Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) (continued 7)

When Margaret entered the breakfast-room in the morning, she found her brother sketching the skaters of Deerbrook, while the tea was brewing. Hester was looking over his shoulder, laughing, as she recognised one after another of her neighbours in the act of skating—this one by the stoop—that by the formality—and the other by the coat-flaps flying out behind. No inquiries were made—not a word was said of health or spirits. It seems strange that sufferers have not yet found means to stop the practice of such inquiries—a practice begun in kindness, and carried on in the spirit of hospitality, but productive of great annoyance to all but those who do not need such inquiries—the healthful and the happy. There are multitudes of invalids who can give no comfortable answer respecting their health, and who are averse from giving an uncomfortable one, and for whom nothing is therefore left but evasion. There are only too many sufferers to whom it is irksome to be questioned about their hours of sleeplessness, or who do not choose to have it known that they have not slept. The unpleasant old custom of pressing people to eat has gone out: the sooner the other observance of hospitality is allowed to follow it, the better. All who like to tell of illness and sleeplessness can do so; and those who have reasons for reserve upon such points, as Margaret had this morning, can keep their own counsel.

At the earliest possible hour that the etiquette of Deerbrook would allow, there was a knock at the door.

“That must be Mrs Rowland,” exclaimed Hester. “One may know that woman’s temper by her knock—so consequential, and yet so sharp. Margaret, love, you can run upstairs—there is time yet—if you do not wish to see her.”

“Why should I?” said Margaret, looking up with a calmness which perplexed Hester.

“This is either ignorance,” thought she, “or such patience as I wish I had.”

It was Mrs Rowland, and she was come to tell what Hester feared Margaret might not be able to bear to hear. She was attended only by the little fellow who was so fond of riding on Uncle Philip’s shoulder. It was rather lucky that Ned came, as Margaret was furnished with something to do in taking off his worsted gloves, and rubbing his little red hands between her own. And then she could say a great many things to him about learning to slide, and the difficulty of keeping on the snow-man’s nose, and about her wonder that they had not thought of putting a pipe into his mouth. Before this subject was finished, Mrs Rowland turned full round to Margaret, and said that the purpose of her visit was to explain fully something that her poor mother had let drop yesterday to Mr Hope. Her mother was not what she had been—though, indeed, she had always been rather apt to let out things that she should not. She found that Mr Hope had been informed by her mother of her brother Philip’s engagement to a charming young lady, who would indeed be a great ornament to the connexion.

“I assure you,” said Margaret, “my brother is very careful, and always remembers that he is upon honour as to what he hears in a sick-room. He has not mentioned it.”

“Oh! then it is safe. We are much obliged to Mr Hope, I am sure. I said to my mother—‘My dear ma’am,’—”

“But I must mention,” said Margaret, “that the news was abroad before... I must beg that you will not suppose my brother has spoken of it, if you should find that everybody knows it. I heard it from Dr Levitt yesterday, about the same time, I fancy, that Mr Hope was hearing it from Mrs Enderby.”

Hester sat perfectly still, to avoid all danger of showing that this was news to her.

“How very strange!” exclaimed the lady. “I often say there is no keeping anything quiet in Deerbrook. Do you know where Dr Levitt got his information?”

“No,” said Margaret, smiling. “Dr Levitt generally knows what he is talking about. I dare say he had it from some good authority. The young lady is at Rome, I find.”

“Are you acquainted with Miss Bruce?” asked Hester, thinking it time to relieve Margaret of her share of the conversation.

Margaret started a little on finding that her sister had heard the news. Was it possible that her brother and sister had been afraid to tell her? No: it was a piece of Edward’s professional discretion. His wife alone had a right to the news he heard among his patients.

“Oh, yes!” replied Mrs Rowland; “I have long loved Mary as a sister. Their early attachment made a sister of her to me an age ago.”

“It has been a long engagement, then,” said Hester, glad to say anything which might occupy Mrs Rowland, as Margaret’s lips were now turning very white.

“Not now, my dear,” Margaret was heard to say to little Ned, over whom she was bending her head as he stood by her side. “Stand still here,” she continued, with wonderful cheerfulness of tone; “I want to hear your mamma tell us about Uncle Philip.” With the effort her strength rallied, and the paleness was gone before Mrs Rowland had turned round.

“How long the engagement has existed,” said the lady, “I cannot venture to say. I speak only of the attachment. Young people understand their own affairs, you know, and have their little mysteries, and laugh behind our backs, I dare say, at our ignorance of what they are about. Philip has been sly enough as to this, I own: but I must say I had my suspicions. I was pretty confident of his being engaged from the day that he told me in the summer, that he fully agreed with me that it was time he was settled.”

“How differently some people understood that!” thought Hester and Margaret at the same moment.

“Is Mr Enderby at Rome now?” asked Hester.

“No: he is hard at work, studying law. He is really going to apply to a profession now. Not that it would be necessary, for Mary has a very good fortune. But Mary wishes so much that he should—like a sensible girl as she is.”

“It is what I urged when he consulted me,” thought Margaret. She had had little idea whose counsel she was following up.

“We shall soon hear of his setting off for the Continent, however, I have no doubt,” said the lady.

“To bring home his bride,” observed Margaret, calmly.

“Why, I do not know that. The Bruces will be returning early in the spring; and I should like the young people to marry in town, that we may have them here for their wedding trip.”

“How you do hug me!” cried the laughing little boy, around whom Margaret’s arm was passed.

“Have I made you warm at last?” asked Margaret. “If not, you may go and stand by the fire.”

“No, indeed; we must be going,” said mamma. “As I find this news is abroad, I must call on Mrs Grey. She will take offence at once, if she hears it from anybody but me. So much for people’s husbands being partners in business!”

Margaret was now fully qualified to comprehend her sister’s irritability. Every trifle annoyed her. The rustle of Mrs Rowland’s handsome cloak almost made her sick; and she thought the hall clock would never have done striking twelve. When conscious of this, she put a strong check upon herself.

Hester stood by the mantelpiece, looking into the fire, and taking no notice of their mutual silence upon this piece of news. At last she muttered, in a soliloquising tone—

“Do not know—but I am not sure this news is true, after all.”

After a moment’s pause, Margaret replied—“I think that is not very reasonable. What must one suppose of everybody else, if it is not true?”

Hester was going to say, “What must we think of him, if it is?” but she checked herself. She should not have said what she had; she felt this, and only replied—

“Just so. Yes; it must be true.”

Margaret’s heart once more sank within her at this corroboration of her own remark.

Chapter Twenty Two.

The Meadows in Winter.

Hester was tired of her snow-boots before she saw them. She had spent more trouble on them than they were worth; and it was three weeks yet before they came. It was now past the middle of February—rather late in the season for snow-boots to arrive: but then there was Margaret’s consolatory idea, that they would be ready for next year’s snow.

“It is not too late yet,” said Mr Hope. “There is skating every day in the meadow. It will soon be over; so do not lose your opportunity. Come! let us go to-day.”

“Not unless the sun shines out,” said Hester, looking with a shiver up at the windows.

“Yes, to-day,” said Edward, “because I have time to-day to go with you. You have seen me quiz other skaters: you must go and see other skaters quiz me.”

“What points of your skating do they get hold of to quiz?” asked Margaret.

“Why, I hardly know. We shall see.”

“Is it so very good, then?”

“No. I believe the worst of my skating is, that it is totally devoid of every sort of expression. That is just the true account of it,” he continued, as his wife laughed. “I do not square my elbows, nor set my coat flying, nor stoop, nor rear; but neither is there any grace. I just go straight on; and, as far as I know, nobody ever bids any other body look at me.”

“So you bid your own family come and look at you. But how are your neighbours to quiz you if they do not observe you?”

“Oh, that was only a bit of antithesis for effect. My last account is the true one, as you will see. I shall come in for you at twelve.”

By twelve the sun had shone out, and the ladies, booted, furred, and veiled, were ready to encounter the risks and rigours of the ice and snow. As they opened the hall door they met on the steps a young woman, who was just raising her hand to the knocker. Her errand was soon told.

“Please, ma’am, I heard that you wanted a servant.”

“That is true,” said Hester. “Where do you come from?—from any place near, so that you can call again?”

“Surely,” said Margaret, “it is Mrs Enderby’s Susan.”

“Yes, miss, I have been living with Mrs Enderby. Mrs Enderby will give me a good character, ma’am.”

“Why are you leaving her, Susan?”

“Oh, ma’am, only because she is gone.”

“Gone!—where?—what do you mean?”

“Gone to live at Mrs Rowland’s, ma’am. You didn’t know?—it was very sudden. But she moved yesterday, ma’am, and we were paid off—except Phoebe, who stays to wait upon her. I am left in charge of the house, ma’am: so I can step here again, if you wish it, some time when you are not going out.”

“Do so; any time this evening, or before noon to-morrow.”

“Did you know of this, Edward?” said his wife, as they turned the corner.

“Not I. I think Mrs Rowland is mistaken in saying that nothing can be kept secret in Deerbrook. I do not believe anybody has dreamed of the poor old lady giving up her house.”

