Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) (continued 8)

Chapter Twenty Six.

Disclosures.

The whole village seemed relieved by the departure of the Rowlands. Mrs Grey, who had always been refused admission to her old friend on one pretence or another, was joyfully welcomed by Phoebe, and was plunged into all the delights of neighbourly chat before the clock struck twelve, on the very first morning, Fanny and Mary Grey voluntarily offered to go to Miss Young, now that they were her only pupils, to save her the trouble of the walk to the schoolroom. This was a great relief to Maria, and her little parlour held the three very nicely; and when the girls had sufficiently admired the screen over again,—their father’s profile, the planets, and the Dargle, they settled quite as well as at home. There was still a corner left for cousin Margaret, when she chose to come with her German books, or her work, and her useful remarks on what they were doing. No immediate consequences had happened to Maria from her plain-dealing with Mr Rowland; and she was quite ready to enjoy the three months of freedom, without looking too anxiously towards the end of them. The very gardener at the Rowlands’ seemed to bestir himself with unusual alacrity to put the garden into spring trim; and the cook and housemaid might be seen over the hedge, walking arm-in-arm on the gravel-walks, smelling at the mezereon, and admiring Miss Anna’s border of yellow crocuses, as the gardener said, as much as if they had been fine plants out of a conservatory. The birds themselves seemed to begin their twittering in the trees, and the cows their lowing in the meadow, from the hour that Mrs Rowland went away. In other words, there were many whom that event left free and at ease to observe the harmonies of nature, who were usually compelled to observe only the lady, and the discords of her household.

It was only the second day after the departure of the family that Margaret took her seat in the offered corner of Maria’s parlour. She laid down her book, and took up her work, when the question arose, which has probably interested all intelligent school-girls for many a year—What made so many Athenians,—so many, that there must have been some wise and good men among them,—treat such a person as Socrates in the way they did? Margaret was quite occupied in admiring the sort of Socratic method with which Maria drew out from the minds of her pupils some of the difficult philosophy of Opinion, and the liberality with which she allowed for the distress of heathen moralists at having the sanction of Custom broken up. Margaret was thus quite occupied with the delight of seeing a great subject skilfully let down into young minds, and the others were no less busy with the subject itself, when Mary started, and said it made her jump to see Sydney bring Fairy close up to the window. Fanny imperiously bade her mind what she was about, and let Sydney alone: but yet, in a minute or two, Fanny’s own eyes were detected wandering into the yard where Sydney still remained. “He is getting Fairy shod,” she said in a soliloquising tone. Every one laughed,—the idea of shoeing a fairy was so ridiculous!—and some witticisms, about Bottom the Weaver, and his ass’s head, were sported. It was evident that Socrates had no more chance this day, and Maria changed the subject.

“Sydney looks very much as if he wanted to come in,” observed Mary.

Sydney did particularly wish to come in; but he saw that cousin Margaret was there: and he had felt an unconquerable awe of cousin Margaret ever since the day of his conveying her over the ice. So he stood irresolutely watching, as nail after nail was driven into Fairy’s hoof, casting glances every minute at the window.

“Shall I see what he wants?” asked Margaret, perceiving that lessons would not go on till Sydney had got out what he wished to say. “May I open the window for a moment, Maria, to speak to him?”

“What do you think?” cried Sydney, taking instant advantage of the movement, and carrying off his awkwardness by whipping the window-sill while he spoke. “What do you think? Mr Enderby is come by the coach this morning. I saw him myself; and you might have met our Ben carrying his portmanteau home from where he was put down, half an hour ago. We’ll have rare sport, if he stays as long as he did last summer. I do believe,” he continued, leaning into the room, and speaking with a touch of his mother’s mystery, “he would have come long since if Mrs Rowland had not been here. I wish she had taken herself off two months ago, and then I might have had a run with the harriers with him, as he promised I should.”

“Now you have said just a little too much, Sydney; so you may go,” said Maria. “Shut down the window, will you?”

It was well for Margaret that there was the recess of the window to lean in. There she stood, not speaking a word. It was not in nature for Maria to refrain from casting a glance at her,—which glance grew into a look of intelligence.

“You do not quite wink as mamma does,” observed Fanny, “but I know very well what you mean, Miss Young.”

“So people always fancy when they observe upon nothing, or upon what they know nothing about, Fanny. But I thought you were convinced, some time ago, that you should not watch people’s countenances, to find out what they are thinking, any more than—”

“I should read a letter they are writing,” interrupted Fanny. “Well, I beg your pardon, Miss Young; but I really thought I saw you looking at cousin Margaret’s face. However, I dare say everybody supposes the same,—that Mr Enderby would not have been here now if Mrs Rowland had not gone away. You need not mind Mary and me, Miss Young; you know we hear all about Mrs Rowland at home.”

“I know you are apt to fancy that you understand all about Mrs Rowland, my dear; but perhaps Mrs Rowland herself might happen to differ from you, if she could look into your mind. It is for you to settle with yourself, whether you think she would be satisfied that you have done by her as you would have her do by you. This is your own affair, Fanny; so now, without any one trying to see in your face what you think of yourself, we will go to our business.”

The scratching of pens in the exercise-books, and the turning over of the dictionary, now proceeded for some time in profound silence, in the midst of which Margaret stole back to her corner.

“There goes twelve!” softly exclaimed Mary. “Mamma said we might go with her to call at cousin Hester’s, if we were home and ready by half-past twelve. We shall not have nearly done, Miss Young.”

Miss Young did not take the hint. She only said—

“Is your mamma going to call on Mrs Hope? Then, Margaret, do not let us detain you here. You will wish to be at home, I am sure.”

Never, as Maria supposed, had Margaret more impatiently desired to be at home. Though accustomed to go in and out of Maria’s abode, with or without reason assigned, she had not now ventured to move, though the little room felt like a prison. An awkward consciousness had fixed her to her seat. Now, however, she made haste to depart, promising to visit her friend again very soon. The little girls wanted her to arrange to come every morning, and stay all the time of lessons: but Margaret declined making any such engagement.

As she went home, she scarcely raised her eyes, for fear of seeing him; and yet she lingered for an instant at her brother’s door, from a feeling of disappointment at having met no one she knew.

She had fully and undoubtingly intended to tell Hester of Philip’s arrival; but when she had taken off her bonnet, and settled herself beside her sister in the drawing-room, she found that it was quite impossible to open the subject. While she was meditating upon this, the entrance of the Greys seemed to settle the matter. She supposed they would make the disclosure for her: but she soon perceived that they had not heard the news. Mrs Grey went on quoting Mrs Enderby and Phoebe, and Sophia remarked on the forsaken condition of the old lady, in a way which was quite incompatible with any knowledge of the new aspect which affairs had assumed this morning. It was a great relief to Margaret to be spared the discussion of a fact on which so much was to be said; but lo! in the midst of a flow of talk about fomentations, and the best kind of night-light for a sick room, there was a knock at the door, every stroke of which was recognised to a certainty by Margaret. While the other ladies were pushing back their chairs, to break up the appearance of a gossip, and make room for another party of visitors, Margaret was wholly occupied with contriving to sit upright, notwithstanding the dimness that came over her sight.

It was he. He entered the room quickly, looked taller than ever, as Sophia thought to herself, and more than ever like a Polish Count, now that his blue great-coat was buttoned up to the chin. He stopped for half a moment on seeing ladies in cloaks and bonnets, and then came forward, and shook hands with everybody. Hester observed that he looked full at Margaret as he held out his hand to her; but Margaret did not see this, for, though she commanded herself wonderfully, she could not meet his eye. Of course, he was asked when he arrived, and had to answer the question, and also the remarks which were made on the length of his absence, and on the expectations of everybody in Deerbrook that he would have visited the old place at Christmas or New Year. He was then pitied on account of the state of his mother’s health. To this he made no reply whatever; but when Mrs Grey inquired how he found Mrs Enderby, he briefly—somewhat abruptly—answered that he thought her very ill. It was equally impossible for Margaret to sit totally silent while all this was going on, and to address herself to him: she therefore kept some conversation with Sophia on the greenhouse, and the fate of the evergreens in the shrubbery, in consequence of the severity of the frost in January—which laurestinus had been lost, and how the arbutus had suffered, and how long it would be before the laurels on the grass could grow up to their former size and beauty. While Sophia was telling that the greenhouse occupied a great deal of time, and that she had therefore turned over her interest in it to Sydney, and begged the little girls to divide her garden between them, Mr Enderby was seen to take Hester into the window, and after remarking upon the snowdrops beneath, to speak privately to her. Margaret was afraid Mrs Grey would take the hint, and go away. Her presence now appeared a sort of protection, which Margaret exerted herself to retain, by not allowing the conversation to flag. She need not have feared; Mrs Grey was turning over in her mind how she might best introduce her congratulations on Mr Enderby’s engagement, and her inquiries after Miss Bruce’s welfare—topics on which she conceived that good manners required her to enter. Meantime, Mr Enderby had been saying to Hester:

“You will excuse the offer of my good wishes on your settlement here being briefly and hastily made; but I am at this moment in great anxiety. Is Hope at home?”

