it’s no trouble—not leave it till you have to struggle with verbs, and all that sort of thing; not to say that you never can learn a foreign language by book.”

Mr. Tottenham uttered these sentiments in a comfortable leisurely, dressing-gown and slippers sort of way. He did not give in to these indulgences in reality, but when he came upstairs to the drawing-room, and stretched himself in his great chair by the fire, and felt the luxurious warmth steal through him, after the chill of the drive and the excitement of its conclusion, he felt that inward sense of ease and comfort which nerves a man to utter daring maxims and lay down the law from a genial height of good-humour and content.

“Tom!” cried Lady Mary, with impatience; and then she laughed, and added, “barbarian! don’t throw down all my arguments in your sleepy way. If there is anything of what you call chivalry left in the world, you men, who are really educated and whom people have taken pains with, ought to do your best to help us who are not educated at all.”

“O! that is the state of the case? Am I so very well educated? I did not know it,” said Mr. Tottenham, “but you need not compel us to follow Dogberry’s maxim, and produce our education when there’s no need for such vanities. I have pledged you to come to the shop, Mary, on Wednesday week. They think a great deal of securing my lady. They are going to give the trial scene from Pickwick, which is threadbare enough, but suits this sort of business, and there’s a performance of Watson’s on the cornet, and a duet, and some part songs, and so forth. I daresay it will bore you. This affair of Miss Lockwood’s is very troublesome,” Mr. Tottenham continued, sitting upright in his chair, and knitting his brows; “everything was working so well, and a real desire to improve showing itself among the people. These very girls, a fortnight since, were as much interested in the glacier theory, and as much delighted with the snow photographs as it was possible to be; but the moment a private question comes in, everything else goes to the wall.”

“I suppose,” said Edgar, “the fact is that we are more interested about each other, on the whole, than in any abstract question, however elevating.”

“Why, that is as much as to say that everything must give place to gossip,” said Lady Mary, severely, “a doctrine I will never give in to.”

“And, by the way,” said Mr. Tottenham, sinking back into dreamy ease, “that reminds me of your sister’s great news. What sort of a family is it? I remember young Granton well enough, a good-looking boy in the Guards, exactly like all the others. Little Mary is, how old? Twenty-one? How those children go on growing. It is the first good marriage, so to speak, in the family. I am glad Augusta is to have the salve of a coronet after all her troubles.”

“What a mixture of metaphors!” cried Lady Mary, “the salve of a coronet!”

“That comes of my superior education, my dear,” said Mr. Tottenham. “She doesn’t deny it’s a comfort to her. Her eyes, poor soul, had a look of satisfaction in them. And she has had anxiety enough of all kinds.”

“We need not discuss Augusta’s affairs, Tom,” said Lady Mary, with a glance at Edgar, so carefully veiled that the aroused and exciting state in which he was, made him perceive it at once. She gave her husband a much more distinct warning glance; but he, good man, either did not, or would not see it.

“What, not such a happy incident as this?” said Mr. Tottenham; “the chances are we shall hear of nothing else for some time to come. It will be in the papers, and all your correspondents will send you congratulations. After all, as Earnshaw says, people are more interested about each other than about any abstract question. I should not wonder even, if, as one nail knocks out another, little Mary’s great marriage may banish the scandal about Miss Lockwood from the mind of the shop.”

Lady Mary for some seconds yielded to an impulse quite unusual to her. “What can the shop possibly have to do—” she began, hastily, “with the Thornleigh affairs?” she added, in a subdued tone. “If it was our own little Molly, indeed, whom they all know—”

“My dear Mary, they interest themselves in all your alliances,” said Mr. Tottenham, “and you forget that Gussy is as well known among them as you are. Besides, as Earnshaw says—Don’t go, Earnshaw; the night is young, and I am unusually disposed for talk.”

“So one can see,” said Lady Mary, under her breath, with as strong an inclination to whip her husband as could have been felt by the most uncultivated of womankind. “Come and look at my prospectus and the course of studies we are arranging for this winter, Mr. Earnshaw. Some of the girls might be stirred up to go in for the Cambridge examinations, I am sure. I want you so much to come to the village with me, and be introduced to a few of them. There is really a great deal of intelligence among them; uneducated intelligence, alas! but under good guidance, and with the help which all my friends are so kindly willing to give—”

“But please remember,” cried Edgar, struggling for a moment on the edge of the whirlpool, “that I cannot undertake to direct intelligence. I can teach German if you like—though probably the first German governess that came to hand would do it a great deal better.”