“Very likely Mrs Rowland never dreamed of it herself; till the day it was done,” observed Margaret.

“Oh, yes, she did,” said Mr Hope. “I understand now the old lady’s agitation, and the expressions she dropped about ‘last times’ nearly a month ago.”

“By-the-by, that was the last time you saw her—was it not?”

“Yes; the next day when I called I was told that she was better, and that she would send when she wished to see me again, to save me the trouble of calling when she might be asleep.”

“She has been asleep or engaged every time I have inquired at the door of late,” observed Margaret. “I hope she is doing nothing but what she likes in this change of plan.”

“I believe she finds most peace and quiet in doing what her daughter likes,” said Mr Hope. “Here, Margaret, where are you going? This is the gate. I believe you have not learned your way about yet.”

“I will follow you immediately,” said Margaret: “I will only go a few steps to see if this can really be true.”

Before the Hopes had half crossed the meadow, Margaret joined them, perfectly convinced. The large bills in the closed windows of Mrs Enderby’s house bore “To be Let or Sold” too plainly to leave any doubt.

As the skating season was nearly over, all the skaters in Deerbrook were eager to make use of their remaining opportunities, and the banks of the brook and of the river were full of their wives, sisters, and children. Sydney Grey was busy cutting figures-of-eight before the eyes of his sisters, and in defiance of his mother’s careful warnings not to go here, and not to venture there, and not to attempt to cross the river. Mr Hope begged his wife to engage Mrs Grey in conversation, so that Sydney might be left free for a while, and promised to keep near the boy for half an hour, during which time Mrs Grey might amuse herself with watching other and better performers further on. As might have been foreseen, however, Mrs Grey could talk of nothing but Mrs Enderby’s removal, of which she had not been informed till this morning, and which she had intended to discuss in Hester’s house, on leaving the meadows.

It appeared that Mrs Enderby had been in agitated and variable spirits for some time, apparently wishing to say something that she did not say, and expressing a stronger regard than ever for her old friends—a regular sign that some act of tyranny or rudeness might speedily be expected from Mrs Rowland. The Greys were in the midst of their speculations as to what might be coming to pass, when Sydney burst in, with the news that Mrs Enderby’s house was to be “Let or Sold.” Mrs Grey had mounted her spectacles first, to verify the fact, and then sent Alice over to inquire, and had immediately put on her bonnet and cloak, and called on her old friend at Mrs Rowland’s. She had been told at the door that Mrs Enderby was too much fatigued with her removal to see any visitors. “So I shall try again to-morrow,” concluded Mrs Grey.

“How does Mr Hope think her spasms have been lately?” asked Sophia.

“He has not seen her for nearly a month; so I suppose they are better.”

“I fear that does not follow, my dear,” said Mrs Grey, winking. “Some people are afraid of your husband’s politics, you are aware; and I know Mrs Rowland has been saying and doing things on that score which you had better not hear about. I have my reasons for thinking that the old lady’s spasms are far from being better. But Mrs Rowland has been so busy crying up those drops of hers, that cure everything, and praising her maid, that I have a great idea your husband will not be admitted to see her till she is past cure, and her daughter thoroughly frightened. Mr Hope has never been forgiven, you know, for marrying into our connection so decidedly. And I really don’t know what would have been the consequence, if, as we once fancied likely, Mr Philip and Margaret had thought of each other.”

Margaret was happily out of hearing. A fresh blow had just been struck. She had looked to Mrs Enderby for information on the subject which for ever occupied her, and on which she felt that she must know more or sink. She had been much disappointed at being refused admission to the old lady, time after time. Now all hope of free access and private conversation was over. She had set it as an object before her to see Mrs Enderby, and learn as much of Philip’s affair as his mother chose to offer: now this object was lost, and nothing remained to be done or hoped—for it was too certain that Mrs Enderby’s friends would not be allowed unrestrained intercourse with her in her daughter’s house.

For some little time Margaret had been practising the device, so familiar to the unhappy, of carrying off mental agitation by bodily exertion. She was now eager to be doing something more active than walking by Mrs Grey’s side, listening to ideas which she knew just as well without their being spoken. Mrs Grey’s thoughts about Mrs Rowland, and Mrs Rowland’s ideas of Mrs Grey, might always be anticipated by those who knew the ladies. Hester and Margaret had learned to think of something else, while this sort of comment was proceeding, and to resume their attention when it came to an end. Margaret had withdrawn from it now, and was upon the ice with Sydney.

“Why, cousin Margaret, you don’t mean that you are afraid of walking on the ice?” cried Sydney, balancing himself on his heels. “Mr Hope, what do you think of that?” he called out, as Hope skimmed past them. “Cousin Margaret is afraid of going on the ice!”

“What does she think can happen to her?” asked Mr Hope, his last words vanishing in the distance.

“It looks so grey, and clear, and dark, Sydney.”

“Pooh! It is thick enough between you and the water. You would have to get down a good way, I can tell you, before you could get drowned.”

“But it is so slippery!”

“What of that? What else did you expect with ice? If you tumble, you can get up again. I have been down three times this morning.”

“Well, that is a great consolation, certainly. Which way do you want me to walk?”

“Oh, any way. Across the river to the other bank, if you like. You will remember next summer, when we come this way in a boat, that you have walked across the very place.”

“That is true,” said Margaret. “I will go if Sophia will go with me.”

“There is no use in asking any of them,” said Sydney. “They stand dawdling and looking, till their lips and noses are all blue and red, and they are never up to any fun.”

“I will try as far as that pole first,” said Margaret. “I should not care if they had not swept away all the snow here, so as to make the ice look so grey and slippery.”

“That pole!” said Sydney. “Why, that pole is put up on purpose to show that you must not go there. Don’t you see how the ice is broken all round it? Oh, I know how it is that you are so stupid and cowardly to-day. You’ve lived in Birmingham all your winters, and you’ve never been used to walk on the ice.”

“I am glad you have found that out at last. Now, look—I am really going. What a horrid sensation!” she cried, as she cautiously put down one foot before the other on the transparent floor. She did better when she reached the middle of the river, where the ice had been ground by the skates.

“Now, you would get on beautifully,” said Sydney, “if you would not look at your feet. Why can’t you look at the people, and the trees opposite?”

“Suppose I should step into a hole.”

“There are no holes. Trust me for the holes. What do you flinch so for? The ice always cracks so, in one part or another. I thought you had been shot.”

“So did I,” said she, laughing. “But, Sydney, we are a long way from both banks.”

“To be sure: that is what we came for.”

Margaret looked somewhat timidly about her. An indistinct idea flitted through her mind—how glad she should be to be accidentally, innocently drowned; and scarcely recognising it, she proceeded.

“You get on well,” shouted Mr Hope, as he flew past, on his return up the river.

“There, now,” said Sydney, presently; “it is a very little way to the bank. I will just take a trip up and down, and come for you again, to go back; and then we will try whether we can’t get cousin Hester over, when she sees you have been safe there and back.”

This was a sight which Hester was not destined to behold. Margaret had an ignorant partiality for the ice which was the least grey; and, when left to herself, she made for a part which looked less like glass. Nobody particularly heeded her. She slipped, and recovered herself: she slipped again, and fell, hearing the ice crack under her. Every time she attempted to rise, she found the place too slippery to keep her feet; next, there was a hole under her; she felt the cold water—she was sinking through; she caught at the surrounding edges—they broke away. There was a cry from the bank, just as the death-cold waters seemed to close all round her, and she felt the ice like a heavy weight above her. One thought of joy—“It will soon be all over now”—was the only experience she was conscious of.

In two minutes more, she was breathing the air again, sitting on the bank, and helping to wring out her clothes. How much may pass in two minutes! Mr Hope was coming up the river again, when he saw a bustle on the bank, and slipped off his skates, to be ready to be of service. He ran as others ran, and arrived just when a dark-blue dress was emerging from the water, and then a dripping fur tippet, and then the bonnet, making the gradual revelation to him who it was. For one instant he covered his face with his hands, half-hiding an expression of agony so intense that a bystander who saw it, said, “Take comfort, sir: she has been in but a very short time. She’ll recover, I don’t doubt.” Hope leaped to the bank, and received her from the arms of the men who had drawn her out. The first thing she remembered was hearing, in the lowest tone she could conceive of—“Oh, God! my Margaret!” and a groan, which she felt rather than heard. Then there were many warm and busy hands about her head—removing her bonnet, shaking out her hair, and chafing her temples. She sighed out, “Oh, dear!” and she heard that soft groan again. In another moment she roused herself, sat up, saw Hope’s convulsed countenance, and Sydney standing motionless and deadly pale.

“I shall never forgive myself,” she heard her brother exclaim.

“Oh, I am very well,” said she, remembering all about it. “The air feels quite warm. Give me my bonnet. I can walk home.”

“Can you? The sooner the better, then,” said Hope, raising her.

She could stand very well, but the water was everywhere dripping from her clothes. Many bystanders employed themselves in wringing them out; and in the meanwhile Margaret inquired for her sister, and hoped she did not know of the accident. Hester did not know of it, for Margaret happened to be the first to think of any one but herself.

Sydney was flying off to report, when he was stopped and recalled.