“No: he is some miles off in the country.”

“Then I must charge you with a message to him. I think my mother very ill; and I find it is some time since Hope has seen her. Will you beg him to come to her without loss of time, when he returns?”

“Certainly; he will be home within two or three hours, I have no doubt.”

“And then ask him whether he will not prescribe a visit from you to my mother. It will do her good, I am confident. You know she is all alone now with her maid.”

“I am aware of that. It is not from negligence or disinclination, I assure you, that we have seen so little of Mrs Enderby for some time past.”

“I know it, I know it,” said he, shaking his head. Then, after a pause— “Shall you be at home this evening?”

“Yes.”

“And alone?”

“Yes. Will you come?”

“Thank you; I will come in for an hour. I shall then hear Hope’s report of my mother; and—between ourselves—I want a few words with your sister. Can you manage this for me?”

“No doubt.”

He was gone in another moment, with a bow to the whole party.

“Gone!” cried Mrs Grey; “and I have not said a word to him about his engagement and Miss Bruce! How very odd he must think us, Sophia!”

“There will be plenty of time for all we have to say,” observed Hester. “He is so uneasy about his mother, I see, that he will not leave her yet awhile.”

Margaret was sure she perceived in her sister’s beautiful eye and lip the subtle expression of amusement that they bore when a gay thought was in her mind, or when her neighbours were setting off in speculation on a wrong scent.

“But half the grace of one’s good wishes is in their being offered readily,” said Mrs Grey, “as I was saying to Sophia, the other day, when we were considering whether Mr Grey should not write to Mr Enderby with our congratulations. We should not like to appear backward on such an occasion, for many reasons. Well now, my dears; one thing more. You must come to tea with us this evening. It will be a mild evening, I have no doubt; and I have sent to Miss Young, to say that my sedan will bring her at six o’clock. We have quite set our hearts upon having you for a sociable evening.”

“Thank you,” said Hester: “we would come with great pleasure, but that we are engaged.”

“Engaged, my dear! Margaret has just told us that you have no engagement.”

“So Margaret thought: but we are engaged. A friend of Mr Hope’s is coming to spend the evening, and I promised that we would be at home.”

“Dear!” said Sophia; “and we had quite set our hearts upon your coming.”

“Cannot you bring the gentleman with you, my dear? I am sure Mr Grey will be happy to see any friend of Mr Hope’s.”

“Thank you; but he is coming on business.”

“Oh, well! But Margaret can be spared, surely. I suppose you must stay and make tea, my dear. It would not do, I know, for you to appear to neglect your husband’s country patients—particularly in the present state of affairs. But Margaret can come, surely. Sydney shall step for her, a little before six.”

“Oh, yes,” said Sophia; “Margaret can come. The gentleman can have no business with her, I suppose.”

Margaret was again puzzled with the fun that lurked in the eye and lip. She had been passive till now; but seeing Hester’s determination that she should not go, she said very decidedly that she should much prefer coming some evening when her brother and sister need not be left behind.

“Mrs Grey is not very well pleased,” observed Margaret, when their visitors were gone. “Could not you have been a little more explicit as to this gentleman, whoever he may be?”

“I thought it better not to say more,” said Hester, now unable to help stealing a glance at her sister. “Our visitor is to be Mr Enderby. He is so uneasy about his mother, that my husband is to see her this afternoon; and Mr Enderby offers to come in the evening, to discuss her case.” After a slight pause, Hester continued— “Sophia was very positive about its being impossible that our visitor could have any business with you—was not she?”

“Oh, Hester!” said Margaret, imploringly, with her eyes full of tears.

“Well, well,” said Hester, remembering how cruel this speech might appear to her sister, “I ought not to speak to you from my own habitual disbelief of Mrs Rowland’s news. I will go away, dear; only just saying, first, that I like Philip’s looks very well. He does not seem happier than he ought to be, while his mother is so ill: nor does he act as if he felt he had neglected us, his old friends. As my husband says, we must hear his own story before we judge him.”

When she left the room, Margaret could not have settled with herself whether there was most pain or pleasure in the prospect of this evening. Five minutes before, she had believed that she should spend it at the Greys’—should hear the monotonous hiss of the urn, which seemed to take up its song, every time she went, where it had left off last—should see Mrs Grey’s winks from behind it—should have the same sort of cake, cut by Sophia into pieces of exactly the same size—should hear Sydney told to be quiet, and the little girls to go to bed—should have to play Mrs Grey’s favourite waltz, and sing Mr Grey’s favourite song—and at last, to refuse a glass of sherry three times over, and come away, after hearing much wonder expressed that the evening was gone already. Now, instead of this, there was to be the fear and constraint of Philip’s presence, so unlike what that had ever been before!—no longer gay, easy, and delightful, but all that was awkward. No one would be sure of what the others were feeling; or whether there was any sufficient reason for their mutual feelings being so changed. Who would find the conversation? What could be talked about which would not bring one or another into collision with Mrs Rowland or Miss Bruce? But yet, there would be his presence, and with it, bliss. There would be his very voice; and something of his thoughts could not but come out. She was better pleased than if his evening was to be spent anywhere else.

Dinner passed, she did not know how, except that her brother thought Mrs Enderby not materially worse than when he saw her last. The tea-tray came and stood an hour—Mr Hope being evidently restless and on the watch. He said at last that it would be better to get tea over before Enderby came; and Margaret repeated in her own mind that it was less awkward; and yet she was disappointed. The moment the table was cleared, his knock was heard. He would not have tea: he had been making his mother’s tea, and had had a cup with her. And now, what was Hope’s judgment on her state of health?

The gentlemen had scarcely entered upon the subject when a note was brought in for Margaret. Everything made her nervous; but the purport of this note was merely to ask for a book which she had promised to lend Mrs Levitt. As she went up to her room for it, she was vexed that the interruption had occurred now; and was heartily angry with herself that she could command herself no better, and be no more like other people than she fancied she had been this day. “There is Hester,” thought she, “looking nothing less than merry, and talking about whatever occurs, as if nothing had happened since we met him last; while I sit, feeling like a fool, with not a word to say, and no courage to say it if I had. I wonder whether I have always been as insignificant and dull as I have seen myself to be to-day. I do not believe I ever thought about the matter before: I wish I could forget it now.” Notwithstanding her feeling of insignificance in the drawing-room, however, she was so impatient to be there again that her hands trembled with eagerness in doing up the parcel for Mrs Levitt.

When she re-entered the drawing-room, Philip was there alone—standing by the fire. Margaret’s first impulse was to retreat; but her better judgment prevailed in time to intercept the act. Philip said:

“Mr and Mrs Hope have, at my desire, given me the opportunity of speaking to you alone. You must not refuse to hear what I have to say, because it is necessary to the vindication of my honour;—and it is also due to another person.”

Of course, Margaret sat down. She seemed to intend to speak, and Philip waited to hear her; but no words came, so he went on.

“You have been told, I find, that I have been for some time engaged to a lady who is now at Rome—Miss Bruce. How such a notion originated, we need not inquire. The truth is, that I am but slightly acquainted with Miss Bruce, and that nothing has ever occurred which could warrant such a use of that lady’s name. I heard nothing of this till to-day, and—”

“Is it possible?” breathed Margaret.

“I was shocked to hear of it from my poor mother; but infinitely more shocked—grieved to the very soul, to find that you, Margaret, believed it.”

“How could we help it? It was your sister who told us.”

“What does my sister know of me compared with you? I thought—I hoped—but I see now that I was presumptuous—I thought that you knew me enough, and cared for me enough, to understand my mind, and trust my conduct through whatever you might hear of me from others. I have been deceived—I mean I have deceived myself, as to the relation in which we stand. I do not blame you, Margaret—that is, I will not if I can help it—for what you have given credit to about me; but I did not think you would have mortified me so deeply.”

“You are partly wrong now; you are unjust at this moment,” replied Margaret, looking up with some spirit. “I do not wish to speak of Mrs Rowland—but remember, your mother never doubted what your sister said; the information was given in such a way as left almost an impossibility of disbelief. There was nothing to set against the most positive assurances—nothing from you—not a word to any of your old friends—”

“And there was I, working away on a new and good plan of life, living for you, and counting the weeks and days between me and the time when I might come and show you what your power over me had enabled me to do—and you were all the while despising or forgetting me, allowing me no means of defending myself, yielding me up to dishonour with a mere shake of the head, as if I had been an acquaintance of two or three ball-nights. It is clear that you knew my mind no better than I now find I knew yours.”