“Not so, indeed; the Germans are, perhaps, better trained in the theory of education than we are; but no woman I have ever met had education enough herself to be competent to teach in a thoroughly effective way,” cried Lady Mary, mounting her steed triumphantly. Edgar sat down humbly by her, almost forgetting, in his sense of the comical position which fate had placed him in, the daily increasing embarrassments which filled his path. All the Universities put together could scarcely have made up as much enthusiasm for education as shone in Lady Mary’s pretty eyes, and poured from her lips in floods of eloquence. Mr. Tottenham, who leaned back in his chair abstractedly, and pondered his plans for the perfection of the faulty and troublesome little society in the shop, took but little notice, being sufficiently occupied with views of his own; but Edgar felt his own position as a superior being, and representative of the highest education, so comical, that it was all he could do to keep his gravity. To guide the eager uneducated intelligence, to discipline the untrained thought, nay, to teach women to think, in whose hands he, poor fellow, felt himself as a baby, was about the most ludicrous suggestion, he felt, that could have been made to him. But nothing could exceed the good faith and earnestness with which Lady Mary expounded her plans, and described the results she hoped for. This was much safer than the talk about little Mary Thornleigh’s marriage—or the unexplainable reasons which kept Gussy Thornleigh from marrying at all—or any other of those interesting personal problems which were more exciting to the mind, and much less easily discussed.

CHAPTER XX.

The Village.

The next afternoon was appointed by Lady Mary as the time at which Edgar should accompany her to Harbour Green, and be made acquainted with at least a portion of his future pupils. As I have said, this was a safe sort of resource, and he could not but feel that a compassionate understanding of his probable feelings, and difficulties of a more intimate kind, had something to do with Lady Mary’s effort to enlist him so promptly and thoroughly in the service of her scheme. Both husband and wife, however, in this curious house were so thoroughly intent upon their philanthropical schemes, that it was probably mere supererogation to add a more delicate unexpressed motive to the all-sufficing enthusiasm which carried them forward. Shortly, however, before the hour appointed, a little twisted note was brought to him, postponing till the next day the proposed visit to the village, and Edgar was left to himself to pursue his own studies on Phil’s behalf, whose education he felt was quite enough responsibility for one so little trained in the art of conveying instruction as he was. Phil had already favoured him with one of those engrossing and devoted attachments which are so pleasant, yet sometimes so fatiguing to the object. He followed Edgar about wherever he went, watched whatever he did with devout admiration, and copied him in such minute matters as were easily practicable, with the blindest adoration. The persistence with which he quoted Mr. Earnshaw had already become the joke of the house, and with a devotion which was somewhat embarrassing he gave Edgar his company continually, hanging about him wherever he was. As Edgar read Lady Mary’s note which the boy brought to him, Phil volunteered explanations.

“I know why mamma wrote you that note,” he said, “it’s because Aunt Augusta is there. I heard them saying—

“Never mind what you heard them saying,” said Edgar; and then he yielded to a movement of nature. “Was your aunt alone, Phil?” he asked—then grew crimson, feeling his weakness.

“How red your face is, Mr. Earnshaw, are you angry? No, I don’t think she was alone; some of the girls were with her. Mamma said she was engaged to you, and they made her give it up.”

“Naturally,” said Edgar, “any day will do for me. What do you say now, Phil, as I am free for the afternoon, to a long walk?”

“Hurrah!” cried the boy, “I wanted so much to go up to the gamekeeper’s, up through the woods to see the last lot of puppies. Do you mind walking that way? Oh, thanks, awfully! I am so much obliged to Aunt Augusta for stopping mamma.”