“You must go to her, Edward,” said Margaret, “or she will be frightened. You can do me no good. Sydney will go home with me, or any one here, I am sure.” Twenty people stepped forward at the word. Margaret parted with her heavy fur tippet, accepted a long cloth cloak from a poor woman, to throw over her wet clothes, selected Mr Jones, the butcher, for her escort, sent Sydney forward with directions to Morris to warm her bed, and then she set forth homeward. Mr Hope and half a dozen more would see her across the ice; and by the time she had reached the other bank, she was able to walk very much as if nothing had happened.

Mr Hope had perfectly recovered his composure before he reached the somewhat distant pond where Hester and the Greys were watching sliding as good as could be seen within twenty miles. It had reached perfection, like everything else, in Deerbrook.

“What! tired already?” said Hester to her husband. “What have you done with your skates?”

“Oh, I have left them somewhere there, I suppose.” He drew her arm within his own. “Come, my dear, let us go home. Margaret is gone.”

“Gone! Why? Is not she well? It is not so very cold.”

“She has got wet, and she has gone home to warm herself.” Hester did not wait to speak again to the Greys when she comprehended that her sister had been in the river. Her husband was obliged to forbid her walking so fast, and assured her all the way that there was nothing to fear. Hester reproached him for his coolness.

“You need not reproach me,” said he. “I shall never cease to reproach myself for letting her go where she did.” And yet his heart told him that he had only acted according to his deliberate design of keeping aloof from all Margaret’s pursuits and amusements that were not shared with her sister. And as for the risk, he had seen fifty people walking across the ice this very morning. Judging by the event, however, he very sincerely declared that he should never forgive himself for having left her.

When they reached home, Margaret was quite warm and comfortable, and her hair drying rapidly under Morris’s hands. Hester was convinced that everybody might dine as usual. Margaret herself came down-stairs to tea; and the only consequence of the accident seemed to be, that Charles was kept very busy opening the door to inquirers how Miss Ibbotson was this evening.

It made Hope uneasy to perceive how much Margaret remembered of what had passed around her in the midst of the bustle of the morning. If she was still aware of some circumstances that she mentioned, might she not retain others—the words extorted from him, the frantic action which he now blushed to remember?

“Brother,” said she, “what was the meaning of something that I heard some one say, just as I sat up on the bank? ‘There’s a baulk for the doctor! He is baulked of a body in his own house.’”

“Oh, Margaret,” cried her sister, who sat looking at her all the evening as if they had been parted for ten years, “you dreamed that. It was a fancy. Think what a state your poor head was in! It may have a few strange imaginations left in it still. May it not, Edward?”

“This is not one,” he replied. “She heard very accurately.”

“What did they mean?”

“There is a report abroad about me, arising out of the old prejudice about dissection. Some of my neighbours think that dissecting is the employment and the passion of my life, and that I rob the churchyard as often as anybody is buried.”

“Oh, Edward! how frightful! how ridiculous!”

“It is very disagreeable, my dear. I am taunted with this wherever I go.”

“What is to be done?”

“We must wait till the prejudices against me die out: but I see that we shall have to wait some time; for before one suspicion is given up, another rises.”

“Since that unhappy election,” said Hester, sighing. “What a strange thing it is that men like you should be no better treated! Here is Mrs Enderby taken out of your hands, and your neighbours suspecting and slandering you, whose commonest words they are not worthy to repeat.”

“My dear Hester!” said he, in a tone of serious remonstrance. “That is rather a wife-like way of putting the case, to be sure,” said Margaret, smiling: “but, in as far as it is true, the matter surely ceases to be strange. Good men do not come into the world to be what the world calls fortunate, but to be something far better. The best men do not use the means to be rich, to be praised by their neighbours, to be out of the way of trouble; and if they will not use the means, it does not become them—nor their wives—to be discouraged at losing their occupation, or being slandered, or suspected as dangerous people.”

Edward’s smile thanked her, and so did her sister’s kiss. But Hester looked grave again when she said—“I suppose we shall know, sooner or later, why it is that good people are not to be happy here, and that the more they love one another, the more struggles and sorrows they have to undergo.”

“Do we not know something of it already?” said Hope, after a pretty long pause. “Is it not to put us off from the too vehement desire of being what we commonly call happy? By the time higher things become more interesting to us than this, we begin to find that it is given to us to put our own happiness under our feet, in reaching forward to something better. We become, by natural consequence, practised in this (forgetful of the things that are behind); and if the practice be painful, what then? We shall not quarrel with it, surely, unless we are willing to exchange what we have gained for money, and praise, and animal spirits, shutting in an abject mind.”

“Oh, no, no!” said Hester; “but yet there are troubles—” She stopped short on observing Margaret’s quivering lip.

“There are troubles, I own, which it is difficult to classify and interpret,” said her husband. “We can only struggle through them, taking the closest heed to our innocence. But these affairs of ours—these mistakes of my neighbours—are not of that sort. They are intelligible enough, and need not therefore trouble us much.”

Hope was right in his suspicion of the accuracy of Margaret’s memory. His tones, his words, had sunk deep into her heart—her innocent heart—in which everything that entered it became safe and pure as itself. “Oh God! my Margaret!” sounded there like music.

“What a heart he has!” she thought. “I was very selfish to fancy him reserved; and I am glad to know that my brother loves me so. If it is such a blessing to be his sister, how happy must Hester be—in spite of everything! God has preserved my life, and He has given these two to each other! And, oh, how He has shown me that they love me! I will rouse myself, and try to suffer less.”

Chapter Twenty Three.

Moods of the Mind.

Hester’s sleeping as well as waking thoughts were this night full of solicitude as to her feelings and conduct towards her sister. A thousand times before the morning she had said to herself, in dreams and in meditation, that she had failed in this relation—the oldest, and, till of late, the dearest. She shuddered to think how nearly she had lost Margaret; and to imagine what her state of mind would have been, if her sister had now been beyond the reach of the voice, the eye, the hand, which she was resolved should henceforth dispense to her nothing but the love and the benefits she deserved. She reflected that to few was granted such a warning of the death of beloved ones: to few was it permitted to feel, while it was yet not too late, the agony of remorse for pain inflicted, for gratifications withheld; for selfish neglect, for insufficient love. She remembered vividly what her emotions had been as a child, on finding her canary dead in its cage;—how she had wept all day, not so much for its loss as from the recollection of the many times when she had failed to cheer it with sugar, and groundsel, and play, and of the number of hours when she had needlessly covered up its cage in impatience at its song, shutting out its sunshine, and changing the brightest seasons of its little life into dull night. If it had been thus with her sister! Many a hasty word, many an unjust thought, came back now to wring her heart, when she imagined Margaret sinking in the water,—the soft breathing on which our life so marvellously hangs, stopped without struggle or cry. How near—how very near, had Death, in his hovering, stooped towards their home! How strange, while treading thus precariously the film which covers the abyss into which all must some day drop, and which may crack under the feet of any one at any hour,—how strange to be engrossed with petty jealousies, with selfish cares, and to be unmindful of the great interests of existence, the exercises of mutual love and trust! Thank God! it was not too late. Margaret lived to be cherished, to be consoled for her private griefs, as far as consolation might be possible; to have her innocent affections redeemed from the waste to which they now seemed doomed,—gathered gradually up again, and knit into the interests of the home life in which she was externally bearing her part. Full of these thoughts, and forgetting how often her best feelings had melted away beneath the transient heats kindled by the little provocations of daily life, Hester now believed that Margaret would never have to suffer from her more,—that their love would be henceforth like that of angels,—like that which it would have been if Margaret had really died yesterday. It was yet early, when, in the full enjoyment of these undoubting thoughts, Hester stood by her sister’s bedside.

Margaret was still sleeping, but with that expression of weariness in her face which had of late become too common. Hester gazed long at the countenance, grieving at the languor and anxiety which it revealed. She had not taken Margaret’s suffering to heart,—she had been unfeeling,—strangely forgetful. She would minister to her now with reverent care. As she thus resolved, she bent down, and kissed her forehead. Margaret started, shook off sleep, felt quite well, would rise;—there was no reason why she should not rise at once.