“What would you have had me do?” asked Margaret, with such voice as she had.

“I believe I had not thought of that,” said Philip, half laughing. “I only felt that you ought to have trusted me—that you must have known that I loved neither Miss Bruce, nor any one but you; and that I could not be engaged to any one while I loved you.—Tell me at once, Margaret—did I not deserve this much from you?”

“You did,” said Margaret, distinctly. “But there is another way of viewing the whole, which does not seem to have occurred to you. I have been to blame, perhaps; but if you had thought of the other possibility—”

“What other? Oh! do speak plainly.”

“I must, at such a time as this. If I could not think you guilty, I might fancy myself to have been mistaken.”

“And did you fancy so? Did you suppose I neither loved you, nor meant you to think that I did?”

“I did conclude myself mistaken.”

“Oh, Margaret! I should say—if I dared—that such a thought—such humility, such generosity—could come of nothing but love.”

Margaret made no reply. They understood one another too completely for words. Even in the first gush of joy, there was intense bitterness in the thought of what Margaret must have suffered; and Philip vowed, in the bottom of his soul, that his whole life should be devoted to make her forget it. He could have cursed his sister with equal energy.

There was no end to what had to be said. Philip was impatient to tell what he had been doing, and the reasons of the whole of his conduct. Margaret’s views had become his own, as to the desultoriness of the life he had hitherto led. He had applied himself diligently to the study of the law, intending to prove to himself and to her, that he was capable of toil, and of a steady aim at an object in life, before he asked her to decide what their relation to each other was henceforth to be.

“Surely,” said he, “you might have discovered this much from my letters to my mother.”

“And how were we to know what was in your letters to your mother?”

“Do you mean that you have not read or heard them all this time?”

“Not a word for these three months. We have scarcely seen her for many weeks past; and then she merely showed us what long letters you wrote her.”

“And they were all written for you! She told me, the last time I was here, that she could keep nothing from you: and, relying upon her words, I have supposed this to be a medium of communication between us throughout. I could have no other, you know. When did my mother leave off reading my letters to you?”

“From the week you went away last. Mrs Rowland came in while we were in the midst of one; and the consequence was—”

“That you have been in the dark about me ever since. You saw that I did write?”

“Yes. I have seen most of the post-marks—and the interiors—upside down. But Mrs Rowland was always there—or else Phoebe.”

“And have you really known nothing about me whatever?”

“Little George told me that you had lessons to learn, very hard and very long, and, if possible, more difficult than his.”

“And did not you see then that I was acting upon your views?”

“I supposed Miss Bruce might have had them first.”

“Miss Bruce!” he cried, in a tone of annoyance. “I know nothing of Miss Bruce’s views on any subject. I cannot conceive how my sister got such a notion into her head—why she selected her.”

Margaret was going to mention the “sisterly affection” which had long subsisted between Miss Bruce and Mrs Rowland, according to the latter; but it occurred to her that it was just possible that Philip might not be altogether so indifferent to Miss Bruce as Miss Bruce was to him; and this thought sealed her lips.

“I wonder whether Rowland believed it all the time,” said Philip: “and Hope? It was unworthy of Hope’s judgment—of his faith—to view the case so wrongly.”

“I am glad you are beginning to be angry with somebody else,” said Margaret. “Your wrath seemed all to be for me: but your old friends, even to your mother, appear to have had no doubt about the matter.”

“There is an excuse for them which I thought you had not. I am an altered man, Margaret—you cannot conceive how altered since I began to know you. They judged of me by what I was once... We will not say how lately.”

“I assure you I do not forget the accounts you used to give of yourself.”

“What accounts?”

“Of how you found life pleasant enough without philosophy and without anything to do... and other wise sayings of the kind.”

“It is by such things that those who knew me long ago have judged me lately—a retribution which I ought not to complain of. If they believed me fickle, idle, selfish, it is all fair. Oh! Margaret, men know nothing of morals till they know women.”

“Are you serious?”

“I am solemnly persuaded of it. Happy they who grow up beside mothers and sisters whom they can revere! But for this, almost all men would be without earnestness of heart—without a moral purpose—without generosity, while they are all the while talking of honour. It was so with me before I knew you. I am feeble enough, and selfish enough yet, God knows! but I hope still to prove that you have made a man of me, out of a light, selfish... But what right have I, you may think, to ask you to rely upon me, when I have so lately been what I tell you. I did not mean to ask you yet. This very morning, nothing could be further from my intentions. I do not know how long I should have waited before I should have dared. My sister has rendered me an inestimable service amidst all the mischief she did me. I thank her. Ah! Margaret, you smile!”

Margaret smiled again. The smile owned that she was thinking the same thing about their obligations to Mrs Rowland.

“Whatever you might have said to me this evening,” continued Philip, “if your regard for me had proved to have been quite overthrown—if you had continued to despise me, as you must have done at times—I should still have blessed you, all my life—I should have worshipped you, as the being who opened a new world to me. You lifted me out of a life of trifling—of trifling which I thought very elegant at the time—trifling with my own time and faculties—trifling with other people’s serious business—trifling with something more serious still, I fear—with their feelings. As far as I remember, I thought all this manly and refined enough: and but for you, I should have thought so still. You early opened my eyes to all the meanness and gross selfishness of such a life: and if you were never to let me see you again, I believe I could not fall back into the delusion. But if you will be the guide of my life—”

Margaret sighed deeply. Even at this moment of vital happiness, her thoughts rested on her sister. She remembered what Hester’s anticipations had been, in prospect of having Edward for the guide of her life.

“I frighten you, I see,” said Philip, “with my confessions; but, be the consequences what they may, I must speak, Margaret. If you despise me, I must do you the justice, and give myself the consolation, of acknowledging what I have been, and what I owe to you.”

“It is not that,” said Margaret. “Let the past go. Let it be forgotten in reaching forward to better things. But do not let us be confident about the future. I have seen too much of that. We must not provide for disappointment. Let us leave it till it comes. Surely,” she added, with a gentle smile, “we have enough for the present. I cannot look forward yet.”

“How you must have suffered!” cried Philip, in a tone of grief. “You have lost some of your confidence, love. You did not cling to the present, and shrink from the future when... Oh, it is bitter, even now, to think, that while I was working on, in hope and resolution, you were suffering here, making it a duty to extinguish your regard for me, I all the time toiling to deserve it—and there was no one to set us right, and the whole world in league to divide us.”

“That is all over now.”

“But not the consequences, Margaret. They have shaken you: they have made you know doubt and fear.”

“We are both changed, Philip. We are older, and I trust it will appear that we are wiser than we were. Yes, older. There are times in one’s life when days do the work of years and our days have been of that kind. You have discovered a new life, and my wishes and expectations are much altered. They may not be fewer, or less bright, but they are very different.”

“If they were pure from fears—”

“They are pure from fears. At this moment I can fear nothing. We have been brought together by the unquestionable Providence which rules our lives; and this is enough. The present is all right; and the future, which is to come out of it, will be all right in its way. I have no fear—but I do not want to anticipate. This hour with its satisfactions, is all that I can bear.”

Notwithstanding this, and Philip’s transport in learning it, they did go back, again and again, into the past; and many a glance did they cast into the future. There was no end to their revelations of the circumstances of the last two months, and of the interior history which belonged to them. At last, the burning out of one of the candles startled them into a recollection of how long their conversation had lasted, and of the suspense in which Edward and Hester had been kept. Enderby offered to go and tell them the fact which they must be anticipating: and, after having agreed that no one else should know at present—that Miss Bruce’s name should be allowed to die out of Deerbrook speculations, for Mrs Rowland’s sake, before any other was put in its place, Philip left his Margaret, and went into the breakfast-room, where his presence was not wholly unexpected.

In five minutes, Margaret heard the hall door shut, and, in another moment, her brother and sister came to her. Hester’s face was all smiles and tears: her mind all tumult with the vivid recollection of her own first hours of happy hopeful love, mingled with the griefs which always lay heavy within her, and with that warm attachment to her sister which circumstances occasionally exalted into a passion.

“We ought to rejoice with nothing but joy, Margaret,” said she: “but I cannot see how we are to spare you. I do not believe I can live without you.”

Her husband started at this echo of the thoughts for which he was at the moment painfully rebuking himself. He had nothing to say; but gave his greeting in a brotherly kiss, like that which he had offered on his marriage with her sister, and on his entrance upon his home.

“How quiet, how very quiet she is!” exclaimed Hester, an Margaret left the room, after a few words on the events of the evening, and a calm good-night. “I hope it is all right. I hope she is quite satisfied.”

“Satisfied is the word,” said her husband. “People are quiet when they are relieved—calm when they are satisfied—people like Margaret. It is only great minds, I believe, which feel real satisfaction.”

Hester gave him pain by a deep sigh. She was thinking how seldom, and for how short a time, she had ever felt real satisfaction.