“Come along then,” said Edgar. He was glad to turn his back on the house, though he could not but look back as he left, wondering whether, at any moment at any door or window, the face might appear which he had not seen for so long—the face of his little love, whom he had once loved but lightly, yet which seemed to fix itself more vividly in his recollection every day. He could not sit still and permit himself to think that possibly she was in the same house with him, within reach, that he might hear at any moment the sound of her voice. No, rather, since he had given his voluntary promise to her mother, and since he was so far separated from her by circumstances, rather hurry out of the house and turn his back upon a possibility which raised such a tumult in his heart. He breathed more freely when he was out of doors, in the damp wintry woods, with Phil, who kept close by his side, carrying on a monologue very different in subject, but not so different in character from his father’s steady strain of talk. There is a certain charm in these wintry woods, the wet greenness of the banks, the mournful stillness of the atmosphere, the crackle of here and there a dropping branch, the slow sailing through the air now and then of a leaf, falling yellow and stiff from the top of a bough. Edgar liked the covert and the companionship of trees, which were denuded like himself of all that had made life brave and fair. The oaks and beeches, stiffening in their faded russet and yellow, stood against the deep green of the pine and firs, like forlorn old beauties in rustling court dresses of a worn-out fashion; the great elms and spare tall poplars spread their intricate lacework of branches against the sky; far in the west the sun was still shining, giving a deep background of red and gold to the crowded groups of dry boughs. The rustle of some little woodland animal warmly furred among the fallen leaves and decaying husks, the crackling of that branch which always breaks somewhere in the silence, the trickle of water, betraying itself by the treacherous greenness of the mossy grass—these were all the sounds about, except their own footsteps, and the clear somewhat shrill voice of the boy, talking with cheerful din against time, and almost making up for the want of the birds, so much did his cheerful aimless chatter resemble their sweet confusion of song and speech, the ordinary language of the woods.

“I could hit that squirrel as easy as look at him. I bet you a shilling I could! only just look here, cocking his shining eye at us, the cheeky little brute! Here goes!”

“Don’t,” said Edgar, “how should you like it if some Brobdingnagian being took a shot at you? What do you think, Phil—were those ladies going to stay?”

“Those ladies?” cried Phil in amazement, for indeed they were dragged in without rhyme or reason in the middle of the woods and of their walk. “Do you mean Aunt Augusta and the girls? Oh, is that all? No, I don’t suppose so. Should you mind? They’re jolly enough you know, after all, not bad sort of girls, as girls go.”

“I am glad you give so good an account of them,” said Edgar, amused in spite of himself.

“Oh, not half bad sort of girls! nicer a great deal than the ones from the Green, who come up sometimes. But, I say, Myra Witherington’s an exception. She is fun; you should see her do old Jones, or the Rector; how you would laugh! Once I saw her do papa. I don’t think she meant it; she just caught his very tone, and the way he turns his head, all in a moment; and then she flushed up like fire and was in such a fright lest we should notice. Nobody noticed but me.”

“Your cousins, I suppose, are not so clever as that,” said Edgar, humouring the boy, and feeling himself as he did so, the meanest of household spies.

“It depends upon which it is. Mary is fun, the one that’s going to be married,” said Phil, “I suppose that will spoil her; and Bee is not bad. She ain’t so clever as Mary, but she’s not bad. Then there’s Gussy, is a great one for telling stories; she’s capital when it rains and one can’t get out. She’s almost as good as the lady with the funny name in the Arabian Nights.”

“Does she often come here?” said Edgar with a tremble in his voice.

“They say she’s going to be a nun,” said Phil; “how funny people are! I can’t fancy Cousin Gussy shut up in a convent, can you? I’d rather marry, like Mary, some great swell; though they are never any fun after they’re married,” Phil added parenthetically with profound gravity. As for Edgar he was in no humour to laugh at this precocious wisdom. He went straight on, taking the wrong way, and scarcely hearing the shouts of the boy who called him back. “This is the way to the gamekeeper’s,” cried Phil, “Mr. Earnshaw, where were you going? You look as if you had been set thinking and could not see the way.”

How true it was; he had been set thinking, and he knew no more what road he was going than if he had been blindfolded. Years after, the damp greenness of the fading year, the songless season, the bare branches against the sky, would bring to Edgar’s mind the moment when he shot off blankly across the path in the wood at Tottenham’s, not knowing and not caring where he went.

Next day Lady Mary fulfilled her promise. She drove him down in her own pony carriage to the village, and there took him upon a little round of calls. They went to the Rectory, and to Mrs. Witherington’s, and to the Miss Bakers who were great authorities at Harbour Green. The Rector was a large heavy old man, with heavy eyes, who had two daughters, and had come by degrees (though it was secretly said not without a struggle) to be very obedient to them. He said, “Ah, yes, I dare say you are right,” to everything Lady Mary said, and gave Edgar a little admonition as to the seriousness of the work he was undertaking. “Nothing is more responsible, or more delicate than instructing youth,” said the Rector, “for my part I am not at all sure what it is to come to. The maids know as much now as their mistresses used to do, and as for the mistresses I do not know where they are to stop.”

