Girlhood and Womanhood Part 26

Mrs. Berwick was a particularly round-eyed woman, and was plump and ruddy where the Captain was battered and weather-beaten. She placed the scene of most of her narratives in the kitchens of her acquaintances, and scrambled with her _dramatis personae_ through the strong situations of a servant's history.

Nevertheless the manner of the Berwicks was not without the refres.h.i.+ng influence of common, rude fresh air. They were not exceptionally coa.r.s.e-minded, but unluckily they were neither strong nor fine minded.

They were ponderous, clumsy beings, and although genuine and warm-hearted, were dest.i.tute of internal resources. They expected to be constantly eating and drinking, or to be constantly entertained. If they were not entertained, they showed their weariness without restraint, by yawning outrageously. The entertaining of Captain and Mrs. Berwick was therefore no sinecure. But Miss West was loyal. She walked with the Captain, so that he might have more than his one smoke a day, and perseveringly copied and sang Braham's songs for him. She designed and cut out patterns for Mrs. Berwick, who, as the Captain had saved money, did not make her own dresses, but nevertheless loved to acc.u.mulate patterns of sleeves, capes, and flounces. She listened to her tales, and helped her to as much more kitchiana as she could produce on short notice. She told how Betsy had worn feathers and been taken to prison on suspicion of theft; and how Marianne her sister had h.o.a.rded her wages in order to secure legal advice for Betsy, and had captivated and married an officer of the court in which Betsy had been tried, and how it had all happened in a family where Miss West had lived.

III.

Captain and Mrs. Berwick were gone. The holidays at Carter Hill were all but ended--"all but ended," Miss Sandys repeated with a little sigh of relief, and an inclination to moralize on that weariness which is the result of pleasure. When Miss West came down in the morning the kettle was steaming on the hob, the teapot under its cosie, and the couple of rolls and the dish of sausages were set in their places. Miss Sandys--her working ap.r.o.n lying ready to take up on the side-table behind her--was bent to the last on buns and pork pies, though she frankly admitted they were vanity. But the girls must be broken from their home dainties by degrees, and Jenny and Menie must have "cakes" to carry to their homes on their Handsel Monday.

Miss West found a letter on her plate. It caused her complexion to change, and her sharp eyes to fasten on it fixedly. No wonder her head swam and her ears rang. She was going through the uncomfortable process of turning back some ten or twelve years in her life. It was a strange letter to come to her--a large letter, which had been charged double postage; a letter with the elements of mortification in it, as well as other elements, both to sender and receiver. It was written in a big, scampering hand.

"Dear Mad," it began, "it is so queer to be addressing you again. I remember when I used to say 'Mad' to a white-faced, dark-eyed girl.

Was she pretty, I wonder? Some people said so, but I don't know, only I have never seen a face quite equal to hers since--never. Mad and I were great friends when I used to visit her elder brother; great friends, indeed, in a bantering, biting way. But it was Mad who bantered and bit; certainly I did not banter and bite again, rarely even so much as gave a gentle pinch, for I would not have hurt Mad for the world, and Mad did not hurt me. At least she never meant it seriously, and she was always so piteously penitent when she thought she had wounded my feelings. Oh, dear, quizzing Mad! she had such a soft heart in its bristling sh.e.l.l, and I hurt it. I hurt Mad--yes, I know; I know to my sorrow and shame.

"Mad, do you remember how you went every day to meet a timid little brother coming from school along a lonely moorland road, where there were broomy braes in June and heathery braes in September? What a convenient custom it was for me, since the little brother, unlike little monsters of the same kind, had neither eyes nor ears but for his own avocations, and trotted on obediently in front of us. The sight of my own little Bill's satchel gives me a turn, and makes me feel spoony to this day. Do you remember your great dog, Mad? (what a child you were for pets!)--and who it was used to go to the kennel to feed it with you? If that dog had been a true Bevis, it would have torn that hulking fellow where he stood, yet he meant no harm; nay, he had a strong persuasion that he was doing something meritorious (how he hit it I can't tell) in not committing himself and binding you when he had no more than a clerk's paltry income.

But I have heard that trees, stripped of leaves in flowery May, revenge themselves by bursting out green, if the frosts will let them, in foggy November. So the prudence of twenty-five may be the folly of thirty-five. It was rank mean-spiritedness in me not to go through thick and thin, through flood and fire, for Mad. What in the world was worth striving for if she was not worth it? Ah, I lost my chance when I might have taken it, and trusted the rest to Providence! But I did not know, though I fancied I did, the value of the jewel, the price of which, in stern self-restraint, I refused to pay. I might have been another man if I had not been so prudent, for, as I have said, not another face has been to me quite (no, not by a long chalk) what Mad's once was. It was only yesterday that I heard by chance--and the story has haunted me since--that Mad is still a single woman, her family all dispersed, and she a teacher in a school--my quizzing, affectionate Mad a drudging, lonely teacher!