“And how often, and for how long,” she asked, “do great minds find themselves in that heaven?”

“By the blessing of God, not seldom, I trust,” replied he; “though not so often as, by obeying their nature, they might. Intellectual satisfaction is perhaps not for this world, except in a few of the inspired hours of the Newtons and the Bacons, who are sent to teach what the human intellect is. But as often as a great mind meets with full moral sympathy—as often as it is loved in return for love—as often as it confides itself unreservedly to the good Power which bestowed its existence, and appointed all its attributes, I imagine it must repose in satisfaction.”

“Then satisfaction ought to be no new feeling to Margaret,” said Hester. “She always loves every one: she meets with sympathy wherever she turns; and I believe she has faith enough for a martyr, without knowing it. Ought not she—must not she, have often felt real satisfaction?”

“Yes.”

“I wonder you dole out your words so sparingly about such a being as Margaret,” said Hester, resentfully. “I can tell you, Edward, though you take so coolly the privilege of having such a one so nearly connected with you, you might search the world in vain for her equal. You little know the wealth of her heart and soul, Edward. I ask you whether she does not deserve to feel full satisfaction of conscience and affections, and you just answer ‘Yes,’ with as much languor as if I had asked you whether the clock has struck eleven yet! I can tell you this—I have said in my own heart, and just to Morris, for years, that the happiest man of his generation will be he who has Margaret for a wife: and here you, who ought to know this, give me a grudging ‘Yes,’ in answer to the first question, arising out of my reverence for Margaret, that I ever asked you!”

“You mistake me,” replied Hope, in a tone of gentleness which touched her very soul. “One’s words may be restrained by reverence as well as by want of heart. I regard Margaret with a reverence which I should not have thought it necessary to put into words for your conviction.”

“Oh, I am wrong—as I always am!” cried Hester. “You must forgive me again, as you do far, far too often. But tell me, Edward, ought not Margaret’s husband to be the happiest man living?”

“Yes,” said Edward, with a smile. “Will that do this time?”

“Oh, yes, yes,” replied she—the thought passing through her mind, that, whether or not her husband excepted himself as a matter of course, she should not have asked a question to which she could not bear all possible answers. Even if he meant that Margaret’s husband might be a happier man than himself, it was only too true. As quick as lightning these thoughts passed through her mind, and, apparently without a pause, she went on, “And now, as to Enderby—is he worthy to be this happy husband? Does he deserve her?”

Mr Hope did pause before he replied:

“I think we had better dwell as little as we can on that point of the story—not because I am afraid—(do not take fright and suppose I mean more than I say)—not because I am afraid, but because we can do nothing, discern nothing, about it. Time must show what Enderby is—or rather, what he has the power of becoming. Meanwhile, the thing is settled. They love and have promised, and are happy. Let us shun all comparison of the one with the other of them, and hope everything from him.”

“There will be some amusement,” said Hester, after a smiling reverie, “in having this secret to ourselves for a time, while all the rest of Deerbrook is so busy with a different idea and expectation. How will Mrs Rowland bear it?”

“Mrs Grey might have said that,” said Hope, laughing.

“Well, but is it not true? Will it not be very amusing to see the circulation of stories about Miss Bruce, given ‘from the best authority,’ and to have all manner of news told us about Philip; and to watch how Mrs Rowland will get out of the scrape she is in? Surely, Edward, you are not above being amused with all this?”

“I shall be best pleased when it is all over. I have lived some years longer than you in Deerbrook, and have had more time to get tired of its mysteries and mistakes.”

“For your comfort, then, it cannot be long before all is open and rightly understood. We need only leave Mrs Rowland time to extricate herself, I suppose. I wonder how she will manage it.”

“We shall be taken by surprise with some clever device, I dare say. It is a pity so much ingenuity should be wasted on mischief.”

Chapter Twenty Seven.

A Morning in March.

Margaret was as calm as she appeared to be. To a nature like hers, blissful repose was congenial, and anxiety both appeared and felt unnatural. In her there was no weak wonder that Providence had blessed her as she felt she was blessed. While she suffered, she concluded with certainty that the suffering was for some good purpose; but no degree of happiness took her by surprise, or seemed other than a natural influence shed by the great Parent into the souls of his children. She had of late been fearfully shaken,—not in her faith, but in her serenity. In a moment this experience appeared like a sick dream, and her present certainty of being beloved spread its calm over her lately-troubled spirit, somewhat as her nightly devotions had done from her childhood upwards. Even now, it was little that she thought of herself: her recovered Philip filled her mind—he who had been a stranger—who had been living in a world of which she could conceive nothing—who had suddenly vanished from her companionship, as if an earthquake had swallowed him up—and who was now all her own again, by her side, and to be lived for. Amidst this security, this natural and delightful state of things, that restless uneasiness—now jealousy, and now self-abasement—which she had called her own vanity and selfishness, disappeared, and she felt like one who has escaped from the horrors of a feverish bed into the cool fragrant airs and mild sunshine of the early morning. Anxieties soon arose—gentle doubts expressing themselves in soft sighs, which were so endeared by the love from which they sprang that she would not have banished them if she could—anxieties lest she should be insufficient for Philip’s happiness, lest he should overrate the peace of home, which she now knew was not to be looked for in full measure there, any more than in other scenes of human probation. Gentle questionings like these there were; but they tended rather to preserve than to disturb her calmness of spirit. Misery had broken her sleep by night, and constrained her conduct by day. Happy love restored her at once to her natural mood, lulling her to the deepest rest when she rested, and rendering her free and self-possessed in all the employments and intercourses of life.

There was one person who must not be kept waiting for this intelligence till Mrs Rowland’s return—as Margaret told Philip—and that was Maria. Philip’s heart was now overflowing with kindness towards all whom Margaret loved; and he spoke with strong interest of Maria, of her virtues, her misfortunes, and the grace and promise which once bloomed in her.

“You knew her before her misfortunes then?”

“To be sure I did:— that was the time when I did know her; for, as you may perceive, there is not much opportunity now. And, besides, she is so totally changed, that I do not feel sure that I understand her feelings—I am too much in awe of them to approach her very nearly. Oh yes, I knew Maria Young once, much better than I know her now.”

“She never told me so. How very strange!”

“Does she ever speak of any other circumstance of her prosperous days?”

“That is true, only incidentally.”

“Time was,” said Philip, “when some boyish dreams connected themselves with Maria Young—only transiently, and quite at the bottom of my own fancy. I never spoke of them to any one before, nor fully acknowledged them to myself. She was the first sensible woman I ever knew—the first who conveyed to me any conception of what the moral nature of a woman may be, under favourable circumstances. For this I am under great obligations to her; and this is all the feeling that I brought out of our intercourse. It might possibly have come to more, but that I disliked her father excessively, and left off going there on that account. What a selfish wretch I was in those days! I can hardly believe it now; but I distinctly remember rejoicing, on hearing of her accident, that my esteem for her had not passed into a warmer feeling, as I should then have suffered so much on her account.”

“Is it possible?” cried Margaret, who, in the midst of the unpleasant feeling excited by this fact, did not fail to remark to herself that there could have been no love in such a case.

“I ought, for my own sake, however, Margaret, to say that Maria Young had not the slightest knowledge of her influence over me—superficial and transient as it was. I never conveyed it to her by word or act; and I am thankful I did not—for this reason among many—that I am now perfectly free to show her all the kindness she deserves, both from her own merits, and from her being a beloved friend of yours.”

Margaret had no doubt of Philip’s full conviction of what he was saying; but she was far from certain that he was not mistaken—that looks and tones might not have communicated what words and acts had been forbidden to convey. She thought of Maria’s silence about her former acquaintance with Philip, of her surprising knowledge of his thoughts and ways, betraying itself to a vigilant observer through the most trivial conversation, and of her confession that there had been an attachment to some one: and, thinking of these things, her heart melted within her for her friend. She silently resolved upon the only method she could think of, to spare her feelings. She would write the news of this engagement, instead of going to tell it, as she had intended. She was confident that it would be no surprise to Maria; but Maria should have time and solitude in which to reconcile herself to it.

What was to be done about Mrs Enderby? She had been told at once, on Philip’s arrival, that it was all a mistake about Miss Bruce; and she had appeared relieved when freed from the image of an unknown daughter-in-law. Philip and Margaret agreed that they must deny themselves the pleasure of revealing the rest of the truth to her, till it had been inflicted upon Mrs Rowland. Mrs Enderby would never be able to keep it from the Greys; and she would be disturbed and alarmed in the expectation of the scenes which might ensue, when Mrs Rowland should discover that her brother meant to choose his wife for himself, instead of taking one of her selection. Margaret must go and see his mother as often as possible, but her new interest in her old friend must be concealed for the present. How Margaret—motherless for so many long years—felt her heart yearn towards the old lady, who seemed to be everybody’s charge, but whom she felt now to be a sacred object of her care!