When she entered the breakfast-room, Hester was there, placing her chair by the fire, and inventing indulgences for her, as if she had been an invalid. It was in vain that Margaret protested that no effects of the accident remained,—not a single sensation of chill: she was to be taken care of; and she submitted. She was touched by her sister’s gentle offices, and felt more like being free and at peace, more like being lifted up out of her woe, than she had yet done since the fatal hour which rendered her conscious and wretched. Breakfast went on cheerfully. The fire blazed bright: the rain pelting against the windows gave welcome promise of exemption from inquiries in person, and from having to relate, many times over, the particulars of the event of yesterday. Hester was beautiful in all the glow of her sensibilities, and Edward was for this morning in no hurry. No blue or yellow backed pamphlet lay beside his plate; and when his last cup was empty, he still sat talking as if he forgot that he should have to go out in the rain. In the midst of a laugh which had prevented their hearing a premonitory knock, the door opened, and Mrs Grey’s twin daughters entered, looking half-shy, half-eager. Never before had they been known to come out in heavy rain: but they were so very desirous to see cousin Margaret after she had been in the water!—and Sydney had held the great gig umbrella over himself and them, as papa would not hear of Sydney not coming:— he was standing outside the door now, under the large umbrella, for he said nothing should make him come in and see cousin Margaret—he would never see her again if he could help it. Sydney had said another thing,—such a wicked thing! Mamma was quite ashamed of him. Mr Hope thought they had better not repeat anything wicked that any one had said: but Hester considered it possible that it might not appear so wicked if spoken as if left to the imagination. What Sydney had said was, that if cousin Margaret had been really drowned, he would have drowned himself before dinner-time. Mary added that she heard him mutter that he was almost ready to do it now. Mr Hope thought that must be the reason why he was standing out at present, to catch all this rain, which was very nearly enough to drown anybody; and he went to bring him in. But Sydney was not to be caught. He was on the watch; and the moment he saw Mr Hope’s coat instead of his sisters’ cloaks, he ran off with a speed which defied pursuit, and was soon out of sight with the large umbrella.

His cousins were sorry that he felt the event so painfully, and that he could not come in and confide his trouble of mind to them. Hope resolved not to let the morning pass without seeing him, and, if possible, bringing him home to dinner, with William Levitt to take off the awkwardness.

“What are we to do?” exclaimed Sydney’s little sisters. “He has carried off the great umbrella.”

“I cannot conveniently send you, just at present,” said Hester; “so you had better put off your cloaks, and amuse yourselves here till the rain abates, or some one comes for you. We will speak to Miss Young to excuse your not being with her.”

“Oh, cousin Margaret,” said the children, “if you will speak to Miss Young, she will give us any sort of a holiday. She minds everything you say. She will let us stop all day, and dine here, if you ask her.”

Hester said she could not have them stay all day,—she did not mean to have them to dinner: and the little girls both looked up in her face at once, to find out what made her speak so angrily. They saw cousin Margaret glancing the same way too.

“Do you know, Mary,” said Fanny, “you have not said a word yet of what Miss Young bade you say?”

Mary told cousin Margaret, that Miss Young was wishing very much to see her, and would be pleased if Margaret would mention what evening she would spend with her,—a nice long evening, Mary added, to begin as soon as it grew dark, and on till—nobody knew when.

“Maria had better come here,” observed Hester, quickly; “and then some one else besides Margaret may have the benefit of her conversation. She seems to forget that anybody cares for her besides Margaret. Tell Miss Young she had better fix an evening to come here.”

“I do not think she will do that,” said both the little girls.

“Why not?”

“She is very lame now,” replied Mary, “and she cannot walk further than just to school and back again.”

“And, besides,” remarked Fanny, “she wants to talk with cousin Margaret alone, I am sure. They have such a great deal of talk to do whenever they are together! We watch them sometimes in the schoolroom, through the window, when we are at play in the garden; and their heads nod at one another in this way. I believe they never leave off for a minute. We often wonder what it can be all about.”

“Ah, my dears, you and I had better not ask,” said Hester. “I have no doubt it is better that we should not know.”

Margaret looked beseechingly at her sister. Hester replied to her look:

“I mean what I say, Margaret. You cannot but be aware how much more you have to communicate to Maria than to me. Our conversation soon comes to a stand: and I must say I have had much occasion to admire your great talent for silence of late. Maria has still to learn your accomplishments in that direction, I fancy.”

Margaret quietly told the little girls that she would write a note to Maria, with her answer.

“You must not do that,” said Fanny. “Miss Young said you must not. That was the reason why she sent you a message instead of a note—that you might not have to write back again, when a message would do as well.”

Margaret, nevertheless, sat down at the writing-table.

“You go to-day, of course,” said Hester, in the voice of forced calmness which Margaret knew so well. “The little girls may as well stay and dine, after all, as I shall otherwise be alone in the evening.”

“I shall not go to-day,” said Margaret, without turning her head.

“You will not stay away on my account, of course.”

“I have said that I shall go on Thursday.”

“Thursday! that is almost a week hence. Now, Margaret, do not be pettish, and deny yourself what you know you like best. Do not be a baby, and quarrel with your supper. I had far rather you should go to-night, and have done with it, than that you should wait till Thursday, thinking all day long till then that you are obliging me by staying with me. I cannot bear that.”

“I wish I knew what you could bear,” said Margaret, in a voice which the children could not hear. “I wish I knew how I could save you pain.”

The moment the words were out, Margaret was sorry for them. She was aware that the best kindness to her sister was to take as little notice as possible of her discontents—to turn the conversation—to avoid scenes, or any remarks which could bring them on. It was hard—sometimes it seemed impossible—to speak calmly and lightly, while every pulse was throbbing, and every fibre trembling with fear and wretchedness; but yet it was best to assume such calmness and lightness. Margaret now asked the little girls, while she sealed her note, how their patchwork was getting on—thus far the handsomest patchwork quilt she had ever seen.

“Oh, it will be far handsomer before it is done. Mrs Howell has found up some beautiful pieces of print for us—remnants of her first morning-gown after she was married, and of her poor dear Howell’s last dressing-gown, as she says. We were quite sorry to take those; but she would put them up for us; and she is to see the quilt sometimes in return.”

“But Miss Nares’s parcel was the best, cousin Margaret. Such a quantity of nankeen for the ground, and the loveliest chintz for the centre medallion! Is not it, Mary?”

“Oh, lovely! Do you know, cousin Margaret, Miss Nares and Miss Flint both cried when they heard how nearly you were drowned! I am sure, I had no idea they would have cared so much.”

“Nor I, my dear. But I dare say they feel kindly towards anyone saved from great danger.”

“Not everybody,” said Fanny; “only you, because you are a great favourite. Everybody says you are a great favourite. Papa cried last night—just a little tear or two, as gentlemen do—when he told mamma how sorry everybody in Deerbrook would have been if you had died.”

“There! that will do,” said Hester, struggling between her better and worse feelings—her remorse of this morning, and her present jealousy—and losing her temper between the two. “You have said quite enough about what you do not understand, my dears. I cannot have you make so free with your cousin’s name, children.”

The little girls looked at each other in wonder; and Hester thought she detected a lurking smile.

“I see what you are thinking, children. Yes, look, the rain is nearly over; and then you may go and tell Mrs Howell and Miss Nares, and all the people you see on your way home, that they had better attend to their own concerns than pretend to understand what would have been felt if your cousin had been drowned. I wonder at their impertinence.”

“Are you in earnest, cousin Hester? Shall we go and tell them so?”

“No; she is not in earnest,” said Margaret. “But before you go, Morris shall give you some pieces for your quilt—some very pretty ones, such as she knows I can spare.”

Margaret rang, and Morris took the children up-stairs, to choose for themselves out of Margaret’s drawer of pieces. When the door had closed behind them, Margaret said—“Sister, do not make me wish that I had died under the ice yesterday.”

“Margaret, how dare you say anything so wicked?”

“If it be wicked, God forgive me! I was wretched enough before—I would fain have never come to life again: and now you almost make me believe that you would have been best pleased if I never had.”

At this moment Hope entered. He had left them in a far different mood: it made him breathless to see his wife’s face of passion, and Margaret’s of woe.

“Hear her!” exclaimed Hester. “She says I should have been glad to have lost her yesterday!”

“Have mercy upon me!” cried Margaret, in excessive agitation. “You oppress me beyond what I can bear. I cannot bear on as I used to do. My strength is gone, and you give me none. You take away what I had!”

“Will you hear me spoken to in this way?” cried Hester, turning to her husband.

“I will.”

Margaret’s emotion prevented her hearing this, or caring who was by. She went on—“You leave me nothing—nothing but yourself—and you abuse my love for you. You warn me against love—against marriage—you chill my very soul with terror at it. I have found a friend in Maria; and you poison my comfort in my friendship, and insult my friend. There is not an infant in a neighbour’s house but you become jealous of it the moment I take it in my arms. There is not a flower in your garden, not a book on my table, that you will let me love in peace. How ungenerous—while you have one to cherish and who cherishes you, that you will have me lonely!—that you quarrel with all who show regard to me!—that you refuse me the least solace, when my heart is breaking with its loneliness! Oh, it is cruel!”

“Will you hear this, Edward?”

“I will, because it is the truth. For once, Hester, you must hear another’s mind; you have often told your own.”

“God knows why I was saved yesterday,” murmured Margaret; “for a more desolate creature does not breathe.”

Hope leaned against the wall. Hester relieved her torment of mind with reproaches of Margaret.

“You do not trust me,” she cried; “it is you who make me miserable. You go to others for the comfort you ought to seek in me. You place that confidence in others which ought to be mine alone. You are cheered when you learn that the commonest gossips in Deerbrook care about you, and you set no value on your own sister’s feelings for you. You have faith and charity for people out of doors, and mistrust and misconstruction for those at home. I am the injured one, Margaret, not you.”