“But you would not have us condemned to ignorance, papa,” said one of his daughters.

“Oh, no, I should not take it upon me to condemn you to anything,” said the old man with his quavering voice, “I hope only that you may not find you’ve gone further than you had any intention of going, before you’ve done.”

This somewhat vague threat was all he ventured upon in the way of remonstrance; but he did not give any encouragement, and was greatly afraid of the whole proceeding as revolutionary, and of Lady Mary herself, as a dangerous and seditious person sowing seeds of rebellion. Mrs. Witherington, to whom they went next, was scarcely more encouraging. Her house was a large Queen Anne house, red brick, with a pediment surmounting a great many rows of twinkling windows. It fronted to the Green, without any grassplot or ornamental shrubs in front; but with a large well-walled garden behind, out of which rich branches of lilac and laburnum drooped in spring, and many scents enriched the air. The rooms inside were large, but not very lofty, and the two drawing-rooms occupied the whole breadth of the house, one room looking to the Green and the other to the garden. There were, or ought to have been folding doors between, but these were never used, and the opening was hung with curtains instead, curtains which were too heavy, and over-weighted the rooms. But otherwise the interior was pretty, with that homely gracefulness, familiar and friendly, which belongs to the dwelling of a large family where everyone has his, or rather her, habitual concerns and occupations. The front part was the most cheerful, the back the finest. There a great mirror was over the mantelpiece, but here the late Colonel’s swords, crossed, held the place of honour. The visitors entered through this plainer room, which acted as ante-chamber to the other, and where Mrs. Witherington was discovered, as in a scene at the theatre, seated at a writing table with a pile of tradesmen’s books before her. She was a tall spare woman, having much more the aspect which is associated with the opprobrious epithet, old maid, than that which traditionally ought to belong to the mother of nine children—all except the four daughters who remained at home—out and about in the world. She had three sons who were scattered in the different corners of the earth, and two daughters married, one of whom was in India, and the other a consul’s wife in Spain. The young ladies at home were the youngest of the family, and were, the two married daughters said to each other when they met, which was very seldom, “very differently brought up from what we were, and allowed a great deal too much of their own way.” Neither of these ladies could understand what mamma could be thinking of to indulge those girls so; but Mrs. Witherington was by no means an over-indulgent person by nature, and I think she must have made up her mind that to indulge the vagaries of the girls was safest on the whole and most conducive to domestic peace.

Fortunately each of these young women had a “way” of her own, except Myra, the youngest, who was the funny one, whom Phil and most boys admired. The others were—Sissy, who was understood to have a suspended love affair, suspended in consequence of the poverty of her lover, from which she derived both pain and pleasure, so to speak; for her sisters, not to speak of the other young ladies of the Green, undoubtedly looked up to her in consequence, and gave her a much more important place in their little world than would have been hers by nature; and Marian, who was the musical sister, who played “anything” at sight, and was good for any amount of accompaniments, and made an excellent second in a duet; and Emma, who was the useful one of the family, and possessed the handsome little sewing-machine in the corner, at which she executed yards upon yards of stitching every day, and made and mended for the establishment. Sissy, in addition to having a love affair, drew; so that these three sisters were all well defined, and distinct. Only Myra was good for nothing in particular. She was the youngest, long the baby, the pet of the rest, who had never quite realized the fact that she was no longer a child. Myra was saucy and clever, and rather impertinent, and considered a wit in her own family. Indeed they all had been accustomed to laugh at Myra’s jokes, almost as long as they could recollect, and there is nothing that establishes the reputation of a wit like this. Mrs. Witherington was alone in the ante-room, as I have said, when Lady Mary entered, followed by Edgar. She rose somewhat stiffly to meet her visitors, for she too being of the old school disapproved of Lady Mary, who was emphatically of the new school, and a leader of all innovations; though from the fact of being Lady Mary, she was judged more leniently than a less distinguished revolutionary would have been. Mrs. Witherington made her greetings sufficiently loud to call the attention of all the daughters, who came in a little crowd, each rising from her corner to hail the great lady. One of them drew the cosiest chair near the fire for her, another gave her an embroidered hand-screen to shield her face from its glow, and the third hung about her in silent admiration, eagerly looking for some similar service to render. Myra followed last of all, rushing audibly downstairs, and bursting into the room with eager exclamations of pleasure.