The lovers immediately experienced some of the evils attendant on concealment, in the difficulty of meeting as freely as they wished. There was the breakfast-room at Mr Hope’s for them; and, by a little management on the part of brother and sister, a branching off in country walks, out of sight of the good people of Deerbrook. In company, too, they were always together, and without awkwardness. True lovers do not want to talk together in company; they had rather not. It is enough to be in mutual presence; and they have nothing to say at such times, and prefer joining in what everybody else is saying. When Philip had once put a stop to all congratulations about Miss Bruce, by earnestly and most respectfully, though gaily, releasing that lady’s name from all connection with his own, no further awkwardness remained. He treated the affair as one of the false reports which are circulating every day, and left it for his sister to explain how she had been misled by it. It was amusing to the corner-house family to see that Mrs Grey and Sophia insisted on believing that either Mr Enderby was a rejected lover of Miss Bruce’s, or that it had been an engagement which was now broken off, or that it would soon be an engagement. The gay state of Enderby’s spirits accorded best with the latter supposition; but this gaiety might be assumed, to cover his mortification. Margaret was daily made a listener to one or other of these suppositions.

One bright, mild, March day, Hester and Margaret were accompanying Philip to Mr Rowland’s to call on Mrs Enderby, when they met Mr Rowland in the street,—returned the evening before from Cheltenham.

“Ladies, your most obedient!” said he, stopping up the path before them. “I was on my way to call on you; but if you will step in to see Mrs Enderby, we can have our chat there.” And he at once offered his arm to Margaret, bestowing a meaning smile on Hester. As soon as they were fairly on their way, he entered at once on the compliments it had been his errand to pay, but spoke for himself alone.

“I did not write,” said he, “because I expected to deliver my good wishes in person so soon; but they are not the less hearty for being a little delayed. I find, however, that I am still beforehand with my neighbours—that even Mrs Enderby does not know, nor my partner’s family. All in good time: but I am sorry for this mistake about the lady. It is rather awkward. I do not know where Mrs Rowland got her information, or what induced her to rely so implicitly upon it. All I can say is, that I duly warned her to be sure of her news before she regularly announced it. But I believe such reports—oftener unfounded than true—have been the annoyance of young people ever since there has been marriage and giving in marriage. We have all suffered in our turn, I dare say, though the case is not always so broad an one as this.—Come, Mr Philip, what are you about? Standing there, and keeping the ladies standing! and I do believe you have not knocked. Our doors do not open of themselves, though it be to let in the most welcome guests in the world. Now, ladies, will you walk in? Philip will prepare Mrs Enderby to expect you up-stairs; and, meanwhile, let me show you what a splendid jonquil we have in blow here.”

The day was so mild, and the sun shone into the house so pleasantly, that Mrs Enderby had been permitted to leave her chamber, and establish herself for the day in the drawing-room. There she was found in a flutter of pleasure at the change of scene. Matilda’s canary sang in the sunshine; Philip had filled the window with flowering plants for his mother, and the whole room was fragrant with his hyacinths. The little Greys had sent Mrs Enderby a bunch of violets; Phoebe had made bold, while the gardener was at breakfast, to abstract a bough from the almond tree on the grass; and its pink blossoms now decked the mantelpiece. These things were almost too much for the old lady. Her black eyes looked rather too bright, and her pale thin face twitched when she spoke. She talked a great deal about the goodness of everybody to her, and said it was almost worth while being ever so ill to find one’s self so kindly regarded. It rejoiced her to see her friends around her again in this way. It was quite a meeting of friends again. If only her dear Priscilla, and the sweet children, had been here!—it was a great drawback, certainly, their being away, but she hoped they would soon be back; if they had been here, there would have been nothing left to wish. Hester asked if Mr Hope had visited her this morning. She had rather expected to meet him here, and had brought something for him which he had wished very much to have—a letter from his brother in India. She was impatient till it was in his hands. Had he made his call, or might she expect him presently? Mrs Enderby seemed to find difficulty in comprehending the question; and then she could not recollect whether Mr Hope had paid his visit this morning or not. She grew nervous at her own confusion of mind—talked faster than ever; and, at last, when the canary sang out a sudden loud strain, she burst into tears.

“We are too much for her,” said Hester; “let us go, we have been very wrong.”

“Yes, go,” said Philip, “and send Phoebe. You will find your way into the garden, and I will join you there presently. Rowland, you will go with them.”

Margaret cast a beseeching look at Philip, and he gratefully permitted her to stay. Hester carried off the canary. Margaret drew down the blinds, and then kneeled by Mrs Enderby, soothing and speaking cheerfully to her, while tears, called up by a strange mixture of emotions, were raining down her cheeks. Philip stood by the mantelpiece, weeping without restraint; the first time that Margaret had ever seen tears from him.

“I am a silly old woman,” said Mrs Enderby, half laughing in the midst of her sobs. “Here comes Phoebe—Phoebe, I have been very silly, and I hardly know what about, I declare. My dear!” she exclaimed as she felt tears drop upon the hand which Margaret was chafing—“my dear Miss Ibbotson—”

“Oh! call me Margaret!”

“But, my dear, I am afraid there is something the matter, after all. Something has happened.”

“Oh, dear, no, ma’am!” said Phoebe. “Only we don’t like to see you in this way.”

“There is nothing the matter, I assure you,” said Margaret. “We were too much for you; we tired you; and we are very sorry—that is all. But the room will be kept quite quiet now, and you will soon feel better.”

“I am better, my dear, thank you. How are you sitting so low? Bless me! you are kneeling. Pray, my dear, rise. To think of your kneeling to take care of me!”

“Give me one kiss, and I will rise,” said Margaret, bending over her. It was a hearty kiss which Mrs Enderby gave her, for the old lady put all her energy into it. Margaret rose satisfied; she felt as if she had been accepted for a daughter.

As soon as Mrs Enderby appeared disposed to shut her eyes and lie quiet, Philip and Margaret withdrew, leaving her to Phoebe’s care. Arm-in-arm they sauntered about the walks, till they came upon Hester and Mr Rowland, who were sitting in the sun, under the shelter of an evergreen hedge.

“Have you heard nothing of my husband yet?” asked Hester. “I do wish he would come, and read this letter from Frank.”

“Her anxiety is purely disinterested,” said Margaret to Philip. “There can be nothing about her in that letter. His greetings to her will come in the next.”

“Edward enjoys Frank’s letters above everything,” observed Hester.

“Suppose you go in next door, and we will send Hope to you when he comes,” said Philip, intending thus to set Mr Rowland free, to dismiss Hester, and have Margaret to himself for a garden walk.

“The Greys are all out for the day,” observed Mr Rowland; “my partner and all; and this must be my excuse to you, ladies, for wishing you a good morning. There is a lighter at the wharf down there, whose lading waits for me.”

“Ay, go,” said Philip: “we have detained you long enough. We will find our way by some means into the Greys’ grounds, and amuse ourselves there. If you will bid one of your people call us when Hope comes, we shall hear.”

By the help of an overturned wheelbarrow, and some activity, and at the expense of a very little detriment to the hedge, the ladies were presently landed on Mr Grey’s territories. By common consent, the three directed their steps towards the end of the green walk, whence might be seen the prospect of which the sisters were never tired. A purple and golden crocus peeped up here and there from the turf of this walk; there was a wilderness of daffodils on either side, the blossoms just bursting from their green sheaths; the periwinkle, with its starry flowers and dark shining sprays, overran the borders; and the hedge which bounded the walk was red with swollen buds. As the gazers leaned on this close-clipped, compact hedge, they overlooked a wide extent of country. They stood on a sort of terrace, and below them was the field where the Greys’ pet animals were wont to range. The old pony trotted towards the terrace, as if expecting notice. Fanny’s and Mary’s lambs approached and looked up, as awaiting something good. Philip amused himself and them with odd noises, but had nothing better for them; and so they soon scampered off, the pony throwing out his hind legs as if in indignation at his bad entertainment. Beyond this field, a few white cottages, in the rear of the village, peeped out from the lanes, and seemed to sit down to rest in the meadows, so profound was the repose which they seemed to express. The river wound quietly through the green level, filling its channel, and looking pearly under the light spring sky; and behind it the woods uprose, their softened masses and outlines prophesying of leafy summer shades. Near at hand the air was alive with twitterings: afar off, nature seemed asleep, and nothing was seen to move but the broad sail of a wherry, and a diminished figure of a man beside his horse, bush-harrowing in a distant green field.

Hester judged rightly that the lovers would like to have this scene to themselves; and having surveyed it with that sigh of delight with which Spring causes the heart to swell, she softly stole away, and sauntered down the green walk. She proceeded till she reached a bench, whence she could gaze upon the grey old church tower, rising between the intervening trees, and at the same time overlook Mr Rowland’s garden. She had not sat many minutes before her husband leaped the hedge, and bounded over the grass towards her.