“Margaret,” said Hope, “your sister speaks for herself. I think that you are the injured one, as Hester herself will soon agree. So far from having anything to reproach you with, I honour your forbearance,—unremitting till this hour,—I mourn that we cannot, if we would, console you in return. But whatever I can do shall be done. Your friendships, your pursuits, shall be protected. If we persecute your affections at home, I will take care that you are allowed their exercise abroad. Rely upon me, and do not think yourself utterly lonely while you have a brother.”

“I have been very selfish,” said Margaret, recovering herself at the first word of kindness; “wretchedness makes me selfish, I think.”

She raised herself up on the sofa, and timidly held out her hand to her sister. Hester thrust it away. Margaret uttered a cry of agony, such as had never been heard from her since her childhood. Hope fell on the floor—he had fainted at the sound.

Even now there was no one but Morris who understood it. Margaret reproached herself bitterly for her selfishness—for her loss of the power of self-control. Hester’s remorse, however greater in degree, was of its usual kind, strong and brief. She repeated, as she had done before, that she made her husband wretched—that she should never have another happy moment—that she wished he had never seen her. For the rest of the day she was humbled, contrite, convinced that she should give way to her temper no more. Her eyes filled when her husband spoke tenderly to her, and her conduct to Margaret was one act of supplication. But a lesser degree of this same kind of penitence had produced no permanent good effect before; and there was no security that the present paroxysm would have a different result.

Morris had seen that the children were engaged up-stairs when she came down at Margaret’s silent summons, to help to revive her master. When she saw that there had been distress before there was illness, she took her part. She resolved that no one but herself should hear his first words, and sent the ladies away when she saw that his consciousness was returning. All the world might have heard his first words. He recovered himself with a vigorous effort, swallowed a glass of wine, and within a few minutes was examining a patient in the waiting-room. There the little girls saw him as they passed the half-open door, on their way out with their treasure of chintz and print; and having heard some bustle below, they carried home word that they believed Mr Hope had been doing something to somebody which had made somebody faint; and Sophia, shuddering, observed how horrid it must be to be a surgeon’s wife.

Chapter Twenty Four.

Warnings.

Maria Young’s lodging at the farrier’s had one advantage over many better dwellings;—it was pleasanter in Winter than in Summer. There was little to find fault with in the tiny sitting-room after candles were lighted. The fire burned clear in the grate; and when the screen was up, there were no draughts. This screen was quite a modern improvement. When Fanny and Mary Grey had experienced the pleasure of surprising Sophia with a token of sisterly affection, in the shape of a piece of India-rubber, and their mother with a token of filial affection, in the form of a cotton-box, they were unwilling to stop, and looked round to see whether they could not present somebody with a token of some other sort of affection. Sophia was taken into their counsels; and she, being aware of how Miss Young’s candle flared when the wind was high, devised this screen. The carpenter made the frame; Sydney covered it with canvas and black paper for a ground; and the little girls pasted on it all the drawings and prints they could muster. Here was the Dargle, an everlasting waterfall, that looked always the same in the sunny-coloured print. There was Morland’s Woodcutter, with his tall figure, his pipe, his dog, and his faggot, with the snow lying all around him. Two or three cathedrals were interspersed; and, in the midst of them, and larger than any of them, a silhouette of Mr Grey, with the eyelash wonderfully like, and the wart upon his nose not to be mistaken. Then there was Charles the First taking leave of his family; and, on either side of this, an evening primrose in water-colours, by Mary, and a head of Terror, with a square mouth and starting eyes, in crayon, by Fanny. Mrs Grey produced some gay border which the paper-hanger had left over when the attics were last furnished; and Sydney cut out in white paper a huntsman with his whip in the air, a fox, a gate, and two hounds. Mr Grey pleaded, that, having contributed his face, he had done all that could be expected of him: nevertheless, he brought home one day, on his return from market, a beautiful Stream of Time, which made the children dance round their screen. It was settled at first that this would nobly ornament the whole of one side; but it popped into Sydney’s head, just as he was falling asleep one night, how pretty it would be to stick it round with the planets. So the planets were cut out in white, and shaded with Indian ink. There was no mistaking Saturn with his ring, or Jupiter with his moons. At length, all was done, and the cook was glad to hear that no more paste would be wanted, and the little girls might soon leave off giggling when Miss Young asked them, in the schoolroom, why they were jogging one another’s elbows. Mr Grey spared one of his men to deposit the precious piece of handiwork at Miss Young’s lodging; and there, when she went home one cold afternoon, she found the screen standing between the fire and the door, and, pinned on it, a piece of paper, inscribed, “A Token of friendly Affection.”

This was not, however, the only, nor the first, gift with which Maria’s parlour was enriched. Amidst all the bustle of furnishing the Hopes’ house, Margaret had found time to plan and execute a window-curtain for her friend’s benefit; and another person—no other than Philip Enderby—had sent in a chaise-longue, just the right size to stand between the fire and the table. It had gone hard with Maria to accept this last gift; but his nephew and nieces were Philip’s plea of excuse for the act; and this plea cut her off from refusing: though in her heart she believed that neither the children nor ancient regard were in his thoughts when he did it, but rather Margaret’s affection for her. For some time, this chaise-longue was a couch of thorns; but now affairs had put on a newer aspect still, and Maria forgot her own perplexities and troubles in sympathy with her friend.

There was nothing to quarrel with in the look of the chaise-longue, when Margaret entered Maria’s room in the twilight, in the afternoon of the appointed Thursday.

“Reading by fire-light?” said Margaret.

“I suppose I am: but it had not occurred to me—the daylight went away so softly. Six o’clock, I declare! The days are lengthening, as we say every year. But we will have something better than firelight, if you will be so kind as to set those candles on the table.”

The time was long put when Maria thought of apologising for asking her friend to do what her lameness rendered painful to herself. Margaret laid aside her bonnet and cloak behind the screen, lighted the candles, put more coals on the fire, and took her seat—not beside Maria, but in a goodly armchair, which she drew forward from its recess.

“Now,” said she, “we only want a cat to be purring on the rug to make us a complete winter picture. The kettle will be coming soon to sing on the hob: and that will do nearly as well. But, Maria, I wonder you have no cat. We have set up a cat. I think I will send you a kitten, some day, as a token of neighbourly affection.”

“Thank you. Do you know, I was positively assured lately that I had a cat? I said all I could in proof that I had none; but Mrs Tucker persisted in her inquiries after its health, notwithstanding.”

“What did she mean?”

“She said she saw a kitten run into the passage, and that it never came out again: so that it followed of course that it must be here still. One day, when I was in school, she came over to satisfy herself; and true enough, there had been a kitten. The poor thing jumped from the passage window into the yard, and went to see what they were about at the forge. A hot horse-shoe fell upon its back, and it mewed so dolefully that the people drowned it. So there you have the story of my cat, as it was told to me.”

“Thank you, it is a good thing to know. But what does Mrs Grey say to your setting up a cat?”

“When she heard Mrs Tucker’s first inquiries, she took them for an imputation, and was vexed accordingly. ‘Miss Young!’ said she, ‘You must be mistaken, Mrs Tucker. Miss Young cannot afford to keep a kitten!’”

“Oh, for shame!” said Margaret, laughing. “But what is the annual expense of a kitten—can you tell us? I am afraid we never considered that.”

“Why, there is the breast of a fowl, once a year or so, when your cook forgets to shut the larder-door behind her. Cats never take the drumsticks when there is a breast, you are aware. You know best how Mr Hope looks, when the drumsticks and side bones come to table, with an empty space in the middle of the dish where the breast ought to have been.”

“I will tell you, the first time it happens.” And Margaret sank into an absent fit, brought on by the bare suggestion of discontent at home. Hester had made her uncomfortable, the last thing before she left the house, by speaking sharply of Maria, without any fresh provocation. Undisciplined still by what had happened so lately, she had wished Maria Young a hundred miles off. Margaret meditated and sighed. It was some time before Maria spoke. When she did, she said:

“Margaret, do not you think people had better not persuade themselves and their very intimate friends that they are happy when they are not?”

“They had better not think, even in their own innermost minds, whether they are happy or not, if they can help it.”

“True: but there are times when that is impossible—when it is far better to avoid the effort. Come—I suspect we may relieve each other just now, by allowing the truth. I will own, if you will, that I am very unhappy to-night. Never mind what it is about.”

“I will, if you will,” replied Margaret, faintly smiling.

“There now, that’s right! We shall be all the better for it. We have quite enough of seeming happy, God knows, beyond these doors. We can talk there about kittens and cold fowl. Here we will not talk at all, unless we like; and we will each groan as much as we please.”

“I am sorry to hear you speak so,” said Margaret, tenderly. “Not that I do not agree with you. I think it is a terrible mistake to fancy that it is religious to charm away grief, which, after all, is rejecting it before it has done its work; and, as for concealing it, there must be very good reasons indeed for that, to save it from being hypocrisy. But the more I agree with you, the more sorry I am to hear you say just what I was thinking. I am afraid you must be very unhappy, Maria.”

“I’m in great pain to-night; and I do not find that pain becomes less of an evil by one’s being used to it. Indeed, I think the reverse happens; for the future comes into the consideration.”

“Do you expect to go on to suffer this same pain? Can nothing cure it? Is there no help?”