"After being so prudent, it is not wonderful to record that I was fickle, though circ.u.mstances, and not my will, separated Mad and me at first. I could not get down to the old place so regularly as I was wont to do, which annoyed me, and I did my best to get rid of the obstacles. When I did get down, Mad was not at home, and I had no right to follow her. We met seldomer; we grew stiffer and stranger to each other. You are acquainted with the process, Miss West, though perhaps not fully with my share in it. The impression which Mad had made on me, unique as it was, faded and was overlaid by others. I met another girl, whom I liked too, and whom it appeared so much simpler--more expedient and advantageous--for me to love and to marry. I married her, breaking no vows, not writing myself faithless, far less treacherous, but only fickle. Yet I had once known, if ever man knew, that I had made Mad's strong heart--I think it was strong, although it was soft to me--beat in tune with mine. I had done all I could, short of saying the words, to impress Mad with what were my wishes and intentions, I had preferred her in every company, followed her when I was down at the old place, like her shadow (her shadow, indeed!). I had elected her my confidante and adviser, and poured all my precious opinions and plans--my very sc.r.a.pes--into her curious, patient ears. Mad, have you forgotten how once, like an old-fas.h.i.+oned, grandiloquent m.u.f.f, I showed you the picture of a perfect woman in a book of poetry--'Paradise Lost'

it might have been, and 'Eve' for any special appropriateness in the picture--and broadly hinted my private idea that the perfect woman was fulfilled in Mad!--lively, faulty Mad! Your sisters were very anxious to read the pa.s.sage which I had selected for your study, and from which I was evidently pointing a moral; but you closed the book abruptly in the old seat behind the round tea-table with the bra.s.s rim. I suppose the sisters don't know the pa.s.sage to this day?

"Having been fickle, I was a great deal better off in my wife than I deserved. Remember, Mad, my wife and the mother of my children was a good woman; I was reasonably happy with her, and I trust I bore her tender reverence. She died and left me with our children two winters ago. When we meet again, it will be where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. Now, when I can do her no wrong, I think of another to whom I did wrong; than whom there was never another to me the same--no, nothing like it. Learning that Mad has been true--oh!

Mad, _you_ could never have been anything else but true--I have wondered whether I might not be allowed to do something to atone, whether I was not worth having still, and whether I could not--a bold phrase, but it will out--make it up to Mad, a solitary single woman, a teacher in a school. Oh! Mad, I say again, what a hard fate for you!

"I cannot offer an immense inducement. I am not a merchant prince, though I am richer than I was in the old days; yet somehow I do not care to boast of my riches to Mad, and I am a widower with two small children--not models. I dare not send you my _carte_, and I don't want yours. You are always the same Mad to me that you have been through all those years, and will be to the end of the chapter, whether you answer me yes or no. You will answer yes. You were always great for magnanimity, and flamed up on it, dark eyes, white cheeks, and all, when you were a wild la.s.sie. Don't tell me you are less magnanimous as a brave, hard-working woman, or you will sap my faith in womankind.

"Mad, how this Christmas season stirs me with the far-off murmurs of another Christmas, when you and I pulled the holly and the other thing--the thing with the tiny, fair, frost-bitten cl.u.s.ters of blossom--some sort of laurel wasn't it? That old Christmas, who can describe? What glamour over the prosaic family dinner and carpet dance to see the old year out and the new year in? Say the word, Mad, and before the first full moon of this new year has waned to half a cheese she will s.h.i.+ne down upon us, anew, with the old s.h.i.+ning. I swear it on the part of your old friend,

BILL NAIRNE."

What Miss West said when she read the letter was, "Make it up, indeed!

Redeem me from such degradation! Crown me with such honour! Intolerable arrogance! How could he take it upon him? But it is like Bill; conceited fellow!"

Miss West was properly indignant. The letter was so unsuitable in every respect. All her life she had been famous as a woman of spirit--the spirit which will cause a woman to decline an obligation as long as independence is possible, and which will not have for pity what it cannot have for love. She would prove to Bill Nairne that it was no such hard fate as he supposed to teach a school under Miss Sandys, no such promotion, as he fondly imagined, to be placed at the head of the household of a pompous widower with a pair of spoilt children. She would convince him that a woman of her age is more difficult to please than a girl, and is not to be led off her feet by a few impertinently recalled reminiscences, nor to be won by the tardy wag of a finger. She would teach Bill Nairne a lesson undreamt of in his philosophy--that all the nonsense about old maids, their humiliations, their forlorn condition, and their desperate welcoming of late offers was wholly false.