“What news?” cried he. “There is good news in your face.”

“There is good news in my bag, I trust.” And she produced the large square epistle, marked “Ship letter” in those red characters which have a peculiar power of making the heart beat. She did not wonder that her husband changed colour as she held up the letter. She knew that the arrival of news from Frank was a great event in life to Edward. She gloried in being, for the first time, the medium through which this rare pleasure reached him; and she longed to share, for the first time, the confidence of a brother. Margaret had for some months reposed upon the possession of a brother: she was now to have the same privilege. She made room upon the bench for her husband, and proposed to lose no time in reading the letter together. But Hope did not sit down, though, from his agitation, she would have supposed him glad of a seat. He said he would read in the shrubbery, and walked slowly away, breaking the seal as he went. Hester was rather disconcerted; but she suppressed her disappointment, begged him to take advantage of the bench, and herself retired into the orchard while he read his epistle. There, as she stood apparently amusing herself by the pond, wiping away a tear or two which would have way, she little imagined what agony her husband was enduring from this letter, which she was supposing must make his heart overflow with pleasure. The letter was half full of reply to Edward’s account of Margaret, in his epistle of last June—of raillery about her, of intreaty that Edward would give him such a sister-in-law, and of intimations that nothing could be more apparent than that the whole rich treasure of his heart’s love was Margaret’s own. Hope’s soul sickened as he read, with that deadly sickness which he had believed was past: but last June, with its delights and opening love, was too suddenly, and too vividly, re-awakened in his memory and imagination. The Margaret of yesterday, of last month, he trusted he had arrived at regarding as a sister: not so the Margaret of last summer. In vain he repeated, again and again, to himself, that he had expected this—that he always knew it must come—that this was the very thing, and no more, that he had been dreading for half a year past—that it was over now—that he ought to rejoice that he held in his hand the last witness and reminder of the mistake of his life. In vain did he repeat to himself these reasonable things—these satisfactory truths. They did not still the throbbing of his brain, or relieve the agony of his spirit;—an agony under which he could almost have cursed the hilarity of his brother as levity, and his hearty affection as cruel mockery. He recovered some breath and composure when he read the latter half of Frank’s volume of communication, and, before he had finished it, the sound of distant footsteps fell upon his excited ear. He knew they were coming—the three who would be full of expectation as to what he should have to tell them from India. It was they, walking very slowly, as if waiting for the news.

“Come!” said he, starting up, and going to meet them. “Now, to the green walk—we shall be quiet there—and I will read you all about Frank.”

He did read them all about Frank—all the last half of the letter—Hester hanging on his arm, and Philip and Margaret listening, as if they were taking in their share of family news. When it was done, and some one said it was time to be turning homewards, Hope disengaged his arm from Hester, and ran off, saying that he would report of Mrs Enderby to Mr Rowland in the office, and meet them before they should be out of the shrubbery. He did so: but he first took his way round by a fence which was undergoing the operation of tarring, thrust Frank’s letter into the fire over which the tar was heating, and saw every inch of it consumed before he proceeded. When he regained his party, Hester took his arm, and turned once more towards the shrubbery, saying—

“We have plenty of time, and I am not at all tired: so now read me the rest.”

“My love, I have read you all I can.”

Hester stopped short, and with flashing eyes, whose fire was scarcely dimmed by her tears, cried—

“Do you mean to give me no more of your confidence than others? Is your wife—”

“My dear, it is not my confidence: it is Frank’s.”

“And is not Frank my brother? He is nothing to them.”

“He was not your brother when this letter was written, nor did he know that he should ever be so. Consider this letter as one of old time—as belonging to the antiquity of our separate lives. I hope there will never be another letter from Frank, or anybody else (out of the range of my professional affairs) whose contents will not be as much yours as mine. This must satisfy you now, Hester; for I can tell you no more. This ought to satisfy you.”

“It does not satisfy me. I never will be satisfied with giving all, and having nothing in return. I have given you all. Not a thought has there been in my heart about Margaret, from the day we married, that I have not imparted to you. Has it not been so?”

“I believe it, and I thank you for it.”

“And what is it to you to have a sister—you who have always had sisters—what is it to you, in comparison with my longing to have a brother? And now you make him no more mine than he is Margaret’s and Philip’s. He himself, if he has the heart of a brother, would cry out upon you for disappointing me.”

“I can allow for your feelings, Hester. I have known too well what disappointment is, not to feel for you. But here the fault is not mine.”

“Whose is it then? It is to be charged upon Providence, I suppose, like most of our evils.”

“No, Hester; I charge it upon you. The disappointment was unavoidable; but the sting of it lies in yourself. You are unreasonable. It is at your own request that I remind you to be reasonable.”

“And when was that request made? When I believed that you would hold me your friend—that no others were to come near my place in your confidence—that all you cared for was to be equally mine—that your brother himself was to be my brother. It was when you promised me these things that I put my conscience and my feelings into your charge. But now all that is over. You are as much alone in your own soul as ever, and I am thrust out from it as if you were like other men... Oh!” she cried, covering her face with her hands, “call me your housekeeper at once—for I am not your wife—and breathe not upon my conscience—look not into my heart—for what are they to you? I reclaim from you, as your servant, the power I gave you over my soul, when I supposed I was to be your wife.”

“Now you must hear me, Hester. Sit down; for you cannot stand under the tempest of your own feelings. Now, what are the facts out of which all this has arisen? I have had a letter, written before we were known to be engaged, containing something which is confided to my honour. We had both rather that such had not been the case. Would you now have me violate my honour? Let us have done. The supposition is too ridiculous.”

“But the manner,” pleaded Hester. “It is not curiosity about the letter. I care nothing if it contained the affairs of twenty nations. But, oh! your manner was cruel. If you loved me as you once did, you could not treat me exactly as you treat Margaret and Philip. You do not love me as you once did... You do not answer me,” she continued in a tone of wretchedness. “Nay, do not answer me now. It will not satisfy me to hear you say upon compulsion that you love me. Ah! I had Margaret once; and once I had you. Philip has taken my Margaret from me; and if you despise me, I will lie down and die.”

“Fear not!” said Hope, with great solemnity. “While I live you shall be honoured, and have such rest as you will allow to your own heart. But do you not see that you have now been distrusting me—not I you? Shall I begin to question whether you love me? Could you complain of injustice if I did, when you have been tempting my honour, insulting my trust in you, and wounding my soul? Is this the love you imagine I cannot estimate and return? This is madness, Hester. Rouse yourself from it. Waken up the most generous part of yourself. We shall both have need of it all.”

“Oh, God! what do you intend? Consider again, before you break my heart, if you mean to say that we must... Edward! forgive me, Edward!”

“I mean to say that we must support each other under troubles of God’s sending, instead of creating woes of our own.”

“Support each other! Thank Heaven!”

“I see how your spirit rouses itself at the first sound of threatening from without. I knew it would. Rough and trying times are coming, love, and I must have your support. Trouble is coming—daily and hourly annoyance, and no end of it that I can see: and poverty, perhaps, instead of the ease to which we looked forward when you married me. I do not ask you whether you can bear these things, for I know you can. I shall look to you to help me to keep my temper.”

“Are you not mocking me?” doubtfully whispered Hester.

“No, my love,” her husband replied, looking calmly in her face. “I know you to be a friend made for adversity.”

“Let it come, then!” exclaimed she. And she felt herself on the threshold of a new life, in which all the past might yet be redeemed.

They soon rejoined Margaret, and went home to relate and to hear what new threats the day had disclosed.

Chapter Twenty Eight.

Deerbrook Commotions.

Among many vague threats, there was one pretty definite menace which had encountered Hope from various quarters of late. By whose agency, and by what means, he did not know, but he apprehended a design to supplant him in his practice. There was something more meant than that Mr Foster from Blickley appeared from time to time in the village. Hope imagined that there was a looking forward to somebody else, who was to cure all maladies as soon as they appeared, and keep death at a distance from Deerbrook. It seemed to be among the poor people chiefly that such an expectation prevailed. Philip was sure that Mr Rowland knew nothing of it, nor Mrs Enderby. Mr Grey, when spoken to, did not believe it, but would quietly and discreetly inquire. Mrs Grey was sure that the Deerbrook people would not venture to discountenance altogether any one who had married into their connection so decidedly. Her young folks were to hear nothing of the matter, as it would not do to propagate an idea which might bring about its own accomplishment.