“None, but in patience. There are intermissions, happily, and pretty long ones. I get through the summer very well; but the end of the winter—this same month of February—is a sad aching time; and so it must be for as many winters as I may have to live. But I am better off than I was. Last February I did not know you. Oh, Margaret, if they had not brought you up from under the ice, the other day, how different would all have been to-night!”

“How strange it seems to think of the difference that hung on that one act!” said Margaret, shivering again at the remembrance of her icy prison. “What, and where, should I have been now? And what would have been the change in this little world of ours? You would have missed me, I know; and on that account I am glad it ended as it did.”

“And on no other?” asked Maria, looking earnestly at her friend.

“My sister would have grieved sadly at first—you do not know what care she takes of me—how often she is thinking of my comfort. And Edward is fond of me too: I know he is; but they live for each other, and could spare every one else. You and Morris would have been my mourners, and you two are enough to live for.”

“To say nothing of others who may arise.”

“I hope nothing more will arise in my life, Maria. I want no change. I have had enough of it.”

“You think so now. I understand your feeling very well. But yet I can fancy that when you are twice as old as you are—when a few grey hairs peep out among all that brown—when this plump little hand grows thin, and that girlish figure of yours looks dignified and middle-aged, and people say that nobody thought when you were young that you would turn out a handsome woman—I can fancy that when all this has happened, you may be more disposed to look forward, and less disinclined to change, than you feel at this moment. But there is no use in saying so now. You shake your head, and I nod mine. You say, ‘No,’ and I say, ‘Yes,’ and there is an end of it.”

“Where will you be then, I wonder?”

“I do not wish to know, nor even to inquire of my own judgment. My health is very bad—worse than you are aware of. I cannot expect to be able to work always; some of my present pupils are growing very tall; and no strangers will take me if I do not get much better; which is, I believe, impossible. The future, therefore, is all a mystery; and so let it remain. I am not anxious about that.”

“But I am.”

“Here comes tea. Now you will be doing a finer thing in making us a good cup of tea, than in settling my future ever so satisfactorily—seeing that you cannot touch it with so much as your little finger. The tea is wholly in your power.”

“You look forward to other people’s grey hair and sedateness of face, though you will not to your own.”

“Mere grey hair is as certain as futurity itself; and I will allow you to prophesy that much for me or for anybody.”

“Why should we not prophesy about your pupils too? They seem to be improving very much.”

“They certainly are; and I am glad you have lighted upon the pleasantest subject I ever think about. Oh, Margaret, you do not know what encouragement I have about some of those children! Their lot is and will be a hard one, in many respects. It will be difficult for them to grow kindly, and liberal, and truthful, with such examples as they have before their eyes. They advance like the snail on the wall, creeping three inches on in the day, and falling back two at night. They get out of a pretty mood of mind in the morning, and expand and grow interested in things out of Deerbrook; and then, in the evening, the greater part of this is undone, and they go to bed with their heads full of small, vile notions about their neighbours.”

“And when they grow too wise to have their heads so filled, their hearts will be heavy for those who are not rising like themselves.”

“That is unavoidable, and they must bear the sorrow. We must hope that they will disperse from Deerbrook, and find their way into a more genial society than they can ever know here. I must keep the confidence of my children sacred even from you, Margaret: but you may believe me when I tell you, that if you knew all that we have to say to one another, you would find some of these children animated with really noble thoughts, and capable of really generous acts.”

“‘Some of them.’ Mary, in particular, I venture to conjecture to be in your thoughts.”

“Yes: Mary in particular; but she had always a more gentle and generous temper than her sisters. Fanny, however, is improving remarkably.”

“I am delighted to hear it, and I had begun to suspect it. Fanny, I observe, lays fewer informations than she did; and there is more of thought, and less of a prying expression, in her face. She is really growing more like Mary in countenance. The little Rowlands—the younger ones—seem simple enough; but Matilda, what a disagreeable child she is!”

“The most that can be done with her is to leave her only a poor creature—to strip her of the conceit and malice with which her mother would overlay her feeble intellect. This sounds deplorably enough; but, as parents will not speak the plain truth to themselves about their charge, governesses must. There is, perhaps, little better material in Fanny: but I trust we may one day see her more lowly than she can at present relish the idea of being, and with energy enough to improve under the discipline of life, when she can no longer have that of school. She and Mary have been acknowledging to-day a fine piece of experience. Mr Grey is pleased with their great Improvement in Latin. He finds they can read, with ease and pleasure, some favourite classical scraps which he used to talk about without exciting any interest in them. They honestly denied having devoted any more time to Latin than before, or having taken any more pains; and no new methods have been tried. Here was a mystery. To-day they have solved it. They find that all is owing to their getting up earlier in the morning to teach those little orphans, the Woods, to read and sew.”

“Not a very circuitous process,” said Margaret; “love and kind interest, energy and improvement—whether in Latin or anything else. But what did you mean just now about truth? What should make the Greys otherwise than truthful?”

“Oh, not the Greys! I was thinking of the other family when I said that. But that is a large subject: let us leave it till after tea. Will you give me another cup?”

“Now; shall we begin upon our large subject?” said she, as the door closed behind the tea-tray and kettle, and Margaret handed her her work-bag.

“I am aware that I asked for it,” replied Margaret; “but it is a disagreeable topic, and perhaps we had better avoid it.”

“You will take me for a Deerbrook person, if I say we will go into it, will not you?”

“Oh, no: you have a reason, I see. So, why should not the little Rowlands be truthful?”

“Because they have so perpetual an example of falsehood before them at home. I have made some painful discoveries there lately.”

“Is it possible you did not know that woman long ago?”

“I knew her obvious qualities, which there is no need to specify: but the depth of her untruth is a new fact to me.”

“Are you sure of it, now?”

“Quite sure of it in some particulars, and strongly suspecting it in others. Do not tell your sister anything of what I am going to say, unless you find it necessary for the direction of her conduct. Let your disclosures be rather to Mr Hope. That is settled, is it? Well, Mrs Rowland’s ruling passion just now is hatred to your household.”

“I suspected as much. But—the untruth.”

“Wait a little. She dislikes you, all and severally.”

“What, my brother?”

“Oh, yes; for marrying into the Grey connection so decidedly. Did you ever hear that before?”

Margaret laughed; and her friend went on—

“This capture and imprisonment of her mother (for the poor old lady is not allowed to see whom she pleases) is chiefly to get her from under Mr Hope’s care. I fancy, from her air, and from some things she has dropped, that she has some grand coup-de-theâtre in reserve about that matter; but this is merely suspicion: I will now speak only of what I know to exist. She is injuring your brother to an extent that he is not, but ought to be, aware of.”

“What does she say? She shudders at his politics, I know.”

“Yes; that might be ignorance merely, and even conscientious ignorance: so we will let that pass. She also hints, very plainly and extensively, that your brother and sister are not happy together.”

“She is a wicked woman,” said Margaret, with a deep sigh. “I half suspected what you tell me, from poor George’s errand that unhappy day.”

“Right. Mr Rowland’s irony was intended to stop his wife’s insinuations before the children. She says the most unwarrantable things about Mrs Grey’s having made the match—and she intimates that Hester has several times gone to bed in hysterics, from Mr Hope having upbraided her with taking him in.”

“What is to be done?” cried Margaret, throwing down her work.

“Your brother will decide for himself whether to speak to Mr Rowland, or to let the slander pass, and live it down. Our duty is to give him information; and I feel that it is a duty. And now, have you been told anything about Mr Hope’s practice of dissection?”

Margaret related what she had heard on the bank of the river, and Hope’s explanation of it.

“He knows more than he told you, I have no doubt,” replied Maria. “The beginning of it was, your brother’s surgery-pupil having sent a great toe, in a handsome-looking sealed packet, to some lad in the village, who happened to open it at table. You may imagine the conjectures as to where it came from, and the revival of stories about robbing churchyards, and of prejudices about dissection. Mrs Rowland could not let such an opportunity as this pass by; and her neighbours have been favoured with dark hints as to what has been heard under the churchyard wall, and what she herself has seen from her window in sleepless nights. Now, Mr Hope must take notice of this. It is too dangerous a subject to be left quietly to the ignorance and superstitions of such a set of people as those among whom his calling lies. No ignorance on earth exceeds that of the country folks whom he attends.”

“But they worship him,” cried Margaret.

“They have worshipped him; but you know, worship easily gives place to hatred among the extremely ignorant; and nothing is so likely to quicken the process as to talk about violating graves. Do not be frightened; I tell you this to prevent mischief, not to prophesy it. Mr Hope will take what measures he thinks fit: and I shall tell Mr Rowland, tomorrow morning, that I am the source of your information. I was just going to warn him to-day that I meant to speak to you in this way; but I left it till to-morrow, that I might not be prevented.”

“Dear Maria, this will cost you your bread.”

“I believe not; but this consideration belongs to that future of time on which, as I was saying, we cannot lay our little fingers. The present is clear enough—that Mr Hope ought to know his own case.”

“He shall know it. But, Maria, do you mean that Mrs Rowland talks of all these affairs before her children?”