She selected the smallest sheet of note-paper from the packet lying beside the exercises in her desk, and wrote:--

"Dear Sir,--I am glad to be able to tell you that, on the whole, teaching in a school is not so hard a fate as you think. Miss Sandys is an excellent woman, a reliable friend, and an agreeable companion. The girls and their antecedents exhibit life to me under considerable variety of characters and circ.u.mstances, and as pupils they are mostly affectionate as well as interesting. I must remain indebted for your good opinion, and you have my best wishes for your future welfare, but I beg to decline your--gratuitous"

(Miss West had written the word, but she changed it into--not gracious, but) "generous offer. Without offence to you, old times do not come again.

"Believe me, yours very sincerely, M. WEST."

Miss West read her letter, and considered it was, perhaps, too brief.

She did not want to part with him in an unfriendly fas.h.i.+on. Her last words to Bill Nairne must be such as she herself could think of without pain. So she rummaged among her Christmas gifts, and found a dancing Dervish and a brightly-embroidered ball. These she wrapped up with the letter, and made a small parcel of the whole, after she had added this postscript: "Please give the enclosed toys as cheap New Year's playthings to the children. Tell them, if you choose, that they come from an old friend of papa's, whose name was--Mad."

IV.

Miss West took the letter to the post-office herself after dinner, as she was going to inquire for a pupil who lived near Carter Hill, and who was sick--unhappy child!--from holiday junketing. Miss West could not recover her equanimity till that letter was out of the house. It had shaken her, satirical and discreet though she was. It had also given her a guilty sensation towards Miss Sandys. She could not endure that even the servants should read the address:--"W. Nairne, Esq., Waterloo Lodge, Bridgeton, Strokes.h.i.+re," though W. Nairne, Esq., might have stood for her brother-in-law, her uncle by marriage, or her maternal grandfather for aught they could tell. She held her hand over the superscription as if to hide it from herself as she walked along under the newly-risen moon, as it cast its light on a crisp sprinkling of snow. It was true Christmas weather at last, and this was something like a Christmas adventure for her. But not the less did she wish the Christmas ended, and the moon replaced by gas jets of the smallest size. "A pretty story for the girls if they should get hold of it," she thought, and shuddered. She did not recover altogether till she had posted her packet, and walked half a mile further on. At length she pa.s.sed through a creaking gate and a shrubbery, and was shown up to a smart drawing-room. She was there to ask for the health of Miss Victoria Middlema.s.s, the daughter of a gentleman who led a country gentleman's life on the proceeds of a sleeping partners.h.i.+p in a mercantile house in a large town at some distance.

Mrs. Middlema.s.s came in hurriedly. She had only time to wish Miss West a merry Christmas and a good New Year, and to announce that Vicky was quite herself again, except that the bun fever had left her rather pale, and she had not got back all her appet.i.te. She could not, however, make the same complaint of Mr. Middlema.s.s, who had just come in ravenously hungry from the train. He had been accompanied by another gentleman, who had been introduced to him before he left the north, and whom Mr.

Middlema.s.s would not allow to go over to the inn at Stoneham, where he was to spend a few days with a friend. Mr. Middlema.s.s and his new acquaintance were still at dinner.

Miss West was hurrying away after having discharged her commission, in order not to detain Mrs. Middlema.s.s from her husband and his guest, and not to impose on master or servant the trouble of seeing her home.

But as they were exchanging smothered good-byes near the open dining-room door, Mr. Middlema.s.s, who was frank and hospitable, broke through the clatter of knives and forks, and called out unceremoniously, "My dear, who is that you are taking leave of?"

"It is only Miss West, my dear," his wife replied softly to quiet him.

"Miss West!" and he banged from his seat and bounced to the door. "Miss West! the very woman in the nick of time. Stay, Miss West, and thank your stars; here's an old friend come a long way to see you."

Miss West turned, and there, behind the cordial face of the master of the house, who suspected nothing, and was only happy to be helpful to a brother merchant, were the perfectly recognizable lineaments of that old personable fellow, Bill Nairne.

Miss West for a second fancied that the letter she had posted to him ten minutes before had sped like a telegram to its destination, and that he had sped back on the telegraphic wires to remonstrate with her and expose her. The next instant she was sensible that the accident of his being there in person must be a result of a previous change of mind on his part.

Bill Nairne had stared, and stammered in mechanical accents, after Mr.