At the almshouses to-day, the threat had been spoken plainly enough; and Hope had found his visit there a very unpleasant one. It had been wholly disagreeable. When within a mile and a half of the houses, a stone had been thrown at him from behind a hedge. It narrowly missed him. A little further on, there was another, from the opposite side of the road. This indication was not to be mistaken. Hope leaped his horse over a gate, and rode about the field, to discover who had attacked him. For some time he could see no one; but, on looking more closely to the fence, he saw signs in one part that hedging was going on. As he approached the spot, a labourer rose up from the ditch, and was suddenly very busy at his work. He looked stupid, and denied having thrown any stones, but admitted that there was nobody else in the field that he knew of. Further on, more stones were thrown: it was evidently a conspiracy; but Hope could find no one to call to account for it, but an old woman in one case, and two boys in another.—As he rode up to the almshouses, the aged inmates came out to their doors, or looked from their fanciful Gothic windows, with every indication of displeasure in their faces and manner. The old women shook their heads at him, and some their fists; the old men shook their sticks at him. He stopped to speak to one man of eighty-three, who was sitting in the sun at his door; but he could get no answer out of him, nothing but growls about the doctor being a pretty doctor not to have mended his patient’s eye-sight yet. Not a bit better could he see now than he could a year ago, with all the doctoring he had had: and now the gentleman would not try anything more! A pretty doctor, indeed! But it would not be long before there would be another who would cure poor people’s eyes as if they were rich: and poor people’s eyes were as precious to them as rich people’s.—He next went into a house where an aged woman was confined to bed with rheumatism; but her gossips stopped him in the middle of the room, and would not let him approach her, for fear he should be her death. As she had been lying awake the night before, she had heard her deceased husband’s shoes dance of their own accord in the closet; and this was a sign that something was going to happen to somebody. She thought of the doctor at the time, and prayed that he might be kept from coming near her; for she knew he would be the death of her, somehow, as he had been of other folks. So Hope was obliged to leave her and her rheumatism to the gossips. The particular object of his visit to the place to-day, however, was a little girl, a grandchild of one of the pensioners, admitted by special favour into the establishment. This girl had small-pox, and her case was a severe one. Hope was admitted with unwillingness even to her, and was obliged to assume his ultimate degree of peremptoriness of manner with her nurses. He found her muffled up about the head with flannel, and with a slice of fat bacon, folded in flannel, tied about her throat,—a means considered a specific for small-pox in some regions. The discarding of the flannel and bacon, of course, caused great offence; and there was but too much reason to fear that all his directions as to the management of the girl would be observed by contraries, the moment his back was turned. He had long ago found explanation and argument to be useless. All that he could do was, to declare authoritatively, that if his directions were not followed, the girl would die, and her death would lie at the door of her nurses; that, in that case, he expected some of the people about her would be ill after her; but that if he was obeyed, he trusted she might get through, and nobody else be the worse. Almost before he was out of the house, another slice of fat bacon was cut, and the flannels put to the fire to heat again.

Hope mounted his horse to depart, just at the hour when the labourers were at their dinners in all the cottages around. They poured out to stare at him, some shouting that they should not have him long to look at, as they would get a better doctor soon. Some sent their dogs yelping at his horse’s heels, and others vented wrath or jokes about churchyards. Soon after he had left the noise behind him, he met Sir William Hunter, riding, attended by his groom. Hope stopped him, making it his apology that Sir William might aid in saving the life of a patient in whom he was much interested. He told the story of the small-pox, of the rural method of treating it with which he had to contend, and proposed that Sir William should use his influence in securing for the patient a fair chance of her life. Sir William listened coolly, would certainly call at the almshouses and make inquiry; but did not like to interfere with the notions of the people there: made a point indeed of leaving them pretty much to their own ways; owned that it would be a pity the girl should die, if she really might be got through; would call, therefore, and inquire, and see whether Lady Hunter could not send down anything from the Hall. He smiled rather incredulously when assured that it was not anything that could be sent down from the Hall that was wanted by the patient, but only the use of the fresh air that was about her, and the observance of her doctor’s simple directions. Sir William next began to make his horse fidget, and Hope took the hint.

“This has been my business with you at present,” said he. “At some more convenient time, I should be glad of a little conversation with you on other matters connected with these almshouses.”

Sir William Hunter bowed, put spurs to his horse, and galloped off, as if life or death depended on his reaching the Hall in three minutes and a half.

These hints of “another doctor”—“a better doctor”—“a new man”—met Hope in other directions. Mrs Howell was once quoted as a whisperer of the fact; and the milliner’s young lady was known to have speculated on whether the new doctor would prove to be a single man. No one turned away from such gossip with more indifference than Hope; but it came to him in the form of inquiries which he was supposed best able to answer. He now told Hester of them all; warned her of the probable advent of a rival practitioner; and at the same time urged upon her a close economy in the management of the house, as his funds were rapidly failing. If his practice continued to fall off as it was now doing, he scarcely saw how they were to keep up their present mode of living. It grieved him extremely to have to say this to his wife in the very first year of their marriage. He had hoped to have put larger means in her power, from year to year; but at present he owned his way was far from being clear. They had already descended to having no prospect at all.

For all this Hester cared little. She had never known the pinchings of poverty, any more than the embarrassments of wealth. She could not conceive of such a thing as being very anxious about what they should eat, and what they should drink, and wherewith they should be clothed; though, if she had looked more narrowly at her own imaginations of poverty, she would perhaps have discovered on the visionary table always a delicate dish for her husband—in the wardrobe, always a sleek black coat—and in his waiting-room, a clear fire in winter; while the rest of the picture was made up of bread and vegetables, and shabby gowns for herself, and devices to keep herself warm without burning fuel. Her imagination was rather amused than alarmed with anticipations of this sort of poverty. It was certainly not poverty that she dreaded. A more serious question was, how she could bear to see her husband supplanted, and, in the eyes of others, disgraced. This question the husband and wife now often asked each other, and always concluded by agreeing that time must show.

The girl at the almshouses died in a fortnight. Some pains were taken to conceal from the doctor the time and the precise spot of her burial-points which the doctor never thought of inquiring about, and of which it was therefore easy to keep him in ignorance. A few of the neighbouring cottagers agreed to watch the grave for ten nights, to save the body from the designs of evil surgeons. One of the watchers reported, after the seventh night, that he had plainly heard a horse coming along the road, and that he rather thought it stopped opposite the churchyard. He had raised himself up, and coughed aloud, and that was no doubt the reason why nobody came: the horse must have turned back and gone away, whoever might be with it. This put people on the watch; and on the eighth night two men walked about the churchyard. They had to tell that they once thought they had caught the doctor in the fact. They had both heard a loud whistle, and had stood to see what would come of it (they could see very well, for it had dawned some time). A person came through the turnstile with a sack, which seemed to leave his intentions in no doubt. They hid themselves behind two opposite trees, and both sprang out upon him at once: but it was only the miller’s boy on his way to the mill. On the ninth and tenth nights nothing happened; the neighbours began to feel the want of their regular sleep; and the querulous grandmother, who seemed more angry that they meant to leave the poor girl’s body to itself now, than pleased that it had been watched at all, was compelled to put up with assurances that doctors were considered to wish to cut up bodies within the first ten days, if at all, and were not apt to meddle with them afterwards.

It was full three weeks from this time when Hope was sent for to the almshouses, after a longer interval than he had ever known to elapse without the old folks having some complaint to make. The inmate who was now ill was the least aged, and the least ignorant and unreasonable person, in the establishment. He was grateful to Hope for having restored him from a former illness; and, though now much shaken in confidence, had enough remaining to desire extremely to see his old friend, when he found himself ill and in pain. His neighbours wondered at him for wishing to court destruction by putting himself again into the hands of the suspicious doctor: but he said he could have no ease in his mind, and was sure he should never get well till he saw the gentleman’s face again; and he engaged an acquaintance to go to Deerbrook and summon him. This acquaintance spread the fact of his errand along the road as he went; and therefore, though Hope took care to choose his time, so as not to ride past the cottage-doors while the labourers were at dinner, his visit was not more private or agreeable than on the preceding occasion.

The first symptom of his being expected on the road was, that Sir William Hunter, riding, as before, with his groom behind him, fell in with Hope, evidently by design.

Sir William Hunter’s visit to the almshouses had produced the effect of making him acquainted with the discontents of the people, and had afforded him a good opportunity of listening to their complaints of their surgeon, without being troubled with the answers. Since the election, he had been eager to hear whatever could be said against Hope, whose vote, given contrary to Sir William’s example and influence, was regarded by the baronet as an unpardonable impertinence.

“So you lost your patient down there, I find,” said Sir William, rudely. “The girl slipped through your fingers, after all. However, I did my duty by you. I told the people they ought to allow you a fair chance.”

“I requested your interference on the girl’s account, and not on my own,” said Hope. “But as you allude to my position among these people, you will allow me to ask, as I have for some time intended, whether you are aware of the treatment to which I am subjected, in your neighbourhood, and among your dependants?”