“When Mr Rowland is not present to check it. And this brings me to something which I think ought to be said, though I have no proof to bring. Having found of late what things Mrs Rowland can say for a purpose—how variously and how monstrously untrue—and seeing that all her enterprises are at present directed against the people who live in a pleasant little corner-house—”

“But why? You have not yet fully accounted for this enmity.”

“I have not, but I will now. I think she joins your name with her brother’s, and that she accordingly hates you now as she once hated Hester. But mind, I am not sure of this.”

“But how—? Why—?”

“You will divine that I have changed my opinion about Mr Enderby’s being engaged to Miss Bruce, since you asked me for my judgment upon it. I may very possibly be mistaken: but as Mr Enderby lies under censure for forming and carrying on such an arrangement in strange concealment from his most intimate friends, I think it due to him at least to put the supposition that he may not be guilty.”

Margaret could not speak, though a thousand questions struggled in her heart.

“I am aware,” continued Maria, “with what confidence she has everywhere stated the fact of this engagement, and that Mrs Enderby fully believes it. But I have been struck throughout with a failure of particularity in Mrs Rowland’s knowledge. She cannot tell when her brother last saw Miss Bruce, nor whether he has any intention of going to Rome. She does not know, evidently, whether he was engaged when he was last here; and I cannot get rid of the impression, that his being engaged now is a matter of inference from a small set of facts, which will bear more than one interpretation.”

“Surely she would not dare—.” Margaret paused.

“It is a bold stroke (supposing me right), but she would strike boldly to make a quarrel between her brother and his friends in the corner-house: and if the device should fail at last, she has the intermediate satisfaction of making them uncomfortable.”

“Horrid creature!” said Margaret, feeling, however, that she would forgive all the horridness for the sake of finding that Mrs Rowland had done this horrid thing.

“We must not forget,” said Maria, “that there is another side to the question. Young men have been known to engage themselves mysteriously, and without sufficient respect to the confidence of intimate friends.”

“This must be ascertained, Maria;” and again Margaret stopped short with a blush of shame.

“By time, Margaret; in no other way. I cannot, of course, speak to Mr Rowland, or any one, on so private an affair of the family; nor, under the circumstances, can Mr Hope stir in it. We must wait; but it cannot be for long. Some illumination must reach Deerbrook soon—either from Mr Enderby’s going to Rome, or coming here to see his mother.”

“Mrs Rowland said he would come here, she hoped, for his wedding journey.”

“She did say so, I know. And she has told plenty of people that her brother is delighted that Mrs Enderby is settled with her; whereas some beautiful plants arrived this morning for Mrs Enderby’s conservatory, by his orders (the Rowlands have no conservatory you know). The children were desired not to mention the arrival of these plants to grandmamma; and Mrs Rowland wrote by return of post—I imagine to inform him for the first time of his mother’s removal.”

Margaret thought these things were too bad to be true.

“I should have said so, too, some time ago: and as I cannot too earnestly repeat, I may be wrong now. But I have done my duty in giving you reason for suspending your judgment of Mr Enderby. This being done, we will talk of something else.—Now, do not you think there may be some difficulty in preserving my pupils from a habit of untruth?”

“Yes, indeed.”

But the talking of something else did not operate so well as it sounded. The pauses were long after what had passed. At length, when Margaret detected herself in the midst of the speculation, “if he is not engaged to Miss Bruce, it does not follow—,” she roused herself, and exclaimed—

“How very good it is of you, Maria, to have laid all this open to me!”

Maria hung her head over her work, and thought within herself that her friend could not judge of the deed. She replied—

“Thank you! I thought I should get some sympathy from you in the end, to repay me for the irksomeness of exposing such a piece of social vice as this poor lady’s conduct.”

“Yes, indeed, I ought to have acknowledged it before, as I feel it; but you know there is so much to think over! it is so wonderful—so almost inconceivable!”

“It is so.”

“Is it quite necessary, Maria—yes, I see it is necessary that you should speak to Mr Rowland to-morrow? You are bound in honesty to do so; but it will be very painful. Can we not help you? Can we not in some way spare you?”

“No, you cannot, thank you. For Mr Rowland’s sake, no one must be by; and none of you can testify to the facts. No; leave me alone. By this time to-morrow night it will be done. What knock is that? No one ever knocks on my account. Surely it cannot be your servant already. It is only now half-past eight.”

“I promised Hester I would go home early.”

“She cannot want you half so much as I do. Stay another hour.”

Margaret could not. Hester made a point of her returning at this time. When the cloaking and final chat were done, and Margaret was at the door, Maria called her. Margaret came skipping back to hear her friend’s whisper.

“How is your wretchedness, Margaret?”

“How is yours?” was Margaret’s reply.

“Much better. The disburdening of it is a great comfort.”

“And the pain—the aching?”

“Oh, never mind that!”

Margaret shook her head; she could not but mind it—but wish that she could take it upon herself sometimes. She had often thought lately, that she should rather enjoy a few weeks of Maria’s pain, as an alternative to the woe under which she had been suffering; but this, if she could have tried the experiment, she would probably have found to be a mistake. When she saw her friend cover her eyes with her hand, as if for a listless hour of solitude, she felt that she had been wrong in yielding to her sister’s jealousy of her being so much with Maria; and she resolved that, next time, Maria should appoint the hour for her return home.

When Maria was thus covering her eyes with her hand, she was thinking— “Now, half this task is over. The other half to-morrow—and then the consequences!”

When Margaret entered the drawing-room at home, where her brother was reading aloud to Hester, he exclaimed—

“We beat all Deerbrook for early visiting, I think. Here are you home; and I dare say Mr Tucker has still another pipe to smoke, and the wine is not mulled yet at the Jameses.”

“It is quite time Margaret was giving us a little of her company, I am sure,” said Hester. “You forget how early she went. If it was not for the school, I think she and Maria would spend all their time together. I have every wish not to interfere: but I cannot think that this friendship has made Maria less selfish.”

“It would, I dare say, my dear, but that there was no selfishness to begin upon. I am afraid she is very unwell, Margaret?”

“In much pain, I fear.”

“I will go and see if I can do her any good. You can glance over what we have read, and I shall be back in a quarter of an hour, to go on with it.”

“I wonder you left Maria, if she is so poorly.”

“I determined that I would not, another time; but this time I had promised.”

“Pray, do not make out that I am any restraint upon your intercourse with Maria. And yet—it is not quite fair to say that, either.”

“I do not think it is quite fair.”

“But you should warn me—you should tell me, if I ask anything unreasonable. When are you going again? An old patient of my husband’s has sent us a quarter of a chest of very fine oranges. We will carry Maria a basketful of oranges to-morrow.”

Chapter Twenty Five.

Long Walks.

The unhappy are indisposed to employment: all active occupations are wearisome and disgusting in prospect, at a time when everything, life itself, is full of weariness and disgust. Yet the unhappy must be employed, or they will go mad. Comparatively blessed are they, if they are set in families, where claims and duties abound, and cannot be escaped. In the pressure of business there is present safety and ultimate relief. Harder is the lot of those who have few necessary occupations, enforced by other claims than their own harmlessness and profitableness. Reading often fails. Now and then it may beguile; but much oftener the attention is languid, the thoughts wander, and associations with the subject of grief are awakened. Women who find that reading will not do, will obtain no relief from sewing. Sewing is pleasant enough in moderation to those whose minds are at ease the while; but it is an employment which is trying to the nerves when long continued, at the best; and nothing can be worse for the harassed, and for those who want to escape from themselves. Writing is bad. The pen hangs idly suspended over the paper, or the sad thoughts that are alive within write themselves down. The safest and best of all occupations for such sufferers as are fit for it, is intercourse with young children. An infant might beguile Satan and his peers the day after they were couched on the lake of fire, if the love of children chanced to linger amidst the ruins of their angelic nature. Next to this comes honest, genuine acquaintanceship among the poor; not mere charity-visiting, grounded on soup-tickets and blankets, but intercourse of mind, with real mutual interest between the parties. Gardening is excellent, because it unites bodily exertion with a sufficient engagement of the faculties, while sweet, compassionate Nature is ministering cure in every sprouting leaf and scented blossom, and beckoning sleep to draw nigh, and be ready to follow up her benignant work. Walking is good,—not stepping from shop to shop, or from neighbour to neighbour; but stretching out far into the country, to the freshest fields, and the highest ridges, and the quietest lanes. However sullen the imagination may have been among its griefs at home, here it cheers up and smiles. However listless the limbs may have been when sustaining a too heavy heart, here they are braced, and the lagging gait becomes buoyant again. However perverse the memory may have been in presenting all that was agonising, and insisting only on what cannot be retrieved, here it is first disregarded, and then it sleeps and the sleep of the memory is the day in Paradise to the unhappy. The mere breathing of the cool wind on the face in the commonest highway, is rest and comfort which must be felt at such times to be believed. It is disbelieved in the shortest intervals between its seasons of enjoyment: and every time the sufferer has resolution to go forth to meet it, it penetrates to the very heart in glad surprise. The fields are better still; for there is the lark to fill up the hours with mirthful music; or, at worst, the robin and flocks of fieldfares, to show that the hardest day has its life and hilarity. But the calmest region is the upland, where human life is spread out beneath the bodily eye, where the mind roves from the peasant’s nest to the spiry town, from the school-house to the churchyard, from the diminished team in the patch of fallow, or the fisherman’s boat in the cove, to the viaduct that spans the valley, or the fleet that glides ghost-like on the horizon. This is the perch where the spirit plumes its ruffled and drooping wines, and makes ready to let itself down any wind that Heaven may send.