“I saw the pony-carriage at the Rectory gate, and I hoped you were coming here,” cried Myra; who stopped short suddenly, however, and blushed and laughed at sight of the stranger whom she had not perceived.

“This is Mr. Earnshaw, Myra,” said Lady Mary, “whom I told you of—who is going to be so good as to teach us. I am taking him to see some of the ladies whom he is to help to educate.”

“Please don’t convey a false impression,” said Edgar. “You are all a hundred times better educated than I am. I don’t make any such pretensions.”

“We are not educated at all,” said Sissy Witherington, folding her hands, with a soft sigh. She said it because Lady Mary said it, and because soft sighs were the natural expression of a young heart blighted; but I don’t think she would have liked to hear the same sentiment from any one else.

“Indeed, I think it is extremely disagreeable of you all to say so,” said Mrs. Witherington, “and a reflection on your parents, who did the very best they could for you. I am sure your education, which you despise so, cost quite as much, at least for the last year or two, as the boys’ did. I beg your pardon, Lady Mary—but I do think it is a little hard upon the older people, all these fine ideas that are being put into the girls’ heads.”

“But, dear Mrs. Witherington, how could you help it?” said the rebel chief. “The very idea of educating women is a modern invention; nobody so much as thought of it in the last generation. Women have never been educated. My mother thought exactly the same as you do. There was absolutely no education for women in her day.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Witherington, more erect than ever, “I had an idea once that I myself was an educated person, and I daresay so had the countess—till my children taught me better.”

“I declare it is hard on mamma,” cried Myra; “the only one among us who can write a decent hand, or do anything that’s useful.”

“Of course nobody means that,” said Lady Mary. “What I say is that every generation ought to improve and make progress, if there is to be any amelioration in the world at all; and as, fortunately, there has sprung up in our day an increased perception of the advantages of education—”

Here Emma’s sewing-machine came to a little knot, and there was a sharp click, and the thread broke. “Oh, that comes of talking!” said Emma, as she set herself to pull out the ravelled thread and set it right again. She was not accustomed to take much share in the conversation, and this was her sole contribution to it while the visitors remained.

“Well, a sewing-machine is a wonderful invention,” said Mrs. Witherington; “don’t you think so, Mr. Earnshaw? Not that I like the work much myself. It is always coarse and rough on the wrong side, and you can’t use it for fine things, such as baby’s things, for instance; but certainly the number of tucks and flounces that you can allow yourself, knowing that the machine will do dozens in a day, is extraordinary. And in a house where there are so many girls!—Emma does a great deal more with her machine, I am sure, than ever Penelope did, who was one of your classical friends, Lady Mary.”

“And she can undo her work still more quickly,” cried Myra, with an outburst of laughter, “as it’s only chain-stitch. What a pity Penelope did not know of it.”

“But then the question is,” said Sissy, “whether we are so very much the better for having more tucks and flounces. (By the way, no one wears tucks now, mamma.) The good of a sewing machine is that it leaves one much more time for improving one’s mind.”

“In my day,” said Mrs. Witherington, going on with her private argument, “we had our things all made of fine linen, instead of the cotton you wear now, and trimmed with real lace instead of the cheap imitation trash that everybody has. We had not so much ornament, but what there was, was good. My wedding things were all trimmed with real Mechlin that broad—”

“That must have been very charming,” said Lady Mary; “but in the meantime we must settle about our work. Mr. Earnshaw is willing to give us an hour on Tuesdays. Should you all come? You must not undertake it, if it will interfere with other work.”

“Oh yes, I want to know German better,” said Sissy. “It would be very nice to be able to speak a little, especially if mamma goes abroad next summer as she promises. To know a language pretty well is so very useful.”

Lady Mary made a little gesture of despair with her pretty hands. “Oh, my dear girls,” she said, “how are you ever to be thoroughly educated if you go on thinking only of what’s useful, and to speak a little German when you go abroad? What is wanted is to make you think—to train your minds into good methods of work—to improve you altogether mentally, and give you the exactness of properly cultivated intellects; just the thing that we women never have.”

Myra was the only one who had courage enough to reply, which she did with such a good hearty ringing peal of laughter as betrayed Edgar out of the gravity becoming the situation. Myra thought Lady Mary’s address the best joke in the world.