“I find you are not very popular hereabouts, indeed, sir,” replied the baronet, with a half-smile, which was immediately reflected in the face of the groom.

“With your leave, we will have our conversation to ourselves,” said Hope.

The baronet directed his groom to ride on slowly. Hope continued:

“The extreme ignorance of the country people has caused some absurd stories against me to be circulated and believed. If those who are not in this state of extreme ignorance will do me justice, and give me, as you say, a fair chance, I have no fear but that I shall live down calumnies, and, by perseverance in my professional duty, recover the station I lately held here. This justice, this fair chance, I claim, Sir William, from all who have the intelligence to understand the case, and rightly observe my conduct. I have done my best in the service of these pensioners of yours; and excuse my saying that I must be protected in the discharge of my duty.”

“Ay, there’s the thing, Mr Hope. That can’t be done, you see. If the people do not like you, why then the only thing is for you to stay away.”

“Then what is to become of the sick?”

“Ay, there’s the thing, Mr Hope. If they do not like one, you see, why then they must try another. That is what we have been thinking. Now, if you take my advice, you will not go forward to-day. You will repent it if you do, depend upon it. They do not like you, Mr Hope.”

“I need no convincing of that. You do not seem disposed to stir, Sir William, to improve the state of things; so I will go and try what I can do by myself.”

“I advise you not, sir.—Mr Hope!” shouted Sir William, as Hope rode rapidly forward, “take care what you are about. They do not want to see you again. The consequences may be serious.”

“And this man is a magistrate, and he fancies himself my patron!” thought Hope, as he rode on. “He wants me to throw up the appointment; but I will not, till I see that the poor old creatures can be consigned to care as good as my own. If he chooses to dismiss me, he may, though we can ill afford the loss just now.”

For one moment he had thought of turning back, as Sir William’s caution had seemed to foretell some personal risk in proceeding; but the remembrance of Hester’s parting look inspired him afresh. Instead of the querulous anxiety which had formerly harassed him from its groundlessness and apparent selfishness, it was now an anxiety worthy of the occasion that flushed her cheek. So far from entreating him to remain with her, she had bidden him go where his duty led him. She had calculated the probable length of his absence, and the watch was laid on the table as formerly: but she had used the utmost expedition in sewing on the ring of his umbrella, and had kissed her hand to him from the window with a smile. He would not return to her without having fully discharged his errand. “She might be a soldier’s or sailor’s wife, after all,” thought he.

The hours of his absence were indeed very anxious ones to the family at home. For nearly two hours, the sisters amused themselves and one another as well as they could: but it was a great relief when Philip came in. He would not believe anything they said, however, about their reasons for fear. It was nonsense—it was Deerbrook talk. What harm could a dozen old men and women, at almost a hundred years apiece, do to Hope?—and the country people, the labourers round, they had their own business to attend to: they would just swear an oath at him, and let him pass; and if they ventured to lay a finger on his bridle, Hope knew how to use his whip. He would come home, and get his dinner, and be very dull, they would see, from having nothing to tell.—Before Philip had finished his picture of the dull dining they might expect, Morris entered, and shut the door before she came forward to the table and spoke. She said she did not like to make mysteries, out of fear of frightening people; and she hoped there would be nothing to be really afraid of now: but if Mr Enderby thought he could contrive to meet her master out on the road, and get him to leave his horse somewhere, and come walking home by Turnstile Lane, she thought it would be best, and save some bad language, at least. Charles had brought in word that people—angry people—were gathering at the other end of the street, and her master could quite disappoint them by coming home on foot the back way.—How many angry people were there!—and what sort of people?—They were mostly countrymen out of the places round—more of those than of Deerbrook folks. There were a good many of them—so many as nearly to block up the street at one part. If the ladies would step up into the boy’s attic, they would see something of what was going on, from the little window there, without being seen.

Philip snatched his hat, and said he would soon bring them news. He hoped they would go up to the attic, and amuse themselves with the show: for a mere show it would end in being, he was confident. He observed, however, that it would be as well to keep Charles at home, in case, as was possible, of a messenger being wanted. He himself would soon be back.

Charles was called up into the drawing-room, and questioned. Never before having been of so much importance, he was very grand in his statements, and made the most of all he had to say. Still, however, it was a story which no telling could have made other than an unpleasant one. Some of the people who had come in from the country had pitchforks. Two or three of the shopkeepers had put up their shutters. Many strangers were in the churchyard, peeping about the new graves: and others had set scouts on the road, to give notice when master was coming. Mrs Plumstead was very busy scolding the people all round; but it did not do any good, for they only laughed at her.

“You may go, Charles; but do not set foot out of the house till you are bid,” said Hester, when she found the boy had told all he knew, and perhaps something more. Morris left the room with him, in order to keep her eye upon him.

“Oh, Margaret, this is very terrible!” said Hester.

“Most disagreeable. We must allow something for Charles’s way of telling the story. But yet—is there anything we can do, Hester?”

“Mr Grey will surely be here, presently. Do not you think so?”

“Either he or Mr Rowland, no doubt.”

“Dr Levitt is a magistrate: but this is Saturday, and he is so deep in his sermon, he could not be made to understand and believe till it would be too late.—Do you go up to the attic, Margaret, and I will keep the hall door. I shall hear his horse sooner than any one, and I shall stand ready to open to him in an instant. Hark now!”

It was only the boy with the post-bags, trotting slowly to Mrs Plumstead’s, amusing himself by the way with observations on the unusual animation of Deerbrook.

“It is too soon yet, by half an hour,” said Margaret. “He cannot possibly be here for this half-hour, I think. Do not wear yourself out with standing in the hall so long. I must just say one thing, love, I fear all kinds of danger less for Edward than for almost any one else in the world: he does always what is most simple and right; and I think he could melt anybody’s heart if he tried.”

“Thank you,” said Hester, gratefully. “I agree and trust with you: but what hearts have these people? or, how can you get at them, through such heads? But yet he will triumph, I feel.”

When Margaret went up-stairs to the attic window, Hester moved a chair into the hall, softly opened the window a little, to facilitate her hearing whatever passed outside, and took her seat by it, listening intently. There was soon but too much to listen to. Shuffling feet multiplied about the door; and some of the grumbling voices seemed to come from men who had stationed themselves on the steps. Hester rose, and, with the utmost care to avoid noise, put up the chain of the house door. While she was doing this, Morris came from the kitchen, for the same purpose. She feared there was an intention to surround the house: she wished her master would keep away, for a few hours at least; she could not think where all the gentlemen of the place were, that they did not come and see after her young ladies. Before the words were uttered, there was a loud rap at the door. Morris made her mistress keep back, while she found out who it was, before letting down the chain. Hester knew it was not her husband’s knock; and it turned out to be Mr Grey’s. Margaret came flying down, and they all exclaimed how glad they were to see him.

“I wish I could do you any good,” said he; “but this is really a sad business, my dears.”

“Have you heard anything, sir?”

“Nothing about your husband. Enderby bade me tell you that he is gone out to meet him, and to stir up Sir William Hunter, who may be said to be the cause of all this, inasmuch as he never attempted to stop the discontent when he might. But that unlucky vote, my dear, that was much to be deplored.”

“No use casting that up now, surely,” observed Morris.

“Yes, Morris, there is,” said her mistress; “it gives me an opportunity of saying that I glory in the vote; and I would have my husband give it again to-day, if he had to pass through yonder crowd to go up to the poll.”

“My dear,” remonstrated Mr Grey, “be prudent. Do not urge your husband on into danger: he has quite enthusiasm enough without; and you see what comes of it.—But I am here to say that my wife hopes you and Margaret will retire to our house, if you can get round without bringing any of these troublesome people with you. We think you might slip out from the surgery, and along the lane, and through the Rowlands’ garden door, and over the hedge which they tell me you managed to climb one day lately for pleasure. By this way, you might reach our house without any one being the wiser.”

“On no account whatever,” said Hester. “I shall not leave home, under any circumstances.”

“You are very kind,” said Margaret; “but we are expecting my brother every moment.”

“But he will follow you by the same road.”

Both wife and sister were sure he would do no such thing. They thought the kindest thing Mr Grey could do would be to go out the back way, and see that the constable was kept up to his duty. He promised to do so; and that he would speak to Dr Levitt, to have some of Grey and Rowlands men sworn in as special constables, if such a measure should appear to be desirable.

“I do not know how to believe all this now,” said Margaret; “it seems so causeless and ridiculous! In Birmingham we could never have given credit to the story of such a riot about nothing.”

Morris was not sure of this. In large towns there were riots sometimes for very small matters, or on account of entire mistakes. She had always heard that one of the worst things about living in a village is, that when the people once get a wrong idea into their heads, there is no getting it out again; and that they will even be violent upon it against all reason; but such things she knew to happen occasionally in towns.