No doubt Margaret found the benefit of exercise, and the solitary enjoyment of the country; for, during the last few weeks, walking seemed to have become a passion with her. Hester was almost out of patience about it, when for a moment she lost sight of what she well knew must be the cause of this strong new interest. Every doubtful morning, Margaret was at the window exploring the clouds. Every fine day she laid her watch on the table before her, impatiently waiting the approach of the hour when her brother was to come in for Hester, and when she might set off by herself, not to return till dinner-time. She became renowned in Deerbrook for the length of her excursions. The grocer had met her far out in one direction, when returning from making his purchases at the market town. The butcher had seen her in the distant fields, when he paid a visit to his grazier in the pastures. Dr Levitt had walked his horse beside her in the lane which formed the limit of the longer of his two common rides; and many a neighbour or patient of Mr Hope’s had been surprised at her declining a cast in a taxed-cart or gig, when there was only a long stretch of plain road before her, and the lanes and fields were too miry to enable her to seek any variety in them, in her way home.

These were, in fact, Margaret’s times of refreshing—of practical worship. These were the times when she saw what at other moments she only repeated to herself—that all things are right, and that our personal trials derive their bitterness from our ignorance and spiritual inexperience. At these times she could not only pity all who suffered, but congratulate all who enjoyed, and could afford feelings of disinterested regard to Philip, and of complacency to Miss Bruce. She remembered that Miss Bruce was unconscious of having injured her—was possibly unaware even of her existence; and then she enjoyed the luxury of blessing her rival, and of longing for an opportunity to serve her secretly and silently, as the happy girl’s innocence of all wrong towards her deserved.

Margaret’s desire for a long solitary walk was as strong as ever, the day after she had visited Maria. No opportunity had occurred of speaking to her brother without alarming Hester; and she had almost determined merely to refer him to Maria, instead of telling the story herself. She should not see him again till dinner. He was gone into the country: the day was gloomy and cold, and Hester was not disposed to leave the fireside: so Margaret issued forth, with thick shoes, umbrella, and muff—guarded against everything that might occur overhead and under foot. She had generally found hope, or at least comfort, abroad; to-day, when she ought to have been much happier, she found anxiety and fear. The thought, the very words, would incessantly recur, ‘If he is not engaged to Miss Bruce, it does not follow...’ Then she seriously grieved for her brother, and the troubles which she feared awaited him; and then she reproached herself with not grieving enough—not having attention enough to spare from her own concerns. While she was walking along on the dry causeway, looking straight before her, but thinking of far other things than the high-road, she was startled by the stroke of a horse’s foot against a stone close by her side, and a voice speaking almost in her ear. It was only Edward. He was going a couple of miles forward, and he brought his horse beside the raised causeway, so that they could converse as if walking together.

“There is nobody to overhear us, I think,” said Margaret, looking round. “I have been wanting, since yesterday evening, to speak to you alone—about something very disagreeable, which I would not disturb Hester with. You, of course, can do as you please about telling her.”

She related to him the whole story of Mrs Rowland’s imputations and proceedings—her reports of the hysterics and their origin, the body-snatching, and the cause and mode of Mrs Enderby’s removal. Margaret had always considered her brother as a man of uncommon nerve; and her surprise was therefore great at seeing him change colour as he did.

“We shall agree,” said she, “that the worst of all this is, that there is some truth at the bottom part of it.”

“Oh, Heavens!” thought Hope, “is it possible that Mrs Grey can have told the share she had in my marriage?” It was but a momentary fear. Margaret went on.

“I have never hoped—I never hoped at Birmingham, and much less here—that Hester could escape the observation of her neighbours—that her occasional agitation of spirits should not excite remark and speculation. As we are not quite whole and sound in our domestic peace—(I must speak plainly, brother, at such a time as this) I should think it would be better to take no notice of that set of imputations. I trust we shall live them down.”

“You gave me great comfort in a few words once,” said Hope. “Do you remember saying, ‘When the time for acting comes, see how she will act!’ You know her well, and you judge her rightly: and you will, perhaps, be the less sorry to hear that the time seems coming when we may all have to act—I scarcely see how—but against adversity.”

“She will come out nobly then. I fear nothing for her but too much prosperity.”

“There is no fear of that, I assure you,” said Hope, smiling somewhat sadly.

“You find the effect of this woman’s slanders?”

“My situation has, from one cause or more, totally changed since you first knew me. It would break Hester’s heart to hear what I am subjected to in the discharge of my daily business. I tell her a trifle now and then, to prepare her for what may happen; but she and you do not know a tenth part of what is inflicted upon me.”

“And what may happen?”

“I cannot see the extent of it myself: but I am losing my practice every day. No; not through any failure; not through any of the accidents which will happen in all medical practice. There are reports of such abroad, I believe; but nothing is commoner than those reports. The truth is, no patient of mine has died, or failed to do well, for an unusually long space of time. The discontent with me is from other causes.”

“From Mrs Rowland’s tongue, I doubt not, more than from your politics.”

“The ignorance of the people about us is the great evil. Without this, neither Mrs Rowland, nor any one else, could persuade them that I rob the churchyard, and vaccinate children to get patients, and draw good teeth to sell again.”

“Oh, monstrous!” said Margaret, who yet could not help laughing. “You never draw teeth, do you?”

“Sometimes; but not when I can get people to go to the dentist at Blickley. Mrs Grey used to boast to you of my popularity; but I never liked it much. I had to be perpetually on the watch to avoid confidences; and you see how fast the stream is at present running the contrary way. I can hardly get on my horse now, without being insulted at my own door.”

“Must you submit to all this?”

“By no means. I have called two or three men to account, and shaken my whip over one or two more—with excellent effect. If there were none but bullies among my enemies, I could easily deal with them.”

“But cannot we go away, and settle somewhere else?”

“Oh, no! Wherever I might go, it would soon be understood that I had been obliged to leave Deerbrook, from being detected in body-snatching and the like. I owe it to myself to stay. We must remain, and live down all imputations whatever, if we can.”

“And if we cannot?”

“Then we shall see what to do when the time comes.”

“And having managed the bullies, how do you propose to manage Mrs Rowland? What do you think of speaking to Mr Grey?”

“I shall not do that. The Greys have no concern with it; but they will think they have. Then there will be a partisan warfare, with me for the pretext, and the two families have had quite warfare enough for a lifetime already. No, I shall not bring the Greys into it. I am sorry enough for Mr Rowland, for I am sure he has no part in all this. I shall go to him to-day. I should confront the lady at once, and call her to account, but that Miss Young must be considered. The more courageous and disinterested she is, the more care we must take of her.”

“Perhaps she is at this moment telling Mr Rowland what we talked about last night. How very painful! Do you know she thinks—(it is right to tell the whole for other people’s sake)—she thinks that what Mrs Rowland says is not to be trusted, in any case where she feels enmity. Maria even doubts whether Mr Enderby has treated you and his other friends so very negligently—whether he is engaged to Miss Bruce, after all.”

Mr Hope was so much engaged about one of his stirrups while Margaret said this, that he could not observe where and how she was looking.

“Very likely,” replied Hope, at length. “Hester has thought all along that this was possible. We shall know the truth from Enderby himself, one of these days, by act or word. Meantime, I, for one, shall wait to hear his own story.”

There was another pause, at the end of which Mr Hope clapped spurs to his horse, and said he must be riding on. Margaret called him back for a moment, to ask what he wished her to do about informing Hester of the state of affairs. Mr Hope was disposed to tell her the whole, if possible; but not till he should have come to some issue with Mr Rowland. He hated mysteries—any concealments in families; and it was due both to Hester and to himself that there should be no concealment of important affairs from her. The only cautions to be observed were, to save her from suspense, to avoid the appearance of a formal telling of bad news, and to choose an opportunity when she might have time, before seeing any of the Rowlands, to consider the principles which should regulate her conduct to them, that she might do herself honour by the consistency and temper of which she was capable under any circumstances, when she was only allowed time.

This was settled, and he rode off with almost his usual gaiety of air.

He saw Mr Rowland before night. The next day but one, a travelling-carriage from Blickley was seen standing at Mr Rowland’s door; and before the clock struck nine, it was loaded with trunks and band-boxes, and crowded with people. As it drove down the village street, merry little faces appeared at each carriage window. Mr Rowland was on the box. He was going to take his family to Cheltenham for the spring months. Miss Rowland was rather delicate, and Deerbrook was cold in March. Mrs Enderby was left behind; but there was Phoebe to take care of her; and Mr Rowland was to return as soon as he had settled his family. It seemed rather a pity, to be sure, that the old lady had been moved out of her own house just before she was to be left alone in her new residence; but, between Mr Rowland and her maid, she would be taken good care of; and the family would return when the warm weather set in.