Middlema.s.s supplied him with the keynote, "Miss West, the very person, let us thank our stars!" But he soon recovered himself, and then shook her hand warmly, and declared, in his old, off-hand manner, "I shall see you home, Miss West;" for Miss West had no sooner recovered her breath and her small share of colour, than she combated Mr. Middlema.s.s's pressing invitation to remain and spend the evening with them. No; Miss Sandys was expecting her; she thanked him and Mrs. Middlema.s.s, but she could not stay on any account, so that there would be no use in sending over a message or a note to Carter Hill. Neither was it on Miss West's cards that Bill Nairne should escort her to Carter Hill, or, indeed, that she should have any escort at all. "Do not think of such a thing; I could not allow it." Mrs. Middlema.s.s came to Miss West's aid, and alleged in her ignorance, "There is no occasion for it, Mr. Nairne; it is only a step to Carter Hill, and Miss West is accustomed to walk across after dinner, when Miss Sandys has a message for us. Remember, we are very quiet people here compared to what you are in the north.

Besides, if Miss West is timid, I can manage to send a servant, or," she went on with greater hesitation, "Mr. Middlema.s.s will be delighted to go, he knows the way; but you must not put yourself about on any consideration."

Miss West rather indignantly denied being timid, timidity being out of her _role_, and then she judged prematurely that the matter was settled.

She had got so accustomed to order about girls that she had fallen into the bad habit of expecting that her will should be law to all the world, with the exception of Miss Sandys. As for Mr. and Mrs. Middlema.s.s, they at least knew that she could take care of herself.

It was another shock to Miss West, another tumultuous, inopportune return to the experience of half a score years back, to find that she could no more dictate to Bill Nairne on this small matter than she could have done it as Mad of the old days.

"Say no more about it, Miss West. I'll go home with you, of course."

Bill thus put her down with an intrepidity, if anything, increased with his increased weight physically and commercially.

This completely confounded Miss West, and made a greater muddle of her former and her present ident.i.ties than had yet been effected.

"I'll see Miss West home, and we'll have a talk together of our old friends.h.i.+p as we walk along," Bill maintained with the confident coolness of power, towards the self-contained, self-sustained teacher.

It was something unprecedented for Miss West to be walking to Carter Hill on a man's arm, an old friend's arm. She felt an odd sensation stealing over her as if she were no longer able to take care of herself, as if she were no longer herself, her late self, at all; and the moon helped the illusion.

Silence descended on Miss West and Bill Nairne, after the first forced commonplaces. He glanced furtively at her, and lost his confidence and coolness, and hung his head--the respectable prosperous merchant!--but not at what _he_ saw. What did she see? Nothing but that the sword had worn the scabbard. Mad had been true to herself. Mad could not have been otherwise than true, as he had written. But the consciousness of what Mad would see when she lifted up her eyes and looked him in the face made him droop his head. He had got a glimpse of it that morning, when, as the thought of Mad grew more and more vivid in his mind, he saw something reflected in the gla.s.s which did not necessarily belong to bodily maturity. The conviction returned to him with fresh, poignant regret, in the peaceful hush and subdued splendour of the winter night.

There were lines in his face which Mad should never have seen there, without which he would have been nearer heaven. There were hard, unbelieving lines, supercilious lines, self-indulgent lines, lines of the earth, earthy, corresponding to hard and gross lines in the spirit within. The respectable, prosperous merchant, had fallen from his original level. He had not attained to the chivalrous, Christian manhood which he had the prospect of when he was Mad's promising lover. He had lowered his standard, forsaken his principles, lost his faith a few times since then. The gulf between Mad and him was wider now. He felt this walking on the moonlight December night by Mad's side again.

It was in a somewhat different tone from that of his letter that Bill Nairne said at last, "Mad, will you have the worst of me? Will you do something for me and mine after all? I might have been another man if I had got you long ago, Mad."

"Would you have been a better and a happier man, Bill? Could I do anything for you yet? Answer me truly," she said, hurriedly heaping the self-forgetful, quivering sentences one upon another.

"Anything!" exclaimed big Bill Nairne with intense conviction and hyperbole, more excusable than his old prudence and fickleness, "Anything! Mad, you could do everything with me, and with little Bill and Bob. We should no longer be egotistical and frivolous, with you to keep us right, you good, single-hearted Mad."

Miss Sandys was ent.i.tled to say, "You have come out this Christmas, Miss West. I shan't allow my a.s.sistant to be taken off her satirical staid feet another Christmas. I'll lock the next one up for the holidays. It is all those holidays; you would never have thought of such foolish things had you been busy teaching. I'll lock the next one up, or I'll send her to her friends, who will live, I trust, in some peaceful valley, where there are no old acquaintances, or for that matter, men of any kind. I shall, indeed, Miss West, for I hate changes." Miss Sandys had not to dread changes much longer. A sister of Miss West came and supplied her place, and lived so long with Miss Sandys that she closed her superior's eyes like a dutiful daughter, and succeeded to the goodwill of Carter Hill School.